For a few years in the 1980s, he contributed a regular column to "Sight And Sound", the British Film Institute's house magazine, under the pseudonym of "Heurtebise" (a name taken from the poetry of Jean Cocteau). In this column, he poured scorn on the notion of "British Film Year", which was designed to get the British back into a cinema-going habit (the year in question being 1985). He also said that the British were better off watching films on TV or as videos whilst British cinemas maintained such a poor standard. However, under his real name, he was the co-author of a book called "A Night At The Pictures", a celebration of... British Film Year.