You’ve got to love Vladimir Putin haven’t you? OK, Probably not. And maybe have some sympathy with him? OK, definitely not. But you have to admit that he is bloody funny. Asked to comment, in a generally testy press-conference, on China’s huffy fit about Liu Xiaobo receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace, (well he won’t actually receive it,…
I went to a speechwriter’s conference last year- The UK Speechwriter’s Guild event, in Bournemouth, and I saw Charles Crawford speak. I didn’t know of him and was intrigued and interested to find out that he’s a very experienced diplomat of the first rank. (Does one ever become an ex-diplomat?) His subject was fresh, full…
Andrew Marr, of the BBC, is becoming one of the hardest to watch ‘car crash’ presenters in the UK. He’s finely poised between horribly self-conscious and excruciatingly self-loving and I can only watch him with my hands over my eyes, through the gaps in my trembling fingers. It’s not him as a person that I object to,…
When you’re pretty good at something it can be easy to get into a comfortable spot and stay there. It happens to me about once a week, when I’m sitting there thinking, ‘That went rather well. God I’m good…’ and for those 15 seconds of warmth and complacency, all is rather nice with the world….