Pecha Kucha

For some mad crazy reason, I've agreed to take part in another Pecha Kucha event this week. If you don't know what this is, it's an event where a whole bunch of people get up and talk about themselves in front of an audience, with the aid of a PowerPoint presentation. We all get a slot of exactly six minutes and forty seconds to tell the world all about our inner selves. We have to present twenty slides, and talk about each slide for twenty seconds. Six minutes and forty seconds precisely.

I did one a couple of years ago in front of a packed audience. Then, I talked about the key points in my life which had shaped my character and which had collectively delivered the 'Richard Pilgrim' that they saw before them. The rule of Pecha Kucha is not to take oneself too seriously – in fact, you are actually encouraged to include a dash of self-mockery in the presentation. I have no difficulty in doing that – I've always made a fool of myself in general anyway, so finding topics that allowed me to poke fun at myself is fairly easy. It seemed to go okay last time.

This time, the topic is one of the future, not the past. It's about New Year's Resolutions (despite taking place in February), and about how we are going to set about improving our lives in the coming year. Hmm, I don't really bother with NY Resolutions as a rule – there doesn't seem to be much point in choosing a specific spot on the flip-over of the Gregorian calendar to make a list of areas of improvement for ourselves. We should be doing that all the time – we should be seeking continual advancement of our wretched lives, and therefore, to think about such matters on what is really just an arbitrary date, seems somewhat simplistic.

That notwithstanding, I've needed to prepare some thoughts for this forthcoming presentation on what exactly I am hoping to achieve this year. I can't very well stand up and talk about not making any plans for the future – well, not for six minutes and forty seconds anyway. Really, these events are just decadent ego trips, that's all. I mean, isn't it a bit self-indulgent to imagine that other people are even remotely interested in what our plans for the year are? I don't suppose that anyone present will care – let alone remember later – whether our various schemes will ever be realized. No, if we were honest, we'd admit that it's all just a glorious excuse to talk about ourselves for a while, and to get a captive audience to listen. I'm hugely looking forward to it.

The event takes place in the grand and opulent ballroom of Nottingham's City Hall and there is going to be a massive gathering of the city's chattering classes – like the massing herds of wildebeest assembling at the watering-hole, we'll congregate around the champagne and smoked salmon before taking to the stage, one by one, to deliver our hedonistic stories. I've prepared twenty slides that feature images of my future - both sublime and (truly) ridiculous; both sacred and profane. I absolutely adore performing in public, almost as much as I adore talking about myself, so it's a "win-win" jamboree as far as I'm concerned.

And if people laugh at me, I'll have achieved my aim. It's all about the humiliation, really.