Joel Morris
gralefrit.bsky.social
Joel Morris
@gralefrit.bsky.social
15K followers 530 following 21K posts
Writer & highwayman. Ladybird, Cunk, Wipe, Be Funny Or Die, Framley, Candidate band, Comfort Blanket, Broken Veil etc https://ko-fi.com/gralefrit AGENTS, website, links, bio etc: www.gralefrit.co.uk
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Hello new followers!

If you want to know anything, it’s all on my website…

www.gralefrit.co.uk

I’m doing lots of stuff on Substack, including podcasts and writing and that.

joelmorris.substack.com

Also: Be Funny Or Die, How Comedy Works and Why It Matters… from all the usual book places.
“Doesn’t matter nobody can afford to make your show. Why don’t you just do it on YouTube?”

Great. And how will I pay for food and shelter?

“You can get advertising.”

From who?

“Er…”
Thought: Banning VPNs will have a knock-on for British creativity, since Surfshark et al seem to be the main advertising sponsor of lots of YouTubers. That’s YouTube where creatives are meant to go now the tech disruptors everyone loves have dismantled our public media infrastructure.
The British government admits it is now monitoring VPNs use by UK residents. Regulator Ofcom has contracted with an AI-powered surveillance service to detect the number of citizens using VPNs to evade the Online Safety Act.

The UK tech minister has said a VPN ban is on the table.
Exclusive: Ofcom is monitoring VPNs following Online Safety Act. Here's how
Ignoring VPNs risks creating ineffective laws, but tracking them threatens people's privacy
www.techradar.com
I bought a violin bow and everything round the mixing desk area is covered in rosin now. Have decided to just get used to that.
Things being blatant doesn’t stop reality bending around them any more, but it’s worth noticing where all this stuff creeps in from, and it’s never organic.
The Broken Veil II soundtrack we’ve been being put together for the last couple of months is mainly vintage synths battling against grinding Black Angel’s Death Song viola noises, so I’m excited that Charli XCX agrees that’s the haunted house sound of the year.
The magazine / fanzine Shoreditch Twat had long passed its peak hipness by the time we were considering a Barley spin off of some sort.
In 2000ish, I rejected a very early pitch for a web video series based on TV Go Home’s Nathan Barley character, saying that Hoxton had passed peak hipster-wanker boom, and the show would seem passé.

(Also guitar groups are on the way out.)
Every time it was “magic hour” in Del Toro’s Frankenstein, a scene played under honeyed light, it took me out of the film, and ruined any emotional connection, cos I thought it was some far-right meme, and that’s another thing AI has spoiled by pillaging culture without meaning.
Remember when the Vatican went in to bat hard for David Crosby’s baked-as-all-hell “If I Could Only Remember My Name” LP? Assuming this list is mainly Cheech and Chong movies and Head by the Monkees. Turns out that “I like the Pope” T shirt was pretty well informed.
Pope Leo has shared his four favorite movies of all time, as the Vatican prepares to host dozens of actors and directors in a “World of Cinema” gathering on Saturday at his official residence. See which films made the pope's list. nyti.ms/4p3exK9
Pope Leo Shares His Favorite Movies Ahead of Vatican Event
The list leans heavily on uplifting classics.
nyti.ms
“Screwed up eyes and screwed down hair do groups are on the way out.”
Reposted by Joel Morris
What a surprise-after posting yesterday that there was very little about Prescott or Hanover Communications online, @bylinetimes.bsky.social have been doing some digging and guess what? The so called independent advisor to the BBC is anything but…
🔴 The Pro-Trump Bias of the ‘Neutral’ Sources in the Leaked BBC ‘Prescott Dossier’

Byline Times’ analysis of key sources in the memo about the BBC’s alleged ‘progressive bias’ shows it relied on highly partisan, Trump-aligned organisations.

@nafeez.bsky.social

bylinetimes.com/2025/11/11/p...
The Pro-Trump Bias of the 'Neutral' Sources in the Leaked BBC 'Prescott Dossier'
Byline Times’ analysis of key sources in the memo about the BBC’s alleged ‘progressive bias’ shows it relied on highly partisan right-wing, Trump-aligned organisations
bylinetimes.com
Trump will not develop any projects for the BBC with the money. He will spend it on one million chicken nuggets.
Prediction. The BBC will agree to pay Trump off, and the timeline will be the exact moment some development money is due for a project I’m pitching. The money will be spent on that instead. And all will be well. As it ever was. Amen.
Reposted by Joel Morris
I like the Carry On films but the lore is too confusing, impossible for modern audiences to accept these people could play a major part in the French Revolution AND lose their bras on camping holidays
(All I’m saying is that if you’re trying to make a cogent arc and set realistic stakes, you’re fired.)
Desaturated flashback.

“Now listen very carefully 007. In event of you being blown up, just click the biro here, and here… Your constituent parts will reassemble and you will be picked up by the invisible car…”
That internal fight is so strange, isn’t it? I feel like it’s at its best when it goes small. I like that even its huge gun battles are full of sitcom office backbiting.
Will Smith was pitched the TV Slow Horses as “Le Carre meets The Thick Of It”, which is why the job was offered to him.
“Everybody Does It Better.”
Yeah. I had a pitch in too about the unglamorous shit ones in the intelligence service. It’s such a neat idea and can go so many different ways. Ipcress is sort of that…
Hear me out: Bonds Assemble. Like The Five Doctors. With lookalikes for the dead ones.
And gradually the quest for the “other Bond” formula inevitably gives you Slow Horses. A series that starts with someone fucking up being Bond.