A Christmas Stocking 2020
– a commonplace selection by Brian Jenner
What it’s like giving a keynote on Zoom. And how might we do it better?
The Challenge
This week I gave a 20 minute keynote presentation to a speechwriting conference in Vilnius in Lithuania via Zoom from a studio in Southampton, England.
And introduction to The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton
Radio 4 is running a series of programmes about The Anatomy of Melancholy in the coming days. Here is a speech I wrote in the late 1990s about the book.
Robert Burton was a man who knew a thing or two about depression. He wrote three volumes, nearly 1500 pages, about its causes, symptoms and cures. His book is called The Anatomy of Melancholy, and he devoted almost his whole life to writing it. He was born in 1577, making him a contemporary of Shakespeare. He went to Oxford University in 1593, and never ventured much further than the library, until his death forty-seven years later.
New Oxbridge-style ‘speechwriting’ tutorials
Do you want to get better at speechwriting?
Most professional speechwriters learn on the job. They don’t have any formal training.
That works, over time, but during lockdown, I discovered a way to rapidly speed up the process.
‘Unorthodox’ and the challenge to Western liberalism
It’s been a very weird March.
We’ve gone back 50 years in less than 30 days.
‘Lockdown’ has returned me to my childhood.
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Performing, public speaking and personality – how you can use your ‘shadow’ to become a better communicator.
Over ten years ago I ran a business networking group for creatives.
It seemed to attract ‘conflicted’ people.
People who had a job – maybe working in a bank or an insurance company – but who had an artistic talent.
The Mastery of Self-Expression – My Experience
Who are you?
I’m a speechwriter, with a yearning to be more involved in public life.
I was told by a friend (a graduate of Sandhurst officer training) that I should do The Mastery of Self-Expression weekend. It was the best workshop he’d ever done. I trusted him, paid the fee and showed up, without doing much research into what I was letting myself in for.
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A Quirky Christmas Present – A Christmas Commonplace Book
My love of speechwriting is very much connected to my love of learning languages. I studied French, German, Latin and Russian at school. An indispensable tool for anyone learning a language is a vocabulary book.
I had narrow green exercise books in which I collected words with their definitions, with some trite quotations copied in the back.
Tape m’en cinq: Five reasons to join us for the 19th Speechwriters’ & Business Communicators’ Conference in Paris
1) The Greatest Literary Culture in the World Launched a Speechwriting Network Last Year
My Submission to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Oracy
I’ve made a submission to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Oracy. They’ve requested evidence to assess the value and impact of oracy education on social mobility, educational achievement, wellbeing and future employability.