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(N.B. The entries
listed in italics include video clips or links to video
clips):
SEPTEMBER
2012
• Does Mitt Romney's mouth move faster than
his brain?
•
B- for the Duchess of Cambridge's second
speech (and/or her PR team)
•
A silent Hillsborough apology from The
Sun's current editor
•
A classic of barnstormng from Jennifer
Granholm, former Governor of
Michigan
• Mitt Romney's US = Unbearable
Smugness
AUGUST 2012
• Speeches in a common language for a
fistful of voters
• Assange speaks
out
• Great Britain has as many gold medals as
the Soviet Union
JULY 2012
• All Greek to me: but how much do native
speakers gesticulate?
JUNE
2012
• Down in the mouth about dental
costs?
• Treasury lamb to the Paxman
slaughter
• Aung Sn Suu Kyi joins a distinguished
club
• Daily Telegraph in two minds about the
quality of Jubilee oratory?
• High points for Prince Charles for his
speech to and on behalf of) his Mummy &
Daddy
• Royal Familiy
planning?
MAY
2012
•
Chariots of fire and adverts come to
Wells
• Laughs from Liberal
Lords
• More reign on its way from Prince
Charles
• Relaunching the coalition and the cost of
Etonian English?
• Sarkozy & Hollande both call for
'respect' for each other
• Putin, Pomp &
Circumcision
• Losing words from Clegg, Cameron and
Livingstone
APRIL
2012
•
Obama demonstrates how to time your
slides with what you're
saying
• Another startling interview: "I haven't
seen or heard what the PM said, but I agree with
it"
• The language 'surfacing' from James
Murdoch at today's Leveson Inquiry
• Are parents of young children fit to run
the country?
• Evidence that I would not have played
cricket for Yorkshire
• World exclusive: vintage video of famous
cricketers from the 1950s
• Tony Blair on masterful form in Newsnight
interview with Paxman
• The strange sound of North Korean
music
• Breaking News: Kim Jong-un can read and
speak
• Militant verb-avoidance in Miliband;s
latest speech
• Rowan Williams: Emperor, Archbishop or
Cambridge academic with no
clothes?
MARCH
2012
• An orator returns to the House of
Commons
•
Early childhood doubts about becoming a
farmer?
•
Kate makes her first speech as Duchess of
Cambridge
•
Clapping Clegg's condemnation of
economically rational
behaviour?
• WORLD EXCLUSIVE: First English
translation of Putin's victory
speech
• Scripted & unscripted presidential
victory speeches: Putin v.
Obama
FEBRUARY
2012
• Ed Miliband talks during his own speeches
set to music in Labour's latest
PPB
• News broadcast of speech read out in full
for 3 minutes: too much & too
inauthentic?
• Are all animals right or left
handed?
• To read or not to read: That is the
question for speechwriters - or is
it?
• Great speakers aren't always great
singers
• A new Manhattan in the
sand?
• Gaping models and open-mouthed actors:
which can first?
• How long-winded is Arabic and how much do
its native speakers gesticulate?
• UK Businness ommunicator of the year,
2012: Gillian Tett
• Is the sound of music on TV getting more
and worse?
JANUARY
2012
• Speaking of the moon: Gingrich v.
Kennedy
•
Obama's State of the Union speech: (2)
Enhanced by PowerPoint?
•
Obama's State of the Union speech: (a)
Behind the scenes with the
speechwriters
•
Birdsong: open-mouthed acting by a male
of the species
• Is it wise for Ed Miliband to play nakes
& ladders with Jon Snow?
•
The 'John Lewis economy': what to make of
today's speech by Nick Clegg?
•
Britons win gold and silver in
transatlantic rowing race: an omen for the
Olympics
•
A gentleman who is for turning: snakes or
ladders weekend for Ed Balls
•
Polish lawyer shoots himself while
waiting for Miliband's speech
•
The 'fluent but insincere and shallow'
Kelvin MacKenzie at the Leveson
Inquiry
• Michael Gove speech sends students to
sleep
• Interview exit strategies (3): Diane
Abbott's mobile phone to the
rescue
• Putin speechwriting competition result:
nepotism rules OK...
DECEMBER 2011
• Video clips of the month,
2011
• Does Nick Clegg's new year message work
for you?
• More gobbledygook from the Archbishop of
Canterbury
• Is there still time to learn from a video
of yourself speaking to an
audence?
• Does Ed Miliband's Christmas message to
the forces work for you?
• Prose for Putin: Christmas speechwriting
competition
• A blog for all
seasons
NOVEMBER 2011
• 700th blog post: English and the problem
of communicating with foreigners
•
Baby talk on BBC daytime
television
• Sepp Blatter lands on a racist
snake
• Rick Perry and the Spanish
InquisitionTV
• Presentation tip: beware of flip charts
on wheels
• Murdoch, the Mafia and the manufacture of
a misleading soundbite
• Communicator of the Year acceptance
speech: Hitchcock or Hogan?
• Toastmasters International UK &
Ireland: Communicator of the year,
2011
• LBJ elected on this day in 1964:
underrated president & underrated
speaker
OCTOBER
2011
• TV talk about prices: "£499" = a lot,
"4-9-9" = a little
•
Did Mr Lickley pause for longer than
usual at this point in the Tabak
trial?
•
Professional broadcasters should beware
of saying "um" and "er"
•
Effective broadcasters aren't always
effective public speakers: the case of Melvyn
Bragg
• Gaddafi as orator: a life in quotes -
with thanks to Al Jazeera
• A not very fantastic speech from Dr
Fox
• Two engaging women speakers from British
politics - and two models for powerful
women?
•
Imagery can take us to the frontiers of
science - via scissors, generals &
sentinels
• 50 years of Private Eye: a story of retail,
rejection & recognition
• The End of Simmer - with thanks to Steve
Jobs & Flipron
•
Cameron's too good a speaker to be
following Mrs Thatcher into the teleprompter
trap
• Swim or sink with the president of the
European Commission
• Osborne finds the Tories more
enthusiastic about the coalition than they were a year
ago
• The snake (interview) that did for
Nixon's reputation and the ladder (speech) that saved
it
SEPTEMBER 2011
• Are Labour's leading women better
speakers than Labour's leading
men?
• Did the BBC change its mind on
publicising the snake Miliband landed on
yesterday?
• Why did Labour members boo and clap when
Miliband mentioned Tony Blair?
• Stand-up comedy from Ed
Milband
• Andrew Neil plays snakes & ladders
with Ed Balls before picking up a
scalpel
• Ed Balls surfs applause - but don't
expect to see it on primetime TV
news
• A comic analysis of Nick Clegg's
rhetorical questions
• Clegg's conference speech: 1 plus and 2
minuses
• Politicians & broadcasters in the UK:
collaboration or
capitulation?
• Party conference season PowerPoint prize
competition
• In praise of Brian Jenner and the UK
Speechwriters' Guild
• Arabic speakers boo at names
too!
• What do the Liberal Democrats expect from
the 'return' of Dr Death (AKA David
Owen)?
• Our Masters' Voices then and
now
•
Curtain imagery from Winston Churchill
and John Major
AUGUST 2011
• Arabic speakers boo at names
too!
•
777: 7 Kindle books, 7 pluses and 7
minuses
•
Yvette Cooper's precisely timed response
to a contrast from Ed
Miliband
• Words of the week from a bereaved
father
• Horrible historian David Starkey has also
got it in for the Scots, Welsh &
Irish
• Cameron's "up & running" (twice in 50
seconds)
• Long-winded Latin strikes again - and
does it also mke people speak
louder?
• Spectacular holiday snap & video of
etna erupting
JULY
2011
• What went wrong with BBC Newsnight's
latest attempt to involve a studio
audience?
•
Do journalists working for Murdoch feel
like Peter Cook's take on working for
Beaverbrook?
•
Murdoch refuses to answer a question
about the 'News of the World' on Fox
News
•
News of the World bows out by hacking
into George Orwell - and misrepresenting what he
said
•
With video evidence like this from News
International, what are the police waiting
for?
•
James Murdoch backs Rebekah Brooks, but
not without pausing every 2
seconds
• 96% of BBC television news of
phone-hacking ignored the House of Commons
debate
• Phone-hacking debate brings speeches back
to our TV screens - at least for a few
hours
•
American woman rises to the occasion with
a speech on 4th July
•
Is bronze the best way to commemorate
Ronald Reagan?
•
Ed Miliband lands on a
snake
JUNE 2011
• Strike News: speeches inside, cameras
outside and a reporter gives us a
lecture
•
The Chinese people's premier: Wen Jiabato
speaks
•
Mrs Obama's (borrowed) Soweto
message
•
Ashdown on House of Lords reform: fine
speech, but...
•
Another King's Speech: "Syrian soldiers
& security personnel are
innocent
•
The King's Speech - Moroccan
style
•
How many numbers can you get into 20
seconds?
•
Why do our politicians bother to speak
when a press release will do the
job?
• Cameron on the NHS: 3 priorities (2006)
mutate into 5 big things
(2011)
• Why has British political oratory been
banished to the sidelines?
• Prime-time television news reading:double
act or solo performance?
MAY
2011
• 'The art of oratory is fast on the way
out': at last, some support from a top
journalist
•
Will Blatter's barmy contrast live on to
haunt FIFA?
•
President Obma's speech at Westminster
awrded a B-
•
Will Obama's speech tomorrow match up to
Reagan's Westminster masterpiece in
1982?
•
Body language revisited: tell-tale signs
from royal weddings
•
JFK's top tip for impressing foreign
audiences works well for the Queen in
Dublin
•
Televising the Supreme Court: one small
step towards a giant leap?
• Compromise or betrayal: truth or rhetoric
from Paddy Ashdown?
• Masterful mood changes in Obama's latest
masterpieces on Trump and Bin
Laden
APRIL
2011
• Standing ovation for a 15 year old:
education, education, education
revisited?
•
'Inward clutter' in the Archbishop of
Canterbury' Easter sermon
•
Gordon Brown: teaching, charity work or
the adrenalin of power?
•
Ronald Reagan at 100 by one of his
speechwriters
•
What does a 147 word sentence sound
like?
MARCH
2011
• Miliband makes a better speech but could
do with a better backdrop
• Memorable speeches i Berlin
revisited
• Miliband's naivity of youth strikes
again
• Berlin revisited
• How effective are Sky Newswall
presentations?
• Cameron's good
timing
• Results of the defend a doomed dictator
speechwriting competition
• Could Clegg improve is impact with better
speechwriting and rehearsal?
• Why I never signed the
ThatchCard
• What if?
• Using video in a presentation: 7 steps to
success
• Doomed DIctator Twitter Challenge: the
sound bite winners
• Doomed dictators speechwriting
competition: the judges & the
speeches
FEBRUARY
2011
• The target audience for a perfect Oscar
winner's speech
•
Defend a doomed dicatator speechwriting
competition
•
Dr Gaddafi comes to the rescue with a
real 'tour de force'
•
Cameron's objections to AV make a
powerful case for a more proportional system than
AV
• Why does the BBC commemorate Richard
Dimbleby with a televised lecture?
• What could/should be done about Oxbridge
in a deal on tuition fees?
• In praise of parliamentary
rowdiness
• The Big Society and the resurrection of
guilt-edged philanthropy?
•
UK Speechwriters' Guild awards: Geoff
Burch, Business Communicator of the Year,
2011
•
You don't need to speak Arabic to tell
that Mubarak isn't much of an
orator
• More 3-part lists and a touch of
management speak from Obama on
Egypt
• Always look on the bright side: the
Northern Lights, a cruise and a
conversation
JANUARY
2011
• Hoping it's "au revoir",
Perkins"
•
50 years since John F Kennedy asked not ...
(3) Modelled for the media
• 50 years since John F Kennedy asked not
... (2) Which lines were noticed on the
day?
• 50 years since John F Kennedy asked not
in his inaugural (1) Sounds of
silence
• NHS threatened with turmoil by Cameron's
3 priorities?
• Obama's memorial masterpiece in
Arizona
• Miliband does will with instant rebuttal
+ 3 things that Alan Johnson does
know
• Who says managers can't talk about
numbers without using slides?
• Labour leadership: form Welsh windbag to
Doncaster droner?
DECEMBER 2010
• Twelve video clips of the month,
2010
• England Ashes victories: 2010 &
1953
• PowerPoint Christmas circular competition
result
•
Anoraks's Corner: Two Christmas TV
speeches
• Last minute Daily Telegraph Christmas
Quiz
• 'Telegraph' or 'Sleazygraph': the ethics,
uses and results of covertly recorded
conversations
• What made Brian Hanrahan's famous
contrast so memorable?
•
Christmas Competition,
2010
•
Orwell Blog Prize 2011: a request for
help from readers
• Should prime ministers sing
songs?
• Naughtie's gaffe: C K & U sounds or
'Freudian slippage'?
• At the risk of blogging my own
trumpet...
• Blatter he bureaucrat or Blatter the
bully?
• WikiLeaks News: Are Vladimir Putin and
Vladek Schebal by any chance
related?
• Child of Thatcher or son of Brown: the
power of contrast strikes
again
NOVEMBER
2010
• Prince Andrew cool under fire on Sky News
- except he wasn't under fire at
all!
•
Ed's weekend
Miliramblings
•
Sarah Palin's North Korean slip of the
tongue: what we heard and what we'll make of
it
•
Blueprint for a truly representative
House of Lords
•
Thanks to Margaret Thatcher, 20 years on
from her resignation
•
Prince Charles knew what he said about
Camilla becoming Queen was extremely
delicate
• Was the royal engagement interviewer more
nervous than his
interviewees?
• 0% of viewers remember all the points
made in a BBC PowerPoint-style news
presentation
• Will any of this week's student
demonstrators get a peerage and an honorary
degree?
• What happened when a student demonstrator
met a former revolutionary in 1968
•
The cost of PowerPoint presentations
wastes the UK economy even more than I
thought
•
A competitor for the US landing card as
the most ridiculous questionnaire of all
time
•
Would Monty Python's merchant banker have
spent £1 on a poppy?
OCTOBER
2010
• You can fault Harman's 'ginger rodent'
jibe, but you can't fault her
rhetoric
•
Time to redesign poppy collectipn boxes
to increase donations to the British
Legion
• Free tips for speakers from behind the
Murdoch paywall
•
BIGBOARD: Are BBC PowerPoint style news
reports going from bad to
worse?
•
BBC Newsnight presentation by Paul Mason,
economics editor
•
Nick Robinson's rage video - and the
question of freedom of speech for
whom?
•
Osborne takes a leaf out of Gordon
Brown's bluffer's guide to budget
speeches
• Twittering journalists: the much followed
reluctant followers
•
Clapping out the conference
season
•
Conference season competition
results
•
BIG SOCIETY: little
applause
•
Delayed applause for Cameron's government
- from the Conservatives!
•
Delayed applause, poor speechwriting and
delivery strike again in George Osborne's
speech
• Tories 'Bomb Middle England' - by
Banksy
• What a peculiar Tory backdrop, Part 2:
What do the flags mean?
• Delayed applause for William Hague's
boast about being in
government
SEPTEMBER 2010
•
'Clap on the name': a practical tip for
Ed Miliband and/or his
speechwriters
• Delayed applause for Ed Miliband's claims
on the 'centre ground'
• Did David Miliband lose because he was
too old and experienced?
• Ed Miliband "gets it" in his bid to bond
with the brethren
• Labour Party leaders' acceptance
speeches: Neil Kinnock, 1983; Ed Miliband,
2010
• More lessons from Vince Cable's
speech
• Delayed applause for the coalition in
Vince Cable's conference
speech
• Party Conference season prize
competition
• Delayed applause at a key point in Nick
Clegg's conference speech
• 'Objects as visual aids': UK
Speechwriters' Guild Conference,
2010
• "We let it slip" -Governor of the Bank of
England
• Tony Blair can still deliver - even when
it's only a platitude!
• Why are there so many novels and
histories in the present tense?
• US Congress makes UK Prime Minister's
Question Time seem very
restrained
• The most extraordinary speech I've ever
seen!
• 20th 'LibDem' blog in the 2010 Total
Politics poll
• Sky News Labour leadership debate: how
much can you say in 20
secnds?
• How many corporate birds can you kill
with one PowerPoint presentation?
• Ed Miliband: 'no return to the 'tyranny
of New Labour or the tyranny of Old
Labour'
AUGUST 2010
•
Mandelson v.E. Miliband - and does the
noble lord read (& borrow from) my
blog?
• Rattling good tunes
• 70th anniversary of the Battle of
Britain: speeches by Churchill &
Roosevelt
• Body language on BBC Radio 4's 'Word of
Mouth'
• Fact & fiction about body language 3:
Do movement & gestures
distract?
• Fact & fiction about body language 2:
Does it matter what you wear or where you
stand?
• Fact & fiction about body language 1:
Folded arms, defensiveness and the Mehrabian
myth
• Legal gobbledygook & a lesson in US
history
• If you can't remember Vince Cable's best
lines. nor can he!
• Go back to your constituencies and
prepare for government
• Another example where 100% of
communication is 'non-verbal'
• Misspeaking, mistaken and
misleading
• 600 blogposts: thanks, reflections and
requests
• Gordon Brown's book of
speeches
• Davos meets Glastonbury: The UK
Speechwriters' Guild Conference
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
• 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
• 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”?
• 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
• 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
• 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
