He remarked in his loud Yorkshire voice: “Business bimbos! They always hold things up and get in the way”

Last Wednesday. A presentation on advertising at the Grand Station Hotel (Victorian edifice, looming sepulchre in silhouette, white stone with the upper floors in grimy yellow stock brick). Mitch Holmes (Sales Director) was going to it, and suggested at the last moment (the evening before) that I went along as well.

It was a much larger event than I expected - about two hundred and fifty marketing people were milling around the ground floor of the hotel and filling up the hotel’s ballroom where the presentation was to take place. As soon as I arrived I was engulfed by the crowd of people and only after some minutes managed to extricate myself and get to the far side of the room where cups of coffee were being served. Shortly afterwards Mitch Holmes came up and we went through to take up our seats in the ballroom (a large room, but even so it was packed, with many people standing at the sides and back).

The presentation was very lively and a succession of speakers from advertising agencies, magazines and radio stations talked about award-winning advertising campaigns (using projected images and sound clips) and told us mainstream above-the-line advertising was still the best way to build brand awareness. Mitch Holmes (sitting on my right) was very impressed with this message and told me “A, B, C1 consumers - that’s where we should be positioning ourselves.” The man on my left (freelance designer, aged in his twenties, Byronesque in appearance), whom I had introduced myself to as we sat down, also seemed very affected with the show, telling me: “I won’t be able to sleep tonight from thinking about all this!”

Half-way through there was a break for coffee. The queues were very long, and as we eventually drew near to where the beverages were being served, progress was halted for some time by about eight or ten young business women, all immaculately dressed in black (one wearing a red jacket), all seeming to know one another. Their sociability, and their dithering around the cups and saucers, exasperated Mitch Holmes, and he remarked in his loud Yorkshire voice: “Business bimbos! They always hold things up and get in the way.”

The group of business women were impervious to this rudeness (although they must have heard) and took their time handing each other teaspoons and pouring milk into each other’s cups before eventually moving to one side. Standing in the line I was able to look at them closely without appearing to stare - they were so well-dressed, and their make-up was applied so perfectly that they appeared oddly inhuman. I was reminded of that horror sci-fi film where the mad scientist is obsessed with plastic flesh and invents an army of gorgeous androids to take over the world…

The seminar went on all the morning and finished just after one. Afterwards Mitch Holmes told me to take the afternoon off and I would still get paid for the whole day - presumably he was taking the afternoon off himself and didn’t want me to go back to the office. Wandering about, I went into a nearby museum where there was a display of objects made by prisoners of war - the intricate carvings implying long weary years of wasted time.