This month was supposed to be about finding a new job or at least exploring new opportunities. However, I’ve found myself being a teacher again, to my own children. Help.

I’m sure if you did this last year, for about three months, you’ll know it’s the most exhausting and draining task you can go through. Getting through the day unscathed is impossible. Once the work is finished and you’ve been their emotional punchbag all day, you get to be dad again, but without the teacher bit. However, they’re tired, you’re tired and you have nowhere to go because you’re not allowed to… go anywhere.

I found myself thinking ahead… ‘just get to half-term and that’s it’, but as we know with the nature of the virus and the nature of this erratic government, it probably won’t end there. Homeschooling might continue into March and April. I hope not but we’ve been here before. We just don’t know. But at least the pricks are on the way, eh, readers? Fnar, fnar…

Mum used to say ‘don’t wish your life away’ and in her short life I hope she took her own advice. She would say this to me if I had said something like ‘I can’t wait to…’ and ‘why is this is taking soooo long?’. But she was right. What if the next few months are my last? We have to make the most of these times, as desperate as they are, because tomorrow could be the end. Focus on what we can do, not what we can’t.

As much as the children drive me mad sometimes, I love them, of course, and I enjoy their company. But as they get older the natural order means we won’t spend as much time together. I’m already the ‘old man’ in their eyes – the grumpy ogre, though I have improved since I left the BBC. I could be the last person they want to be with in the near future, therefore I may look back on these days fondly. I’m already remembering the good bits from Lockdown #1 – the daft made-up games to alleviate the boredom, watching birds build nests in the garden, having Dumb and Dumber haircuts…

I already get teary eyed about them growing up. They’re closer to be being adults than they were babies. My eldest is 13, if he chooses to go to university he’ll be leaving in five years and considering how quickly the last half decade went, this is a terrifying and heartbreaking thought. Therefore I’ve decided to make the most of our time together, despite the meltdowns and tantrums… mine as well as theirs.

I remember listening to a conversation involving a man I had zero respect for. He had run a campaign to get my friend replaced on the radio. Our paths had crossed before that too when he accidentally copied me in to an e-mail accusing me of being unprofessional. Anyway, I overheard him scoff at his friend’s announcement his partner was having a baby. ‘I don’t want kids,’ he said, sneering. ‘I want to climb Kilimanjaro, one day.’ He assumed having children would stop him having a life. I haven’t climbed Kilimanjaro, I’m not that arsed really, but I have scrambled up Kinder Scout with my two boys and my wife Niki, and it’s one of our favourite ever days together.

I’ve been on my own incredible adventure with my family, I don’t want to rush through it. We’ve got to do our best to cherish this time as difficult as it is. It’s our lives, we can’t skip bits just because it’s hard at the moment. It will get better, but we just have to make the most of what we have currently.

The dead are wondering why we’re all so miserable.

This year, more than any other, I’ve realised who my friends are… Amid the turmoil of the pandemic and making the tough decision to move on from my job, the pals who have kept me going are the ones I owe so much to. Hopefully, I’ve been there enough for them too.

There’s a great chapter on friendship in Jordan B Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life; only be friends with people who want the best for you. It’s pretty obvious, really, although it’s well worth reading for the depth of the argument. However, I’ve gone over some past friendships where I put so much into that relationship when they didn’t and I persevered when I should have put my energies elsewhere.

I had a friend (I’ll call him Pete) at university in Northampton, and we got on so well I thought we’d be mates for life. We both did art, liked similar things, we got drunk together and had the same outlook on life. I remember us walking for miles to get to a cinema that was closed by the time we got there. We never stopped talking, there and back, and I still fondly remember that day despite the disappointment.

If you trip over I’ll catch you’re fall
If you kick my dick, I won’t break you’re balls
If you get drunk and vomit on me
I’ll make sure you get home safely

Friends, Flight of the Conchords

There was another time we applied to be security guards. We were late for the training, thanks to a bus delay, and as soon as we walked through the door we were booted out by some ex-army guy, who took one look at Pete’s jumper, which had a milky stain down it, and bollocked us in front of the whole class. We got outside and pissed ourselves. Our dreams had hardly been scuppered. Pete and I lived together in our final year at university and I stayed with him one weekend during his Masters degrees in Lancaster. We also went to Edinburgh for the Fringe festival that year and had a brilliant weekend.

Pete didn’t turn up for my stag do. I left him several messages. He never answered his phone. I was worried about him but also hurt that he didn’t show, despite sending me the cash for the accommodation and entertainment etc. As far as I was concerned he had every intention of coming. He didn’t show up for the wedding either. I didn’t get a personal apology but a small explanation through a mutual friend. He’d been having problems at home and didn’t feel he could come. Why didn’t he just tell me that? I would have understood. I forgave him for what he did. But what I shouldn’t have done is carried on putting in all the legwork to our friendship. 

You’re no good for me, I don’t need nobody
Don’t need no one, that’s no good for me

No Good (Start the Dance), The Prodigy

It was an effort to get any response to messages I sent him. If I called he barely picked up. He was coming to Nottingham from the north for a football match at one point. He didn’t think to arrange a quick pint before or after, despite me trying to set something up. I later arranged an art exhibition in Nottingham in 2006 and invited Pete to show his work too, which he took up to my surprise. It was a good night and he brought his girlfriend and they stayed over with Niki and me. The next morning when I waved him off, I thought this is probably the last time I will see him. My reasoning was that it took so much effort to get to see him or speak with him (and then it was at an event in which there was something in it for him) that I just couldn’t waste any more time on a one sided friendship. 

So it proved. I’ve not seen or heard from him since. I took this personally and I still wonder sometimes had I done something wrong at some point? The answer is probably not. I did my best with him but ultimately he perhaps didn’t care as much. I have learned that I’m not the only one he was like this to. And so I can put to bed the idea that there was something wrong with me.  

This year, of all years, living through a difficult time, I’ve learned who my friends are, the ones who want the best for me and vice versa. You don’t have time to waste on people who leave you questioning your own character. If you behave properly you have nothing to worry about. It should be them who are looking at themselves.

I joked that my departure from the BBC, an organisation I had been at for 20 years, was similar to when poor old Brooks Hatlen left Shawshank prison.

Brooks had been there for 50 years and when he was finally free the world had changed, he no longer recognised it. He didn’t know anyone and he couldn’t adjust to life outside the clink. He longs to go back as he can’t see a life for himself outside and eventually he hanged himself.

Don’t worry. I’m not going to do that. I’m more than happy if a little anxious at times.

The similarities are that I’m suddenly out in the world and having to adjust, without any real plan as to what I’m going to do. It’s both exciting and scary. But there was no way I could stay where I was.

Dear fellas, I can’t believe how fast things move on the outside. I saw an automobile once when I was a kid, but now they’re everywhere. The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry.

Brooks Hatlen, in a letter to Andy and Red

When I first started writing for one of the BBC’s local websites we barely got any traffic. We longed for hits and engagement. We would put so much into what we did without anyone really looking at it. There was no social media in 2002 and so no real way of promoting what you did, unless you got lucky.

Just to show how long ago this was, people contributing to a story couldn’t send jpgs via e-mail because they were too heavy – there was also no Dropbox or WeTransfer etc. Instead they had to post photographs via Royal Mail and when we eventually received them, we had to scan them into the computer. And then when we put them in a web template we had to reduce the quality to make sure they were a maximum of 4k to 7k! This was so the pages would actually load up on people’s computers. Video, incidentally, was virtually pointless.

This makes me sound old. It’s like when my electrician Dad, in the 1990s, would tell apprentices that he remembered steam trains going past his house. He was my age now, 42, but they thought he was ancient. It just amused him. It still makes me laugh. He never felt old to me, still doesn’t. I’m only 22 years behind him.

I’ve got better care than Brooks ever had and I’ll be fine. I have plenty of choices and security to keep things ticking over for a while. I know people with big important jobs with huge salaries, but they never seem happy, just permanently stressed and chasing the next thing up the career ladder. They’re welcome to it. One day they’ll look back and wonder what happened.

Some of my ex-colleagues said I was brave to go, to take that step out into the world, leaving behind the comfort of a decent salary along with the other things I’d got used to having. But that was the problem. It was all too cosy and when that happens boredom and contempt creeps in. I couldn’t waste my life anymore. This was my problem and I had to do something about it. I didn’t go against my will.

For years I’d seen people go through the motions, complain all the time but sit there quietly when redundancies came up, not budging, letting people get moved on when they could have made a decision to help others. I didn’t want to be that person. I couldn’t let anyone go who didn’t want to. I’m not motivated by money or status, but by happiness and doing the right thing.

I’m taking my time. Going for the right projects. But for now I’m more than happy being Kevin (pictured), the stay at home dad from the excellent sitcom Motherland. I’ve spent so much time with my children recently, making up for lost days and hours after doing shifts for 10 years which would see me missing weekends, bedtimes and waking-up times. I’m now there for drop-offs, pick-ups and homework (aarghhh). I love it.

It’s nice not to be in a damn hurry.

It’s easy to forget but the only thing you have control over in this world is your mind. With everything else, there’s not a lot you can do. While that might make you feel powerless you can always choose how to feel about something.

It’s easier said than done. I find myself worrying about things I can’t possibly fix. I really have to work at calming myself down and thankfully I have people who I can turn to. Your worries are never silly and once they’re out in the open you’ll feel better. Equally, in writing them down you also lighten the load.

The Stoic metaphor of the dog tied to a cart is about resisting fate. The dog has to follow the cart, it has no choice. It can fight against the motion but it faces a losing battle. In life it’s the same for many situations we find ourselves in, you might not like it, but you just have to accept. That’s fate for you.

Victor Frankl was a Holocaust survivor who wrote the incredible Man’s Search for Meaning. The Nazis had taken everything from him. They murdered his wife, his father, mother and brother. But what they could never take from him was his freedom to choose his attitude. It helped him survive the horrors of the concentration camps.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Victor Frankl

The following is clearly nothing like what Frankl experienced and in itself having to stay at home is clearly fine in comparison. However, I felt pretty bitter before the second lockdown. I made the mistake in thinking the worst was over. We’d managed a great holiday in Suffolk. I could do the things that made me happy, meeting friends in the pub, exercising outdoors with others. I was also planning on seeing my Dad, in Spain, finally.

When the announcement was made I felt devastated for my local pub, which hadn’t put a foot wrong in terms of keeping customers safe. The same for friends who would be out of work again. Thankfully the kids would still be going to school and for the sake of their mental health this was positive news. The same for my wife, a teacher, who after feeling scared about the full return to school (she was there during lockdown #1); she now appreciates her position more than ever.

Which leaves me. Still at home. Not seeing anyone. I can get through a whole day without talking to anyone, apart from Jarvis, my dog. He’s a good listener. I’m missing family and friends, the pub, group exercise, travelling outside my town. But unlike last time, I’ve accepted there’s nothing I can do and I have to go along with it. I don’t like it but I shall instead focus on the things I can do.  

I went for a walk with a friend on Monday. We bought a coffee and chatted, keeping in line with the rules, for about 45 minutes. I felt happy. He did too. The simple things are perhaps what we’ll appreciate more than ever following the crisis.

Keep your chin up. x

When I’m feeling low and sad, I think of my friend Kav. The most extraordinary man I ever met and from who I learned some simple lessons about life from.

Kaval Vaseer was a presenter at Radio Nottingham and died from cancer in December 2017. I think about him a lot and at the time of writing these words I felt like crying. Kav meant so much to so many people and while I didn’t know him intimately, the influence he’s had on my life has been profound.

We lost our first son in 2006 after my wife Niki developed pre-eclampsia. Michael, at 26 weeks, was stillborn. He was so tiny and he never stood much of a chance despite every effort to bring him safely into the world. He was beautiful, perfect, the sweetest, smallest baby you were likely to see. I didn’t want to stop holding him. Heartbroken, I kept apologising to him, I was sorry he didn’t get the chance to be with us.

While I had the comfort that Niki had survived the ordeal, as she could have easily died too, to her the loss of our first baby was, of course, devastating. It still feels that way every birthday. It always will be. Michael would have been 14 this year.

After he died I went back to work too early. I was broken. Exhausted. Bitter at times. No one really knew what to say, although I felt their sympathy and kindness… Kav was different though. As his programme was at weekends I didn’t really see him much in the office. But the day I returned, he was there for a meeting. He came up to me and offered his condolences and support. He was so friendly and warm. We barely knew each other and yet he sat with me for a while and listened. I’ve never forgotten that.

One thing I did know about Kav was that his son had died from a heart condition at just 10. As we spoke more I felt guilty because to me his loss felt so much worse. Losing a child he had been a father to for a decade. How do you possibly survive this? He said to me that he had 10 wonderful years with his son while, sadly, I didn’t get any time with mine. He framed it so selflessly and I loved him for that. 

Niki and I went on to have two more boys who are thankfully happy and healthy. Down the years, I would see Kav whenever I worked a weekend. We’d chat and he always asked about the boys and how they were doing. He knew his cancer was terminal and it was the chemotherapy that was keeping him alive. He lost his hair, he was in pain, and he knew he was going to die and leave his wife and daughter on their own, but he kept going. He kept working, his listeners relied on him and he also continued to be a friend to everyone. He was so cheerful, incredibly so. He chose how to feel and while cancer was robbing him of his life, he wasn’t going to be miserable about it. He told me how boring he found the treatment but it was also a chance to read and catch up with other things. He told me that every time the alarm went off in the morning he would jump up and feel grateful he was still alive.

Regretfully, the last time I saw him I could only give him a quick hello and goodbye. I stupidly thought I would just see him the next time. It was a Sunday afternoon, the last day of a seven day stretch. I just wanted to be with my family. As I dashed out the door he said: “Bye matey, love to the boys”.

I found out he’d died a few weeks later.

Whenever I’m feeling down I try and think of Kav and what he’d do with the time I had. He would be pleased about this. His legacy is kindness, warmth and positivity, I can’t think of anything better to be.

Still thinking about you Kav, you wonderful human being.

What would Kav do?

1. Be kind. Give those who deserve it your time. Don’t waste precious time on toxic people.
2. Whatever is happening to you, however horrible, you have the freedom to choose how to feel about it.
3. Live your day like it’s your last. Don’t delay anything.

We need each other. More than ever. It’s always been obvious.

But we can’t be together in the pub, at a gig, a gym, the office… even the outdoors.

I did my last boot camp on Monday and won’t return until restrictions are lifted. We hope it’ll be December but who really knows.

Doing outside exercise has always been about being with others. I’m not a huge talker, I don’t always have much to say, I tend to listen, smile, laugh. You get that in the pub and I’m a massive fan of that too, but with exercise you get that release of endorphins, which triggers a positive feeling similar to morphine, apparently.

There have been many times I’ve gone to exercise after a day of pessimism – when I feel like the world is a rotten place and won’t get better – and I’ve finished the session feeling brighter and able to frame things better. It happens every time; it’s like a super power.

You‘ll more quickly find an earthly thing kept from the earth than you will a person cut off from other human beings

Marcus Aurelius

Towards the end of lockdown #1 I stopped exercising and I paid for it. Working from home, not seeing my friends and colleagues, has been tough and I became a mess. One afternoon, following a demanding shift, home schooling and a particularly awful Nottingham Forest match, I just broke down in tears… Heavy floods of tears. It was at that point I realised I wasn’t well. I could have exercised on my own but I missed the motivation of others, the feeling like you’re all in it together and the shared relief, positivity, at the end.

I found a new boot camp and started feeling better, stronger and happier. It has grown in three months and in the worst of weathers it has kept a hard core base of people. Because we all know it’s good for us. It’s fun.

It will be back and so will Parkrun and all the other events that bring people together and make them happy.

The one thing we’ve learned from the pandemic is that we need each other. We need to take care of each other.

It’s what humans do.

So why are you sat at home?
You’re not designed to be alone
You just got used to saying “no”
So get up and get down and get outside

Frank Turner, Reasons Not To Be An Idiot

Someone I met recently said he doesn’t watch the news. Too depressing. I knew he was a wise man when he said: “The other morning I just watched Pepé Le Pew cartoons.” He was on to something, Looney Tunes are much better for your health than the news. Who starts the day in a better frame of mind? The person who absorbs all the world’s worst nonsense all on one web page? The person who buys a hate-filled newspaper first thing in the morning? Or, the person who is transported back to when he didn’t have a care in the world?

You grow up believing you have this civic duty to be across the news. My grandparents had the Daily Mirror delivered every day for as long as I can remember. They never missed a TV bulletin. They were across the news more than anyone. It made them anxious and scared. My grandma, towards the end of her life, hardly went out. She thought the guy who lived in the flat above had murdered his girlfriend and buried her under his floorboards (the logistics of this never occurred to her) and that Al Qaeda were training in Bestwood Country Park, seriously. News had skewed her reality of the world but the truth is it’s actually much safer than you would be led to believe. And if there’s something you truly have to take action over, news finds you, trust me…

“Consuming the news reduces your quality of life,” says Rolf Dobelli, in Stop Reading the News: A Manifesto for a Happier, Calmer and Wiser Life.

“You will be more stressed, more on edge, more susceptible to disease, and you’ll die earlier. That’s an especially sad piece of news – but one that does, at least, deserve your attention.”

It’s a book that has had a big influence on me and set me on the long road to leaving the business. I can’t recommend it enough. And if you didn’t need any more persuasion about news being bad for your health, he writes:

“By consuming the news, you’re putting your body under stress. Chronic stress leads to anxiety and digestive and growth problems and leaves us prone to infection.”

I was experiencing this more than ever in 2016. I couldn’t switch off. Most of it didn’t affect me directly nor was it in my control, like much of our lives. I was consumed by anxiety and hopelessness. Did I want to live in this world?

I made a decision when I went on holiday that summer not to engage with any of it. It was both liberating and scary, not being “across anything”, but it also felt blissful. These horrible things would happen whether I knew about them or not. I had no power to change them, I could only change what I thought about them. Focusing on the here and now, the present, the tiny bits you have any influence over, is all you have. Choose wisely. Choose Pepé Le Pew*.

*Other Looney Tunes cartoons are available.

My motivation in setting up this website was chiefly because soon I’ll be unemployed. It was my decision. I took voluntary redundancy.

In the midst of a global pandemic when people are losing their jobs, I decided willingly to ditch mine. Why? Because I was miserable.

I work in the news business and I leave in December. It can’t come soon enough.

I realised throughout lockdown, when we had to set up at home, that I had tolerated it for so long because my friends and colleagues made life better. They made me happy, made me laugh, kept me sane, fed my coffee addiction. They were my raison d’être for me being there. The work was bearable when I could take a minute to speak to a mate about something we’d watched or read about.

My maternal grandad was a miner. He told me in the winter he would go to work in darkness, descend into darkness, and chip away at coalface all day, and then emerge into darkness. And repeat. Zero sunlight and yet he loved it, for the people, the banter and solidarity in the face of what was physically tough and to me a pretty horrible existence. How does that compare to a comfy office? If you’re not happy it doesn’t matter where you work, how much you earn and much status you have. It’s irrelevant if all you want to do is cry.

The stress of the news environment was a driver in me leaving. Knowing more about the crappier things in life, triple that of the average news junkie, was depressing and I’m quite sure life shortening. For a worrier like me working in news was like a lion tamer who wasn’t really that fond of big cats. I have always thought of myself as an accidental journalist. I made a decent stab at it but sort of fell into the job.

On the positive side I have made a good living, had amazing experiences, met my friends for life, but the stress was slowly chipping away at me. My bicycle was my saviour. The commute home helped blow away the news dust that clung to me. The words and headlines that swirled in my mind about Brexit, Trump, Putin, climate change… Nottingham Forest, would fade by the time I arrived at my back gate.

The ride helped put things into perspective. The nice stuff, all the kindness, amazing things that people do, the incredible inventions that make our lives better, the scientific discoveries, don’t always make the news. If it did you probably wouldn’t read about it. We all have a negative bias, we are attracted to the rubbish stuff because that’s who we are. Our ancestors who paid more attention to the big hungry lion on the loose usually survived compared to the guys who sat on their arse and said “don’t worry about it”. Life is much safer these days. But news just gives you problems you didn’t know you have.

Anyway, I needed to get away, despite the money, the security, I wasn’t happy. Life is too short for that. Being creative has always made me happy. And so here we are.

That’s what I announced to my Mum and Dad when I was small. (I then wanted to be a footballer, but you have to have talent to do that).

To an extent I’ve achieved what I wanted to be. I am an artist, just not one who has made a sustainable living from it. But that’s fine. I just want to share what I’ve created.

I love to draw and paint. I love taking photographs. I love to write.

All things I’ve neglected over the past 10 years because I’ve just been too tired, too busy. But I need them to function. To feel like I’ve achieved something. To not waste what I can do.

The blog will evolve. I expect it will be a bit random, like life itself. Bear with me.