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Death by Autocue

An ability to stare down the barrel of a camera, or hold eye contact with a crowd while delivering a long and perfectly flawless speech is an enviable skill to have.  It is also a skill that most of us don’t naturally possess! The autocue may not count as one of man’s greatest adventures, but […]

The Quirky Side of Doing Business With the British

One of the less obvious rewards of travelling is catching a glimpse of your own culture through the prism of other nationalities’ perception. For many in business here in the UK, a placement abroad is an expected part of the job and with that comes some form of cultural training relevant to the destination. Imagine […]

An Appreciation of Yodeling

When was the last time you yodeled? In our super shiny digital age this pastime has been consigned as a relic of a prehistoric, and rather naff, era in history when fun was defined by methods of cheap (ergo free) entertainment. However, fun it was, and across the world, between the 1920s – 1940s, have […]

Is it a Question of Courtesy?

Courtesy as a word is on the decline. I know this thanks to the latest Google gizmo (or perhaps I have only just discovered it) that charts the usage of the word in language. Apparently it peaked somewhere in the 1950s and has been on the slide since then. Of course this was always the […]

Have We Forgotten How to Listen?

It wasn’t all that long ago that if one accidentally nudged the CapsLk key AND WROTE SOMETHING before realising, one would tut, delete and start again. Nowadays however it’s often more common to apologise for ‘shouting’ (followed by the ubiquitous LOL). We shout a lot these days. But we seem to have forgotten how to […]

How not to be skewered by hubris in a pitch

Did you know that, given the chance, a goldfish will eat itself to death because it doesn’t know when to stop? A more commonly known fact is that a goldfish has a 9 second attention span (unless of course you are continuously shovelling fish flakes into the bowl). If you’ve finished the last paragraph your […]

How to find your natural voice

Nigel Farage has been in the headlines again. In fact, he has been on the front page thanks to his Brexit opinions and new found belief that we should have a second referendum on the topic. Perhaps the real significance of this story is that a radio show host, who no longer has anything to […]

Win Over a Business Crowd. Tell Them a Story

Let me tell you about something that happened to me on the way to work today. It’s a funny story and pertinent to what I am writing about in this first blog of 2018. By the way, before I continue, Happy New Year to you! A week has now eclipsed since the arrival of 2018 […]

Christmas… But which version?

Ah the old Yule Tide! Christmas t’is the time of year when traditions and clichés fall thick and fast – a bit like that snowy Christmas card scene that for most UK dwellers is as alien as getting through the festive period without stacking on a couple of extra pounds. I must say it has […]