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

And yet I am so grateful for it.

It’s been a weird year so far … full of wonderful things and a few horrible things.

From beautiful puppies to broken eyes, it’s been a real rollercoaster – acknowledging that in the big scheme of things, I have nothing to complain about compared to many.

But coming into the last quarter of 2025 is not why I’m happy it’s October. My contentment is not driven by a desire to ‘get to the end of the year’ … although, I am looking forward to the special long-holiday you get in NZ at the end of the year.

No, the reason I’m grateful for the beginning of the 10th month is a lot of good things are happening … or about to.

First of all, it’s officially the end of winter in NZ.

Sure, as winters go, this has been one of the easiest and most enjoyable of my life … but I’m still glad to have ‘officially’ got through it.

Secondly, today – literally today – we welcome James Bennett, the long-waited replacement for the wonderful Martin Bassot who left us earlier in the year.

Ironically, they not only know each other, they worked with each other at Wieden London … and so James will now find out whether Martin is a mate or a bastard for telling him this would be a good move.

I’ll write more when he has his feet under the table … but I’m so very excited about him joining the gang and seeing what positive trouble he can add whilst also being very grateful he and his family chose to move to the other side of the planet for this adventure.

As I’ve written before, I NEVER take that for granted and I see it as my responsibility to create the conditions for them to destroy – in good ways, obviously – haha.

As an aside, his wife – Mel – is a VERY talented planner [also from WK London – sorry Dan. Again] and so if any agencies in NZ are looking, you should get in touch and I’ll get her in touch with you.

I’d have loved to have hired her too, but my department already makes up about 30% of New Zealand’s population so it was a no-go. For now.

So, if you’re interested – especially Motion Sickness or Special – you should drop me a note. [I won’t even charge a founders fee. Probably, haha]

The last reason why I’m excited about this month is because of something I can’t even talk about. Yet.

But it’s something almost impossible to comprehend.

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PLEASE NOTE: Well, sadly it is impossible to comprehend as there have been some ‘changes’ since I originally wrote this post … so while there’s some parts of it happening – albeit in a different country as well as in a totally different context – the original plan is now not happening till next year. However, as I can’t be arsed to rewrite this whole paragraph, let me use what was originally written to convey the excitement
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It’s so insane, it doesn’t even qualify for ‘once in a lifetime’ status, because you can’t imagine things like this happening in a million, billion years … but thanks to the wonderful MC and some serendipity related to the talk Paula and I gave at Cannes earlier this year, I’ll be heading off to London, via Nashville, to work on one of the most ridiculously wonderful things I’ve ever done in a career of ridiculously wonderful things.

I know how annoying it is when people say this shit and don’t spill the beans, but I can’t, at least not yet … but given the other 2 things mentioned in this post would make October a good month, this additional thing makes it an iconic one. So iconic my wife – who DETESTS flying – was willing to consider getting on a 24 hour flight for a 24 hour stay in London before spending another 24 hours flying home.

Then she came to her senses.

So, while October is often viewed as ‘scary’ because of Halloween, it may just be the best month of this whole, weird year. Not just for me, but for you too as I’ll be away for a week which means there’ll be none of this blog bullshit for a week as well. Everyone wins. That said, if October could somehow also find it in its power to sort out my eye issues, then it will be the most perfect month that ever lived.