12 April 2016
There is going to be a Revolution. Yay! It is going to be a Devolution Revolution. Double yay!! We all like a bit of poetry. Although, possibly a revolution is not a proper revolution if it is planned by the government and implemented by civil servants. Hey-ho. At a conference centre in Birmingham, I am one of a few select invitees to an IPO meeting about business outreach. The ITMA Chief Eggsek is there, and also several people from Business Enterprise and Innovation Growth Chamber Acceleration Network Hubs. Or whatever they’re called these days. The reason we are here is that the government has been getting excited about its Devolution Revolution. When it is not busy, that is, offering people a choice about Europe and then publishing pamphlets saying, Actually, you know that choice we’re giving you, well, be sure not to make the wrong one, won’t you, because it would be really, really awkward if you did. As is well known, the government is strongly in favour of Devolution, which in management bollocks is referred to as Outsourcing: in other words, you make the people who elected you to govern them do their own governing, thus freeing you up to be in Parliament practising your banter. We have had Devolution before, of course, but never in the form of a Revolution, which makes this one rather exciting. Adding to the sense of anticipation is the parallel creation of a Northern Powerhouse and a Midlands Engine. Who could fail to be enthralled by such names? Images of steam trains and frock coats spring to mind, of top-hatted mill owners with throaty northern accents and bellicose Luddites. The Northern Powerhouse and the Midlands Engine compete fiercely with one another to be recognised as the most economically significant part of the UK. In time, if they succeed in being powerful and engineful, at least one of them will seek independence. (So far as I know, they have yet to consider Devolution in the Wess Curntry. I have not heard talk of a South-West Economic Boom Harvester, for example.) I do not contribute much to the meeting, because everyone is talking in acronyms and I don’t know what they mean. It is possible that some of them don’t mean anything at all. But what do I know? I’m not an engine or a powerhouse and I haven’t been devolved. Although there are many at CIPA who would have preferred to have me devolved some time ago. After the meeting, I head back through the building sites of the Midlands Engine, pick up a BLT, catch a train to BPW and return home ASAP for some R&R. I feel thoroughly revolved.
0 Comments
11 April 2016, 12.30 pm
I am attending a webinar. It is a namby-pamby webinar about unconscious bias. On reflection, perhaps I should have waited to hear the rest of it before trying to knock myself out; possibly I was taking the “unconscious” bit too literally. My head hurts. It took a lot of effort to get into the webinar. At first the webinar said Go away; you need Internet Explorer to watch this. So I went away and had a word with my computer. The computer said: Go away; I do not like Internet Explorer; I have given you Microsoft Edge instead, and I have locked Internet Explorer away in a dark bit of disk space where it is going quietly mad. But other systems don’t like Microsoft Edge! I moan. The computer does the IT equivalent of a Gallic shrug. Eventually, with the help of something called Cortana – which is kind of like those waiters who ask you if everything’s OK but have no intention of processing your response – I locate Internet Explorer in its dark bit of disk space. It is indeed unstable. Meanwhile, the webinar presenter is competing valiantly against a backing track of people who have not put their microphones on mute. We can all hear what they’re having for lunch, along with various other things they feel it appropriate to discuss whilst supposedly engaging in CPD. Which is quite an eye-opener. At the end of the webinar, the presenter sets us some homework. The homework is to make ourselves conscious of our biases. I am still working on being conscious full stop, with a pack of frozen peas and some gin. 11 April 2016, 9 am
The Queen has still not replied to my invitation. I am upset about this. I suspect The Queen also has a Box de Procrastination, into which the CIPA letter has been placed pending a decision about how to break the news that HM is not the remotest bit interested in IP and is beginning to regret having signed off that Charter application. I imagine the royal Box de Procrastination as an ornately-carved mahogany trunk, sitting on a velvet cushion, guarded by a soldier in a busby, a lady-in-waiting and a couple of ferocious corgis. It will certainly be better quality than the CIPA Presidential swimming gala medal with its unglued fancy bits. 9 April 2016
It is Saturday. But you wouldn’t know it. I have been at the computer all day, producing things that other people aren’t around to criticise. Firstly I did some slides and handouts for a talk I am giving to university law students. The talk is about putting IP law into practice, which I confess I have almost forgotten how to do. The VeePee is supposed to be giving a talk as well, so I prepare some extra material in case he forgets to be there. My handout is basically a “case study”. This is management bollocks for something you don’t need to rehearse beforehand. The underlying idea is to make the recipients decide what you should talk about and then tell you what to say. As the presenter/tutor/facilitator, all you have to do is shout “Good point!” and “Good question!” now and then, and at the end to tell them what a lot they’ve learned from this hands-on, interactive exercise. “Hands-on” and “interactive” are of course also management bollocks, translating roughly as Do It Yourself. Next I worked on a provisional programme for our IP administrators’ conference. This was followed by several grovelling emails to people I am hoping will agree to fill the sessions with erudite speeches and Powerpoint® presentations, and of course case studies. One of the people I have emailed is Mr Roberts, only I did not bother to grovel in his. It is after all his fault I had to sit next to Monsieur Le President de l’EPO the other night and be told off for being insufficiently European. Now I am drafting an email to Council about a Cunning Plan I have hatched, to provide guidance for our members about Brexit. The plan involves commissioning an expert to prepare the guidance, because it will be Hard Work and take a Long Time and if we ask one of the committees to do it we will still be rewriting section 3.1.3 on referendum day. The guidance will cover issues such as:
Some of these might perhaps be construed as scare-mongering, but you cannot be too prepared I feel. Especially on the croissant front. Meanwhile I will ask Monsieur Le President de l’EPO to write a forward for the document, in which he will tell us all not to be so stupid and irresponsible and then admit that he hasn’t a clue who CIPA are. 8 April 2016
How is it possible to spend an entire working day at the computer, and achieve nothing more than a heightened sense of impending doom? What kind of evil is afoot if your to-do list spawns new entries faster than you can change the dates on the old ones? As well as the Box de Procrastination and the Box de Panic which Google® are hosting for me, I now have Microsoft® in charge of a to-do list, a to-worry-about list, a to-weep-about list and a too-late-for list. There is a part of me that hopes Microsoft will take care of these lists in the same way it takes care of my personal settings every time it installs updates, but Sod’s Law says that the lists will survive long after everything else has been corrupted: they will continue to stare dolefully out at me until the day I upgrade to The Great Desktop in the Sky. The one good thing about today is that I have got to grips with my new Oyster® card. I have discovered that, so long as I can remember my Secret Code and stuff, I can access records of all my recent journeys around London. This is magic. And whilst I am not sure about Transport for London® knowing exactly where I’ve been and when, I can see that I might find it useful, some mornings, to remind myself where I went the evening before, even if I can’t remember why. Of course, for the journey which the EyePeePee and I undertook yesterday, which went from somewhere simple to somewhere else simple via a complicated sequence of apparently random sub-journeys, there is no reason why. Other than incompetence. 7 April 2016, 8 pm
Back home, I sit at my desk to sort out my Box de In, before the dawn of a whole new CIPA day tomorrow. But somehow I cannot summon the energy. I really, really should have taken that caramel custard tart. I set up a Box de Panic and shove all the new stuff in there. Then I move the Box de Panic inside the Box de Procrastination. And in this way, I mentally prepare myself for a good night’s sleep. Along with a stiff whisky, that is. 7 April 2016, 2 pm
Now I am in a meeting of the Administrators’ Committee. We are talking about CPD for administrators, who are going to be called Paralegals under the new CIPA Bye-laws, should the Bye-laws ever emerge from the Privy Council. At the end of the meeting I realise I have committed to finding several seminar speakers. There is a pattern emerging here, and it may be that Ms Wilkinson is not entirely to blame for the elongation of my to-do list. I do wish I had taken one of those caramel custard tarts, though. I have been doing meetings all day and I could just fancy something custardy to keep me going. 7 April 2016, 4 pm The EyePeePee and I head back towards Paddington from our day of CIPA meetings. The EyePeePee is a seasoned traveller but even she can get flustered when she has to carry on a conversation with me. Before long we realise that the tube train we’re on is stopping at the wrong places, and shortly afterwards that actually, the train is stopping at the right places but is not the train we ought to be on. A simple journey becomes hideously elongated and hits the rush-hour at Paddington just when my next train home is due. I lug my suitcase down the platforms and insinuate myself into one of the few remaining seats on the Brizzle train. I am tired and grumpy. The people I have insinuated myself next to look less than thrilled. On the journey home I check my emails, because that is what you have to do on a train. I discover that once again, after two days of being tied up in meetings, my Box de In is in a state of almost psychopathic disarray. Still, despite being cross and world-weary, I have enjoyed catching up with the EyePeePee. We don’t usually see enough of each other. And she is a far more polite companion than Monsieur Le President de l’EPO. 7 April 2016, 8.45 am
The day starts bright and early: a coffee date with Ms Wilkinson from the IPO. Usually she and I eat caramel custard tarts with our coffee but I am going to struggle to manage a caramel custard tart so soon after my muesli, and I worry Ms Wilkinson might laugh at me if I put one in my rucksack for later. So instead we talk. Talking to Ms Wilkinson usually results in all sorts of Great Ideas and Grand Plans and several more things on your to-do list than you had before you set out. Today is no exception. As we part company I realise I have committed to writing yet more documents. I am not sure how Ms Wilkinson does this. I think she would make a good President of the EPO some day. She would have people voluntarily rushing out of their offices to improve their own efficiency, and no one would get cross or strike or take ten more days’ sick leave, let alone complain to the IPKat like they do now. 6 April 2016, 6 pm
I head out to a Posh Dinner organised by UNION IP. I have washed my hair and put on my posh frock but sadly, I am not able to wear my Presidential medal due to its decorative portion having parted company with its previously integral substrate. At the Posh Dinner I try to get away with sitting amongst the ordinary patent attorneys but Mr Roberts tells me that I am to sit at Top Table next to Monsieur Le President de l’EPO. Mr Roberts, alongside everything else, is President of the UK Chapter of UNION IP. He doesn’t really know what UNION IP is and he can’t explain why it’s always written in CAPITALS, but that type of detail has never worried Mr Roberts in the past and it isn’t about to now. Monsieur Le President does not exactly look delighted at the seating arrangements, but he makes a valiant attempt at polite small-talk. This small-talk consists largely of telling me how stupid and irresponsible the Brits would be to exit the EU at this crucial juncture in the UPC’s history, as though the referendum and its impact were somehow my fault. After ten minutes of telling me how stupid and irresponsible the Brits are, Monsieur Le President turns to me and says he’s terribly sorry he doesn’t remember, but who am I exactly? Shortly afterwards, he sends himself an urgent phone call to answer. This type of small-talk might not sound especially polite, but for a Frenchman it may be as good as you get. Mr Roberts has told me it is my job to get Monsieur Le President drunk and find out lots of juicy gossip that has so far escaped exposure by Monsieur Le Chat d’IP. Mr Roberts himself will be too busy chairing the event and so will be unable, sadly, to get anyone other than himself drunk. I do not succeed in getting Monsieur Le President drunk. I get myself drunk instead. And then I no longer need to worry about Monsieur Le President being either impolite or French. Later, Monsieur Le President makes a speech about what he is doing to improve efficiency at the EPO. Some of the diners, who are still sober enough to be difficult, ask him why improving efficiency needs to make so many people cross. Monsieur Le President shrugs and says that he is not going to worry about people getting cross; people getting cross is the mildly irritating but inevitable price you pay for making the world more efficient. There speaks a true Ruthless Dictator. I wish I could be like that. 6 April 2016, 2.30 pm
I am chairing my penultimate Council meeting. To heighten the sense of occasion, and because it says to do so on my bucket list, I don the Presidential swimming gala medal. I am determined to get some use out of it before I am ousted from office. The Presidential swimming gala medal promptly falls to bits. I try not to take this personally. Mr Davies says he will send it to a professional super glue company to be fixed. I refrain from asking him to avoid the clearly amateur super glue company he sent it to last time. There is not much on the agenda today but we manage to string it out so we feel like we’re doing something productive. At 4.30 I get bored and leave to wash my hair. The EyePeePee gamely takes over to chair the not much that still remains on the agenda. Some folk look a little disgruntled, like it’s OK for every other Council member to arrive late or leave when things get boring or just fail to turn up at all, but the President is expected to suffer every last moment. However, if CIPA cannot even provide a decent, unitary Presidential medal, as opposed to a kit of parts of a Presidential medal, it cannot really expect its President to be fully committed to every last moment of Councilliar tedium. |
Archives
July 2019
Categories |