Here’s my latest piece at PunditWire, looking at President Obama’s UN speech (both substance and technique) and what it says about negotiating: Even the President of the United States drifts into the tritest clichés on such occasions: We come together at a crossroads between war and peace; between disorder and […]
In case you’re all wondering, my eBook Speechwriting for Leaders is coming along very nicely. A bold and amusing cover is being designed (every e-Book needs a bold and amusing eCover) and the substance is entering the layout and final edit phase. The problem for any great artist with any work […]
Mulling over my latest piece for PunditWire I started to look at one of President Obama’s rhetorical tics: his use of the word ‘clear’. Take, for example, his 10 September statement on US policy towards ISIL/ISIS. Three hits! Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not “Islamic.” Our objective is […]
Now and again I give presentations to schools on Lessons for Life. These boil down to some simple ideas: Things grow Keep your balance Be honest Don’t be stupid Guard your reputation A good way to illustrate most of these ideas is to present a lively example of someone thinking he’s been […]
This ever-interesting subject is featured in my e-book, Speechwriting for Leaders. Coming to your tablets soon, I hope. Here’s part of what I say: How do you achieve that strong start? For a speechwriter it’s mainly about words. But a speaker engages an audience on many different levels simultaneously: eyes, […]
As regular readers know, for several years now I have been writing regular articles for London’s DIPLOMAT magazine. The general idea is to talk about diplomacy in a light-touch but accessible way, with ideas and themes of interest to both professional DIPLOMAT readers and anyone else who comes along. Here is […]
In dismal times like this one’s mind invariably goes back to James Thurber, the wonderful mid-C20 American cartoonist and humorist (sic). Here he is describing an unusually dim but extra burly Polish-American student grappling to answer a VERY simple question: One day when we were on the subject of transportation […]
Ah. The football season comes round again. To get in the right frame of mind you just can’t see this one often enough. But try listening to the different language styles, starting with characteristic British understatement and then accelerating in intensity… Wonderful.
I have finished a more or less first full draft for my first book (an e-book in fact) provisionally called Speechwriting for Leaders. The idea is to do something that few if any other speechwriting and public speaking books have done, and look at speechwriting from three angles, where the […]
My piece at Telegraph Comment on Baroness Warsi’s resignation letter prompts two broad flows of e-comment: you are mad/petty/vindictive/sexist/racist/generally revolting for criticising her grammar when people in Gaza are dying well said – she showed (again) what poor judgement she has The point that I might have emphasised more clearly is […]
