15 January 2016, 1 pm
We have enjoyed three hours’ worth of high-level, high-temperature meetings with the Director General and his pals. They don’t seem phased by the disappearance of the dapperly-uniformed espresso man or by the waffle-iron temperatures. We, however, are flagging. But we are British so we do not like to say. In the meetings we played a game called Don’t Stop Talking. This game was invented a long time ago by a powerful but insecure male of the species, who was worried that if he stopped talking, someone else might disagree with him, thus undermining his credibility, dignity and virility, and in turn annihilating an entire belief system, to the detriment of the many subordinates who had thus far flourished under it. The game is still popular in many modern business cultures and our hosts today play it with eye-watering, molar-grinding skill. My colleagues assure me that the meetings were nevertheless very productive meetings. They remind me that I have taken loads of notes and that when I could get a word in – ie when one of the other players forgot himself and drew breath – I offered to provide several people with various nonspecific forms of support. Luckily my colleagues did not see that my notes were punctuated by sketches of coffee cups and light refreshments. Luckily it is not my turn to provide a report for Council. Now we are meeting the IPO’s attaché at WIPO. Until recently, I had not realised the IPO had an attaché at WIPO. I knew they had an attaché in China, and one in Brazil, but not that they treated WIPO as a country in its own right, like Vatican City or something. (I am not suggesting we should have an IP attaché in Vatican City, obviously; somehow I don’t imagine The Almighty is that interested in IP, having created an entire universe and never received so much as a penny in royalties.) Something else that occurs to me is that where there is a diplomatic attaché, there is also usually an undercover agent, secretly gathering counter-intelligence and feeding it back home. Quite possibly it is the dapperly-uniformed espresso man. Anyway, the attaché – who is not undercover – recognises how hungry and parched we look and nobly leads the way to the WIPO canteen. Here there are fifteen or so dapperly-uniformed spies I mean chefs offering all manner of good things to eat. We load up our trays and spend a happy hour finding out what an IP attaché does for a living. By the end of the conversation, I confess I still have only a hazy idea of the man’s brief, but I offer him various nonspecific forms of support and he seems more than happy to leave it at that.
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