BBB - Brian Bollen's Blog

NEWS FLASH: THE SPEAKER IS ON THE LAUNCHPAD

BBC Two has announced that it will begin transmitting a new reality series about learning how to speak in public.  The Speaker has been scheduled for broadcast in April on BBC Two, airing twice a week for eight one-hour episodes. As an active member of Toastmasters International in the UK, I believe it will spark an increase in learning how to speak in public. All our clubs are happy to receive new requests from would-be members, and welcome them to our clubs as guests. If you would like to enquire, please contact me, Brian Bollen or Margaret Bollen, on 01908 234952, or via email: brianbollen@mac.com, or margaret.bollen@virgin.net. 

Comedienne Jo Brand heads the judging panel of The Speaker, BBC Two's search for Britain's best young speaker. Alongside fellow judges, performance expert and RADA tutor Jeremy Stockwell and motivational speaker John Amaechi, Jo travels to every corner of the UK to find the country's most talented young speakers in the BBC's new, primetime entertainment series.

Featuring 14 to 18-year-olds, The Speaker will see tough-talking teens, class jokers and shy, sensitive types go head to head as they learn to talk publicly and passionately about the things that matter to them.

Executive Producer Kieron Collins said: "The Speaker is a fresh, 21st century take on the traditional public speaking competition. Our teens are a disparate, diverse group of youngsters but they are united by their passion and their desire to speak out on what matters most to them.

"Britain's youth often get a raw deal in the media. This show redresses the balance; it's about communication, confidence and giving British teenagers an opportunity to be heard.

"Each week, our mentors and judges give a masterclass in a different aspect of speaking, so there will be plenty for people to learn at home, too. Whether it's going for a job interview, preparing a business presentation or getting ready to make your father-of-the-bride speech, there should be something here for you."

Long established for her stand-up comedy, Jo Brand is a leading light of the entertainment world with regular appearances on panel shows and undertaking a range of challenges from Question Time to Mock The Week.

This is the first time she has acted as a judge and she will be drawing on all her performance experience to seek out those young speakers who have a talent for getting their message across and who really connect with their audience.

Having appeared on stage with his family's vaudeville show from the age of four to 17, it could be said that Jeremy Stockwell was born to perform.

From playing the ukulele to tap dancing and then on to stand-up comedy, devising theatre, improvisation and mime, Jeremy is one of nation's leading drama coaches, working as a RADA tutor and behind the scenes on top TV shows such as How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and Strictly Dance Fever. So who better to help the speakers improve their performances, use their body language effectively and inspire their audiences?

John Amaechi is a multi-faceted speaker having travelled globally to speak on topics wide-ranging and influential. He is a champion of young people and passionate about their rights and needs in an ever-changing world. John started his career as the only Brit to make a successful American basketball career in the highly competitive NBA. Whilst playing he undertook a degree in psychology and, since his retirement from the game, has focused on offering training, development and mentoring to a range of corporate and young people's projects as well as commentating on basketball for the BBC at the Beijing Olympics and acting as an Ambassador for London's 2012 Games. John will be aiming to fire up the speakers, encouraging them to speak with passion, commitment and personality.

On The Speaker, Jo, John and Jeremy travel the length and breadth of the UK, putting youngsters through their paces at the regional auditions. Only a select 20 make it through and then the contest gets underway in earnest with a different challenge and a different communication skill to tackle each week.

Helping the finalists learn and rise to the weekly challenges is a group of guest mentors who offer expert tutelage and inspiration to draw on.

The four guest mentors are: Queen of the Dragons' Den, Deborah Meaden, who coaches the speakers in the art of improvisation; Earl Spencer, who invites the speakers to Althorp House where they explore the craft of information giving; journalist and newscaster Kate Silverton who coaches them in the nuances of storytelling; and Tony Blair's former chief strategist and speech writer Alastair Campbell, who demonstrates the subtleties of persuasion.

Each week, their speeches are evaluated by the judges and their mentor. Then the three speakers who don't meet the very high standards set have to go head-to-head in a final speaking challenge, The Last Word.

One hopeful youngster is then eliminated from the contest. All of this builds to one final showdown at the end of the series in which the three best candidates make the speech of their lives.

Launching closer to transmission, The Speaker will have an extensive multiplatform offering encouraging adults and young people from a wide range of backgrounds to submit speeches to the shows website, and to share their speeches and ideas with each other. There will also be a whole host of practical advice and downloadable tips for everyone to use plus a behind the scenes look at the series.

The Speaker is a factual entertainment series produced by BBC Entertainment Manchester and due on air in April 2009. The Series Producer is Ian Carre and the Executive Producer is Kieron Collins.

The series will be 8 x 60 minutes, and will transmit on BBC Two in April 2009.

Have we overdone it?

Have we overdone it? Has the doom and gloom gone far enough?Should we stop mocking people who say they can see green shoots of recovery? Are we misinterpreting economic fundamentals to be the end of the world? Is it just that we have become so used to bright financial sunshine that we have overreacted to the shafts of financial darkness we've been seeing recently?

Having identified The Royal Bank of Scotland as a possible buy at 60 pence a share, even more attractive at 50 pence, and a must buy at 41.70 pence, I have been rendered speechless as the share price has continued to fall. This is the bank that financed my first car at age 17, but only after interviewing me and my parents in person, on the premises, did they agree to do so. I grew up with RBS as a model of sobriety. In fact, it was while standing in the banking hall of the Airdrie High Street branch patiently waiting for the return of my 'pass book' in the mid-1970s that I began to formulate the career plans that would see me join Midland Bank International (RIP) on graduation from Glasgow University in 1979.

Compared to Airdrie Savings Bank, RBS even then was slightly racy, with daylight actually allowed into its branches. But compared with its Babylonian counterparts south of the border it epitomised good old fashioned Scottish virtues of thrift and conservatism. The notion that it is now virtually worthless is one I struggle badly to accept. It must, for heaven's sake, have cash in the till equivalent to 20 pence a share. Whatever happened to fundamentals?

I have lived through several economic cycles, starting with the Barber Boom in the early 1970s, and seen a number of disasters, starting with the secondary banking crisis of 1973-74, which most people don't even know happened, because we did not have 24/7/365 news coverage to panic us all. 

I was working on the Southern European region of MBI when Banco Ambrosiano went belly-up. Virtually on the day I joined the Financial Times Group Johnson Matthey hit the news. I wrote about Latin American debt rescheduling for five years. I edited the FT's mergers and acquisitions through the last great slump of 1989-92. 

I launched myself as a freelance in the teeth of the recession in 1993. I edited a monthly newspaper for ING Barings in the post-Leeson months, being one of the few people to benefit from the Barings collapse. We've had LTCM, Russian flu, Asian contagion, SARS. And now the credit crunch. In short, I think I've seen it all before. Only the sheer scale and speed of recent events has been different.

So the question I am asking is: have we overdone it? There is little doubt that many investment banks are in complete disarray, and a strong feeling, at least for the moment, that the investment banking model is broken. 

There is little doubt, either, that many of their most senior staff, who have spent almost a lifetime making money out of taking risks with their employer's and other people's money, are in stout denial, unable to recognise that there might be some other way of making money. 

How about the old-fashioned way, executing a risk-free transaction for a client as an agent, in return for a fee, rather than as a principal looking to make money from taking risk? Or giving independent advice? To a financial fundamentalist like myself, who has never properly understood or approved of complex derivatives, it seems self-evident that we should go back to basics. I would bet a pound to a penny that the Airdrie Savings Bank isn't ridiculously overleveraged and exposed to toxic assets.

I think RBS will inevitably be transformed into as near a replica of its former self as it is possible to create: a sound high street retail-based bank running a matched book in a narrow range of products. But the process involved in reaching that state will involve the break-up of a vast organisation, generating fees for investment bank advisers of one size or another, and creating new business opportunities as the transformation unfolds. 

The money raised from sales will go to creditors, and the UK government, and then eventually to 'ordinary' shareholders if there is any left. It has to be worth more than 20 pence a share, doesn't it? Even the Bank of Credit & Commerce International in the end returned more than 100 pence in the pound, if I recall correctly. Surely RBS can't be in a worse state than that?

I believe we have overdone the doom and the gloom. To me, it seems inconceivable that virtually every single asset of every single major bank is almost literally worthless. And remember, in whose interests is it for banks to shock and awe us with balance sheet busting bad debt provisions? The new managements will benefit from writing off as much as possible against 2008 figures, so that even if they do more than break even this year, and become slowly profitable next, they can be hailed as geniuses.

Lowering expectations is something that Britain has become an expert at. I suspect it's happening again, and the wool is gently being pulled over our eyes. As the debts that have been provided for, in such prodigious amounts, largely continue to perform, at some point banks will have no option but to begin writing them back on to the books. 

 We saw it in the 1990s with Latin American debt, for instance. And what happens then, as what is effectively new capital suddenly appears from nowhere, adding to the walls of money provided by governments? The banks will be overcapitalised, and overcapitalised banks are like drunken sailors on shore leave with three months' pay in their pockets.

In resolving the current crisis, banks and governments are sowing the seeds of the next one. As surely as they have overdone it as the pendulum swings towards austerity and frugality, they will overdo it again when it swings back towards cheer and prosperity.

Bye Bye Mervyn?

The 'independence' of the Bank of England was an interesting experiment while it lasted. But what role is there now for Mervyn King, since The Right Honourable Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister-cum-Chancellor of the Exchequer, has in effect added the Governorship of the Bank of England and the chief executorship of British banking to his growing portfolio of jobs?

How long before Mr King does the honourable thing by handing in his resignation in protest at being overruled in his battle to achieve 2% inflation, a target imposed by the Right Honourable Gordon Brown? If he does resign, he will surely gain some grudging respect for at least being true to a point of principle. But when did honour and principle last have anything to do with banking or politics or any other part of public life in Britain?

Short Selling Post-HBOS: Is A Ban Unthinkable?

I have been writing about securities lending and short selling for a number of years. I have never pretended to understand the nuances and subtleties of the arguments for or against either practice, let alone their everyday practice, but in the extraordinary circumstances of recent times I have been giving it rather more thought than I normally might.

In the current climate, I think a case is mounting for the banning of short selling. I am not saying that I am in favour of such a ban, or against it, but I find myself, as a journalist who has been writing about the international financial markets for nearly 24 years, wondering not so much why short selling is allowed in the first place, but why any shareholder would want to facilitate the destruction of value it can bring about by lending the shares the short seller needs.

Have We Gone Too Far?

Is it an appropriate moment to be asking some contrarian questions about the ongoing global economic financial situation?

Such as: 'Is the knee jerk reaction being vastly overdone?' 'Are the securities that are thought to be toxic actually going to prove to be toxic in the longer term?' 'Might we see substantial amounts being written back in future years when circumstances improve?'

Jungfrau Marathon: The Toughest In The World

A version of this article was published in the Financial Times International Edition on September 6

How do you make an already challenging race even more demanding? Run it up a mountain is what the organisers of the Jungfrau Marathon in Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland decided to do back in 1993, with huge success. The race, which styles itself the world’s toughest marathon, has grown strongly ever since the first event, which attracted around 1,800 runners of all abilities. Today, some 4,500 runners have registered for the16th Jungfrau Marathon, which starts at the Grand Hotel Victoria Jungfrau in Interlaken at 9am central European time. The winner is expected to cross the finishing line, in the shadow of the fearsome North Face of the Eiger, three hours later.

A Flight To Quality

A flight to quality. If there is one phrase which recurs time and again in discussing the asset services world and comparing it to a year ago, a flight to quality is that phrase. It is a form of words that is usually more associated with the investment management side of the equation, but has become ever more important over the past 12 months to those servicing that industry as the fallout from the credit crunch has continued to spread.

The UK Taxpayer, and Michael Owen's wages

Now that Northern Rock is being nationalised, do you realise that through the bank's sponsorship of Newcastle United you and I and every other tax payer in the UK is helping to pay Michael Owen's wages?

Doesn't it make you feel good to know that your money is helping to add to the wealth of a multi-millionaire football player? I can hardly stop turning cartwheels, I'm so delighted.

You really couldn't make it up, could you?

One other thing occurs to me: what happens now if Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB, Abbey, or even the much loathed HSBC, or Goldman Sachs, or Merrill Lynch, or Morgan Stanley, threaten to go bust? Do we step in and rescue them too? And if we are going to rescue banks by nationalising them, on what grounds do we protest if other countries do the same? And why is it one law for white collar workers whose jobs are under threat, and quite another for blue collar workers whose jobs have been so readily sacrificed over the past 30 years?

Oh, and finally, now that the UK Government has a vested interest in the stability and overall health of the UK housing market, does that mean we can expect a further cut in interest rates here, sooner rather than later? This could be a TRUE test of the Bank of England's 'independence'...

What's left after you have sold your soul?

It is an obscenity. It is an abomination. It is lunacy. It is a wind-up, isn't it? These are just some of the reactions I have heard first-hand in recent days about the English so-called Premier League's plans to improve its product offering. I have expressed many of them myself over the past few days, as I have tried to absorb the full impact of the announcement that the 20 so-called top teams in England (many of which somehow manage to persuade themselves that they are part of the most exciting league in the world despite the mind-numbing mediocrity of much of the football they purvey, and the fact that hardly anyone other than Arsenal and Manchester United have won the league title in the years since the 'Premier League' was created) have unanimously agreed to consider adding an extra round of fixtures to the league calendar.

These fixtures will be chosen at random, in the manner of a cup draw, with the top five clubs seeded (of course) to make the playing field even more uneven than it already is, and will be played in a series of cities around the world. These cities will, we are told, breathlessly outbid each other for the vast privilege of welcoming into their hearts the league's preening, self-regarding, publicly urinating, fornicating and vomiting multi-millionaires.

England 2 Croatia 3

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What on earth was that all about? I make no secret of the fact that I'm Scottish, but I have lived in England for well over half my lifetime so far, and think I have finally reached a point where I can watch an England game without fervently wanting them to lose, but I found this game hugely entertaining.

Not because of the result, because I find it sad, even chilling, that football in these islands has fallen behind the rest of the world to such an extent that not one of the five countries attempting to do so has qualified. But because of (a) the high quality of much of the Croatia team's ball skills and (b) the belated recognition south of Hadrian's wall, and east of Offa's Dyke, that the England international team is not remotely as good as the endless hype would have it.