Duckers & Diving: Lunch assignment’s a real drag!

OUR red-blooded diarist this week gets in touch with his feminine side after being drafted in to help ladies what lunch.

The call came from Lou Jones, boss of C3 Consulting – not someone you ignore.

As all the female scribes in Birmingham were unavailable I’m asked – or should that be ordered! – to cover the inaugural meeting of the Hotel du Vin Women in Business Group.

I’m told that as there are no female reporters to cover the event then I will have to do.

I ignored the ‘insult’ – I’ve been called worse – and did the only a fella could do under the circumstance…I tried to talk my way out of it. I mean, a bloke at a babes-only meeting…whatever next?

Getting increasingly desperate, I stammer ‘Surely I’ll be out of place. I’ll only cramp your style’.

But Lou was having none of it.

So we agreed a compromise – I would arrive prior to the start, interview two or three of the members and then exit quietly ahead of the meeting getting fully under way.

However, it was the next question that really floored me – perhaps I’d like to wear a dress?

I politely decline – it would be bound to get out, I say, thus leaving me at the mercy of unscrupulous friends and colleagues. Besides, I just don’t have the legs for it anymore sweetie.

So, eventually the prima donna exhibitionist in me said ‘Go for it’ and anyway, I might look pretty in pink (You’d be many things but pretty wouldn’t be one of them – Editor) .

Lou, who only drinks pink champagne and is married to the infinitely patient former property guru Chris Monk, is now wielding the rolling pin.

Most men are “agenda junkies”, oozing far too much testosterone, I’m told.

“It’s like starting a playschool – the women get it up and running,” she declared.
“Suddenly the blokes get involved, want to formulise everything, and it is all a huge waste of time. Women’s priorities are still largely different from men’s.”

What a girl, I thought.

But there was more.

“We don’t want to get bogged down in meetings like all too often men do.  Action is what matters – men frequently seem incapable of seeing the wood for the trees and rarely accomplish anything as a result,” she said.

“Christmas would never happen and nobody would ever get a birthday card unless women sorted it. And it is a bit like that in business.”

Phew! Right on, doll.

By now I was quite enjoying myself, but the interview was over, time to depart.

I puckered my lips Marilyn Monroe style, walked out swinging my hips, and proffered what I hoped was one last mysterious toss of the head.

Next time it’s still no dress but I may risk high heels and lipstick, darling.

As Kenny Everett used to say – it’s all in the best possible taste!