The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

I’m 49.

FORTYFUCKINGNINE.

That means that in 12 months, my life is basically over …

Hell, from an adland perspective, my career should have been over at least 20 years ago.

But here I am, still working … annoying people and generally having a jolly old time.

I’ve written a lot about how it feels to get older.

It’s certainly not all bad – the sense of confidence of who you are and what you like is a big one – but there’s definitely pain.

That’s why I’m glad I am an ‘old’ Dad and work in advertising … because those 2 things ensure you never can feel super young and super old all at the same time.

I’m going to Spain tomorrow to celebrate my birthday, Jill’s birthday [15th] and my best friend Paul’s birthday [16th] and won’t be back till Monday, then I’m off to Cannes to do a talk with the wonderful Martin Weigel about our planning school. Well I say that, but we still haven’t finished the bloody presentation.

So back to this post.

Originally, I wanted to write something that was kind of like this classic NIKE poster …

… but when I looked into what happened on June 12th through the ages, I discovered this was the day Al Capone was indicted on 5000 charges of prohibition and perjury and Nelson Mandella was sentenced to prison.

As horrific as that all sounds, it does feel slightly appropriate given this day in 1970, I was born.

So happy birthday to me … even it appears it’s a day of global infamy rather than joy.

Bloody typical.