Morning:
9°c
Hot tears pricked my eyes. I was pretty certain I was swaying. Last week, I had my own personal nemesis.
Back in October, a friend asked me if I would take part in International Women's Day. The equality and diversity department at King's College was holding a seminar on fashion, gender and body image. "Yeah, yeah," I said, "Count me in. I'm a fat chick who likes clothes." Then I promptly forgot all about it.
Polite emails kept mentioning "a conference" and "PowerPoint" and "biographies". I blanked it all. "I'm just having a chat with a few students," I told friends. Then the week before it suddenly dawned on me: I had to give a speech to 70 staff. For FORTY minutes.
Bad speeches are not easily forgiven. A survey this week found that one in five people named Gordon Brown as the most boring public speaker ever, followed by David Beckham, Kate Winslet and the Prince of Wales.
And I'm a Winslet when it comes to public speaking: emotional, faffy, completely unable to judge the mood of the room. I forgot the ending of the nativity story at primary school (and had to be dragged off the stage howling). Once, as a journalist, I gave a talk to a friend's class. They sat in brutal silence as my jokes faltered then bolted out of the door like wildebeest. I had committed the cardinal sin of talking into their lunch hour.
Well-crafted words, delivered with skill and passion, can transform the mood of a nation. Just look at Obama. But I don't give a good speech. Like one in six adults, it's my desert island nightmare. Your body reacts in extremis. The room freezes.
That's why I became a print journalist. Don't get me wrong: I like the sound of my own voice. Sometimes, playing back interview tapes, I think: "Stop interrupting the celebrity. They're the interesting one." But generally I'm OK with an audience of one.
On the morning of the King's talk I got up at 5am to write a slightly mad speech and wondered for the umpteenth time why I had got myself into this mess. Arriving at London Bridge, I couldn't find the conference room in the warren of underground car parks. By the time I stumbled through the door I was cursing anything to do with Wimmin's Day.
The other speakers - experts on dress - looked willowy in black. My Queen Mother coat was beginning to look like a mistake.
To my horror I was on first - no time for nerves. I dropped my papers, completely screwed up my PowerPoint presentation. Eventually I thought: "Blow this. Just talk about what you love."
The audience responded generously. We Brits do love passion, however amateur. I think I just about pulled it off but I'm never doing it again.
Great orators understand pace, tone, rhythm. I agree the floral coat didn't help. But I really am the pantomine dame of the conference circuit.
