BAFTA award winners' speeches

Earlier posts on actors' award winning acceptance speeches can be seen HERE & HERE.

Followers of this gripping subject can now review a selection from last night's BAFTA award winners' speeches HERE.

In the gratitude to all and sundry stakes, best actor winner Colin Firth deserves an additional special award for originality (not to mention his neat demonstration of the effectiveness of a simple anecdote) for thanking the man who came to repair his fridge.

You can't judge what's in Nelson Mandela's book by its cover

I used last week's post on you can't judge a book from its cover to advertise the fact that the Russian translation of my book, Lend Me Your Ears, is being published in Moscow TODAY - making it available to a potential market of about 170,000,000 new readers.

The day after that, I posted some comments on and a video clip of Nelson Mandela's speech after being released from prison in 1990, which reminded me that I have further proof that you can't judge a book from its cover.

Here's the cover of my copy of the illustrated edition of Mr Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom:

Open it up, and the first thing you see inside is a handwritten note from the great man himself:

Unfortunately, I wasn't there when he actually signed it. But a close relation did have the privilege of meeting Mr Mandela during his visit to London in November, 2000 - and got him to sign what was by far the most memorable Christmas present I received that year.

(N.B. Burglars and/or book thieves should note that this particular volume is not to be found on any of my book shelves - and that they would have to graduate to robbing banks to get their hands on it).

A weep in politics

Every now and then, Private Eye comes up with a cover that makes you want to show it to people who aren't regular readers of the magazine.

The current copy features a nice sequel to yesterday's post on the Morgan-Brown TV interview - though I do wonder how many of their readers are old enough to remember that it was Harold Wilson who famously said that 'a week in politics is a long time' (c. 1964).

Click on picture for bigger easier-to-read bubbles:

Gordon Brown's dirty dozen (as confessed to Piers Morgan)

Having commented in previous posts on Gordon Brown's inability to answer questions in interviews (HERE & HERE) and his tendency to pack far too much information into his speeches (e.g. HERE), I suppose I should give him points for slight improvement on both counts in his encounter with Piers Morgan.

But, about half-way through the interview, he reverted to type when asked about the delicate matter of his relationship with Tony Blair after the Labour party leadership became vacant on the death of John Smith in 1994 (and after Blair had become leader and won three general elections).

A thin slice of meat

Although it was arguably the most revealing part of the whole show, this short sequence of less than four minutes (see below) doesn't seem to have attracted much attention - perhaps because it was such a thin slice of meat that some deft editing had sandwiched between the early banter about student days, wine women and song, etc. and the later harrowing sequence about the death of Brown's infant daughter.

Or maybe it wasn't picked up on because it merely repeated what everyone had already known (or at least suspected) for well over a decade.

After much laughing and giggling in the first half hour, Gordon's smiles suddenly disappear for a good three minutes before he managed another one - which only comes when Morgan turns to the "big rows" alleged to have taken place between him and Tony Blair - that had the effect of restoring the jocularity in time for the last 40 seconds before the commercial break to be conveniently rounded off in an amiable mood of good humour.

The Dirty Dozen

But, in a mere 3 minutes and 40 seconds, Brown had managed to make 12 points that confirm the worst fears of anyone who might worry about the character of a man who so resented the success of his charismatic colleague that he spent the best part of 16 years sulking about it:

1. Brown did believe that he, rather than Blair, would be and should have been the next Labour leader after John Smith.

2. He was angry that Blair won, but "got over it pretty quickly" (er- 14 years later?)

3. He found it painful.

4. There was no deal between him and Blair at the Islington restaurant (but actually there was a deal that had been agreed elsewhere).

5. Blair had agreed to stand down and support Brown "w- when that was the case".

6. It was up to Blair to decide when to deliver on the deal.

7. He "has to remember" that Blair had won a general election (er- 3 actually) whereas he hadn't.

8. They did have fights that caused tension.

9. It's good to be open and honest that there were disagreements about certain things (!?).

10. In spite of all that, they "managed" to "get things sorted out".

After 3 minutes, we get Brown's first smile, which prompts Morgan to switch to a lighter mood, during which we learn:

11. Brown never actually threw anything at Blair.

12. He had been been tempted to do so.

(Historical/comparative footnote: you can watch some action replays of Mrs Thatcher in a chat show in 1983 here).

Why does 'The Times' think Brown's interview has 'eroded the dignity of his office'?

A fleeting review of media and blog reactions to the Piers Morgan interview last night points to a consensus that Gordon Brown more or less got away with it.

This doesn't really surprise me, as I can't see that he had anything to lose from doing a 'soft' chat-show interview - any more than Mrs Thatcher had when she appeared on Aspel & Company during the miners' strike in 1983 (see previous post)

The most baffling exception to the consensus I've seen so far is in a leading article in The Times under the headline:

Private Grief, Public Persona

Gordon Brown’s interview with Piers Morgan eroded the dignity of his office

But, unless I'm unusually dense this morning, I can't see anything in what follows that makes any further mention of the interview having 'eroded the dignity of his office' let alone any explanation of how, why or in what sense it's supposed to have done so.

Nor did it make much of a case for another of its definitive-sounding conclusions, namely that 'for Mr Brown, it was a mistake.'

I don't think it was (and don't seem to be alone on that).

What's more, I don't remember The Times accusing Mrs Thatcher of having 'eroded the dignity of her office' by agreeing to be interviewed by Michael Aspel (or as a regular on BBC Radio 2's Jimmy Young Show).

Piers Morgan interviews Gordon Brown: shades of Michael Aspel & Margaret Thatcher?

I've been intrigued by the way the media has been getting so wound up during the build up to Gordon Brown's appearance in a TV interview with Piers Morgan on Sunday night (and wondering what, if anything, I'll have to say in an interview about it on BBC Radio Bristol on Monday morning).

There is, after all, nothing new about embattled prime ministers taking the opportunity to appear in 'soft' talk shows.

Did the the idea come from Margaret Thatcher?

Maybe Mrs Thatcher gave him the idea when she went to number 10 for tea not long after Mr Brown had arrived there - as she was the one who had pioneered the strategy in an bid to 'soften' her image during the miner's strike in 1983. As Ian Hargreaves put it on the BBC website a while back:

'Meanwhile, the politicians hade their own ideas for diversifying the interview market. Bernard Ingham, Margaret Thatcher's crusty press secretary, says he wass opposed to the decision to put the prime minister on Michael Aspel's ITV chat show in 1983, but was over-ruled by her image consultants.

'But she did so well - softening the Iron Lady image assembled in the miners' strike - that even Ingham became a convert to chat show politics. Soon Mrs T was in and out of Jimmy Young's Radio Two studio as often as the Today Programme.'

For me, her appearance in Aspel & Company had at least three memorable moments:

1. Where to sit?
The first came right at the start, when Mrs Thatcher pretends that she's not sure where to sit. Yet here was someone who never went into a television studio without the advice of former TV producer Gordon Reece, who had decided that, wherever possible, her left profile should be exposed to the camera.

Also note how 'dolled up' she is - which is thoroughly consistent with a point about her 'unambiguously recognisable femininity' that I made in an earlier post on the evolution of charismatic woman.

2. Thatcher & Aspel were quite open about the rules of the game:

Early on in the interview, Aspel notes how unusual it is for a prime minister to appear on a show like this. Mrs Thatcher concludes her reply by saying how 'very grateful' she was to have been invited - whereupon he reassures her by confirming that he's after "different kinds of answers" to those she has to come up with at prime minister's question time:

3. The audience's reaction to "I'm always on the job."

Whether or not Mrs Thatcher realised why the audience laughed and applauded when she announced that he was always "on the job"* is not altogether clear - though Aspel's sideways glance leaves little doubt that he knew perfectly well how they'd taken it.

I also suspect that her choice of those particular words may have been triggered by the fact that Aspel had just mentioned that she lives "over the job" at number 10 - in a similar way to that in which I suggested Gordon Browns gaffe about 'saving the world' might have been triggered by sounds in the words had had just used (for more on which, see HERE).

(* Native speakers of American English may not be aware that, in British English slang, 'on the job' is commonly used - depending on context - to mean 'having sex').

Nelson Mandela's speech on the day he was released from prison

None of the news reports on the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison that I've seen have replayed any excerpts from the speech he made at City Hall in Cape Town.

This doesn't really surprise me, as it was far from being the barnstorming piece of oratory that many (including me) were expecting at the time.

Speaking into a microphone held by someone standing next to him, a bespectacled Mr Mandela clutched closely to the clip board holding his script - from which he read extremely carefully (see video below).

Given what might have happened had he done otherwise, it reminded me of the Queen's Speech as an example of the relatively rare occasions when there are very good reasons for not conveying any passion about what you are saying.

Something I posted a while back on The Queen's Speech: an exception that proves the ruler included the following thoughts about Mandela release-day speech.

Why such a 'low key' speech?

A much more surprising case was Nelson Mandela’s first speech after being released from prison in 1990. Here was a highly effective communicator, whose words at his trial 27 years earlier are to be found in most books of great speeches, and who had had the best part of three decades to prepare an inspiring and memorable text.

But it was not to be. As if modeling his performance on the Queen’s Speech, he buried his head in the script and spoke in a flat measured tone that came across as completely lacking in the kind of passion everyone was expecting from someone who had suffered so much and was held in such high regard by his audience.

Having waited for years for this historic event, anticipating something on a par with Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech, I remember being disappointed and surprised by what I saw and heard from the balcony of City Hall in Cape Town. It was only later that it dawned on me that this was another case where rousing rhetoric would have been completely counter-productive.

The political situation in South Africa was poised on a knife-edge and his release from prison had only happened at all because the apartheid regime was crumbling. It was a moment when anything more inspiring from Mandela might have come across as a call to arms and could easily have prompted an immediate uprising or civil war.

But the political understanding with the minority white government was that the African National Congress would keep the lid on things for long enough to enable a settlement to be negotiated.* As when the Queen opens parliament, Mr Mandela knew exactly what he was doing, how to do it and that he could not have done otherwise.

(* On which it's interesting to note that, at the end of this clip, the reporter actually comments on Mr Mandela's concern for keeping things orderly among the crowd).

SCRIPT OF EXCERPT IN THE VIDEO:

The sight of freedom looming on the horizon should encourage us to redouble our efforts.

It is only through disciplined mass action that our victory can be assured. We call on our white compatriots to join us in the shaping of a new South Africa. The freedom movement is a political home for you too. We call on the international community to continue the campaign to isolate the apartheid regime. To lift sanctions now would be to run the risk of aborting the process towards the complete eradication of apartheid.

Our march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to stand in our way. Universal suffrage on a common voters' roll in a united democratic and non-racial South Africa is the only way to peace and racial harmony.

In conclusion I wish to quote my own words during my trial in 1964. They are as true today as they were then. I wrote:

'I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.'