I have always thought that in the global stakes of YouTube Crazy People in the Bath the Bosnians had a clear edge: Yet along come two genial Russians, who take things to completely new heights (or depths) in an, ahem, explosive fashion: Winners all! Clips such as this enliven any […]
My latest Telegraph piece on Ukraine is up on the DT website: Russia’s “principled demands” are unchanged: that Ukraine stay independent of all “blocs”; that eastern areas of Ukraine get radical autonomy allowing them to have special economic relations with Russia; and that Ukraine kisses goodbye to Crimea. A settlement […]
Diligent readers will remember that now and then I argue with Brian Barder, another former Ambassador turned energetic contrarian. The Assange Saga in its early days gave one such exchange, where we disagreed over how far if at all the UK government might be within its rights to enter the […]
Does the Foreign Office discriminate against women diplomats, as evidenced by the fact that there has never been a woman Ambassador to Washington or Paris or the UN or EU? No. My latest piece at Telegraph Comment explains what is going on: Some 15-20 new “fast-stream” diplomats (those deemed capable […]
One of the few advantages of having Annoying Son home over the Uni holidays is that he draws one’s attention to unusual things. Such as martial arts legend Bruce Lee playing table-tennis. One of Lee’s famed movie techniques was to deploy to devastating effect the nunchaku weapon, two sticks whirling on a […]
Ah. The football season comes round again. To get in the right frame of mind you just can’t see this one often enough. But try listening to the different language styles, starting with characteristic British understatement and then accelerating in intensity… Wonderful.
One of the sharpest knives in the British Embassy in Moscow in the early 1990s was Christopher Granville. He was the first-ever UK diplomat to resign from the FCO to set up a new financial business in Russia. After various adventures he now is a leading member of the team at Trusted […]
I have finished a more or less first full draft for my first book (an e-book in fact) provisionally called Speechwriting for Leaders. The idea is to do something that few if any other speechwriting and public speaking books have done, and look at speechwriting from three angles, where the […]
One reader approves of my Warsi letter piece for the Telegraph: Thank you for your excellent piece on Baroness Warsi’s resignation letter. It is profoundly depressing to find such poor literacy and reasoning skills in anyone, let alone a senior government minister. What the country needs is government that is […]
My piece at Telegraph Comment on Baroness Warsi’s resignation letter prompts two broad flows of e-comment: you are mad/petty/vindictive/sexist/racist/generally revolting for criticising her grammar when people in Gaza are dying well said – she showed (again) what poor judgement she has The point that I might have emphasised more clearly is […]
