Mea culpa. Mea culpa. (This means “My apologies” in French). It has come to my attention that last week I used this newsletter to announce EGGBOX, a night of comedy short film screenings and script readings I’m organising at King’s Place in early December, and failed to actually specify in the body of the email what the […]

“I’m back!” he cried, tumbling out of his spaceship with gleeful abandon. “Did you miss me?” All around him, people were smashing in the windows of Games Workshop, of Curry’s, of Gregg’s, of Gwen’s Nails (a fancy nail parlour he didn’t remember being here before takeoff), of every place that had a window to be […]

Thank you all for your responses last week about the possible expansion of this newsletter into a two-tier system, one for free subscribers and one for paid, and your ideas for the various different things you might like to see in an “evolved” version of what this newsletter offers for you all. It was lovely […]

First up, thank you for all the lovely feedback on last week’s Tape! I don’t usually experiment with a more narrative approach to this newsletter, and I really enjoyed it and might write more entries like that going forwards, alongside the more regular “Here’s what’s on my mind this week” entries. With that in mind, […]

This week I got my hair cut, which is something I do periodically in order to make myself look slightly less shit. For this particular haircut, my barber wordlessly summoned a nervous-looking young man to his side, to which he stuck assiduously for the entire duration of the process, never once tearing his eyes away […]

Hail, friend! Well met! (I didn’t receive a single piece of negative feedback in response to my opening last week’s newsletter with the phrase “Well met!”, so I intend to continue doing it for at least another week, until I think of a different phrase I could use. If you strongly object to my continued […]

Hello, old friends! Well met! (This is a thing I’ve heard people say, I’m trying it out. So far, I don’t think much of it. Sounds a bit silly to me). Hope you’re all doing well! Apologies for the lack of a Therapy Tape last week – things got a bit busy. I’m back this […]

Those of my readers who follow the news about the creative industries, specifically film and TV, will know that everything feels quite perilous over in Hollywood at the moment thanks to the total stalemate over the WGA and SAG-AFTRA writers’ and actors’ strikes. For those not clued up, in a nutshell – writers and actors […]

I’m back! I had such a nice break. Thank you for all your warm wishes! I feel refreshed and creatively engaged and on top of the world. Nice feeling! Anyway, while I was away I read Roger Kneebone’s excellent book Expert: Understanding The Path To Mastery, which is about the psychological process of becoming an expert in […]

I’m a workaholic and, ironically, I’m trying my hardest to work on that. I think there’s a lot of misconceptions around workaholicism and what it entails, and to people unfamiliar with it, it maybe conjures up very corporate imagery – Robin Williams in the first act of Hook, maybe, someone constantly walking down corridors in sterile office […]

A few weeks ago Miranda and I were walking back from the White Cube in Bermondsey, where we’d seen an exhibition called Finnegans Wake by Anselm Kiefer (very spooky, like Tom Waits had gone mad in an apocalypse and started collecting things and piling them up real high), and came across an artist on the South Bank called Brad […]

Shhh. Can you hear it? Put down your cups and pens and saucers, and put your ear to the wall. Do you hear the rumbling? Coming up from the earth? It’s almost that time again. The Edinburgh Fringe is coming. Yes, in a week’s time artists around the world are bundling off to Edinburgh to […]

It is truly the end of an ear (or of an era, if you prefer to use the original phrase rather than its funnier counterpart). I have performed my most recent two live shows for the last time! I filmed Blink and Joz Norris Is Dead. Long Live Mr Fruit Salad. at Moth Club on Sunday for the […]

Howdy! How are you? No really, how are you? What’s new? How are your creative projects developing? I’d love to hear! In all seriousness, since moving the newsletter to Substack I’ve noticed that post views and subscriber numbers have gone up, but I don’t get as many replies from readers, and I miss the replies a bit […]

Oh boy, has it been 3 weeks? I’m so sorry! I normally let readers know if there’s going to be a period of time without a new newsletter, because I usually know those periods are approaching, so apologies for disappearing into the ether without warning. I didn’t anticipate quite how busy I’d get in June, […]