UPDATE This piece below (“Short, pithy, packed with more wisdom than you find in bloviations ten times the length”) has been picked up by the Browser Here is my latest piece over at Commentator, looking at the startlingly poor performance by a clueless State Department spokeswoman when asked to […]
I expect that very few readers here have heard of Helena Wolinska-Brus. Here she is. A Polish Jewish woman (or even a Jewish Polish woman) who narrowly escaped death in the Warsaw Ghetto and went on to become a ruthless post-WW2 Stalinist prosecutor, sending various Polish patriots to their murky […]
The latest European Speechwriters Network event in London has passed off well. Many top names from the world of British and wider speechwriting (Phil Collins, Max Atkinson, Martin and Martha Shovel) and others did their stuff. I was pleased to meet Denise Graveline, over from the USA. She has two […]
I have rambled on here on many occasions about how we all grapple increasingly badly with Complexity. I take my hat off to Kevin Williamson over at National Review Online for this magnificent readable analysis of just that issue. He explains why failure is vital to success, and why no […]
This is to let everyone know that ADRg Ambassadors LLP is now renamed The Ambassador Partnership LLP with a completely new (and simpler) website. Basically, after I left the FCO and qualified as a professional mediator, the idea emerged of setting up a new and unique distinguished panel of ambassador-mediators. […]
So much going on these days it is scarcely worth bothing to opine on it all. The Nigel Lawson call for the UK to think seriously about leaving the EU is a huge shift. The Unthinkable is being Thought. The US and Russia are trying to get the warring factions […]
My foray to Geneva last week to give a two-day Speechwriting in Action masterclass to international officials went well: The workshop you facilitated was truly exceptional. The drastic improvement one could observe from one day to another was more than convincing My instincts did not let me down when I […]
There is a veritable tsunami of interest in my training/coaching skills as the World’s Leading Diplomatic Speechwriter ©. Tomorrow I fly to Geneva to give a two-day course on Speechwriting in Action to a group of international officials who have the tough job of writing speeches for some of the […]
Here I am again, this time quoted in the Daily Telegraph on the always interesting subject of Balkan apologies: Charles Crawford, a former British ambassador to Belgrade, said the language used by Mr Nikolic represented a drastic change from his previous questioning of the scope of the atrocity. Coming a […]
Here’s my Commentator piece on that important Serbia/Kosovo/EU deal. Thus: Kosovo did better on symbolism than substance. It won agreement that Serbian officials in the municipalities concerned would henceforth be paid by Pristina, not Belgrade, and come under Pristina’s overall legal and political authority. And by the very fact of […]
