Lolly and Nat's Whipple Squeezer

Lolly and Nat

It’s official. No more can we look at the world through rosé-tinted glasses. The sun is hiding under a big grey cloud, there’s no beach at the bottom of the road, and we’re deep in thought about toilet products.

Saying that, the freelance world is treating us well, and this week we clicked our ruby slippers* together again, heading to the ‘I can’t believe its not Gutter’ party at the Shaston Arms to bid a final farewell to Cannes.

Two things happened of note:

1) We learned that Ganton Street and La Croisette are entirely incongruous. Standing there, pressed together like sardines in the cold, drinking dodgy pear cider, any sort of reminiscing about being in Cannes pool parties in the hills just felt wrong and weird.

2) I (Lolly) finally came face to face with The Ex. I’d been a strange mixture of excited and terrified about meeting Nat’s old creative partner. I mean, they’d been together seven years, and made some beautiful work together. What would she be like, I kept thinking. What would she think of me? Would they still have feelings for each other? Would there be jealousy in the air, or would we all just get along fabulously?

Fortunately, it was the latter, and all my neuroses were just the stuff of a bad romantic novel. It’s a funny area though; the parallel between creative partnerships and romantic ones. The way sometimes you find yourself having An Idea with another art director/writer… or the way sometimes there’s a spark between you and someone else while your partner is away. I can’t help but wonder (she says in Carrie-speak), how many creatives sometimes feel tempted to stray from their partners?

I mean, it’s a big ask to stay faithful your whole working lives, ‘til retirement do you apart’. You meet in college when you’re young, free and single, and you commit to each other for your whole working life... is that kind of monogamy hard? Do you get 'stale', or is that what makes the best teams, when they're that solid? We’d like to know, has anyone ever had an affair (or a one-night stand) with another creative?

If so, did you ever fess up to your partner afterwards? Worse, did your partner walk in on you in the middle of an inspirational frenzy, marker pens and paper strewn everywhere... and the tell-tale stains of marker pen scrawls all over your hands? If so, what did you say in your defense? ‘It just happened…we just got talking… it was an interesting strategy and one thing lead to another…’

Thankfully Nat, The Ex and I all got on like a house on fire, and there was no danger of infidelity. In fact, there was more chance of a ménage à trois breaking out… Does that ever happen? It probably does, but no doubt it ends in tears, with one person getting jealous. Although I know Matt, Steve and Paul have a nice cozy threesome at Archibald ingall stretton.

Any other threesomes? Having been a single creative until now (bar a few casual flings), I find all this stuff really amusing. And The Ex and I did had an eerie amount in common. Nat definitely has a ‘type’ she goes for: short, indecisive, over-excitable, and punctually challenged... Anyway, while all this was going on, it had begun to rain and the Not Gutter party staggered to an unceremonious close.

All that remained was a boozy congregation of ad-folk, huddled together in a pissing down darkened alley; the detritus of the after party of the Cannes after-party. Having misplaced Nat by this point, I was about to go in search of another after-party, when my new director friend with a heavily tattooed arm informed me that all that was on offer was a rather lame sounding booze-up in an office block in Denmark St, fuelled by bottles from a nearby offie. Mmmm. You can have too many after-parties I think. So I went off for a drink with The Ex instead.

*Nat’s beautiful ruby high-heeled slippers were tragically scratched after sexy Olga and Bella threw them across the street so many times in the shoot for our viral in Cannes. In fact we’ve attached a picture of our swap-stars here. Hopefully. (colin?) Olga is the Russian blonde; Bella the Italian brunette. Thanks again ladies.