Reviving my forgotten Substack with Jon Pertwee having a gossip and moan to his fan club, as originally published in TV Years magazine. open.substack.com/pub/stuartma...

What a frustrating experience this has been.

Not a single one of the 110,000 knuckle dragging thugs in London today will vote Labour. There is nothing to be lost but plenty to be gained by Starmer condemning them in very strong terms.

I know a lot of people have expressed similar sentiments but I’ve lived in London for 20+ years and never felt threatened or a even a bit scared to be here until today. This needs to end.

one morning, when gregor samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a very hungry caterpillar

I've just finished another stint working with the Edinburgh TV Festival, designing the printed brochure and on-site graphics for this year's 50th Anniversary event. The Festival is run by the TV Foundation, a charity that works to make the TV industry more accessible for all.

the devil is a curious chap, and a wicked one, I tell ye

I’ve been a defender of the BBC for all of my life, I think, and I have worked in their newsrooms and on other shows and projects. Ever since we were told they were going to go further right to appease right wing people, the whole news department has gone mental.

Venerating the Moss God

Perhaps, one day, schoolkids will study this squalid little chapter in British terror-panic history. When they do, I hope these two headlines from today are printed side by side, with clear annotation of which individual faced more outrage and condemnation.

Irish public consultation on UBI for artists. Meanwhile the UK government last consulted us on if we’d mind all our assets, pensions and property being stolen by the world’s worst arseholes to feed into their planet burning machine.

The UK is about to ban access to Wikipedia, just remember this bill was originally pitched as a means to protect kids from accessing porn.

Episode underrunning Tony? #Crossroads

There's a realistic chance we get to a position where Wikipedia is blocked while official government accounts are posting on a site that created MechaHitler AI

Sky Kids will no longer commission originals. Massive hit to a sector of the UK TV industry. (From Broadcast). Leaves only BBC & 5 commissioning originals for children.

If this is accurate, WeTransfer is unusable for professional creative work. Would violate most work-for-hire contracts to share copyrighted material with a third party like this.

Disrespectfully, I need anyone who has not looked for a job within the past year to shut up because shit has changed. Your advice and experience doing this in the past means nothing. You have not job hunted like people are job hunting right now, don’t give people false hope with your outdated ideas

When NPR left Twitter, traffic dropped by only a single percentage point. niemanreports.org/npr-twitter-...

Beginning to wonder if I'm the only man in South London without a calf tattoo.

Reading this, I’m really aware of the damage the word ‘content’ has done to creative careers. It’s a horrible, reductive word that covers the whole spectrum of human expression from poetry/symphonies/fine art at one end, to lift music and classified ads at the other.

Writing about Dungeness, lacunae, archives, unknowing & absences, sound mirrors & silences. Thinking of this quote from Derek Jarman & the original meaning of stanza as room or dwelling place. “The house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace”

“It is astonishing that a Labour government would abandon the labour force of an entire sector. My inbox is filled with individual artists & global companies who are bewildered that the government would allow theft at scale & cosy up to those who are thieving.” www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Fantastic ending to Baroness Kidron's speech in the House of Lords yesterday, which led to the government's defeat on AI & copyright. Speaking the UK's creators: "Their property, their labour, is worthy of your protection - because apart from anything else, it is not ours to give away."

In the news: In which we learn that our leaders find it easier to believe "AI is the future" than to believe that actual, living human beings who make art for a living have rights and deserve respect. Our consent doesn't matter to them. Only appeasing the tech bros matters.

Hoot Hoot I Scream ice cream parlor, Los Angeles, CA, 1928

Jean Marsh has died at the age of 90. Brian Shuel's 1961 photograph of the actor hangs in London's National Portrait Gallery and is one of the most striking images in the collection

Producer George Pal read an article in Life magazine in 1946 about going to the moon and decided it would make a great film. Nearly four years later, Life magazine was on set to document cast and crew making the movie. (These beautiful photos by Allan Grant, I believe)

Want to know how Trump gets in? Just look at the coverage of Le Pen iandunt.substack.com/p/want-to-kn...

Vincent Price loved his dog Joe so much he wrote a book about him. And defended him in court against a lawsuit when a guy claimed Joe made him fall off his bicycle and break his collarbone. Joe is "...the world's best dog...I love him so much I'm here to defend his honor against this charge."

Out today, I've edited and designed a digital bookazine for @radiotimes.bsky.social celebrating 20 years of new #DoctorWho. The Doctors features interviews with the actors and showrunners, illustrated with exclusive and unseen archive photos. Download it FREE from www.radiotimes.com/doctor-who-a...

This is excellent. Listen in the dark.

Today's 20 years since the revived #DoctorWho hit TV screens. Here are a few favourite shots from the @radiotimes.bsky.social photoshoots I've art directed for the show. 📷 Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Jodie Whittaker and Matt Smith photographed by Richard Grassie, Mark Harrison and Ray Burmiston.

If an MP (or anyone) makes a claim about overdiagnosis of mental illness, autism or ADHD, please ask them by what authority they think themselves qualified to override the judgements of doctors, psychiatrists & trained clinicians, without having even met any of the people they're talking about.

Edward Gorey cover for Nineteenth Century German Tales

Much rubbish is going to get talked about Neighbours' second cancellation and the perceived wisdom of reviving it on Amazon. Ignore it. The bottom line is, in today's market, if you're offered a contract that will give 100-plus people jobs for two years, you have a responsibility to do it.

#EastEnders is 40 years old. Radio Times has released a special digital bookazine gathering the best of its interviews and photoshoots, which I've edited and designed. Download it FREE from www.radiotimes.com/eastenders-40th-anniversary-bookazine/

Diane and Leo Dillon, 1969. #illustration #LeoDillon #DianeDillon #bookcover #witches

Can it hurry up.

A fascinating fly-on-the-wall documentary covering the filming of Werner Herzog's Nosferatu. The biggest surprise is that the glorious silent plague party scene originally featured a monologue from Isabelle Adjani, captured at 17m: “I proclaim the time of the rats!” youtu.be/nIhQMx1Jxdw?...

Some light reading for Tom Baker's 91st birthday.

Made a book.

once again thinking about this passage from David Lynch's book Catching the Big Fish

David Lynch has died. He was an unlikely American auteur with a Euro sensibility wrapped in a folksy Midwestern charm, and a serious man who saw dark humor in the mundane and beauty in ugliness. He somehow navigated the mainstream film business without losing his vital and singular artistic vision.

The Netflix Jerry Springer doc does a good job of unpacking the seesaw nature of guilty pleasures… and how they're all good fun until they're not. It also captures Springer's personality well – far too smart to be unwittingly Teflon, yet not detached enough to escape buyer's remorse.

If you see this, post something orange.