Here are a few other interesting things I’ve been involved in that are not directly connected to my day job:

At BMB me and my creative partner started an ‘agency within an agency’ called Night Shop. We were young and foolish and thought it would be fun to work all night on our own briefs and pitch for our own pieces of business. Amongst many other things, Night Shop ran a successful campaign to save the Ministry of Sound nightclub from closure and helped launch the charity C.A.L.M in London.

Which leads me neatly on to talking about C.A.L.M, or The Campaign Against Living Miserably. It’s is a suicide prevention phone-line, support network and information hub that was founded in Merseyside in the early 2000’s. Its primary function was to respond to the skyrocketing male suicide rates in that area of Liverpool at the time. The initiative was a huge success and in 2010 C.A.L.M turned its attention to London. This is where I got involved. I helped launch the charity in the city and was responsible for a number of marketing campaigns and fundraising initiatives. I even ran the 2012 London Marathon in a pair of pants to raise money to keep the phone lines open. Here are some harrowing, but important, statistics for you: Suicide is the single biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK. Almost 80% of all suicide is male and 1 in 4 men in this country have admitted to having suicidal thoughts. It’s an issue that’s not going anywhere, anytime soon, so If you’d like to support C.A.L.M and the amazing work they now do for men all around the UK please visit their website here.

On to something a little more upbeat: I’ve always enjoyed photography and, particularly, simple ideas repeated ad nauseam. In 2013 I went to Paris to see if I could document myself squatting in as many iconic locations as possible. ‘Squatting in Paris’ was born. You can find a selection of the images here on the It’s Nice That website.

Speaking of iconic, do you remember the Hatton Garden Heist? It was all over the news here in the UK and captured the imagination of the British public. The heist, and the large man-sized hole that was drilled into the vault, was on the front cover of every newspaper and magazine and was the top story of every news channel for weeks. I decided to go to Hatton Garden to have a poke around and found a jeweller who was willing to help me design and make a piece of gold jewellery to commemorate the robbery, and the aforementioned hole. My Hatton Heist Necklace ended up making the news and I had to lay low for a while.

In 2015 I decided to start a side hustle. I opened a small mobile bar business called Bubble Bros Ltd. The business was responsible for the first ever ‘Prosecco Van’ and appeared in national newspapers and on Good Morning Britain. Bubble Bros Ltd grew so quickly that, for a while, it became my main hustle. The business now has mobile bars as far afield as New York, Cayman Islands and UAE. We also have our own on-tap sparkling wine product that can be found in bars and restaurants all over the UK. If you’d like to find our more, or book us for your next event, visit our website here.

Now on to more recent interesting things:

In my humble opinion, W+K has the best shop window in London. It’s a 3m x 3m piece of glass that looks out onto sunny Hanbury Street. The window has a footfall of thousands. Scores of tourists, fashionistas and Jack the Ripper enthusiasts pass in front of it every single day. And I’m proud to say that, as of August 2022, I’ve been the Creative Director of this window and worked with an amazing team of people to bring some brilliant window installations to life. From giant Cost of Living utility bills for halloween, to amazing light installations for Ramadan, Exploding balloons for Air Max day and a working photocopier for Christmas. Keep and eye out for our next installation whenever you’re heading towards Brick Lane.

I’ll finish on something that I’m very passionate about and that’s The Kennedy’s. The Kennedys is a 5-month creative course that is open to anyone trying to get into the creative industry. The selection process for the Kennedys is geared up to provide a doorway for people who wouldn’t normally see creative advertising as an option. The course is not open to anyone who has attended an ad school, or alrwady worked in the advertising agency, so we get an incredible mix of brilliant young people from many different backgrounds. We then take these 8, innocent, malleable minds and turn them into sharp, well-oiled thinking machines. 2024 will be my second year as Course Director and I’m incredibly excited for what the future of the Kennedys will hold.

More!?

If you’d like to hear any more of my boring stories, drop me an email and I can chew your ear off over a coffee.