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(N.B. The entries
listed in italics include video clips or links to video
clips):
JULY 2010
•
Memoirs. bloody
memoirs!
•
Can Labour afford to back the Ed
Milibandwagon?
•
Another chance to compare the Labour
leadership candidates' communication
skills
•
Listen with mother Mandy: monarch-maker,
Maggie-mimic or megalomaniac?
•
Former MP puts Horse Manure House on the
market for £1.5 million
•
Compare BBC interviews with Labour
leadership candidates in ascending order of
height
•
Good news from the BBC's revamped
website: Mandelson embedded!
•
Fidel Castro's
oratory
•
Bad manners from Blatter as he bags
limelight to present the World
Cup
•
The rise of Chomsky and the fall of
grammar
• Rhetoric, neutrality and controversy in
the Queen's speech to the United
Nations
•
Crisis management PR: important lessons
from an interview on the BP oil
disaster
JUNE
2010
•
Welcome to the USA!
•
Is the US landing card the most
ridiculous questionnaire of all
time?
•
Where can you get a backwards-pointing
baseball cap?
• Harriet Harman's reply to today's budget:
not bad but still room for
improvement
• World Cup referee treats 100% of a
player's communication as
'non-verbal'
• World Cup football: Germany v.
Greece
• Time to level the playing field by moving
the goal posts
• Ethnic cleansing beyond the grave in
former Yugoslavia
• INTERLUDE: Normal service will be resumed
as soon as possible
•
Cameron's prime-ministerial debut at PMQ
and his choice of a worrying
adverb
MAY 2010
•
Michael Gove: calling all teachers,
governors and parents
•
A model resignation speech by David
Laws
•
Academies, academies academies: Michale
Gove's 3 Rs?
•
Why Black Rod knocks 3 times & why
pintless rituals aren't always as pointless as they
seem
•
Is Nick Robinson pompous and patronising
- and if so, why?
•
Hillary Clinton warns North Korea of
'consequences' (again)
•
Labour leadership: "Mirror mirror on the
wall, who's the most bourgeois of us
all?"
•
Labour leadership candidates share the
same hymn sheet, the same speechwriter or the same
fear?
• A solution to the pressing neeed for a
new Tory logo
•
David Miliband trips up on the
teleprompter
•
Another packet of mustard powder from
Lord Triesman
•
It was Brown's last minute speeches wot
might have won it - if only he'd done it
sooner
•
Miliband the younger speaks of Miliband
the elder
•
How UKIP's dodgy dealings helped to
defeat horse manure expenses MP
•
Constitutional change will depend on
architectural change
•
Exit poll denial (and a handy tip for
pollsters)
•
Election day and the joy of
voting
•
Election Night 1992: "the Conservatives
have lost their overall majority" - Gordon
Brown
•
Likewarm support for Brown from cabinet
minsters during his speech
yesterday?
•
At last: the first sign of passion and
audience excitement in an election
speech
•
Anti-Brown & pro-Cameron bias in
Dimbleby's repetition of TV debate
questions?
•
BBC website provides a superb resource
for students of the TV debates
•
The Art of the Public
Address
•
Cutaways as the nearest thing to applause
in the TV debates
APRIL
2010
•
More PowerPoint election 'news' from the
BBC
•
Brown speaks and the BBC doesn't tell you
what he says
•
Local election news: is the horse manure
coming home to roost?
•
The day Mandelson assumed that the TV
debates (& election) would be
two-sided
•
Is the TV debate ban on applause holding
up because we're obsessed with following
rules?
•
Will the first leader to break down the
ban on applause be declared the night's
winner?
•
Silent speeches by party leaders: the
wallpaper of television news
coverage
•
How did Sky News become the LibDems of
the TV debate broadcasters?
•
The problem for two opponents in
three-sided TV debates
•
What's wrong with a 'hung parliament' if
that's what the electorate votes
for?
•
Did the TV debaters tell too many
stories?
•
The 76 rules of engagement for the TV
debates - and a competition to keep you
awake
•
Before we watch the debates, has anyone
seen or heard any proper speeches
yet?
•
Half a century of
skiing
•
Is James Naughtie the most long-winded
interviewer in broadcasting
history?
•
Perfect book for April Fools Day: 300
pages of Gordon Brown's speeches
MARCH
2010
•
Blair speaks and the BBC tells you what
he said
•
Vince Cable shows how 'Yah-boo politics'
can win victories for LibDems
•
Budget eve message from Alistair Dariling
at the crossroads
•
The swinging ball of death: another
example of using objects as visual
aids
•
Media News: a decision is not going to be
made
•
Using 'clap on the name' to introduce a
speaker
•
How NOT to introduce a
speaker
•
Brown may plan to 'keep going' but Mrs
Thatcher never said she'd go 'on and on and
on'
•
Nick Clegg defies Rory Bremner (and
me)
•
Sales, showbiz and
speaking
•
Murder most foul: story-telling in
conversation
•
How to prepare a televised speech, Part
(3): clothes, voice, face &
furnishings
•
Someone else has noticed the obsession
with graphics on BBC news
programmes
•
BBC Radio 5 Live interview on the TV
election debates
•
Michael Foot's memorable
oratory
• How to prepare a televised speech, Part
(2): script, statistics &
teleprompter
• St. Dave's Day competition (Dydd Gŵyl
Dewi Sant cystadleuaeth)
FEBRUARY
2010
•
Time the Tories learnt from Mrs
Thatcher's stage managers
•
Bleak news from the bush: Kenya one year
later
•
How to prepare a televised speech, Part
(1): appearance, posture &
content
• Bleak news from the bush: Kenya one year
later
•
30th anniversary of 'Yes Minister' - and
a top tip for public speakers
• PM apologises!
• The 'snakes & ladders' theory of
political communication strikes
again
•
Did 'The Godfather' feature the longest
pause and most blatant lie in the history of
movies?
•
BAFTA award winners'
speeches
•
You can't judge what's in Nelson
Mandela's book by its cover
•
A weep in politics
•
Gordon Brown's dirty dozen (as confessed
to Piers Morgan)
•
Why does 'The Times' think Brown's
interview has 'eroded the dignity of his
office?
•
Piers Morgan interviews Gordon Brown:
shades of Michael Aspel & Margaret
Thatcher?
•
Nelson Mandela's speech on the day he was
released from prison
•
You can't judge a book by its
cover
•
Business Communicator of the Year
2010
•
Snakes, ladders and the folly of Q-A
campaigning
•
The day when Mrs Thatcher apologised
(twice) for what she said in an
interview
•
Nobel Prize for Economics (& Atkinson
Award for Imagery): Joseph
Stiglitz
•
Televised debates about televised debates
really would be worth watching
•
New Statesman on political speeches and
speechwriting
•
Translation News: Выступать легко: Все, что вам нужно знать о речах и презентациях
•
Ronald Reagan's master class on how to
cope when the teleprompter lets you
down
•
400th post: Oratory and the Sound of
Music
•
Claptrap the movie
(revisited)
JANUARY
2010
•
Rare video clip of a politician giving 5
straight answers to 5 consecutive
questions
• The best awards ceremony acceptance
speech?
• TV Debate Claptrap: a warning to those
cooking up rules for the leaders’
debates
• Senator Scott Brown shows hw to use a
newspaper as a visual aid
• Will the 2010 UK general election be the
first one to leave us speechless?
• Blogger video bug news (i.e.
none)
• Blogger video
problem
•
Martin Luther King Day – and a reminder
of how to use rhetoric to convey
passion
• Date and Scrabble dictionaries as
inspirational aids to
speechwriters
• Some of us are still waiting for an apology –
for Gordon Brown’s raid on
pensions
•
Vowels, voters and the voice of
authenticity: the leadership case for Andy
Burnham
•
Political speeches can still make a big
difference – like changing the date of an
election
•
Andy Burnham declares his candidacy for
the Labour leadership
• ‘Let there be love’ – a case of mistaken
identity
• Two more straight answers from Mandelson
– about failed coups and the PM’s
rages
• Brown & Harman: cabinet
makers!
•
Mandelson gives two straight answers to
two of Paxman’s questions!
• Gordon Brown’s plotting comes home to
roost again
•
Do interviews ever deliver anything but
bad news for politicians and boredom for
audiences?
• New year reviews: 8 reasons for buying
one of my books
DECEMBER
2009
•
Putin’s putrid
prose
•
Happy Christmas to all my readers –
regardless of language &
gestures!
•
Linguistic differences & non-verbal
behavior: the mysterious case of
gestures
•
Christmas circulars and the rise of
undisciplined writing in the digital
age
• Why does a government department force
visitors to watch Sky News in
silence?
• Financial regulators were ‘party
poopers’
•
Dr Cable’s ‘medical’ diagnosis of our
economic problems
• The Orwell Award 2010: Request for help
from readers
•
Is there someone who doesn’t want us to
see ‘Life after death from
PowerPoint’?
• Phone box becomes the world’s smallest
library & a worldwide news
story
• Basil’s book hits the headlines
again
•
Steve Jobs shows how to time the changing
of slides in a presentation (and how not
to)
• Speechwriters’ Christmas drinks & a
speech worth watching
NOVEMBER
2009
•
Dubai: the beginning of the end of
feudalism?
• Sounds of silence
•
Christmas competition: what did Santa say
before ‘Ho-ho-ho’?
• Authors versus publishers in the digital
age
•
Hypnotic eyes
• The enormity of my debt to Tony Benn –
without whom …
•
An example of rhetorical virtuosity from
rhetoric denier Tony Benn
• Rhetorical denial and the mysterious case
of Tony Benn
• Road signs of the
week
•
Brain drain again?
•
Claptrap 10: Academic
acclaim?
• Carnival time in
Somerset
• Basil’s book launch
• Attacking a politician’s spelling and
handwriting: fair play or dirty
trick?
• ‘Here today, gone tomorrow’ politician
walks out of interview with Robin
Day
• The day Mandelson walked out of an
interview rather than answer a question about Gordon
Brown
•
Humorous political speeches from 30 and
50 years ago
•
Guy Fawkes prevented some of us from
enjoying bonfire night
•
Does your credibility improve when you
admit ignorance?
• Another classic TV interview (with Gerald the
Gorilla)
OCTOBER
2009
• Whom are we not remembering with our
poppies?
• Tips for new
bloggers
• Question Time as entertainment: the Not
the Nine O’clock News version
• Why isn’t Question Time as entertaining as it
used to be?
• Claptrap 9: Broadcasters’ bile and SDP
sulks
• Question Time wooden spoon: Jack
Straw
• Don’t put the clocks back
(again)
• How rhetorical techniques work: an
example from last night’s Question
Time
• How often do politicians watch
television?
•
Steve Jobs shows how to use an object as
a visual aid
• A voting system where everyone gets what
no one wants
• Churchill’s perfect timing of his ‘iron
curtain’ gesture
• The ‘iron curtain descended from Russia
via Goebbels to Churchill
• Just who does Lord Adonis think he
is?
• Noble noses in the
trough
•
Contrasting reactions to Cameron’s
‘poverty moment’
•
Claptrap 8: Sparks in the
background
• Claptrap 7: On
location
• UK Speechwriters’ Guild conference
video
• Think twice before you read or
write
• Words really do matter: Majorspeak
revisited
• Monty Python’s take on the expenses
scandal
• An important but elusive asset for
British political party leaders
• Who were represented by the UK’s
political parties 50 years
ago?
•
Surfing applause was Cameron’s high spot
too
• Cameron’s conference speech high spot:
standing ovation for ‘surfing
applause’
• Cameron’s conference sound bite:
‘compassionate conservatism’
• I was wrong about Cameron looking at
screens
• Tory PR on the eve of Cameron’s speech:
gaffe pr master stroke?
• George Osborne + Chris Grayling =
Geoffrey Howe
• Does YouTube oppose the Tories and
support UKIP?
• The barmy Tory backdrop disappears &
reappears
•
What a peculiar Tory conference
backdrop
• Surely it’s time someone coached Cameron
to use a teleprompter
• Boris Johnson’s funny
bits
• Claptrap 6: An offer I couldn’t
refuse
• Reading between the lines of ‘Labour
Vision’
•
What do Harriet Harman and Sybil Fawlty
have in common?
• The hateful Daily
Mail
SEPTEMBER
2009
• Gordon Brown on the morning after the
night before
• Gordon Brown: The way he told
them
• Brown surfs applause (briefly) before
reverting to type
• Was it Mandelson’s self-deprecating
humour that won the day for
him
• If Mandelson has to struggle to win
applause, what are the Labour Party faithful
saying?
• Why doesn’t anyone warn politicians about
becoming autocue automatons?
• Gordon Brown goes walkabout
(again)
• Anniversary of a year of
blogging
• Why are there so many quotations on
Twitter?
• Methinks Labour doth protest/spin too
much
• What’s wrong with saying
“Hi”?
• Clegg’s conference speech: ‘definitely
OK, absolutely fine, without any doubt not
bad’
• 25 years on and all I remember about the
day is baldness and chewing gum
• Beware of mobile phones and 5
part-lists
• Not the LibDem Conference –BBC website
news
• Claptrap 5: In the right places at the
right times
• Not the LibDem Conference in
Bournemouth
• Open course on
speechwriting
• Gordon Brown tries out a 4-part list at
the TUC
• Edmund Stoiber: a charismatic
Bavarian?
• Why is Mr Brown bothering to speak at the
TUC?
• The TUC, where ‘fings aint wot they used to
be’
• Einstein ‘chalk & talk’ competition
results
• Pre-conference season
conference
• Claptrap 4: How to get a book
published
• Should the BBC be encouraging people to surf
the net during work time?
• Claptrap 3: News leaks out of the lecture
theatre
• Einstein ‘chalk & talk’ competition
reminder
• Claptrap 2: Eureka!
•
Claptrap 1: The
movie
•
TRAILER: Claptrap – the
movie
• Is this blog ‘LibDem’ or
‘non-aligned’?
•
Blog award from Total
Politics
AUGUST
2009
•
Obama on Kennedy got more applause than
‘normal’
• Tabloid tirade about Ted Kennedy from the
Daily Mail
• PowerPoint on BBC Radio
Scotland
•
Joe Biden’s moving tribute to Edward
Kennedy
• The Banksy exhibition at Bristol
Museum
• Einstein ‘chalk & talk’
competition
• On the death of Edward Kennedy: “the
dream shall never die”
• What’s ‘news’ about Gordon Brown not
answering a question?
• Mehrabian’s moans about the
myth
• Verdict after four weeks on
Twitter
•
The ‘detective story’ principle and
puzzle-solution formats
• Showing what you mean: more from
Professor Sir Lawrence Bragg
•
A Nobel prize winner’s view on slides
versus ‘chalk & talk’
• PowerPoint and the demise of Chalk &
Talk: (3) Glimmers of hope
•
PowerPoint and the demise of Chalk &
Talk: (2) The lost art
•
PowerPoint and the demise of Chalk &
Talk: (1) The beginning of the end
• Body Language news from
Germany
• Dreaming of sex costs the nation £7.8bn a
year: the cost of boring
presentations
• No smoke without
ire
• Mrs Clinton’s gem for interview
collectors
• Observing England’s cricket team in the
face of defeat
• Guardian ahead of
record?
• PowerPoint program on BBC Radio
4
• To be or not to be: a question for
individuals or the state?
• BBC plug-a-book show slot for aging new
left author
JULY
2009
•
Thatcher had more teleprompter troubles
than Obama
• Jargon & gobbledygook refresher
course
•
How many numbers can you get into a
minute?
•
Will The Times be investigating Lord
Rees-Mogg’s House of Lords
expenses?
• Why is the MoD involved in planning Harry
Patch’s funeral?
• Clarke has more to say about Brown than a
few weeks ago
•
Book plugging news
•
Why doesn’t Amazon have a Spanish
site?
• Media debilitated by swine flu news
pandemic
• More standup comedy from Gordon
Brown
•
Standing ovation for Gordon Brown after
anecdotes about Reagan, Cicero and
Demosthenes
•
Gordon Brown’s tough decisions and/or
rehearsal for defeat
• White paint, red lights and fuel
conservation
• Are you ahead of reading this
post?
• Nudging in a more enlightened
direction
•
Moon rhetoric from Neil Armstrong, JFK
& Werner von Braun
• Rhetoric revival?
• Book plugging
• How to stay awake during a repetitive
ceremony
• BBC plug-a-book shows: how and why is so
much offered to so few?
•
Puzzle-Solution
formats
• BBC rediscovers the 'Lost Art of Oratory'
(again)
• Welcome to visitors from the BBC
website
• D-Day memorabilia from Normandy to
Lüneburg
• More on body language & non-verbal
behavior
• Guinea pigs
• Non-verbal
communication
• A commentator likely to keep his
job
• Non-verbal communication and
height
• Welcome to visitors from the BBC
website
• How to use video to study body language,
verbal & non-verbal
communication
•
Is the 'Daily Telegraph' borrowing from
blogs?
• More bad news for Gordon
Brown
• Translation and fantasies of global
domination
• Pious and expensive twaddle from strong
man Straw
• There’s no such thing as a boring
subject
JUNE
2009
•
Monty Python, conversation and
turn-taking
• Margaret Thatcher, body language and
non-verbal communication
• NLP: No Linguistic
Proof
• Body language and non-verbal
communication video
• The 250 posts
landmark
•
Another body language & non-verbal
communication cartoon
• 'Check against
delivery'
• Body language, non-verbal communication
and the myth about folded arms &
defensiveness
• Another expenses
dilemma
• The urgent need for EU directives on
tea-making and lunch times
• Expenses?
• Imagery worthy of Obama in speech by the
Governor of the Bank of
England
• News on BBC radio is sometimes very good
indeed
•
Dudley Moore’s ‘Little Miss Muffet’ by
Benjamin Britten
• BBC Television News slideshow
Quiz
•
No flies on
Obama!
• ‘Sound-formed errors’ and
humour
• BBC Television News informs, educates and
entertains without slides!
• Politician answers a question: an
exception that proves the
rule
•
Combining rhetoric and imagery to get
your point across
• Did the MP's manure come by
appointment?
• Interview techniques, politicians and how
we judge them
• Banksy officially on show in
Bristol
• Is the media no longer interested in what
goes on in parliament?
•
“Labour’s not for turning” – Peter
Hain
• Presidential
heights
• Why it suited Brown and Blair to take
House of Lords reform no further
• Monty Python’s Election Night
Special
• Euro-election coverage: was the BBC’s
graphical overkill a violation of its
charter?
• Lord Mandelspin strikes
again
• Brown does a better job than Obama at the
65th anniversary of D-Day
• How Caroline Flint gave the game away
about expecting a post in the
cabinet
• Gordon Brown’s honesty about the death of
New Labour
• D-Day 65th Anniversary (2): a reminder
for Sarkozy and a challenge for
Obama
• D-Day 65th Anniversary: (1) A British
soldier returns to Gold Beach
• The end of free
speech?
• Obama: Echoes of Berlin in
Cairo
• Inspiring speech for polling day by Peter
Sellers
• Pre-delicate hitches from the White
House
• Body language and non-verbal
communication
• 'Pre-delicate hitches' from Brown as he
avoids answering a question about the
Queen
• The end of the
beginning
• How NOT to use
PowerPoint
• Why has Gordon Brown become a regular on
the Today programme?
MAY 2009
•
BLOG INDEX: Sept 2008-May
2009
•
Ronald Reagan's moving tribute on the
40th anniversary of D Day
• Driving a car can make you look younger
than you really are
•
Planning to say 'um' and
'uh'
• The ‘delicacy’ of Mrs Clinton’s
‘consequences’ for North
Korea
• Clinton on North Korea: "There are
consequences to such actions"
• Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s Oscar acceptance
speech
• Obama’s nomination of Judge Sotomayor
received five times more applause than
‘normal’
• Two tips for David Cameron after today’s
speech on political change
• Bishops' attendance rates and allowances
in the House of Lords
• Climbing out of the
manure?
• Since when were Archbishops experts on
democracy?
• Disputing the meaning of
applause
• House of Lords expenses: Lord Rees-Mogg
on gravy trains
• House of Lords
expenses
• Goodbye from Mr
Speaker
• What a fine
Speaker!
•
What a poor
speaker!
• Sky Sports swindle
•
Is the MPs' expenses scandal a hidden
legacy of Thatcherism?
•
Rhetoric wins applause for questioners on BBC
Question Time
• Applause for Dimbleby's questions on BBC
Question Time
• The liveliest Question Time
ever?
• Why it's so easy for politicians not to
answer interviewers' questions - and what should be done
about it
• MPs expenses claims merely reflect
British attitudes towards home
ownership
• Well, well Wells!
• A prime minister who openly refused to
answer an interviewer’s questions
•
UK Speechwriters' Guild
• Gordon Brown's interview technique: the tip
of a tedious iceberg
• Eye contact, public speaking and the case of
President Zuma
• Chicago!
• Weatherization
• Notes from a large
continent
• Are there more longer words in American
English than in British English?
• Virgin mile-high poetry
APRIL
2009
•
The Turnip Prize
• What’s the difference between a flu
'pandemic' and a flu 'epidemic'?
• Oxford professor models
jeans
• A great source of videos for anyone
interested in speaking and
presentation
• A Tory leader's three evasive answers to
the same question
• Jobsworthy News: Council official to walk
along a path that doesn’t exist
• Was Kenneth in Wallanderland worth a
BAFTA?
• A Labour leader with no interest in
spin!
• David Cameron's attack on the Budget used
some well-crafted rhetoric
• Gordon Brown seems to agree that Labour
is ‘savage’ and ‘inhuman’?
• Poems for St George's
Day
• Inspiring banking imagery for Budget day
from Martin Luther King
•
Budget speech boredom and television news
tedium
•
When the young Paddy Ashdown surprised
himself by the power of his own
rhetoric
• Obama’s rhetoric identifies with Martin
Luther King but appeals to a wider
audience
•
A day when LibDems cheered at being told
they all read a broadsheet
newspaper
• Time for Gordon Brown to say "sorry" to
savers
• Burnham, Kinnock and the danger of
speaking in a sports stadium
•
Derek Draper – another psycho-therapist
who talks too much and listens too
little?
• A smear that never
was
•
Derek Draper breaks a basic rule of
conversation
• INTERLUDE
• Gordon Brown’s G20 address ignores an
important tip from Winston
Churchill
•
Is there an open-mouthed school of
acting?
MARCH
2009
•
Gordon Brown is finding the Jacqui Smith
expenses story more ‘delicate’ than he
says
•
‘The Lost Art of Oratory’ by a BBC
executive who helped to lose it in the first
place
• Another Tory speech that marked the
beginning of the end for a prime
minister
•
Rhetorical techniques and imagery in
Hannan’s attack on Brown – edited
highlights
• Did the media ignore Hannan because they
think speeches are bad television?
• Does Daniel Hannan’s attack on Brown tell
us what makes a speech memorable?
• UK media slowly wakes up to Daniel
Hannan’s speech
• Media Coverage of Daniel Hannan’s attack
on Gordon Brown
• It’s time Brown stopped recycling other
people’s lines
• Daniel Hannan v. Gordon Brown at the
European Parliament
•
Jargon and gobbledygook comedy
sketch
• Check the fixtures and fittings before
you speak
• Why haven't the Lib Dems learnt from
Obama’s use of the internet?
•
If Bill Gates doesn’t read bullet points
from PowerPoint slides
...
•
An imaginative innovation in a PowerPoint
presentation?
•
‘From Stalin to Mr Bean’: putting two
parts of a contrast in the right
order
• How to improve impact by sequence,
repetition and a rhetorical
technique
• Brown’s ‘poetry’ heads up news of his
speech to Congress
• Unexpected poetry in Gordon Brown's
speech to the US Congress
• The Gettysburg Powerpoint
Presentation
• Gordon Brown’s model example of how to
express condolences
FEBRUARY
2009
•
PowerPoint presentation continues to
dominate BBC News – courtesy Robert Peston
(again)
• The ‘magic’ of Oscar acceptance
speeches
• Does Mrs Clinton really know someone
everywhere she goes?
• Personality cult as an antidote to
tribalism?
•
Kenya holiday
reading
JANUARY 2009
• Interlude: normal service will be
resumed as soon as possible
•
Mirror, mirror on the wall, whose is the
fairest democracy of all?
• Rhetoric and imagery in President Obama’s
inauguration speech
• The good news from the House of
Lords
• Memorable lines in President Obama's
inaugural speech?
• The great camcorder
con-trick
•
Obama’s inauguration rhetoric won
approval for some uncomfortable
messages
•
Rhetoric and applause in Obama’s
inaugural speech as a measure of what the audience liked
best
• A line I don't want to hear in today's
speech by President Obama
• The enduring challenge and importance of
funeral orations
• Has talking the economy down become a
dangerous self-fulfilling
prophesy?
• Kate Winslet ignores Paul Hogan’s advice
to award winners
• Slidomania contaminates another BBC
channel
• How would Obama's rhetoric and oratory
sound from a London back street?
• Clinton, Palin and the legacy of Margaret
Thatcher
• Margaret Thatcher and the evolution of
charismatic woman: PART III The education of a female
orator
• Margaret Thatcher and the evolution of
charismatic woman: PART II ‘The Iron
Lady’
• Margaret Thatcher and the evolution of
charismatic woman: Part I Cultural & vocal
challenges
•
“May we bring hope” – 30 years since
Margaret Thatcher took office as prime
minister
DECEMBER 2008
• Ready made words for Mr Obama from a
previous president’s inaugural
speech
•
Neutrality in the Queen’s Christmas
speech
•
What did Santa say before “Ho, ho
ho!”
•
You don’t have to be Barack Obama to use
rhetoric and imagery
• High-risk practical joke for an office
Christmas party speech
• End of year poll on PowerPoint
presentations
• Obama’s rhetoric renews UK media interest
in the ‘lost art’ of oratory
•
Gordon’s gaffe
explained
•
The Office Christmas Party Speech: roads
to failure and success
• The Queen's Speech,
2008
• Rhetoric, oratory and Barack Obama's 'The
Speech', 2004
• "There's nothing wrong with PowerPoint -
until there's an audience"
•
What’s in a place
name?
NOVEMBER 2008
•
Content-free sermon by Alan
Bennett
•
50 years since Peter Sellers recorded his
memorable political speech
•
Talking the economy
up
•
Talking the economy
down
• Why lists of three: mystery, magic or
reason?
•
Tom Peters: High on rhetoric but low on
content?
•
Bobby Kennedy nearly got it right about
Obama
•
‘Reliable sources' on where Obama’s 'Yes
we can' came from
•
Will there be any ‘rhetorical denial’
from the Obama camp?
•
The Queen’s Speech: an exception that
proves the ruler
•
Rhetoric & imagery in Obama's victory
speech
•
Not Clinton, not McCain but
Obama
• How the BBC handled one complaint about
Ross
OCTOBER
2008:
• Another BBC News
Slideshow
•
Don't put the clocks
back
•
BBC Television News: produced for or by
morons?
• Experience and inexperience in presidential
campaigns
• Presidential debates – tedious television
but better than commercials
• A secret of eternal
youth?
• PowerPoint
Peston
• Hair today, win tomorrow: baldness and
charisma
• Pesky Peston?
• ConVincing Cable
• 'Mature, grown-up and statesmanlike' at
the lectern
SEPTEMBER 2008:
• Cameron takes to the lectern in a
crisis
• Objects as visual
aids
• Powerpoint comes to
church
• Mediated speeches -- whom do we really
want to hear?
• Wisdom of
forethought?
• Time for Cameron to surf
applause?
• Did Gordon Brown take my
advice?
• Eternity, eternity and
eternity
• More tips for Gordon
Brown
• Tips for Gordon Brown's conference
speech
