THESE VITAL SPEECHES

From old man Aristotle.
Though he borrowed it from Plato
and never gave it back either.
My colleagues have spoken about
rhetoric with insight and erudition this
morning.
And somewhat less of a Horrible
Histories approach.
I still struggle when thinking of
ethos, logos and pathos not to picture
a ‘70s prog rock ensemble.
Capes billowing, dry ice swirling at
their feet, and the singer dressed as a
sunflower.
It’s what Cicero would have
wanted.
Sorry, Amy!
Ted Sorensen, President Kennedy’s
speechwriter, described a good speech
in four words.
A quarter of a tweet.
Brevity, levity, charity, clarity.
Salvador Dali once told a press
conference—
“I shall be so brief I have already
finished.”
I can’t compete with that.
Wit can be a trickier area.
But if it was worthy of Lincoln, of
Churchill, of JFK … why shy away?
Laughter can be the shortest distance
between speaker and audience.
True, not everyone can be Billy
Connolly, but comedy is a broad
church.
One that covers bathos, mockery,
satire, drollery, irony, anecdote and
observation.
Though irony must never be seated
next to sarcasm, for obvious reasons.
Self-deprecation is there too.
But as Dr Johnson advised—don’t
overdo it or they might believe you.
Charity?
For me this is about tone but also
treating the audience well.
Who are they and what do they
want?
Like our friend Frank quipped during
a Las Vegas gig—
“How did all these people get in my
room?”
Do you remember Tony Blair being
slow handclapped by the WI?
Even a Prime Minister can trip up
if he tries to talk over the heads of his
audience.
As for clarity, I’m an admirer of
Blair—Eric not Tony.
His questions for a scrupulous writer
are always worth remembering—
What am I trying to say?
What words will express it?
What image or idiom will make it
clearer?
Is this image fresh enough to have
an effect?
Could I put it more shortly?
And have I said anything that is
avoidably ugly?
Orwell was right of course.
Words can be ugly, they can be
devious and they can be cruel.
Rhetoric isn’t without its dark side.
At the shadowy end of the street
you’ll find the premises of propaganda—
more a fallen-down shack than a palace.
Over the road—say in a mock
Tudor mansion—live that photogenic
couple known as Advertising & PR.
From regulars in Hello! magazine
to their neighbours from hell—it’s
quite a postcode.
So do speeches matter?
I believe they can help us to make
sense of an increasingly complex
17
world.
But don’t take my word for it.
I’d completely fail the Mandy Rice
Davies test.
Well, he would say that, wouldn’t
he.
He’s a speechwriter.
No, ask the current occupants of
the White House and of Number
10—whose careers turned on their
ability to speak well.
Ask the young soldiers of the Irish
Guard addressed by Colonel Tim Collins
before their tanks rolled into Iraq
in 2003.
Ask anyone who has hung on the
wise and well-tailored words of Coretta
Scott King or Christine Lagarde or
Tilda Swinton.
I began with a confession, a poem
and a quote—or, rather, talking about
a quote that wasn’t used, a quote that
didn’t quite fit.
A quote my Chief Executive may
or may not use another time.
He won’t.
But here’s another I have up my
bespoke sleeve, this from Madame
Bovary—
“Human speech is like a cracked
kettle on which we tap crude rhythms
for bears to dance to, while we long to
make music that will melt the stars.”
Desire, dancing bears, the end of
the universe …
And a singing kettle.
If that doesn’t finally yield to observation
and perseverance the keys to
your heart …
Then, Mr Churchill, I confess
we’re going to have to get out there
and find ourselves a good locksmith.
CICERO 2016