Maria Franzoni Ltd

Remember the good old days when sitcoms dominated our television viewing? From the Likely Lads to Porridge, The Good Life to Fawlty Towers; the situations varied but the comedy often focused on the same simple fact about human nature. Namely, our complete inability to recognise our own hypocrisy. In real life, it drives us crazy but in a sitcom it makes us laugh. Think Basil Fawlty, Alf Garnett and Rigsby.

I mention this fact because when I started out as a speaker I had three overriding principles. One of them was that I would never work weekends, because like most family men, this is reserved for spending time with my family and watching Sky Sports News.

According to a report in The Geneva Tribune, on April 1st 1915 a French aircraft flew over a German camp and dropped what appeared to be a huge bomb.

The enemy troops immediately ran for cover, but no explosion followed. After a while, one brave soldier gingerly approached the bomb to discover it was actually a large football with a note tied to it that read, 'April Fool!'

Now that's what you call an April Fool joke. No fish up your exhaust pipe or shaving foam in your slippers. Instead, just the heart-stopping terror of seemingly imminent death followed by the overwhelming relief and realisation that you're still in one piece.

How to talk people around to your point of view.
Let them do the talking.

Persuading people around to your way of thinking is a difficult task, particularly if they've already made up their mind. This stubborn intransigence manifests itself in all manner of life. From the child who won't eat up his greens to the bun fights in the House of Commons. It's the reason heart-felt petitions are filed straight into the bin, and it's also why football fans believe that playing at home in the second leg of a two-legged game provides a better chance of winning the tie. But it's simply not true if you take a closer look at the stats. Which is exactly what the formidable sounding midfield trio of researchers from Munich University did. Herrs Eugster, Gertheiss and Kaiser studied the results of European ties between 1994 and 2010 and discovered that the chances of winning are exactly 50:50, whether you play at home first or second. Unless, of course, it goes to penalties when the stats show that the British team are all but doomed.

'You don't know who I am; you just think you do.'

There's a saying that you should never judge a book by its cover. Naturally, this isn't something that book cover designers embrace too readily. However, for the rest of us, it's a reminder that you should never form an opinion about something or someone based on appearances.

Think Susan Boyle.

Okay, you can stop now.

Instead, picture the beautiful young American student, Amanda Knox, whose book, 'Waiting to be Heard' is out today. Accused and then later found innocent of the murder of Meredith Kercher, she was painted by the world's media as something of a femme fatale despite none of them ever actually interviewing her. All the initial assumptions about her were founded less on fact and more on the way that she looked and behaved.