Walking through treacle

At the time of writing, it’s just after 4pm on Monday 3 October and my calendar says I should be sitting down to write this blog, so that it’s ready to post on Friday (I won’t have time to write this in the rest of the week).

Instead, I’m sitting here thinking about motivation and procrastination. Don’t we all have days when we feel like we’re walking through treacle?

My Monday started with a misunderstanding with someone I love. Then my younger daughter had a crisis and didn’t go into school for the morning. Then my older daughter had a crisis, with her university course. All in all, it’s been a pretty shit Monday.

But, the good news is, I have people who love me – one lovely man in particular – and some support from the girls’ dad. And I didn’t buy cigarettes but settled for a Double Decker and a cup of tea instead.

So, to my theme: procrastination and motivation. I have procrastinated for most of the day and haven’t felt motivated to do the PR tasks I’d set myself. Instead, I’m telling myself there’s always tomorrow. I’ll do tomorrow what I should have done today and by the end of the week – when I post this – it will all have evened up and I’ll be where I need to be with client work and commitments.

Which leads me on to the main message from this blog: I’m experienced in comms, PR and journalism. And I’m available for hire – particularly by media clients – from January 2023 onwards. So do get in touch. At the very least you’ll be helping me through the various crises with young adults that many parents will recognise.

My news

It’s two years this month since I went freelance and launched Lucecannon PR. That’s two years of blog posts…

Recently I’ve been working with ITN, including a day a week for Channel 4 News, along with the Wiltshire branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), and with fine art photographer Tim Booth as he builds to a major exhibition at Lighthouse Poole from 4 November.

I’m excited about continuing to work with clients in the media industry. Among my recent credits are trade magazines profile for ITN’s post-production arm and for ITN Sport’s joint venture World Athletics Productions – which broadcast more than 350 hours of World Athletics action from Oregon in July this year. I’ve secured national newspaper mentions of Channel 4 News in The Times, Daily Express, Daily Mail, I, Metro, Telegraph, The Sun and the Herald. This year for ITN I’ve also had coverage in Broadcast magazine, FEED magazine, The Drum, IBC 365 and RTS.

I’m exploring working with a social media content and channels company, and this will be in collaboration with someone who used to commission me when I was a freelance journalist and who I’ve worked with on PR more recently.

In other news

There was some terrible PR for Center Parcs last month which first said it would evict holidaymakers and close all its sites on the day of the Queen’s funeral (Monday 19 September), and then backtracked. I overheard one colleague saying, the country’s gone mad. Yes, the death and funeral of our longest reigning monarch was a major international news story and an occasion when people came together to commemorate the Queen. But not everyone was united in the grips of grief. There’s plenty of anti-monarchist sentiment around, particularly among the young (my 20-year-old daughter for instance) and metropolitan media types, among others.

Isabel Berwick, who I rate at the FT and who hosts the award-winning FT podcast #WorkingIt and is co-editor of the new Working It newsletter, wrote in September about trusting employees, visibility and presenteeism. You should be able to read the piece here.

Then there was this story from The Guardian about a four-day week alleviating the cost of living, particularly for working parents, by saving money on childcare and travel. This strikes a chord even now I don’t have childcare costs in my life. The Guardian returned to the theme this week, with a story about employers not able to get staff back to the office.

This story is interesting, about Buckingham Palace effectively censoring much of the footage from the 12 days of mourning the Queen’s death and of the funeral day. According to the story, broadcasters including the BBC, Sky and ITV are battling to stop limits being imposed on what they can and can’t re-broadcast.

Asking broadcasters to choose just 12 minutes of the hour-long Westminster Abbey funeral service and the Windsor Castle committal is, as former ITN editor Stewart Purvis has said, unrealistic. But the debate about what is and isn’t in the public domain for perpetuity, when it relates to public figures (royals) experiencing private grief will rage and rage.

That’s all for this month. See you after Bonfire Night. I see there are mince pies already in stock in the seasonal aisle of my local Tesco and I’m a tiny bit excited for the build up to Christmas.