A blazing star
Just remembered it’s November 5th, so I thought I would republish a smokey section from my contribution to the book Common Ground. My chapter – On a Monkey’s Birthday: Into the heart of Belloc’s Sussex...
View ArticleSome problems with ‘tone of voice’
Great little vox pop on the 26 website. Editor Nick Asbury asked: ‘Business language is a rich breeding ground for new buzzwords and phrases: What’s the best or worst you’ve come across recently?’ I...
View ArticleCould be foggy
Over recent years fellow 26 member Nick Asbury has drawn together a collection of weather forecasterisms called Cloudy Language. It captures those wonderfully/irritatingly peculiar phrases so beloved...
View ArticleTis as human a little story
Today is Plain English Awareness Day. I couldn’t be more excited. The bunting is being ironed and shortly we shall be popping open the Billecart-Salmon and handing around packets of Monster Munch. If...
View ArticleBuskers told to Foxtrot Oscar
Some time I ago I wrote about a peculiar anti-busking sign by Southwark Council that employed a line from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Now a second gem from the Council’s resident team of...
View ArticleThe noise of waters
I offer you three snaps from a stroll along the Regent’s Canal, just off the Roman Road in East London. Drawn by the Olympics, some barges have moored and their owners are selling bits and bobs to...
View ArticleSorry tale
It’s been a busy time in crisis communications. From corporate tax to horsemeat in burgers, you can hardly open a newspaper without coming across yet another full-page mea culpa. These printed...
View ArticleApostrophegeddon
Mid-Devon Council debates banning apostrophes from street signs because of the potential confusion they cause. The Apostrophe Protection Society thinks the motion is appalling, disgusting and...
View ArticleWhy stories matter
The Association for Qualitative Research recently asked me to write a piece on storytelling in business for its InDepth magazine. That issue is out now, and it’s worth tracking down a copy (over here)...
View ArticleSIT DOWN AND SHUT UP
I spent my schooldays staring the glass out of the windows. The poverty of expectation suffocated aspiration. The punitive discipline blunted everything about us. Teachers yawned their way through...
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