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How intoxicating is verbosity in prose?
Do you like to slash your way through dense verbiage with your intellectual machete, marvelling at the lush lexical landscape, or do you find it heavy going being snagged by either the rich profusion of words or accosted by mysterious … Continue reading
Loads of potential…
A cynic’s guide to real estate sweet talk Ads that pitch a property for sale, often say one thing, while hiding an entirely different picture. Here’s my tongue-in-cheek exposé of the hidden subtext behind some commonly used expressions in the real estate world. Real … Continue reading
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Tagged acronyms, crisp communication, Pitch, Puffing, Spinfluence
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An earnest quote
Ernest Hemingway, 1923 “There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
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Shakespeare and Company
My de rigueur post-it for bibliophiles visiting the City of Light – Don’t miss the Parisian bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, on the left bank in front of the Notre Dame cathedral. It was a popular hangout for writers Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, … Continue reading
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A rustle of autumn
In Paris, September is a gentle micro-season. It prolongs the warmth of summer past, just when you thought it should be over. ‘l’Eté Indien’ the locals call it. When the final summer rays burst forth concertedly and caress the outdoor … Continue reading
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Bombassitude… a French spin
A brilliant Parisian marketing campaign launched in March last year by Sephora, the international perfume and cosmetic giant is still turning heads more than a year later. The campaign consists simply of six powerful posters each with a quirky neologism superimposed … Continue reading
To spin or not to spin?
Spin-doctoring was first used by Reagan’s 80’s advisors during the ‘Star Wars’ Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) which manipulated opinion in a desired direction. The origin of the term is to be found in baseball where the spin put on the … Continue reading
Flee the familiar
One of my favourite authors, Mark Twain, wrote a wonderful motivational piece that may be interpreted on many levels. He was also a steamboat pilot. I’m following his recommendation literally: ‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things … Continue reading
Taking off – the case for sabbaticals
Practically a quarter of all companies in the UK have a career break policy. There’s good sense too, I feel, in taking mini sabbaticals (of say, 2-3 months every 2 years, throughout a lifetime) instead of waiting for the provocation of … Continue reading
