Part of the problem we have with talking about anything is achieving an agreed sense of perspective on what we are talking about. Recall my piece about cycling and risk: It all boils down to our old friend ‘striking a balance’. As a society we have proclaimed that ‘using a handheld […]
A question about top-end public speaking technique. Say you’re President of France. You are visiting Bosnia a few months after the US President was there. He made a winning, moving keynote speech. You want to do the same. Or, ideally, do much better. How to set about this task? You […]
That row in Poland about my speechwriting support for former foreign Minister Radek Sikorski rumbles on inconclusively. See eg here (where they impertinently add a year to my age) and here. Excellent that Hungarians are following this saga with keen interest. And Czech that! Here are some extended thoughts from me about […]
At last. My new ebook Speechwriting for Leaders is out. Hurrah. General blurb and a link for international readers here. UK folk can (and must) buy it through Amazon here. Meanwhile over in Poland – as if by magic – a vivid row has erupted over the fact that I […]
UPDATE: An interesting take on all this by Marc Champion – does Vladimir Putin in fact want a deal? * * * * * Today I watched online most of the three hours of Vladimir Putin addressing a huge media throng in Moscow. Here’s my thoughts as given to the […]
Almost there with my ebook. Thanks for your patience. We recently noted two consecutive movie speeches offering very different techniques for engaging with an audience. Yes, I mean Black Dynamite! I have been pointed to this other superb pair of consecutive movie speeches, this time offering substantive policy and moral […]
I’ve been writing my new piece for PunditWire on Vladimir Putin’s long State of the Nation speech. I’ll link to it when it goes up. The speech was a full 1500 words longer in the English version, showing how the Russian language is good at using endings of words to […]
The magnificent, consistently funny blaxploitation spoof movie Black Dynamite is an unexpected source of sophisticated public speaking insight. The hero of the film is Black Dynamite himself, a laconic unstoppable African-American kung fu master who is enraged when hard drugs even get into the orphanage – yes, the orphanage – […]
Back from a lively session of specialist media training, featuring a no-holds-barred account of my own encounters with the media down the decades. Highlights included: my disastrous exchange with Peter Fabricius in South Africa on the day Mrs Thatcher resigned my first live broadcast on a global news network – […]
I haven’t ever published here before the full text of my legendary Chinese Alarm-Clock email about the then EU Budget negotiations that was leaked in late 2005 by someone senior (in the Treasury?) to the Sunday Times and caused a vast furore in Poland. It was a spoof speaking note […]
