No, it’s not another post about the dubious pleasures (or should that be self-pleasuring?) of Chatroulette. We’re talking about culture here.

You’ve heard of culture, right? It’s that stuff they talk about on Radio 4 between The Archers and documentaries on credit default swaps. Theatre, music, paintings, dance, all that. The fact is that we’re spoilt rotten for culture, here at Speed towers: the National Gallery‘s over the road, likewise for St Martin in the Fields and the National Portrait Gallery. Yet, like most lazy Londoners we never seem to use any of these world-class resources. Indeed I totted it up the other day and when we do leave the office, we’re most likely to visit All Bar One or The Japan Centre.

Now I don’t have anything against beer and sushi – they’re two of humanity’s greatest inventions – but it seems a great shame to miss out on cultural London. So as Speed’s creative director, I’ve decided it’s high time to start up a programme of regular cultural outings for people at the company.

So (at the risk of sounding like an early 20th century Italian Futurist) here it is: -

The Speed Cultural Manifesto

1. We will do something cultural at least once a month.

2. Outings will be over lunchtime or in the evenings (so people can still get to All Bar One if they’re exhibiting cheap rose withdrawal symptoms)

3. Outings will be in central London and we’ll be free to go at 8.30 (we all have homes to go to, after all)

4. We’ll try to do free events at first – just to prove that not everything great about central London comes with a massive price tag

5. It’s a Speed event, but everyone’s welcome – bring your friends

6. The event can be about anything….apart from PR. We all love our jobs, but it’s a big world out there filled with wonderful ideas. So let’s use this as an opportunity to appreciate them and forget about press releases, social media and the sometimes fraught relationship between hacks and flacks

So there we have it. Currently, voting for the first Speed cultural event is leaning towards attending one of The Science Museum’s legendary Lates on 31st March, but we’re working on a calendar of possible activities. You can see it here, if you’re interested, and all suggestions are welcome – as long as they’re reasonably clean. We’re not Chatroulette, after all.