Revisited: The girl with long hair

A bit of a saga

Girl and train, by Terry Freedman

In place of my usual Start the Week, I thought you might like this unscripted talk I gave on the theme of ‘reunion’. If you’re a new subscriber since May 2022 you will, I hope, find this chortlesome. If you've seen it before, I hope you'll enjoy it again.

In 2014 I decided to have another go at speaking at a live event called Spark London. They invite people up to speak for five minutes on the theme of the evening. I say “another” go because I’d already done it twice, and it wasn’t as nerve-wracking as I’d feared. As you don’t know whether or not you’re going to be called up, and as it’s meant to be ad lib anyway, I didn’t prepare any notes. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to include if I was selected, but that was it.

Usually when I am asked to give a talk I prepare to the nth degree, so my preparedness carries me along despite my nerves. However, on this occasion there were two factors that made me more nervous than usual, which you can detect in my voice in the recording included here.

Firstly, I’d rushed halfway across London after managing to escape from some awards evening at the House of Lords, which I mention partly to impress you but even more to convey how vastly overdressed I would have been for the Spark London event (basically from posh Westminster venue to a pub in Brixton, south London)! I found that slightly embarrassing.

Secondly, I’m not comfortable with sharing really personal stuff, and the theme on this particular evening was ‘Reunion’, and I wished to use that as a vehicle to talk about love.

It seemed to go down well enough that the organisers asked me if I would do the talk again at a sort of round-up event called Best of Spark London. I accepted their kind invitation. Unfortunately, though, I had to pull out of that because I succumbed to a really bad dose of the flu.

Anyway, here’s a link to the recording, which lasts eight minutes. I hope you enjoy it.

The girl with long hair