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This blog is called A Few Kind Words because the word kindness originally meant being kin, or kindred, or of the same kind. And since we are all humankind, we should remember to be kinder to one another when we communicate. The alternative is to be unkind, to use language which fails to connect or even alienates. The choice isn't hard.Twitter Updates
- RT @ThereseKieran: Small pieces of poetry almost ready for #PoetryDayIRL. Some with 'sound' @LabelLit @ArtsCouncilNI @poetryireland. Find o… 1 day ago
- RT @CEOScotland: @JamieJauncey Congratulations on your recent Creative Scots funding. If you're in need of any advice, business support, tr… 2 days ago
- RT @JNSim: Loughcrew a house for storytelling, course tutored by me and @clearlymike , midsummer in Ireland so it's bound to be lovely...wr… 3 days ago
- RT @DarkAngelsWrite: This summer, our Foundation Course is at Loughcrew House, County Meath. A 2-day/3-night residential to hone your writi… 3 days ago
- Three days #writing on this very boat? We're running an @DarkAngelsWrite course in #Seattle, 14-16 Jun. "It got me… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 3 days ago
Tag Archives: business language
The eagle
Yesterday evening I raised my glass to Rosemary Sutcliff. It was an odd moment. I was sitting on my own in the restaurant on the sixth floor of the Leela Kempinski Hotel in Gurgaon, overlooking what my driver had proudly … Continue reading
Dark Angels
Each new year John Simmons, Stuart Delves and I meet in the Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s comfortable rooms on Edinburgh’s Queen Street, as we did today. It’s our annual Dark Angels partners’ meeting. We have a bar lunch, a bottle … Continue reading
Truth in Assynt
I’m reading a beautiful book. At The Loch of the Green Corrie is by Scottish novelist, poet and mountaineer, Andrew Greig. Part memoir, part meditation on fishing and wilderness, part tribute to another Scottish poet, Norman MacCaig, it speaks to … Continue reading
Memorabilia
My maternal grandfather, a retired admiral, could recite The Hunting Of The Snark in its entirety. As a young midshipman he had committed it to memory and there it had stuck for the remaining seventy-odd years of his life. I … Continue reading
Tagged business language, corporate speak, emotion, headcount, heart, Memory, mind
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Out of the darkness
On Wednesday evening, as the Chilean miners emerged one by one from that hellish, six-hundred-metre-long metal tube, President Piñera, who seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of bons mots, declared that his country’s most precious resource was not copper or … Continue reading
Why fiction?
‘Why should I read fiction?’ This was a question put by one of our students in Spain, a couple of weeks ago. It’s a good question, and a reminder for me that not everyone has the passion for stories that … Continue reading
Dawn chorus
Finca el Tornero de Abajo is the Spanish home of my childhood friend, novelist Robin Pilcher. A chestnut farm on a hillside in the Sierra de Aracena, 100 kms northwest of Seville, it’s a place of magical light, long views … Continue reading
