Archive

Hello. John-Paul Flintoff here. I hope you're well.

The News, Tuesday to Friday

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 a resignation speech in order to stay in office.

He did it not just by the words he used when he spoke, but by the way he framed his speech in advance.

.

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 describe a battle scene, say – or the shadow of a man dragging his dog on a lead.

.

The winners

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. ]

.

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 performance of Beethoven's 9th and found myself sitting beside the massed sopranos. I mean: three feet away.

For an hour, they sat motionless - then rose from their seats and it was like being caught up in a flight of angels.

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 book I use as a planner.

.

NOTE: This newsletter should contain images. If you can't see them, you can click the links to see them on my website.

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?

One way: mock it up as a PDF, with one page following the other and read it in a long scroll to the end.

I’ve been doing a lot of that recently, with a book of my own and a book by somebody else who I'm working with.

.

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 across a double-page spread in the centre of the Family section.

It had ten rows of (mostly) five panels each.

I stumbled on a photo of it recently while working through images on my website. Unless your eyesight is much better than mine, you probably can't read the subtitle in that image. This is what it says:

Hello! I hope you’re well. Welcome to February’s (terribly late) newsletter from Adequate Projects.

.

I stumbled recently upon a website that instantly generates anagrams of anything you type into it. I discovered that Adequate Projects = Japes Redact Quote. This pleases me because one of my nicknames is Japes, and as a journalist I’ve always been a bit of a quote redactor.

I’ll be writing more about my experiences as a journalist fairly soon, as I’m putting together a proposal for a book, provisionally entitled “How To Think Like A Journalist”. (Don’t tell anybody please. It’s not been commissioned yet.)

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 of foreman.

With one hand clutching a lapel and the other resting on his hip, Lenin couldn’t have looked happier watching over the labours of Kyiv’s assembled builders. All day long they dug, shoved and welded. They tore the place apart and gradually put it back together again, with attention to detail that included repainting every municipal rubbish bin.

.

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 Flintoff at your service. 
I believe you signed up for this newsletter.

She was writing a light-hearted polemic about the ways in which journalists are not ideally suited to be politicians. I was both delighted and annoyed to see this, because I’d been thinking of writing something similar – having talked a lot about it over the last few days.

Her central figure was Boris Johnson, though she threw in a certain amount about (I think) a journalist from the New York Times who is running for office somewhere, and about somebody connected to Fox News who (again, I think) got heavily involved in campaigning for Donald Trump.

Greetings.

.

This email is only for blessed patrons, aka premium newsletter subscribers and members of what is now called Adequate Projects (AP).

.

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 bank or the government but a letter from a pal, or beloved relative?

.

Hello, John-Paul Flintoff here. This is my ::Everyday Writing:: newsletter, which you probably signed up for at some point.

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 decided to rename Adequate Projects (AP).

.

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 email I'll tell you about the latest bottleneck, and how I came through it - in hope it gives you ideas about your own projects.

.

[ Hi, it's John-Paul. This email is only for paid subscribers, and members of SPECIAL PROJECTS. ]

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 the householders to step outside and meet them.

The delay was actually my fault: I was in the kitchen, standing around while a nice cup of coffee was prepared for me, from the grinding of fresh beans onwards.

.

[ Hi, it's John-Paul. This email is only for paid subscribers, and members of SPECIAL PROJECTS. ]

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 bring her home?

.

Hi, I'm John-Paul, and this is ::Everyday Writing::, a newsletter you signed up for.

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 the UK government's consistent failure to get his wife Nazanin home from Iran.

.

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. ]

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 writing Alt Text. You can unsubscribe at any time. ]

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 pop-up series of seven not-quite daily emails about writing Alt Text. You can unsubscribe at any time. ]

.

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 once or not at all. And that's fine by me.

.

[ Hi, I'm John-Paul Flintoff. This is No.4 in a pop-up series of seven daily emails about writing Alt Text. You can unsubscribe at any time. ]

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 unsubscribe at any time. ]

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. ]

.

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 interested. Oops!

.

Hi, I'm John-Paul. This is ::Alt Text Challenge:: Series 1, a seven-day pop-up newsletter for which you signed up. You can unsubscribe any time, using the link below.

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 scene.

.

Hi, I'm John-Paul, and this is Everyday Writing, an occasional newsletter for which you signed up - thank you. You can unsubscribe using the link below.

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 Occasion of the Final of the US Open, between Emma Raducanu and Leyla Fernandez, at Flushing Meadows

::Everyday Writing:: Issue 004, 8 September 2021

::Everyday Writing:: WTCTW 6, 31 August 2021

::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 The World (WTCTW).

::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 The World (WTCTW).

::Everyday Writing:: WTCTW 3, 24 August 2021

Hello.

::Everyday Writing:: WTCTW 2, 23 August 2021

Hello.

::Everyday Writing:: WTCTW 1, 19 August 2021

Hello.

::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.

::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 used 345 times last week - an average of 49 times a day. Most days, I spent just under 2 hours staring at this second keyboard, which is also a phone.

::Everyday Writing:: Issue 001, 7 June 2021

This happened a long time ago.