Nelson Mandela

The sad news today reminded me that I analysed the speech Mandela made on April 20 1964 from the dock at the opening of his trial on charges of sabotage at the Supreme Court of South Africa in Pretoria. I compared it with a speech made by Emmeline Pankhurst and I discovered similarities and differences in the way they addressed their  audiences. Both were clear that their campaigns were taking actions which were against the law of their respective countries. But while Emmeline tried to engage her sympathetic audience at a personal level, Mandela's speech was quite different. He knew that he did not have a sympathetic audience, so he did not try to engage with them. Instead, his remarks, which were very formal and rehearsed, addressed the world, speaking of vision and hope for the future. But he also found time to refer to his 'proudly felt African background’.

He was already a statesman. 
 

Married

Well, they are married and it all went well. Beautiful bride, handsome and charming groom, 12 hours of partying, happy guests and my gel nails survived. Oh, and TSH's speech (which I was not allowed to see or hear in advance) was brilliant! What more could we want?

I think my hat was just right but it felt very hot after five hours. And then I had the ceremony of taking it off and fluffing up the hair. And it worked!! Old Faithful played a blinder this time.