It’s politics season. Labour are just coming to the end of their conference, and Chief!Ed gave what was by all accounts a barnstormer of a speech. I’m not going to get into my politics here. I’ve got them, and one day I might talk about them. But not now. Now I want to talk about this paragraph, taken not from the speech but from James Landale’s analysis of it: But that said, Mr Miliband did go some way to tackling one...

Woah, this has been a while. Though I do have an excuse. In fact, I have 2. Work, and Cornwall, where I just spent a week and a half. Cornwall is possibly the most beautiful place on Earth, and I don’t say that just because I grew up there. Well, maybe because I grew up there. My memories are full of Calvin-and-Hobbes summers, and that definitely colours my perception. Cornwall itself was brilliant – I chased many birds and...

Here’s a neat little marketing idea… Most restaurants, with your bill, give you a couple of mints and, if they’ve got any idea about trying to drum up repeat business, a business card. The business card gets points for effort, but certainly for me they don’t work that well. I’ll take them home and then forget about them, and the restaurant with them. So if you really want to make an impact, you need to make a bit...

It doesn’t matter whether you’re telling a story to sell, persuade, or entertain – there’s 3 things you always need: A beginning that grabs A middle that keeps An ending that lingers I was reminded of this by a post on the Nieman Storyboard – it’s talking about storytelling in journalism, but the principles of writing something that sticks in the reader’s head well after they’ve finished are pretty...

Procrastination. I’m REALLY good at it. I can put things off for days, weeks or years. You name it, I won’t have done it. Strangely, this doesn’t apply to professional things. I’ve yet to miss a sales letter deadline. Copy is cranked out to a pretty rigid schedule: I work on it in the mornings, when my writing brain is best, and leave the afternoon for smaller tasks. Personal things: sorting out my investments, sewing...