Dudley Moore's 'Little Miss Muffet' by Benjamin Britten

I’ve often noticed that I don’t often laugh out loud when listening to comedy on my own, and that the exceptions, when they do occur, really are exceptional.

It happened last night on Radio 4 during a fascinating programme, in which John Bassett was being interviewed about his long friendship with the late Dudley Moore.

The cause of my laughter was the latter's brilliant rendition of ‘Little Miss Muffet’ à la Benjamin Britten from Beyond the Fringe - which also reminded me that I’ve always found this piece far more entertaining than anything Britten himself ever managed to write.

BBC Television News slideshow Quiz

Regular readers will know that I’m getting increasingly worried about the way BBC Television News shows us more and more PowerPoint style presentations.

Whether or not anyone at the BBC has ever bothered to ask viewers what they really think about it, I do not know, but I can’t think of any reason why television audiences would differ much from other audiences – which raises the question of why would they be any more favourably inclined towards slidomania than the hundreds of audience members who’ve told me how much they detest it when listening to PowerPoint dependent presentations.

However, after a lifetime in research, one thing I know for sure is that I might be wrong. Maybe information overload isn’t as big a problem for people as I think it is. Maybe viewers really do like to see pictures and printed words popping up on the screen behind reporters in the studio. Maybe it really does make it easier for people to understand and take in things in.

Here's another exhibit from the BBC’s 10 o’clock news (a couple of nights ago) and an invitation to see how it works for you. Watch it once – which is, of course, all that viewers get to do – and don’t read any further until you’ve seen the whole thing.

Then have a go at answering the questions below the video – and let us know how many you got right.

If the result is 'all' or 'most of them', the BBC's nightly slideshows must be doing a good job.

If it's 'none' or 'hardly any of them', I rest my case.

1. What are the 4 essentials of modern life?

2. What did the Prime Minister say today?

3. What would be hugely expensive?

4. How many of us are already in reach of superfast broadband?

5. What will be hugely expensive?

6. How much a year would the annual levy be?

7. What prices have been falling in recent years?

8. What is the government's clever wheeze?

9. How much a year is raised from television license fee payers?

10. How much is it going to cost to help old people to cope with the digital switch over?

11. How much of that might be left over by 2012?

12. How much do local news programmes cost ITV?

No flies on Obama!

After recent posts about how British politicians behave in interviews, I couldn't help being impressed by President Obama's cool and skillful dispatch of a fly whilst being interviewed.

Whether or not the ASPCA worries about insects, I do not know, but I can imagine the RSPCA, not to mention the anti-hunting lobby, getting very steamed up such heartless behaviour!

'Sound-formed errors' and humour

Last December, I suggested that Gordon Brown’s gaffe when he said that he’d saved the world was probably the result of what Gail Jefferson, one of the founders of conversation analysis, referred to as a ‘sound-formed error’ – because there were four ‘wuh-’ sounds in quick succession just before the word ‘world’ popped out of his mouth – which he quickly corrected to ‘banks’.

Whether or not it really was a ‘sound-formed error’, we shall never know for certain, but there's no doubt that it was a mistake that caused widespread amusement.

There’s also no doubt that you can sometimes use this type of error with deliberately humorous intent , as is nicely illustrated by whoever wrote this TV commercial for Berlitz language courses:

(Gail Jefferson's original paper on the subject is HERE, and many of her other publications can be downloaded from HERE).

BBC Television News informs, educates and entertains without slides!

In case you missed the last edition of Have I Got News for You, here’s the sequence showing how much more interesting the BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson can be when he forsakes the awful slides he usually inflicts on us:

You might also like to compare this with some of the following:

BBC Television News: produced for or by morons?

PowerPoint style presentation continues to dominate BBC News – courtesy Robert Peston (again)

Another BBC television slideshow

Slidomania epidemic contaminates another BBC channel

POLITICIAN ANSWERS A QUESTION: an exception that proves the rule

Given previous posts about politicians not answering interviewers' questions (on which, see below for list of posts) I was delighted last week to see former Home Secretary Charles Clarke giving as straight an answer to a question as anyone could ever hope for:

Q: "Will you tell us what you think about Gordon Brown?"

A: "No."

RELATED POSTS:

· Why it's so easy for politicians not to answer interviewers' questions - and what should be done about it

· Gordon Brown’s interview technique: the tip of a tedious iceberg

· A prime minister who openly refused to answer an interviewer’s questions

· A Tory leader's three evasive answers to the same question

· A Labour leader with no interest in spin!

· Derek Draper breaks a basic rule of conversation

· Applause for Dimbleby’s questions on Question Time

Combining rhetoric and imagery to get your point across in a speech

I’ve just been going through some video clips in preparation for a presentation I have to give next week and came across an old favourite, in which a 90 year old speaker shows how effectively imagery and the main rhetorical techniques can be combined to get a point across in a mere 75 words.

As audiences are getting younger and fewer still remember former prime minister Harold Macmillan (who later became Lord Stockton), I tend not to use this example much these days, but it’s such a fine specimen of rhetorical techniques in action that it deserves a wider audience.

In lines 1-8, he uses a metaphorical puzzle about a sinking ship that juxtaposes a contrast between two alternatives, [A]‘sinking’ or [B] making a new cross-party effort.

The first part of this contrast ends with a third item (‘go slowly down’) that contrasts with the first two (‘drastically’ and ‘tragically’), and the second part includes a three part list (‘new, determined, united’).

The solution to the puzzle (lines 9-12) then comes in the form of another contrast, this time between [A]‘ decline and fall’ and [B] ‘a new and glorious renaissance’.

Add to this his delivery, with pauses (marked by / in the transcript) coming at an average rate of one pause per 3.75 words, and it's hardly surprising that the commentator refers to it as "another masterly speech".

I used to say that, if I had to illustrate as many of the key points about rhetoric and imagery as possible with reference to a single exampe, this would be it - a view I'm not so sure about having looked in detail at some of Barack Obama's speeches (e.g. see HERE and HERE, or type 'Obama' into blog search box for more posts on his speeches. Or, for more detail on how anyone can use these techniques in any type of speech or presentation, see any of the books listed in the column on the left)).

LORD STOCKTON:

1 Do we just / slowly / majestically / sink /

2 not perhaps drastically

3 or tragically /

4 but go slowly down like a great ship? /

5 Or shall we make / a

6 new /

7 determined /

8 united effort, / putting as far as we can / party aside. /

9 Let us / do the latter,

10 and then / historians of the future /will not describe the end of this century /

11 as the beginning / of the decline and fall of Britain /

12 but as the beginning / of a new / and glorious renaissance.