How to make the move into After Dinner Speaking
The formation of PADS – PSA After Dinner Speakers I’ve formed a Professional Expert Group (PEG) for After Dinner Speakers who belong to the Professional Speaking Association. This weekend, at the Hilton Hotel, Coventry I spoke at the PSA annual convention, giving a session on how to make the move into after dinner speaking and […]
Silent Movie
Here’s the latest in my And Finally TV reports. I met a group who compose and perform music for classic silent movies. They’re called the Southwell Collective and the movie featured is the 1928 French gothic horror, The Fall of the House of Usher, based on the novel by Edgar Allen Poe. In the story […]
Badges, badges, badges
Frank Setchfield from Loughborough has over 150 thousand badges. He collects all types except military and he specialises in button badges. He has sporty badges, funny badges, ones with saucy slogans and political badges that have changed the world. I interviewed him for my BBC series on Collectors. Here’s the report.
Lovely Clean Tigers
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to wash the dirty kit of a professional rugby squad? That’s the challenge faced every day by Brenda Hargrave. She’s the laundry supervisor at Leicester Tigers. At the age of seventy she’s become a bit of a celebrity having starred in the break bumpers for Eviva […]
If you can remember the Sixties you weren’t there.
I’ll be taking my autograph book with me on Saturday for the West Ham v Newcastle game. We have some legendary West Ham players from the sixties, coming down for a chat pitch-side before the game. The names I’ve been given are Ken Brown, John Bond, Alan Dickie, Alan Stephenson, Ronnie Boyce, Brian Dear, Jack […]
Edinburgh Talk
I’m off to Edinburgh next week for the festival. On Wednesday night I’ll be giving a talk on how to keep an audience’s attention using comedy. Forget jokes, I’m a big believer in telling true stories that have happened to you. It’s called ‘Putting the U in Humour’ . It’s a talk I’ve done many […]
The Bakewell Show
The Bakewell Show Here’s some pictures of Thursday’s BBC East Midlands Today roadshow at the Bakewell Show in Derbyshire. I smiled a lot at people and if they looked short sighted, I signed photos that weren’t of me. Viewers had a chance to read the news. The vicar of Bakewell was a star at doing […]
A free chapter from my book
I’ve co-written a book called MediaMasters with my good friend Alan Stevens. The aim of the book is to learn how top sports stars, performers, business people, politicans and others in the public eye, use the media to best effect. Below is a free chapter about one of my footballing heroes, Brian Clough. We didn’t […]
Putting the ‘U’ in Humour
One of my most popular talks is on how to use humour effectively when you are speaking in public. As a professional speaker I use humour a lot. It helps keep the audience engaged. If they are being entertained, they are less likely to switch off and stop listening. It’s so much easier to put […]
Splitting my trousers on stage in Johannesburg
I’m smiling in the picture above, but a few hours earlier I wasn’t feeling as comfortable. I was in Johannesburg at the Professional Speakers Association of Southern Africa’s international convention. It was held at the very swanky Emperors Palace, so swanky it doesn’t have an apostrophe. I was honoured to be the only European to […]
