Memories, Casablanca, and little black books...

I’ve always had a shit memory.

I get more wrong than I get right.

I get more blanks and brain fog than I get lightbulb moments.

For a catholic it’s almost a sin worthy of the confessional box.

For a writer it’s a shitload worse.

I forget colleagues’ names, dates, places of work.

Facts have never dropped off the end of my tongue. They’ve always sat there hidden out of sight, waiting to be re-discovered.

Some have been there, between my ears, since the early 1950s, with no hope of recall.

It’s not that I don’t try.

My attempts at mastering my memory are legendary.

I am almost famous for my little black books.

They are full of ideas, lines, headlines, subheads, titles, plots, people, facts, figures, anything worth making a note of.

I carry one with me everywhere I go, along with my black Uni-ball pen.

Or, at least, I used to.

The last time I saw it I was sitting in a crowded city centre coffee shop and it was sitting on the table in front of me.

Silent as a grave.

It wasn’t open, so nobody sitting nearby could check out my thinking.

Or my writing.

My mind was rambling and I was sipping my way through a medium, black, Americano and nibbling my way through a slice of carrot cake.

Ten minutes later I was walking in the fresh air.

An hour later I had a brilliant idea for my latest book.

So, I reached inside my beat-up leather shoulder bag.

A quick scribble was called for.

You know that feeling when something important disappears down the toilet the second after you press the flush button?

Well…that.

It happened to me once, when I accidentally dropped my iPhone (full of emails and contact numbers) down the bloody dunny, followed by a couple of gallons of water.

Nothing prepares you for that level of panic.

My little black book was gone.

It took me a fear-fuelled twenty minutes of faster-than-light back-tracking to the coffee shop and another minute of frantic searching, before I realised my book was well and truly off the grid. AWOL. Missing in action. No longer in Kansas.

And that’s when I felt the light tap on my shoulder.

I turned so fast the speed almost left my facial features behind me.

There, in front of me, interrupting my personal space, was The Girl in Black.

Long black hair…black make-up…black t-shirt…black leather biker’s jacket…black jeans…black boots…ivory white skin.

Eyes as blue as an Arctic sky.

She was holding my little black book.

I was holding my breath.

“Lost something?” she said.

“Found something?” I said.

In that instant, I remembered the closing line from my favourite movie, Casablanca.

As said by Humphrey Bogart to Claude Rains

So, I said it out loud.

Not caring whether it was appropriate.

“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship…”

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The above is an extract from my as yet unpublished (and mostly unwritten) book Ad Interruptus.

Like its sisters Ad Lib, and Ad Infinitum (NOW AVAILABLE), it's about creativity, advertising, life, and lots of stuff in between.

You'll find Ad Infinitum, Ad Lib, and Ad Hoc on Amazon, along with my other books, Love & Coffee and Heaven Help Us. In print and ebook. Waiting for you.

And the wonderful thing about all three Ad books is… it doesn’t matter where you finish any chapter or episode.

Because it will always be pretty damned close to where you started it…

Ad Infinitum: https://amzn.to/3pof7Uq

Ad Lib: http://amzn.to/2kd4LKf.

Ad Hoc: https://amzn.to/2Nx8GL8

Love & Coffee: http://amzn.to/28IWaHq

Heaven Help Us: http://amzn.to/2nkQ1Jk

Grab a coffee, grab a chair, and grab a sneaky peek.

Then grab a copy...