When you’re loafing around with your hands in your pockets, whistling, are you really working at optimum efficiency?
Read my piece in the 2025 Rathbones Review for free here. (And subscribe to my Substack, The whole caboodle, here.)
Work-wise this has been a choppy but interesting year. Some of my longest-standing, most regular and best clients have had major internal shake-ups or external jolts, with knock-on effects for outriders like me, but I’ve also worked on some excellent jobs. Change and uncertainty are like pepper for a freelance; a nice pinch is good seasoning, but you can have too much.
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Late spring to early autumn from around the South Lakes. Not the most exciting summer I’ve had but alright.
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Is the whole caboodle serious? One comes here and talks a pack of bosh, and perhaps some sense as well, but I should think very little of a man who didn’t keep something in the background of his life that was more serious than all this talking—something more serious, whether it was religion or only drink.1
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When does something stop being rubbish and start being a feature of the landscape?
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This is a follow-up to Freelancing: the first ten years.
A freelance is like a reasonably intelligent dog that requires food, exercise, mental stimulation and some sense of having a part to play in the game of life. How much of each of those things, and what form they come in, is a matter of individual temperament. Some can be left alone in the house all day; others start chewing the table legs and peeing on the floor after an hour. Continue reading
Late autumn to early spring from around the South Lakes. Continue reading
When I told colleagues in 2014 that I was quitting my job to become a freelance writer/editor most wished me well, many told me I was brave and quite a few asked me questions. The most popular were:
Can you make a living?
Can you bear the solitude?
These still interest people most, along with the supposed bravery, which often translates as Can you stand the anxiety? Continue reading
Paul Fishman 