The News in Pictures - and why one reader can sometimes be enough.
Hello. John-Paul Flintoff here. I hope you're well. The News, Tuesday to Friday Tuesday: meeting at Balmoral Thursday evening: Breaking news on the BBC...
Amazing What A Lectern Can Do - And Tulips
In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare gives Mark Anthony a speech that pretends to be one thing, but is almost exactly the opposite. And this week Boris Johnson used...
Alt Text Challenge | Series 2, Episode 3
Thank you for your creative responses to yesterday’s challenge. I hope you enjoyed it. Describing these pictures is hard! It would be so much easier to...
ATC Series 2, Episode 2
Several responses to yesterday’s challenge: thank you. I hope you found it stimulating. The winner: [ If the picture doesn't show in your email, click here....
"Lunchtime Shadows, London" | A Challenge For Writers
Received many kind words after my last email, thank you. Was a bit downcast, but all's well now. In fact, more than well: last night I was taken to a...
A Small Explosion, And An Attempt At Redemption
Been having a couple of bad days, thinking dark thoughts. One thing that troubles me is that I’ve not been doing what I planned to do, as evidenced in the...
::Everyday Writing:: Rhythm Of A Book
How to get the rhythm of a book right? The pace? The sense of progress? The sequence of colour, if it’s illustrated? The content, whether pictured or verbal?...
Show, Don't Tell | On Turning Journalism Into A Comic
In 2013, when the Guardian was still printed on the mid-sized Berliner format (smaller than broadsheet, but larger than tabloid), an illustrated story ran...
Adequate Projects, er, February news
Hello! I hope you’re well. Welcome to February’s (terribly late) newsletter from Adequate Projects. . I stumbled recently upon a website that instantly...
Independent Ukraine | Look How Far It Has Come
Dispatch From Kyiv At the Ukrainian equivalent of Oxford Circus, the last remaining Lenin – a tall statue in red marble – was playing to perfection the role...
Journalism As A Training For... What?
Earlier today I was reading a story by a British journalist – a woman, can’t recall her name – for a big American magazine, The Atlantic. Hi, John-Paul...
ADEQUATE Projects & Something More Than Adequate
Greetings. . This email is only for blessed patrons, aka premium newsletter subscribers and members of what is now called Adequate Projects (AP). . I just...
Actual handwritten letters by post
When did you last receive a letter that made you genuinely happy - in the post, I mean, a physical letter? Not hate mail (as I tend to think of it) from the...
SPECIAL PROJECTS Livestream
Greetings! I hope you're well. . This email is only for blessed patrons, aka premium newsletter subscribers and members of Special Projects (SP), which I've...
"Could I Really Be Bothered?" and other bottlenecks
I should know by now that every project I start is going to hit some kind of bottleneck, and I'll wobble. But it always seems to take me by surprise. In this...
Witness With A Sketchbook
Last Sunday, a family of Afghan refugees gathered in front of a house in north-west London. They stood in the cold for about 15 minutes, waiting for one of...
Nazanin Update
Richard Ratcliffe ended his hunger strike after 21 days. His wife Nazanin remains in Iran. I felt relief - but will this take pressure off the government to...
Hunger Strike, Westminster
Day 19. Richard Ratcliffe has gone nineteen days without food. Nineteen! Right now, he is camped outside the Foreign Office, not-eating as a protest against...
::Alt Text Challenge:: 1.7
Last day today. . [ Hi, I'm John-Paul Flintoff. This is a pop-up series of emails about writing Alt Text. You can unsubscribe at any time. ] . Writing Alt...
::Alt Text Challenge:: 1.6
Last day tomorrow - I'm missing this series already. . [ Hi, I'm John-Paul Flintoff. This is No 6 in a pop-up series of seven not-quite daily emails about...
::Alt Text Challenge:: 1.5
Day Five - and ha! As soon as I say that replies are falling, and getting faster, the opposite happens. . [ Hi, I'm John-Paul Flintoff. This is No 5 in a...
::Alt Text Challenge:: 1.4
Day Four. I've noticed that replies to these challenges have fallen slightly - but they are coming in faster. I guess that means you are choosing to reply at...
::Alt Text Challenge:: 1.3
Hello - thank you for your responses to the last challenge. . [ I'm John-Paul Flintoff, and this is the third in a pop-up series of seven emails. You can...
::Alt Text Challenge:: 1.2
Hello - thank you for your responses. . [ I'm John-Paul Flintoff, and this is a pop-up series of seven emails. You can unsubscribe at any time. ] . Your next...
::Alt Text Challenge:: 1.1
Hello - and apologies. All replies to my Alt Text Challenge were deleted by my ferocious spam filter. Until I found them today, I thought nobody was...
::Everyday Writing:: 006 - "Alt Text" Challenge
At some point, all would-be writers hear this advice: "Show, don't tell." But even when you have visuals to work with, it can be painfully hard to describe a...
::Everyday Writing 005:: | One-off application to be Poet Laureate
Greetings! This is a one-off. I've been waiting years for an occasion to write something like this. Hope you like it. John-Paul A Pindaric Ode On the...
::Everyday Writing:: 004 - Homage To QWERT YUIOP
::Everyday Writing:: Issue 004, 8 September 2021 Homage To QWERT YUIOP by Anthony Burgess. Picture by meQWERT YUIOP, in case you don’t know already, is the...
Keep On Top Of Your Material | WTCTW 6
::Everyday Writing:: WTCTW 6, 31 August 2021 Hi, I'm John-Paul Flintoff. This is the last email about Writing To Change The World (WTCTW). Today's essay is...
Write Eloquently To Change The World | WTCTW 5
::Everyday Writing:: WTCTW 5, 26 August 2021 Hi, I’m John-Paul Flintoff. This is #5 in a shortish series of (roughly) daily emails about Writing To Change...
Take Your Work With You Everywhere | WTCTW 4
::Everyday Writing:: WTCTW 4, 25 August 2021 Hi, I’m John-Paul Flintoff. This is #4 in a shortish series of (roughly) daily emails about Writing To Change...
Choose Your Own Adventure | WTCTW 3
::Everyday Writing:: WTCTW 3, 24 August 2021 Hello. This is #3 in a shortish series of (roughly) daily emails about Writing To Change The World (WTCTW). I've...
Trusting Your Instinct | WTCTW 2
::Everyday Writing:: WTCTW 2, 23 August 2021 Hello. This is #2 in a shortish series of (roughly) daily emails about Writing To Change The World (WTCTW). For...
Riots, Brooms and Giant Whales | WTCTW 1
::Everyday Writing:: WTCTW 1, 19 August 2021 Hello. Thanks for signing up to receive a shortish series of emails about Writing To Change The World (WTCTW). ....
::Everyday Writing:: 003 - Write To Change The World
::Everyday Writing:: Issue 003, 16 August 2021 Recently, I've been carrying a draft of my next book in the front pocket of my trousers. It's made of sheets...
::Everyday Writing:: 002 - A Forest, To A Man On The Run
::Everyday Writing:: Issue 002, 3 July 2021 There's a keyboard on my desk. I'm using it to write this. There's another keyboard in my back pocket, which I...
::Everyday Writing:: 001 - The Adventures of Addison and Steele, + Google Analytics
::Everyday Writing:: Issue 001, 7 June 2021 This happened a long time ago. Addison just knew, somehow, that Steele had written it. Not just because of the...