A few days ago I posted this piece from Diplomatic Courier about the hopeless public speaking performance by the French and German Foreign Ministers in Sarajevo in 1997 (emphasis added): Where did the two countries’ diplomats organizing this event get things wrong? Basically, neither the Ministers’ respective offices nor their […]
I have opened a new writing flank with the fine US diplomatic publication Diplomatic Courier. Here is my first piece. It tells the tragic tale of the Franco-German speech disaster in Sarajevo in 1997, beginning as it mesans to continue: All happy speeches are alike. All unhappy speeches are different […]
I am locked in battle with the Royal Bank of Scotland over a footling issue with a credit-card. They sent me a card dated Jan 2014 that expires in Feb 2014. Shocking! Their Customer Service people have sent a long letter apologising for the letter and offering some small compensation […]
And here is a first part of an online discussion I’m having with Frances Coppola about The Morality of Atlas Shrugged: CC OK, now we start to disagree! There are of course miserable, over-written passages. But let’s also praise the wonderful writing and insight that are beyond remarkable for someone […]
I have written three pieces about South Africa, Nelson Mandela and all that. Two for the Commentator. The first here: South Africa’s peaceful transition to democracy was indeed a miracle that captured the imagination of people all over the world. Fine, soaring sentiments. And quite untrue. Between 1985 and 1996 […]
Over at the Ambassador Partnership we are busy developing our corporate diplomacy Technique portfolio. The broad offering is now something like this: Impact and Influencing • Key Principles of Impact and Influencing • Active Networking • Active Influencing Presentation Skills • Core Presentation Skills • Public Speaking with Impact • […]
A Polish friend draws my attention to this speech by FCO Minister of State David Lidington. It’s all about the European Union, delivered to a senior French audience earlier this week. Read the whole thing. To me as a speechwriting technician there’s something oddly ‘thin’ about it. It ticks the […]
In case you missed it, and I have done my best to miss it, there has been a puny but noisy row in the UK media over a piece in the Daily Mail that pointed out that Ed Miliband’s father, Ralph Miliband, was a communist whose ideas – has they […]
Readers here are too senior and subtle to spend too much time commenting on what appears. I also spare you the ravings of what seem to be new generations of Spam comments that are computer-generated to appear as if they might have been written by real people, and with the […]
Non-US readers may have missed the resignation speech by the energetically groping Mayor of San Diego, Bob Filner (Democrat). It’s not often that a speech by someone leaving office in high disgrace features ‘seal poop’. But this one does! Here is the full text: What I would like to leave […]
