Perturbing conversation with a friend in NATO who is going for both the jobs that I am going for. And he has a significant advantage over me for both; he’s a NATO insider, so will have a good track on the NATO job, and his mother is from the same small country as the commissioner most likely to get the relevant EU post, so he speaks the right language (literally). But I got the impression he hadn’t done any background work with the Brits, even though he too is a British citizen, so I might just be able to have the edge on him there in that I have been doing a little hacking. To be honest I’d thought of him as an obvious successor for me in this post as well. But since he’s currently working for NATO he won’t want the pay cut.
Bah, just checked his CV which I found on-line, and he’s eight months older than me. Not sure why this bothers me. Probably just means it’s time for dinner.
It is by no means inevitable. The Bechdel test doesn’t require that the central character should be female, it just requires that there be two female characters (true of almost all Who stories longer than the ones considered here) who talk to each other (less frequent, but still I think true of the majority of Who stories) and talk about something other than a man (the tricky bit).