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Forget My Workspace. This Is Where the Real Magic Happens

Nils Leonard on the bar at St. John in Clerkenwell

You don’t know me. But I can tell you now, you don’t want a photo of my workspace. What the fuck is a workspace? Don’t we get to burn those as creatives? I do not believe it is the desk that ever tells the story, and either way you don’t really want that.

You want a photo of where I go when it’s all gone to shit. Or a photo of where I go when it suddenly unlocks and everything pours out and I escape. Or a photo of where I take the people who rescued me, the ones who snatched a victory from a poor brief and some tepid meetings, and we lose ourselves snarling in venom and red wine and stories.

This is the bar at St. John in Clerkenwell, and it is all of these things. It is also 30 percent not of this world. Architects snog judges in the toilet here. Look twice and someone will be part demon. Get a table by the bakery section and order one glass of Le Clos and a rarebit and you will never return.

We never make the real leaps from our desks. And we never make them alone. Find your special holes in the trunk. Become regulars at magic tables. And for the ones who really made it happen, pour their glasses high. Cheers.

2024 Lifetime Achievement Award