Jun 19 2005
Getting your balls waxed
I’ve been at my training course for a week now, learning how to improve my self-esteem (what would really improve my self-esteem, actually, is getting to do my sodding job) under a couple of un-nervingly enthusiastic Personal Development Trainers. The good news, of course, is that my fellow self-esteem-improvers are not such a crowd of tosswits as the last lot; good age range, lots of different, interesting people, and - ta-da! - some Socialists!! I have flogged three copies of Socialist Appeal (one pound, two pounds solidarity price, available every Saturday morning outside Tesco on the Causeway) and am signed up to do a self-esteem-improving talk in front of the class (public speaking skills; we’re all doing it) about ‘The Importance of Ideology’. I have already devised a cunning demonstration of the importance of co-operation as opposed to competition, using a volunteer from the audience and three little bags of beans.
One of the magazines I sold, however, was to the blonde woman in charge of the course, who said in my interview that she wanted to learn more about all the stuff I talked about (Socialism, feminism, etc.); I directed her to my tv review of ‘The Apprentice’ on page 28, she read it with me standing over her, and at the end said that she didn’t agree with it. I would have been quite ready to debate the issue if it had not been time for the class to start, but I learned very quickly why she did not agree. The unhappy truth was that she is peddling the kind of going-for-it-giving-it-100% dribble which I was slagging; I’ve probably put her off Socialism for life.
But I got the quid, so it turned out OK in the end.
