"20 is plenty" in the Somerset village where I live

Readers of this blog and/or any of my books such as "Lend Me Your Ears", "Our Masters' Voices", "Speech-making and Presentation MADE EASY" and/or anyone attending one of my courses will know that poetic elements often play a really crucial part in effective communication by the greatest speakers of all time.
But, thanks to Mendip District Council and/or Somerset County Council, you can forget what so-called experts like me drone on about in their courses. Why else would they entertain us with needlessly expensive  road signs like the one you see on entering Old Ditch:

"TWENTY IS PLENTY"

Time, methinks, I retired, don't you think....

And I did actually retire on 29th April 2014, but am still running courses and writing books!

What's news about meeting and talking to an Afro-Carribean cyclist in deepest Somerset?

Today, during an hour's walk through the beautiful countryside near my home, I was surprised to meet an Afro-Carribean dressed in full kit for a long stint at cycling.

It was a very expensive bike with the latest in gear-changing equipment. 

  1. Should I have been surprised?
  2. Should I be ashamed? 
  3. Should I have noticed?
  4. Does the noticing mean I'm a prejudiced bastard because he spoke with an upper-class English accent.


  1. But I do confess to being surprised.
  2. I do feel ashamed by my reaction.
  3. I should not have noticed.
  4. I was wrong to be surprised by his upper-class English accent...
I hope that no one will notice and/or come up with better answers than mine in a generation's time (I am 70 years old) - especially when I'm related by marriage to someone as charming as Ade, who moved his family to Australia hoping to escape a life marred by color-prejudice in the UK.

Comments, as ever, welcome!

Blogging begins again

After a few weeks off with depression, a second opinion is demonstrating that it can be 'cured'.

Now finances are looking as healthy as they ever were, I'd like to thank loyal readers for continuing to visit.

Only trouble is that my Mac computer is misbehaving - on which, more anon...

And comments, as ever, are welcome.


Cartooning revisited?

Time to start blogging again - with thanks to loyal readers who have continued visiting since I became ill with depression. A recent second opinion says it won't be long until I'm a lot better...

NHS still employes social workers (and at least one doctor) without a clue

Having had quite a lot more conversations with the social worker discussed in the previous post, I can report that he is worse than ever. Worse still, he pretends to be medically qualified when he clearly isn't.  
And he's now got one of his GPs on board and she's behaving just as badly.

So he's not the only incompetent twit draining the NHS budget. And, if they carry on like this, I may have to ape their unprofessional behaviour by naming them...

Are all social workers employed by the NHS as big a waste of our money as this one?

You'd have thought that all social workers would understand the basics of interaction and/or how to communicate with people they haven't met before.

But the one I've just been interrogated by one who broke every rule of turn-taking that's so far been described by conversation analysts and other researchers -- e.g. absurdly long pauses for no apparent reason, giving no hint whatsoever about what kind of response he might be expecting and randomised facial expressions and non-verbal behaviour, etc., etc.

And 'interrogation' is, alas, the operative word. As co-author with Paul Drew of a book on courtroom language  (Order in court: the organisation of verbal interaction in judicial settings, Macmillan Press, 1979) we learnt about some of the differences between examination in chief and the more aggressive cross-examination.

This particular social worker used cross-exmination continuously and, when asked why he was doing it, confessed that he didn't know there's a difference, let alone what any such difference might be.

I could write a book about him but have neither the time nor or inclination to embark on such a depressing project.

Meanwhile, let's hope he's the only incompetent twit we're paying for...