The Speechwriter

A Treasure Chest for Speechwriters

I haven't done an MBA, but I for the past year I have been a devoted student of Charlie Munger, the sidekick to the sage of Omaha, Warren Buffet - and I have followed up by devouring his recommended books. They've enriched every business speech I've written.

When I bought Poor Charlie's Almanack, The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T Munger, I also bought Peter Bevelin's book, Seeking Wisdom, From Darwin to Munger.

Bevelin's book is a summary of the key principles behind developing a strategy for robust decision-making. Given that I'm in charge of my own consultancy, it's very useful to have some principles to analyse how I built the business, and what factors might be coming into play when I decide to do something new.

One of the most useful techniques is to work out what you want to avoid. It's easy to have a vague idea of what you want. But there's a big difference between wanting, and doing specific things that will to get you to where you want to be. By inverting problems, you can get a more vivid perspective on them. 

For example, Munger gave a graduation speech on how to avoid misery. And when it comes to discussion of nebulous qualities like leadership, it's more practical to focus on how do we prevent incompetence.

The wonderful thing about Bevelin's book for a speechwriter is that there is a pithy quotation on almost every page that is worth storing away, and the anecdotes he drops in are all engaging and make their points clearly. Take his illustration of how an effect can be mistaken for its cause.

A man was walking by a river when suddenly a screaming girl floated by. The man jumped in the river and saved her. After five minutes, another screaming girl floated by. He jumped in again and saved the girl. The same thing happened over and over again. The problem was a little further up the river. There was a man throwing girls from a bridge. Our hero solved the symptoms but not the cause of the problem.

It might be apposite to quote a story like this when discussing a subject like knife crime.

Here are ten of the best lines quoted in the book:

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

Eric Hoffer

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

Blaise Pascal

The task of man is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

Sir William Osler

When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.

Warren Buffet

He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner.

Benjamin Franklin

Everything seems stupid when it fails.

Fydor Dotoevsky

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.

Oscar Wilde

The brain can be developed just the same way as the muscles can be developed, if one will only take the pains to train the mind to think.

Thomas Alva Edison

It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.

Warren Buffet

The best way to avoid envy is to deserve the success that you get.

Aristotle

Brian Jenner's Speech on the Second Birthday of BomoCreatives

I’d like to welcome you all to the Second Birthday of BomoCreatives.

It’s a great honour to have the Mayor here this evening.

And it’s wonderful to have so many influential people from the town here as well.

We’re almost respectable.

Many years ago I read a book about the decline of community by an academic called Robert Putnam called Bowling Alone.

Putnam lamented that our social lives have been impoverished by people not wanting to join things, by people putting too much emphasis on their careers and because of the general busyness and transience of modern life.

He said we needed to counter this because isolation creates health problems and means there is a lack of trust in society.

So how do we do something about it?

Putnam quotes the advice of Henry Ward Beecher, an American preacher. His advice was to 'multiply picnics’.

That is the purpose of BomoCreatives – it’s a group which, using modern technology, we can use to promote our own events, expand our businesses and build our circle of friends and acquaintances. If we have a motto, it is ‘multiply picnics’.

That means do things that involve others, and help others find people who are like them.

My second observation is that creativity is an aptitude or even an affliction that brings people together.

Many people in BomoCreatives have very special skills which deserve an audience and they need to be encouraged and supported.

I hope we have devised a format and an environment that makes people welcome and gives them the chance to shine.

Thirdly, I think we’re in Bournemouth at a very special time.

A time when a town is becoming a city.

That is quite a big step, because it means that it is no longer defined by those who grew up here, but by those who choose to make Bournemouth their home.

When I go to salsa, I mix with dozens of young people from all over the world.

If you stand at a bus stop in Bournemouth, you’ll hear Russian, French, German, Polish, Italian as well as English.

Bournemouth’s future is as an international, cosmopolitan town.

Last year Bournemouth was voted the happiest town in the UK.

The poll of 6,000 people discovered 82% of Bournemouth residents said they were happy.

But I was concerned that the BBC said that Bournemouth was a town best known for “rest homes, lawn bowls and beige slacks”.

That is so out-of-date.

Bournemouth is a place with a booming conference industry, an excellent selection of restaurants and cafés, a place where you can find a sophisticated nightlife and experience a special mix of work and pleasure.

It has wonderful advantages in terms of climate, facilities and natural beauty, and modern technology means that you can still be connected to the trends, ideas and fashions that sweep London and indeed the world.

I know from when I was in London, you thought if you were phoning a business outside the 020 area, you were going to speak to Worzel Gummidge in a suit.

That’s not the case any more.

Down here there is great scope to grow the film industry, the leisure industry, and to enhance the offering of dance, theatre and food.

We’re lucky to have outstanding designers, photographers, artists, writers and musicians, who see that the place has great potential.

What is more we have individuals who are using their initiative to make things happen.

Rosie Jones has organised the Prequel to Cannes – a glamorous networking event for people who are part of the film industry in the South West.

Mark Howell has set up The Arts Poole, a networking group similar to BomoCreatives for Poole.

Neville and Angie Ashman organise amazing salsa lessons almost every night of the week through Latino Beat.

Alison Wood has launched Listed Magazine, to provide information about what’s going on in the town.

Rachael Johns and Louise Mitchell have set up Coastal Creatives – to give local artists a commercial edge and to promote their work at an annual craft fayre.

Bryan and Monica Adams have opened the thriving Adam and Eve café at the Lansdowne.

Just some examples of the vibrant entrepreneurial spirit in the area.

We are not dependent on grants and public subsidy.

If something is worth doing, we believe if you get support, there will be money to finance the project.

I’d like to thank you all for coming to BomoCreatives.

I’d like to thank the speakers who have provided such excellent entertainment over the past two years.

I’d like to thank All Fired Up for their kindness and support.

I’d like to encourage you to support BomoCreatives in the year to come, ideally by being part of a committee.

And in the future we will be able to shape Bournemouth as an artistic and intellectual Monte Carlo.

An Explanation for the Credit Crunch

I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles.

Benjamin Franklin

Sir Ken Robinson on Creativity

I found this talk by Sir Ken Robinson on the web. This speech he delivered to an audience in California in 2006. It's interesting to see an eminent person talking in a relaxed and informal way without notes.

He definitely connects with his audience - and he's not afraid to talk in a highly conversational way using very simple stories - he's almost a stand-up comedian (it sounds as if the audience has been warmed-up). Note how the audience roars with laughter, but it isn't so funny to watch. It shows how a person can have a presence in a room, which doesn't necessarily translate to camera.

Golf Speeches

I've never been a member of a golf club, but I've done quite a few golf speeches over the last few years. They're always a challenge. My first golf speech I did eight years ago ended in failure. A rather cantankerous man wanted to give a speech which included a moan about the decline in standards, criticism of people abusing the dress code and a lament at the number of women joining the club - and he wanted it "really funny".

It was a lesson to me. You can't be negative, charming and funny. Well at least not in that context. However bad things are, a speech has got to look on the bright side and cheer everyone up.

Ever since I've always on the lookout for funny golf stories or quotations. It must be a fairly ruthless circuit, with speakers pinching good material off each other shamelessly. There is always a need for fresh material. I'd really like to see pros like Peter Alliss in action (He charges £4000-£7000 on this agency website). I wonder if he uses the same gags time after time.

Usually they're good customers because they have got money, but they haven't got any time. Rotarians, by contrast, never want to spend any money, I wonder why.

Political Quotation

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment in the happiness of an individual.

Dr Johnson

That Old Canard about Humour

There is a new magazine out this month called Total Politics, a kind of in-house journal for the political class. The proposed editorial content sounds promising. The idea is to circulate ideas about how to run campaigns, recruit members and improve presentation.

It in there is an article by an American speechwriter called John Shosky who set out "Ten ways to improve a speech". Reading the piece, it looks like it was dashed off in the early hours of the morning, but number nine really gets me into a lather because it's express by all sorts of political and business advisors (especially those without a sense of humour).

Avoid humour, unless you are good at it. And make sure that the humour is self-directed. A good piece of advice here: humour is combustible. It often blows up on you, as Peter Lilley learnt when he produced his "little list" at the Conservative Party conference in 1992. Don't play with it unless you know what you're doing.

Well Mr Shosky can be congratulated on a deeply obscure example. How are you supposed to ever get a sense of what you're doing without practising and taking risks? Public speaking is a humorous medium. If you're a regular speaker, you have a duty to cultivate it. Young politicians can start off using jokes or anecdotes which are as old as the hills, then start finding their own material from other sources, and then graduate to writing their own witticisms. How many mistakes has Boris made? Look at him now.

The problem arises when the individual has no idea what makes an audience laugh. For example when a best man thinks that if he starts talking about excessive drunkenness, lewd behaviour or vomiting, it will elicit laughter. It doesn't.

In fact, come to think of it, the best way to get good at it is to employ a sympathetic and sensitive advisor.

Does being able to verbalise, mean you should verbalise?

I'm fascinated by cities, and how people interact in cities. So when I switch on a film and the first lines are:

It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.

I was hooked. Paul Haggis's film Crash is breathtaking. His characters speak with tremendous eloquence and humour. They also articulate some very disturbing ideas, with Tarantino-esque panache. In a Hollywood way, the story is highly dramatic and most things are explained.

Contrast with Michael Haneke, the Austrian director, who makes very similar films about chance interactions between characters in a harsh city. But Haneke's characters can barely articulate what they think and feel, if they do they will probably be misunderstood. Code Unknown features deaf characters and unusual music to emphasize how we misunderstand each other in the melting pot. 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance builds up to a dramatic conclusion, but with only vague suggestions of how we got there. Haneke believes in being indirect, even obscure, to evoke sentiments and ideas.

What has all this to do with speechwriting? Well it's the same problem. I'm writing a wedding speech to deliver myself this summer. The temptation is to try to say something significant and profound. But is it appropriate to say something meaningful on such an occasion?

When people send me their wedding speeches with all sorts of high-flown sentiments, I get the overall idea, highlight the verbiage and press delete. Then I condense the ideas and mix them up with pre-prepared gags.

It's one factor that speaks in favour of hiring in external help. The best wedding speeches do not really say very much at all. They just make everyone feel good for seven minutes. Doing it yourself, you're bound to bring in emotional baggage that will make everyone uncomfortable for one reason or another.

One of the curious things about families, is that individuals can live together for many years, and end up being unable to communicate with each other in any profound way at all. In fact honesty is hardly ever appropriate at big social gatherings, except funerals.

Sometimes I get information about a very sad death in the family that clients feel they want to mention at a wedding. I'm never quite sure whether they should mention it explicitly, or hint at it obliquely. I've noticed that after consideration, we usually do it obliquely. You can say so much more, by not saying very much.

Haneke and Haggis get you thinking about what we communicate is not just about what we say. Most of us aren't very articulate, and those of us who can be, find that it often doesn't help.

I remember at the Guardian I was surrounded by people who communicated what was going on every day to millions of people, but they were hopeless at telling each other what needed to be done in the office.

That's probably why I've found salsa dancing so satisfying. You don't have to say anything at all. You just lead through touch.

Richard Burton

I was speaking to a group yesterday about how one becomes a speechwriter. It requires an unusual set of skills and interests. From an early age I loved listening to the spoken word. When I was at university I saw a documentary by Melvyn Bragg about the actor Richard Burton. In it they showed him performing Hamlet. I got a copy of the recording and I've listened to it dozens of times over the years.

I also have a copy of his "Personal Anthology", a collection of his favourites, which appeared on the Argo label, source of many wonderful spoken-word cassettes. 

Burton is the authentic voice of Dylan Thomas's bombastic and sonorous poems. I also love his performance of Adelstrop, Gerard Manley Hopkins's The Leaden Echo and The Golden Echo and William Dunbar's lament, Timor Mortis Conturbat Me. Poems that look quite dull on the page are given depth and vitality through his mellifluous voice.

There is a deep streak of melancholy in Burton's voice that comes out in his readings of Thomas Hardy's gloomy and tragic poems. He also does a recording of John Donne poems.

They're difficult to get hold of now. You can download his Hamlet on one of the audiobook websites. Otherwise you have to keep a look out on eBay or second-hand on Amazon.

Humphrey Lyttelton

Stephen Fry did a very good tribute programme to Humphrey Lyttelton yesterday. (If you're quick you can catch it again, click here). Lyttelton presented the Radio 4 Panel Game, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue for 36 years. As Chairman, he could deliver hilarious and withering gags. 

As Jack Dee says, his delivery was so completely relaxed he didn't seem to care whether you laughed or not. That made his humour work beautifully.

Listening him deliver his lines, you would hang on waiting for the punchline to arrive, and it always delivered a brilliant kick. 

By writing down some of his lines, it reveals the point that humour on the page can seem rather flat, but when it's delivered by a man like Humphrey Lyttlelton, it is magical.

In this next round we delve into the world of real celebrities. The cult of celebrity is everywhere, with many lending their image to the promotion of consumer goods. I noticed recently on my pack of sausages a picture of Anthony Worrall Thompson in his kitchen. Underneath it said, Prick with a Fork.

On his time at Eton: You know I remember nanny repeatedly pulling my trousers down to give me a good smack on the bottom. And it never did me any harm. Though it did make me late getting here this afternoon.

Colin's musical influences are in fact Middle Eastern in origin.

Mainly shiite.

Philip Collins, Blair's former speechwriter

This is intriguing. A perspective on speechwriting from Tony Blair's former speechwriter.

At Google Talks

I think it's no coincidence that the majority of posts on this blog have an American theme. In America, public speaking is an important ritual and they invest vast amounts of time and effort to do it properly. 

Take the At Google Talks on YouTube. They have invited some of the world's most eminent writers, politicians and artists to give them a lecture. Already they have built up a library of excellent presentations.

It's good to see some Brits represented. David Miliband is looking very casual in one of them with Condoleezza Rice. It would be wonderful if we could have this sort of thing in the UK, outside the major universities.

Click here to see the list of At Google Talks.