Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, China, Chinese Culture, Creativity, Culture, Home, Jill, My Fatherhood, Otis, Wieden+Kennedy
So I’m back.
I survived and no one died.
I have to say that while I love China, Beijing is not my favourite place in the World.
It’s also one of the most user-unfriendly … with everything located miles apart and the heat being utterly oppressive.
But that country still has my heart.
Every time I go there, I leave with an ache.
It will forever be a very special place to me.
Not just because Otis was born there.
Or that – in some ways – it changed my career forever.
Or my wife found a group of people that gave her a greater sense of community than she’d had in decades.
Nor even the fact I was there at one of the pivotal times in its modern history.
It’s just because in all the crazy of the country, I felt I found my spiritual home.
I appreciate that sounds mental.
Even my Chinese friends can’t work out why I love it so much.
But I do.
The people are warm, fascinating and interesting.
The culture is rich with history, modernity, complexity and beauty.
The hunger and ambition is unparalleled with anywhere I’ve been to prior or since.
I love the sense of connection and isolation that China makes me feel about myself.
That sense of returning to a place I truly felt was home for 7 wonderful years while also realizing that period might as well have been 10,000 years ago given how quick the country has changed.
And while I acknowledge there are some very questionable decisions being made by the leaders right now – decisions that undermine the potential of millions – the people within the country have been nothing but kind and compassionate to me and my family and for that, they will always have my heart.
Wherever my family are will always be the definition of home for me.
But China is the one place where that rule has some flexibility in it.
Which is the greatest compliment I could ever give a country, though if I still dislike Beijing.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Childhood, Culture, Food, Italy, Jill, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Fatherhood, Otis
Yes, what you’re looking at is a piece of chocolate inside a bread roll.
Also known as my dinner.
Now I appreciate this might make you feel ill – it made Jill actually gag – but I bloody loved it and I don’t mind admitting it.
I have a strange relationship with food.
Basically, my pallet is rubbish … as I find everyday grub far tastier and more enjoyable than the nice stuff I get served when I go to a fancy restaurant for work.
I have a theory behind it …
You see my Mum and Dad ensured I grew up eating healthy, nutritious food.
Given we didn’t have much cash, there was no eating out except for birthdays and a treat was a once-in-a-blue-moon trip to the fish and chip shop.
Then – when I was old enough to go out on my own – I discovered a World of shitty food. A World of choice where I could have anything I wanted as opposed to my World being whatever my Mum and Dad wanted me to have.
In some respects, shitty food was my act of rebellion given I didn’t ever try cigarettes or drugs.
I still remember the look of disappointment my Mum gave me when I bought a can of Heinz Spaghetti Bolognaise from Asda … though on that one, she was well within her Italian rights and I’m grateful she didn’t disown me.
Which leads to how I live …
Asking for economy food on a plane even when I fly at the privlidged pointy end or, as the picture shows, thinking a piece of chocolate in a bread roll has Michelin star potential.
Of course I am not a total lunatic.
I know I can’t live like this all the time.
I’d like to … but I can’t … especially if I want to see my son grow up and set him on a path of healthy eating for the rest of his life.
So while I’ll eat tons of greens and lean meat and vegetables of every description, the reality is that every time I chew, my brain wishes it was a chocolate sandwich.
Christ I’m pathetic.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Jill, My Fatherhood, Otis, Parents
A friend of mine who is gay is writing a book about how straight people would react if their child told them they were gay.
I wrote this:
If my son turns to me and says he’s gay, I would hug him and tell him I loved him and that I hope he finds someone who makes him happy.
If my son told me he had found a man that made him truly happy, I would hug him and tell him I am so excited for him and can’t wait to meet him.
If my son told me he had met the man of his dreams and told me he wanted to get married, I would probably cry tears of joy and say I am proud
I mean every single word of that … and yet, despite it being 2019, the LGBTQ+ community continue to face constant harassment and exclusion.
This scares me to death because as a parent, I would never want my son to suffer for his sexual preferences. And no one should.
While society has come a long way, we haven’t come far enough which is why being an ally to those who are forced to live in the shadows has never been so important.
You don’t have to become their best friend.
You don’t have to spend all your time together.
But letting them know you see them as a peer and believe in their right to live without oppression will help the progress we’ve made, keep moving forward so that one day, if my child – or yours – announces they are gay, you can celebrate them for being true to who they are rather than worrying about how others will treat them for who they are.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Childhood, Comment, Content, Context, Dad, Daddyhood, Emotion, Family, Home, Jill, Love, Mum, Mum & Dad, Parents
When Mum died, I inherited the family home.
Despite having not lived there for 20 years, it was still very important place to me.
Not just because Mum left it to me.
Not because my Mum still lived there.
But because it’s where I lived for all of my life – until I moved to Australia – and so the memories in those 4 walls were full of everything important to me from my first 25 years of life.
I have to be honest, the first reaction I had was to hire a security guard and keep things exactly as they were because the thought of selling it was just not going to happen.
Slowly I came round to the idea that a security guard was a bit extreme so I started – slowly – thinking about renting it out.
The thing was, when we had estate agents come check it out, they highlighted that having not been renovated for over 40 years, it needed some major work.
This was really hard for me because by saying it needed renovating, I heard it as ‘the house is not good enough’ … which I then interpreted as ‘the house my Mum loved and lived in, wasn’t good enough for others’.
Of course that’s not what they meant, but my emotions – and need to protect my Mum’s legacy – were very high at that point..
And if that was challenging for me, it got even harder when it got to clearing the house.
We spent a couple of weeks going through photos and possessions so we could identify everything we wanted to give to charity.
While Mum didn’t have expensive things, there were some lovely items which is why the worst thing – almost as bad as losing my Mum – was when I saw the charity people come by with bins and throw everything into them … no care, no consideration, no nothing.
And when I heard them literally smash my Mum and Dad’s wardrobes to smithereens – the things that had held their cliothes for 40 years – I had to leave the house as it was all too much.
But out of this darkness came an idea … an idea that I felt would honour my Mum in terms of the life she lived and the values she believed in.
We found a fantastic set of builders and had the house refurbished from top to bottom.
Removed all the wallpaper.
Plastering all the walls.
New paint everywhere.
New Kitchen.
New Bathroom.
New flooring.
New carpets.
New front door.
Some structural change in the house.
At the end, it was basically a new house and yet with the warmth and love of the old, as exemplified by this note that I wrote in the garage …
But that was only part of paying homage to Mum…
The next step was to find a young family who would love to live there, but couldn’t afford it.
You see our plan was to subsidize the rent – and maintain the gardens my parents loved so much – so a young family would have a chance to raise their kids in the beautiful environment my family gave me.
Of course, when my family bought the house – back in 1970 – the area was very different to what it is today, but zoom forward 40 years and it’s seen as very desirable. Not because it’s posh, but because it’s safe, has a strong community and great schools for all.
To this day, I’m so grateful my Mum and Dad were able to find £100 more than the other buyer or who knows where I would have ended up.
Anyway, by pure chance, we found a family who were sort-of connected to someone Mum once worked with. That was perfect, as it felt even more connected to her.
But what was even better was the mother of this family was Italian, like my Mum.
For the past 4 years we have had this arrangement and everyone has been happy.
But now it is time for a bit of a change.
Not because I want to become a bastard landlord, but because I’m now living in the UK and things are different.
You see part of the reason I wanted to keep the house – apart from the obvious – was that it gave me roots here. It meant I was still connected to where I grew up. That I mattered.
It’s kind-of similar to why we bought a bench for Otis at his school in LA.
Having spent the last 24 years out of England, the house represented a connection to my heritage and that was important.
But now I’m back … and while I don’t know how long for, I see it in terms of long-term rather than short.
On the day before Mum died, she told me she was sorry she wasn’t going to be able to leave me much.
I told her not to think like that and reminded her the love she and Dad gave me made me rich beyond my dreams.
But on top of that, I reminded her she was generously going to leave me her house … a house in a wonderful area … so she could relax knowing she had given her son more than he could ever have imagined.
And that’s why I am ready to let the house go.
Not – as you may think – because I am ready to move forward.
The truth is, I will always miss her and want her in my life.
The reason is because I see a way to use the house to reinforce the role my parents had – and have – in my life.
You see the one thing my parents would have loved to do is help me have a home of my own.
While I have been incredibly fortunate to do this without their assistance, I know that their dream would have been to contribute to that.
Of course they did with the love and support they gave me in life, but to them, providing some cash to do it would have made them feel so happy.
So that’s what they are going to do.
While we are happy in London, the truth is my wife and son need to be surrounded by nature.
Nothing reinforced this than our trip to the farm recently.
So we want to find a home a bit outside of London.
A home Otis can truly settle in.
A home that is our home.
Of course we don’t want to unsettle the tenants and will do all I can to help them – as well as give them as much time as they need to work out what’s next – but selling the house allows us to use that money to help my parents fulfill their dream.
We are incredibly fortunate to be in this position.
We are incredibly grateful to be in this position.
But the idea to have a place that is – for want of a better phrase – our forever home, is hugely enticing.
It will let us put down roots.
Connect to the community in ways we have never done previously.
Build rather than live.
This might sound dramatic and I am not saying we have had it tough in any of the other places we’ve lived or houses we’ve had … but we have also never been in a place where we saw ourselves for the long-term.
Because of that, we have always been looking to what’s next rather than maybe enjoying the moment as much as we could or should.
Of course this isn’t going to happen overnight, but to come to this point of decision represents a landmark for my family and for my grief which is why I am so happy to be home and so happy to look forwards with more security, regardless what the future may bring.
Given my birthday is tomorrow, that’s possibly the best present anyone could have.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Confidence, Culture, Daddyhood, Empathy, Goodbye America, Goodbye China, Jill, London, Love, My Fatherhood, Otis
A few weeks ago, Otis – my son – graduated from preschool.
I’ve got to be honest, I don’t quite get the preschool graduation thing.
Yes it’s a sort-of school, but it’s basically long playtime where you get to piss about with your mates – which is a bit like working in adland, but with less alcohol. Hopefully.
Anyway, whatever it is, Otis graduated which means the next stage is him embarking on his journey of real education.
I can’t believe it.
It seems only 5 minutes ago he was born.
But there he was … graduating for the first time in his life.
I don’t mind telling you I look at my little boy with such pride and love.
He has gone through a lot …
Living in 3 radically different countries – exemplified by the above photo shows him born in Shanghai, starting preschool in LA and finishing it all in London – saying goodbye to people of huge significance in his life, having to start things over again and again, watching his Dad crumble after seeing his beloved mum die, going through an operation … and yet through it all, he has approached life with a sense of optimism, mischief, happiness and curiosity that would put many older people to shame.
Part of this is because he’s just a loving and compassionate kid. Part of this is because he has family who bloody adore him. But part of this is the insane kindness and generosity that people around the world have shown him simply because they have watched him grow through my billions of social media pics.
The reality is Otis has brought more to my life than I could ever have imagined.
Not just in terms of love and happiness … but also in terms of lessons for life.
He has made everything unquestionably richer for both his amazing Mum and me and so as I tried not to cry as I watched him get his significant – but utterly pointless – certificate, I felt insanely proud of him.
Not for what he has achieved, but for who he is.
Congratulations Otis, you’re an epic little boy.