“Singing out of key cannot rescue a bad song.” Colm Tóibín I am writing a novel. It is two-thirds complete. The trouble is it has been two-thirds complete since March 2020. Lockdown interrupted the routine that had helped it evolve to that stage. …

But I don’t wannabe seventy I’ve just submitted a short (very short, 4-second) video birthday greeting online to a friend and one time work colleague who turns 50 this month. It’s for a montage that her husband is preparing as a surprise. It’s hard to credit the computation that tells…

How lockdown got me started on battery powered DIY — Up until some nine months ago, I did not own a single cordless power tool. It’s true that, right at the back of the under-stairs cupboard, there was a boxed corded hammer drill and jigsaw but neither had been properly used since I had made and fitted some bookshelves soon…

Or is a presence on social media sufficient? — There is ongoing debate about whether or not creatives need to have a web presence in addition to being on Twitter, Instagram and/or Facebook. Many authors and illustrators have decided that their presence on social media is sufficient. Some, who have had websites in the past, have let them crash…

The Art of Deactivating & Reactivating Take a moment to consider yourself the administrator of your life’s dashboard. Recently, the platform your existence is built on has had 90% of its functionality removed but you remain in control of what is left and you’ll stay in control when full functionality…

The story of Arlo & Zelda begins — We were two years without cats. We have always had cats. Moppet and Milligan helped us through our first winter of married life, when we were living in a front room hovel in a street of condemned terraced housing in Hanley. The two kittens actually belonged to Bill, who owned…

And the reasons why I nearly didn’t The other day my free first month trial on Medium came to an end and I was prompted to authorise payment of the annual fee via Apple subscriptions. It wasn’t an automatic decision. Coming upon a well-written and interesting piece such as The…

memories of the University of Keele Tony Elliott, founder of Time Out, died very recently, aged 73. When I read his obituary in The Times, I was reminded that he was, like me, an alumnus of the University of Keele. Other Keele alumni include Marion Boyars (publisher), Andrew Glover (composer)…

The art of editing is like brass shining. It takes a dull, lifeless surface, marked with blemishes, and rubs it all up bright and clear. — When I was a boy I loved to sit at the kitchen table with a bottle of Brasso and various golden household objects in front of me. …