He then quoted some Shelley about the men of England

rising from their chains and added a threatening bit of his own about how there were many of them and very few of 'the culturati'.

Office life

Power of incompetence

Holly Budd

Ithought again today of the book I shall publish: An Introduction to Corporate Incompetence. The alternative would be to call it A Survey and make it a monthly, to take its place on the shelves between the serious car magazines and the soft porn. A single volume would be tricky because of the abundance of material.

I was musing about this at a lunchtime retirement party for the most incompetent man for whom I ever worked. That is say- ing a great deal but I believe this is the one area where his pre-eminence could be justi- fied. He went on to be very senior, of course. When feeling charitable, I some- times wonder if it isn't wholly his fault; whether it may not after all be the packag- ing that goes with seniority that leads to loss of competence. As you become more conscious of your role and as inferiors regard you as nothing but your role, so you concentrate less on your tasks. Something like that, anyway.

Yet this man, who retires with an envi- able handshake, has been monstrously incompetent. Throughout an over-long career he blighted all he touched. Pompous, long-winded, pedantically insis- tent upon anything trivial, unerringly blind to everything important, he was deeply frivolous. An enthusiast for initiatives, he created a great dust-storm of change at the start of every job, moving on before the consequences came home. Everyone knew him for a fraud, yet he throve.

I longed for one of the speakers to call him a legend in his own lunchtime and to produce a balance sheet of what he had been paid and what he had cost in misjudg- He always spoke a great deal, with lash- ings of emphasis, but his sentences, if you thought about them or wrote them down, didn't connect. His farewell speech was verbose and sentimental and the offence caused by his inevitable confusion of names, jobs and anecdotes was minor. He never could remember anything about any- one else.

Back in my office Debbie, my secretary, was uncharacteristically sharp. 'Where have you been?'

It appeared I had arranged lunch with a client but had neither told Debbie nor put it in my diary. Nigel, my new sotto voce deputy, gently revealed that the papers I had accused another department of losing had been found in my cupboard. There was a polite note on my desk asking which of two contradictory edicts I had issued, sepa- rated by three weeks, I wanted obeyed.

Publication of An Introduction to Corpo- rate Incompetence is postponed pending further research.

High life

Autumn Watercolour

LUCY WILLIS

Paintings from home & abroad

An exhibition from Wednesday 2nd - Friday 18th November

17 x 24 inches 32 page colour catalogue with 61 illustrations and biography available from the gallery at £5 post free Tel: 071 839 7551 Fax: 071 839 1603

The first show for 2 years by one of England's leading watercolourists.