A new award is launched! This time for UK Business Speaker of the Year. With prizes! Thus: Anyone over 18 years can take part, and all you need to do is send a 60 second audition video to us explaining your ‘inspirational business message for our times’ Hmm. Perhaps I […]
Thanks to the democratic miracle of #Twitter I have ended up in an unlikely place, namely the website of Labour Teachers (Labour at the chalkface). I was pointed in this direction by a Tweet picking up on my Commentator piece about teaching grammar. And there I find a really good […]
Here is our old friend Robert Fisk showing what a great war reporter he is: I’ve been increasingly discomfited by all these reporters in their blue space-suits, standing among and interviewing the victims of war, who have no such protection. I know that insurers insist correspondents and crews wear this […]
Fame! My piece on Speechwriting and Spontaneity has been picked up by leading US speechwritings experts Inkwell Strategies: The crux of Crawford’s argument is that speakers and their audiences value authenticity above all else. The best way to achieve that, he says, is to craft a speech in a way […]
Here’s my new piece over at Huffington Post UK on the ever fascinating subject of Speechwriting and Authenticity (and Spontaneity). It was prompted by this one by Max Atkinson which obliquely referred to my presentation at the recent UK Speechwriters’ Guild event and suggested that I was one of several […]
Warning! This site will be down for maintenance around lunchtime on 14 March. So there we are.
Off to give some specialist skills training in The Hague on Negotiation, including a session on Ambiguity. A good place to start is UNSCR 242, where differences over the absense of the word ‘the’ in the English version but not the French version continue to bedevil the Middle East peace […]
I fear that the Prime Minister was ill-advised to allow his name to be attached to an astonishly bad and strange letter sent to ‘Presidents’ Van Rompuy and Barroso by twelve national EU member state leaders. Parts of it was written by the EU’s version of our old friend the […]
When we look at the savage ‘cuts’ in public spending (not), why not start at the top? Namely the FCO’s busy anti-bullying industry? This is what you taxpayer suckers are spending your money on! Powerpoint slides for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office describing what to do to avoid bullying or […]
What a nice day. Just had a most positive and friendly email out of the blue from Ivana Nohel, who illustrates my articles for DIPLOMAT magazine. As you can see, she’s very artistic. Here’s an example of her work for a piece I did on War Crimes. And here’s her self-portrait. Whoooooosh!
