Say you’re Mary, a woman executive. Clever. Doing well. Rising fast. Ambitious. Self-confident. I can do this! You give a TEDx talk. Fame! It turns out to be like many (most?) TEDx talks. The faux-jokey ‘strong start’. The almost desperate attempt to be NEW and INTERESTING. Over-rehearsed. Contrived. Formulaic. Not-so-subliminally […]
This is my most popular answer on Quora with over 20,000 views, replying to an interesting question: What is the funniest opening line that you have heard (or said) in a public speech? Hmm. Right Ho, Jeeves “Boys,” said Gussie, “I mean ladies and gentlemen and boys, I do not […]
You recall my exciting controversial Toastmasters adventures earlier this year? Here and then here. A member of a Vienna Toastmasters club who joined one of my ‘live’ masterclasses on Public Speaking kindly invited me to address her club when I was next in town. I warned her that I had […]
One of the darker diplomatic and wider professional arts is writing a record of a conversation. There’s a lot going on here: what to summarise – the words, the context, the ‘tone’, the silences? how in principle to summarise it – should the material be presented in the order it was spoken, […]
+++ Update +++ See Brian Jenner’s positive tale on Toastmasters and their rituals here. As you can see, my education is complete! * * * * * My piece on Toastmasters has attracted some modest interest, including in the Comments and via LinkedIn. Both Against and For. Against I came, […]
You’re all sick of this subject. But via helpful Manfred Rosenbauer on Twitter we get what look like the FCO’s ipsissima verba so why not record them here? This is a Diplomatic Note Verbale. It’s forms of courtly courtesy go back centuries. No-one knows what a Note that is non-Verbale might look like. […]
Over at Craig Murray, one John Spencer-Davis has been arguing with me re J Assange’s diplomatic status: Let’s deal first with your point about Article 38 – I have already answered it, but you may have missed that. “Except insofar as additional privileges and immunities may be granted by the receiving […]
+++ UPDATE +++ I have changed my mind about the A38 point mentioned below. See my next posting here. * * * * * Craig Murray (of course) weighs in in favour of Ecuador’s apparent claim (or at least request) that J Assange is now an Ecuador diplomat entitled to […]
Over on Quora in the broad Public Speaking area you can’t move without someone extolling Toastmasters. Have nerves? Lack confidence? Join Toastmasters! Need to practise your oratory away from a mirror? Join Toastmasters! What is this phenomenon? The fons et origo: Do you want to become a confident public speaker […]
I’m thinking Philosophy as such. I’ve even bought Anthony Kenny’s masterpiece and started to plough through it. Those ancient Greeks were oddly smart. What happened? That said, I am getting annoyed by The Partially Examined Life. It turns out that they have all sorts of parochial US liberal academic biases and […]
