taking the talk.

Last Thursday evening, Jim took to the stage at the Vibe Bar in London’s Brick Lane as part of a D&AD ‘Sharp’ner’ event titled ‘Pads, Pens and Yellow Pencils’. Along with fellow writers John Simmons, Nick Asbury, Ceri Talbot of Innocent, and Ogilvy creative director Will Awdry, he tried to unravel some of the finer points of copywriting, and shed some words of enlightenment to a 100-strong throng, who’d come along to listen (and drink beer).

It was an informal, good-natured event, which seemed to hit the right spot with the audience. No bottles or insults were thrown. Each speaker was asked to pick an award-winning piece of their own work, someone else's work they admired, and proffer a nugget of advice for aspiring copywriters. Jim — perhaps unsurprisingly — went for his self-promotional monkey posters; Nick Asbury’s Corpoetics; and Christopher Doyle’s brand guidelines for himself. His piece of advice was to go for broke when a potential award winner crops up, as they don’t come along very often. 

This was followed by a lively Q&A session during which the speakers were asked to reveal their favourite word. Jim toyed with 'garibaldi’, but finally plumped for ‘macaroon’.