Monthly Archives: October 2014

Mark Reckless and betrayal

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On 27 September, 2014, at the United Kingdom Independence Party conference in Doncaster, the party leader – Nigel Farage – took the podium for a publicized half-hour speech.

Who knew? Judging by the response to Mark Reckless’s first sentence, eleven words which occupied more than a minute till he could start on the second, interrupted as it repeatedly was by thunderous applause, very few in that auditorium had prior knowledge. I have racked my memory in vain to recall Twitter rumours.

I regularly here praise speakers who shoot their speeches from the hip, while castigating those who need to prompt themselves with notes or worse still scripts. Many regard shooting from the hip as a risky circus trick. It is neither risky nor a trick. It is safe and easy if you know how, and it tells the audience a lot of good things about you and your message – things like sincerity, command of your subject, and so on. Mark Reckless shoots this speech from the hip.

His structure for the first half is simple. He lists a series of promises that he made in good faith to his constituents when elected. He concludes the section devoted to each promise with the words, “I couldn’t keep that promise as a Conservative; I can keep that promise as UKIP.” Had he stayed with the Conservative Party therefore he would have betrayed those who voted for him, his party masters having broken a succession of electoral promises.

He says, early in the speech, that Members of Parliament are – with a few honourable exceptions – not representatives of their constituents in Parliament but agents of a political class. Within minutes of this speech being delivered the Conservative Party spin machine swung into action with announcements in which the word “betrayal” was bandied about.

Who is the betrayer: who the betrayed?

He had betrayed his party. They confirmed all he’d said by implying that loyalty to party trumped loyalty to electorate.

The last of his list of promises he couldn’t keep as a Conservative concerns the EU. This prompts a swing into an analysis of the issue. He proceeds to unpick the spin from the truth, and in the process makes some prophesies as to the political sleight of hand we can expect. Today, a month later, we can see some of that has already happened.

I hold no political party membership, and resent being made as cynical towards the party system as I have become. Is UKIP the answer? I have no idea. But my endless watching of speeches gives me a well-honed bullshit sense. I have to say I believe that this man means what he tells us. And I commend his famous last sentence.

We are more than a star on somebody else’s flag.

Ian Percy is good with chickens.

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In my travels I have periodically heard about Ian Percy. Trainees and also readers of this blog have mentioned him to me. I have been told that he is a ‘certified speaking professional’ (certified by whom?). He has been inducted into both the Canadian and U.S. Speaking Halls of Fame. He has been described as “one of the top 21 speakers for the 21st century”.

That’s some billing! Shall we see if he lives up to it? Here he is, speaking at the Center for Spiritual Living, Capistrano Valley, California, in January last year. His talk is entitled “Free the chickens”.

He is introduced by Rev. Dr. Heather Dawn Clark, and my senses suggest that Percy wrote his own introduction. (If he didn’t, he should have done: it saves so much trouble for everyone. At any rate, whoever wrote it, I like the alliterative triad in it.) I don’t know what makes Dr Clark laugh as we join her, but it adds warmth and charm to the proceedings. Dr Clark makes just one mistake. Leading or joining the applause when standing at the lectern feels so right but it looks and sounds wrong. Ian Percy begins at 1:20.

You may notice a sort of bell-like singing sound, impinging on your consciousness from time to time. It started during Dr Clark’s introduction and it doesn’t stop when Percy begins. This is from automatic microphone adjustment (AMA). I cannot be certain whether the live audience heard it or whether it is interference in the interface between the Center’s sound system and the camera’s microphone. The Center’s sound system is so good in every other respect that I suspect it is the latter and just one of those unfortunate things that happen.

Percy needs AMA. He uses such a huge range of tone colour with his voice that without it there’d either be passages that were inaudible or others severely distorted.

His inconsequential opening chit-chat shows tiny signs of hump, but you have to look pretty hard for it. This guy’s reputation is well earned. So good indeed is he that I instinctively reach for my nit-picking tweezers.

The camera operator, later in the speech, pans across to the screen to show us Percy’s visuals; but with the early slides we just have to guess what is there. The guess is easy so why the slides? Without them he would not be periodically looking around at the screen and surrendering his claim on the audience’s focus. If I were advising him I would tell him to ditch the slides – all of them. They add virtually nothing to what he is saying and he is quite compelling enough to not need those things as a crutch.

He has cue-cards of some description above his eye-level behind the audience/camera, but he uses them only for when he needs to quote precise figures. The rest of the time he is shooting from the hip and doing it well. If advising him I would recommend having those details on a card in his hand. Being seen to refer to hard copy when quoting statistics strengthens verisimilitude. I have trainees like Finance Directors whose lives are so absorbed in the figures they quote at presentations that they could quote them to the penny in their sleep; but they look at a card when they quote them so that their audiences are not tempted to suspect that these figures are ball-park. Sometimes the cards are blank…

And really those are the only nits I’m going to pick.

It’s an absorbing presentation, engagingly delivered, and though the message may be less than ground-breaking it is thought-provoking and I certainly do not think of the half hour it took to watch as being time wasted. This guy is good.

Emma Watson’s voice is trailing her face

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It made all the papers! In September 2014 Emma Watson spoke at the United Nations about gender equality and the he-for-she campaign. The speech was universally described as ‘moving’. Shall we see whether we agree?

Before we reach Ms Watson we see and hear her introducer making a mistake that I have previously identified in this blog. If you are at the lectern you should never join in with the applause. It feels right, but looks and sounds wrong.

Oh dear, how vulnerable her voice sounds! She is very nervous indeed. It is understandable, but I am anxious to know whether this is merely a manifestation of hump, or whether it is more deeply rooted.

The worst of the vulnerability recedes in around 3 minutes, which is par for a hump, but now there’s something else bothering me and I can’t put my finger on it. She does not look down at the lectern, but nor is she shooting from the hip. This is a learnt script: I’d stake big money on that. I’m not surprised: she is after all an actor. The learnt performance has also been thoroughly rehearsed, but again that is what actors do.

Quite often I find I can identify problems with speakers by closing my eyes and letting my hearing operate without visual interference. I try this, and am quite alarmed by the result. She now sounds monotonous, frankly boring, and the voice is fragile.

This is what has been bothering me. Visually she is conveying a very strong and expressive picture; but the sound, when taken alone, is frighteningly weak.

I am trying to resist a facile, knee-jerk analysis along the lines of film-actor-hasn’t-learnt-proper-stage-voice-projection, though there could be something in that. At any rate, her voice is nothing like as expressive as her face.  This is a pity.

It is laudable when young people, having made a success in one thing, branch out and challenge themselves in other directions. Emma Watson is to be congratulated, but I hope she doesn’t stop working at this particular skill because she has a way to go. Also, thus far, her work has been misdirected: learning a script is absolutely not the right way to prepare for a speech. If someone has told her it is, that someone needs to do something more suited to their talents.

Robert Bryce – about as good as they come.

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On 9 September, 2014 – about 3 weeks ago – The Institute of Public Affairs hosted a dinner in Melbourne. It was the setting for this year’s H V Mackay lecture which was delivered by Robert Bryce. His specialist subject, both in his books and in this lecture, is energy.

It took very few seconds for me to get excited about Bryce. Seldom does any speaker set out his stall as clearly as this. Seldom does any speaker present such a distinct contents page. Some might expect me to complain that he lacked a pretty opening, and I certainly discuss with trainees the desirability of pretty openings, but pretty openings are garnish. Given the choice between a restaurant serving mediocre food with pretty garnish and a restaurant serving more simple but fabulous food the answer is obvious. Bryce doesn’t fanny about with garnish but he leaves you in no doubt as to what you are supposed to hear.

And he shows his workings. If you are wondering about the significance of that you obviously missed the second paragraph in this posting.

Virtually all my trainees – being business people – are convinced that their work in general, and numbers in particular, are deadly boring to everyone else. Therefore I explore with them a range of ways to make data more interesting. One such is used extensively and to huge effect by Bryce. Try this for size –

In the last decade the increase in global energy demand has been roughly seven Saudi Arabias.

For quite a sustained period in this lecture The Saudi Arabia becomes his unit of energy production, and crystal clear imagery regarding his message is thereby created. A little later, when speaking not about production but consumption he adopts another unit – The Brazil. In global consumption since 1985 a Brazil has been added per year.

He uses paper, but almost entirely for statistics. Nearly all the time he is shooting from the hip, but when it seems to him important that he is seen to be quoting precise data he unashamedly consults his notes. I have absolutely no quarrel with that.

Nor do I quarrel with him when he says at 14:56, “I don’t use PowerPoint, it gives me a rash.” I don’t use it either, though not for dermatological reasons. I don’t disapprove of visuals – a picture can replace a thousand words – but I conduct 2-hour seminars without a single slide simply to demonstrate how seldom a picture is actually needed.

His vocal delivery has two small flaws. He pops his microphone very occasionally and his voice is placed incorrectly in his face. In this lecture he adjusts the mic when he begins, and needs to learn that if the mic is pointing at your mouth never point your mouth at the mic (and vice versa). He speaks with too much use of his throat. This makes his voice work harder than necessary, so he repeatedly needs to sip water. These are quibbles, but I deploy quibbles only when people are as good as this.

At one point, when discussing the current inadequacy of batteries, the subject of electric cars comes up. Here’s a choice quotation –

Electric cars are the next big thing – and they always will be

For his style of speaking Robert Bryce is about as good as they come.