📖 7 Books in 16 languages 📚 including: How To Change The World A Modest Book About How To Make An Adequate Speech.
Night before the big day | JPF Daily
|
If you hate stuff about religion, skip this one. Hello Reader Whatever else Easter may be, to you or to me, it's certainly a time of great drama - if you know where to find it. Over the last week, I've seen plenty, and missed some too. A week ago, I watched professional musicians perform Bach's St John Passion (on its 300th anniversary). There's something deceptively simple about the effect of the piece: one singer takes the part of St John (the "author"), while others provide the voices of Jesus, Pilate, Peter, and others. Even if you don't care for this particular story - as I do - just imagine what it would be like to have a part of your own life performed in that way. (On that note: I'll be running Impro for Storytellers sessions in Hampstead, north London, soon.) ​ On Thursday, disappointingly, I missed the chance to watch a vicar washing people's feet. Again, leaving aside whatever else the service means, that sight alone is incredibly dramatic. I'm sure you can imagine how vividly it conveys humility on the vicar's part. I wonder if you can imagine how awkward it feels for the foot-owner too: It's a shame British monarchs gave up washing feet, in favour of the more dignified (and therefore pointless) dishing out of Maundy money. ​ Last night, on the eve of Easter Sunday, I attended the Easter vigil. The service begins outside, with a blazing fire from which candles are lit, and carried slowly (so they don't blow out) into the dark church. By candlelight, I read a passage from Hebrew scripture about Passover. Happy Easter. ​ This is the DAILY edition of my newsletter​ ​ ​ ​ |
John-Paul Flintoff
📖 7 Books in 16 languages 📚 including: How To Change The World A Modest Book About How To Make An Adequate Speech.
Take a close look at these women, Audrey Heath (standing) and Alice May Spinks. For several years, while the men have been away fighting in the trenches, in France, these two have been running the office in London. Both women started work as secretaries. The war gave them a precious opportunity to do more, but with the war’s end their position became precarious: the economy was unstable, and the men came back. They could have reverted to being secretaries, if the company generated sufficient...
Hello Reader Recently in the zooms about writing a book proposal, I told the story of a woman I worked with who printed a beautiful limited edition booklet of her work in progress. It wasn’t the whole work in progress, just a sample chapter that we agreed was in terrific shape. I don’t remember the exact number of copies she produced. Ten? Twenty? Not many, anyway. Each copy had a beautiful photograph on the front cover - a photo that had been supplied by one of her friends. - Having printed...
Hello Reader Sometimes, the best way to learn something – anything – is to do it all wrong first, on purpose. It’s a bit like a vaccine: having absorbed the wrongness, we become stronger. To show what I mean, I’ve taken some fairly recent nonfiction books that have been hugely successful, and attempted to write bad pitches for them. To be perfectly clear, I invented these bad pitches myself – they’re nothing to do with the real authors of these real bestsellers. Don’t worry if you haven’t...