The love of my life just walked in to our room at 10pm, dumped a huge pile of clean, dryer-warmed laundry on our bed, and apparently I'm not allowed to burrow in like a hamster and deal with it in the morning?!

If you don't have melted cheese on your laptop do you really have Christmas joy in your heart?

Benoit Blanc Beignet Blanc Baguette Blanc Briquette Blanc The more Knives Out variants, the better

If you're a freelancer with tax questions, or you're worrying about the Making Tax Digital switch over that's coming, last shout for the first Many Hats workshop on Thursday lunchtime. £25 tickets here: www.many-hats.org/events/every...

Just out. I've written a major report (with David Edgar) looking at the effect of Covid on British Theatre. You can download it here: www.britishtheatreconsortium.co.uk/britishtheat...

Freelancers don’t get CPD from their employers and clients, so we need to invest in ourselves. I am really looking forward to running a Many Hats workshop for @eleanorturney.co.uk in December! There are £10 and half-price places available so see if there's a workshop for you: www.many-hats.org

When I launched many-hats.org, I wanted to make sure the workshops are as accessible as possible. There are £10 and half-price places available, allocated by a lottery. Please see the website for more details and to enter the lottery!

The first Many Hats professional development for freelancers workshops are coming up in December 2025, with others in January, February and March. Check out the upcoming workshops at many-hats.org and use EARLYBIRD25 to get £25 off any day-long workshop booked before the end of October!

Did you know that I now run Many Hats, offering professional development workshops specifically for freelancers? Please take a look and spread the word! www.many-hats.org

In an act of astonishing hubris, I have had both flu and covid vaccines today, in the same arm. God help me parenting a four-year-old whirlwind all day tomorrow...

IMPORTANT All freelancers, self-employed, creatives This is the first I've heard of this, but the Department for Business and Trade is running a consultation on the scourge of late payments, they want to introduce new legislation to tackle poor practices Deadline to respond is 23 October 1/2

I am leading a workshop on freelancing while neurodivergent for Eleanor at the Birmingham Hippodrome on Monday December 8. There is a half-price place free for a freelancer who otherwise couldn’t afford it. More here, plus crispy M&M chat: www.many-hats.org/events/freel...

My new business many-hats.org is LIVE. Professional development for freelancers, with workshops led by some amazing people including @ambermb.bsky.social @verybrinteresting.bsky.social @cloreleadership.bsky.social @katbrownwrites.com @mazhedgehog.bsky.social @nadpatel.bsky.social Please share!

Aaaaand in Birmingham motorists destroy Low Traffic Neighbourhood barriers, speed through pedestrian crossings, park wherever they like, and daily endanger, injure and kill cyclists and pedestrians. Another way is possible, but it requires more political backbone than we're likely to find here.

@jonturney.bsky.social seems like you might know someone?

Urban wildlife of south east London

This weekend’s cake, for someone who was rather less than 70. (She’s four, and very deep in a princess phase.)

We don’t need shoddy American autism panic imports when we’ve got British-made conspiracies that we successfully exported all over the world

By this logic, the Landlord is actually the parent of any child or children conceived in the property.

Happy birthday, @jonturney.bsky.social. Here is the cake I made at the weekend.

As the world continues to be a terrible place, I need you all to know that my friend's dinosaur-obsessed one-year-old saw dinosaurs with feathers at the Natural History Museum and now calls them "fluffy rar-rars". FLUFFY RAR-RARS.

What disgustingly autumnal weather (laudatory)

Payments on account (paying tax on money you haven't earned yet as a freelancer) is a fucking insane system. How are we still doing this?!

Working 2m from the freezer which C had the foresight to fill with ice lollies is very good, actually.

Summer is a time of connection, abundance and creative energy, but also one where freelancers can feel overstretched. The Creative Freelancer’s Climate Almanac is a free resource designed to support artists, producers, and independent creatives to take climate action in seasonal, sustainable ways.

Christ on a bike. (To be clear, @jonturney.bsky.social is asking me because I have a degree from Warwick, not becasue I had anything to do with this.)

Me, trying to spell my name over the phone after very little sleep: "T for turtoise." The Hyundai receptionist was extremely professional.

Ballet icon Carlos Acosta has been awarded an honorary degree by the University of Birmingham for his outstanding contribution to dance and culture. 👏 A powerful recognition of artistic excellence and impact. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"WHY ARE YOU WEARING THAT FACE?" my three-year-old screams at me as I attempt to eat my breakfast. Happy Monday, everyone!

Well, our day began with our 6-year-old spilling a whole cup of coffee across both of C's laptops. So that's good.

Really enjoyed writing this for Mog's excellent substack. Featuring coffee, choas and @hollyhopkins.bsky.social's book.

i've decided what i might do instead of Chat TPG or whatever is get a toddler to arrange some magnetic words for me and take a photo and use that as a way to generate replies to emails

Read this this morning, on cooking for a toddler, and it's absolutely beautiful.

"Those plums are *not* for you, William"

Taught our kid to play Santorini and he immediately beat us both. Twice.

Didn't get on with Hamlet: Hail to the Thief. Thought it was really undercooked, the movement (which I loved from a choreographic POV) didn't work with non-dancers, and the script was so truncated that there was no nuance to any of the characters. A cool idea, but didn't work for me.

Our world wasn't really "ruled" by dinosaurs was it. They were really shit with infrastructure and justice. Only law was that of nature and they didn't even create that

A world that cares more about Peppa Pig's "new baby sister" than real human children is so fucking broken I don't know what else to say.

It’s a cinnamon bun kind of morning… second prove in the fridge overnight and then baked fresh for breakfast.

Grateful for a freelancers' freebie to the #futureoftheatre conference today – watching along from Birmingham. So glad that @thestage.co.uk recognises freelancers' financial precarity and offers some free tickets for us.

I hope the Gruffalo kicks the shit out of that mouse

An open letter to the Equality and Human Rights Commission from the Culture Sector, in solidarity with Trans, Nonbinary and Intersex communities. Sign your name here: tinyurl.com/ehrcletter Please share widely, and if you are not able to sign for your organisation, please share with someone who can

We’ve reached the stage of Easter Sunday where the small one is full of chocolate, naked, mad, and now screaming at her brother for “smashing her song by talking”. Mmhmm. OK.

This is high art

Saw The Years yesterday and thought it was great – I realise I am behind the times on this, but very glad I made the trip to London to see it.

My daughter is drawing a picture of me "with long long legs because you're a grown up, and red hair and purple ears because I wish you had red hair and purple ears", while singing The Boxer (which she calls The Boxes Song). The perfect work environment.

The whiplash of having music on shuffle after a long car journey with the kids: Paul Simon - Little Bunny Fou Fou - Beyoncé.

Sarah is both brilliant and lovely – I found my session with her extremely helpful.

Very much enjoyed discovering that CBeebies radio does a live jam session on a Weds morning.

Freelancers are in urgent need of protection from AI technologies, insufficient pay and a decline in work post-Covid lockdowns, according to a new report by Creative UK 👇