Despite being woken by my older child’s alarm at 5.30am this morning (she’d set it to get up early to make cakes for school), I am still at home as I write this. I have, however, done a lot of emailing and baked 24 cupcakes myself (well, we have an editorial meeting and Fleur Hitchcock is coming in). Radio 4 is on in the background, and I have been listening to the Brideshead-posh and insouciant voice of Sir Michael Parker talking about being the Royal Events Organiser.
Sometimes we throw parties, or have author events, or participate in festivals and conferences, and I thought that Sir Michael Parker’s rather extravagant and devil-may-care rules were rather appealing to any events organiser, even if we don’t have all the royal resources at our command:
Have a very big idea and then double it
If it’s easy to do then it’s not worth doing
If you are given more than one option, take the difficult one
If you are 100% certain that something will work, then you are not being ambitious enough
Never regard “no” as an answer and treat experts with caution
Try never to tell people what is supposed to happen and then they won’t know if it hasn’t
Always stand as close as possible to the principal guest so that you will be first with excuses when things go wrong
It must be as much fun for everyone as possible
