Peter Jackson column

Feb 3 2005 By Peter Jackson, The Journal

I have a low opinion of short-cut methods for judging character and this includes graphology - the analysis of handwriting.

I suspect it has as much validity as palm reading.

Of course, I may be biased. My own handwriting after all would make anyone conclude I was a general practitioner with delirium tremens and when I survey my doodlings I have to question my own sanity.

However, I did feel vindicated this week at the reports of notepad jottings, thought to be by Tony Blair, obtained from the World Economic Forum in Switzerland by an enterprising newspaper reporter.

These were analysed by various handwriting experts who concluded that the doodles revealed everything from a "death wish" to "an inability to complete tasks".

One said they showed he was "struggling to concentrate and his mind is going everywhere" and another that the scribblings were those of one who was "not a natural leader".

So there was much egg on face when it was pointed out that the jottings were the work not of our own prime minister, but of the world's most successful self-made businessman, Bill Gates.

Now that it, in itself, is a good story, but it seems to me to be only half the story and nobody has looked in detail at what the jottings actually say. There is much which is to be expected at such a gathering.

For instance, the words "Africa" and "Malaria", "G8" and "Rich World", both in boxes, and "Debt Cancellation", also boxed.

But the words in the photograph that caught my eye, that really revealed something about Bill Gates I would never have guessed at, were "Park Allegro".

I have puzzled over this and can only come up with one rational explanation. Namely, one of the world's richest men must drive one of the most inglorious products ever to be produced by the British motor industry. I can also only surmise that, late for the conference, maybe baffled by the one-way system, he abandoned the car in the street and was making a note to pop out during the coffee break and put it on a meter.

This may be endearing, but it doesn't say much for Mr Gates's efficiency. On the strength of these jottings, I would never employ him.