Month: October 2017

Language Matters

Shakespeare to Seuss: literary connections at the Bank

Posted on October 11, 2017 by in Language Matters

The Bank of England’s literary connections run deep. Shakespeare, Dickens, George Eliot, TS Eliot and Grahame – and most recently, of course, Austen – are among the names who have either featured on Bank notes, or been inspired in their writing by the Bank’s awesome facade and interiors.

The TS Eliot connection I wasn’t aware of until recently. But it says on the Bank Museum website that he wrote much of The Wasteland while working across the road at the former Lloyds Bank office on Cornhill. I have worked in that building myself. So I can only assume that the view across to the Bank inspired him more than his Lloyds Bank surroundings, which are at best mundane.

Either way it was a nice surprise to chance on another, slightly unexpected, literary connection. This one was courtesy of The Independent’s reporting of remarks made by former deputy governor Minouche Shafik at the Hay Festival last May.

Those remarks highlighted that the Bank had been consciously taking a leaf out of the book of another writer famous for his humour, clarity, simplicity and common touch. And no, I don’t mean Andy Haldane, although he is (famous for those things).

I mean Dr Seuss.

Content Matters

Writing for Business: helping you write better business English

Posted on October 9, 2017 by in Content Matters

Business writing skills have never been more in demand.

Almost everyone in their daily work needs to write clear, accurate business English.

Whether this is in the form of emails, letters, reports, minutes, digital copy, marketing materials, technical manuals or other formats.

Even tweets are increasingly a marketing tool for both business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) communications.

Yet not everyone is confident that their business writing skills are up to the standard they would like. Many people working in communications departments, HR or marketing teams, regardless of their native language, strive to write refined and polished business copy.

People working in IT or quantitative fields are often less comfortable writing business English than they are dealing with code or numbers. Many see the need to obtain specific training in business writing skills, to help them reach an even better standard of written English.

Finance Matters
BOEPrism

Risk & Regulation Round-up December 2016 to September 2017

Posted on October 1, 2017 by in Finance Matters

In this blog we go back to our regular round-up of key announcements and developments in UK financial risk and regulation.

We haven’t done this for a while, so this edition covers a longer period than usual – 1st December 2016 to 30th September 2017.

We expect to resume more frequent updates going forward, and sincerely thank our readers for their patience during the gap so far this year. Given the long time period in view, the coverage is deliberately even more summarised and simplified than usual. In particular we pay only scant attention to Brexit.

Brexit contingency planning is well under way at all firms, under the watchful eye of the regulators. But, for the purposes of this blog, Brexit remains, just about, an environmental factor rather than a driver of actual rule changes. So – as before – we focus more on concrete developments that have occurred than on future Brexit-related changes whose detail and timing is not yet certain.

Links to underlying source stories or documents are contained in individual articles in this blog.

*** Note: The articles in this blog do not constitute advice, but please contact Prism-Clarity for further information, including where to get the best advice. ***