It is common these days to hype, over egg , big up , exaggerate and overstate. This is a kind of infection which is sourced in the USA. One of the problems I had way back was that in writing grant proposals one had to overstate and oversell, stretch the limits of possible commercial applicability. It went against the academic notion of considered writing and into blagging so that the politicians could be sated with their need to blag the fuck out of everything. For example claiming that the UK might, in fantasy land, become a “Science Superpower”. A sound byte is not reality it is an advertiser’s tag line.

Although I can pitch and sell, to an extent, it is not my default. There is a time and a place.

About nine years ago I attended an “entrepreneurs” event in the home counties. I was given a chit saying that the value of said event was £3,000 and was not taxable. There were about fifty people there seeking help with preparing a business plan / pitch. The majority of whom were fantasists prone to over stating and bullshitting. There were so many “apps” being hyped that I got bored.

I offered to speak. Having been part of a big successful fund raise. The offer was not taken up. I was not one of the “gang”. Their loss not mine. I was probably the only person in the room who had raised millions on the back of a business plan I wrote. They wanted to teach me how.

The trouble is that if you are prone to bullshitting and over hyping you may imagine that everyone else is too!! This is not a bad working hypothesis but it is not universally applicable.

As a rule of thumb I am not obsessed with the sound of my own voice and do not love to be the centre of attention spouting forth endlessly from my soap box. I’ll speculate that I will research, think, research some more, think some more, and prepare to a greater extent than most.

My personal assessment is that I am not a gobshite prone to gobbing off.

If someone wants to look into things I will encourage them to see if they can add to what I have already found out.

My own self assessment is that I am not prone to bullshitting. I will not wing it in a pitch. I will be well prepared.

In the dream before the notion of car crash is presented. One can see in the Dragon’s Den TV programme that many pitches are car crashes. They are ill-prepared despite the fact of show back catalogue. Some try to bullshit which goes wrong. Some people have lives which lurch wildly from crisis to crisis. Their whole life is a car crash. We could sat Katie Price is an example of an ongoing car crash.

If you bullshit you are prone to car crash.

If you are well researched and prepared, less so.

Many “great ideas” and cunning plans result in car crashes, sometimes severe and extensive motorway pile ups.

You can make your mind up as to how likely I am to bullshit.

Am I more likely to bullshit than you?