Hear, hear

22 Responses to Hear, hear

1. Cath Ennis says:

   24 April 2008 at 15:06

   I wouldn’t call them noble Lord, for starters.
   I’ve heard “it was a little too descriptive” after one particularly awful talk.
2. Bob O'Hara says:

   24 April 2008 at 17:32

   If you’re the chair, you intone “Thank you for that interesting presentation”.
3. Richard P. Grant says:

   24 April 2008 at 21:50

   “Interesting” is a good one, isn’t it? So… ambiguous.
4. Anna Kushnir says:

   25 April 2008 at 02:39

   That talk was thought-provoking. As in, I think I want to go back to sleep in my seat.
5. Jennifer Rohn says:

   25 April 2008 at 06:37

   In one of my novels there is a character who always takes a timer to seminars so if it abruptly becomes boring, she can make it go off and pretend that a really important experiment suddenly needs attending.
6. Richard P. Grant says:

   25 April 2008 at 06:47

   Don’t joke. I used to do that in lab meetings.
7. Heather Etchevers says:

   25 April 2008 at 08:12

   Don’t we always ask novelists to “write from experience”? Hands up if you haven’t used that particular ploy (but only for meetings, for me; my department head leaves his beeper on and he is important enough he can get away with it).
8. Henry Gee says:

   25 April 2008 at 08:18

   I think meetinsg should be avoided at all costs (and if you have never seen this video, you really should). Once a meeting is established it is very hard to abolish. I have to attend a weekly meeting that started as a temporary measure … ten years ago.
   What’s more, if left to themselves, meetings proliferate, budding off all kinds of other meetings and secondary subcommittees faster than you can say ‘metastasis’.
   I suspect that meetings are really a ploy to make people trapped in middle management, whose lives otherwise consist mainly of being suspended upside down with their heads in buckets of hyena offal, feel good about themselves.
9. Richard P. Grant says:

   25 April 2008 at 08:26

   Meetings are evil. Especially one-off, mandatory meetings.
10. Henry Gee says:

    25 April 2008 at 08:38

    I agree, Richard. One-off mandatory meetings called on a whim are just plain rude, and reflect badly on the organizational skills of those calling them.
11. Heather Etchevers says:

    25 April 2008 at 14:19

    …really a ploy to make people trapped in middle management[…] feel good about themselves.
    First, it’s quite good fun to edit the editor’s writing. Thanks for giving me the opportunity.
    Just wanted to express the opinion that such ploys are manifold and should be denounced with vigour and exposed to sunlight and fresh air so that they wither and die.
12. Jeff Crook says:

    25 April 2008 at 16:23

    Those who can, do.
    Those who can’t meet and talk about it.
13. Jeff Crook says:

    25 April 2008 at 16:23

    I believe I dropped a comma. Has anyone seen it?
14. Henry Gee says:

    25 April 2008 at 16:59

    @Heather – I know it was a relative clause, but heck, I loved that hyena offal. Give it back.
15. Richard P. Grant says:

    25 April 2008 at 21:27

    Ah, Jeff, I might be able to help, there.
16. Heather Etchevers says:

    25 April 2008 at 21:36

    @Henry: you’re welcome to it and the new generations of microbiotia it has spawned. However I do so enjoy ellipses and square brackets. I’ll save them for the next time I want something foul for myself.
    @Richard, spare one more?
17. Richard P. Grant says:

    25 April 2008 at 22:36

    Hmm, maybe. I thought Americans lacked ‘u’s. And I know who’s been stockpiling them, by the way.
18. Jeff Crook says:

    26 April 2008 at 03:23

    Richard, are you saying we’re useless?
19. Richard P. Grant says:

    26 April 2008 at 05:11

    U/S, maybe…
20. Heather Etchevers says:

    26 April 2008 at 17:06

    Thank yo for noticing that I am fll ot of that vowel. Who’s the clprit?
21. Henry Gee says:

    26 April 2008 at 17:50

    Not so much ‘useless’, as non-U.
22. Richard P. Grant says:

    26 April 2008 at 21:04

    Heather – it’s The NuZillunders. I have an elegant proof of this but this comment box is too small to contain it.

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