The perfect speech

It has often been pointed out in this column that the key to public speaking is brevity and the inclusion of at least one good joke that avoids gender or racial stereotyping.

At a beers-from-around-the-world tasting last week, the head of Paisner & Co's property department, Chris Adams, got the balance about right.

He sensed that his guests were keen to return to quaffing exotic lagers from Iceland, Cuba, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, so he kept things relatively short and tight (for a lawyer at a beer-tasting reception, at least).

And the joke? Good and topical, in the midst of dot-com mania and on the heels of the demise of boo.com: if solicitors had to adopt Internet-style address names, many would fall into the category of leave-everything-to-the-last-bloody-minute.com.

Whether there were any professional indemnity insurers at the gathering is unknown.