Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Cats, China, Culture, Emotion, EvilGenius, Family, Fatherhood, Happiness, Hong Kong, Jill, LaLaLand, London, Love, Loyalty, New Zealand, Nottingham, Otis, Parents, Relationships, Rosie, Shanghai, Singapore, Stubborness
So on Saturday, it will be our cat – Rosie’s – 16th birthday.
Sixteen. For a street cat from Singapore, that’s amazing.
What’s also amazing is that she’s still in pretty good nick.
Yes, you can tell she’s getting old.
She’s slower … less mobile and definitely sleeps more.
But by the same token she remains cranky, vocal and remains as demanding as ever.
And if another cat comes anywhere near our house, she goes full gangster mode … hissing, growling and acting like she’s ready to fight despite the fact she’s behind a glass door.
Like those TikTok videos that show men loving family dogs they didn’t originally want their family to have … I was in a similar situation.
I didn’t really want us to have a pet.
Not because I’m a bastard, but because Jill and I were living in Singapore and I didn’t know how long we’d be there and I just was worried about the hassle of bringing it with us.
But Jill had always had pets and I wanted her to be happy, so while she originally wanted a dog, we settled on getting a cat.
She threw herself into the search.
It wasn’t just about getting any cat, she had to feel a connection to it … so after visiting various pet shops with their over-priced, pure-bred snooty moggies, she came across a little street cat that had been found by a family and was wondering if anyone wanted to adopt.
Jill went to see it and it is here that street cat did the best move of their life.
As Jill lifted her up to her face, Rosie moved her head forward so their noses touched.
Despite the fact Rosie would not show such love and tenderness for about 6 years, that ensured the deal was done and we were now a cat family.
I still remember sitting in a cab outside the apartment as Jill went to pick her up.
I was a bit anxious and nervous and eventually the door opened and there she was, in her little cat bag, where we both wondered what the fuck we had in store for each other.
And while there have been some annoying, painful and scary moments … it’s been generally nothing but joy.
Put it simply, I bloody love that cat.
There’s things I’ve done for her that I wouldn’t do for anyone. Literally anyone.
What things? Well how about some of this …
In HK we paid someone to pat her so she didn’t feel lonely. I did a project for an airline on the condition they flew her in the crew quarters rather than the cargo hold. We built ‘penthouses’ for her to hang out in. I gave an entire presentation about what a client can learn from her and her ways. I even got my office painted with her – and some of my colleagues moggies. And that’s just the tip of the sad-cat-bastard iceberg.
That said, every year I worry this is the year … the one where we have to say goodbye.
And while I know that will happen eventually, she’s doing OK.
Yes she needs some blood pressure medication, but apart from that, she’s in pretty good nick.
That said, I remember when we were moving to NZ I was worried that would be it.
Despite having flown from Singapore to HK … HK to Shanghai … Shanghai to LA and LA to London … London to Auckland is a whole different beast.
But bizarrely it wasn’t just the distance that worried me, it was that there was a stopover in Singapore – and given she was originally from there, my nihilistic side told me it was written in the stars that if there was any place she would reach the end, it would be where she started, like some fucked-up circle of life. Which – to be fair to me – is kinda what happened when Otis was born and my wonderful Mum died a few months later. Which – given I knew she was ill – was something my nihilistic side had also started to feed into my head.
Except with Rosie, it thankfully didn’t happen. [Fuck you, nihilism brain]
Better yet, we knew it hadn’t happened at the time because we had paid for a service that ensured at every stage she was checked and photographed.
Hell, even when we ended up in MIQ in NZ – where we spent longer in quarantine than she did – we got bombarded with pics of her and she looked to be having the time of her life.
Jetlagged … but happy, thanks to brushes and treats that I had already got sent to the quarantine place before our arrival.
But if you think this proves how much she means to me, you’re only partially right.
You see, at her age – which is 80 in human years – my attitude is she’s earned the right to do whatever she wants to do.
Which is why I’ll get up at 3am if she decides she wants a treat at 3am.
Which is why I’ll give her my chair if she decides she wants to be under the aircon.
Which is why I’ll buy her an extortionately expensive outdoor beanbag because she loves sitting outside in summer.
If we were her servants before, we’re her slaves now and I’m OK with that.
NZ is good for her.
She has a lovely, comfortable peaceful life.
Lots of places to go hang out, a big deck to sit and watch the birds and loads of food and water. And treats.
And where in the past you always felt she was disappointed in you, now you feel her gratefulness.
A cuddle here. A lick there. Meows, headrubs and sleeping on your hip.
Hell, she’s even totally chill that Sky – Otis’ budgie – is in the house.
It’s a lovely feeling.
A family feeling.
And while we give her so much, she’s given us – and me – more.
Happy Birthday my dear Rosie. Keep proving the critics wrong and us on our toes.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Confidence, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, England, Environment, Football, Fulfillment, LaLaLand, Mum & Dad, Nottingham, Nottingham Forest, Parents, Shanghai
For reasons not worth discussing, I recently saw this …
Yes, it’s from a very, very long time ago … but it’s still a bit bizarre to see ‘Electronic Mail’ being touted like it is the cutting edge of tech.
But of course, once upon a time, it was.
A dawn of a new future with new possibilities.
Where – according to an Apple ad of the time – mail would travel at the equivalent of 670,000,000mph to anyone and anywhere in the World.
Even now, that sounds impressive … but back then, it was revolutionary.
Prior to email, if you wanted to send a card … a letter … a document or whatever, the only way was to trust the competence of the mail service.
And if you were writing to someone in another country, then it would take weeks before you had any chance of it being received.
We call it ‘snail mail’ now … but back then, it was just mail.
The reason I’m writing this is that time always creates change.
We might not like where it takes us.
We might find it hard to adapt or embrace.
We might not like the time-frame it’s working to.
But whether it’s good or bad, the thing you can be sure of is things will change.
The reason I’m saying this is because I recently read something on The Athletic.
Not only was it about my beloved Nottingham Forest, it was written by someone who is also living in NZ. That means there’s 2 of us here – which is the same amount of fans as there were when I lived in Shanghai and Los Angeles, haha.
Anyway, they wrote this:
“The past two seasons need putting in a box marked “Vintage”. It’s only so often in football fandom that circumstances gel to give you a gift like this period. Dramatic, successful, joyous but mainly the sense of togetherness and belonging. All praise to Steve for being the key man that’s made it happen and in particular the way it’s felt.
History suggests it won’t stay this way, maybe another year or two if we’re lucky, because expectations get in the way and start twisting the behaviour and attitudes of all parties. Sad but hey it’s all part of the cycle.
The positive point I’m making is that this has been as good as it gets really, outside of unexpectedly rising to the absolute top (e.g. Forest 78-80; Leicester winning the league), so let’s be sure to savour it while we’re in the moment! And hopefully the moment has another couple of years to run.”
I loved it.
Not just because that’s exactly how following Forest over these past 2 years have felt, but because life often follows a similar path.
The reality is we often never realise we’re living in a golden period of our life.
Often, we only realise it as we sense it passing us by.
And then we panic … trying desperately to hold on to something that is only partially – if we’re lucky – in our control and likely already has left the station.
Worse, we can end up putting all our effort trying to recreate something we had, rather than create what can be next.
That doesn’t mean our focus should be blindly running forward and ignoring – or not valuing – what is happening around us, but it does mean we should appreciate we can’t stop time … because as ‘electronic mail’ has shown, even the most exciting times of our life can end up becoming the most mundane.
Life is hard.
It’s not fair.
Sure, for some, it way harder than for others and effort doesn’t always translate to achievement or progress, which is cruel as fuck. But as I have got older, I’ve learnt to appreciate something my parents used to say to me when I was young.
“The more interested you are in life, the more chance you have of enjoying a good one”.
First of all, note they said ‘chance’.
No blind promises, more an attitude to life.
Secondly, when they said ‘interested’, they meant ‘invested’.
Not just in terms of being curious about what’s going on, but committing to being in it.
Trying stuff.
Exploring stuff.
Appreciating what you learn from it – good, bad or indifferent.
And finally, their version of a ‘good life’ was – as I’ve said many times – a life of fulfilment rather than contentment.
Where you go after the stuff that makes you feel alive, rather than what makes life comfortable and easy.
It’s why I adore they said ‘enjoy’ rather than ‘have’.
Not just because it acknowledged time will continually challenge and change our contexts and beliefs … but because it means you recognise, embrace and value the good moments while not letting yourself get so lost in them that you are removing yourself from the possibilities of the future.
Nottingham Forest spent too long being lost in the past.
Always judging themselves by it, which meant never being able to live up to it.
An invisible hammer continually bashing everyone down.
But Steve Cooper has changed that …
Sure, he’s not achieved a fraction of what Clough did, but apart from the fact he’s only 4 years into his managerial career, he has done stuff even Clough wasn’t able to achieve.
For example, the togetherness between fan, club and manager is – even in the eyes of ex-Clough players – better than it ever was at our European peak.
In essence, he took the values of the club to liberate the future of it … enabling a new generation of fan to take the club to somewhere new and exciting. Something that represents their future, not just a recreation of another generations past.
It’s so exciting to see it.
It’s so exciting to share it.
It’s so exciting to be a part of it.
Now I know what some of you will be thinking, I’m reframing achievement to set lower expectations. But that’s the point …
When you try and hold on to things already past, you’re stuck in limbo.
It’s why I’m revelling in what Forest are doing right now.
I know it won’t last forever, but to experience something so magical is more than I ever dared to dream.
Sure, it’s not the same as last time.
But that doesn’t mean it’s any less wonderful.
Even more so that it is happening in the present not in my memory.
When Forest won the playoff final to get back into the Premiership after 23 long and painful years, some genius played the track ‘Freed From Desire’ by Gala. It wasn’t just the perfect choice of song for us, it conveys one of the most valuable lessons for life.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, China, Corona Virus, Dad, Daddyhood, Emotion, England, Family, Hong Kong, Jill, LaLaLand, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Fatherhood, New Zealand, Nottingham, Otis, Parents
The above photo was taken back in 2020.
We were living in Fulham.
Everyone was working from home.
And we suspected Otis may have had COVID.
As it turned out, he didn’t – thankfully.
But I love that photo.
The closeness.
The intimacy.
The caring Mum and the curious kid.
A shared moment ruined by me coming in and taking a pic – as usual, hahaha.
But who can blame me? Those two are everything to me.
And the older I get, the more I realise how much time I didn’t spend with them.
That realisation started with COVID.
While the pandemic was so devastating to so many – it was very good to me.
I got to be with my family for longer than I’d ever been in our time together.
Waking up together.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner together.
Putting Otis to bed and then going to bed with Jill at the same time.
EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
Now I know for so many that’s a regular thing but for me it wasn’t and the experience was wonderful and confronting.
Wonderful for how it made me feel. Confronting for how I had allowed that to happen.
Don’t get me wrong … I love work. Or should I say I love parts of work.
And as much as it may not be cool to say anymore, but I loved the travel.
Not being on a plane for the COVID years – bar, moving to NZ – felt like a genuine loss.
Not at first – initially it felt amazing, given how regularly I had been travelling – but after 2+ years, I was ready to hear those engines whir into life. Just not so regularly as I had before … because flying internationally at least once a week, every week for years was just plain idiotic.
And while I don’t want to let all of it go, I have been changing big parts of how I am choosing to live and it all came from something my Dad once said to me.
You see, my Dad had quite an eclectic early professional life.
Not just changing jobs, but whole industries.
I remember asking him why he had done it and he said this:
“I love you and your Mum. So if I’m going to be away from you both for most of the day, I better like what I’m doing because nothing would be so disrespectful as being away for something I hate”
Now I appreciate the privilege in that statement.
There are many who don’t have the opportunity to chase after things that interest them.
And for my Dad, that was enabled by the stability of my brilliant Mum – similar to what Jill has done for me in allowing me to uproot us every few years for an adventure in some other far distant part of the world.
But while I’ve generally enjoyed what I have done … as I get older, it’s becoming more and more apparent that I want to ensure my family is given even greater prioritisation in what I do. That doesn’t mean they weren’t before … but I realise they could have been prioritised a fuck load more.
In some ways, it’s a perfect time for this to happen.
I’m approaching a point in life where some decisions will have to be made regarding my future.
What do I want to do?
Who do I want to do it with – and for?
What do I want to explore, experience and achieve?
Where is the best place for us to be located?
What are the conditions we need to protect what we have?
For me, these are revelation questions.
Previously, I just went with whatever excited/scared me/us the most.
And while this doesn’t mean we’re now happy to settle – because let’s face it, I suck at it, thanks to my only-child inspired, competitive, curious and annoyingly ambitious energy – it does mean these questions ensure my/our decisions are focused on ensuring my family get the best of me, not just what is left of me because the one thing covid taught me is nothing is as important as being together.
It’s pathetic I needed a global pandemic to really drive that home.
But to paraphrase my dad, nothing would be as disrespectful to my family than ignoring what became one of the most precious times of my life with my family.
Thanks to Easter, I get to spend the next 4 days with them … hopefully eating chocolate.
So wherever you are and whoever you’re with, I hope you get to spend it with someone that matters.
Even if that’s just yourself.
Happy holiday … and I apologise for the indulgent, happy-clappy post of today.
Filed under: America, Attitude & Aptitude, Colenso, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, LaLaLand, Metallica
For reasons even America doesn’t deserve, I’m going to be in Los Angeles – and SF – next week.
And while I’m supposedly there for working reasons [with he common thread being the letter M] – that’s not why there’ll be no posts until I return. Nor is it because I’ll be catching up with old friends or buying the latest Apple gear because I can’t be arsed to wait till it gets to NZ.
OK, there is an element of truth in that …
But the real reason is because I’ll be trying to work through the menu of my favourite restaurant there in the whole wide world.
The Cheesecake Factory.
A restaurant with a menu that is thicker than the bible and tastes that belong in the 1980’s.
Apart from Sammy’s [RIP] in Manhattan Beach that we would go to every Friday night … the Cheesecake Factory was THE restaurant for me.
Yes there’s your In & Out Burgers and your Taco/Tacky Bell … but nothing could beat the bad taste of a good meal at the Cheesecake Factory.
Though – ironically – I never did eat any of their cheesecakes.
It’s going to be weird going back to LA.
Yes, I popped in on my way to see Forest in the premiership final.
And yes, I went there when we were living in England – pre-pandemic.
But while my time in LA was not my favourite time of my life or career, there were a lot of brilliant friends I made and experiences I had – even the weird ones – which means I’m quite excited to be going over and reconnect to the things that made a lasting impression on me and the people who changed my life.
So I’ll see you when I’m back. Possibly having had a heart by-pass. Either way, if you’re in LA and want to catch up, you know where to find me.
See you in 10 days or so.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, China, Colenso, Communication Strategy, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Cynic, Dad, Daddyhood, Death, Deutsch, Embarrassing Moments, Emotion, England, Family, Grand announcements, Jill, LaLaLand, London, Love, Marketing, Mum, Mum & Dad, Nottingham, Otis, Paul, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, R/GA, Relationships, Stubborness, Sunshine, The Kennedys, Uncorporated, Wieden+Kennedy
I’ve written this blog consistently for 15 years.
FIFTEEN!!!
My god …
But it gets worse.
Because bar a few weeks of holiday, it is something that has been written every single Monday to Friday.
That means there has been over 3,900 posts of utter gibberish for over 780 weeks.
And as tragic as that all sounds, there’s an awful lot of people who comment on here who have been here pretty much all that time.
LOSERS!!!
Now, I have to say there are some lovely benefits to long term blog writing.
In some ways it’s like a diary … capturing what I was thinking or doing at any given time.
It also is a lovely way to see how my opinions and thoughts have evolved over time.
Plus there’s the hope that when I’m gone, Otis will still feel his Dad is close.
OK … OK … there are some posts I definitely DON’T want him to read, but there’s others I’d be glad for him to keep going back to.
Putting aside I basically write the same 3 or 4 posts over and over again … there is a lot of my life contained in these pages.
From getting married to losing my Mum to having my son.
Proper life-changing stuff … and that doesn’t even cover the moves to different countries, jobs and homes.
The best and worst of my life is detailed here which is why – despite all these big life events being sandwiched between endless amounts of shit – I still like it.
Occasionally I randomly click on a date and just see what I wrote.
Recently I did this and was reminded what a little shit I was.
OK, can be.
It’s this.
Yep, it’s the time I tried to auction off Martin Sorrell’s business card so people could send him stupid messages or texts.
On the plus side, I was offering to give any money to charity.
On the negative, I was working for WPP at the time.
If you think that’s stupid, there was the time I wrote a post featuring a photo of Sir Martin with a picture of Toad of Toad Hall under the caption ‘Spot The Difference’.
And the weird thing is that while I don’t agree with his approach to creativity, I do respect him. I have met him on a number of occasions and he was very, very impressive.
Though it’s fair to say that respect was only one way, Especially when there was an agency Q&A and I asked him ‘what do you spend all your money on?’
So Sir Martin … even though I know you would never read this blog [more proof you’re clever] I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for my stupidity. It was ridiculous … but if it’s any consolation, at least it wasn’t as bad as this.
I know … I know … this was a terrible post even by my standards.
So celebrate in the fact that tomorrow is Good Friday so I’m off till next Tuesday and you’re not going have to deal with any more of this shit till then.
I don’t know about you … but it’s the sort of news that makes you almost believe in God, doesn’t it.
Happy Easter, enjoy the sugar rush.