if Ken Dodd can do it...

I nearly blogged about bad things today.

About companies who play silly games when trying to get writers to write nice things for them. About agencies who mismanage and then blame their writers and designers for the resulting problems. About not having enough experience for companies to trust me when I say ‘You’re positioning your brand all wrong’.

But I thought better of it.

Instead I’m going to write about three nice things that make me smile when I think about them.

Number 1 – a 26 exhibition

In September 2010, an idea I had in January, which started like this…

…will become an exhibition in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, as part of the London Design Festival. This is only happening because of the support, creativity and kindness of a man named John. John is a founder of the writers’ organisation 26.

In September, my words (alongside 25 other writers’ words) will appear beside artefacts in one of the most loved museums in the country.

Number 2 – being creative for the sake of it

I like being creative. For fun. I’ve always sketched and painted, scribbled and jotted, written stories, made strangely-shaped paper planes, turned cardboard boxes into smaller cardboard boxes. I’ve tried writing music, designing football shirts, devising board games.

At the moment, I’m working on a clothes label (as in a label that hangs from clothes). Design and words.

This is lovely because it’s a project for myself. No brief, no structure, no client. Just design, have fun, and try to solve a problem with something creative.

Number 3 – the idea that most people are nice

There are lots of people on this earth. And there are millions of stories written about them. About how most of them are evil, nasty. How murderers love to stroll the streets picking off the unsuspecting. How children are sleeping with drunk drugs. How terrorists are planning to blow me up with a bomb.

So here’s a nice thing.

Most people.

Last week in Falmouth, a friend put me up for the week. And he put my design partner – whom he’d never met before – up for a week. And he invited us back down any time.

This morning, a lovely grey lady let me out into traffic when nobody else would. If this were a post about bad things, I’d write about those selfish people. But I’d rather write about Maggie (her name probably isn’t Maggie). Because she smiled and waved at me. Then when I thanked her and smiled, she thanked me and smiled.

Which made me feel much better about the show-off in the 4x4, who didn’t even take the time to look at me before dismissing my desire to drive along in front of him for five minutes.

Also today I texted a happy-birthday message to a good friend. He wasn’t expecting it. He replied that he loved me – which, considering he’s married and expecting his first child, probably isn’t true in the usual sense. But I know what he meant and his happy message made me laugh.

People can be selfish, forgetful, spiteful, careless, brash, tactless, mean. They can call other people bigots behind their backs. But, as a rule, most of us are pretty ok.

Congratulations, Rob and Danielle.

Maggie, have a lovely day.