My foray to Geneva last week to give a two-day Speechwriting in Action masterclass to international officials went well: The workshop you facilitated was truly exceptional. The drastic improvement one could observe from one day to another was more than convincing My instincts did not let me down when I […]
There is a veritable tsunami of interest in my training/coaching skills as the World’s Leading Diplomatic Speechwriter ©. Tomorrow I fly to Geneva to give a two-day course on Speechwriting in Action to a group of international officials who have the tough job of writing speeches for some of the […]
Here is a towering example of modern American freewheeling public speaking. Bruce Sterling shares with us in a ramblingly insightful way all sorts of ideas and insights about technology and its impact on us. This sort of thing would shrivel and die if you attempted to write it down in advance. […]
My new piece at Commentator on how these new press ‘regulations’ might or might not tackle ‘egregious practices’: So we have no lack of sanctions in this area, formal and informal. Just as we have the strictest laws against killing people. Yet in a country of some 60 million people […]
Back from sharing with the Croatian Diplomatic Academy some training thoughts on Lobbying and Negotiating in the European Union. With the Cyprus drama helpfully unfolding before our startled eyes. These fiendishly complex financial/banking negotiations are impossible for normal people to follow, although anyone following my Twitter feed will have seen […]
Just back from this year’s Churchill Public Speaking Competition for schools at glorious Blenheim Palace. The format is interesting – and oddly difficult. Each school has a Chairperson, Speaker and Questioner. Within a timeframe of some ten minutes the Chair has to introduce the school and the team, then hand […]
I am pleased and honoured to tell you that I have been accepted as part of the Punditwire team. Punditwire is a US website featuring the views of many top American speechwriters on current events.The list of contributors is daunting. A group of fine people from many different shades of […]
Good idea. An online English grammar test over at the Guardian. But what’s this? I got one wrong!? Identify which of the following nouns are abstract and/or collective 8. Pride Abstract Collective Abstract and collective I gave the answer as being Abstract. According to the site the […]
Before the Internet how would we ever have been able to read a magnificent analysis by James Daily of the contract presented to Bilbo by the dwarves? The contract in the book is short and to the point. The film version (for padding) is far longer and a lot more […]
If you shoot someone and kill them. you are said to shoot them dead. But this can cause all sorts of grammar difficulties: “Police shoot dead homeless man“. Does that mean the police shot a homeless man and killed him? Or does it mean that a homelsss man was dead […]
