The story about Ronald Reagan that Gordon Brown told at the TED conference the other day wasn’t the only one that got a laugh from the audience (see previous post).
He also had one about singer Amy Whitehouse and Nelson Mandela. It was a neat example of the puzzle-solution technique illustrated last week with clips from Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and William Hague.
Puzzle: “Amy Whitehouse said “Nelson Mandela and I have got a lot in common.
Solution: “My husband too has spent a long time in prison.”
But I was always taught that you shouldn't laugh at your own jokes, and this would surely have worked better if he hadn't done so.
Showing posts with label Reagan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reagan. Show all posts
Standing ovation for Gordon Brown after anecdotes about Reagan, Cicero and Demosthenes
A couple of days ago, Gordon Brown took time out from local problems, like today’s by-election, to make a surprise appearance at the TED Global conference, and one can’t help wondering if the chance to give a lecture in Oxford marked the official start of his exit strategy into teaching that he was dropping hints about a few weeks ago.
You can see the whole of his TED performance at the bottom of this page and inspect a brief review of Twitter responses HERE.
Readers of my books will know that I give great emphasis to the importance of anecdotes in effective speeches and presentations, and there are two nice examples of this in Mr Brown's speech.
The first one came as he tried his hand at a bit of standup with this story about what Ronald Reagan is alleged to have thought of the then Swedish prime minister, Olaf Palme:
Then, right at the end came another anecdote involving a contrast between the way audiences used to respond to Cicero and Demosthenes. Brown firmly identifies himself with the latter and gets a positive reaction that doesn’t often happen to him outside Labour Party conferences – a standing ovation - and it doesn't often happen to anyone in Oxford either (or at least, I never got one when I worked there).
The whole unedited 16 minute speech can be watched below. And, as you'll see from the first few minutes, someone must have advised Mr Brown that, if you must use PowerPoint, you can't beat genuinely visual slides like pictures:
You can see the whole of his TED performance at the bottom of this page and inspect a brief review of Twitter responses HERE.
Readers of my books will know that I give great emphasis to the importance of anecdotes in effective speeches and presentations, and there are two nice examples of this in Mr Brown's speech.
The first one came as he tried his hand at a bit of standup with this story about what Ronald Reagan is alleged to have thought of the then Swedish prime minister, Olaf Palme:
Then, right at the end came another anecdote involving a contrast between the way audiences used to respond to Cicero and Demosthenes. Brown firmly identifies himself with the latter and gets a positive reaction that doesn’t often happen to him outside Labour Party conferences – a standing ovation - and it doesn't often happen to anyone in Oxford either (or at least, I never got one when I worked there).
The whole unedited 16 minute speech can be watched below. And, as you'll see from the first few minutes, someone must have advised Mr Brown that, if you must use PowerPoint, you can't beat genuinely visual slides like pictures:
D-Day 65th Anniversary (2): a reminder for Sarkozy and a challenge for Obama
Prompted by the news that the Queen hadn't been invited to today’s 65th anniversary commemoration of D-Day, I recently posted a clip from Ronald Reagan’s moving speech at Pointe du Hoc on the 40th anniversary in 1984.
Here is an audio version of the whole speech that serves as the soundtrack to a neatly edited collection of pictures and film footage from D Day.
I don’t know if President Sarkozy’s English is up to understanding one of Ronald Reagan's finest speeches, but it wouldn’t do him any harm just to watch the visual reminders of the Normandy landings. Had he done so a few weeks ago, he might have shown a bit more diplomacy when it came to making the arrangements for today.
Meanwhile, the challenge for President Obama is how do you follow the great communicator when he was right at the top of his game?
(See also D-Day 65th Anniversary (1).
The end of the beginning
Given the continuing mystery about whether the Queen will or won't be at the D Day commemorations later this week, it was good to see that so many of you had look at the speech made at Pointe du Hoc by Ronald Reagan on the 40th anniversary of D day back in 1984.
But I wasn’t really surprised, because it confirmed something I’ve believed for quite some time, namely that there's a greater public demand for watching and listening to speeches than the current media establishment seems to believe (for more on which, see HERE and HERE) – a point that has, of course, been amply demonstrated by rise and rise of Barack Obama.
So here’s another classic. One of the frustrating things for students of speech-making is that very few of Winston Churchill’s great wartime speeches are available on film.
A notable exception was his famous three-part list after the battle of Alamein in 1942 (in a speech at the Mansion House), in which each next item contrasts with the previous one and, not surprisingly, prompted an instant burst of applause.
But I wasn’t really surprised, because it confirmed something I’ve believed for quite some time, namely that there's a greater public demand for watching and listening to speeches than the current media establishment seems to believe (for more on which, see HERE and HERE) – a point that has, of course, been amply demonstrated by rise and rise of Barack Obama.
So here’s another classic. One of the frustrating things for students of speech-making is that very few of Winston Churchill’s great wartime speeches are available on film.
A notable exception was his famous three-part list after the battle of Alamein in 1942 (in a speech at the Mansion House), in which each next item contrasts with the previous one and, not surprisingly, prompted an instant burst of applause.
A line I don't want to hear in today's speech by President Obama
If there’s one thing that irks me about speeches by American presidents, it’s their tendency to overstate the case for their country being the first, finest or only example of freedom and democracy in the world.
The issue is summed up here in a thoughtful, and otherwise strongly recommended, piece by Clark Judge, a former Reagan speechwriter:
“Inaugural addresses invariably remind us of America’s historically unmatched commitment to popular sovereignty and individual liberty…”
It was also there in a famous anecdote used by Ronald Reagan in his address at the 1964 Republican Convention that launched him on to the national political stage (A time for choosing: Rendezvous with Destiny):
REAGAN: Not too long ago two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, "We don't know how lucky we are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How lucky you are! I had someplace to escape to." In that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth..
My point is not to criticise the particular form of democracy and freedom that’s been developed in the USA.
Nor is it to claim that we in the UK (or any other European country) have a come up with an even better version of democracy.
But it is to register a complaint about this implicit criticism of other countries' democracy and freedom that’s so regularly trotted out by American politicians.
Reagan was as wrong in saying that there was no place to escape to as he was wrong in claiming that the USA was ‘the last stand on earth’.
From the point of view of those of us lucky enough live in other countries where elections also determine who governs and also result in a peaceful transfer of power, such overstated claims are at best tactless, and at worst quite offensive.
That’s why it’s a line I would never recommend to any of my clients with a vested interest in staying friends with their closest allies.
The issue is summed up here in a thoughtful, and otherwise strongly recommended, piece by Clark Judge, a former Reagan speechwriter:
“Inaugural addresses invariably remind us of America’s historically unmatched commitment to popular sovereignty and individual liberty…”
It was also there in a famous anecdote used by Ronald Reagan in his address at the 1964 Republican Convention that launched him on to the national political stage (A time for choosing: Rendezvous with Destiny):
REAGAN: Not too long ago two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, "We don't know how lucky we are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How lucky you are! I had someplace to escape to." In that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth..
My point is not to criticise the particular form of democracy and freedom that’s been developed in the USA.
Nor is it to claim that we in the UK (or any other European country) have a come up with an even better version of democracy.
But it is to register a complaint about this implicit criticism of other countries' democracy and freedom that’s so regularly trotted out by American politicians.
Reagan was as wrong in saying that there was no place to escape to as he was wrong in claiming that the USA was ‘the last stand on earth’.
From the point of view of those of us lucky enough live in other countries where elections also determine who governs and also result in a peaceful transfer of power, such overstated claims are at best tactless, and at worst quite offensive.
That’s why it’s a line I would never recommend to any of my clients with a vested interest in staying friends with their closest allies.
Kate Winslet ignores Paul Hogan’s advice to award winners
One of the few good speeches at a showbiz awards ceremony was Paul Hogan’s warm-up act at the Oscars in 1986 (for his key advice to winners on the three Gs, see video clip below, or here for the full version).
But Kate Winslet was only 11 years old at the time and probably never even saw it. So, at the Golden Globe awards the other day, she joined Gwyneth Paltrow and Halle Berry in the hall of fame for award winners’ embarrassing speeches (see below after Paul Hogan's much neglected advice).
But then why should anyone expect actors to be any good at speech-making?
After all, their skill is to deliver other people’s lines in a way that portrays characters other than themselves, which is a very different business from writing your own lines and coming across as yourself.
Politically active thespians like Glenda Jackson, M.P., and Vanessa Redgrave may be admired for their successful acting careers, but neither of them is particularly impressive when it comes to making political speeches.
In fact, the only example of an actor who did become a great public speaker that I can think of is Ronald Reagan, but he’d already been rolling his own speeches on the lecture circuit for General Electric long before he became Governor of California – with a contract from the company that ‘required him to tour GE plants ten weeks out of the year, often demanding of him fourteen speeches per day’ (Wikipedia).
Ready-made words for Mr Obama from a previous president’s inaugural speech
Given that Barack Obama is such a brilliant orator, it might seem a bit presumptuous to offer any suggestions for his inaugural address next month. But these lines from another presidential inaugural seem uncannily relevant for someone taking office at a time of economic crisis:
“These United States are confronted with an economic affliction of great proportions… It threatens to shatter the lives of millions of our people.
“Idle industries have cast workers into unemployment, human misery, and personal indignity … For decades we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals.
“You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we're not bound by that same limitation? We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow. And let there be no misunderstanding: We are going to begin to act, beginning today.
“The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away…
The speaker was Ronald Reagan at his inauguration on 20th January 1981. More than two and a half decades later, the depressing thing is that nothing much seems to have changed – including the optimism/hope of the newly elected president.
“These United States are confronted with an economic affliction of great proportions… It threatens to shatter the lives of millions of our people.
“Idle industries have cast workers into unemployment, human misery, and personal indignity … For decades we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals.
“You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we're not bound by that same limitation? We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow. And let there be no misunderstanding: We are going to begin to act, beginning today.
“The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away…
The speaker was Ronald Reagan at his inauguration on 20th January 1981. More than two and a half decades later, the depressing thing is that nothing much seems to have changed – including the optimism/hope of the newly elected president.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)