I met Josep Maria Espinàs in 1967. I was going to open my advertising agency when a good friend of mine, Augusto Ferrer, offered me to work at his communication company, Publicontrol, until I found the place to start. That made things a lot easier for me. At that time, Josep Maria Espinàs worked at Publicontrol, which was located on Balmes street, between Travessera de Gràcia and La Granada del Penedès, and wrote wonderful texts. I shared an office with him for several months, I breathed in the smoke from his pipe and he, from my cigarettes, because at that time I was a chain smoker. We talked about many things, especially work, but also life.
Josep Maria was a widely recognized writer and I was a youngster who was starting my professional life, but I remember that he treated me as an equal from the first moment, which always made me feel extraordinarily good with him. If we add to this that when Augusto Ferrer, one of the best communication professionals, would come to us, he would leave us enthralled with his conversation, you can already imagine that my professional satisfaction, during all that time, was maximum.
At that time my family, which owned the Iberia razor blade factory, decided to call a contest between advertising agencies to launch new revolutionary razor blades that shaved much smoother and more often than the others. They called them Filomatic. I decided to enter the contest, although my father had forbidden me. I had the idea that Miguel Gila, whom I didn't know, would announce them, but Augusto Ferrer did and he introduced him to me, at the Las Vegas nightclub on Aribau street, very close to where his office was.
When I told Miguel Gila that I would have to say that the Filomatic shaved very smoothly, he suggested that shaving with the Filomatic gave me pleasure. I developed that idea, which belonged to Gila, not mine, I put everything in a closed and sealed envelope, under an easily registrable name, Publicidad Vénditor and I won the contest. Augusto Ferrer, Josep Maria Espinàs and I celebrated it together, even if it meant that I would open a new office and that we would stop seeing each other so frequently. Our friendship lasted forever.
