Update Apologies for the earlier version – struggling with new voice recognition software… The chaotic rule of Col Gaddafi looks to have ended in predictable, chaotic circumstances. Contradictory reports are flooding in about what exactly has happened to Gaddafi, but it looks pretty safe to bet that something Pretty Bad […]
Foreign Secretary William Hague is trying to sort out the FCO after years of studied neglect by Labour. Here is his recent speech which describes the problems quite well (albeit in general terms) and sets out a plan for putting things right. Especially encouraging is his emphasis on basic technique. […]
Last week I attended the UK premiere of a new Polish film, Battle of Warsaw 1920. It gives a lurid and (inevitably) hugely simplified account of one of Europe’s greatest battles. As I left the cinema I found myself wrestling with a grim and unwelcome question. Had it been the worst […]
Looking at Stumbling and Mumbling’s personal blog profile I noticed this: What is your favourite poem? W.B Yeats’s Song of the Wandering Angus, as sung by Jolie Holland The lovely original poem is here, with Aengus not Angus in the title: … Though I am old with wandering Through […]
A former FCO colleague gets in touch: I’ve always enjoyed your telegrams when you were in the FCO and your blog since. Best compliment I ever got from a boss in the FCO was that I was the second best on paper he had encountered, after you! The legend lives on.
As you can see, I have succumbed to the need to try to earn some money from this blog and added a couple of advertising slots. I have written well over a million words here since 2007, which is a lot of time and effort to devote to a bemused […]
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. […]
Update carried also at the Commentator * * * * * Here is Ed Miliband’s Labour Conference speech today – in full. A bad idea to hand out to the print media the same version in micro-sentenced blank verse as used to help the delivery. It looks oddly like something 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 […]
