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 […]

Mind Your Language

At some point in the last couple of years it has apparently become OK to swear onstage at business events. What the flip is going on?

No speaking gigs till July

I’m not taking any more after dinner speaking gigs until the end of June, otherwise I’ll never get the book finished. Once it’s safely handed in to the publishers I’ll be back on the chicken dinner circuit. If your firm, golf club, sports organisation needs a speaker, please consider me. Details of my fees, subjects […]

Victory eclipsed by Mr Moon

I’m never one to moan about a fellow West Ham fan, but there’s one chap who is getting on my nerves. This Mr Moon fellow has been arriving and leaving the stadium during games for as long as I can remember. There’s nothing more annoying than people arriving midway through games is there? You’re in […]

The pub full of Rooneys

All this week I’m putting a different favourite TV report on my site each day. It’s a sort of advent calendar without the chocolate. This year, being a World Cup year, I did a lot of quirky football reports for the BBC. I had a drink in a pub where all the bar staff were […]

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 […]

Orange Feet after the Monsoon

I have orange feet. It’s been three days and I still have orange feet. It all goes back to Saturday night, the night West London was gridlocked and the heavens opened. West Ham earned a fighting draw against Fulham. It wasn’t a classic, but it was our fourth game unbeaten, and there are lots of […]

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 […]