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What I would really like to do is cast a temporary spell on you, but I'm not sure that I can. You see, I know that I reach considerably greater heights in thought than in practice, although I'm usually pretty good at hiding it - until I let down my guard and inform you that I intend to enrol in a public speaking training course. It is not at all important why I haven't ever got round to it before. What is relevant is the frequent clamouring for politicians with MP status (in so far as Parliament qualifies as a public place) to be better at speaking from memory than they clearly are. However, on second thought this presents us at the very least with a hopeless conundrum, for should we then assume that good speakers are by definition good administrators or good politicians? Although I can of course appreciate the underlying thought, it was clear even when I was an adolescent that only the chosen few were top of the class, and worse still, hardly ever owing to their proficiency in wielding the Dutch language. Nevertheless we remained an "exemplary" country for quite some time. As a contemporary originator, however, I'm used to resigning to unfinished miracles. Surely I can assume that you would be in agreement with the compromise of there being no reason for anxiety as long as the decline in the proper use of the Dutch language keeps pace with the increase in the linguistic creative play, which is just as well as it is here that one fresh conundrum after another pops up. Again, I cannot imagine that you and those involved didn't already know how it works: personally I have forever been craving a clear body language guidebook. However, this time my objections are of a more serious nature. Those who devote themselves to a subject matter that few are truly good at and those who seek to excel at something that everyone can more or less do have my sympathy. I'm about to stray from the proviso I've just made, but this is how it works: it's all about body language. Unless I'm very much mistaken, body language is something that affects all of us. Body language reflects someone's actual personality, his covert intentions and his undisguised character. There have always been people who are good at hiding this, and we have always been taught to be wary of them. I consider it a revolting prospect if we were stripped of this option of exposing people. Body language modification is worse than body language cover-up: unless the other party means well (and that is difficult enough to find out as it is), such training will only result in misrepresentation, or signed lies if you will. And far from having anything to do with casting spells, that is plain deception. |