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.