In 2016 I was an undertaker for the coroner. The window on life was incomparable to anything afforded to me before or since—I truly saw the plane on which we exist.

This drove me to sort out my own small plane of existence, right now. And having worked in death, what might the opposite look like? How could I work in 'life'?

Matchmaking. Gifting people love to beget the gift of life.

At 2am I drove to North Finchley Maccie's, the sheer stiff seat and surgical lighting the sterile surrounds to make me focus. Powering into the dawn fuelled by hourly Americanos whose purchase proved my worth to the surly night staff, I sent 200 cold applications to every dating and matchmaking company I could find.

Over the course of the next month, 197 didn't respond, and 2 politely rejected.

But Rachel gave me a chance. "It wasn't even the application as much how you wrote the email," she said. "You've got a way with words."

And so it was that I started working at Maclynn, swanning off the tube in Mayfair every morning sporting a three-piece herringbone like an absolute bloody legend.
 
We soon dispensed with the matchmaking side of my role—an intense and sentimental 20-something man with crumbling homemade sandwiches for lunch, I didn't quite fit the public-facing aesthetic created by an office of beautiful, glamorous women nibbling exorbitant salads from the nextdoor eatery—and I became Maclynn's sole writer, interviewing singles and writing up their dating profiles.

When I left, Maclynn became my first client as I began navigating life as a freelancer. Then in 2020 they became the very first client of my fledgling business, JMB Copywriting—and remain my longest-standing to this day.

And now for an exhaustive list of my pastimes and other professional ventures past and present, for little discernible reason.