As well as drawing her - in her office in Wiltshire on Sunday - I took photos to use as reference as I continue to work on her portrait.

“Her”?

The former very senior editor at The Times, author and presenter of various flagship BBC radio programmes.

The woman I mentioned in yesterday’s email.

I hope you got that email.

My intention is to send THIS email, which you’re reading now, only to people who received yesterday’s, and actively opted in to receive more in this pop-up series.

Making a collage

On Tuesday, back at my desk in London, I made a collage of the photos from Wiltshire.

To do this, I used Procreate, an app on my iPad.

Some of the photos I pulled into the collage showed only individual pieces of furniture, or small areas of bookshelf.

Others gave a wider sense of the room.

By putting them together and squishing and stretching I was able to flatten a 270-degree panoramic view of the room into a standard-sized A2 picture shape.

The last element I pulled into the collage was the subject of the portrait herself.

You’ll see this soon.

In / competence

While we were together on Sunday, chatting as I sketched – and later over that lunch of Greek-style stuffed chicken, with her husband – she shared some stories about what it can be like for a woman at work.

This is the subject of her book.

She said it was not uncommon, when she was a very senior editor on The Times, to meet men at parties.

“And they’d say, ‘What do you do?’”

She’d tell them she was a journalist, and they’d say, “Oooh!” – as if that was a big achievement.

“Then they’d say, ‘What, freelance?’”

She’d say, No, actually, she had a full-time job. And they would say “Oooh!” as if that was a big achievement.

They’d ask where, and she’d say: The Times.

“Ooooooooh!”

Of course, now they would want to know what her job actually was.

Guess what sound came out of their mouths when she told them.

Until proved otherwise

In a nutshell, this is the thesis of her book:

• Men are assumed to be competent until they prove otherwise
• Women, until they prove otherwise, are assumed to be NOT competent.

As I told you yesterday, some men try to tell her she’s wrong, that her book’s out of date, it’s not like that any more.

(In doing so, they might be said to prove her point.)

I’m not going to be one of those men.

I have a mother, a sister, a wife and a daughter. And I’m afraid she may be right.

Here’s a photo of the finished collage, with my hand cunningly positioned to conceal her identity(!):

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Tomorrow, I’ll send another email in this pop-up series.

Till next time. JPF Did someone forward you this email? Subscribe here. Follow me on LinkedIn | Instagram​ ​

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