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30 January 2012
Art, soundbites and no naked ladies

I’m whizzing through my Master’s Degree at a speed of energy-saving-low-efficiency light.  This time next year I’ll (hopefully) have an MA Ed and be qualified to lecture in a university.  Not that I’ll have much time to do that, but three years ago when I started it I wanted to teach art history and architecture.  Right now business and marketing plans are taking up most of my days, and preparing new training sessions most of the evenings, so I barely have time to pick up an art book.  But you never know what the future holds.  Wandering around the National Gallery’s Da Vinci exhibition with Sue reminded me that to be surrounded by beautiful images is not a bad dream to have.  I’ve always loved galleries and prefer to pop in to one than hit the stores when I’m killing time in London between meetings or lunches.  My morning spent in St Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum last summer was incredible.  The largest art gallery in the world, and an amazing showcase to visit.  Steven and the boys fell asleep in the café for a couple of hours while my personal tour guide showed me works I never thought I’d be lucky enough to see.  So will I ever transfer my love  and knowledge  of art to a room full of fresh-faced, eager students?  Who knows?  There are other things I could teach: English, of course – my degree specialism is socio-linguistics.  Or, as someone recently suggested, muffin-making.  Interesting…  but I only know how to make one kind.  Cooking’s not really my thing, despite my shiny red range oven and Emma Bridgewater oven mitts.  I can barely put together a buffet.  I can hardly eat at one either…

Not so long ago, Gill and I were invited to a private party at Stringfellows. (No, Deedub, we were not naked ladies…)  No one was eating and by half past ten we were starving.  So we decided to get the ball rolling and help ourselves to some food.  We weren’t impressed.  For such an esteemed club with a reputation for quality (amongst other things), we thought the selection was quite disappointing, and maybe we’d have to take a trip into Chinatown afterwards.  Still, we took plenty, working our way along the length of the table, chatting and nibbling as we went.  Until suddenly, an enormous man in a tuxedo boomed at us “The buffet is NOT open!”  Backwards we went, red faced and trembling, replacing the salmon en croute and mini beef wellingtons.  Then, as we reached the point where we’d started and slowly edged away, a gong almost deafened us and scores of waiters with silver platters held high over their heads marched across the dance floor with the most delicious array of dishes you can imagine. The nasty man bellowed “The buffet is NOW open” and glared at us, daring us to take one step closer.  We did of course, laughing as we went, but we’re still a bit wary, even now, about being the first up where food's concerned.

I mentioned earlier that I’m writing new training courses – short soundbite sessions that people can take during their lunch break, saving companies the cost of having staff out for several hours.   I also design sessions to order…  As Aretha sang out that night in Stringfellows, What you want, Ooh Baby I got it. What you need, do you know I've got it?  Just ask me… I’ll give it to you: @WeekendWitch.