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I cough while the technician tinkers with the projector, although the two are not related, and I wonder why my throat is sore but I quickly decide that it was the airplane, those things are a wonderland for bacteria, and at least the snafu with the projector gives me time to take a sip from the glass of water in front of me, a glass that I’ve already topped up with a little whisky, which is a crime against single malt, I know, believe me I know, but it’s become a ritual now, every time I give one of these keynotes I find myself reaching for the hip flask, and it doesn’t hurt anybody in the end, and I don’t think anybody would blame me for needing to steady my nerves (even though my nerves never need steadying, I’ve often felt that they’re not so much made of organic material as they are built from some sort of steel or copper, pinging under my skin like telephone cable) given the size of the audience and the importance of this speech, which is not to say that I’m bragging about it, because somebody has to be on the podium and it might as well be me, and the years I put in at the coal face mean that I have a certain amount of experience to share, and my natural gravitas (again, I’m really not bragging, this is just a statement of fact based on my appearance – a full head of silver hair, a certain sharpness around the eyes – and voice – which isn’t as deep as you might expect, but there’s gravel on the riverbed) means that people tend to listen to that experience; you can see them now if you look around the hall, backs still straight in their seats and eyes still clear from coffee, hungry for somebody to explain to them why they bothered to register for this conference, hungry for somebody to bring some life to what would otherwise be a dry and dirty topic (I won’t bore you with the details,