Alert! Google! An email has arrived from someone claiming to be a "Google Accounts Trust & Safety Authenticator": We regret to inform you that, starting from November 2011, Your Account will no longer allow you to send or welcome messages, files and pages due to malicious and spy wares activities detected on […]
In case you haven’t seen it already, here is my latest DIPLOMAT article – this one on the flawed first principles underlying the EU’s current problems. It considers several basic principles of the way the EU works and notes that the current crisis is so painful because it is putting […]
Spotted in an office block just off Edgware Road in central London this week. (Ooops – earlier spelling mistake corrected)
Welcome readers from Steyn Online The Orwell Prize have put out a fascinating statement on the J Hari affair. The Council considered one article submitted by Hari in 2008, ‘How multiculturalism is betraying women’ (The Independent, 30 April 2007), on the basis of the evidence which had been received. […]
I am entranced not only by the sound of my voice, but also by the sight of it. Here once again is my contribution to the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge, describing my long and ever-fascinating diplomatic career. Many points of interest here, including on South Africa’s not-so-peaceful transition away from […]
Here’s David Murray, editor of Vital Speeches of the Day, giving sharp-eyed observations on the UK Speechwriters’ Guild conference last week: Many of these 67 speechwriters from Britain, Scotland, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Holland and Denmark told me their speakers wouldn’t go for the kind of intimate, personal, emotional authenticity […]
Back from the 2011 UK Speechwriters’ Guild annual conference in Bournemouth. Thoughts. The conference was preceded by an interesting new initiative, the first UK Business Speaker of the Year competition. It was won in a canter by Phillip Khan-Panni, whose superb voice and timing demolished the other competitors. More importantly, insofar as […]
Another tiresome night in hospital (at least until 0330 or so) getting treatment for a horrible cough. I had a saline nebulisation which seems to amount to spraying my nose with misty sea water. Rather bracing. Feeling better now. Off tomorrow to the 2011 UK Speechwriters Guild conference in Bournemouth on […]
GCSEs: sloppy grammar will cost pupils’ one in 10 marks Pupils face losing more than one in 10 marks in their GCSEs for poor spelling and grammar amid fears that too many teenagers start work with poor literacy skills. Helpful story and excellent government policy-shift. But amazing how the Telegraph’s […]
Sign up for the UK Speechwriters’ Guild 2011 Conference in Bournemouth. List of speakers and themes are here. I am leading a session on Writing Speeches in English for Non-Native Speakers. Last year’s event was impressive. If you are at all interested in learning a lot about speechwriting, public speaking and […]
