Reading time: 7.18 (yes it’s a longer one but I promise it’s worth it) 1,135 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, The clothes rail behind her was colourful with a hefty dash of leopardprint, and the extremely stylish woman on-screen was arranging them deftly, creating — as if by magic — dozens of extremely cool outfits from just a few items. I was there because I’d decided it was finally time to ditch the jogging bottoms and find out who I was underneath all the baggy t-shirts...
1 day ago • 8 min read
Reading time: 2.09 508 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, Many photos on Vinted look like someone screwed the clothes into a ball, kicked them around a playpen for half an hour, then hung them crooked on a hanger in a dingy basement with weird stained-glass windows, then used a potato to snap the pic. That, or they look as-new on a mannequin or supermodel. I can’t compete with the latter and I was sure I could do better than the former, so yesterday I spent a couple of hours...
3 days ago • 2 min read
Reading time: 6.14 1,481 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, “You’re so brave,” is what people always say when they find up I’m also a stand-up comedian. Which makes me laugh for a bunch of reasons, not least that I find socialising with strangers MUCH more terrifying than standing on a stage. But they don’t understand that, so I like to introduce them to something TRULY impressive: improv “gangsta rap” on cue that’s also verrrrry funny. Last night we went to see MC Hammersmith...
6 days ago • 6 min read
Reading time: 2.18 546 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, Outside my window, the jackdaws are taking a break from pulling bits of my house off my house to eat everything in the bird feeders. There are three of them and they’re working together. Occasionally a fourth joins them, but mostly it’s these three. Jackdaws are the gymbros of the garden bird world, but in a fun way, not in a mansplaining-why-I’m-deadlifting-95kg-wrong way. One is picking at the fat balls and scattering...
6 days ago • 3 min read
Reading time: 2.14 530 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, Amidst the brown envelopes from HMRC, telling you that you’ve forgotten yet another tedious piece of official business, peeps an orange corner. But not Junk Mail Orange; it’s an orange that beckons. There’s a pattern, and it looks like something from a previous age. “Pull me out. Open me,” it whispers. The envelope has got a real stamp on it. The stamp has a picture of a dinosaur. There’s a postmark, from Cornwall. You...
8 days ago • 2 min read
Reading time: 1.12 282 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, Did you know the dog training world is more than 61% women? I didn’t. Because to look at the people who have the most powerful platforms in that industry, you’d think it was mostly men. The people who get the speaking gigs, the big platforms, the TV interviews — they’re the ones who get the biggest paydays. And let me tell you, they are NOT necessarily the ones with the best skills. That’s partly why one of my new...
12 days ago • 2 min read
Reading time: 4.25 1,050 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, I’m gonna need a pinny, a handmade hazel basket, and a pilgrim bonnet. Plus ample tea and cake. Because when it comes to gardening your way out of existential dread, there is a GODDAM AESTHETIC AND I WANT IT. Look. We can sit and wring our hands about the dystopian headlines that keep flying at our faces like unwanted dicpics or we can get productively angry and plant a garden. I’m lucky enough to have vegetable beds...
13 days ago • 5 min read
Reading time: 1.21 318 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, I’ve just heard that THREE of my authors are shortlisted for the Business Book Awards and this is actual footage of me reacting to that news. I really do get this excited for my clients. MASSIVE congratulations to Laura Chamberlain for Brilliantly Bouncy and Janine Coombes for The Easy Yes, both in the Short Business Book category. And massive congrats to Ekua Cant for Your Platform Power, in the Business...
14 days ago • 2 min read
Reading time: 1.19 310 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, Stare at the screen And watch the NASA feed And clean out the chickens And wash up the mugs And plant the courgettes And tidy the greenhouse And hoover the shoes And organise the books And tile the bathroom And read about the Beckhams And rewire the house And stretch my shoulders And sort out my wardrobe And make a daisy chain Anything, in fact, other than write the book I am supposed to be writing. This, my friend, is...
15 days ago • 2 min read