Reviews

reviewed by John Simmons

For those of you who missed the second 26 Annual Lecture with Oona King last month, here’s your chance to catch all the action from the comfort of your own computer. Just click http://www.vimeo.com/7836780, and you’ll be taken to the Vimeo site, where you can watch Oona in full flow. Or for a quick overview, read a review of the event by John Simmons below...

When 26 was set up six years ago, the aim was to promote the value of writing in business, in life, in all its diversity. That's what made Oona King such a great choice of speaker. She’s now Head of Diversity for Channel 4 and was previously the Labour MP for Bethnal Green – a constituency where 79 different languages are spoken by residents.

Oona famously lost her seat to George Galloway, notorious for being a cat on Big Brother. Did Oona’s defeat by an embarrassing and chubby moggy with a moustache mean that diversity and multiculturalism are dead?

"Multiculturalism is a fact,” Oona declared. With a white Jewish mother, a black American father, a grandmother from Glasgow, she embodies it. But her real subject, particularly for her audience, was the effect of diversity on creativity and language.

It’s a field that has become a politically correct minefield, and one of the problems is that we haven’t yet found an acceptable language to fit the essential humanity that should go with the subject. So there’s an identity crisis afflicting the subject and individuals. Oona confessed to not knowing her real ‘constituency’ (not meaning Bethnal Green).

She told an intriguing story of being on the streets of Gaza during a riot. She was there on a parliamentary mission and suddenly realised that she represented a prime kidnap target. Because she was a British MP, because she could be seen as black (but the wrong sort) or even white, because she had an American father, because she was Jewish. But she does not define her identity by any one of these. So she is now officially, on forms and surveys, categorised by the term ‘dual heritage’ – ‘like something you find off the A53’.

There’s a positive aspect to all this. One interesting statistic was that 3 per cent of the English population is classed as ‘mixed race’, as opposed to 30 per cent of the English football team. If you want to be a writer not a footballer, there are examples like Zadie Smith.

But great writers embrace diversity in all its aspects because they reflect the reality of the world – young/old, healthy/unhealthy, rich/poor, happy/sad. So, as writers, we need to welcome diversity not because it’s politically correct but because it creates better writing. And, as readers, the widest possible range of books will not only keep us entertained but help us become better writers too.

The 26 Annual Lecture was held in association with The Storytellers and with the support of IABC and Simply Communicate. Many thanks to all those involved in organising the event and to Oona King for taking part.

reviewed by Elise Valmorbida

“Is that the chocolate?” friends asked in casual conversation before I left London for Linz. “No, it was Hitler’s adoptive home and capital of choice. But this year it’s the European Capital of Culture.”

How appropriate that Linz should be the meeting place for the world’s writers – poets, bloggers, essayists, journalists, novelists, dramatists, lyricists – lovers of literature, champions of the right to write, agitators for the release of imprisoned and silenced writers everywhere in this wide neurotic world.

This was the 75th International PEN Congress. A week of words for action. Think United Nations of Writers. A huge hall filled with people of every language and face. A line of interpreters’ cabins, the murmur of translation, the clarity of campaigns. So much intelligence and goodwill concentrated in one spot!

I feel sure that this energy went some way to counteract the unhappy history of Linz as Hitler’s favourite. (Vienna was too ‘degenerate’ for him.) A bus of us made a trip to nearby Mauthausen, once a Nazi concentration camp for political prisoners. Here, 200,000 individuals were degraded, starved, worked to death. Many were shot or gassed. Fifteen thousand of these ‘political prisoners’ were children. In the cold grey light of late October 2009, the Austrian PEN team laid a wreath and spoke emotively about our role as writers to help prevent such horrors from happening again.

Back at the Congress, we attended workshops and voted on resolutions. Green cards, yellow cards, red cards. We talked and listened. About the PEN culture of ‘temperantia’ – mildness. (How beautiful is that?) About repressive regimes and delinquent states. About literature becoming pictorature in the age of the image. About ‘difference’ being ‘differently good’. About laws that struggle with the freedom to express hatred. About disappearing languages, and disappearing writers, this year, today. We stood in silence as names were read of the missing and dead.

I went to Linz as a member of English PEN, but also as a representative of 26, working with Harry Pearce of Pentagram, talking about visual and verbal identity. The partnership of these organisations started a few years ago, when 26 co-founder John Simmons met with International PEN’s executive director Caroline McCormick. Since then, many 26ers have joined in – working on Free The Word! literary festivals at London’s Southbank, assisting with a global organisational review, exploring the territory of translation in exchanges with PEN writers, then a London Design Festival exhibition and book, and on we go: writers helping writers, for love not for money, for ‘mildness’, for the love of words.

26 member Elise Valmorbida is creative director of word-design. Her latest novel, The Winding Stick, was published in May 2009. See www.word-design.co.uk/fiction.

reviewed by Robert Self-Pierson

Beautiful. Powerful. Moving. Emotional. Inspiring.

It’s just words.

I find it amazing how different minds process the same thing. The same sight, sound, colour, movement. When an old boss briefed a design colleague on edits he needed to make to a door-drop flyer – a simple, two-sided card flyer – she used the words, “Don’t worry – it’s just words”. Her translation of her client’s feedback was to just change the words.

If she’d visited 26’s London Design Festival exhibition at the Royal Academy of Engineering this week, perhaps she would have noticed something.

Sometimes words mean more than words.

Two walls. Two projectors. Many smiling, absorbed faces. Hundreds of hours of writers, designers and printers; of sound engineers, event organisers. Of readers. All coming together to produce something beautiful, powerful, moving, emotional and inspiring. These are the words I overheard.

In just a few months, 11 writers from 26 worked with 11 writers from International PEN to explore, as John Simmons notes, “the difficulties, triumphs and surprises of attempting ‘translation’ between languages and cultures”. The task – take 11 texts from 11 different languages, from Spanish to the African language Shona, via Europe, South America and Asia, and translate the words, the meanings.

Writers wrote and spoke, communicated their thoughts across continents, and created a special exhibition. Harry Pearce, design partner at Pentagram, then interpreted the stories graphically – creating this little room bursting with world literature.

“This is a list of all the people to thank,” said John, unrolling the paper in his hand, near the end of Tuesday’s reception. “So many contributed to this wonderful exhibition. I’m very proud.”

Hearing the list of people and skills involved, I marvelled at the power of words to bring people together. From an idea to a blog to an exhibition to a book. 26 Exchanges demonstrates how words and stories can translate into so much more when they undertake a journey.

“Translation is the process of making a bridge that two writers can walk across from different sides,” writes John. What happens in the middle, as this exhibition shows beautifully, is always something exciting.

reviewed by Mike Exon

It’s a shame in a way that the Whitechapel Gallery ended up being too small for Harry Pearce’s 26 talk last week. This new-look building is a fascinating place, full of memories of writers and artists now long gone. Having been rebuilt from a combination of the old library and the old gallery, the place is living testament to the interplay of words and images – rather like Harry’s talk The Schizophrenic Road, which was relocated to Pentagram Yard.

Harry’s a familiar face of course, having designed the broadsheet newspaper that helped launch 26. For those who don’t know his work though, let’s just say he’s a leading international graphic designer and typographer, a self-styled wordsmith, and a wizard of the letterform. Well known for bold textual creations, he made his name in design circles as the second half of Lippa Pearce, the award-winning design duo that joined Pentagram three years ago.

In more recent times, he’s been turning his hand to just about anything, from designing buildings, to ongoing work with human rights organisation Witness. He’s also an old friend of the late Alan Fletcher, the designer who became his mentor, and the man who this talk remembers.

It was Alan who inspired Harry to collect the verbal oddities that have become a kind of creative backbone for his work. After seeing Harry’s photo of the street sign ‘Avenue Road’, Fletcher got excited,

“Fuck it Harry you’ve discovered the schizophrenic road. Whatever you do keep recording these. Think this way…”

I’m trying to think of a way of summing up Harry’s worldview, but it’s not that straightforward. As the talk continues we start to piece the puzzle together bit by bit.

He’s interested in ‘confusing words with images’ like with his Macbeth poster, where letters form from spaces in a pool of blood. He loves games and conundrums. He’s interested in irony and silliness and says ‘nonsense often has more meaning than sense’. He’s a collector, yes. Of images, dreams, amusing sayings or scenes. And he’s interested in manifesting memories.

Like all great wordsmiths, he’s a storyteller who understands juxtaposition and verbal dynamics, not just in the way words and images are crammed with meanings, like his incendiary political poster for Burma, but in the way sentences and situations rely on the reader to complete them (a pure principle of interaction in fact).

A great example of this simple idea in action is his divine photo of an arrow-shaped sign pointing towards the Heaven Café. It’s been nailed to a tree, but of course someone’s nabbed a nail and the thing’s now pointing to the sky. What visual poetry.

The talk continues and he shows us his designs for the Dana Foundation, an academic offshoot of the Science Museum, dedicated to the study of the human brain. It’s offices and study areas on the top floors with bars and lounges on the ground. In an effort to lighten up the lab coat image of the boffins, he’s done just about everything he can to stencil what’s inside our heads onto the walls.

Dana’s brand identity is drawn from the shape of the building, encapsulating it entirely. For the centre’s interiors he’s turned the walls and windows into a massive neural mural. Every surface is emblazoned with printed thoughts, ideas and conversations. It’s pretty incredible for a writer to see – a temple of type whose letterforms are engrained into the fabric of the architecture. 
 
“I’ve always believed that typography and buildings have a very similar nature,” he says.  “An architect recently said to me, that what matters most and is often overlooked, is the space between buildings. That’s the space most people inhabit. You could say the same for type; often it’s the space between forms that hold the key to its beauty.”

There are seemingly no outer limits to his approach to work today. The one congruity is things are much more than they first appear to be. It’s words, conversations, memories and what they leave behind in the physical world that matter – what he neatly calls “Conversation’s Ghosts”. 
“You know when a conversation takes place that when it’s done, it’s done – you have the memories you have the effect of people’s words on you,” he says.“I imagine the place/space where this takes place has a memory of it too.”
There’s a huge amount to the Schizophrenic Road, and a lot to take away. It’s not just about collecting street signs and writing down your dreams, though that might be a good idea, but more importantly about reading ‘things’ in all sorts of ‘other’ ways. Words, it seems, are much more than just words.

Thank you Harry.



And thank you Mike of Digit for a review worthy of the event.

reviewed by Robert Self-Pierson

A 21st Century Printing Press

What would’ve happened ten years ago if you’d told a keen writer they could get published for free? You pay nothing, you receive nothing. But you get your words, your story and your name in front of people.

The reaction would probably have been similar to tonight’s, in the downstairs bar of the digital design company Tequila. As Ben Afia stands and introduces tonight’s talk – “What’s so special about blogging?” – the 26 members and their guests hush to a bubbling anticipation. “Blogging,” says Ben; “surely it’s just scribbling random thoughts on pieces of paper and throwing them over a wall?” A roomful of chuckles says Ben’s not alone in his fears.

Mark McGuinness takes the talk. Poised before a crowd of over 40 writers, designers, producers, execs and other word addicts, Mark (writer, blogger and creative coach) introduces his subject. So what is so special about blogging? First, let’s step back. What is blogging?

Mark introduces us to his two blogs – wishfulthinking.co.uk and lateralaction.com – before he asks the audience who regularly blogs. Who writes their thoughts, loves, hates, fears, feelings up on the internet and hits the “publish” button for the world to devour? Over 50 per cent of us do. OK, so who blogs for business? Who employs their voice to promote their company? Two hands creep up. So the idea of blogging excites and engages many writers. But before commerce and industry joins the movement, blogging could pass its golden age without realising it.

Blogs offer free content. “The content, whatever the blog is about,” says Mark, sipping from his water, “should be entertaining and informative. It’s not sales spiel. It should never be sales spiel.” Mark has a wonderful ability to talk on a subject he knows the world about with a delivery that allows the world to understand. A designer leans in to me: “I love how he makes it sound so simple.”

Alongside Mark sit three guests who understand blogs well enough to earn a living from them. As the talk progresses, and questions begin to float in from the floor, Chris Garrett, Rachel Clarke and John Dodds offer their thoughts. All four agree on what makes the difference between a successful blog and a crumpled-paper-wall-throwing one. Inform, entertain, teach, solve problems; be unique, be remarkable, target. And make the time to look after your creation.

“People always say to me, ‘Mark, how do you find the time to blog regularly?’” There’s a murmur in the audience – nodding heads, smiles. “It’s not easy – something always seems more urgent. But your blog is your own personal printing press. It’s just as revolutionary. Short posts, long posts? It’s up to you.” John Dodds agrees – he can knock out a pithy post in 15 minutes.

Tonight, we’re all learning something – the experienced, the experimental, the novices and the virgins. We all feel we can go away and attract new readers, gain subscribers, excite and cajole. But how does this work for business? Surely business writing is flat, mundane, impersonal?

In front of his slideshow, Mark brings up the “attention funnel”. Web readers don’t pay money to read free content, they pay their “attention dollars”, their time. So bloggers have a huge responsibility to make their posts great value-for-attention. If the content isn’t there, the reader will fall down the tunnel and straight through. No subscription, no comment, no return visitor. So for a business blog to work, it needs a voice that captivates a casual web user, a window shopper. The best blogs provide value.

Mark concludes the evening with an explanation of how effective blogging benefits big and small business. What’s the pay off? “Firstly, you gain readers. Readers can become new clients, new friends, a new community. And this all leads to great business opportunities.” It makes sense – a blog can become an online portfolio: a place to show people what you can do.

A warm round of applause thanks Mark for his overview of the transforming world of social media and self-publishing, before lively discussion creates a writing community in Tequila’s late evening half-light. Is Twitter the new blogging? Does a business blog require a corporate voice? How is industry – professional, often distant, cryptic industry – changing with new media?

As answers met their questions, I fell under the spell of social media at its best: connecting people from across media, across counties, countries. The experts in front summed up with a united message. Blogging brings people together. Through his blog, Mark met Ben. Through my blog I met Mark. Then Colin. Who met Dan. Business is changing; industry today is morally obliged to respond to people. And if we can find our niche, blog in the ways the experts suggest, we’ll meet the people we need to meet. If a brand is what people say about us when you’re not there, as John Dodds suggests, a blog helps put us there.

But one last message – a little warning from Mark, as he sips the last drops of water from his glass. “Remember, a blog isn’t a business. A blog is a business tool that delivers value. Write well, give it at least a year, and you’ll catch the readers at the bottom of the attention funnel.”  

Thanks to Robert Self-Pierson for the review. You can read his blog here.

reviewed by Jim Davies

In the early part of 26 ways of looking at a blackberry, John Simmons tells the story of the genesis for his new book. He was sitting on a plane, headed for a writing course in Spain that he was due to co-lead, when the idea for the book sprang into his mind, almost fully formed. Desperate not to lose the moment, and not feeling free to disturb his slumbering neighbour from unsweet Ryanair dreams in order to reach a notebook in the overhead locker, he could find nothing other than a Starbucks receipt upon which to catch his moment of inspiration.

It’s a marvellous metaphor for the entire book, which is all about constraints, a theme for business writing that has been one of John’s guiding principles for the past ten years or so.

As he says, it’s an obvious thought that all business writing is rooted in constraint, because everything starts from a client brief. However much the writer dares to challenge, stretch and work their topological magic, the brief is still the brief, and it’s within those limits that the writer must pick up his pencil and go to work.

For John, though, this way liberation lies, and the joy of 26 Ways is the exploration of the boundaries of constraint and the permissions and opportunities that lie within them. The structural device for this exploration is to take the familiar format of the annual report, in this case a mythical company (Technology Holdings) that John created for the purposes of the book, and then to find 26 constraints that force him into reinterpreting the report in different ways.

Speaking to a full audience in the Nancy Knowles lecture theatre at the Globe Theatre on 7 May, John told the story of a number of these versions, and read two excerpts from the book. The format of the evening was run with John in conversation with 26’s Martin Lee, followed by an open question session. As lecture theatres go, the Globe’s is remarkably intimate, and the evening had a feeling of a fireside chat, contributing a lot to the charm of the occasion.

Throughout the book, John uses anecdotes and illustrations from projects spanning his full consulting career, from Guinness to the London Underground, by way of Cross Country trains and many more, together with various 26 assignments. As one story layers upon another, there is a quietly building sense of momentum, and the suspicion gradually dawns that the book has the feel of a major review or summary. When asked about this during the evening, John revealed that 26 Ways is almost certain to represent his last book on business writing, principally because he feels that with this book he has essentially laid out everything that he feels about the subject. That being the case, it was a fascinating opportunity to ask him more about his career and find out exactly how he’d ended up becoming the founding figure of modern business writing, or verbal identity, to use his own chosen phrase.

In responding to this request, we heard about how he spent the first ten years of his career in the civil service, but, desperate to move on from that, found himself increasingly drawn to the world of design, to which he was tangentially connected. In the end, Newell & Sorrell took him on in the – to him – unlikely and ill-defined position of Project Manager, but in reality fulfilling the role of being John Sorrell’s assistant.

The transition into a fully fledged championship of verbal identity happened gradually, almost by stealth, but was accelerated through publishing landmark books, such as We, me, them and it and also through working with clients such as Waterstone’s that gave him full license to explore the role of words and language in business.

In telling this account, John had his audience fully engaged. One of his most penetrating observations was in saying that the thing that pleases him about modern business writing is that there is growing respect for the power of story telling. To that point, the power of his own story telling is at a very high order, and before questions he concluded by reading a couple of excerpts from 26 Ways, both of which were variations of the base text, as John refers to the mythical company’s report. One of them, appropriately given the venue, was a Shakespearian sonnet version, while the other sprang out of the idea of Technology Holdings’ origin story, to illustrate the importance of a sense of place in business writing. And indeed, as the different interpretations of the original annual report copy build one after another, a company that starts out (in the reader’s mind) as a convenient device for John’s constraints, ends up being a fascinating source of interest in its own right.

Before disappearing off to the bar in time-honoured fashion, there was one final twist on the night. Each person found a copy of the base text on their seat, and John’s final challenge to the audience was to write their own version, perhaps in the style of an author they particularly like or respond to in some way, and to send it back. The entries are to be judged, and one fortunate individual will receive a free annual subscription to 26 by way of prize.

Perhaps the final word could go to his editor, Lisa Carden from A&C Black. Asked about what it was like to have John as an author, she said “He’s the only author I’ve ever worked with who submitted his manuscript before the deadline, and without needing a single word or punctuation mark corrected.”

reviewed by Dan Radley

On a fine April evening, 100 of the great and good of writing and design gathered in the mysterious Swedenborg House to thrash out their alleged differences. The discussion featured designers Malcolm Garrett, Jonathan Barnbrook and Simon Esterson, with Creative Review’s Patrick Burgoyne in the chair. Jim Davies did a fine job of organising and introducing the event, which soon turned into a lively free-for-all. Here’s a review from one of the writers present, Start Creative’s Dan Radley. 

I had some reservations about the title. The image of designer and writer locked in a creative arm-wrestle doesn’t fit my own experience. In the event, the panel at Swedenborg House moved swiftly from the confrontational side of the relationship to the positive possibilities.

Jonathan Barnbrook, a typographer who has championed the power of graphic design to bring about social change, kicked things off with a lament: “Too many young typographers don’t read the text they’re working with.” Malcolm Garrett, type guru and interactive pioneer, asked, “Are they a designer if they haven’t read the text?”

Editorial designer Simon Esterson agreed, “Designers are visual translators.” He explained that in editorial design the nature of the product often dictates the way writers and designers interact. “The New Yorker is about smart writing and cartoons in a fixed format and typeface,” he said. “Whereas The Sun is a subs’ product.”

Patrick Burgoyne in the Chair observed that The Sun gets you reading half the page before you even realise. Malcolm saw this as the sign of a seamless relationship, rather like, “You never notice great acting.” He said he’d been in partnership with a writer since the 1980s. As it turned out, that writer – Kasper de Graaf – was in the audience and helped the platform debate spill naturally onto the floor.

How can we make our clients braver? Is the internet the death or salvation of writing? Why doesn’t design follow the advertising model of the art director and copywriter role-switching and cross-pollinating?

Overall, collaboration was deemed the winner: “Two people in a room equals three people in the room.” The spirit of Emanuel Swedenborg, erotic love poet and inventor of the submarine, had moved amongst us.

reviewed by Rishi Dastidar

About six months after it we started talking about it, and six weeks after we started writing wishes for it, the SpinVox Wishing Well is go go go.

It's lovely, and visiting it last weekend I was struck by the fact that it really was worth the time and effort to get right.

The Well is in the East Piazza of Covent Garden until 5 January, and if you can’t get to London, you can see the wishes at http://spinvoxwishingwell.com. And to make a wish call 020 7818 0880.

It's an incongruous sight in Covent Garden to begin with, all sleek silver and shimmer instead of traditional stone. People were certainly taking their time to stop, hover, touch it, take a photo.

And then start dialling their wish in. It appeals to the voyeur in all of us. Step inside into the triangular space and you see some of the deepest hopes of people writ large – glib, flippant, deep, heartfelt, profound. And its gently pulsating walls make you feel like you're at the bottom of real well – but light and permeable instead of dark and foreboding.

There’ve been over 800 wishes cast now, and I’ve had little thrills of recognition when I see some of the 350 or so 26 wishes bubble up. They’ve set the tone very well.

So thanks to all of you for all your wishes – you’ve helped something very special come to life.

Yes, I did wish. And no, I won't tell you what it was. Or it won't come true.

reviewed by Nick Asbury

Update: You can see Philip's 26 lecture at http://vimeo.com/2331278

Well, where to begin? First, with a few thank-yous. To Phil Collins himself for a brilliantly insightful lecture (more of which later). To the 250 lucky people who turned up. To event sponsors The Storytellers, alongside IABC, Simply Experience and The Writer, all of whom contributed to a fantastic evening. And not least to Ezri Carlebach, John Simmons and Martin Clarkson, the three 26 members who took on the weighty responsibility of making this whole thing happen. 

As for the speech itself, we’re planning to have the whole thing available for download for 26 members, so I won’t attempt to paraphrase it here. However, in the tradition of political speeches, here are some memorable soundbites:

“A great speech relies on three elements: the argument, the writing and the occasion.”

“A good speech is dialogue in the garb of monologue.”

“You know you’ve matured when you delete a great line because it doesn’t matter.”

“Writing is arguing silently.”

“Maradona Good. Pele Better. George Best.”

“It’s not the words but the facts that make us shiver. The emotional effect comes from the restraint that allows the subject to be its own witness.”

“Jargon is how I protect my right to income from talking this way.”

“Absorb half a dozen great writers every year.”

“No joke will survive a committee of six people.”

“Always be sure to let the audience know exactly when you’ve finished.”

Just about every sentence was equally quotable. The final Q&A session also led to the startling revelation that Tony Blair’s choice of early morning attire is usually “some combination of boxer shorts, Ugg boots and tracksuits.” If you work for the News of the World, feel free to pick up that exclusive and run with it.

reviewed by Nick Asbury Which comes first – writing or design? A conclusive answer came at a memorable evening hosted by the London Design Festival at their new offices in London’s Frith Street. Sensibly taking into account his audience, Domenic Lippa of Pentagram spoke glowingly of how great writing can lodge in the mind – in a way that great design hasn’t always managed to achieve. Martin Clarkson, Chairman of 26, made an equally vigorous case for writing’s role, whilst urging writers and designers to break out of their self-imposed ghettos and take a more cross-disciplinary approach. Meanwhile, host Sir John Sorrell summed up with a selection of wise words from David Ogilvy – including a persuasive argument for why great headlines should never be set in upper case. The speakers sparked off a series of lively conversations around the room, fuelled by free-flowing wine and an interesting selection of sushi. As for which comes first... a slight organisational mix-up meant that all the writers arrived at 6.30pm, while the designers turned up half an hour later. So that’s that settled.

 

reviewed by Claire Falcon, Falcon Windsor Oh the terror of appearing on stage! So thought ten Dark Angels when script writer, director, producer and star of the show John Simmons told us he needed a ‘choir’ to help him finish his ‘Forever Young’ talk at the Globe in November. Hearts in our mouths, we arrived 15 minutes early, fortified by a few swift glasses in the Globe’s delightful bar overlooking the river, to be told our fate.

Knowing nothing more than that John would be expanding on themes from 26’s latest book, The Bard & Co, about the relevance of Shakespeare to modern life and business, the possibilities for public humiliation seemed limitless – particularly when we remembered the fiendish exercises John and his fellow tormentors set us on the Dark Angels writing course.

We needn’t have worried, however. John had done all the hard work, and just needed us to add a few (carefully scripted and choreographed) words at the end of his talk. So, rather than hovering nervously in the wings, hoping somehow John would avoid mentioning the Scottish play, we sat back comfortably in the lecture theatre in the depths of the Globe and waited for enlightenment.

And enlightening it certainly was – whether or not you’d read the book, in which 26 writers each wrote a piece inspired by one of Shakespeare’s plays and one of his original company of (26) actors. Relating Shakespeare to modern business writing might seem a rather arcane exercise, but as John revealed in a fascinating exposé, the principles of good writing remain the same whatever the medium, as each of the book’s essays demonstrated in different ways. It seems we could all do a lot worse than turn to Shakespeare for inspiration.

So what of the angelic choir? Well, it was the Globe after all, so how better to conclude than to perform a sonnet? Not just any sonnet, however: a 14-line verse in Shakespearian rhyming couplets expounding the ten principles of good writing by one J. Simmons, Esq. No doubt to become another fiendish exercise for next year’s Dark Angels.

reviewed by Jeremy Hildreth Michael Wolff at 26: “I’ve been sacked twelve times. I’m very used to it.”

One of the things Wally Olins told me about Michael Wolff was how much fun they had befuddling clients about their roles on a project. In meetings, the clients would get confused about who was doing what: “I thought he was the designer [the client would say, pointing toward Michael] and you were the copywriter. What’s going on here?” Now having met Michael Wolff myself (at this 26 talk) I can see exactly what Wally was talking about. And I have to say: would that all graphic designers were as facile with, adoring of and attentive to words as Michael Wolff.

Most writing is written to be written and it shows, he says; writing should be written to be read – or even better, heard. And he proves his point by pulling from his pocket and reading aloud a letter he’d received earlier in the day from an agency of some sort. The missive announces ‘important developments’. “Important to whom? Not to me! I don’t give a f….,” trailing off politely. Good writing, he says, should have (among other traits) humour, humility, colour and clarity. “Why, just because it’s corporate writing, does it have to be so barren, witless, stultifying and ‘nobody home’?” he pleads. “And why do we [planting himself on our side] adapt ourselves to this so easily?” We shouldn’t. We know. We’re ashamed. We look down at the floor. Shuffle feet.

Then he walks us through his famous four-room creative theory. Room 1: admiration. “I used to do work that looked like the work of people I admired”. Room 2: reasonability. “There was a time when I hadn’t yet realised, as Shaw pointed out, that nothing great is done by reasonable men. Great work often falls down because it appears unreasonable.” Room 3: precedent. “You’ve done something before. It worked. So why not sort of do it again? But it doesn’t get you anywhere.” And then... the magical Fourth Room: “the room of not knowing… here is where you create something that wasn’t here before.” Here ignorance is bliss. Here naivety is intelligent. And when the prospective client says ‘but you’ve never worked in our industry!’ or ‘but you’ve never done this kind of project!” you say: which is precisely why you should hire me… because at least with me you stand a chance of getting something groundbreaking, something worthwhile.

reviewed by Simon Jones, Ink Copywriters

How can pictures tell a story without words? How can words grab attention without pictures? This age-old debate was given new life in Bristol on 7 June when John Simmons and acclaimed photographer Martin Parr stepped up to the mic – for the West of England Design Forum.

What emerged were two very different approaches to storytelling. Martin’s photos – that chronicle the Great British holiday, the finery of English cupcakes and ‘the last space’ in supermarket car-parks – often shine a new and obscure light on familiar scenes and private lives. While much of John’s work focuses on teasing-out the stories that lie hidden within large organisations.

One of the most poignant examples of this was John’s recent position as writer-in-residence for the London Underground. In an environment dominated by timetables, performance targets and health and safety – John inspired staff to write short stories, poems and even a novel in a series of creative workshops.

The evening (which was a sell-out) was a great reminder of the power of creative storytelling – by two of the best in the business.

reviewed by Nick Asbury

On Saturday 26 May, 26-ers George Craigie and Jamie Jauncey helped entertain passers-by in Aberdeen with an illustrated talk on the theme 'Is a picture really worth 1000 words'? 

Part of the Six Cities Design Festival, the talk took place in The Monkey Puzzle Pavilion, a temporary structure made of plywood at the end of Aberdeen's Union St.  The panel also included Derek Stewart of Aberdeen brand consultancy The Big Picture and Professor Stuart Macdonald, head of school at Gray's School of Art. 

A cloudburst drove an audience of about 20 to take shelter in the pavilion, where they were treated to slides and stories about the power of words and images working together. The audience included a mother and toddler, two design students, a courting couple and three shopping grannies, one of whom received free design advice from George about her new business. Once again, 26 reaches the parts etc...

reviewed by Dan Radley

Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?

 Well, no. But we did hold a rather splendid gathering in the bowels of Shakespeare’s Globe to celebrate the publication of ‘The Bard & Co: Shakespeare’s Role In Modern Business’ on 10 May. For the latest 26 book, each writer had been paired with a Shakespeare play and one of his company’s original twenty-six ‘Principall Actors’.

Appropriately, we stood like groundlings as Dominic Dromgoole, the Globe’s Artistic Director, introduced the evening’s performers. First up was Mark Griffiths warning against the ‘little Iago voices’ in our heads and the dangers of bedding our business contacts.

I suddenly panicked that my mobile phone had gone off. False alarm – it was just the sackbut players upstairs. But even their honking failed to unnerve the theatrical Lin Sagovsky, as she recalled a performance of Love’s Labour’s Lost complete with real rabbits.

The highlight of the evening was Stuart Delves as William Shakespeare, preparing for a politically-charged performance of Macbeth in front of the King. A hush of appreciation greeted the audacity and poetry of his piece.

To recreate this enjoyable launch event in the comfort of your own home, pour yourself a glass of wine immediately and listen to ye olde podcasts. Or better still, buy the book from Amazon.

reviewed by Rishi Dastidar

With a year-long jaunt coming to a close, and nearly all points of the Isle covered, what better place for all the differing, meandering byways of ‘Common Ground’ to meet but in Oxford? So after various journeys of unpredictable timing from Paddington, we arrived at the world headquarters of the globe-bestriding media megabrand that is the QI Club, to be greeted by visions of the what the perfect private members club is. Refreshments in hand. various 26-ers and curious QI-ers made their way in to hear five readings from Common Ground, that celebrated the breadth, width and diversity of the writers and landscapes in the book.

 John Simmons took us to Buckinghamshire, and the darkness of the cottage from where Milton illuminated paradise; Rob Williams recounted how he risked life and liver in researching Paul Abbot's early years in Burnley; Tim Rich raised eyebrows, smiles and laughter with his tall tales of hunting Belloc in Sussex pubs; and Sarah McCartney, clutching a battered but well-loved first edition, introduced us to FW Lister.

But it was John Mitchinson's reading, of his chapter about Alan Garner, that really brought home the theme of the book - that as writers, we are connected to the land around us, and draw inspiration from the environments we are in, and those we seek out. It was a fitting high point on which to then repair for dinner, drinks and more tales, before trains summoned us, to disperse us all, back across the country.   

reviewed by Rishi Dastidar About six months after it we started talking about it, and six weeks after we started writing wishes for it, the SpinVox Wishing Well is go go go.

It's lovely, and visiting it last weekend I was struck by the fact that it really was worth the time and effort to get right.

The Well is in the East Piazza of Covent Garden until 5 January, and if you can’t get to London, you can see the wishes at http://spinvoxwishingwell.com. And to make a wish call 020 7818 0880.

It's an incongruous sight in Covent Garden to begin with, all sleek silver and shimmer instead of traditional stone. People were certainly taking their time to stop, hover, touch it, take a photo.

And then start dialling their wish in. It appeals to the voyeur in all of us. Step inside into the triangular space and you see some of the deepest hopes of people writ large – glib, flippant, deep, heartfelt, profound. And its gently pulsating walls make you feel like you're at the bottom of real well – but light and permeable instead of dark and foreboding.

There’ve been over 800 wishes cast now, and I’ve had little thrills of recognition when I see some of the 350 or so 26 wishes bubble up. They’ve set the tone very well.

So thanks to all of you for all your wishes – you’ve helped something very special come to life.

Yes, I did wish. And no, I won't tell you what it was. Or it won't come true.

reviewed by Rishi Dastidar Our intrepid reporter Rishi Dastidar does his best to remember what happened at the 26 Christmas Party 2006.

Take one less than cold December night, add one gloriously old school pub in the heart of London's Fitzrovia (complete with dangerously comfortable sofas), drizzle in some Christmas stickers, throw in some exquisite calligraphy on name labels, add free drinks to taste, simmer over a fiendishly tricky quiz on a medium heat, then stand back while licking the spoon seductively. A simple recipe for a fab Christmas party.

A basket of Lush goodies was awarded to the ‘team by the bar’ for deciphering the five convoluted pictograms, and uncovering the writers within the quickest; much news of Shakespeare and Common Ground was swapped; and much heartiness and merriness was had by all.   

reviewed by Justina Hart A look back at Rishi Dastidar’s Arts Council-sponsored Common Ground event, by Justina Hart.


We met, appropriately enough, in the Met Bar above Baker Street station on Saturday 2 December 2006, on the promise of a poignant but pointless journey to the end of the Metropolitan line and back, to celebrate Rishi Dastidar’s Common Ground chapter about Julian Barnes’s Metroland. This was also touted as an escape from the Christmas shopping we hadn’t yet done, and proved the perfect respite from doing something constructive of a Saturday afternoon.

After a kerfuffle about the price of tickets, we plonked in our Met line seats, where we were to remain for the next hour and a bit. We noticed that Sarah McCartney’s outfit blended perfectly with the magenta swirls of the décor, which seemed an excellent omen. Other passengers steered clear of our carriage, much to Rishi’s relief as he declaimed Betjeman’s ‘The Metropolitan Railway’ and ‘Harrow-on-The-Hill’ over the sound of arriving trains, human traffic and whooshing, clonking station noise.

Our tube started to chuff along the ancient line. With nowhere to go but the end of the line, we heard only Betjeman’s iambic pentameters in the rhythm of the train and were free to gaze on the passing scenery – leaping up to take in sights like the new Wembley Stadium. It brought back memories of school trips, where a mysterious sense of higher purpose filters down to the excitable schoolchildren: (fortunately, the badges marking us out as 26ers hadn’t arrived). London was soon replaced by a Betjemanesque landscape of ever larger mock-Tudor houses, fields and woods. Various of our number told anecdotes about periods of their lives measured out by different stops along the line, and the winter light shafted through the windows into our eyes, turning gold and red before it died.

Having changed at Chalfont & Latimer, the end of the line turned out to be a place called Chesham, replete with a beautiful toy town station. Bitterly cold, it was disappointing to have to walk rather than sit, but we were comforted by the low rooflines and amateur shop window displays, all remarkably reached by tube. Christmas had arrived in Chesham in the form of piped organ music and a faux-Victorian merry-go-round. We paid our two quid and climbed aboard the shiny horses and went round and round.

It was time for the serious bit. We found a bookshop boasting a café but the drinks actually lived next door in a shop which sold fruitcake, as well as all manner of sewing and knitting implements. Carrying our drinks and knitting needles back to the bookshop, we discovered its upstairs room – like a cosy local library – empty and perfectly suited to a reading. Rishi introduced us to Chesham, to his experience of the suburbs as a teen and how he’d discovered Barnes. He then read from his chapter and we bantered about how we had perceived London if we had grown up outside, and how we had perceived the metropolis if we had been born where it’s at.    

Our cockles warmed by the pace of plush suburban life, like reverse commuters, we nodded all the way back into town.

reviewed by Sarah McCartney Arriving early at Colchester's Arts Centre, we immediately suspected someone had pulled a fast one. The cabbie dropped us at a dark church and even darker churchyard on a cold, misty evening and we wondered if he hadn't liked the look of us. However, once the lights came on, the bar opened and the audience filed in, it turned out to be a brilliant venue, complete with stained-glass windows. Shame it wasn't available when Maniac Squat and The Cleaners from Venus kicked off their careers.

Tom's evening (part of the ongoing 'Common Ground' celebrations, sponsored by the Arts Council) brought back fans of the Squat and the Cleaners, plus a friendly bunch of young Goths – all shiny long hair, matt-black clothes and perfect make-up – who'd come to see Martin Newell, ex-Cleaners, poet, musician and storyteller.

Martin told stories about the music industry, which tasted like a big bite of lemon, determined at some point to offend everyone in the audience at least once. His final song on whisky and women was guaranteed to irritate at least 50% of those attending. His charm? His talent and the fact that he doesn't give a tinker's cuss. 

Giles Smith told us a tale he'd written for the occasion about how he got his first break in journalism (now his main stock in trade). It's not fair that he can be so funny and play the Postman Pat theme tune in the style of Count Basie. If you heard Tom Wilcox read the lyrics of Maniac Squat's greatest hit at The Globe, you'll want to hear it performed live by his new band, The Chavs. We'll get it up on the website, just as soon as we've mastered the technology. In the meantime, you can see it on Tom's MySpace. In honour of Woody Woodmansey, Tom's drummer who toured with Bowie for ten years during his wildest times, the band played ‘Jean Genie’.

The Londoners dragged themselves off to catch the last train back to Liverpool Street, hoping for a repeat performance somewhere within cab distance from their homes.

reviewed by Sarah McCartney

It was billed as a candlelit evening in Milton’s Cottage, the tiny bolt hole in Chalfont St Giles where he spent the years that the Great Plague infested London. In the end, it was fluorescent lights in the village hall over the road. Heath & Safety decreed that there were too many people for the cottage and that candles were definitely out in a tiny house which contains scripts that the British Library would love to own.

John explained what 26 is for, how the book came to be written, then read them his chapter during which the Friends of Milton’s Cottage nodded in amiable agreement.

As lovers of Milton, the audience were almost by definition lovers of writing. Many of them bought the book, were genuinely interested in reading about the other authors featured in Common Ground and may even splash out and join 26.

reviewed by Sarah McCartney The café at Falmouth's magnificent, modern Maritime Museum was filling up with tanned, greying women and men, with taut, toned muscles. They stood with their feet slightly apart as if they expected the ground to tilt at any moment. These were people who were clearly not at home on a floor that doesn’t sway with the waves, all waiting to hear what Penny Williams had to say about a hero of theirs, Bill Tilman, explorer, sailor and writer.

Most non-sailors haven’t a clue who Tilman was, what he did, and what he wrote. ‘Mischief Among The Penguins’ isn’t what you’d first imagine; it’s about his adventures in the Antarctic on board his boat, Mischief. In the Maritime Museum’s theatre, as part of Falmouth’s Literary Festival, Penny read her chapter, including the story of her encounter with him at the age of 10. She was then joined by one Bob Comley, who had answered a small ad for crew during his gap year, and ended up sailing with a legend.

Afterward, on Penny’s parents’ boat, the sailors sympathised when I said I had to catch a train back to London. “I love it,” I said. They just smiled, nodded and looked very sorry for me. “We’ve got a crew!” one announced. “What are we doing in harbour?” and they all started looking around them for a reason to get going. Every one of them had what Penny calls the ‘thousand mile stare’, a longing to get out to sea again.

Back at the Maritime Museum café, the older sailors who remembered Tilman drank tea, reminisced, and swapped stories until they got fed up with dry land and set off to do some more exploration of their own.

reviewed by Jim Davies To celebrate our third birthday, we held a shindig at the Truman Brewery in London’s Brick Lane. As 26ers met and mingled, they’d occasionally glance over their shoulders at the handsome typographic mural by Pentagram’s Domenic Lippa. This was made up of sayings with a twist provided by our own number. As our contribution to this year’s London Design Festival, each phrase incorporated the word ‘design’ to ingeniously subvert the original meaning – Dan Radley’s “The referee’s a designer” being a case in point. Click through here for a selection of images of the wall photographed by Jesse Simmons…

reviewed by Ezri Carlebach 26 held a special event with Dominic Dromgoole, Patrick Spottiswoode, Peter Kyle, Yolanda Vazquez and John Simmons at the Globe Theatre on 31 August 2006. The main purpose was to galvanise into action at least some of the twenty-eight 26 members who have each been linked with one of Shakespeare’s original company of actors and one of the thirty-seven plays (and, in John’s case, the Sonnets). The reason? 26’s current project, an investigation into the enduring influence of Shakespeare on business writing, and more broadly into the role of language itself in the business world.

Having read Will and Me: How Shakespeare Took Over My Life, I was intrigued to hear more about Dominic Dromgoole’s role as artistic director at the Globe. I loved his description of ‘Globeness’, that rare feeling of recreating an ancient experience and at the same time creating a totally new experience that characterises the Globe’s approach. While it borrows from ‘authentic’ (a problematic word but there isn’t the space here…) Elizabethan theatre the shape, the standing audience and other elements that contribute so much to the historic ambience, it adds the modern theatre sensibility and production values that provide a truly contemporary feel. It is, of course, a balancing act, and if you get it wrong the very architecture “tells you off”.

Yolanda Vazquez provided revealing anecdotes from the actor’s perspective, while Globe MD Peter Kyle and educational director Patrick Spottiswoode filled us in on some of the history, outreach work and future plans of the
theatre and its educational foundation.

We 26ers swapped stories about the plays with which we’ve been matched and some of the inevitable anxieties arising from so testing a task. Not to mention finding out something about Shakespeare’s company of whom there were, so appropriately, twenty-six. One thing is clear – they were all multi-skilled individuals with diverse business and professional interests. Now, there’s a thought…

What a ride. ‘From Here To Here’ was our most ambitious project to date, and has given 26 more profile and kudos than ever. The fantastic show at the London College of Communication has just come down, but the installation at Embankment station, featuring illustrated excerpts of writing from the book, will be in place until December. Check it out if you possibly can.

Here’s what people had to say about the project…

“The ‘From Here To Here’ project was a true example of creative collaboration at its best. It demonstrated exactly how creative Londoners pull together to showcase a variety of notions relating to one original theme, using not only creative writing and graphic design but video media, photography and sculpture. ‘From Here To Here’ was referred to as the highlight event for the London Design Festival 2005.”  Helen Horton Smith, London Design Festival.

“Congratulations on ’From Here To Here’. It is a wonderful piece of work and, speaking personally, I find it uplifting both in its concept and content.”  Peter Tollington, General Manager of the Circle Line.

“The Circle Line, that wonderful conundrum that goes nowhere and everywhere in central London, has been celebrated in a rather fantastic manner.”  Robert Elms, Radio London.

“Each writer, from shabby King’s Cross to workaholic Farringdon and posh Sloane Square, sees his or her scrap of the city through a different glass. There’s much variety and unevenness, but it adds up to an energetic celebration of my maddening, traffic-clogged, sooty, beloved city.”  Kate Saunders, The Times.

You can still take advantage of Cyan’s offer on ‘From Here To Here: Stories Inspired By London’s Circle Line’ and ‘26 Malts – Some Joy Ride’. If you buy the books from a bookshop, you’ll get a couple of coppers change from £28. If you buy them direct from Cyan, stating 26 members’ offer, you will get them for only £20 (inc p&p in the UK).

Please contact sales@cyanbooks.com to place your order. Or send your cheque to ‘Cyan Communications Limited’, 119 Wardour Street, London W1F 0UW.

reviewed by Sarah McCartney What should we get paid for our writing? Can we put a price on our words? Apart from pornography, what’s the best-paid type of writing? These questions and more were addressed at 26’s ‘Wordsworth’ event held at Interbrand on 26 October.

As a follow up, we agreed to run an online anonymous survey for writers and people who employ us; this will collect a stack of data about what we are paid and our attitudes towards payment; We’ll publish the url shortly so 26 members and other writers can join in. Shortly after that, we’ll publish the results.

We made our way up the magically suspended staircase which leads from Interbrand’s minimalist ground floor portal to the bright white branding capital of the world on the first floor. Someone had turned off the corridor lights and none of us could find the switch, but at the end of the hall was a room with people chatting and we think that all the visiting 26 members found their way there.

How would the British overcome our legendary reticence to discuss what our words are worth? (In public.) We did it in three different ways.

Sarah McCartney explained that the 26 events team had long been planning a ‘Wordsworth’ event, in order to get an idea of what is a fair price for what we charge and told tales of her own experience with clients from 11 years working as a freelance writer and running Little Max.

Richard Crabb from Start explained that his agency is unusual for a design company in that it employs in-house writers who are charged out to clients at the same rate as designers. He showed us examples of his agency’s work, using words intertwined with design to create some fabulous stuff which works better because of the teams’ synergy. His view – we asked him for a designer’s perspective – was that Start shows the value of words not only by paying writers the same as designers but by treating them as equal creative partners, not the people who fill in the gaps between the graphics.

Neil Fletcher from Tool Box Marketing talked in practical terms about how to negotiate rates and get paid on time. (At this point the rate of note-taking showed a definite increase amongst auduence members). Neil advised to be clear about rates from the minute we start talking to clients, to charge 50% at the start of the contract and never to feel guilty about chasing late payment; at that point it’s not their money, it’s ours.

Our Q&A session revealed that most of us charge different amounts to different clients. Sarah leans towards Karl Marx’s guidance, “From each according to his ability to each according to his needs,” but explained that this backfired when a small client expanded into an international organisation – and still pays her the same rates.

The big question, “What do we actually charge?” was answered something like this:

£500 a day for writing (negotiable according to the clients’ ability).
£700-£1000 a day for strategy work and consulting.

Tom Lynham only slightly flippantly suggested that 26 may be turning into the trade union for business writers.

reviewed by Martin Lee On 24 November, Faber & Faber kindly played host to a 26 event for a second time. It was nearly a year since we listened to Simon Armitage’s astonishing poetry reading in the same venue. Appropriate really, given that the evening was something of a masterclass on how to get published. If more inspiration were needed, it was surely provided by the knowledge that we were meeting in TS Eliot’s penthouse flat.

The format of the evening was that our three publishing guests spoke for about 15 to 20 minutes, followed by a question-and-answer session from 26 members. The three speakers provided a fascinating contrast. Hannah Griffiths from Faber is a fiction editor, but she’s also worked as an agent at Curtis Brown and a publicity department at Penguin, so her experience embraces the whole publishing process, from raw manuscript to the marketing campaign.

Martin Liu from Cyan offered the perspective from non-fiction and business publishing, and emphasised the need for budding authors in this category to have a clear eye on the eventual market for their books before setting out on writing. He also offered highly practical advice about the benefits of people with expert knowledge but not necessarily trained writing skills collaborating with ghost writers to complete their books.

The final speaker was Tony Lacey, the editorial director for fiction at Penguin, who spoke with great conviction for the primacy of the author’s own inspiration in the publishing process. He (and Hannah also) spoke of the way in which an editor would far rather receive a highly flawed but hugely ambitious book than a neat, nicely turned out but limited book.

All three speakers spoke with passion, humour and shared valuable insights into the dos – and especially the don’ts – of getting published. They also dealt with all our questions with candour and generosity. Personally speaking, I’m going to go back to my synopsis and expunge all reference to Nick Hornby…

reviewed by Anelia Schutte

John Simmons is a founder-director of 26, and widely regarded as the person who set the current tone for tone of voice. His three books have been described as ‘manifestos for every writer in business who wants to be a better writer’. So when Cyan Books decided to republish ‘We, Me, Them & It’ and ‘The Invisible Grail’ in a common format to 2004’s ‘Dark Angels’, it was only fitting that the launch of the trilogy should be the first 26 event of 2006.

Hosted by Elmwood at their swanky new offices in Soho, the evening kicked off with a spirited introduction by 26 co-founder Martin Hennessey. John then read extracts from his two republished books, including the revised preface to ‘The Invisible Grail’, which seemed to sum up his overall message.

“My concern is unusual. Of course, like any author, I want to find readers. But my overriding concern is to find writers. I want people out there – you, dear readers – to read this book but then, more importantly, to think “yes, I can now be a better writer because I want to be”.

“My quarrel with books like those by Lynne Truss and John Humphrys, proudly proclaiming a zero-tolerance approach to ‘bad English’ and bad grammar, is that they do not encourage people to write. They inhibit, they instil fear and they undermine confidence; obsession with ‘correctness’ works against the constant evolution that has been the greatest strength of English as a language. Dullness, particularly when enforced by pedantry, is the subtlest enemy of effective communication in business. Look at the examples around you and yawn. Playfulness with language sometimes involves breaking the ‘rules’ of grammar, and I want to instil a sense of fun not fear. If people enjoy writing more, they will get better at it. So, please, read on. And then, please, write on.”

He also put the books in the context of what has happened since they were first published – notably the rapid evolution of 26, and its aim to draw attention to the neglected role of language in business.

With drinks, canapés and delightful waiting staff provided by The Writer, the evening was a suitable celebration of John’s work. If you didn’t own his three books already, you probably would have by the end of the night. Cyan publisher Martin Liu’s eight-year-old daughter, salesperson extraordinaire, would have seen to that.

reviewed by Sarah McCartney Paul Burke should start the ‘Shut Up and Get On With It School of Writing’. He got into advertising from school after telephoning Abbott Mead Vickers and asking to speak to Mr Abbott about a job as a writer. He got a job as a van driver and took it from there. Nobody told him that you weren’t supposed to do it like that.

At the October Gallery, Paul gave the 26 audience his views on writing radio ads and told us about how he got started as a novelist. Those of us who had braved the hailstorms (and decided against watching The Arsenal against Real Madrid) got a generous helping of Paul's passionate opinions and priceless advice. He reckons that the sense of timing you get writing for radio helps to make your fiction writing flow. In Mr. Burke’s case it has also given him a brilliant comic delivery. At school in London, one of his teachers told him, “Words are like pound notes, boy. Don't waste them”. So he doesn’t. (Or not when he's only got 30 seconds into which they all have to fit.)

We heard some excellent radio ads, some bad ones and some excruciating ones. We learned that if you want more creative freedom to write for radio you should work in the US and Australia, definitely not the UK.

Nobody told Paul that you don't just sit down and write a novel either. So he did. He bumped into an agent who got him a two book deal so he had to write another one. He also told us how he earned enough money to buy a Ford Capri while he was still at school but if you weren't there and you want to know how he did it, you're going to have to read his novel, ‘Untorn Tickets’ (ISBN 0340826150).