I am Adrian Melrose, Welcome!

Coach, community builder, father, writer, music obsessive, and a man with his heart permanently split between London and Cape Town.

I am, as you'll quickly discover, more than one thing at once. That's not a disclaimer — it's the whole point.

This is the place where all of it lives. Not the polished version, not the professional bio, not the carefully curated brand. Just me — figuring things out in public, sharing the journey, and trusting that honesty is more useful than performance.

If you're looking for my coaching work, you'll find it at plaintalk.co.uk. If you're looking for my work with groups and men — the community spaces, the writing on masculinity, loneliness and what it means to truly connect — that lives at 8notes.co.uk and 8notes.substack.com.

This site is something different. This is where you get to know the whole person behind both of those things.

The weight loss quest. The events space I'm building in Cape Town. The questions I'm sitting with about purpose, identity, and what a fully inhabited life actually looks like. The things I care about deeply — joy, music, parenting, belonging, the and/and rather than the either/or.

We are all of us messy, still-becoming human beings. Seeking meaning, connection, and permission to be more than one thing at once.

That's what this space is for.

Start here — The Man With Many Names