Talking About Watford
22 September 2025




I never talk about Watford 

Today, as my LinkedIn floods with posts remembering Tony and has for days, I will talk about Watford

How I loved Watford

I loved getting that email, it felt like getting a letter from Hogwarts

I even loved the entry test

“Write a poem about broccoli” and “I love my hamster make me want to eat it”

The last burst of creative freedom before the draught

I loved the rules

The pentels

The brief rant about fuck the trees if it helps you be creative

Tony’s marker

“Too complicated”

“Negative”

“Benefit????”

“????”

“Don’t get it”

He always got it

He just pretended he didn’t

I loved the films

The struggle

The brain push ups

For mediocre outcomes

Once in a while they were good

You could count the good ideas we each had on one hand in a whole year

That was the point

Quantity

Hard work

Think at college then think on the train then think in the shower then think again in bed

All the possible angles

And one of them will be okay

Not great

Great only comes once every few years

“Good creatives have a sense of abundance”

Hell yeah

I loved being a foreign minority

I loved how my classmates kindly explained biscuits to me

I loved Tony’s mild racism in telling me I shouldn’t be a writer because I was foreign

I loved proving him wrong

I loved the little provocations

The mind games

The comfort look he’d throw me when I went to him with total desperation in my eyes

And he told me that “creativity and depression go hand in hand”

As if he could see behind my brain

I think he did

I loved choosing Watford over SCA or Miami Ad School (no shade, just my choice)

I saw those shiny websites and that crap Wordpress and thought

The crap Wordpress is for me

Throw your laptops away

We’ll be making your brains crush here 

I loved hating Watford

And I loved hating Tony

And I love how now, in my grown up, adult job

I hear another grown up creative, one that didn’t go to Watford, present an idea

And my own brain

Without letting an instant go by

Without giving me a heads up

Screams

On the inside

At full volume

NO BORROWED INTEREST.