Category Archives: Storytelling

Apostrophegeddon

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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Sorry tale

These printed apologies demonstrate one thing very clearly – when a company has its back against the wall it turns to words not pictures.

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50 shades of sorry

Sorry is one of the most subjective words in the English language because it can be infected with so many nuances. Far from expressing genuine contrition, governments, businesses, public figures and (sorry about this) you and me use apologies to divert attention, manage expectations, resuscitate reputations, and even implicate the victim. 2013 has already seen [...]

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A Christmas Cracker

Rochester House, home for The Story Museum, was a magnet for roving Tale Tellers, Yarn Spinners and Gossip Mongers who arrived from far and wide to feed off the Oxford Gyre; the storytelling energy that has made the city of dreaming spires such a Mecca for writers.

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Leaders and Speechwriters

‘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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Whale of a time

Moby Dick: Big Read presents an online version of Melville’s book, with each chapter read aloud and accompanied by a painting, drawing or photograph.

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Words in the airways

From a glowing Bakelite wireless in the distant 1950s to the latest digital receiver, my ears have experienced an onslaught of millions of multi-layered words.

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Rubbish story

For the past few years, I’ve collected handwritten notes that have been abandoned on London’s streets. Now a new form of writing is born – ‘litterature’

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Noisy perfection

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

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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