I hate

public speaking.

fucking torturous.

I Only Want You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHY1xCl4Qak

I don't know how I found the song but I remember singing it to my missus in an odd moment of joy during a 24hr race.

I think it has a good pace for riding to.
I don't tend to like lyrical stuff being a techno head but it works for me.

I can help with that if you want some tips

I've got my eye on you sunshine.....

I had to do some training for my department in my last job. It involved me standing up in front of all the Designers in my department and other departments, and teaching them how to use a really complicated and dull bit of asset management software. The worst bit was doing little 'funny' bits to keep them and myself from jumping out of the window in sheer, unbridled boredom.

I'm not sure i've ever hated myself quite as much as during that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnqhP-ZayOU

sounds awful. for everyone.

i had to enthuse people. i realise in retrospect my keynote wotnot was far too long for the time i had so i just ended waffling and reading the slides back to the glum faces in front of me, most of whom had just returned from lunch.

never again.

I've had mixed experience with public speaking.

90% of the time, it goes fine. There's a good rhythm, good interaction with the audience, and I make all the points I want to.

The other 10%, I freeze up. Not just stumble on a few words, but freeze. Almost literally. I can't speak. I don't move. I can barely breathe. I want to disappear. I want the audience to disappear.

And not just for a few seconds. It's until someone else says something to break the silence that has been going on for 5 minutes.

That's always a funtime experience.

picturing you naked DID NOT HELP.

The other 10%, I freeze up. Not just stumble on a few words, but freeze. Almost literally. I can't speak. I don't move. I can barely breathe. I want to disappear. I want the audience to disappear.

I get this as well. I have no problem signing up for a talk in front of loads of people (I did one for ~150 a couple of weeks ago) but some part of my body occasionally flips and I turn into a quivering, stuttering mess. Other times I am totally relaxed and fine. I don't know what it is that does it.

picturing you naked DID NOT HELP.

Lies.

Seriously though. Being uncomfortable talking in front of an audience just makes you a human being. If you want some tips/pointers just ask. It's a good skill to have.

i found the single biggest thing that put me at ease was injecting a bit of humour in to what I was droning on about. I’d get a few polite chuckles and it would make me relax.

you're not wrong. I think the biggest fuck up i made was as i said - over complicating the deck is was referring to. reckon i woulda been far better off if i had fewer points and spoke about fewer things at greater length. reached a stage where i was just rushing through it to get to the end before my time ran out.

my final slide was the new logo superimposed over a cat's ass (it's an asterisk) - there were lols.

At the risk of further threat derailment, do you bullet point or actually script, verbatim? A person I was doing this with painstakingly wrote out what they were saying. Although hey didn’t stick to it 100%, it still sounded awful - really forced.

I had to do loose bullet points and bits of info/figures I needed and then just wing it. Otherwise I’d lose the exact word I was following and that would be it - I’d have to stop and peer at my notes for a minute till my nerve-clouded eyes finally found where I was.

after years of teaching.......
do not ever put on the slide what you are going to say; people will just skim read ahead of you and loose interest! best to use bullet points to indicate each topic....better if the bulleted points are questions. Use the points to remind yourself of what comes next (assuming that you know about what you are going to talk)
using sequential uncovering of the points on the slide as you talk can also be effective......

Yeah that’s a good point. Same with hand-outs. A great way of assuring no one pays attention is to give them a summary of the whole thing before you start.

Now try and present the thing over the phone on a conference call with a bunch of people you can't see.

Idiot neighbours on a summer afternoon who rev their hedge trimmers like they are 8 year old pikey kids sitting on a nicked scooter and laced up on iron bru and mentos.

Fuckers that use your phone charger uninvited.

I'm going to go with your final answer

Snot

Use their phone

Or unplug it and turn on the light so the battery drains, place on radiator to speed the battery drain.

I revved my dustbuster the other day and quite enjoyed it. The type of immaturity that probably explains why my girlfriend left...