Yesterday I media trained eight people, which is a bit of a push to be honest. I have to do mock interviews with each of them, and then do a second round. So there's a fair bit of preparation. Also, I've still not totally recovered from the bubonic plague, so it wasn't easy. But you know, onwards and upwards.
Funny thing is, most of the corporate types I train are having to get with it on green issues partly because their clients want to be seen to be environmentally kind. Now, just before the session I was chatting with the trainees and one of the blokes - the fattest one, as it happens - was going into one about, "well, I think it's a load of nonsense all this global warming. I've got a Landcruiser V8 because I want one and anyway the company pays for the fuel, so I'll use as much as I want. It's never going to run out, it's bollocks what they say about oil wells running dry. The missus has got one of those new Hummers on order, gets it before Christmas, so I don't care a stuff about global warming, it's crap. Anyway, if the greenhouse effect helps Melbourne get warmer, well, I'm all for it."
Some of his colleagues were laughing, some of them were embarrassed and I thought, hmm.
When it came to his turn to be mock interviewed, of course it turned out he was their spokesman on green issues. It reminded me of a copper I used to know who said women dressed too provocatively for their own good, and who not too surprisingly beat his wife black and blue whenever he felt the urge. He worked in the rape squad. I imagine no-one had told him it was a squad dedicated to solving rape cases.
I won't go through the interview scenario with Fat Boy because, well, it even makes me cringe, but suffice to say there were several instances of me saying:
"Well, I've heard you speak elsewhere, very recently as it happens, (guffaws from his colleagues) about the environment and, er, well let me quote you here, 'it's bollocks'. But now you seem to be saying you're about to vote green, or is it just the colour you've turned that is making me think that?"
Here's a tip, the microphone is never switched off.
24/10/07 @ 15:04