Archive - Speakola newsletter

'Sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth'

Huey P.Newton was co-founder of the Black Panthers in 1966. On this day in 1970, he gave a speech to his macho membership about embracing women and the…

Aug 15 •

10 years — The ten most visited speeches (Part 2)

Now for the top 5. These are the most visited speeches on the Speakola site across the last ten years, as measured by Squarespace analytics.

Aug 12 •

10 years — The ten most visited speeches (Part 1)

These are the ten most visited speeches on Speakola, according to Squarespace analytics.

Aug 11 •

Every significant speech ever delivered, by anyone, forever

The Speakola website launched on the 5th of August, 2015. It's ten years old this week. Here is the story of how it came to be.

Aug 6 •

'She taught me so much just by loving me'

A subscriber sent me a bottle of gin. But her real gift is there in the pages of Speakola. Serena Ryan's eulogy for her Irish born Mum is one of the…

Aug 4 •

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July 2025

'Robin Williams, what a concept'

It’s still the 21st of July in the USA (just), and it would have been Robin Williams' 74th birthday. The send off delivered by Billy Crystal at the 2014…

Jul 22 •

'He is tiresome, but very wise'

Have you ever heard Joseph Stalin's voice? This radio broadcast is from 3 July 1941, 84 years ago today, and recorded 11 days after Hitler tore up the…

Jul 3 •

June 2025

Solomon in a Singlet

I sometimes do a date search on Speakola to see what speech-aversaries are about. 27th June was the date of Andrew Rule's eulogy for his bushman father…

Jun 27 •

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NEW PODCAST EPISODE #59 — Dana Rubin, founder of Speaking While Female

Dana calls me a kindred spirit, and that's a nice way of looking at it. We're both speech collectors! Dana collects speeches by women for her Speaking…

Jun 24 •

'We were the light of her life' — Stephen Colbert's tribute to his mother

When I was writing my eulogy for my Mum, I read through dozens of 'mother eulogies' on Speakola. I ended up quoting from this one. Stephen Colbert's…

Jun 19 •

Perhaps the most politically famous guest I've had on Speakola podcast is former UK opposition leader Neil Kinnock. It's a great chat, and 'I Warn You…

Jun 7 •

The greatest eulogy of all time

No, not mine, Alec Baldwin's

Jun 6 •

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