Business Meetings

Before I get around to writing up the real business for the blog and trying to trump yesterday’s piece on decorating, I want to get something off my chest. I need to get this out there just to settle myself and help me find a better mood. Today my knee is in a bad way. It popped yesterday as I browsed around a bookshop but it’s not been right since I fell over after rubber-necking a mime all those months ago. I’m also slightly off-centre after a long day of business meetings in Manchester. It was a day that challenged my normally placid temper.

I was having lunch with my good friend, David, who, as you know, recently lost his father and is slowly trying to find a sense of purpose in his life. Also at the meal was an individual I will call ‘Terry’ who happens to work in TV but I wouldn’t go so far as to describe as a friend.

The meal took place at a very pleasant restaurant just off Deansgate. Half way through, Terry had to take a phone call.

‘Ah, hello Cindy,’ he said, leaning back in his chair and addressing the room in a loud commanding voice . ‘I’m here in a sleazy little bistro in Manchester with Richard and his friend.’

I looked at David whose face darkened. His knuckles went white where he gripped his fork. Being from the north, he takes this sort of insult to heart. I know from having lived up there for so long that disparaging remarks about your home get pretty tiresome after a while but they are never so bad as when mouthed by a man who spends his days working from dingy offices in London’s Soho.

Things didn’t get better later in the meal. I had managed to calm David down with a few meaningful glances, as though to say ‘I’m sorry, I know he’s such a prat’, when Terry mentions that he’s had a tough time.

‘Earlier this year, I had to write two scripts in a month,’ he said and turned to David. ‘You wouldn’t believe the pressure. It was just like you must have felt when your father died...’

The silence around the table was like nothing I’ve ever known. I didn’t know what to say and I honestly don’t know how my friend controlled his temper. I think I would have punched the man and considered the consequences later.

Which brings me to the point of the post: if I’m not surrounded by them, I am at least constantly at the mercy of people who it would be fair to describe as ‘idiots’. In all fairness, they are hacks. Terry is a hack; successful in business, with money to throw around at whatever personal project he wishes, but without the wits to know when he’s hurting the people around him...

And I don’t know why I’m telling you this except I just wanted to put it on the record and get the weight off my bad knee.