IN MY YOUNGER and more vulnerable years my sister gave me some advice which I have been turning over in my mind ever since: “Never accept an invitation for something three months away,” she told me, “that you would be dreading if it were tomorrow.”
Take an invitation to speak publicly, for example. Like most people (except politicians, which just shows what perverts they are), I hate public speaking. I am rubbish at it. I worry for weeks before about whether I should prepare something and risk sounding stilted, or ad lib it and risk drying up, and as the day approaches I experience all sorts of psychosomatic symptoms (a tickly cough, night sweats, chronic trots) which, while not enough to merit cancellation (hard though my body tries), make the thought of standing up and speaking into a silent, expectant room all the scarier.
Which is why, if someone asks, “Will you come and speak to the Funny Shaped Organic Carrot Growers’ Glee Club tomorrow?”, I think about it for several seconds, contemplate saying yes, feel my heart race with morbid anxiety at the mere imagining, and then say: “No, I’m busy, sorry, thank you.” And then I run around my study punching the air and singing 1980s rock anthems to express the sheer joy of not having to do anything tomorrow except lie in my beanbag all day.
But if they ask: “Will you come and speak to the Funny Shaped Organic Carrot Growers’ Glee Club on December 4?”, I hum and haw, and flick through my diary to that week, hoping that I might be doing something else, and see the expanse of empty pages, and say “OK”, not least because there is a fair chance that by then I will be dead and it won’t matter.
And then I put the phone down and stare out of the window for a minute at people going by in the street without a care in the world, happy and at peace precisely because they do not, in 12 weeks’ time, have to stand up and talk amusingly to a lot of strangers on some topic about which they know nothing. And I say aloud, “Oh, crap.” And I mean it.
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And that is why you should never accept an invitation for something three months away that you would be dreading if it were tomorrow.
But when, a few months back, a lady telephoned from something called Intelligence Squared to ask if I would take part in a discussion at the Royal Geographical Society (lawks!) with such people as Clement Freud (eek!) and Dominic Lawson (help!) and Simon Jenkins (mummy!) to support the motion “Long Live Tesco!” I did not have to apply the rule because I was able to reply, quite convincingly: “What a shame, I would have loved to. I’m completely free that night and I love taking part in high-minded public debates, especially in grand old Victorian auditoria, but, alas, I couldn’t possibly support that notion because I hate Tesco, and would happily immolate myself on Parliament Square if I thought my death would cause the closure of even a single branch. So thank you, sorry, and goodbye.” And I hung up, and danced and sang and all that, and looked forward to long undisturbed months in my beanbag.
And then, a couple of days later, they called back: “Good news, you can oppose the motion.”
What could I say? I said I was a bit rubbish at this sort of thing. Not a speech-writer or note-maker. I admitted that I minimise the pain by not thinking about it until the day and then burbling whatever comes into my head.
“Fine, fine,” they said “That’s perfect. It’s all very relaxed.”
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A week later, a letter arrived informing me that “Each speaker will go to the lectern and speak for nine minutes . . . the form is similar to that of an Oxford Union debate . . .”
Lectern? Nine minutes? Union debate? I joined the Oxford Union in 1988 because it had two full-sized snooker tables. I didn’t even know they had debates.
And then the text messages started to come in from friends saying things like, “very brave of you . . .” and “gosh, standing up all on your own in front of 800 people . . .” 800 people? Eight hundred?
And then they told me that simply everyone who is anyone goes to these Intelligence Squared things. And the speakers deliver great written perorations. And Boris Johnson just tried to wing it and was the worst thing they had ever seen and everyone booed. And then anti-Tesco activists started sending me paperwork to help bolster my case. But I don’t have a case. I just hysterically believe that Tesco is murdering the world. And that isn’t going to stretch to nine minutes, even with pauses and arm-waving. And anyway I’ll be too busy writing this week’s column to write a speech.
And then I had a thought. I thought how nice it would be to throw the floor open to you, my perspicacious and terribly bien pensant readers, to e-mail me the points you would make to such cheerleaders for the chain as Mr Lawson and Lucy Neville Rolfe, Company Secretary to the Tesco Board, and I’ll make them on your behalf this Tuesday in the debate.
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Come on. Just imagine them standing there, drooling over their re-formed ham chunks, whooping “Long live Tesco!” You know they’re wrong. E-mail feedme@thetimes.co.uk telling me exactly why, in no more than 75 words (perhaps even naming specific favourite shops that have been put out of business by Tesco). And whoever gives me the most palpable strike I’ll take for a slap-up lunch at a Michelin-starred restaurant. And then, you see, I won’t have to write a speech at all.
Or even a column.