I’ve done another couple of very pleasant directing jobs for BBC Magazines, interviewing editors of print and online services from Radio Times to Gardener’s World. All extremely interesting, and on the first shoot, before christmas, I was kindly donated some of the children’s magazines for my little daughter, which lasted us quite a while.

The second shoot was yesterday, and was calmer than December’s, despite also having iPad video material to cut on the same day, so my cameraman friend and I sat side by side in the Magazines office with our MacBook Pros, cutting away, and I switched attention from one job to the other a bit until we’d finished.

Very sad to hear that Pete Postlethwaite died early this month. Wasn’t my mate or anything, but I’d done a couple of films with him - Mary (daughter of Bill) Nighy’s “Player”, and Sean Crotty’s “Waving At Trains”. The picture above is one of Neill Phillips’ brilliant production stills from the latter film.

“Waving At Trains” was written by a friend of mine, and then coincidentally produced by another friend. We stayed in a hotel in Cromer, and I was in the room next to Pete. He was unfailingly friendly to me, and my main memory of that stay is when we emerged simultaneously at 4.30am one morning, and he had a pint of Guinness in his hand. That’s one way to cope with brutally early call times...

A generous bloke who did jobs on merit, not budget, as far as I saw, and a considerate team-spirited actor who’d always check everyone else had got what they wanted on a take. And obviously he was a bit good, acting-wise. Sad he’s gone.