A Year To Remember

Index

Chapter 13: The Epilogue
Chapter 12: West Ham United RIP
Chapter 11: The Longest Shortest Day
Chapter 10: Meet The Neigbours
Chapter 9: Running New York
Chapter 8: Cycling Saved My Marriage
Chapter 7: The U.S. Election
Chapter 6: Cycle 1000 miles - see little, learn a lot.
Chapter 5: Eight Months On
Chapter4: The meaning of life ?
Chapter 3: The Three Peaks - They're hard work!
Chapter 2: A month in Africa
Chapter 1: Exit Stage Right

Chapter 13: The Epilogue

2004

2004 has been one of the best years of my life. It had to be. I’m married with three great kids, don’t have to work and have enough money to pay the bills. Only I could have messed it up and luckily, I didn’t. It’s been brilliant. The only question now is how do I keep it up when the novelty is gone? (And how do I stop putting myself under undue pressure like that??)

I did loads of sports and challenges. The term PB (personal best) has entered my life for the first time and after only 41 years!

My year of PB’s

Cycling

Fastest
Cat 3 - 50 mile race at Chertsey. I came 11th out of 48
Cat 4 – 22 mile race at Hillingdon. I came 4th out of 30
Gym bike – 10 miles 24min 49 sec
Richmond Park – 7 miles 21.3mph ave

Furthest
End-To-End 1002 miles 9 days, 23 hrs, 40 mins.
London – Dungeness – London 190 Miles in one day,

Running
5k 20.29 treadmill, Virgin Active
10k 41.54 treadmill, Virgin Active
Half Marathon 1.40.12 treadmill, Virgin Active
Marathon 4.04.58 New York Marathon

Other
Three Peaks Challenge 21 hrs, 21 mins
Skiing ` 3 Black runs in Chamonix
Swimming 2 lengths Virgin Active 55 seconds
Football (St. Paul’s) 6 goals in 8 games 04/05

Its been great to have the thread of staying fit run throughout the year in-order to complete these challenges. It also allowed me to justify to myself what I was going to do for the year. I didn’t feel I actually had to achieve anything other than this (being hard on myself as usual) so I had the mental freedom to really enjoy myself with the kids and Helen.

I did take pretty much the whole six weeks of the summer holiday off from any creative work to spend the time with the kids enjoying London, Devon and Cornwall. It was great.

Other than this the other (minor!) highlights of the year were a month long trip to Africa where I found myself, a vegetarian, eating a T-bone in a gaming reserve in South Africa and watching West ham on video screens in a Bullawayo night club. Also going on a cycle camp in Mallorca was a great place to make mates for the long days in the saddle I spent through the rest of the year. At home my daily visit to one of the local five great cafes to read the broadsheet supplements and share an espresso and muffin with Rose has been a daily highlight.

I also have managed to finally sort out a good diet. This year I have discovered pulses, blueberries, GI Indexes, the bread making machine, 5 portions of fruit a day, gluecosamine and actually now look at that small box of data on the side of a box before I eat its contents.

Oh, and I nearly ended up on a reality TV show, that wasn’t a highlight but it was certainly an experience.


At Home

My perfect day is actually when I’m away from home, doing a challenge or building up to one. At home my life is built around coming up with new creative ideas I can concentrate on when the novelty of trying to stay too fit wears off, which itself fits around my life with Helen and the kids.

This ends up being slightly frustrating though, as it is hard to gauge when creativity is going to strike and I’m going to feel like sitting down for a few hours pummelling out ideas on this laptop. As Alain De Botton says you can sit in front of a computer at home for three hours and nothing, then achieve more between the bread and toilet rolls in Tesco’s than you have for a week…so its frustrating.

At home, I want to be out and about during day and be creative at the kitchen table at night. I feel like I don’t waste time when I’m away and I hate wasting time. Interestingly (for me!) I can’t shake off the Monday–to-Friday work ethic either. For 40 hours a week my brain is telling me I should be doing something and only allows itself to truly relax at weekends.

I manage on most days to feel like I’ve achieved something, mainly through doing some training, which is always for a purpose. But when I’m doing a challenge then I feel complete for the day, I’ve worked hard for (in my mind) a goal that I want to achieve.

I am though without a doubt much calmer and more relaxed.

As Alain De Bottom again says (perhaps I’d better read his ‘Status Anxiety’ book, although it didn’t get great reviews at the time) “A messy house is a sign of a robust inner state, it requires courage and strength of mind. The houses of the tidy, these are the homes of the psychologically brittle”.

I’m proud to say our home, complete with 3 kids, can be a right mess. I couldn’t handle this at all when I worked 9-5. What’s that say about my state of mind after leaving the rat race behind for a while? I now find I can live inside my own head and not worry about the mess around me but when I was working, and stressed, I needed everything neat and tidy, obviously not happy with myself, so trying to find happiness in my surroundings instead.

What does upset the applecart is having an argument with Helen. Our differences are summed up each night on the sofa when we finally sit down to relax – I want the lights brighter and the TV quieter. She wants the lights dimmer and the TV louder!

I can’t work after this at all. Why is it many artists produce their best work when under emotional distress? I can’t produce a thing.

I am still slightly obsessed with reading papers and staying up to date to get that perfect new idea, which I know is impossible as nothing stops long enough to be perfect – so can only be perfect for that second. I always want to do the latest thing. I cant even watch videos, as they are old. There is not enough new information on the web. I even got annoyed at newsnow.com – which collates my West Ham news every five minutes – because there was no new news for a few days. It’s why I like live sport; it brings some unpredictability to life.

I’ve still managed to keep a good social life without the office community to feed it. It has been great to be able to be myself again and not have to put on the airs and graces of being boss. As I cycled to the cinema on my own though the other day I realised I don’t have a community of my own but fit into other peoples; workers, travellers, sports people etc. Luckily I now found it much easier to talk to anyone, something I can still struggle with…. I think it’s my own mood swings that get in the way.

Do you know there’s a 1000 minutes in every waking day (if you sleep for 7hrs, 40mins!), but that it’s not enough.

I have considered splitting my day into three-hour chunks where I focus on just one thing, to get the most out of it. Even though it’s impossible to predict or manage when I’m going to be productive, I was considering trying something like this….

9am – 12 Training
12.30 – 3.30 Sleep
3.30pm – 5.30 work – talking to people
5.30pm – 8.30 With Kids
8.30pm – 11.30 Wife / social
11.30pm – 2.30am creative work


So going forward into 2005 and beyond….

I cherish memories that will stay with me forever. I like to invest in memories and not products. I buy only things I need, and like to do what I want.

I am still trying to truly relax and enjoy my life and not feel like I’m constantly on a moving train. I want to be myself and not a rat race face.

The only often heard regret I hear is that people wish they had spent more time with their kids while they lived at home. I am in a position to never have that regret and I intend to make sure I don’t.

I want to die happy with myself. if I was to get knocked off my bike tomorrow I think I would be happy – happy with myself, that I know and spend enough time with my family, that my family love me, and that I can relax and have loved my life.

I can say that at 41 but lets hope I feel the same when the time comes and it isn’t for at least another 41 years.

Since giving up work for a while I have less need to rush off abroad the moment the kids break up and actually feel happier spending time in and around home and London

I have honed down the new ideas I would like to pursue in 2005 to about nine! I have worked out why I have trouble committing to working on any one single idea though. It’s because it means sacrificing all my other ideas and the process I love most, of soaking up contemporary culture and creating those ideas. For me it would possibly be harder than giving up drinking or smoking.

I am considering taking a year off from trying everything and concentrate on just one or two things before another year has gone past. (Richard Curtis is trying this and forsaking everything else to concentrate on ‘Make Poverty History’ for 2005)

These days you can’t compete in any one thing; business, art, sport etc if you want to do more than one as you are competing with geeks who specialise completely in one thing. Demos (the Government research agency) recently identified this immerging group of people that do something they enjoy to a professional level.

So this year I’m going to try and be the exception to the rule (as bloody normal!). I’m going to concentrate on four things that I love doing. I am in a fortunate position so I must take this opportunity to do what I really really want to do - to do things I believe in.

So in 2005 I am going to continue to spend as much time as I want with my family. I am launching a not-for-profit enterprise that will help reduce the negative effects of marketing to children (bullying, debt, low self esteem etc). I am going to continue doing some challenges. I am going to try and put on an art exhibition (only done one since I left art college 25 years ago!) and I am going to continue writing.

Here’s to 2004 – a great year and here’s to an even better one in 2005.

Chapter 12: West Ham United RIP

West Ham United
RIP
20th June 1969 – 18th October 2003

For me, West Ham was born around the same time as my own 6th birthday, when I started to support them from the far-flung ‘airport’ of Farnborough in Hampshire. I think it was due to Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters, all products of the ‘Academy Of Football’, who together lifted the World Cup wearing my favourite colours, claret and blue. The residue of that World Cup win must have taken three years to reach the suburbs, down the newly carved M3 motorway.

But the club I grew up with and loved, died on 18th October 2003.


Who was West Ham?

West Ham was the family club of English football and the ‘Academy Of Football. We all knew it. Football supporters worldwide know it. ‘The Academy Of Football’ (it’s even written on the pitch). No one else could hold that title.

Our support extends worldwide due totally to those two ‘brand’ values. The best players in the world graduate from the Academy and the club and its supporters are a family, we look after our own. Our support extends much further than the catchment area of East London due to the whole football world identifying with those values.

The two are intertwined but that’s what brought the loyalty in the supporters. Players would grow up in the Academy, while we grew-up alongside them at school. Like us, they had been with West Ham since they were boys so we knew they cared about the club as much as we did.

There’s too many to mention but I literally grew up along with Bobby Moore, Paul Allen, Tony Cottee, Alvin Martin, Mervyn Day, Trevor Brooking, Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard snr/jnr and Joe Cole amongst many many others.

I first came face to face with a player at an Esso garage in Farnborough as Bobby Moore fulfilled his sponsor’s requirements by signing autographs at the cash desk on the A325. It ended up in one of my numerous scrapbooks and I was smitten. My father isn’t keen on football so for years I was only allowed to go and watch the local squaddies, Aldershot in their annual ‘war’ with the navy of Portsmouth. It wasn’t until 1976 that I finally saw West Ham in the flesh. We went 1-0 up but ended up losing 1-6 to QPR in a League Cup match. I left the match in tears, alone but for my father, as the few thousand experienced Hammers fans around me had left when things went too far.

In my twenties and with a mundane job, the Irons became my life. I went to every single game of the brilliant 85-86 season. I sung my heart out at Villa Park along with the 20,000 others in claret and blue that ‘Galey’ day, I went to France when we overcame a deficit to win the InterToto (oh the glamour of the cup!). I appeared in the match programme and was asked to do the tannoy announcing when Ian Crocker ‘disappeared’ to TV, I play for the Internet Irons football team, I cycled all the way to our last Premiership match for the Bobby Moore Cancer Research Fund and last week I even stayed at the hotel for a birthday treat.

I’ve invested so much in this relationship with a football club that has now effectively died.


How West Ham United Died


18th October 2003 was the day that Trevor Brooking finally left West Ham United.

And with him went any link to the ‘Academy Of Football’ and our deep rooted, core family club values.

Of course, I don’t blame Trevor for the death, he had been like the second coming, almost single-handily keeping the club alive when all around him had given up hope.

But as he left what did the club do? Nothing. They allowed all the values of West Ham to leave with him. I admit we still had Michael Carrick and Jermain Defoe but they had already left the club in spirit if not body. The club even dispensed of Paul Goddard, ‘Sarge’ being an honoury member of the Academy.

How do I know my West Ham is dead? Because at 4.45pm on a Saturday irrespective of our result I remain impassive. That’s not what football is about, that’s not what I brought into from my school years into my 40’s. I’ve lived through highs (a few) and numerous ruined weekends, based on what that scoreboard said at 4.45pm, but now, nothing.

The last time I remember the players showing they cared was away at Birmingham, the game I cycled to, but who will forget those last two runs of 14 games under Trevor; Manchester City, Chelsea and Bolton and again in the Championship – 9 wins and only one loss. Five home grown players, a home grown manager and us, we all cared.

Now, I’m beyond caring because the reason why I support West Ham, the reason why we all support West Ham, no longer exists.

West Ham United, from 19th October 2003 pretends to be something it no longer is. We are not the ‘Academy Of Football’ and we are no longer the family club. Families look after their own but the current ‘guardians’ of this family do not give the impression that they do.


But taking off my emotional supporter’s hat for a moment and putting on my cold marketing one (I finally grew up to start two marketing agencies which I have now sold, giving me the time to write about things I care about, but also with some experience that, to a small degree, means I know what I’m talking about).

Customers buy ‘stuff’ because ‘stuff’ is now imbued with properties and personalities that make us feel better about ourselves. Products have become brands and to be a successful brand it has to be what it claims to be.

West Ham had two of the best brand values that any club in any sport in the world would die for and they have killed them both. Even worse, they live neither but claim they do. ‘Academy Of Football’ is printed on the pitch, for God’s sake.

It is like Nike announcing it is buying its trainers from Tesco’s and then stitching the swoosh onto them and claiming they are still the best shoe in which you can ‘Just Do It’, it doesn’t work – you wouldn’t believe them

So, looking at our two brand values…


The Academy

Not replacing Brooking was a major mistake. It broke all links to our world-class academy. I know Sir Trevor of England is a one off but why wasn’t he replaced in some form? There is no one in the first team set-up who grew up with the club, and that the supporters believe believes in the cause in the same way that they do. Anyone in the first team set-up could leave at any time, the supporters are stuck with the club (whether they like it or not) for the rest of their lives.

Even the biggest clubs in the World have recognised the benefits of keeping the line to their heritage alive, both for the benefit of the supporters and the new, now often continential, players. Manchester Utd have Bobby Charlton on the board, Mourinho kept Steve Clarke on the bench and Wenger, Pat Rice. How much does that say about the intelligence of those two managers when they probably had more than an even opportunity to sever the heritage links? Even, even…! Ken Bates knows this and at Leeds Peter Lorimer remains a figurehead to both the new young players and old seen-it-all-before supporters.

The academy is a world known major value of West Ham United. This is the one club in the World that should be delivering it at every opportunity yet the club has actively distanced itself from that position.

The supporters need someone working with the board and the team that they believe thinks the same way as them, someone who mentally couldn’t just up and leave the club.

Tony Cottee recently suggested that Tony Gale and Alvin Martin would walk to the club if they could help out in any way, an offer politely rejected by Pardew.

Obviously the Academy is also not currently producing any graduates that can be held up alongside those that I named earlier. In the last twelve months West Ham have had more players from a third rate youth academy in Milton Keynes than the world famous ‘Academy Of Football’ in east London.

There is more of the West Ham Academy value in Chelsea and Tottenham than there is in East London. Unbelievably, if we ever got back into Europe I think we would struggle to fulfil UEFA’s new regulations for the number of home grown players needed in each squad, while ironically our Academy (of past) provides more players to the England squad than any other club.

It’s why the supporters have taken Mark Noble to their hearts, good for him for going in hard, he’ll be supported forever more. The club does also have Chris Cohen but I think Anton is struggling under a name to live up to. But West Ham are a league down, where are the rest of the young players? When did West Ham stop cultivating players good enough to play even in the Championship? There are now far more of our academy players in Division 2 and 3 than there are at West Ham, nearly as many as at Chelsea!

Who remembers the tannoy announcer saying ‘you will be able to tell your grandchildren you were here, the day Joe Cole signed full-time for West Ham?’

Well we remember, but by the age of 22 he’s gone, along with the Academy.


The Family Club

The Academy players growing up within the club and the location of West Ham, in the unique community areas of East London led to the second but equally important brand value of the club, its family values.

This has led the club to being able to literally ‘rely’ on near full houses for years and the worldwide fame as an English club with a warm heart.

But again, the club has managed to damage this reputation, this value. The crowds now dip below 20,000, as supporters no longer feel part of the family.

I ring up, order tickets, stay at the hotel, play for the internet irons team. I have been a customer of this company for 35 years but they have no idea who I am. They don’t know me and they don’t care about me. I could be a supporter of that week’s opposition for all they know.

They got rid of all the supporters’ favourite players. I grew up with players that stayed ‘in the family’ for years but now a friend of mine’s six year old son, has given up after having 3 favourites in two years: Joe Cole, Jermain Defoe and David Connolly.

Supporters never stop loving or caring but they feel nothing is coming back. Yet still they are expected to turn up and part with hard earned cash for an empty shell of its former self.

If you don’t live near West Ham, why would you support them now?


Trying Another Club

In any other industry if the board of a company destroyed a brand the customers would leave overnight, the company bankrupt and a competitor befitting from the new customers.

But no one does that in football. Although with Chelsea winning everything with our Academy (they are winning everything with everything we support West Ham for), I thought I would go and see what it would be like to take my custom elsewhere.

What you actually find out is how much you put up with over the years; all the other annoying people going too, shoving on the underground, very bad haircuts!, people invading your space, rude, aggressive, stupid people, different celebs, but still nameless ones from soaps operas, you actually read a programme while the match is on, because when you don’t support the club you realise how much of the match can be boring, you suffer long queues if you want to eat or drink anything. Everything about the place annoys you.

Everything from the outside looks the same but everything is wrong.

So we have to get it right at West Ham. We have to make them listen.


The Resurrection

How can they bring West Ham back to life?

The stupid thing is it is easy to get wrong but also easy to get right again. It really doesn’t take much to get your attention again. A little effort (Ipswich, Norwich) and the sparkle is there again. You want to love the club; they know that but unfortunately at the moment have abused it.

The main thing must be to get a figurehead in, someone to replace Trevor in talking both to supporters and to the players. Someone to instil the heritage in to everyone. Someone that will inspire the supporters to turn up and support because they know the club cares and the players have been told they must care also.

The Academy needs to be producing good players more often. In relation to buying players and their salaries it must be so much more cost effective to invest in not just the future of the club but what the club stands for around the entire world.

Why do they not keep a database of supporters (customers) so they could perhaps send a birthday card, send offers for merchandise, offers for tickets if they see you haven’t come for a while. Just show we are part of the family.

The question is can West Ham have success again without a successful Academy and family values at the heart of the club? Could Pardew and the board have success without these in place? I don’t think so.

Supporters will stay with West Ham in whatever division they are in until the day they die but only if the club shows they are ALL part of the family, developing from childhood, both the very best players and the very best supporters.

Chapter 11: The Longest Shortest Day

So a bit of a mad challenge in Christmas week – to cycle 200 miles on the shortest day of the year.

Why?

I’ve been looking into doing a skiing race to the North Pole, which it turns out is actually quite hardcore. You have two weeks training in Austria, one weeks training around Resolute, the town nearest the magnetic North Pole and then a two – three week ‘race’ to the pole. The race involves teams of three wearing the warmest clothes known to man and simply cross country skiing for about 9 hours a day.

What this actually means is walking endlessly along in freezing temperatures, where you can just about see the line in front of you - and nothing else.

So what better mental training than cycling 200 miles, with most of it the pitch black. I did it to see how I felt along the way, how hard mentally would it be to keep going in the dark and cold for hour upon hour.

I left home at 7am to head towards Brighton. It was bloody cold – even if it was only the Surrey Hills and not a polar ice cap. I struggled to get going and stopped at a café for coffee and cake early on.

Got to Brighton (55 miles) and headed east towards Folkestone, along the sea front. This was the enjoyable 70 miles of the day, all in good sunlight, through seaside towns and with not too much of a headwind.

I picked up a sandwich on the go in Newhaven, that I have to say must rank as the worst British town I have ever visited – it was shite. I was busy cycling away from the town scoffing my tuna mayonnaise roll when I noticed it tasted a bit creamy. I looked down to find the whole thing seemed to have been filled with a pound of margarine. At this rate I would be checking into a hospital in Folkestone recovering from a heart attack cased by blocked arteries.

By the time I got to Dungeness I was back into the dark and cold. I didn’t think I had gone quite far enough along the coastline but decided to turn back towards London anyway.

This was then followed by four hours of what are supposed to be A roads but seemed to be pitch black B roads and as I neared the outskirts of London – plenty of hills.

Every car that approached from the other direction was on full beam and didn’t feel the need to drop the headlights as they past me. So I was either blind from the darkness or blind from headlights – it was great!

The only points of interest were the Christmas lights that adorned country houses and pubs that I would pass every few miles. It gave a slight warming cosy feel to the slog.

As I got into South East London my chain slipped a couple of times, followed quickly by the rear derailleur shearing itself off and planting itself into the spokes of the back wheel. Luckily I was going up hill behind a bus so managed to not fall off as the bike ground to a sudden halt.

Even more luckier and maybe some payment back for having madly cycled by that stage 190 miles, a tube station was 100 yards away. I clomped back down the street and onto the platform, up to Charing Cross and home to a lovely bath in Hammersmith.

So it was OK.

It was obviously fairly hard physically but much harder mentally. I think having a supportive wife txting away and three kids to get back for, was a great help. I think if I had been aiming for anywhere other than home, on my own and had to repeat it the following day, it would be a hard mental challenge.

But anyway it makes a good challenge – Dec 19th 2005 – the longest shortest day – who’s coming?

Chapter 10: Meet The neighbours

I must say sorry to my wife first. I did this without telling her until it was too late and she was understandably not too happy. Sorry.

I invited our whole street round to our house.

It does seem mad to me that generally neighbours don’t seem to want to know each other. I was also inspired by the ‘change the world for a fiver’ book and by ‘How To Be Good’ by Nick Hornby.

So I dropped an invitation full of irony, and hopefully some depreciating humour, through the letterboxes of the 27 identical houses that we are attached to, in the terrace street in which we live in.

The Invitation

So what happened?

Well a week later you nearly got to read about it in the papers as I was on the verge of PR’ing the fact that we lived in the most anti-social street in Britain – no replies.

Over the next week though we started to get a few polite rejections, so at least people acknowledged we existed, although by the end of that week I wasn’t sure if I lived in the most ant-social street in Britain or the street with the most second homes as the popular excuse was that ‘sorry but we’re going to our place in the country for the weekend’

We did start to get a few acceptances though and by party day – Sunday at 5pm – we had nine – yes nine – yes’s!

Which actually meant it went well. There were few enough people to enable everyone to meet everyone else – mostly for the first time. The room was full of mainly lawyers or writers – or a combination of the two.

We even had someone volunteer to be the host for next year.

So it worked, although I have to say the relief we felt as we shut the door to the final leavers was immense. I think it was an experience that has brought our whole family closer together.

My wife asked me the other day why I want neighbours to talk to each other when they obviously don’t want to. But why is that people want to talk to old school friends, meet possible new partners on-line or at speed dating, have dinner parties with incompatible other parents, who they only know from the school gate or even make life long friendships on charity treks that have taken them away from the people they spend all their life with?


Talk to your neighbours – you never know you may have something in common and if not it should help defuse the negative thoughts you have when one of them invariably annoys you by parking in the wrong place or making too much noise…

Chapter 9: The New York Marathon

I’ve never felt any inclination towards doing a marathon. I’m not a runner at all (the most I have done before is five miles in cross country at school when I was fifteen). Plus it obviously always looks like it is sheer hell. But in this year of doing challenges I thought I’d better give it a go. I entered New York as I thought running around streets I’ve never been down before would help take my mind off the pain I would obviously experience.

I was meant to start training in July and I did manage two weeks on a treadmill but then I went outside and did an 8 mile run, which seemed to go fine. The next day though, I couldn’t walk and it turned out I had bruised ligaments and a tight IT band through my right knee. I couldn’t even do one mile of running after that for another four weeks.

I managed to get in to see a great physio (Tara at Charing Cross sports injuries clinic) and she had some orthotics made for my incredibly large flat feet in order to give them some shape and take the pressure off my knees.

I then did my 10 day, 1,000 mile cycle ride from Lands End to John O’Groats and so didn’t get down to some serious treadmill training until only six weeks before the run.

What you don’t realise before you commit to one of these things is the amount of running you do have to do in order to build up your endurance capacity and the strength in your legs. I averaged about 30 miles a week for the six weeks leading up to New York. Which was still less than you are meant to do! You also have to reduce the miles dramatically in the two weeks leading up to the event.

In that time I only actually did one run outside, a seven mile Nike Store run round Regents Park.

So getting to New York I was obviously nervous: Would I suffer a re-occurrence of the knee injury within the first ten miles and have to stop? In New York I also picked up a cold so had to fill up with herbal remedies and loads of oranges.

On the day of the marathon though it all seemed to just come together. It was a brilliantly hot sunny day and as I made my way to the start buses I felt good.

Paula Radcliffe would call my preparation meticulous, while normal runners like you and me would call it insane. You are allowed to take one plastic bag of stuff to the start line to be collected after and that contains stuff you need for the few hours before the start.

I had the biggest bag! It contained anything I might need if I was to change my mind about anything at all at the last minute! It had spare inner soles - in case I decided to run without my orthotics in, spare hats, gloves, long sleeve and short sleeve vests, thick socks, thin socks, – what was I going to wear??

The food that I ran on – which I do so recommend, as I felt full of energy was:
2 New York bagels – filled with peanut butter – full of carbohydrates and the peanut sticks to your insides to make you fill full up for longer – it worked!
A small pot of honey
2 oranges and a banana
Cashews - in order to suck the salt off before we started
and cheerios.

I had six pees in the 60 minutes leading up to the start, each shorter than the one before, as I tried to make sure my bladder was completely empty. I still had to stop for a very brief pee after about 15 miles.

I also re-tied my laces about 6 times in the same period. Trying to get the optimum tightness – not too tight – not too lose. One of them still came undone after 19 miles. What was that about? Waiting 19 miles to come undone.

I was told by loads of people ‘Don’t do a Chris Ward’, which I think meant to rush off early and knacker myself out. Am I famous for this? The sponsors provide pace people, for every 15 minute period finish time, that you can run nearby to if you wish to aim for a certain finish time. I ran around the 4.00hr man.

The first eighteen miles were brilliant. It seemed to be an easy pace for me and I was very comfortable and enjoying the crowd and the views. It even crossed my mind that I’ll be able to speed up over the last six miles and finish well within four hours…..

….the naivety of a first time runner. It started to get hard – but a manageable hard. The water points were turning into a bit of a scrum and it was hard to motivate yourself to get running again as soon as you picked up your water and found yourself surrounded by walking runners.

Over the last eight miles it was hard – but a perversely enjoyable – battle against your own will. I stopped several times for around 30 seconds and over the last eight miles lost five minutes on ‘my’ pace man. I thought it was more, so when I saw after 25 miles that I was still under 4 hours I was very happy. At the last water stop I picked up the cup and simply threw the contents into my face, it was the only thing that was going to keep me going.

Very slightly annoyingly the New York Marathon ends with about three upwards slopes (hills!) that after 25 miles feel like you are climbing K2. That is when the battle with yourself is at its hardest – but when the crowd are at their best.

The supporters were absolutely fantastic throughout. There is a noticeable community feel about New York that doesn’t exist in London. People look after each other and appeared friendlier. I suppose this could be a positive outcome of 9:11.

I had put a sign on my front that said ‘Doing It For The Kids’ (to remind me of doing it for Molly, Bob and Rose) and it was great to hear it shouted by the crowd, especially over the last three miles where it really did help keep me going.

The top 11 highlights
1. Finishing!
2. Supportive txts from friends
3. ‘No Sleep Till Brooklyn’ booming out of speakers in Brooklyn and the whole crowd jumping along.
4. And just along, ‘YMCA’ being played and 37,000 runners doing the arm actions as they passed.
5. The crowd screaming support as we passed under very echo’y bridges
6. The view of Manhattan as we crossed the start bridge from Staten Island
7. The small words of encouragement from fellow runners
8. The crowd shouting at me to ‘do it for the kids’
9. The autumnal scenery and unseasonal high & sunny weather of New York
10. Tearfully talking to Helen and the kids at the finish.
11. Opening my ‘HERO’ letter from the family at the end


It really couldn’t have been more enjoyable for me. The worst-case scenario would have been having to stop through knee pain at about 7 miles. The best would have been finishing in under 4 hours. Everything seemed to come together on the day and I am happy to have finished in 4 hours, 4 minutes and 58 seconds – on a brilliant day, in a fantastic city with a two million strong crowd. It was one of the best things I have ever done and I can’t wait to do it again, though only quicker I hope….

Why don’t you join me next year? I’m in my forties and managed it well on six weeks good training. If you enter and train well you can have one of the best and most rewarding days of your life. I’m serious, let me know if you’d like to do a marathon and we’ll find a good one to enter in 2005.


My Stats

Finish time 4 hrs, 4 min, 58 sec
Finish position 11,281 out of 37,257
Finish position in my age group (40-44) 1,864 out of 6,613
10k time 56 min, 33 sec
Half marathon time 1 hr, 58 min, 59 sec
20 mile time 3 hrs, 4 min, 02 sec

Chapter 8: Cycling Saved My Marriage

My wife is, and has always been, brilliant to me! She has always allowed me to do as much sport as I’ve wanted to, which to be honest has pretty much been playing football, and then to let me come home and talk about it endlessly to her.

It may be because I managed to bag a big football supporter, and one in a consistently good mood, she supports Arsenal! So when I come home and go into intense detail about how the goal I scored wasn’t off-side and how I got kicked on my ankle by a big centre half who looked like Tony Adams and even moaning about how my boots are too muddy and my shin-pads broken, she has always been the most knowledgeable and sympathetic I could ever wish for.

But this year I pushed it too far. I’m 41 and have some time on my hands, so have set myself a number of charity challenges (and not just football), and including cycling from Lands End to John O’Groats.

My wife knows all about David Seamen’s positioning, Charlie George’s bad hair days, Malcolm MacDonald’s bandy legs and she’s certainly more than enough of a sports fan to know who Lance is and to have cheered as Bradley won his third medal – but not even I could actually explain what on earth was going on as he did.

But what she doesn’t know about, and what I’ve found out to the detriment of my marriage, doesn’t ever want to know about, is the size of my chain ring, what a cat 4 licence is, the benefits of dryfit lycra, my heart rate and certainly not the number of calories I burnt this morning.

I became in danger of boring my marriage to death.

So I’ve been in this alone. Not being able to come home and report in the finest details about my cycling, I had to sign-up for a training camp in Mallorca to make some ‘cycling’ friends that would be interested in exchanging this vital information.

This seemed to make matters worse as I would be chatting about cycling to other cyclists, rather than moaning about West Ham United to her. So our marriage become strained. She wanted to go back to listening to me ‘going on’ about how ‘we’ had wasted all the money ‘we’ got for Rio Ferdinand, to seeing me despair over relegation and another point dropped in a town she new no where. She wanted desperately to go back to gloating over an unbeaten 49 game run……

But one day recently it all changed….

I managed to get Helen (for that is the name of my best football pal) and our three young kids to come and watch me in a real race. 20 miles round 20 laps of a tarmaced course. She needed a lot of encouragement and very, very specific directions in-order to persuade her to sacrifice a Saturday morning to watching ‘your Dad running cycling in circles’. But minutes before the start they did all turn up, although shouting loudly for all to hear ‘don’t give up like Paula’ was not quite the support I was looking for.

I wanted to do well. I’d been in a few races previously and had actually managed an 8th in one race but that was against people that my wife never saw. The ‘competition’ I reported to her about, that even without meeting, she considered sadder and duller than me.

So we set off, me keener than ever, without trying to show it, I got into the leading bunch and spent the best part of the race behind the leading few - embarrassingly too close at one point as I caught the back wheel of the bike in front and nearly came a cropper – luckily the kids were looking the other way but the wife saw it – and heard the moans of the other competitors behind – she still laughs now.

But round we came for the last lap and I put everything and I mean everything, into it. I crossed the line in 4th place. The kids didn’t seem to realise the race was even over but as I came round from the warm-down lap I could see a slight smile on my wife’s face. If I wasn’t mistaken she was actually looking slightly proud of me.

Suddenly, the kids also started to show interest, but not in me. I had won a cash prize and as all three of them hung off me wanting to know what was in my brown envelope, stuffed with…£7. Just enough to get them a comic each – the sacrifice they had each made for this journey to support Dad.

I packed up and got in the car to receive the best winning kiss anyone’s ever received for coming 4th! She was proud, the competition weren’t sad idiots but actually good humoured, even attractive, cyclists, with even a few that as well as cycling, liked football. Some of them even looked quite fit - I had earned my 4th place kiss!

That night I received my reward in full.

It still doesn’t mean she cares any more about riding positions and lyrca than moulded or screw-ins but the best thing of all – she pretends she does.

Chapter 7: The U.S. Election

The Guardian newspaper have just run a great project whereby they have legally obtained a list of the unafiliated voters in the 'too close to call' Clark County in the States and are encouraging Guardian readers who feel the US election is important to the whole World, to write to an individual voter in Clark County.

This is our family letter:


19th October 2004

Dear Delcie Fent,

My wife and I are writing to you from London, England in response to a project put together by one of our daily newspapers, The Guardian. They and we, feel your upcoming US election is of such importance to us in the UK and the World as a whole that they (legally I believe) accessed public records of unaffiliated voters in your very close to call, Clark County and provided one name and address to each reader of the Guardian who would like to write to you US voters.

We in no way can pretend to understand all the issues that will influence the decision you have to make as to who to vote for but we would just like to briefly introduce ourselves and give you a Londoners view. We hope you receive this letter with the goodwill with which it is intended. We have our own important general election next year so we are simply writing to you as one human being to another, who both have a chance to have our say in the way the World is being managed on our behalf.

We are Chris & Helen, married with three young kids: Molly 8, Bob 5 and Rose who is 3 tomorrow! We live in West London, where we have been for twelve years. I am (hopefully!) a bit of an entrepreneur and started a couple of marketing companies that have done us OK. So much so, that Helen is able to stay at home and look after the kids - and the house!

I am actually coming to the States the day after your election, to run in the New York Marathon. I have recently cycled the length of the UK (Lands End to John O'Groats) but this will be my first marathon. I am doing it for the bike racer Lance Armstrong's cancer fund, as Lance is such a hero of mine and my sister, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, although only in her 30's.

I am coming to run in New York as I love the city and the parts of the US we have previously visited. We have many friends there and I know I will receive fantastic support during the run.

The only message we wanted to get to you from London regarding your important election is that the majority of Britain's do not support our Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to make Britain part of the invasion of Iraq. I see George Bush often defend his decision to attack Iraq by saying that he had the full support of Tony Blair - this is true - but only of Tony Blair, normal people like us in Britain now hate Tony Blair for taking us into an illegal war that did not need to be considered until NATO weapons inspectors had finished their work.

At my marketing company we helped Tony Blair get elected by encouraging student Labour supporters to make sure they voted for him in 1997. By taking our young men and women to war and helping create a World of such uncertainty we could not bring ourselves to vote for him again.

Our whole family took part in the biggest ever demonstration in Britain against the invasion. Molly and Bob even made their own anti-war posters.

So now we live crazy times and its horrible. As I said I do not know enough of what is involved in deciding who is best to run your country but I did want you to know that the majority of British people did not, and do not, support George Bush and Tony Blair taking us to this illegal war.

We hope the election result is what you want and that post November 3rd the whole World can all wake up in a safer and more stable place.

All our best wishes and good luck.

Chris & Helen.

Chapter 6: Cycle 1000 miles - see little, learn a lot.

I’ve just cycled 1002 miles in just under ten days – travelling from Lands End, at the very southwest tip of England, to John O’Groats, at the very northeast tip of Scotland.

Sounds boring….and in many ways it is but if you keep your eyes open you learn a lot, if not see much, apart from hedgerows and sheep.

The Facts.
I went with cycling friend, Kevin. We travelled on good road racing bikes and carried only one bag on our backs (with half a change of clothing) and a saddlebag with essential spares.

We did about 100 miles a day and stayed at B&B’s we found along the way. We stayed as much as possible to ‘B’ roads and lanes. You go from south to north so you get some good following wind in the first few days and get over the first days of climbing the Devon and Cornwall hills.

Every day was the same.
Alarm at 7.15am
Breakfast of cereal and cooked veggies
On bikes around 9ish
Cycle 35-50 miles
Have a break
Cycle 30-40 miles
Have another break
Cycle the rest
Find a B&B
Have a shower and do some stretching
Find a pub with food
Eat loads, drink one pint
Watch football on TV
Txt and call friends
Go to bed

So what did I actually see?
In a way, not a lot: some nice villages, some excellent lochs, some major towns and cities – Chester, Liverpool, Glasgow etc and some good coast line.

The Challenge.
The challenge isn’t so much the distance and time but the weather conditions. As long as you stop and eat regularly you avoid much degeneration. But the weather!? There were days when we almost got blown off the bike, almost suffered hypothermia in the highlands and battled all the way out to John O’Groats on the final day. But also there were days when we flew along at 25mph for hours on end in short sleeves. The challenge is against the conditions – not against the distance.

What did we learn?
Everyone has been touched by cancer somewhere. We were cycling for two cancer charities, when we mentioned this everyone had a story of a friend or family member who had cancer.

Cafes in cities are for young people for breaks from their routine, in the villages they are for old people to laugh, chat and wile away the day.

Cities cause road rage. We were never hooted in the countryside but as soon as we hit a city there would be some car with some problem with the way we simply existed on the road. When you’ve been cycling for hours through countryside and hit a big city it really hits you back as to how condensed, dirty and frantic these places are to live.

Obviously then, people are friendlier in the countryside and villages. Outside the cities we couldn’t buy anything without a half hour chat – either with the shopkeeper or the person in front in the queue. I was in support of the quirky ‘ independence for London’ campaign (especially when I heard a regional DJ announce “and after the break Charles and Eddy” – that wouldn’t happen in London! But we need each other – the people (that may in the main support hunting) but are friendlier, more helpful, have more time and are more rounded than us city dwellers.

So many people live to shop. Whatever time we hit a city the streets would be packed with people carrying branded retail bags. Something has got to be done to encourage people to find fulfilment through other means.

B&B’s must be the nations largest sector of small business. Each is run by an entreprenaur. All are working at ways to make sure their business is as busy and profitable as possible – because they need to in order to live. We paid between £17 and £25 a night each and that’s not much with which to build a small business and live.

There must be a book somewhere for ‘running a successful B&B’ as several golden rules seem to crop up in most places – a small edible chocolate ‘treat’ in the bedroom, letting people serve themselves as much cereal as they wanted, having facilities for drying wet clothes, when these things weren’t in place it was noticed.

The church really was so influential in the past. We cycled through so many villages with enormous churches. Villages that at the time of the church build must have had a handful of resident cottages. Now so many of those churches had a barometer outside, measuring the amount of money that had been raised for a new roof or steeple…

Many people in this country work all hours for almost no money. There was the transit driver who took our bikes from John O’Groats to Inverness for our flight home, who had moved into a mobile home as he couldn’t afford the council tax and was lifting us 110 miles at 6am for £20 cash in hand. He was due to finish at 7pm. The café owners who would be up at break of dawn to bake and then sell their bread and cakes until closing time for a pittance.

Chain stores have got a few things right and that’s frustrating. In a few towns we ended up in chain coffees stores and not local cafes. Which is mad – travel through the country but go to a café that could be anywhere. But the reason for this is the chains were better – more choice, better coffee and still open when we came passed at gone six. Surely some café owners can learn and incorporate the best of both so they provide the best product along with the best environment.


My overriding memories and one highlight.

Writing down huge lists, in tiny writing, of all the villages we were going through the following day so we wouldn’t get lost in the lanes.

Cycling down un-signposted lanes no-handed trying to get that list out of my back pocket.

Buying two papers between us and ripping out the bits we wanted to read in the daytime cafes and reading them in the evening pubs.

Listening to Radio 2 on my essential mobile / radio as I cycled in the wind and rain. It was the only station I could get but kept my mind occupied through the hardest bits.

Seeing the word ‘Slow’ written in massive letters on the road, just on the brow of a hill we’ve taken 20 minutes to climb!

The words and things we saw more than anything else – hedgerows, sheep, ‘Londis’, ‘Spa’, ‘No’ and ‘Vacancies’

B&B always offer a grilled tomato and only produce baked beans by special request.

Eating packets of sweets for the first time in years – Bon Bons and Murray Mints kept me going for many a mile.

My mobile only ringing in the few minutes I actually wasn’t cycling each day and my wife claiming it was her witchcraft.

Getting txts of support – even one a day can be enough to motivate you when things get tough

Pubs and cafes marked as being up lanes on handwritten signposts are always too far. We gave up on several but managed 8 miles off track once for a piece of cake and a double espresso

It’s a lot harder to go up hills with a bag on your back than without!

…And whatever you do, your bum will ache.

The highlight. As Kevin knows there is only one and it came on the last day. We had 80 miles before 5pm to make the trip in less than 10 days. Having gone 7 miles we did our normal stop to remove our jackets as we warmed up. ‘Where’s my bag?’ enquired Kevin looking at his bike – and not a lot else. He had managed to do the 7 miles with the bag still back at the B&B. I did feel guilty as I laughed.

PS – in hindsight, another highlight. In 1000 miles of cycling we never had one ‘incident’. We never felt in danger at any point and never clashed with anyone on the road.


What did I get out of it?

I love simplicity. So travelling in lyrca for 10 days and only having one bag was excellent. When we arrived for our flight home we were told our bikes wouldn’t be allowed on if not packed in boxes. One call to Halfords and a taxi firm resulted in two cardboard bike boxes ferried out to the airport with minutes to spare. It’s great what you can achieve when you’re travelling light and the travelling is the only thing you have to focus on.

You cannot concentrate your mind on much for long when you’re cycling, it’s as if life stops. I progressed nothing in my mind while I was away. You just focus on one thing and achieve it and that’s a great break from routine.

Chapter 5: Eight Months On

Where Am I? – eight months after leaving work.

The first few months after leaving my last workplace I needed to rid the politics of work from my brain (and heart) by getting everything I felt down on paper.

I then went mad doing loads of things I’ve always wanted to do – learning to ski, going on a cycle training camp, stewarding and participating in the mass anti-Government / anti-war demos, travelling to Africa, bike racing, the three peaks challenge etc – its been brilliant.

From doing these ‘ challenges’ I figure I love
The escape from every day life
The anticipation and preparation required
The camaraderie and team spirit when doing them
The physical challenge for my body.

I love everything about them! (apart from the downer I feel the week after, up and until I have set my sights on the next ‘challenge’)

Africa was a trip to see what affect it would have on me – it was major – but in a way so not what I was expecting. I have got to a stage where:

I have come to the conclusion that at the moment I cannot believe in the existance of God and that I am here to stand on my own two feet, be answerable to myself and those around me and to simply contribute to and enjoy life as much as I can.

That I will get no further ‘real’ satisfaction from attaining achievements in order to provide fulfilment to myself. If I’m not happy and contented with myself now then achieving things – starting a new company etc will not do it for me.

So, where do I go from here?

I’ve stopped looking for satisfaction elsewhere and am trying to live day to day. That’s easier said than done. It was easy at first but I’m still looking for my life to be moved forward daily by reading the newspapers, buying the latest CD’s and spending too much time on e-mail and the Internet. I need to break that connection. That thing that creates a forward moving thread through my life. It’s as if the world (life) moves on and I have to hold on to it to move my own life forward, rather than my own life having its own momentum.

I am currently living without that recognisable purpose – a thread that I am running along that gives me an identity to myself and for my friends. I have no pigeon hole.

A small point to you, but major to me is that I’ve also got to consider that I’m in danger of ruining my enjoyment of playing sport. Previously this has been the great escape from the daily stresses. I can lose myself chasing a ball or a faster cyclist. But now I’m looking to be fitter and healthier and to achieve physical challenges playing sport, means it turns into a daily measurement of my improving (or declining) fitness. So it’s now as much about heart rate monitors, calories burnt and how best to replace them, amount of liquid drunk and, especially having been to Africa for a month, are my bowels opening regularly enough! If I’m not getting fitter (or more importantly if I don’t feel I’m getting fitter) then I’m getting the first nervous thoughts that playing sport could start to create its own stresses.

The fight to not return to my former life is also a daily battle. I know it so well. It gives me that thread and pigeon hole. I’m good at it. While at home, spending so many (wasted) hours on the internet is like sitting in the drivers seat of a car I know so well, that works well, and having to try so hard not to turn the ignition on.

But I don’t want to look back later in life and think of the opportunity I missed, back in the office after only 8 months ‘off’ and the missed opportunity to do anything I really want to do. I’ve got to get out of that car and get on my bike.

The trouble is I’m still having ideas for new businesses almost daily – some of them are big opportunities and at the moment it feels like too bigger a deal to throw them away by simply not doing them. I have to keep meeting former colleges and clients that thankfully without knowing it are providing me with enough reasons to sedate the urges to rejoin the rat race too quickly. Them, complaining bitterly of work, bosses and low pay while meanwhile all taking mobile phone calls while you’re trying to have a conversation with them.

I think being an ex ‘worker’. I have the same mentality to people that take mobile phone calls while you’re with them as ex-smokers have to those who still enjoy the habit. I know I did it at the time but I couldn’t see how bad it was until I stopped and now I hate it more than anyone. Anyone else feel the same?

The ‘Work’ ethic is going through massive changes, currently being shown by the enormous amount of people like myself, and the endless broadsheet supplement columns about us, people that have upped sticks from the rat race and left in search of fulfilment elsewhere. People that were brought up with the ethos that a job was for life but are now old enough (and luckily cash rich enough) to take first mover advantage from the newer ethic that a job is for 5-10 years max.

We are a celebratory obsessed culture and all the business news we read about these people – TV stars, Sportsmen etc is about the length of their new contract – and it’s never more than about 3 years. Sven Goran Eriksson signing a 5-year deal with England was viewed almost as a job for life.

I think this will become the complete norm, which it probably is already getting to in the urban centres. You can achieve all you can in a job in 5-10 years and then you move on, to maybe even a completely different career and you opt out completely as soon as you can afford it.

This development means that soon we wont be looking on impressively at the businessmen that have been at the same company (or even in the same business) for 20 years and are at the very top of their profession. They will be seen as the sad suckers. The ones that can’t do anything for themselves and rely totally on the rat race system to provide their daily life support. When we meet a 50+ year old who’s a chairman or CEO in our profession, we look up to them and think how wise and good their job is but for how long will that last?.

So where am I?
I don’t know. I know what I’ve got to get to but I’m not any closer – the goalposts keep moving.

Chapter4: The meaning of life ?

The Continuum Concept.
a brief introduction

This book has helped me enormously in trying to find out about myself and why I am the way I am. Why I was constantly chasing a feeling of contentment. According to the author Jean Liedloff It is all because of what didn’t happen in the first few years of life and so this book is also a must-read if and when you have children (even if you then choose to ignore it!)

The Continuum Concept was written and first published in 1975. It was written purely as an observation following Liedloff’s various stays with a tribe of South American Indians (Yequana). These Indians were almost totally untouched by the modern world and were living effectively a stone age existence.

What Jean observed was that almost all the inhabitants were at peace with themselves and that the children of the tribe were constantly contented and happy (unlike many western kids!).

Her conclusion was that in modern society we have moved so far away from what we, as humans, evolved to be, that we will never find contentment, however much we search through being workaholics, taking drugs, wanting celebrity, being a slob, having many lovers, spirituality, shopping (consumerism) etc.

The main reason for this is that most of us have missed the all-important first few years living in the arms of our parents with 100% unconditional love. This ‘in arms’ experience is what Liedloff claims we are crying out for as soon as we are born and that what for thousands of years we had.
According to Liedloff, the continuum concept is the idea that in order to achieve optimal physical, mental and emotional development, human beings — especially babies — require the kind of experience to which our species adapted during the long process of our evolution. For an infant, these include such experiences as constant physical contact with the mother (or another familiar caregiver), from birth Sleeping in the parents bed, in constant physical contact, until they leaves of their own volition (often about two years), breastfeeding "on cue", nursing in response to their own body's signals, being constantly carried in arms or otherwise in contact with someone, usually the mother and allowed to observe (or nurse, or sleep) while the person carrying them goes about his or her business — until the infant begins creeping, then crawling on their own impulse, usually at six to eight months.

In contrast, a baby subjected to modern Western childbirth and child-care practices often experiences traumatic separation from the mother at birth due to medical intervention and placement in maternity wards, in physical isolation except for the sound of other crying newborns, with the majority of male babies further traumatized by medically unnecessary circumcision surgery. At home, sleeping alone and isolated, often after "crying themself to sleep", scheduled feeding, with their natural nursing impulses often ignored or "pacified",
being excluded and separated from normal adult activities, relegated for hours on end to a nursery, crib or playpen where they are inadequately simulated by toys and other inanimate objects, caregivers often ignoring, discouraging, belittling or even punishing them when they cry or otherwise signals their needs, or else responding with excessive concern and anxiety, making them the center of attention, sensing (and conforming to) their caregivers' expectations that they are incapable of self-preservation, are innately antisocial, and cannot learn correct behaviour without strict controls, threats and a variety of manipulative "parenting techniques" that undermine the exquisitely evolved learning process.

Evolution has not prepared the human infant for this kind of experience. He cannot comprehend why his desperate cries for the fulfilment of his innate expectations go unanswered, and he develops a sense of wrongness and shame about himself and his desires. If, however, his continuum expectations are fulfilled — precisely at first, with more variation possible as he matures — he will exhibit a natural state of self-assuredness, well-being and joy. Infants whose continuum needs are fulfilled during the early, in-arms phase grow up to have greater self-esteem and become more independent than those whose cries go unanswered for fear of "spoiling" them or making them too dependent.

Liedloff is not saying we can now turn back the clock but it is a good observation and she has some suggestions as to how we can change some of these things for the better.

It has helped me because I know this is what I have been chasing for years and I can see it in the actions of others. It has helped me realise that there’s no point doing it anymore and I am happy to accept myself the way I am. It also helped me confirm my belief in evolution and not chase any spiritual / religious fulfilment.

The first few chapters can be a tough read but it is well worth sticking with as it becomes more practical.

Let me know what you think?

Chris

Ps – its got a really crap cover – try and not let that put you off!

Chapter 3: The Three Peaks - They're hard work!

Three Steps To Heaven.

Another adventure I’ve fancied doing - to start at Fort William in Scotland – climb up and down Ben Nevis, drive to Scarfell Pike in England, climb that and finally drive to Snowden in Wales and climb up and down that – all within 24 hours. The highest peaks in each country.

Well, I managed it yesterday but today I had to call out Mountain rescue as I’m trapped at the top of the stairs unable to put one foot in front of the other, to enable myself to walk down stairs to the kitchen.

Without access to food and with nightfall coming I’m worried. I’ve tried whistling three times (SOS!) for the wife, but I’ve got my suspicions she’s ignoring me.

I’ll try txting her – if I can get a signal this high! – otherwise I’ll better slip back under the duvet and avoid the onset of hypothermia.

Honestly I thought this challenge would be straightforward. I was doing it with 20+ local London guys, many of them ‘walkers’. And I thought the toughest bit would be staying awake through the 12 hours of actual walking.

How wrong I was. This is the toughest thing I have ever done. It really is hard hard work.

Ben Nevis is a long steep path but as it was first off I made a quick pace up the mountain but then found the experienced walkers around me were running back down!! – so off I went and managed to get down within 3hrs 9 mins.

Scarfell Pike is a lot harder. It’s a real scramble up to the summit. The weather was a bit worse and the paths are covered in boulders making it impossible to make fast progress, especially down. Talking of which, walking down for hours at a time is an absolute nightmare. I cycle race so my calves are good for going up but the front of my thighs and knees have no experience of being used as breaks for my body after every single step – to stop yourself going too fast.

We arrived at Snowden at 11pm and managed to get lost on the nearest to actual rock climbing that we undertook, on a steep slope, covered in boulders, in pitch black, cold and tired and lost – it was great fun! When we got to the ridge it was blasting cold wind across us and the temperature dropped massively.

Coming down Snowden was the worst 90 minutes of non-stop clambering down over rocks – hard hard work on the knees. We made it back to sea level at 3.30am

I thought some of this would be boring but you have to watch every single step you take so that your footing will be secure – of which about 20 times coming down Snowden it wasn’t!

We made it though – 21 hours and 21 minutes

And it feels great – a great team bonding effort. At one with nature and having to rely on your physical strength to survive it. I loved it and can’t wait to do something similar again.

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Chapter 2: A month in Africa

Eye Of The Tiger

One month trip to Africa. Primarily to visit (and undertake a bit of work on) an African orphanage. Ive always felt strongly the injustice of the World economy that enables a few to have so much and many to have so little.

I am trying to find the thing that will really fulfil me for the rest of my life and I have always felt it may have something to do with this injustice and me playing my small part in helping change it….

So I thought I would go and find out.

I arranged a stay at the Iris Orphanage in Maputo, Mozambique. At the same time as a friend, Rupert, a currently ex-vicar. We then planned to travel for a few weeks following that.

My top twenty-four experiences in Africa!
1 Going to a drum and bass club in Bulawayo
2 Getting soaked at Victoria Falls
3 The serenity of the Maputo Orphanage
4 Watching West Ham on satellite, in the middle of nowhere
5 Being checked out by a speeding Rhino in Krueger Park
6 Visiting locals at home in Soweto, before a local big soccer match
7 Being in a packed Maputo mini bus at midnight as a fight breaks out
8 On top of the municipal dump of Maputo, talking to locals
9 Investigating my beliefs on a road trip with an ex-vicar
10 Having a T-bone (I’m a veggie) with a hunter/killer of animals…and poachers!
11 A violent ‘sea sick trip’ across the sea to Zanibar
12 Walking along a white sand, clear sea beach in Zanibar
13 Swimming in the pitch black in the Krueger Park
14 Staying the night in an old railway carriage – that doubled as a hotel
15 Concluding I’m not currently a Christian after years of ‘investigating’
16 Reading the Continuum Concept and it making total sense
17 Staying in the 5-star tented ‘honeymoon suite’ of a huge gaming reserve
18 Teaching English to a class of 18-25’s in Maputo
19 Being in a S. African bar as they are awarded the 2010 World Cup
20 The 1st class!! Overnight train to Victoria Falls
21 Having high tea at the 5 star Victoria Falls hotel
22 The amazingly joyful church service at the Maputo Orphanage
23 The full eclipse of the moon in a star filled clear night sky
23 Helen and Rose waiting for me at Heathrow airport


The orphanage
The orphanage was an amazing place. You are able to participate as much as you want to. My top ten orphanage experiences are: (lists, copyright Nick Hornby!)

1 Climbing on top of the municipal dump in Maputo to pray with the locals scavenging to earn a living from it.
2 Taking some of the kids to the local swimming pool.
3 Spending lots of time in the babyhouse (a dorm for 28, 1-4 year olds (a quarter with HIV/aids) and seeing how well the kids get on with each other
4 Going to the local police station to pray with the men on remand in the cells
5 Taking the 6-mile trip into town in massively overcrowded orphanage vehicles, on the worst roads I’ve ever travelled on.
6 Seeing young teenage orphans acting far more mature than their years.
7 The serenity of the orphanage with its almost complete lack of western consumer and entertainment influences
8 Putting names to the faces of the anonymous kids that you see on TV wearing old western promo T-shirts, looking malnourished and covered in flies.
9 Being in awe of the dignity of a 10 year old when he answered to what he wanted to be when he grew up ‘I want to be a person’.


Uncomfortable

There is no doubt the people running the orphanage are doing an unbelievable job. Every day they provide food, shelter and education to over 500 people, whilst providing space for ‘dreamers’ like me to experience this.

I just felt uncomfortable about a few things..
1 Observing many white preachers prompting manifestations of the Holy Spirit in young black audiences.
2 Seeing so many locals being encouraged that prayer will answer all their problems
3 Having so many middle aged white westerners hanging around – cuddling, carrying and holding hands with small black orphans - who could have received as much (if not more) love from elder orphans
&
4 The intense heat that makes you feel like doing nothing all day


It was a great trip with amazing once-in-a-lifetime experiences. I went looking to see if this would influence (or provide an answer to) my search to find a fulfilling role for myself going forward and I wasn’t disappointed. I put names to faces of these anonymous kids and it humanised the whole situation to me.

I think most of the World can find enough food (mainly through the selfless actions of charity workers) – except in emergency conditions when the west are slow to react in helping. The World is certainly economically fucked up. As much within the poor countries themselves, where 5 star hotels sit yards from orphanages. The orphans have nothing bar 3 meals a day but in a way they have much more – they have community and a love for each other that hasn’t been destroyed by consumerism. They only know that each other are important and haven’t exchanged that for making possessions more important to themselves than other people (community).

I don’t think the ‘front line’ is where is it for me going forward. I don’t know why – but a strong feeling. But my kids need to experience this to see how unjust the World is, as should everyone. My background is working with large companies and being paid by them. If I can set up a company that does good and still manages to extract the same amount of money, that I have in the past, from these large multinationals then I should be able to help in some small way.

My thought is that education has to be the answer. The orphans are fed, clothed and sheltered but even if they were given money they have no education to enable themselves to do anything constructive with that money, to turn it into a regular income. Also to educate the kids here in the West that this state of the World exists and cannot be tolerated – and perhaps by the time they have grown up we may have new priorities in the World.

Reading the Continuum Concept (see separate note) and buying totally into it and at the same time travelling in a small car around Africa with an ex-vicar who I bombarded with questions about Christianity (sorry Rupert!) is really the overriding thing I have taken away from Africa.

As the Continuum Concept says, I believe we are all searching for a love that we missed receiving in the first few years of our lives because our western civilisation has taken us so far away from the way humans naturally evolved. Si I have to accept that at the moment I don’t believe in God. I have prayed for years, I have tried to establish a connection with God but there has been nothing there for me (except the ceiling every time).

The 3 points that confirmed that are:
1 Rupert suggested a Christian is someone who has a daily, living relationship with God. Despite years of trying I have had nothing
2. Reading the Continuum Concept that has made more sense to me than any Christian books I have read.
3. It was put to me that the orphanage and almost every other piece of good community work is done solely by Christians – people that have given over their lives to 'the Lord'. I disagree and perhaps Ive set myself up to prove them wrong. But I have a belief in human nature – that there are enough good people out there (who are not necessarily Christians) who would be prepared to lay down their lives for other humans and be able to create place full of love and contentment around them.

I am ready to stand on my own two feet. To be totally responsible for my own actions. I realise that I will not find a long-term feeling of contentment through being a serial entrepreneur or chasing love through any other artificial stimuli. I have to accept the way I am and play my full part in my and my family’s life on going.

Now what might that be……..

PS – a few final thoughts on returning from my month away

I had a great time
It was a long time away from my family and my wife expected more from me on my return than I have been able to provide
Don’t expect to be fit and healthy when you come back – am I unfit or what!?
Prepare to struggle mentally when you come back, through uncertainty of your priorities and what you want to do…..

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Chapter 1: Exit Stage Right

Just what is it that you want to do?

“We wanna be free, we wanna be free to do what we wanna do and we wanna get loaded and we wanna have a good time – and that’s what we’re gonna do”

‘Is life better before, or after, you reach 40?’ I asked of the ‘suits’ at a conference I was doing actually on my big day. I was presenting on my role of overseeing the public relations for what became the website phenomenon, Friends Reunited – which meant the question was very applicable to the room of a thousand plus 30 – 50 year old office execs!

‘After’ shouted someone ‘but only for the first few weeks!’

Right or wrong, I don’t know yet but a lot has happened in the last few months. That day in June '03 was one of the pinnacles of my 'office' career, Rory Bremner and William Hague with me and Steve from Friends Reunited all on the same bill. Now though, I sit here, free, a rat without a race, I feel like David Brent on Comic Relief day.

Twelve years ago I started a marketing agency because I was nearing 30 and was penniless. I had spent my 20’s managing bands, no one famous, no cash incoming but it was a great time and at least I became a vegetarian while on tour with Debbie Harry.

The agency went from my tiny Ladbroke Grove lounge to a ‘work unit’ that got broken into every time anyone locally fancied a new computer. From there it was a first employee, Jamie Theakston, and on to a proper, dividers and all, ‘office’. Ten Years later I sold it. I had played the game and I couldn’t bring myself to pass ‘Go’ and go round one more time….

So, here I am, at forty, starting a new life, its meant to begin now isn’t it? A happy coincidence? Living without the office. What will I do? Why not simply take a pit stop and re-enter the same race?

The final straw was the pointless office politics played by people that have nothing better in their imagination that would enable them to do anything different themselves.

My life has been spent living in this sedated world of consumerism. Its not been real life, its life supposedly fulfilled by inanimate objects that someone else in marketing has convinced me that I want, because it will make me feel better – bollox! And I really fell for it.

So much so, that I did get much satisfaction doing it. I’ve been involved in the marketing of many household name brands and products. Giving bottles of beers, magazines and clothes 'personalities'. Personalities that will make you and me feel better about ourselves by associating with, in short, buying. They will make us feel sportier, trendier, faster, thinner, more knowledgeable, and more fun…more popular even.

But its time to change tact. I've had the enthusiasm kicked out of me.

I now want to find out if there is more to life for me. Can I be happier? Can my marriage get closer? Can the relationship with my 3 kids be better? What can I achieve with my body as well as my brain?

That’s what I really want to find out, what’s it like to truly live?

I want to do the things I’ve always wanted to do. I want to live before I die and attempt to find out what the meaning and purpose is for the rest of my time on this brilliant planet of ours?

Some things I know I HAVE TO try

Improve all my close relationships
Work on something really worthwhile
cement real life-long friendships
Start another business – do I really need to prove to myself it wasn’t a fluke?
Raise loads of money for a charity I believe in
See how the World’s poor have to live and see if I feel compelled enough to do something about it
Inspire my children
Invest time in my local community

And a list of some things I WANT to try.

Visit Muhammad Ali – my hero
Learn to ride a horse – (but not Spanish!!)
Walk to Machu Pichu
Go to Antarctica
Climb to Everest Base Camp
Train with my team (West Ham – Oh dear)
Visit Tibet
March in demos for things I believe in
Cycle from Lands End to John O’Groats
Write a kids book
Create an art exhibition (well I did go to Art college a long time ago)
Enter a cycling race
Learn to mix records
Learn to ski
Take a Football coaching badge

Dare I tell anyone? Isn’t it embarrassing? Shouldn’t I shut up and just find someone else to give me an office?

No, no….

It is very tempting to take that pit stop and re-enter the rat race, not because I want my old life back but because I'm good at it. I’m lucky I sold the company for a fair bit, we’ve got enough to keep going for a while but not forever. My brain tells me that another year of work now I’m worth five times what I will be in 5 or 10 years time. Argh, a mental rat trap, just when I thought I was free.

Ignore it, ignore it….

I’m not educated and I’m certainly no philosopher. There are millions of books out there on this subject, by people who are. You could read those and learn much. There are also now tons of books about downshifting, the move to a new, less frenetic, less costly way of life being taken by hundreds, or maybe thousands of 30 something’s. I think of this as the halfway house to where I want to go. Changing your life to something you really want to. But this is my life, it may be like yours, it may not be. I have one ‘O’ level but I do believe that anyone can achieve anything they want to, so I’m setting myself out on the biggest challenge.

Will I prove myself a fool? It wont be the first time. But if I fail it still might show others how to at least open a few doors and go through themselves. I have deliberately not given myself any time to think of the downsides to all this, next week, given time, I might regret it all and then I’ll look stupid but that’s important. What’s it like from the moment you leave that office, not three weeks later, when you’ve reconsidered or sorted out your immediate opportunities, what’s it like before all that, from the very start of the new chapter?

This wont be like those e-mails you get from your mates that have jetted off to Thailand for 3 months and tell you how brilliant the sun, sea and especially sex is. This is real life.

I’m not looking before I jump. I’m just thankful I’m not wearing an ostrich outfit!





Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

Hi,

I hope you are well.

This is just to let you know I have recently left both Firstmovies and Beatwax (after 12 great years!). I am now taking some time out to get to know my wife and three kids! And consider all new ideas, offers and opportunities.

Please note this new e-mail address for me - and don't forget to write!

I've had a great time founding, running and working with everyone, at both companies but am now considering what's in-store for the next chapter!

Keep in touch!

Thanks a lot

Chris

Press ‘send’ and off goes the e-mail to 800 of the people I have shared my office life with. There’s now more history in my in-box than there is in the cardboard box I take away with all my belongings in. Substantiated by my wife, already a little ‘merry’ by the time I got home, slurring ‘is that it? One cardboard box after 12 years?’ She has struggled with all this far more than I have. But that is it, one box, you’re allowed back what you came in with and nothing more and believe me, when you get to the point of leaving, that’s all you want.

Therefore the worst I suffered was when I found my office e-mail switched off, the link to my past gone, almost before I had a chance to say goodbye. Can you face worse abuse anywhere? I would hate to think so.

So its end of part one. ‘Office life’; sending e-mails to people sitting 6 feet away, discussing brand awareness for brands no ones heard of, holding brainstorms for clients that don’t give us any work, brand ‘custodians’ telling us they want the brand to be ‘fun and irreverent’ (all of them), pitching for work against anything up to a dozen other agencies, all at least as good as us and some even better!, being the last to hear the gossip down the pub after work, looking at West Ham gossip on newsnow.co.uk and wandering why there aren’t any other websites that I find of any use…..it’s been great, no really it has!

‘Today is the first day of the rest of my life!’ Well actually, that’s not quite strictly true. The actual day was last Saturday but I’ve been mopping around for the last 10 days and its been an especially really hard time as I’ve been trying to live without e-mail, really, God forbid – you try it, it’s not easy. So I haven’t felt like writing that line down for a little while, I knew it was just a matter of time though.

The immediate impact? The first thing I notice after leaving the sanctity of the 10’ x 8’ womb of my office is that I am fit and healthy, I am alive, I am ME! I have lost my crutch of work, I have to stand on my own two feet. I am learning to walk on my own again.

For 12 years I have relied on the crutch of being chris@work. Apparently successful, in charge of a company of 30 odd good people, making good money. I haven’t needed to make as much effort outside work as I should. I could always rely on my company. I’m the boss, I have 35 people to talk to at work, 35 people who have to do what I ask (within limits!). Outside work, I’ve not made enough effort. I’ve forgotten how to walk on my own and was relying on the crutch. Now its all gone though and it feels good to be able to ‘walk’ on my own for the first time in a dozen years!

Rule number one – don’t let that happen again.

It’s not easy learning to be on your own after years of relying on work though. I have to learn to be myself again. I’ve almost forgotten what day-to-day real conversation is like. As the boss, hardly any of my conversations with staff, clients and bosses are real. There was almost always another agenda. They wanted something from me, they would be nice and apparently interested in me and the kids. If they were pissed off with me, I never knew, as they didn’t want to argue or complain as bitterly as perhaps they should have done. So how many ‘real’ conversations have I had at work in the last twelve years? How many people genuinely like or dislike me? How many of them are my friends? The honest answer is, I don’t know.

So, I’m struggling to come to terms with talking to people for real and also for longer than 5 minutes. I’m suddenly struggling with the fact that I’ve got no reason to wrap up a conversation. I’ve got nothing else to go to, no excuses. Suddenly I’m talking to people beyond the point when all basic information has been exchanged.

Be it on the phone, face-to-face or even by e-mail around five minutes is it, that’s about the maximum time it takes to impart all relevant information, pleasantries, information and arranging of social life, then what? It means making an effort, it means committing time to that person and really finding out about them. I have always wanted to do that all the time but I’ve always had the excuses. Now I don’t.

Wanting to have ‘real’ conversations means I’ve always disliked small talk though, which when you’re someone who is as introverted as I am anyway, it becomes a crippling trait. It means I’m not brilliant at mixing with other people. And then for the last ten years I’ve relied on that crutch made up of the 35 people who talk to me. So outside work I have loads of acquententices but not too many close friends. That’s my fault, can I change it?

I do think I’m missing the office more than I thought I would. I might be fit and healthy but it’s hard without that crutch. Having to do everything on my own, absolutely nothing will happen unless I make it. Every minute of every day I’ve got to be self-motivated, keep going, don’t look back and don’t expect the phone to ring. I’ve only been at this for a week or so and it’s hard.

So its resulted in me having a few completed wasted days or I feel they are wasted. Maybe in the long term I will find they are serving a purpose, maybe clearing my mind of the last twelve years? When you are at work it doesn’t matter so much if you have an off day, you are still justified, still useful, still needed, all wrapped up in that term ‘work’. ‘What have you done all day?’ ‘work’. It’s a term thats covered all multitude of sins and skives. From doing the hardest days work in your life, really achieving something, right down to nothing. Nothing at all. You can do nothing and in a job you really find unfulfilling but you can still kid yourself that you are living a fulfilling life. It’s difficult without that to rely on. Now if I have an off day that’s it, it means I feel useless, unneeded, unvalued…crap!

But at the same time this new life feels right, it feels like a huge release. I was too quick to say I could now walk without crutches, I’m still learning….it’s early days.




(Just Like) Starting Over

I have just read the autobiography of Lance Armstrong, cancer survivor and 6 times winner of the Tour De France. He feels fortunate, one of the lucky few to survive a footstep from deaths door and come to realise what life is all about for him. He has a second chance and he intends to live life to the full.

Ideally though, I want to cheat. I want to find out what the purpose and meaning for the rest of my life is and to realise how lucky I am, to realise what consumer crap we contend with and to manage to break through all that but I don’t want to be at deaths door first. Is that possible?

Is it really our genuine calling to work in an office 9-5? To feel needed by the staff, boss and shareholders? If we were paid a bit more than the minimum required to make us stay year after year, would we? Are we moving to a new way of working that fits as part of life rather than as all of life?

As we are paid the minimum though, there seems little way out of the consumer trap. We generally don’t earn enough to do anything other than try to buy some instant gratification through the purchase of the products with the personalities we want to be associated with. I have spent many a lunch hour over the years looking for ways to spend the cash I have earnt on ‘stuff’, DVD’s I may watch once, books I could borrow from a friend, clothes I may wear half a dozen times before they go out of fashion, its been an endless treadmill. I’m a millionaire but money certainly hasn’t bought the happiness I was led to believe it would.

Over the last decade I have now managed to contain most of these urges but I did worry that when I wasn’t in work and couldn’t afford those things, suddenly I would want them and feel I was missing out, that I wouldn’t feel complete somehow. Believe me, its not like that at all, there’s no struggle, you realise most of it is rubblish. ‘If you don’t need it, don’t buy it’ or 'buy what you need, not what you want', good mantras for when consumer land is beckoning you.

I felt a loner as a child – so I’ve been trying to prove myself to anybody who will listen for the last 30 years. This has caused me more problems than anything, as outside work it has led me to be boastful about my achievements.

I know I’ve pissed off more than my share of people, fed up with listening to my achievements and how much I’ve made over the years. It never felt like I was being big headed at the time. When you come from feeling lonely as a child, you feel you have to constantly prove yourself worthy even of your place at the table, worthy enough for your friends to spend time with you…to like you.

Therefore I have been ambitious and worked hard for years. I put off friendships. I believed I would finally reach a time when I felt I had succeeded and that I should focus on that and then make friends when I was finished, complete and…able to show off. But then I realised its impossible, you can’t reach the edge of your circle because it just gets bigger and what’s there anyway? When you aim for something, it’s often not as impressive as you hope when you reach it and anyway, you are already focusing on the next target, the boundaries of the ever-increasing circle you never reach.

It’s worse for celebrities, this ‘full and meaningful’ life that we are constantly being sold and to which many spend their life striving to join. When we reach a target at least we have secured some things along the way, with celebrity though, there is nothing. There is nothing tangible to hold on to, the only thing that keeps them there is seeing their name in today’s paper…tomorrows chip wrapping.

Luckily I know I’m not alone with these thoughts. I’m at the top age of a new generation. One unwittingly founded by Margaret Thatcher. The marketers in our office and other ‘trendy’ agencies in town call us ‘Middle Youth’. We are people who were too young to be Thatcher’s yuppies. We only watched as they crashed and burned in the negative equity that we weren’t quite old enough to ‘afford’. So we learnt the lesson early and luckily we learnt it for free, there’s more to life than this. There’s more to life than simply earning a ‘living’ that consists of mortgage, family and TV dinners because completely out of your control, it can disappear faster than you made it. So now we are supposedly a generation that helps the kids with their homework, while we’re downloading and burning the latest Muse CD or going to the garden centre in the morning, four hours after we left a club, trying to live life to the full. Wanting experiences, rather than products.

So have the downshifters found the answer? Is it that simple? Or is it just a short-term glow? That feels deeper, purely because of the severity of the change they’ve made in their circumstances? After a while will they find themselves back where they started, too much stress with not enough hours or cash to relieve it?

But hardly any of us have actually acted on the way we feel we want to at all, at least downshifters have left the office, others stay although they know it isn’t fulfilling. And if I hadn’t managed to sell the company, who knows, I may still be there. But I’m not and I have a chance, an opportunity to see life from another side.

The company paid for me to be a member of a private club (a perk not used hardly as much as the daily shower following my bike ride into work!). I went there the other day and overheard a scarily familiar conversation about ‘brand awareness’ and ‘cutting edge youth design’. In my business of marketing and public relations we are meant to be individuals, producing original creativity. I actually think we make up the biggest flock of sheep there is. I have always thought that supposedly ‘trendy’, cutting edge marketing execs are the easiest people in the World to market to. They (we?!) are so desperate not to miss out on the latest ‘thing’ that they would be first to the shrine of simply anything they had never heard of before.

My teenage hero, I should have recognised the signs even then, Reginald Perrin, a true champion for these times. An anti-capitalist who mistakenly became a consumer success with his chain of ‘Grot’ shops. Brilliantly written and now available on DVD, watch & learn.

Why do we spend all our social time reading, watching, listening and admiring people that don’t work in offices? actors, musicians, vicars, authors, comedians, DJ’s but don’t try it ourselves? Or do but give up easily, content to watch from the sidelines, maybe dreaming of what might have been. Every weekend we look at the listings, looking for work we admire, respect and enjoy enough to commit time to become an observer of. None of these professions are based in offices. Have these people got something? Have they found an answer?

But what about my reality? I have been here for three weeks and I love every moment. But what is the reality of doing something about it? What can I do now with a wife and three kids in tow? At least Helen has now stopped saying ‘You treat me like one of your staff’. She’s now accusing me of turning into a ‘student’, God forbid!

Reminders everywhere though that office life certainly is not all bad, there is a social life that I am definitely missing. On Saturday night I had a panic attack, I hadn’t been out for the last two evenings and was keen to do so. So I suggested we go to the cinema, but separately. Both watching the same film, one after the other, taking turns to babysit. It sort of worked, apart from that by the time Helen came back from the later showing I was fast asleep on the sofa!

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