…no freelance deadline outstanding. So, a rare morning when I have no freelance deadline outstanding. I began freelancing on Upwork soon after the start of lockdown in 2020. …

“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)…