Imogen Lloyd Webber - The Intelligent Conversationalist: 31 Cheat Sheets That Will Show You How to Talk to Anyone About Anything, Anytime

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For the first man I remember

This is my third (publishedthere are a few that will fortunately never see the light of day) book. It has been the toughestand most rewardingprofessional challenge of my life. I am so sorry to everyone Ive let down with my juggling act over the past couple of years. I promise Im now back in the land of the living.

First of all, a massive thank-you to my long-suffering agent, Sam Hiyate, without whom there would be no The Intelligent Conversationalist, St. Martins, or Michael Flamini. Michaelthank you so much to you, Vicki Lame, and the entire team at St. Martins for all your support.

Thank you to everyone who has ever invited me on air, but in particular, Neil Cavuto, Don Imus, Greg Gutfeld, Steve Friedman, and Dylan RatiganI learned so much from you.

On a personal note Im indebted to Paul Wontorek, Beth Stevens, Anthony Mendoza, and the whole team at Broadway.com, Eleanor Wilkinson, Darryl Samaraweera, Daniel Bee, Sierra Boggess, Thomas Jones, Bella Webber Design, Michael shut up Riedel, Peter Brown, and all my friends and family. Thank you for putting up with me.

All the mistakes contained in The Intelligent Conversationalist are my own. My sincere apologies if Ive been a muppet (see I should probably just say: Being right is highly overrated. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day).

It has happened to us all. Including me. And most of my coworkers. On live television.

We are embroiled in a quasi-intellectual debate or perhaps watching (even appearing on) the television news. And it occurs to us that we have a situation on our hands. We are lacking the killer fact that would enable us to win the aforementioned argument. Or the news anchor says something that makes us realize we are unable to quite account for why something has happened or where somewhere isbut we know we really should know. We somehow forgot or quite possibly missed the moment when it was explained to us.

We are also all sometimes wrong. There are the certain beliefs we hold for years that nobody has bothered or felt fitting to correct us about. We are the victims of a Chinese whisper that has stuck.

These are the times that we needed to have a Cheat Sheet, a concise set of notes of accurate, useful knowledge. Because whether we admit it or not, all of us, at all times, prefer to be never knowingly short of an opinion. On no occasion is it a good look to be one of those people who repeatedly says, You know, which is an immediate tip-off that they either have little idea what theyre talking about or are lazy linguists. The only type of linguist you want to be is a cunning one. An intelligent conversationalist, if you will.

It is not that we are stupid or that we couldnt look anything up on the Internet. But there is just too much information out there for anyone with a pulse as opposed to a CPU to disseminate. Especially now that we are expected to think of everything in social media soundbites and are so time poor. Well, according to our artfully constructed social networking profiles, we are extremely busy and important, arent we?

This book will ensure you will be able to talk to anyone about anything at any time; that you will never be short of an opinion, shut out of a conversation, or written off as an empty head. It came about after I spoke to over a hundred peoplemale and female, aged eighteen to eighty. Even the most educated, successful, and televised among them admittedoften in whispers, usually inebriatedthat they too had gaps in their knowledge. The pages in this volume contain invaluable information for our overextended, supremely busy 140-character world. Presented with tongue firmly embedded in cheek, this is a series of Cheat Sheets on a variety of topics essential to modern-day survival for the man and woman about town.

As the only female, often on air with four mouthy men, I have to be better prepared than any of them. One mistake from the blond girl, and the best-case scenario is that your Twitter followers dont let you forget it. Worst case normally involves YouTube and work drying up. So I know my stuffwatch my Fox News Red Eye appearances and youd be surprised how many statistics Ive slipped in over the years while hamming it up in the leg chair. To write this book, Ive employed my research and presentational skills learned at Cambridge University and honed since 2009 on hundreds of hits for American cable news outlets. Fox News host Neil Cavuto, whom Ive done coming on a hundred segments with, once said one of the nicest things to me anyone ever has after wed finished a debate on obesity: You have a way of making everything very clear. That has always been my raison dtre every time I turn up on TV and what I try to do here.

Of course, this slim tome cannot cover everything, nor will you be able to remember it all. So within it I reveal the tricks of the trade that those who permanently appear to be in the know use to switch the discussion onto safe territory, so that they always swim, not sink, in conversation. Perception is reality, after all. The first time Sean Hannity invited me onto his Fox News show one-on-one, he changed the topic as he introduced me to the nation. All my careful hours of research were suddenly worthless as I faced down a barrage of questions. Putting the tears on hold until after I left the News Corp. building, I fought back using every technique I could muster from my Cambridge debating-my-professor days to my experiences appearing on other programs. The confrontational segment won me a contributorship at MSNBC. Wish Id known that as I sobbed my way down Sixth Avenue.

The Intelligent Conversationalist is made up of a series of Cheat Sheets, and in homage to their originsthey were invented by students who used them without their instructors knowledge to cheat on a testeach chapter is a school subject split into various Cheat Sheets. Laid out in textbook style, the material contained within is what we wish we had been taught, an aid to appearing top dog today. At all times the maxim of Albert Einstein, himself no slouch in the brains department, will be kept in mind: If you cant explain it to a six-year-old, you dont understand it yourself. There will be some subjects that you are already teachers pet in that you can skim through. And then there are others where you dont quite make the grade and linger longer.

This book is for dipping in and out of. For you to discover or be reminded of a factual gem in a way that will hopefully amuse you and can be utilized to impress your lovers, colleagues, and parental figures. To an extent, most life encounters are akin to exams. And as with exams, you will revise the most relevant Cheat Sheet(s) prior to a rendezvous. Dinner with a banker? It would be wise to peruse the section on math and economics, so you can differentiate your euro bailout from your Marshall Plan. Job interview with a Brit? Discover what the UK version of a muppet is and why you want to avoid appearing like one. Christmas lunch en famille ? Its all pagan, dont you know, or you will after youve read up on religion.

The Intelligent Conversationalist contains background briefings, explains why the topic matters today, and features talking points along with red flags in case you end up in a debate over it. For the Internet Age is not merely about possessing mere knowledgewe can all find out pretty much anything with a click of a mouseit is about how we use that knowledge, how we present our opinions. Within these pages you may just alight on one or two items that help you win the girl, job, or quiz night.