Cuttings: December 2017

University Challenge rivals Eric Monkman and Bobby Seagull: ‘I think people like us … I don’t think they’re walking away laughing’ - interview by Emine Saner in The Guardian. "Seagull went to Eton on a scholarship to do his A-levels. He grew up on a council estate in east London, one of four sons who all thrived at school and ended up at either Oxford or Cambridge. His parents had moved to Britain from India in the 70s; his father worked as an accountant while his mother raised the boys... At his school (where the headteacher was Michael Wilshaw, who later became the head of Ofsted) every class read the papers each day and, one morning, Seagull spotted an advert for scholarships to Eton for state-school students and applied. He says he 'absolutely loved it. People, when they think of Eton, think with their adult prejudices. I went as a 16-year-old and thought: "Wow, there are so many opportunities here."' He liked being a boarder and being able to see his friends within minutes of waking up. How did the other kids – the rich kids – treat him? He says they acted as if he was just like any other boy, though he was a bit of a curiosity."

Robert Peston: 'I’m not saying Britain is finished, but our current problems are not a blip' - interview by Decca Aitkenhead in The Guardian. "His new book, WTF, is notionally about Brexit, but presents a disturbing analysis of the underlying economic reasons why so many of us voted to leave the EU. With falling living standards, poor productivity, the decline of social mobility and relentless rise of inequality, Peston regards Brexit as neither a cause of nor solution to our grave economic problems. 'I’m not saying Britain is finished or anything like that. I’m just pointing out that there are some very significant structural problems that we need to fix, whether or not we leave the European Union.' The current economic malaise, he adds emphatically, 'is not a blip. This is the moment we have to stop pussyfooting around in terms of solutions."... If Peston sounds angry with the state of British politics, this may be in part because he is also angry with himself. I can detect a slight tendency for self-flagellation, but do not doubt the sincerity of his self-recrimination. He did not see Brexit coming, he admits, for reasons that make him ashamed. 'I have a sort of self-image to do with an idea that because I went to the local state school, I was not in a sort of bubble of the privately educated privileged – or indeed in a bubble of the privileged in any sense – and that I was somehow more connected to people in this country than people who would have gone to Eton or Westminster or wherever. But among the pretty extensive circle of friends and family, not a single person that I could identify voted for Brexit. It was that bubble, that privileged ghetto – feeling completely disconnected from more than half of the people – that made me feel very ashamed.' "

'Would you be willing?': words to turn a conversation around (and those to avoid) - "[Elizabeth] Stokoe and her colleagues [at Loughborough University] have analysed thousands of hours of recorded conversations, from customer services to mediation hotlines and police crisis negotiation. They discovered that certain words or phrases have the power to change the course of a conversation.... Here are some of the biggest dos and don’ts. // Do use: willing. // Don't use: just. // Do use: speak (instead of talk). // Don't use: How are you? // Do use: some [or something] (instead of any [or anything, as in 'Anything else I can do for you?']) // Don't use: Yes, but. // Do use: It seems like [as in 'It seems like what you're saying is...'] // Do use: Hello."