Presentation Tip of the Week

A Doctor Who fan has been banned from giving away knitting patterns of the show’s characters. Let me repeat that – she was giving away knitting patterns of the shows characters. The 26-year-old woman used a website to share designs for the woolly toys, reports The Sun. But the BBC told her to take them down as she had no right to use the Doctor Who brand. The woman, known only by her online ID – Mazzmatazz, said: “I’m an ordinary fan who happens to like knitting and sci-fi. The patterns weren’t for sale.” But a BBC spokesman said: “We were not heavy handed. People were using the patterns to make a profit.” Boo to the BBC, and MediaMaster award to Ms Mazzmatazz.

If you’re following me on Twitter, thanks. Since I mentioned it a few weeks ago, I’ve picked up a small band of people who know what I’m up to (or at least the bits that I tell them). I’m not sure how this stuff will develop, but as a speaker, it gives me one more thing to talk about, so thanks again.

Don’t you wish leadership skills in this country (and everywhere else, come to think of it) were better? I do, and that’s why I agreed to chair a conference about it in Edinburgh in a couple of weeks’ time. It features top speakers from the UK and Ireland, and is called the Re-Birth of Leadership. If you have any interest in leadership, or want to know more about the event, click on that link to find out how to attend.

Bringing together leadership and speaking (see what I did there), I interviewed the schools minister, Jim Knight MP, about the quality of speaking in schools. Find out what he had to say by clicking this link. Remember – you can hear it directly through your PC’s speakers – you don’t need an iPod.

By Alan Stevens, Media Coach www.mediacoach.co.uk  

MediaMaster, MediaMug

Presentation Tip of the Week

The MediaMug award goes to a radio station that broadcasts nothing but the sound of birdsong. Starting at 6am every day and closing at midnight, the Birdsong station plays a 20 minute-long recording of birds singing in chorus on a continuous loop. Half a million listeners regularly tune in, which is far more than most “normal” radio stations achieve. The station is only temporary until someone buys the wavelength to use commercially. However, there are already two facebook groups trying to save it. Apparently they need to raise a million pounds. Sounds cheep to me.

You can’t make this stuff up. According to The Sun, an un-named Londoner, 19, wanted a taxi to take her to Bristol airport, and rang directory enquiries, using Cockney rhyming slang “Joe Baxi”. When the operator told her she couldn’t find anyone by that name, the teen replied: “It ain’t a person, it’s a cab, innit.” Alas, she was then put through to a furniture store. Then matters got worse. She spoke to a bemused saleswoman and eventually demanded: “Look love, how hard is it? All I want is your cheapest cab, innit. I need it for 10am. How much is it?” The sales person said “180 pounds” and the teenager paid by credit card. The next morning, a lorry delivered an office cabinet to a puzzled would-be traveller. That’s worth a MediaMug trophy any day of the week.

Presentation Tip of the Week

Whenever I read a story about someone insuring a part of their body (don’t get ahead of me here), for a huge sum of money, I assume it is done for publicity purposes. Nothing wrong with that. The latest to hit the news is Ilja Gort, the Dutch owner of Chateau de la Garde in Bordeaux, who has taken out policy to cover the loss of his nose and sense of smell. He felt the need to announce his decision to the press, but nevertheless, attains the status of Master of Media, as well as Master of Wine. You can tell what is coming next, can’t you? “This certainly is an insurance policy not to be sniffed at,” said Jonathan Thomas, lead underwriter at Watkins Syndicate who co-insured the policy with Allianz Nederland. Rimshot.

A bull terrier called Bronx played Bill Sikes’s dog in “Oliver” in the Southend Operatic and Dramatic Society’s production at Cliffs Pavilion in Westcliff, Essex. Alas, Bronx has been sacked, for continually stealing the limelight. His owner Edward James told The Sun newspaper it was because of Bronx’s bizarre stage antics: “He flaps his leg and stamps. He got on stage when Bill was having a romantic moment with Nancy and did his dance, with his leg going up and down. Everyone started laughing and ignored the actors.” I’m sure at some point, there will be a place for Bronx in a BBC reality show called “Dog Stars”, presented by Graham Norton. Until then, he can be consoled by the award of the MediaMug trophy to his previous employers.

Presentation Tip of the Week

OK, this is not an April Fool story ( I hope). Japanese scientists have invented a pair of glasses that will help you remember where you put your car keys. The Smart Goggle records everything the wearer sees – and can recognise objects, reports the Daily Telegraph. Inventor Yasuo Kuniyoshi and his team at Tokyo University School of Information Science and Technology have created the world’s most advanced object recognition software. If a user initially tells the glasses the name of everything he or she looks at, the glasses will remember them, and can even replay the video of where they were. Now that’s worth a Mediamaster award. I can see one flaw though. What if you can’t remember where you put your glasses? Zoran Kiseloski, a bee-keeper from Macedonia, is the winner of the MediaMug crown. Frustrated by the attacks on his hive by a bear, he used bright lights and loud music to scare it away. However, the generator failed, and the bear returned. Finally, the frustrated apiarist decided to take the bear to court. The court found the bear guilty and, since it had no owner and belonged to a protected species, ordered the state to pay the £1,700 damage it caused. Unfortunately the bear did not attend. Mr Kiseloski said to reporters outside the court “I’m glad it’s over. The bear should have left me alone when I first shouted at him.” Hmmm. I wonder if there will be a follow-up to this story?

Presentation Tip of the Week

For the first time (as far as I can recall, which is not far), the MediaMaster award goes to the entire cast, writers and producers of a TV show. Grange Hill, the story of loveable, and not so loveable schoolkids and their harrassed teachers, topped a poll of children’s TV shows this week, beating the Muppet Show into second place. No surprise to me that Gripper, Roland and Tucker Jenkins proved more popular than Kermit and Miss Piggy. And how poignant that one of Grange Hill’s first script editors, Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella, died this week. By the way, the BBC recently took a decision to cancel the show. Smart move, eh? It was an easy call for the MediaMug of the week. Heather Mills McCartney was all over the news with her take on that divorce. She blamed the media, the judge, her ex-husband Sir Paul, and poured a jug of water over his lawyers head. Having read the full judgement, I can understand why she wanted to suppress its publication. Here’s an extract, where the judge says what he thinks of her case – “Having watched and listened to her give evidence, having studied the documents, and having given in her favour every allowance for the enormous strain she must have been under (and in conducting her own case) I am driven to the conclusion that much of her evidence, both written and oral, was not just inconsistent and inaccurate but also less than candid.” That’s not exactly an endorsement. Still, the 25 million pounds may soften the blow.

Presentation Tip of the Week

Alas, another posthumous MediaMaster award this week. Jeremy Beadle MBE died at only 59, leaving a legacy of brilliant practical jokes (and some rather poor ones too, to be honest). I met him only once, at Capital Radio many years ago. He was presenting a show about weird facts (I can’t recall the name of the show, but it had “Beadle” in it). I was a guest, talking about the best and worst customer service in the UK, as I recall. During a news break, he left the studio. As we were cued back in, he was nowhere to be seen. I said into the mike “Er – Hello and welcome back to the Jeremy Beadle show”, or some such nonsense. He emerged, smiling, from under the desk. I didn’t think it was funny at the time, but in retrospect, I’m honoured to have been the butt of one of his jokes. He’ll be much missed. The MediaMug trophy goes to a young man from Southampton, Russell Sprout. Well, that’s his name from now on. “Sprout was always my nickname and my friends dared me to change my surname to Sprout,” he told the Daily Echo. It’s not the first time he’s changed his name. In 2003, he changed his surname from De’Ath to Bridges – a random choice from the phone book. However, he decided that Russell Bridges didn’t have the desired cachet, so now he has become one letter away from a vegetable. Jeremy Beadle wouldn’t have found that funny.