Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Cars, Dad, Emotion, Empathy, Family, Friendship, Love, My Childhood, New York, Paul
So recently I talked about how I was in New York I saw a bunch of things that triggered some deep nostalgia in me.
First was the bank of payphones at JFK airport … but then there were 2 cars.
The first was this bright yellow VW Golf soft-top.
On one level, it stood out simply because it’s bright yellow and it was a super sunny day.
But it was more than that …
Because not only did it seem to encapsulate what I thought America was like – specifically California, based on various TV shows I would watch as a kid – but it reminded me of what Paul’s Mum drove when we were growing up.
OK, so hers was more mustard than yellow, as I remember it.
And it was most definitely not a stop top … not in bloody Nottingham.
But they were the first family I ever knew that had TWO cars and that was the one that would ferry Paul and I to various activities as we grew up … so it is almost entirely associated with positive memories.
Of course, part of the reason my feelings towards this car were so positive is likely because of it’s excellent condition. It meant I didn’t have to face how old it was which meant I just connected to how present and perfect it was.
Which kind-of explains why this other car stopped me in my tracks as I was walking down a backstreet in Chelsea.
That is a Jaguar XJ-S.
Another old car in utterly excellent condition.
At the time it came out, it was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.
Sure, now I know it was influenced by their iconic E-Type, but as a kid it was like it had come out of outerspace.
Powerful … sleek … aggressive yet sophisticated. It was a car that was seemingly designed for the rich, famous and fast living, so it was no surprise when Simon Templar – from the British TV show, Return Of The Saint – drove one in every episode.
As a kid, The Saint was cool as fuck.
Sure, 40+ years later I realise he’s basically a Temu-James Bond character … but back then, I wasn’t old enough to watch Bond movies, so The Saint was the closest thing I had to an accessible, real-life-relevant TV/Movie hero.
So you can imagine my glee when my Uncle Andrew turned up at our house one day driving an XJ-S as his new company car. [He was a high-flying sales manager for American Express, which is why he got this beast compared to classic company car of the age, the Ford Escort]
OH MY GOD … it was like a movie star had come to visit us.
But it got even better, because Uncle Andrew said my Dad could take it for a drive …
HOLY FUCK!!!
So even though it was quite late, I was allowed to squeeze in the backseat – while still wearing my pyjamas – while Dad positioned himself in the drivers seat, accompanied by his brother-in-law before we sped off.
And while we were only gone for about 10 minutes, one part of that one-off trip is burned into my memory.
Dad drove us down the ring road and as we approached the roundabout, I remember him saying to Andrew:
“The brakes are a bit spongy”
To which my Uncle leaned over to see the speedo and said,
“That’s because you’re doing 100mph”.
My Dad was both shocked and impressed, whereas I – on the other hand – was in awe, both of the car and my Dad.
ONE HUNDRED MILES AN HOUR.
IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE!!!
You have to understand, our family car was – if memory serves me – either a bottom of the range Ford Escort, a bottom of the range Leyland Marina or an absolutely horrific Fiat 128 … or said another way, a car that couldn’t hit 100mph even if you were going down a steep hill with a tail wind behind you and even if it could, it would be so loud and the car so shakey, that your body would be crushed to smithereens before you reached a stop. But here we were, in a car that was not only able to reach ‘rocket speed’, but was able to do it with such smoothness and luxury that you didn’t even realise what was going on. Basically, you imagined it was what Concorde would be like it it had 4 wheels and could go on British roads.
I can’t remember what year this happened but I remember every bit of what happened which is why when I saw that Jaguar XJ-S on the street, it immediately took me back to that night. With my Dad. Sharing a moment neither of us ever had experienced before.
A bonding moment that I treasured then and treasure even more now.
Which is why – whoever the owner of that Jag is – thank you. You gave me a chance to have a little road trip with my Dad in NYC and I’ll forever be grateful for that.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Airports, America, Comment, Food, Germany, Planes
I appreciate the title of this post is already off-putting.
I also accept what I am about to write is the height of first world problems.
And while I’m at it, I also accept some may interpret this as an attempt to humble brag.
But putting all that aside, have a look at the food I got at the Lufthansa Lounge at JFK in NYC.
Brown. Lots of shades of brown.
Dark brown.
Brown brown.
Orangey brawn.
The Germans really seem to love their browns!
But you know what’s even scarier?
I chose all these items.
That’s right, all of this was my own personal choice.
Admittedly, it was because the other food on offer – unsurprisingly, also brown – was even less appetizing than the tragic plate above, but also because this was the healthiest food available.
The healthiest!!!
A small piece of pretzel bread.
Some baked pumpkin.
A Coke Zero.
OK, I appreciate the Germans aren’t exactly renown for their healthy eating or healthy food but I tell you what, they know how to make tragic items taste bloody awesome.
I bloody loved it.
Every depressing mouthful of it.
Hell, I’d go to errrrm, war for Pretzel bread … well, I would if there was no more Sourdough in existence.
[I have been told by Germans there’s no such thing as Pretzel ‘bread’ … but just like there’s no such thing as Chicken Tikka Masala in India, the outside world decided to take it, bastardise it and enjoyed it in various forms over the years – and for that I am both very, very sorry and very, very grateful]
And while I’m sure there would be many airport lounge visitors who would be outraged at the rubbishness of the JFK Airport, Lufthansa Lounge food offering [which was still less depressing that the interior design of the lounge] I can tell you, for a bloke from Nottingham trying to stay healthy in a way where his taste buds still have some hope … it was epic.
So here’s to Lufthansa …
Your ads may be rubbish.
Your lounge – at least at JFK – may be depressing.
But your food is perfect … at least if you come from Nottingham and have very low standards of discernment.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Airports, America, Emotion, Empathy, Human Goodness, Humanity, Relationships, Relevance, Resonance
Despite being a sentimental bastard, I’ve always looked forwards.
I love the possibilities of what is ahead of us.
The new. The unknown. The what-if-we-could-do-this sort of stuff.
But when I was in NYC, I came face-to-face with a few things from the past that reminded me how their impact on me remains in the present.
I’ll be writing about a few of these over the next few weeks but the first was this …
Yep, a bank of payphone at JFK.
In a smartphone driven world, I have no idea why they’ve left so many of them there – but even accepting some people must choose to use a payphone over a mobile device, there was something lovely about seeing them all sat there.
A reminder of a time where the darkest corridors in the oldest airports were possibly where the most pure expressions of humanness could be experienced
People queuing up to talk to loved ones … friends … colleagues … or companies.
A rollercoaster of conversational emotions …
Happiness, Sadness. Curiosity. Despair. Hope. Calmness. Longing. Love.
Every payphone, a different story …
Each one interpreted by the voice, words and mannerisms of the person in front of you.
So even though airports send and bring millions of people to every corner of the globe each and every year, that row of payphones reminded me how rarely we now glimpse others lives in their raw and unfiltered state.
Social media certainly isn’t that.
In fact, I can’t think of many current situations where we witness masses of people all crammed into the same space, trying to live and deal with their individual lives in public.
Maybe that’s a good thing, but for all the convenience and freedom that tech gives us, this bank of payphones made me think that maybe the cost of this convenience is our ability to empathize and relate to the realities each of us lives in the shadows.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, America, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Complicity, Corporate Evil, Gambling, Planners, Reframing, Strategy
I’m a strategist so I can respect a good repositioning when I see one … however, the repositioning of gambling to ‘prediction markets’ is fucking evil.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I see the smartness in it …
I see how they’re attempting to both separate themselves from the negative associations of gambling while also making it easier for people to justify taking part by presenting it like its an investment scheme rather than a punt on hope.
I saw the billboard at the top of this post in NYC last week, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the deliberate use of words like ‘trade’ are all part of their manipulation …
Attempting to look reputable and legitimate while they steal cash from right under your nose and potentially, your future.
I was going to say it blows my mind that this shit is allowed to be so blatantly misleading, but then I read Trump and his family are big investors in the major ‘prediction market’ players – which would go some way to explaining why the President is doing all he can to ensure they remain classified as ‘derivative traders’, because if they lose that right, not only would they have to adhere to rules that stops them implying they’re an investment firm, they’d have to go one step further and publicly acknowledge what they really are: financial parasites.
But whether Trump’s involvement is real or not almost doesn’t matter, because the bigger issue is not simply these companies are allowed to blatantly gaslight, exploit and rob the public … but we – as an industry and discipline – are helping them get away with it.
So to everyone involved in this evil shit, ‘fuck you’.
Maybe you should start ‘predicting’ how long you’ve got before you’re seen – and punished – for the lies and misery you’re so happy to flog for a few dollars more.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, America, Attitude & Aptitude, China, Comment, Consultants, Effectiveness
I was talking to someone recently about town planning – don’t ask – and mentioned a story I’d heard about a Chinese architect.
Apparently a local Shanghai government council had reached out to him asking to help design a new area of their district. As part of their briefing, they’d said they wanted it to look and feel like parts of New York. This architect went on to explain that it wasn’t possible because what had really impacted how NYC was designed, was time.
I would link to the article because I wrote a post about it years ago, but can I find it? Can I hell.
Anyway, this got me thinking about creativity and how – with the pressure to PROVE our work is effective in the shortest amount of time possible or face the risk of the client firing us – we may be stopping our ideas from ever fulfilling their full potential.
Or the clients are.
Now I appreciate we live in competitive times.
I also appreciate there needs to see signs of positive impact and/or change along the way, rather than just have blind faith.
But we also need to acknowledge that some ideas take time to find their time. Or audience.
History is littered with examples of this but they didn’t happen because someone forced it, it’s because there needed to be the conditions for it.
The point being, that I am fed up of the narrative that ad agencies don’t care about effectiveness. Almost as fed up as I am that consultancies like McKinsey, Bain and Deloittes are the masters of it. Putting aside their whole business model is founded on telling companies what to do rather than take any responsibility for fixing any of it – we need the clients to be part of the solution. To commit in terms of attitude, conditions and time.
The quest for quick wins is increasingly resulting in us getting exactly that. A quick win … not a long, lasting and sustainable win.
Because we’re so focused on speed, we fail to value the need and impact of time.