Will Ferrell movies

I'm back in the US running a week-long programme.  It's a long time to spend with a group of strangers.  It means that the people I'm working with get to see me in a semi-social context as well as a straight professional one and we won't be strangers at the end of the week.

Personally, the biggest challenge is dinner.  No one wants to 'talk shop' but so many other topics are off limits; religion and politics are fraught, not everyone follows sport (and my knowledge of the 'Big Four' American sports is no better than passable) and you can only say so much about your kids to a complete stranger.

My background presents an additional challenge.  Because everyone else at the table has a pretty similar set of experiences (for starters they all ended up working for the same pharmaceutical company) being a self-employed Australian who lives in the UK arguably makes me more 'interesting' than everyone else.  It's bad manners to dominate a conversation, especially when I've been holding forth all day in the training room.

My solution is to get everyone to nominate their favourite Will Ferrell film.  He's made so many and they're mainstream enough for everyone to have seen and enjoyed at least a couple.  This gambit is good for at least thirty minutes of pleasant, unmemorable yet professional conversation.

His cameos in The Wedding Crashers and Zoolander were his best work for mine.