Emotional Dignity
by Graham Davies

During the dark early days of the Credit Crunch last year, Gordon Brown almost seemed to thrive. He has a talent for presenting with appropriate dourness when things are at their bleakest, while maintaining an image of personal strength.

We saw even greater depth to this aspect of his character in the House of Commons yesterday. The words he chose to say about the death of Ivan Cameron, and the way that he said them, showed a man who could present with emotion while, crucially, keeping that emotion under control.

The words were simple and the sentences short. His tone was so restrained that he could could have been speaking to an audience of one person and not six hundred. Bearing in mind that his audience were fully aware of his own past loss, he only brought in the gentlest of hints that he knew the something of the pain the Camerons were going through.

It was a masterfully sensitive performance.

If you ever have to do a similar speech, remember this: choose your words so carefully that you are proud of them. Then during delivery, focus on the words rather than the audience.

This is one of the few situations when that is good advice....because concentrating on the words themselves allows you to show emotion, but without letting that emotion control you.

Prison Presentation
by Graham Davies

Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison has a truly horrible history. It was originally a torture centre for Saddam. But it only became notorious internationally because of graphic pictures of inmate abuse by American soldiers when the US used it as a venue for imprisonment without trial.

Now it has re-opened after a complete renovation. There is a gym, a computer room and a visitor centre with a play area to occupy the children of those visiting detainees.

It even has a snappy new name: "Baghdad Central Prison".

It warms my heart to see the Iraqi Justice Ministry acknowledging the importance of Image and Presentation...even for a captive audience.

Winslet "Working"
by Graham Davies

All Kate's usual magic presentational ingredients were there: the hyper-ventilation, the flapping arms and typical lack of professional composure...all shown off nicely by the peculiar gown that she couldn't get her left arm through properly.

There was the embarassing wave-and-whistle routine with her dad and perhaps just a hint of clever thought when she acknowledged "none of us can quite believe we are in the same category as Meryl Streep".

But this time she had something different to...well, play with. She had the acting profession's Ultimate Aid to Self-Stimulation. An actual Oscar.

She seemed to have no idea of the level of physical excitement she was betraying as her heavy breathing reached new heights while she pumped the statuette up and down with her right wrist.

Truly a a whole new type of Gushing Acceptance Speech. There was hardly a dry seat in the house.

Slumdog Garbage
by Graham Davies

Like many cinemagoers, I hope to be entertained and have a good time. If you feel entertained by extreme violence, multiple murders, torture, child abuse, child prostitution and mutilation, together with liberal doses of human excrement…..then Slumdog Millionaire is the film for you.

I felt sick after the first 5 minutes and only stayed because I was reviewing the film for a radio programme.

I admit that there is a predictably nice romantic ending, but it is not worth the effort of sitting through 2 hours which celebrated human degradation.

I am staggered by Slumdog’s success, because it is the worst sort of Feel Bad film.

Save your money and stay at home. Or go and see something less violent and generally despicable. Like Friday the 13th.

Candid Banking At Last?
By Graham Davies

Fresh from reading the latest reports from the Parliamentary Select Committee on Financial Sevices, I walked into my branch of Barclays on High Street Kensington. Their approach is clearly opposite to that of the Costa Brava Tourist Board.

On the wall, I saw a refreshing ad for Barclays' own services, set out precisely like this:

Other banks have mortgages they would love to sell you.

We have a mortgage we think you will love.

YOUR HOME MAY BE REPOSESSED IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP YOUR MORTGAGE PAYMENTS

This high profile schizophrenia is the dawn of Integrity Marketing in the banking sector. Tomorrow, I look forward to

Your money is safe with Barclays

DON'T TRUST US, WE'RE IDIOTS

Investigating all this a bit further, on the savings side of the RBS website, I hope to soon see the following, slightly adjusted copy:

At RBS, you’ll find the perfect home for your money

AFTER ALL, SOMEONE HAS TO PAY OUR BONUSES

Honest Ads At Last?
By Graham Davies

The Costa Brava and Pyrenees Tourist Board have an interesting attitude to visual honesty in presentation. Their most recent ad for their region features a gorgeously sunny, shiny white sandy beach.....in the Bahamas.

When this small inconsistency was pointed out, a Director said that the photograph nevertheless presented "the right concept".

This opens up a whole new avenue of presentation. An Aston Martin advertising a Skoda? A picture of George Clooney to trail the David Dickinson-fronted Real Deal? Or a flushing toilet to promote a hedge fund?

Less Words, More Impact
By Graham Davies

Now that the authorities have released the relevant radio transcripts, it’s apparent that the Chuck Norris Award for Minimum Use of Words for Maximum Impact has to go to Captain Chesley Sullenberger of US Airways.

I realise that he has decades of experience and training behind him, and he was flying a top class bit of kit with an equally professional team around him. But in exceptional circumstances, decades of experience and training and professional practice can desert even the most skilled professional in an instant of terror and pure panic.

Sullenberger, by contrast, was unperturbed. When he realised that there was only one possible destination for his plane (a point at which many professional communicators would have used a combination of swear words and desperate appeals to a variety of deities) all he said to the control tower was "We're going to be in the Hudson".

Minimum words, maximum heroism.

I’d like to think there’s one bit missing from the tape. It’s the bit at the very end where he says "Just finishing off the old Murray Mint, what”.

Clarkson: Loud Mouthed and Spineless
By Graham Davies

He’s rich, he fronts BBC2’s most-watched TV show, and the more he winds people up, the richer and the more watched he becomes. This is what’s so irritating about presenter Jeremy Clarkson.

Whilst it’s clear to everyone that he’s a boorish, opinionated bigot with all the intellectual rigour and insight of a cheese sandwich (he even admits to this himself), it’s these very characteristics which make him so marketable.

Describing Gordon Brown as a “one-eyed Scottish idiot” was strictly par for the Clarkson course. We shouldn’t have expected anything else. So the furore in the papers is just space-filling PR for (as Clarkson would doubtless have it) the thick lanky fat-headed moron’s career.

It’s not often you have a chance to congratulate politicians, but Number 10’s response to Clarkson was a masterpiece. Clarkson, they said “is entitled to his own interpretation of the economic circumstances”. So smoothly cutting.

Now I hear that Clarkson has apologised. He said "in the heat of the moment I made a remark about the Prime Minister's personal appearance for which, upon reflection, I apologise."

Now this REALLY pisses me off. Clarkson - so maverick, so hard-core, and such a devil-may-care bad boy presenter, won’t stand by his own off-the-cuff unfunny bullshit, and instead opts (almost immediately) to give a pathetic, cringeing, wimpy apology.

As Jeremy would no doubt put it, the man’s just a big fat nancy boy.

Voting with their feet
By Graham Davies

Shoe-throwing is the new heckling. Speakers and presenters need to sharpen up their acts and learn the language.

I'd hazard this ranges from flip flop (mild rebuke) to slipper (boring), steel toe-capped working boot (outrage), thigh-length PVC (not sexy enough) and on to a nice brogue (I wish you were Irish).

The conclusion is clear: if MI6 wants to secure early identification of radical dissenters now, they really need to stake out Stead Simpson.

Oh Carol
By Graham Davies

I hate Political Correctness. It is often used as a weapon to stifle people with diverse opinions or an original sense of humour.

However, what is acceptable in language evolves all the time. In 1943, Wing Commander Guy Gibson had a black dog called ”Nigger”. Gibson was the leader of the Dam Busters mission, and he used the name of his dog as the code word to signal the successful breach of the Mohne dam. He radioed it back to base at 1.00am on May 17th 1943. Seven years later, it was still deemed perfectly acceptable as the reference survived intact into the Dam Busters film. When Channel 4 screened the film in 2007, the term had been cut.

In the 1970s, when Britain was still sodden with racism, "Golliwog" was in common usage. It wasn't until the 1980s that it began to be deemed offensive, and Robertsons (most famously associated with the term) capitulated to public pressure, at least partially: the Robertsons Golliwog became the Robertsons Golly. 20 years later, they finally dropped the Golly from their branding altogether. It was too long a time in coming.

Carol Thatcher is a highly experienced broadcaster and presenter. Casually describing a tennis player as a "golliwog" to a group of people in the Green Room after a BBC TV show was utterly crass. Whatever her personal opinions on issues of race, and however much she likes to protest that this was just wry humour (?), there are three lessons to be drawn from this:

(1) You might have the good fortune to be presenting on TV, you might not. Regardless, some words are horribly offensive

(2) No conversation anywhere near a TV studio is ever going to be private

(3) Even if you find this kind of language funny, using it out loud will permanently damage your Presentational Brand. This is particularly true of presenters with ex-Prime Ministers for mothers.

A Nod and a Wink
By Graham Davies

Body language is a far less important presentation tool than the human voice. But it can get you into trouble just as quickly as what you say.

Ask Drum Major John Coleman. He has been suspended from duty for 6 months by the Cleveland Firefighters’ Memorial Pipes and Drums. His cardinal error was to wave and wink at the newly-inaugurated President Obama. Clearly a criminal contravention of the pristine protocol that serious Drum Professionals have observed since time immemorial.

This incident demonstrates how dangerous inappropriate body language can be. It also shows that most of the senior officers of the Cleveland Pipes are not winkers: but they are something else ....

The Power Of 0.0002424%
By Graham Davies

It’s always the turd in the punch-bowl that attracts the most attention.

Barack Obama’s presentation of his 825 billion dollar regeneration package was excellent. Apart from the horrible thing he plopped in the middle.

Apparently, he wanted to spend 200 million dollars on refurbishing the 146 acre National Mall. (0.0002424% of the entire budget). That’s $1,369,863 per acre. Or maybe, sufficient to pay 5,000 gardeners $40,000 each to work on it for a year, seeding it with a strain of grass made of pure gold.

It’s the kind of idea that really winds up your average Republican (alongside free contraception). So no matter how wise any of the bill’s other provisions, they weren’t going to have it.

A load of grass is not a credit crunch priority. Unless it's the kind you can smoke. Then at least people could have a good laugh at Obama’s first really big presentational mistake.