07 November 2026
Hello
In this issue: a portrait leaves the studio, rolled up in a tube; a hint of the next Speccy Man adventure, and the man who gave him his name; one week into the Micro-Memoir course, going nicely; a grand piano through the streets of London; and a voice note booth, for replying to my emails out loud.
Special delivery
On Thursday the latest portrait left the studio.
It travelled in a tube: A2, with a white border, and its certificate of authenticity. In an envelope beside it, three copies of a booklet of photos from the sitting. And a pencil, in case I wanted to add to the inscription when I handed it over.
I wrote the first half of this on the train, with the tube still sealed. Here is the second half.
In August I had a show of portraits at Burgh House in Hampstead. It was also, at the suggestion of one of the people who backed my book A Speccy Man Has A Breakdown, a sort of launch party, so as well as the people in the portraits I invited the backers. One of them was Christo Hird, a significant figure in documentary film who was on the Sunday Times before my time there. He came with his wife, Anna, and walking round he recognised faces on the walls: Mark Stephens, the media lawyer, and Hunter Davies, from the Sunday Times too.
Afterwards he got in touch and asked if I would make a portrait of the two of them. At the end of August I went to see them.
I made the picture over time, from sketches done in the room and from photographs.
Most of all I wrestled with the question of how to draw Christo and Anna. Looking at each other? At the viewer? One at the other? Christo was working on his laptop while I was there, and Anna was not.
On Thursday I took it round. They seemed very pleased, and that’s as much as I’ll say on their behalf. But Christo said I should go ahead and show the picture, because it might encourage somebody else. So: here is the portrait, and how I made it.
Little squares for the blogroll
A blogroll is an old idea from the early web: a list, on your own website, of the other websites you read, so that people who like your stuff can find theirs.
For a while I had a Substack, where recommending people is automatic, but you can only recommend other people on Substack, and that felt unsatisfying.
So when I started bringing as much as possible back to my own website, a year or so ago, I decided I had to build one of these. It’s taken me till now. Every night it checks what each person has published most recently, no matter which platform they’re on, and pulls that in, and the order is shuffled, so whoever pops in sees a different name at the top, and a different one again if they refresh.
Working it out has been a game I’ve played for my own entertainment, but there’s a serious side too: I’d rather my recommendations lived on my own site than on somebody else’s platform, where the rules can change overnight.
The list is incomplete, and it will grow. The people on it so far publish on Substack, on Ghost, on WordPress, and on obscure, less well-known platforms rather like my own.
To go with the first entries I painted fifteen small squares, each name hand-lettered in brush pen on a flat block of colour, from coral and tomato red through pink and mauve to burgundy. The two darkest, for Rachel Hazell and Austin Kleon, get white lettering.
As a set they hang together: one hand, one family of colours. Edith Zimmerman’s name breaks across a hyphen, which I like, though it stands out from the rest. Whether the paler ones survive at forty pixels across is the next test.
The squares, and the blogroll itself.
If there’s a website you think I should be reading, reply and tell me. Or say it instead: I’ve built a voice note booth. Press record, talk, send.
Michael’s awards won an award
A few years ago I ran a small online group where everybody brought a project and we helped each other along. Michael Gilmore brought his: an international award scheme for people who teach others about money, the Money Awareness and Inclusion Awards, or MAIAs.
This week he announced that the awards have themselves won an award: silver at the Anthem Awards, set up to honour work with a measurable social impact. Michael says one reason he entered was to find out how it feels to win one. I was around when the MAIAs went live, so I’m thrilled.
Last month Michael answered three questions from me by voice note, from Singapore, where he works in finance: why he started the awards, how he got into money by accident, and why learning about it made him angry enough to spend years helping other people learn too. Michael G, angry about money
One more thing I owe him. In that same group, around the same time, Michael described my cartoonish self-image as a Speccy Man. The name stuck. It’s on the cover of A Speccy Man Has A Breakdown, and it’s carrying over to the next Speccy Man adventure, which I’ll tell you about soon.
The first week of the course
On Monday a new group started a thirty-day course with me, each of them making a small illustrated book about one part of their life. It’s called Micro-Memoir.
One of them, Paula, wanted to make a book of her grandson’s creative work, and that turned out not to be possible. But a neighbour, who used to be a publisher, had been moved to tears by it, and the neighbour’s reaction can be part of the story. Film directors do this all the time: show someone looking, rather than the thing they’re looking at. I wrote about it here.
This time round I’ve added a live Zoom call once a week, and the first was on Thursday night. And each day so far I’ve sent the group a short voice note, with a transcript. Both for the same reason: I want it to be clear that this isn’t an automated course, but one where I’m responding to people’s questions and worries as we go. The voice notes are on the site, if you’d like to listen in.
There’ll be another group, and this page has a waiting list for it.
Other World News In Brief
Women, Art, God. My friend Ayla Lepine, a priest and art historian, has a new book out: twelve women artists, Artemisia Gentileschi and Frida Kahlo among them, and the spirituality in their work.
Happenstance. I’m glad to own one of Paul Treacy’s beautiful handmade photobooks. His new series starts here, with street pictures made everywhere from Ireland to Bulgaria. Three prices, depending on your means.
A grand piano through the streets. Last year Katya Lebedeva, who teaches piano at Trinity Laban, played a grand piano on a moving float in the Lord Mayor’s Show, Flight of the Bumblebee outside Mansion House included. The Show sets off at 11am next Saturday, 14 November, and she’s on it again.
Housekeeping
Last week I said these emails would start coming from a different platform, Buttondown, today. They don’t, yet. I’m travelling, with a phone and no Mac, and the move needs the Mac. Buttondown is already carrying the daily emails for the Micro-Memoir course, and it’s going better than I’d hoped, so the switch will happen, probably later this month. Until then, nothing changes at your end.
New on the site: a voice note booth, built this morning, with a phone. Going forward, anywhere you’d reply by email, you can now reply by voice instead. It’s an experiment. Your note goes to my own server, nobody else hears it unless you say they may, and you choose what I’m allowed to do with it.
Unoffice Hours: half an hour on a video call, Tuesday lunchtimes UK, free, no agenda, open to absolutely anybody. Book a slot:
Unoffice Hours
Free drop-in video call. One-to-one, Tuesdays.
This arrives weekly. If that’s too often, reply and say MONTHLY and I’ll send you a monthly round-up instead.
JPF