A deer in the headlights

Not only did I make it into work without any delays but I also made it home with no problems at all. Actually I possibly got home marginally quicker than I would normally because the train didn’t stop at one of the stations. What’s the point in having a tube strike if I still am able to get into work?

This evening I have been practising a talk that I am giving tomorrow. I waited until I got home to practice the talk because people tend to think you’re weird if they walk past a room and see you talking to no-one. One of my colleagues had offered to be an audience but I politely declined. It is a general presentation that we give to various audiences and there are no speaking notes, there are just some slides for me to speak to.

I have to give the talk twice tomorrow and there will be a couple of people who will be at both sessions. It will either mean that they will not find my extremely humorous jokes funny on both occasions or maybe the second time around they will pick up on their cue and start the spontaneous laughter. It’s a small audience, maybe a dozen people. I much prefer talking to bigger audiences. It is much more difficult to see the boredom in their eyes when there are more people.

I have to speak for about twenty minutes and then take questions. When I was practising this evening I just kept talking and talking and went over the time limit. I am hoping that, if nothing else, I might be able to hypnotise them with my voice. Children up to the age of one or so seem to find my voice fascinating and sometimes watch me intently when I am speaking. It’s not that I hang around small children a lot. I can be sitting in a restaurant or a park and suddenly notice this pair of eyes looking at me and I have managed to transfix another small child. Fortunately I only ever use my superpowers for good.

Anyway, I am hoping it goes ok in the morning because I have to go back in the afternoon to do the second talk even if I stand there like a deer caught in the headlights the first time around...