Filed under: 2026, Anniversary, Attitude & Aptitude, Birthday, Dad, Daddyhood, Death, Emotion, Empathy, Family, Fatherhood, Jill, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Childhood, My Fatherhood, Otis
I’m not back, but today would have been my Dad’s 88th birthday so I had to mark the occasion.
Eighty Eight!!
That means he’s been gone 28 years. Or said another way, literally half my life.
HALF! That is both wild and seemingly impossible.
And yet it’s true, which is why I’m extra happy he’s been in my thoughts a lot recently. Not that he was ever out-my-mind, but his presence has been more – errrrm – present and I like it.
I loved being an only child.
I was spoilt with love, support, care and attention.
I never wanted for brothers or sisters and always adored the company of Mum and Dad.
Even during my angst-ridden teenage years.
I feel extremely grateful for that … though it was only when I saw the relationship some of my friends had with their parents, that I truly sppreciated how lucky I was.
Which is why when my parents died, the loss was overwhelming.
In some ways, it felt like I experienced their death twice.
Because while Dad was first and Mum followed 16 years later – there was a moment immediately after Mum was gone that I truly realized – and felt – that I was truly alone.
It felt weird and sad and scary …
A strange mix of abandonment and feeling like an orphan.
It was a very challenging time, even though I was an adult with my own family.
In fact, if it wasn’t for them, I genuinely wonder how long it would have taken for me to feel I had got back on an even keel, because even with them, it took years.
The thing with death – as I’ve written many times before – is that while people are very supportive towards you at the moment of loss, within 24 hours they have generally all moved on with their lives. That’s not meant as a diss … they have their own issues and challenges to deal with … but the impact of that is you feel even more alone.
But if I think I had it bad when Dad died, my poor Mum had it worse.
Not only had she lost her husband of 35 years – a man she had been taking care of 24/7 for over 3 years after he suffered multiple debilitating strokes – she also saw her only son leave her to go back to Australia where he lived.
When I try to put into words the sense of isolation and loss I felt when I realized I no longer had any ‘real world’ parental support, I think of how Mum must have felt those first few days after losing Dad and feel so sad that maybe I didn’t really understand it until too late.
Didn’t really understand it till I wrote this post.
But as I said, my Dad – and Mum – have been on my mind a lot recently.
Or should I say, part of my energy.
It’s given me a real sense of comfort and warmth rather than just a feeling of loss.
They come up in conversation.
Everyday moments trigger good, funny and special memories with them.
When I talk about them, it in a weird blend of past and present tense.
Put simply, it’s lovely.
A feeling I’m closer to them than I’ve been in years.
Of course, I would do anything to still have them around … have them be part of my life and my families … share, experience and build more moments and memories … but as dead parents go, this is quite a wonderful period I am having with them.
Which is why today – on what would be Dad’s 88th birthday – I won’t just be thinking of him and feeling the loss of him not being around any longer, I’ll be talking to him and letting him know that despite being gone half my life, the love and impact he had on me for those first 26 years of my life still have a grip of comfort, adoration and respect.
Which as proof of doing a good job as a parent goes, is pretty much the pinnacle.
So happy birthday Dad. I still feel very lucky I get to call you that.
Rx
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Yes, it’s Friday.
And yes, it’s the first of May.
But neither of those things are as incredible as this …
You see, on Sunday, it will be 20 years since I started this blog.
TWENTY BLOODY YEARS!
That’s before the iPhone.
And Android.
And Facebook.
And the Kindle.
And the financial crisis.
And before Pluto lost its planet creds.
AND BEFORE WI-FI WAS PUBLICLY AVAILABLE … so a very long time ago.
I still remember why I started it …
It wasn’t for any attempt for notoriety or popularity, it was more to do with survival.
You see I’d got a job that – frankly – I was woefully under-qualified for, and because it demanded so much of my time and energy to make sure I didn’t completely fuck it up, I needed an outlet for all the ideas and thoughts that were going around my head that I just didn’t feel were right for what I needed to do at that time.
Not because I was sure I was going to use them later … more because I needed to feel I was still connected to the stuff I loved while also believing that if I didn’t find a way to get them out of my head, they’d maybe be no more space left for anything new to enter my head.
And so this blog was born.
Reading through the first few posts not only reveals the times we were living in, but also the headspace I was in.
Trying to balance making sense of stuff happening around me while also needing an outlet for stuff I was feeling or thinking … which, in many ways, set the tone for how this blog has been for over 2 decades.
Which George recently described as, “the blog version of TK Maxx”.
He’s not wrong … and in some ways, I really like that.
Sure, among the almost 5000 posts I’ve written, there’s a lot of [to keep the TK Maxx analogy going] cheap and nasty shit in there … but there’s also a few ‘designer label’ gems hidden amongst it all.
At least for me.
Stuff that made me think, challenge or question stuff in ways that I had not imagined or considered before.
Stuff that ended up impacting how I did things and how I still do things.
Stuff that forced me to articulate what I believe, not just what I feel.
Maybe those posts meant nothing to anyone but me. Hell, maybe no one even read them. But while every post I’ve written reflects something about who I was – or am – those ‘self-defined gems’ have a special place in my heart because they represent a moment where I felt I was growing and learning.
It’s why I always enjoyed the comment section, because for all the overwhelming piss-taking I received, the vast majority always ‘encouraged’ me to look deeper, wider or longer at issues I’d written about. And I loved that. I loved how the people who commented always kept me on my toes … which is why one of the unexpected pleasures of writing this blog for so long has been seeing how my opinion on certain subjects has changed or evolved over the years. It’s served as a great reminder about the importance of always exposing yourself to others perspectives, opinions, experiences and standards, even if the goal of it is simply to be really sure about what you think or believe.
In many ways, that’s the biggest surprise of 20 years writing this blog.
I never expected anyone to comment on anything I wrote, because I started it just for me.
A private place to express my thoughts and idiocy.
But then Andy discovered it and he sent an email to everyone at Cynic and some of our clients announcing it and then the mayhem started.
At that point, blogging had become a big thing. A good thing. A community of people who wanted to help and contribute to what others were doing. A lot of this was down to the great Russell Davies and his iconic blog … a place that not only brought people from all over the world together, but inspired others to start writing their own as well.
It was a place that not only exposed me to a lot of brilliant people I’d never have known about without his blog – people like Gareth Kay, Paul Colman, Northern Planner, Rob Mortimer, Marcus, John Dodds, Lauren, Age to name but a few – it also brought people to my blog who helped add to the texture, lessons and perspectives I was writing about.
I will forever be grateful to Russell for that … especially as most of the people he inadvertently introduced me to, not only still exist in my life but I have met them all IN THE FLESH.
Alas the blogging community, like most things in life, has moved on with maybe only Martin and I still churning stuff out via that platform. [Well, he curates, I churn] And while technologies advances allows strategists to be even more connected in even more ways, the energy of the community is not the same as it was back in the early days of blogging.
Now it feels more aggressive.
More sharp elbows and self publicizing.
Wanting the spotlight on them rather than the work they do.
But then, the industry seems to value those who talk about the work more than those who actually make it … which kind-of highlights why the industry is in the state it finds itself in but refuses to acknowledge.
Emperor’s New Clothes anyone?!
Screenshot
That this blog is 20 years old blows my mind. I never thought it would last that long, mainly because I never gave much thought about how long I’d be writing the thing. It’s not always been fun – when I was receiving a lot of anonymous hate that resulted in me deciding to stop allowing comments was definitely a low point – but all in all, the whole experience has been pretty glorious.
In many ways, this is one of the longest committed relationships I’ve ever had.
And one of the most successful, hahaha.
The fact there are some people who have been reading it for almost as long as I have been writing it, is madness.
Have they no taste?
Have they got nothing better to do?
Or maybe they’re stuck in prison and this is part of their ‘sentence’.
The good news for them is there’s no way this will still be a ‘going concern’ in another 20 years … at least not in terms of how regular I’ve been writing posts for the past 2 decades. Not because I am running out of things to say [albeit Andy said I have only ever written 3 posts and just keep re-writing them in different ways] but because I’ll be – hopefully – doing other things with my life.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll always be grateful to advertising … it has given me a life I never could have dared to imagine … but I am increasingly spending more and more of my time working and collaborating with artists and I feel that’s where my future may be. Not because I don’t love what I do, but because I find their definition and expression of creativity even more interesting, challenging, open, provocative and progressive than where our industry is choosing to head.
But that’s not going to happen yet. Hell, it may not happen at all – I could get fired by all the artists tomorrow for all I know – which is why for the time being, I’ll keep happily juggling my two ‘lives’ while churning out daily blog posts at the same time.
Sorry, hahaha.
That said, the point of continuing this blog is different to what you may think and why I originally started it.
Because while it has helped me grow, learn, make new friends and even help build my professional reputation [which is hilarious when you read some of the stuff I’ve churned out, like this!] … it delivers something that is even more important to me.
Connection to my family.
I know … I know … that sounds weird-as-fuck, but what I mean is this:
A few years ago, Jill said that while she rarely ever reads my blog, when she does – she can hear my voice because of the way I write.
Put simply, how I write is how I talk … so when she reads my posts, it feels like I’m with her.
And she liked that.
Add to this that I’ve shared deeply personal and important moments in my life – from getting engaged to getting married, to Mum dying, to becoming a Dad, to getting Rosie – and Bonnie – to saying a tearful goodbye to Rosie, to moving from Singapore to HK to China to America to London to New Zealand [so far] … which means moving from cynic/WPP to Sunshine to Wieden+Kennedy to Deutsch to R/GA to Colenso [not to mention all the other highs and lows that have impacted or been introduced to my life over this period, be it death, covid, friends, family, health, books, chaos, and/or multitudes of weird, wild, crazy shit] … and this blog is no longer just a place where I rant rubbish, it’s a place my family can have me close even when I’m no longer here.
That means a lot to me.
Not because I want them to need me, but because I like knowing they can access me should they ever need me.
Or if Otis ever wants to introduce me to whoever becomes important in his life.
It’s why I’m going to keep writing it and why I’m going to move it to a free domain again, to make sure it always stay up … because what originally was a place just for me, has become a place that offers connection to the most important people to me.
And with that, I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has ever visited or commented.
Whether you meant it or not, you’ve given me far more than I ever imagined or hoped for.
Thank you. Love you. Grateful for you.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Emotion, Empathy, Family, Fatherhood, Love, Loyalty, Parents, Respect
This story is both beautiful and tragic.
It may also be made up as certain details – like the age/events/timeline – don’t quite add up.
But it still is powerful, so powerful that when I posted it on insta, I got almost 25,000 likes.
TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND.
A reminder that in these times where the world is seemingly on the brink of destruction thanks to the whims, ego and lies of rich, old, white men … there’s a real desire to feel connected to the good in others rather than see all our energy be taken up trying to hold everything together while everything seems to be falling apart.
That said, when I posted that story, I also had a bunch of colleagues – people who I have known/worked with for years – tell me they didn’t know this about me even though they absolutely know I only have one child and his name is Otis. So while it’s very nice to think they believe I am capable of such a decent act, it’s also quite sad that despite knowing me for a long time, they have paid absolutely no interest in my reality beyond the superficial ‘headlines’ whatsoever, hahaha.
But that aside, the power of that post is that it serves as a valuable reminder loyalty is earned through consistency of actions and behaviours rather than because you hand someone a pay cheque every month or you are in their proximity 24/7.
At the end of the day, when you respect others, the majority will respect you.
Not hard is it. And yet for some, it seems to be the most difficult thing in the world – especially when there’s an extra dollar on the table they don’t need, but just want to take.
So true or not, here’s to Leo and his Dad. Through behavior, not blood.
This weekend, tell and show someone you love them. It matters.
I’m away again next week so enjoy the peace and look after yourself and the people who matter most.
See you when I’m back.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Children, Complicity, Culture, Daddyhood, Dance, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Family, Fatherhood, Generosity, Happiness, Love, Loyalty, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Fatherhood, Otis, Parents, Respect
A few years ago, I wrote about how some people think they have the right to judge your kid.
And your parenting.
I also noted how I’d been suckered into validating their commentary.
Until I came to my senses.
The story is Otis was – and still is – an energetic kid.
When we lived in Shanghai, LA and London, we would go out a lot and he would be a whirlwind of excited, happy energy.
It was – admitedly – relentless.
Whether 3pm or 3am, he seemed to always want to play, smile, laugh, do things with his adoring parents.
Often, when we were out, we would see people looking at him running around the park, shouting to himself … and then saying to me, “he’s got a lot of energy hasn’t he?”
And while they weren’t saying it as a diss, they weren’t saying it as a compliment either.
What makes it worse is I would reply with a weary, “you better believe it”.
Then one day I realised what I was doing.
My son … my wonderful, brilliant, joyous son was being judged by his Dad.
Worse, he did it to let perfect strangers feel justified in their fucked-up judgement.
What the hell?!
Otis wasn’t doing anything wrong … plus he was 2 or 3 years old for fucks sake.
More than that, he has always had a very strong sense of justice and fairness and so the last thing he would ever want to do is cause others discomfort.
And he wasn’t, he was just running around … exploering and experiencing the World.
I felt an immense amount of anger – more at myself, but definitely at the ‘critics’ as well – and vowed that would never happen again.
And it didn’t and it doesn’t.
Because when anyone said/say’s that to me about Otis, I now reply … “I know, isn’t it great”, and they always look at me before slowly nodding, either because they feel they have to or because they realise the problem isn’t my kid, but their increasingly small mindedness and old-person energy.
I say this because I recently watched this …
I am sure there will be people out there who will say it’s unprofessional.
That her actions are encouraging her child to be more ‘needy and demanding’.
That she just made a huge career limiting move, undermining all the hard work she has put in.
And they’re entitled to their opinion except it doesn’t matter.
Not in the slightest, however much you think it does or tell yourself it does.
Hell, even if you were one of the judges critiquing her dance, it doesn’t … because while you may have a certain amount of power in your hands in terms of what the implications of her actions will be, the reality is they won’t care.
Because whatever you think is more important than their child, you’re wrong.
They may do things you wouldn’t.
They may value things that you think they shouldn’t.
Their child may need things you would never consider.
But it’s NOT YOUR CHILD so it literally doesn’t matter.
In fact, unless you think the child is in real danger – or a cause of real danger to others – you should be minding your own business. And even if they are in – or causing – danger, your actions should be pointed to people who can legally or professionally help, rather than think you have unconditional rights.
I love what this gymnast did.
For me, it was beautiful both in terms of her talent and her love.
Even more so, at a time where Linkedin is overflowing with people acting like ‘winning justifies any sacrifice’.
With AI impacting our lives in increasingly dramatic ways, ‘family’ is the one thing AI can never replace.
It will try.
But it will fail.
Because while family is universal, it’s deeply personal and individual … which is why the best advice for anyone thinking of discussing/judging/commenting on the innocent actions or behaviour of a child that isn’t yours, is this.
“Are you the parents of the child?”
If not, SHUT THE FUCK UP.
You’re welcome.
Good news: I am away until Friday so you can enjoy a few days peace after that rant-fest.
You’re welcome. Again.
Filed under: Anniversary, Birthday, Bonnie, Childhood, Dad, Daddyhood, Family, Fatherhood, Jill, Love, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Childhood, Otis, Relationships, Respect, Rosie, Sky, Travel
Today is a complicated day for me.
Because on the positive it would be my brilliant Dad’s 87th birthday … but on the negative, it reminds me that he has been gone 27 years.
Or said another way … almost half my life.
HALF!
That seems both impossible and insane.
Of course, because I think about him so much, he has never truly ‘left me’, but I also begrudge the fact I’ve not been able to share so many of the experiences I’ve had in the intervening 27 years that I’d have loved to have shared with him to see, hear and learn his response and reaction to.
I never got to introduce him to my wife, my son, my cat, my dog and Otis’ bird – Sky.
I never got to talk to him about Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Japan, America, New Zealand.
I never got to seek his advice on dealing with challenges, loss, possibilities and tough choices.
I never got to watch his face as I told him about my career, clients, colleagues and work.
I never got to hear his laugh as I helped him enjoy the experiences, he always wanted to try but never had the chance to do.
But most of all, I never got to keep telling him how grateful I am for the person he is and the person he helped me become.
The irony – as I’ve written before – is that so many of those things I’ve not been able to share with him happened because I am driven by a desire to make him and Mum proud. To repay the love and faith they always showed towards me … whether that was when I was failing exams or when they told me I should still travel despite the fact Dad had experienced a terrible stroke.
So to my wonderful Dad ….
You may not be here but know you’re with me every day … which I know you’d be very happy about, even if I also know you’d also be telling me ‘that I have to get on with my life rather than be held back by yours’, hahaha.
So, with that let me end this post by reassuring you that you – and Mum – never held me back. In fact, you’re two of the biggest reasons why I’ve been able to – and want to – keep moving forward, because in many ways, it’s not just how I repay my gratitude for all you did [and continue to do] for me, it’s how I can say – and show – how much I love you.
And I do. A shit-ton.
So happy birthday Dad.
I send you – and Mum – a big kiss and hug.
I hope you’re holding hands and smiling at the life your son is living more than frowning,
On the bright side, while I still seem very capable of causing all manner of trouble, at least the stuff I get up to these days has a lot less ‘police involvement’ than my earlier years, which has to be a positive doesn’t it? Haha.
Miss you.
Rx