Dahlias at Charleston, Sussex, with a teeny portrait of the artist in the reflection.
15 March 2026
In this issue: the Dogs of Hampstead (part four), a few links worth your time, and some housekeeping notes you may want to see.
But first:
A Speccy Man has a Breakdown
Two weeks ago I started sending a short daily email through March, documenting the making of a new book. This week it got harder and more interesting.
The book is a numbered, signed limited edition hardback. It will be filled with some of the ~300 drawings I made in a psychiatric hospital, capturing a time when I believed I was worthless. I’ve been preoccupied, as in this process, with the relationship between words and pictures – when an image needs no caption, and when a caption needs no image. And that’s something I find exciting, despite the dark topic.
Long-time readers will know I’m a fan of the creative opportunity hidden in writing Alt Text – the text that explains online pictures to the visually impaired – and was therefore very happy to discover an Alt Text Hall of Fame.
Eight people have already reserved a numbered, signed copy of the first edition (thank you). They’ve done so directly – no Amazon, no Etsy, no platform taking a slice.
I’ve been reminded that my grandparents had a shop, several decades before I was born. A newsagent, I believe, with sweets. People would come in and say hello. That’s not a bad model. I’m building a shop on my own website, and the man helping me says I can increase personal engagement with buyers – and, mercifully, do without either Paypal or Stripe – by simply sending my bank details in an email after checkout.
As I’ve written elsewhere, there’s something awful (deadly, isolating) about frictionless tech removing human engagement from everyday processes. I mean, if someone wants to buy my book from my website, I want to send a message!
If you missed the earlier emails, you can start at Day 1 – or jump straight to this week’s Day 9, which features a journalist who forgot to pack a toothbrush.
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Dogged reportage
A wet dog outside the Hampstead Butcher [Outstagram]
Location: outside the Hampstead Butcher.
This dog was very wet. I like to think it had been enjoying a jolly good walk on the Heath nearby. And yet it looked glum as it walked slowly towards us. The figure on the right is actually my wife H. Now you know.
I’m attempting a kind of canine reportage with these drawings: not dogs posing for the camera with big smiles but just going about their business.
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Other World News In Brief
If you think you know London, you may become slightly competitive playing this Tube Game. It’s a bit like Pin The Tail on The Donkey, but to win you must point AT SPEED to wherever the named station actually is. If I say so myself, I’m pretty good at it!
Enjoyed this quote from veteran blogger Dave Winer: “Google is a guest on the web, as we all are. Guests don’t make the rules.” Read here
I’ve been thinking about the power of not using a certain person’s name. Read here
Recently Stephanie (an esteemed reader) sent me a link to a newsletter by my friend Oliver Burkeman. I was very glad to see it. But the point I want to make is that Stephanie passed it on outside the closed garden of social media. Yes, this is possible! Please do forward things you enjoy directly to other people – together we can outwit the beastly algorithms.
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A couple of housekeeping notes
The Writers Support Group meets on Zoom on Thursday 27 March – that’s the last one on the fourth Thursday. From April it moves to the second Thursday of each month. The reason is simple: the end of the month is vulnerable to Christmas and bank holidays. The second Thursday turns out to be reliably just a Thursday. Find out more.
Unoffice Hours runs every Wednesday lunchtime – half an hour, one to one, just the two of us. Not a group thing. Book whenever you need it. Book your slot.
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If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it by email or on social media. Here’s the link. Thanks, JPF.