How NOT to write copy. This writer swallowed the wrong dictionary - then vomited all over the page.

In my talks about copy I always suggest three pretty steadfast rules:

1, What you offer matters far more than what you say.

2. What you say matters far more than how you say it.

2. The headline matters far more than any other part of the copy.

What perhaps I fail to stress enough is that it helps if you can write English - and if you write badly enough you can unsell something

I was quite taken by the offer from Groupon this morning headed Overnight Break For Two in the Forest of Dean With Breakfast and Cream Tea for £63 at The Speech House Hotel (Up to 60% Off).

We don't live that far away from the hotel and the picture looked OK. What's more I'm as cheap as chips and a pig for cream tea.

But then, oh dear! the copy went into semi-literate orbit, in some weird copywriter's baroque - as follows:

While they make a lovely country getaway, some thickly wooded areas can be unexplainably prejudiced against numbers, earning them a reputation for being fourist. Stay indiscriminate with today’s Groupon: £63 for an overnight break in the Forest of Dean for two, including breakfast and a cream tea each at the Speech House Hotel.

I think "fourist" gets the Golden Turd Award, don't you? But there was more: a picture of the hotel, followed by:

Cuddled by a 27,000 acre forested duvet, The Speech House Hotel is a 17th century hunting lodge that oozes rustic charm fused with all the desirable facilities required to appease contemporary travellers. The auberge is well placed to offer an array of outdoorsy activities designed to leave guests well prepped for comfy beds and a view of Gloucestershire’s foliage. With food options including two restaurants and the casual orangery, the massive house treats wilderness wanderers to 21st century mini-breaking.

Will somebody please shoot that writer before he or she does any more damage?

Or, to quote W. S. Churchill: "Use simple words everyone knows, then everyone will understand."

Do you want to be cuddled by a forest? Do you yearn to be indiscriminate? Come to think of it, I wonder if whoever wrote that is a native English speaker. Hard to believe, isn't it? It reads as though written by someone from Transylvania.

What kind of customers do you have? New audio series, Virgin's banking plans, Spain and Northwestern - and an old video

If you want to persuade people, you'd better understand them.

So here's a tip: read the correspondence.

Many years ago I wrote copy for a pain reliever called Cephos. The fact that people used put it in warm water to sooth their aching feet told you a lot about what they were like. We used strip cartoons in the advertising.

When I was working on American Express I was impressed by the fact that the top people - in the U.K., anyhow - used to listen in on customer calls.

***

Currently there is heated discussion on the Citywire site about a speech made by Nigel Farage, the UKIP man, about the European situation.

A man with the pseudonym "Dislexic Landlord" proves he's not kidding when he writes "the sooner we leave this curcus the better". But he is not alone. At least half the people writing in are ignorant and semi-literate. The other half are pretty well-informed and write well.

Schizophenia rules, I guess

***

I promised a week or so ago to start a series of audio seminars on creative and marketing.

It's amazing how long it took me to get round to doing it, as so many people like to listen to stuff in the car. Anyhow, having decided to give it a go I thought I might do it properly for a change and ordered a decent microphone.

This arrived on Thursday - but I was immediately thrown into a panic because my partner Al was rushed into hospital with a punctured appendix. He's O.K. now, thank God.

However, abnormal service will start this week.

I was not sure if I should have two separate series or just one. The reason is that I don't really think you can be much good at the communications if you don't understand the business. On balance I think one makes sense.

I will try and base it on my two books - Commonsense and How to Write. I suspect more people buy than read them.

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I read somewhere that Richard Branson promises to shake up the banking industry the way he shook up the railways.

This is more of a threat than a promise.

For years Virgin Trains were a complete bugger's muddle. I remember having to spend a night in some dire hotel in the middle of nowhere because my Virgin train from Manchester to London broke down - and their fare structure is as impenetrable and outrageous as everyone else's.

What's more, as a friend pointed out the other day, the Virgin financial services, after a fine start, are now not much better than anyone else's - nor are their marketing messages. I believe that internally they have the same initiative-crushing deadheads running things as their competitors.

***

On the matter of the great Spanish copy day, we are looking at the end of March in either Alicante or Malaga. And someone in the U.S. suggested a second day for the determined.

Re: Northwestern University, that looks like taking place in January. I'll keep you posted about these two events.

***

Last, for a bit of light relief I just found this interview I did 30-odd years ago with Leo Toralballa, then a top banana at American Express in New York - and a very funny man.

I asked him for the secrets of success, and his reply was utterly unplanned and unexpected.

If you can't see the video above, try clicking here.

Another up his own arse show-biz loon gets carried away - this time in Sydney. And some thoughts about the BBC's betrayal of trust

Over here we have a man called Moyle (or Moyles - can't remember which) who gets paid far too much for blathering away in the morning on BBC radio.

His chief characteristics appear to be homophobia, anti-semitism, an ability to sink lower than even the lowest dregs among his audience and being employed by the BBC, whose desire to appeal to the moronic millions knows no bounds. Since none of the BBC bosses does what they are supposed to he has never been fired.

I often wonder if the people who run things at Broadcasting House ever stop to consider the difference between quantity and quality, and that getting an audience of millions of half-wits is not what good broadcasting is about and doesn't reflect their charter in the least.

You can plough through that charter if you like, though I don't recommend it as it is 48 pages of turgid stuff with many misprints clearly designed to discourage scrutiny, but the only bit that matters says the BBC should be:

(a) sustaining citizenship and civil society;

(b) promoting education and learning;

(c) stimulating creativity and cultural excellence;

(d) representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities.

I didn't make that up. That really is what they are required to do by Royal Proclamation, and they only do maybe half those things. More to the point it says a lot about the people who run this country that none of them, not one, seems to have asked anyone, anyone at all, at the BBC why they don't do their jobs. If I had a copywriter who didn't write or only wrote half time I would fire him or her. Why should they be different?

In fact every one of the top BBC apparatchiks deserves to be picked up and thrown violently on to the pavement at Great Portland Street without a pension for:

a) not even attempting to do the job they are required to do, with such clear instructions;

b) wasting too much of our money on people who have nothing to with broadcasting and paying them more than the Prime Minister.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world an oaf called Kyle Sandiland on 2DayFM in Sydney has sounded off on air at some poor woman who didn't like his show with this barrage of fourth form wit:

“Some fat slag has already branded us a disaster … What a fat bitter thing you are, you deputy editor of an online thing. You’ve got a nothing job anyway. You’re a piece of shit … You are supposed to be impartial, you little troll … Yeah, and your blouse, you haven’t got that much titty to be wearing that low cut a blouse. Watch your mouth, girl, or I will hunt you down.”

Rare command of language amidst the megalomania - but it's got him in trouble with his sponsors who are all deserting him. The reason that made me laugh most was from Holden, who were Australia's biggest car manufacturer until Toyota came along and cheated by making cars that cost less and were more reliable.

They said they think the show is "no longer in line with Holden's core values." Ah! Dear old core values, second cousin to key issues and beloved of Chief Marketing Officers everywhere.

Incidentally, the show the lady criticised, which was on TV, started out with 1.4 million viewers - because it followed an episode of the X Factor - of whom 1.2 million had switched off by the time it ended. God, it must have been bad.

More to the point, he just may have betrayed 2DayFM's core values, which are to make as much money as possible in any way not actually criminal and never upset the advertisers.

I should say, by the way, that I find Australian talk radio utterly fascinating and have done ever since I first visited in 1971. It's amazingly outspoken and often extremely funny. Compared to the pallid stuff we get here for the most part it is far, far better.

That applies to Australian language generally, which reflects the national character and is tons more vigorous than what we trot out over here. But that's another subject.

If they can't write English, how good d'you suppose they are on investment advice? Plus a bizarre sense of priorities that mystifies me

Eileen McCarthy of UK Auctioneers in Chester got a message from the Financial Times who wanted her to advertise.

It read, "As a number of global dynamics play out, investors are still airing on the side of caution and sticking to less volatile, safe haven stocks.

With only four IMA sectors making a gain in September, achieving returns is becoming ever harder. But never fear, as there are areas where investors are almost guaranteed to make a return.

Antiques is one of them."

I fear the journo who bashed that out is erring on the side of illiteracy - and for all I know, truth as well. That little word "almost" is usually a bit of a give-away, isn't it?

What is interesting is how some people involved in finance can get away with murder while others get clobbered left right and centre. Anyone encouraging people to save - generally a good thing - has their copy so slaughtered by the FSA that it's almost impossible to put forward a coherent argument.

On the other hand, those who encourage them to spend have for years got away with murder. Now, I see, the government is bent on stopping the credit card industry incentivising people to borrow. They are worried about people getting into trouble as a results of having to pay interest rates of 15 - 20%.

But what astounds me - and I keep banging on about this - is that they let Wonga, who charge as much as 4214%, to advertise everywhere from the internet to footballers' shirts. They have a specious argument that because you're only borrowing for a short time the interest rate is irrelevant. On the same lines I could argue that a quick, violent rape is not as bad as a slow, more gentle one.

When I say "criminal" I am not suggesting they are criminals. I suspect even the Mafia would be more reasonable. And when I say "astounds me" it astounds me that any set of people pretending to govern could be worried about 20% when that kind of stuff's going on. We know they're clueless about money, but come on. Can't they count?

Just a point of view, that's all.

A little self-promotion - and what the Bliar and McToad started, Cameron and Osborne look set to finish

I'll get to the bit all about Me, glorious Me in a minute, but the chief reason why I have to bray so loudly is because of what successive governments have done to me and lot of old codgers like me.

First, one of the most diligent architects of our present woes, G. Brown, in need of money to hire more public servants almost halved the value of the pension fund I'd been building for twenty odd years. Obviously necessary if I'm to subsidise the pensions of the people he hired.

More recently the Bank of England's been printing money to make sure that whatever I do get will be worth less when I get round to spending it.

And now there are rumours that the hopeless crew who currently mismanage our affairs are considering slashing the tax relief people get when they save for a pension and the tax free benefits when they cash in. The result will be to push the current abysmal savings rate even lower. If that isn't a dumb, retrograde idea I don't know what is.

Brilliant stuff, in fact. Only necessary because you have not, as promised, done anything to cut spending on jobs for the boys who sit on committees or indeed anything else. It would have taken a fair old leap of imagination to believe that anyone could be less competent than the last bunch of dead beats, but you've pulled it off. You're outspending them, so you need to out-steal them.

All this is the chief reason why I really must draw your attention, dear reader, to http://draytonbird.net/copydvd/. It's an opportunity to improve yourself in one of the few areas that can make you a lot more money without costing you a lot more money, which is copywriting.

There are some ghastly pictures of me in it, looking slightly pregnant (impossible, I know: you're either pregnant or you're not). But there is also a good video at the end which I put there because it's worth watching whether you want to buy anything from me or not.

Thanks for reading these maunderings. And thanks to all of you who send me comments. It makes it all worthwhile.