Mark Denton Esq - Part 2

Mark talks about "magical happenstance"; his mystifying lack of anger; the abandoned principle of being entertaining; analogue skills for a post-apocalyptic world; encouraging people to dance on his grave; eating soup through a Mexican wrestling mask; and, of course, rug tufting.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello, and welcome to the Amber Moment, a podcast that tells stories of remarkable careers. My name's Paul Howard. This is part two of my chat with Mark Denton. So far we've heard Mark talk about discovering his party trick, always carrying around a pencil and paper with him, the great influence that telly and comics had on him in his childhood, how a particularly juvenile playground phrase became a piece of work he exhibited in the Royal Academy, his sneaky debut ad that won him lots of awards and got him a place at BBH, working on Christmas Day, and of course rug tufting. We rejoin Mark now as he's talking about the various ideas he has on a daily basis, and sometimes bringing them to life.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

We're talking on Zoom now, so you can see me and I'll see you. If I swivel swivel the uh laptop round, you'd see loads of box files over there. Yeah, they're full of bits of paper with my scribbles on.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

I've got tons of tons and tons of them. I do them every day, and sometimes I'm drawn to make them real.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

You know, so if I just swivel the computer, of course, anyone listening to this won't know what I'm doing, but I'm gonna swivel the computer. Oh, right, okay. There's a bust of my fictional ancestor.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Right. So I did a stupid scribble, and it's not only a bust, it's a table lamp.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

My fictional ancestor used to be an admiral, and he's got a history because I wrote the history, of course. And I got the the bust was actually sculpted by a famous artist, Ron Muick.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

He was in the sensations show with uh Damon Hurst and Gemin and stuff like that. I said, Yeah, Ron, will you do a sculpture of my fixed on ancestor?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

So you sc you you scamped it up?

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Yeah, right. I scamped it up. Yeah, then I've got someone to make the that their hat that looks like a lampshade. Looks magnificent. And it's sitting on a table that looks like Nelson's column, and at the bottom of it are four bronze lions that were also sculpted by Ron, cast in bronze.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

What because why not yeah, it would have been it would have been less fun not to do it.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

There's no reason for it to exist. There was there was no brief, it was a stupid idea, but I felt drawn to do it.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Compelled to do it. Is um can you talk us? Can you let us give us a bit of background then? What's what's the name of your fictional ancestor? What's his history?

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Uh I don't that because believe it or not, there were about 10 of them. I've done about there were about 10 portraits as well, and this sounds ludicrous even to me. Because I've drawn these pictures of all my ancestors, and some of them are portraits, some of them are sculpted. Yeah, there was another sculpted one as well, which was a an old archbishop. I remember his name, it was the Reverend Pyre Small piece.

SPEAKER_03 2:59

Oh, yeah, very good.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

And then I thought, what am I gonna do with it? This is the way that my mind works. What am I gonna do with these? Yeah, and I thought, I know I'd I was a bachelor at the time, I had a small basement flat, I'll turn my bachelor basement flat into a cartoon stately home. Yes, and then I designed all the furniture, the wallpaper, and the carpets woven.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Did you tuft the carpets yourself?

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Uh I didn't, no, but I that's where I learnt about carpet tufting. So I I do stupid things like up, you know. I didn't consider myself an artist, then I just thought it would be a funny thing to do. Yeah, so that got me. See, again, that's what I like doing. I like I like doing little projects, you never know where they're gonna lead. You do a project, get a stupid idea, you make it real, and then other things happen. Magical happenstances occur. So I ended up with my own half-hour TV programme on Japanese tell.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Because of that, because they came around and interviewed me about my cartoon stately home.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

And you said that I want to hear about that, by the way, the the Japanese uh.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

But I'll tell you that's one of loads of stories I've got where I do something daft, yeah, and then other great things happen.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

But you said that in that basement flat that you converted into a cartoon stately home, I think was your phrase. You didn't consider yourself to be an artist at that point, no, but but later on you did become uh an inverted a proper artist. So what what changed? What made you into that proper artist eventually?

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Well, I was offered a I was offered a gallery space again. You know, I I know the plot now. I didn't know it for a long time. Now, because it's very hard to look at yourself and work out how the machinery works, if you like. I can tell you know, I can look at someone else and tell you what's going right and wrong for them, but looking at yourself is tough.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Always more difficult.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Um, the thing I've worked out, it's taken a bloody long time. Things only happen in conversation, and that loads of things happen for me in conversation. I like talking to people. Yeah, uh, that bloke who stopped and talked about my scooter, that could have been a very quick conversation. I could have said, Yeah, SX 200, mate. Yeah, yeah, finest scooter in the world. Uh, nice to meet you. And that could have been the end of it. But I ended up at art college and all of the stuff that happened since then.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

I'm on social media, I like social media a lot. I engage in that a lot, but I like meeting people in real life that I meet on social media. Um, but I saw that the uh my uh an old mate of mine, Dave Bonaguidi, ex-advertising man, he dumped started doing well in the world of art. He was having a show at the Jealous Gallery, and I said, Look, I'll come along to the private view, and uh I couldn't make it that night, so I went down the next day. He'd he'd already mentioned me to the gallery owner, yeah, Dario. And I when I went there, there was this bloke adjusting the one of the pictures because it was an empty gallery apart from him. I thought he looks a bit Italian, yeah, Dario. I said, Are you Dario? He said, Why? Who are you? We have a conversation at the end of the conversation. I've got the gallery for 10 days for my own show. So you want to put on a show, yeah. And I'm thinking, well, I'm not an artist, and but while I at the same time I'm nodding and saying, Yes, yeah, I will, I will have a show. Yeah, that'd be great. So I put on a show there, yeah. Unbeknownst to me, and it went down very well.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

When when was that, by the way?

SPEAKER_00 6:27

It was about nine years ago, okay. And we sold a lot of art, and unbeknownst to me, and I only knew this when I got a letter through the door. I got a letter through the door, it said, uh, Congratulations, your work has been accepted for the Royal Academy summer show. And I I hadn't entered, you know, Janice had entered for me, and and it as it turns out, I got two pieces of the work that I'd had in the show in the Royal Academy, and that's where I thought, oh, maybe I am an artist.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah, so now the label fits, you're you're comfortable with it now.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Well, you know, I I am comfortable, and I I wasn't, you know, despite the fact I talk about being immodest, I thought, no, it's a bit too high for looting. What do you mean artists? Yeah, now I just I've I've sworn already. I just you can swear, you can swear it's like about over there, you know. This is just a stupid drawing that I've turned it a bit. I mean advertising, but now I I'll I'll take it, it's good. I've been there four times now, yeah, four different bits of work, been in Sartre Gallery, sold a lot of prints. I've done bloody well.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Yeah. What was some of you know, you talked about having having two pieces that originally went into the Royal Academy. What were those pieces? Can you describe those pieces?

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Well, they were that again. This is what happens when you just have a daft idea a lot of the time.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

I like business cards. I've got a lot of business cards with my own different portraits of me on my business card, a lot of business, you know, but it's not I'm not so self-centered that it's all about me because I like everyone else around me to dress up as well. So when my uh graphic design partner, Kate, she needed a business card, she's actually from a Chinese family. So I thought, right, okay, we're we'll dress Kate up like the blue Chinese girl, the famous Tretchikov, Tretchikov painting from the 1950s. And uh we did that, and it was only a business card, and that's that's the thing that got into the Royal Academy.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

So it was a business card, yeah. Really opened up the whole world of art for me.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Yeah. Uh because I know very little about art, but with so this may be well.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Me too, so I'll do my best.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Yeah, but would you consider yourself to be in the arena of pop art? Was it does it fall into that sort of category?

SPEAKER_00 8:48

I don't do you know what? I don't know what my style is at all. Yeah. Some of it's photographic. I've tried paint, you know, painting as well, montage. I do lots of different things, you know, I did a bit of spray art, you know, with rattle cans. They got into the Royal Academy not so long ago. So it's almost like I'm finding my way. I had a uh a relatively recent exhibition where I had a lot of a lot of my stuff up, and it's only then that I again it takes me a while to get what I'm all about. I could see it's only then I could see a thread between everything, yeah. And a lot of it was initiated by the fact that um people were laughing at my work, yeah. Despite the fact a lot of artists might not like that, I thought it was great that people were were tittering as they went round the gallery, and I thought these are all different styles, but they're having the same effect, yeah, and they're they are entertaining and amusing people, and I think that's a very valuable asset. I think again, you know, again, I don't I can't compare myself to other artists. I do what I like doing. I can't I have tried working out what what I like doing, but I like doing so many different things, and even though I think oh, that's a different mood to that, most of the things have the kind of same effect in insofar as they make people smile.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah, not a bad thing at all, I don't think, man.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

No, I do know I I I couldn't wish for a better result than that, really.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

So if you think back over the the kind of totality of your career as well, and again thinking about you as the hero of your own story, every great story, as well as having a hero, has an anti-hero. So I'm not asking you to name names here unless you particularly want to. I don't want to get you in any further legal trouble, of course. But can you think of things that have stood in your way? You know, what what have you had to overcome? And it may not just be people, it might be, I don't know, systems or structures or prevailing ideas, what are the barriers you think you've had to overcome to be successful in your career?

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Well, I know the anti-hero is is me.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

I can't blame you know, I can't blame anyone else. I uh you know, I don't hold grudges at all. Uh and sometimes I think to myself, where's my anger? Shouldn't I be angry about that? You know, I I question myself, I shouldn't be really bloody furious about that, and I'm not, yeah. And um, I don't like the idea of being bitter and holding on to something from the past. I make cock-ups, you know, even getting fired from the agency, uh, yeah, because I could tell it's very easy to tell yourself a sob story. So going back, you know, going back to a mirror the the agency, all right. I I only did 10 days holiday in six and a half years, and I went in on Christmas Day, and we won more awards than anyone else, and I can you know it's almost like get hand me the violin, hand me the violin, yeah, yeah, yeah. It'd be easy to tell that sob story, but I don't actually feel like that. I think you stupid bugger, you had a good hand of cards, you played it very badly, you had no experience in that stuff, you've learned a bloody great big lesson. I play it differently now. Is that the end of my life, or the end of my career, or the end of my creativity? No, there's other exciting hills to conquer, and I'll put that there as a little bit of experience, a bit of education, and uh it was a portal to another world because that gave me a profile that opened up bloody great big doors all around the world for me. Yeah, you know, it gave me a lot of faith, there's a spring ball to so many exciting opportunities.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

So great. No, I see it as nothing but a positive thing. I think that's really I'm the end of it, generally, you know, insofar as sometimes I'm more conservative than I would like to be.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

But I I know that sometimes I'm really not conservative at all.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

I was gonna say I I didn't really expect you to say that you thought you were too conservative, but uh but maybe that's part of what drives you on.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

And and this is not meant to be whatever I whatever I do, I want to do more of it and I want to do it bigger.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But your your lack of anger throughout is is kind of quite refreshing, I think. You meet so many people who if you look hard enough for things to upset you, you undoubtedly will find those things, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 13:25

But I've been stri I've been striped up a few times, but generally I've got myself in the position where yeah um it was easy to strike me up.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

You know, so I've got a good if I want to go and blame someone, I'll go and look in the mirror.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

You know, you're only harming yourself by letting things get you down.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Yeah. Well, what about sort of people or groups of people who have been particularly helpful, like allies in your career who who've who've sort of helped you along the way?

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Lo you know, loads of them. You know, like you know, I I said my bosses were furious, Norman and Bob, but Norman, who you used to be my boss, he was the inventor of the milk tray man, and he used to take me on all of his shoots and down to the editors and the sound studios and stuff like that. So I got my apprenticeship really under Norman's wing, and we had a right laugh, and he forgave me. And when I had my own agency, I gave him freelance work, yeah. You know, because I wasn't bitter about it, and he wasn't. And then I said, Here, do you want to do a bit of freelance for us?

SPEAKER_03 14:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

So I remembered him.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Uh and everything worked out very, very nicely.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

I know when I when I compared your old mate Duncan to the Milk Tray man, I had no idea that you had that connection.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

So weird how it funny uh works out so you know actually, I I got I got a poster away as well, you know, but when I was sort of visual on it. So my first 48 sheet poster was for milk tray. Yeah, and it was again Norman was generous to me then, even though my role was just drawing things up. He said, Oh, well, see if you can think of some posters. Because he he didn't like doing print, you know, he just liked doing the telly. So I'd come in with my notepad in the morning because I'd get on the train, yeah, and say, What do you think of that? No, no, no, and then so they did, oh, we'll do that milk train man hanging in between two skyscrapers. Yeah, so me and him end up flying to New York for a week, standing in the Waldorf Astoria. I'm only 23 years old, yeah, and eating my first Japanese meal, whatever, killing ourselves laughing, um, being on top of the JC Penny building with the milk train man. He wasn't suspended for real, but shooting the cable uh that he was meant to be suspended from. It was great, yeah. So you know, people like Norman, there's been loads of those. Loads of Normans, yeah, have given me a Land. John Eggerty as well, you know, yeah, big blades taking me on when I didn't have loads of great print work, and they were the the most stylish agency in town at the time, and given me a very firm but very generous, proper apprenticeship there, and which I'm immensely grateful for, and there's still being great stead even now, all these years later. So, yeah, loads of people to thank.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Since you mentioned that and sort of apprenticeships, it's interesting, isn't it? That and and even you say even now that stood stands you in good stead. How so? So th those things happened, I don't know, what's in the 80s, aren't we, when you were at BBH? How do you think that apprenticeship at the coolest best agency in town, or nay the world, let's say, BBH at the time? Because the the advertising world has changed a lot, everyone knows that. But so how do you think those principles still stand you in good stead today?

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Well, it's it's it's given me standards insofar as and the thing that I'm I mourn the demise of within the world of commercial art, because the thing I like about real art is that you can do anything you want, no one's stopping you doing anything. In the world of commercial art, they seem to have forgotten stroke, abandoned the principle of entertaining the audience. And there's a whole couple of generations now who don't look backwards, and I don't blame them. You know, you've got to look forwards, but there's something to be learned from the past, and they don't know about the pact we used to have with the punters. That is, we want a a bit of your time to tell you about our product, and in exchange, we will give you a bit of entertainment, and that has been forgotten. So the apprenticeship gave me that really. I was brought up in an era where I had scripts turned down because they just weren't entertaining enough.

SPEAKER_03 17:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

And for other reasons, but uh, you know, just on that on that front. Um by entertainment, I don't mean necessarily funny, you know, it could be just sort of super stylish. You know, when you think about the early Levi stuff, yeah, there weren't loads of laughs in them, but boy, did you want to be part of that world that they put on the screen? It was just very aspirational and just a beautiful bit of filmmaking uh that you you were seduced by. Yeah, that's the thing that's missing now.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

I think that's great because no one could accuse you of being stuck in the past or hankering after a bygone age or whatever, but I think you know, for so for someone like you to say that that there is something to be learnt from those previous generations. Yeah, it's just you know it's doesn't mean you can't look forward.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

No, you use what has been done in the past, give it a new coat of paint and dress it up again for a new generation, you know, because you know, some of the best films that you see now, it's not like they ain't covering themes that we've seen a million times before. Yeah, but you know, the the the real skill is making something fresh. You know, I know that whatever I do has got to appeal to every generation now, yeah. Yeah, because you can't go backwards. You know, I'm excited about the I'm genuinely excited about the tools that we've got at our disposal now. But what I can't understand within the world of commercial art, why these fantastic new tools are not being used very well.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Yeah. Well, there we are. You heard it here, everyone. If you work in advertising or other creative industries, be entertaining. Shouldn't be too difficult, should it? There we are. What about your kind of like do you think you have a particularly strong sort of personal code of conduct or rules that you live by, or people call them values in marketing and advertising often? Any any sort of behaviours or values that you particularly treasure?

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Or blind me, that's an odd question.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

I don't walk around with them tattooed onto my forearm, but you know, when you know what there's sometimes a line, and you think, oh, I don't think I'll step over that line. I very proudly would tell anyone, I think I'm the only person ever to get a poster with the C-word on it in the DNA D annual.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

So I don't think and wasn't sorry about Scumfork United, was it? No, it was a little bit, it was a bit shorter, the word than that. Um and I won a design week gold award for the same poster with the C-word on it. And when I went along to the show, I knew I was shortlisted, I I didn't know whether I'd win the gold or not.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

So I thought, right, okay. I I didn't consider myself to be a designer at the time. It's the first time I'd ever gone to design week, ever. Yeah, and I thought, right, okay, I'll make sure that they remember that I'd turned up, whether I win or lose. So I had a bloody great big pink cake with the C words iced on it.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

Ah, excellent.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

On our on our table. So when you looked at we were at Grosvenor House, you looked down, you could see where our table was because it had a uh a C How did that briefing go at the cake shop? Well, we just sent them a picture of the post and said, Could you put that lovely hand letter C word on the top of this pink cake, please?

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Yeah, no problem.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

And they said that will cost you X amount, and that that was the end of the transaction.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Nice and transactional.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

So I'm not shy about that, but I wouldn't, you know, where do I draw the line? I don't like torturing people, that's that that's a bad thing.

SPEAKER_03 21:13

Yeah, fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Yeah, or killing animals. Um, I'm not keep on that at all. Yeah, but I did work on Marlborough uh, despite the fact I'm I'm vehemently anti-smoking, yeah. It was just it was the job.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

So don't sign up for the job unless you're prepared to do it.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Sure. Yeah. That's always been the way, isn't it? I mean, there they've been Yeah, you think of moneylenders, is it was one in recent years. There's always something that is sort of at the margins of is it acceptable? I've always thought if something is legal, then you should be able to advertise it as well.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

But it's case by c it's case by case. I've got this sneaking suspicion because I do believe in heaven.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

I'll be going up with no questions. I I've got a one-way ticket, it's up upwards. I think treat people well, don't tell fibs. I've worked with a lot of people who might think I'm I might have been unreasonable. They're probably right. But I'd only ever do that for the w work. I've seen you know, in this industry, I've uh in the the advertising industry, I've had a lot of people who are mean to people below them for the for the sake of being mean, and I and I you know obviously I don't like that. Who does like that and you shouldn't do that if it's about being tough because you want the work to be great, and then everyone involved in that gets a bit of the glory. I'm all for again. I don't like leaving people out. I think I'd always give more credits, I put more credits on rather than than take the credits off. I don't like, in fact, I don't like being on the stage getting all the glory by myself. I like the other people around me.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

You know, that's not because I'm a good person, it's because I like people. Yeah, I just like them. Sorry. People with smiles on their faces, that's even better. Young people getting famous. Bloody hell, that's it's like plugging into an electric socket. You know, a young person going places, I want to stand next to them. It's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

I like that line, standing next to you use that line about talent that I think I mentioned at the start.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Yeah, you know, that's why I like surrounding myself with young talented people with ambition. Yeah, bloody hell, what a joy that is.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Now you said you've never sort of had a plan or a long-term mission or whatever, but I I am going to ask you what's next for you. I mean, it can be tomorrow or next week or in five years' time. But what do you think is coming down the track for Mark Denton Esquire?

SPEAKER_00 23:56

I enjoyed doing the stand. I wasn't particularly good at the stand-up comedy, but I've enjoyed it, and I I I and I did it in the first place. I don't want to be a stand-up comedian, but uh I did it in the first place to make my talks better because I do a lot of talks and I enjoy doing the talks, and I think the talks have got better because I did the stand-up comedy.

SPEAKER_03 24:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

So I want to get on a lot more stages, I want to get in front of the camera a lot more and and be doing stuff that makes people laugh. Yeah, certainly I like the idea of smelging the world of commercial art and real art together. I think they're both informing each other.

SPEAKER_03 24:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

But for me, and things that I've learned from the world of advertising and being very useful in the world of art, and vice versa, also doing the talks and that performance stuff as well. I can see that overlapping with the world of art. Yeah. So I don't know if this means that if that makes any sense at all, but I've you know, it feels like I'm getting more arrows in my quiver, if you like.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Yeah, it does make sense. I know what the words mean.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

I'm getting more options, yeah, uh, and more, you know, more exciting opportunities for bringing different, you know, different disciplines together. Learning. I like you know, the future is going to be about learning a lot more. I've got I've got a signwriting course that that I'm signing up for.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

I like the idea of doing that. And I like the idea of lots of analogue skills, you know, like painted signs. Yeah, because that'll help in the world of art, and I'll enjoy doing it, and I'll meet a load of people paint on me. Sign writing for shops and things like that, restaurants and yeah, but obviously for me, making my own signs. Um, but doing but why? I I don't know. I don't know what I'm gonna do with it yet, but it's just feels like something I'd like to do. And that the devil is making me think more analog in that everyone else is jumping on the AI bandwagon. I think right, okay, when the bomb drops and we're all wandering around the post-apocalyptic wasteland, someone's gonna need a rug tufting, and someone's gonna need a sign.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

And I'm the man.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Mainly rug tufters. If you are a rug tufter, you're gonna need a rug tufting sign, aren't you?

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Oh, that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

That's the sweet spot. Yeah, stick that in. What about we're near the end, by the way, relieved to know, but um outs outside of kind of your career, we'll take as red that family and other loved ones are important to you. What else keeps you busy? What are your kind of hobbies and interests, if you will, if you've got time for any?

SPEAKER_00 26:37

I've got uh see my whole job is a hobby. So you know, rug tufting, you'd say that was a hobby. But I I I don't see any separation from things I do outside of the that is as much work as the thing I do at work.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

It all is the same thing, and uh and I did I'm not saying I don't see my family, I'm not saying I don't love my family, yeah, but I don't see them very often, yeah, because I'm usually busy doing other stuff, to to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

I like the way you just said rug tufting. That's a hobby, isn't it? It's like a classic hobby, isn't it? Rug tufting.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Yeah, but you know, I'm I I can't tell you how many things I've done dressmaking and tailoring evening classes, yeah. I've done ballroom dancing lessons, I've done trampolining. I signed up for uh season of trampolining.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Oh, tell us a story about that.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Um, I was a little bit younger then. Uh motor maintenance, yeah. I like going to evening classes, uh, creative writing, yeah, comedy writing course, calligraphy.

SPEAKER_03 27:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

So learning new skills and putting them in a file at the back of your box thinking I might use that one day.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Are they hobbies? It's my work. I don't know. I uh you know, I really don't know.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

It's like you've gone through the yellow pages of evening classes and just signed up for everything.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Yeah, because you know, uh, but I see, you know, when you look at the list of what you can go, you can go and do the what evening class you can go and do. I generally want to do them all. Yeah, I do. I can't, I think what ones am I gonna do? And dressmaking and tailoring, I was crap. Yeah, but uh trampolini, how were you at trampolini? Do you know what I was pretty good? I could do a double back somersault. Yeah, I wasn't bad at all.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

I don't know, I've just pictured you in a leotard, which then took me. We haven't even spoken about your Mexican wrestling thing, have we?

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Yeah, but you know, um again, you know, I I I do things like find myself in a position where I'm putting on, with my old partner Malcolm Benville, putting on uh the UK's first ever world championship Mexican wrestling belt in in Leicester Square. You know, I just my life is just full of stuff like that because I uh generally say yes to a lot of things and draw silly pictures and make them real.

SPEAKER_03 29:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Uh oh, is it um a mod on an old Zimmer frame that looks like a custom scooter? So I get the UK's most famous custom car builder to build the zimmer frame for me. So that exists now, yeah. Well, yeah, not only exists, but it got into there's a very famous graphic design book called A A Smile in the Mind.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

It's got it's in there alongside my gravestone. So I think one day, oh right, okay. What would my grave look like? So I've got gravestone with the actual grave itself. I thought it would be good if that's like a disco dance floor. So I designed a grave that encouraged people to dance on it. Yeah, like one of those things you see in arcades where the lit up things that you I had it made, and that became the the front cover of the 50th anniversary DNA D annual. With no plan at the time, you know, no one asked me to do that, I just did it.

SPEAKER_03 30:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

So those things, you know, when I do things like that and I make things like that, or get them made, they get a life of their own, and they lead me to other places, unexpected places that I could never ever imagine.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

What was the Mexican wrestling thing all about? How did it come about?

SPEAKER_00 30:23

You know, to again, I was partners with Malcolm Benville at Therapy Films, uh-huh uh but we had our own production company. Yeah, and uh he he was a photographer, that's how I met him in the first place. Uh he was a student photographer, or he was an uh assistant photographer who came to visit me. And I I talked to everyone, so I said, Yeah, come and show me your portfolio. Yeah, uh, we got chatting, we did lots of work together, won lots of awards, and then at a certain point in my career, he just phoned me up and said, Here, do you want to come and own half my company, Therapy Films? I said, Yeah, right. And then he continued taking photographs, he's in Mexico, he's shooting a load of Mexican wrestlers, he's sending me the pictures, and I'm thinking, these are good. Yeah, we should publish a book, and then we approached a few publishers, and they all turned us down. So we said, right, okay, let's publish it ourselves. With no with absolutely no experience in publishing books at all. Yeah, and before you know it, we're put we're flying Mexican wrestlers over for the launch party in Leicester Square. So it all got out of hand, it got very expensive.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

See, any accountant would look at that. I won't even tell you the figure of how much it costs me.

SPEAKER_03 31:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

But any accountant would say, yeah, that was a that was a fail. To me, that's one of the biggest successes of my life and one of the happiest moments ever.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

I mean, it sounds incredible, but can you put your finger on why? Because you've done lots and lots of things. Why is why that in particular?

SPEAKER_00 31:56

Well, just uh anything that ends with a party with Mexican wrestlers and then ends up with one of them being taken to hospital with blood coming out of his face. You know you know, you know, what he only broke his nose, but it was it was dramatic, you know, and uh he was fine the next morning, yeah. But that that's a good night, yeah, isn't it? Yeah, I'd say so. And that wouldn't have existed unless we chose to make it happen. So at the time I remember that Creative Review did a did a uh a write-up of it and said it's the party of the it was the party of the decade.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Now if anyone, if just one person who went there, not not a magazine, but it was a magazine, yeah, said that was the party of the decade, isn't that uh what is commonly known as a right royal result?

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Massive party of the decade.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

I'll take that, thank you very much, worth every penny. Yeah, some wrestlers, yeah, and and we took them out to eat, um, and they insisted on wearing the masks, and most restaurants wouldn't let us in, and we went to the criterion brothery and they ate with the Mexican wrestlers' masks on. Yeah, one of them, one of them ordered French onion soup, and watching this Mexican wrestler trying to eat French onion soup through the little hole in his mask, that was worth the money. What just just for that?

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Is there something in the and forgive me for my lack of cultural awareness? Is there something in in the kind of the code of being a Mexican wrestler that you have to wear your mask?

SPEAKER_00 33:32

You're not meant to reveal your identity, right? And uh, you know, uh we could be on the give us another hour, I'll tell you some more stories, you know. So my own Japanese TV program, yeah, Mexican wrestling belt, Royal Academy, I could I just could go on and on and on, and that is all about coming up with an idea that you think might have some appeal in the real world, yeah, and things magically happen around it. They're full of magical happenstances occurring just because you put stuff out into the world, yeah, but it's all feeding back into commercial art, insofar as that's what the deal was with commercial art. You put something out there that moves people in some way, they remember it, yeah, and they go and buy your tin of beans, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the thing you know, something actually happens because you've put something out into the world, and it's not just entertainment, there's got to be a message, and it's got to be something about the product, not something about the product, yeah, the main thing about the product, dramatized in a way that moves people. So that part there's another party trick, yeah. You know, and I again I could be modest about it. I can do things, you know. I'm not I'm not in Hollywood, I'm not, you know, this is just me, the scrap metal son of a scrap metal person who hasn't got enough O levels to get into art college. I've got this funny little party trick where I do stuff, then other fantastic things happen, like magic.

SPEAKER_03 35:12

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Well they do, they do, and they're undeniable, and it's more fun than working.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Yeah, well, listen, I don't say this to everyone, but I think you better come back if you're if you're up for it because I I sense that we could have another episode or two out of it.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Yeah, yeah, uh as many start. In fact, come along to one of my talks.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

I will.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

You might you might hear a few more stories and you say I'll have that one, that one, that one, and that one.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Yes, please. But before before you go, since we're on a podcast, are you able to give us a podcast recommendation?

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Yes, if you're interested in advertising at all, it's the advertising's equivalent to Indiana Jones, Dave Dyer, yeah, stuff from the loft. Go and listen to Dave Dyer interviewing these amazing people from the world of advertising. Um, some of them have been forgotten or they've disappeared, and he tracks them down. Yeah, he's like a bloody, he's like Sherlock Holmes. Yeah, he gets he goes and gets his man.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

Yeah, yeah. What's it called again, Mark?

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Stuff from the Loft. It's the best advertising creative podcast you can ever listen to.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Perfect. Thank you for that recommendation, Mark, and thank you even more for coming on and sharing just the the weirdest and most wonderful stories about your extraordinary career and extraordinary life. And uh, I hope I hope we can do it again one day.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Anytime you know it.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

Best of luck with the next chapter.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Thanks a lot.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

Nice one. Take it easy. Cheers, bye. Join me next time on the Amber moment when we'll be hearing another story of another remarkable career. Until then, stay Amber.