Category Archives: Campaigning

Turned out nice again

By tom | Published: 13/06/2013

The Southbank Centre invited me to create a language installation for the Festival of Neighbourhood. The site stretches from Waterloo Bridge to the London Eye, and incorporates the new Jubilee Gardens that front the old Shell complex. Language is a strong theme in this year’s summer festivities. They include the London Literary Festival, typo-graphics by [...]

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Apostrophegeddon

By tom | Published: 07/05/2013

Writing is not about rules, but communicating ideas. Any company that rejects a job application because of a misplaced apostrophe is barking up the wrong tree. The most original thinkers I work with struggle to tie their shoelaces.

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Leaders and Speechwriters

By Brian | Published: 27/11/2012

‘You start by writing down the headline you want to see in the paper after you’ve delivered the speech. Then you write the two press releases for the articles you want to appear as follow-up stories to the speech. Then you sit down to write the speech.’ Paddy Ashdown

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Noisy perfection

By tom | Published: 26/09/2012

I am sitting in the Bodleian Library with Dr Christopher Fletcher, a Fellow of Exeter College, member of the English Faculty and Keeper of Special Collections. On the table between us is a yellowing manuscript of translucent pages inscribed with a neat copperplate script in brown ink. It is the autograph draft manuscript of The [...]

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Heavenly bodies

By tom | Published: 08/08/2012

A hop, skip and jump from the Olympic VIP entertainment suites where regimes with appalling human right records are enjoying a break from torturing their citizens, is a simple, humble encampment of Eelam Tamils. Gobi Sivanthan is on hunger strike to raise awareness about Black July, 1983. According to Tamils Against Genocide, this is the period [...]

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You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!

By tom | Published: 09/07/2012

Just back from touring Italy with The Ham and Cheese Company – part of the breakaway faction from Borough Market now trading in Spa Terminus – Bermondsey. We travelled from Bologna to Parma to Siena to Roma meeting people whose lives revolve around making marvellous food. The idiosyncratic hams and cheeses we sampled along the [...]

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War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength

By tom | Published: 16/04/2012

Question: What do racism, ostracism, despotism, sectarianism, fanaticism, nationalism, evangelism, symbolism, jingoism, patriotism, puritanism, factionalism and totalitarianism have in common? Answer: Euphemism.     Just back from Berlin and the Topography of Terror project, which catalogues the horrors of the Nazi era through images and texts. The building is located on the site previously occupied [...]

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The Look of Love

By tom | Published: 29/11/2011

Most of the fundraising projects I work on are with destitute human rights foundations struggling for survival. Exterior events always seem to take place in the doldrums of winter on the streets of London, New York, Paris, Madrid or Den Haag which may sound glamorous but involves dripping tents, mobile blind spots, failing generators, obstreperous [...]

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WORDSTOCK – One Amazing Day

By tom | Published: 14/10/2011

WORDSTOCK began as a twinkle in our collective eyes at a 26 Board meeting: Could it be possible to attract 70 people who are mad about writing and communications to a wordstorming Saturday somewhere in central London? And if so, who so, where so, when so? Approaching likely punters was the easy bit because 26 [...]

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Fighting for life

By tom | Published: 02/09/2011

Just back from Copenhagen with this interview of Leena Alam by the Danish journalist Lise Thorsen. Leena is an Afghan phenomenon; actor, director and human rights campaigner in a country where the Taliban terrorise anyone involved in dance, music, theatre and film. Lise was visiting Afghanistan on behalf of the Danish Centre for Culture and [...]

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