Videos and flies

My human Richard is a prize plonka... and I say that with love in my heart.

But the truth is he always has been and always will be.  I mean, has he ever told you the story of why he did the one smart thing he's ever done in his life: choose me?

No?

Well, him and Renee were at the farm choosing from me and me 9 brothers and sisters.  Renee was dead set on having a white one but I was having none of it.

'Here's a pare of likely humans,' thinks I, 'I'll be wrapping them round me hind leg and no mistake.'

They were picking up one of the litter and then another with no sign of making any kind of decision.

'Right me loves, I'll have to do something about this,' thinks I.  So as Dickie boy picks me up I winks at him.  I swear to you, it's true.

I winked and he blinked in surprise.

'He just winked at me!'  He exclaimed.  'We'll have this one!'

See what I mean... sucker!

Anyway, I overheard Richard telling a story at their networking event (at which I was the star) the other night about why he's had such a long career as a trainer.

Back in 1988 he was working for Midland Bank and was on their Management Development Programme.  He was sent on a 2 day module covering presentation skills.  He had to arrive at the programme with a presentation created on anything that wasn't to do with work.

It was being videoed and, this being 1988, the camera was the size of a suitcase.

Richard was first up and he jumped at the chance, striding confidently to the flipchart stand.

'Right,' says he, 'what I want to talk about is...'

And that was it.  Nothing else came out.  It was all gone.  He had zip, nadir, nothing, diddly squat...

The silence stretched on and then he lost control of his hands and like all body language the loss of control was subconscious.

His hands slipped down towards his wedding vegetables and he started, unconsciously, unzipping and re-zipping his flies.

Eventually the facilitator took pity on him and asked if wanted to take five minutes and compose himself.

'Not really,' says Richard, 'I want the ground to open up and swallow me.  NO I don't I want the ground to open up and swallow you lot...'

Anyway, it turns out he struggled through the presentation in the end.  Of course, this was all filmed and when it came to watching it back the facilitator asked in all earnestness, 'Now Richard, what do you think you did wrong?'

'Well forgetting my words of fiddling with me nuts.  You can have either of those two things.'

Having said that he can trace back to that learning experience all the career choices he made, so, it turns out, fiddling with your flies on video is an excellent life choice.

He's still a plonka, though!