My life long work ethic has always been solid: do a good day’s work, achieve lots and sleep well. I don’t shirk, don’t pull sickies and don’t lie about things. I graft, toil and know what needs to be done to get where I need to be – even if that path is a long and complicated one. I am a worker, plain and simple. I can’t stand people who fanny around and piss about. I don’t like time wasters and people who cheat and lie about things because they don’t have the bollocks to say it how it is for the greater good (spineless faggotts)… So yesterday was one of those extra specially productive days where I threw off the shackles of doubt and my ill health (flu) and got stuff done. Here’s the proof:

This just got sent to me on email. It's so good I needed to pass it on. Enjoy! "When you occasionally have a really bad day, and you just need to take it out on someone, don't take it out on someone you know, take it out on someone you don't know. I was sitting at my desk when I remembered a phone call I'd forgotten to make. I found the number and dialled it. A man answered, saying "Hello." I Politely said, "Could I please speak with Robert Campbell?" Suddenly a manic voice yelled out in my ear "Get the right fuckin number!" and the phone was slammed down on me. I couldn't believe that anyone could be so rude. When I tracked down Robert's correct number to call him, I found that I had accidentally transposed the last two digits.

I’ve often marvelled at natural history programmes and how herds are organised and operate as one collective unit – despite being made up of many individuals. Nature, it would seem, finds ways of sorting itself out. Pity then, that the same cannot be said of humans. Witness the car park stampede on a Saturday lunchtime for proof of my theory. If you haven’t had this pleasure, especially bad as we approach the festive season, permit me to enlighten you: The premise is a simple one: pop into town, park, visit one store, come home. No dramas there. What makes this a unique experience is the swarming hoards of other people who share the same idea. The first problem is finding a car park that doesn’t say ‘FULL’. When you find the only one left with spaces there are invariably a billion other cars waiting to get in, often only allowed entry by the exit of another car. So we wait. You get to the barrier and the machine says ‘FULL’ (oh quel surprise!), so we wait some more. Problem is that the people behind you don’t understand why you are sat there like a prize plum doing nothing.

I can remember a time when cars either worked or they didn’t. A time when a rough sounding engine could be cured with a screwdriver and a squirt of Redex. Not so long back the joy of owning a car was a physical and emotional experience both in front of the wheel and underneath the bonnet. Sadly though, this last great bastion of bravado has gradually been eroded away from even the most hardcore of petrol-head. Our modern day cars are an impure combination of technological marvel and black box wonderment. Offering us all the things we have ever needed in a car – comfort, relaxation, performance, economy and safety. Regrettably it would seem, such leaps of progress are not without compromise – quality.

I think I know why I keep my studio a secret place. It's not some magical haven of creativity or a shining beacon of expression. It is a secret place because it is mine. When I go there I have no outside world. I have no distractions and nobody around me. I can close off everything and just be by myself. Sometimes I don't paint - I like things to be tidy and neat so I will clean and put things in their place when I am not painting. It's my escape route from the world that surrounds me. I still get full of fear when I am about to tackle a piece of canvas but at least I have no-one around me to tell me what to do. I can't bear that when I'm painting - actually I can't bear that anyway. I like being isolated and cut off. I only have to battle with my own demons and not someone elses. Somedays I just sit on my big red sofa and do nothing but look around or think about stuff. You know, the big things in life - why bother painting, where the next latte is coming from etc..

I've always enjoyed going out for a run. I admit it has never been with startling frequency or consistency but nevertheless I enjoy it. Since having been busy with the art and other projects and the added frustration of having an op on my knee last year I have long had the desire to go running again but never seemed to find the reasons to actually to it. Yesterday, all that was history as I embarked on what was, for me, a turning point. I'll skip the boring and innuendo-filled details about Lycra and go to the bit worth talking about. It took a while to find a rhythm but I found one that fitted into motion of my stomach flapping up and down. I can see that 7 months without martial arts and even longer without running has severely hampered my cardiovascular performance. I guess this was a big reason why I needed to go do some exercise, I'm sick and tired of feeling like a frump all the time. We all need to start somewhere don't we? My instructor always used to tell me that the hardest part of doing anything worthwhile is starting it in the first place. How right he was.

We all know that you can't go anywhere these days without being watched by someone or something. We have become used to being recorded, taped and screened. All this technology is fine until humans get involved. This, I'm sad to say, is where the chaos begins - as I have just found out on what should have been an innocent trip to the local supermarket. Now for a baldy like me the winter poses grave dangers in the 'Jesus my freekin' head is cold' department which often requires extensive use of a hat. On this occasion though I felt man enough to go without, after all, it's only a two minute walk to the local shop for heavens sake. Unfortunately my senseless bravado was stripped from me after about thirty seconds, resulting in a chilly bonce.

As if life isn't short enough we seem to have accepted life with menu-based phone systems as the norm. You know, the kind of thing that presents you with a series of options, press one for death, two for hell etc... Where did the real people go to? If I have to spend another minute listening to bloody Greensleeves I fear that my brain will turn to shit and start pouring through my eyeballs. I'd love to be in the planning meetings when project managers and analysts decide how to direct people through the maze of departments they have. I mean, who came up with the Voice Activated system idea anyway? I'm sure we've all had to experience these at some point or another:

Forgetting the food for just a moment, there are plenty of reasons to loathe the fast food hamburger chains. Poorly trained staff, unhealthy products and garishly decorated 'restaurants' are just three of the gripes on my ever growing list of hate. If there are any signs of a positive future for these companies it lies in the food, which is irresistible when you want something quick, warm and overflowing with carbohydrates. The lure of a double cheeseburger and fries makes us act like moths around a saturated fat light bulb. Surely I can forgive their shortcomings though, after all, I'm not dining in a Michelin star restaurant am I? Well, no I cannot actually. Which brings me neatly to the problem with all fast food burger chains. People. I can sympathize with them to a certain point after all it's not necessarily the first career choice for many so attracting the kind of staff you see on their glossy ad campaigns must be a nightmare - salting fries is not my idea of fun.

Life can be irritating when you haven't got hair. On the face of it this may seem like an ambiguous statement - after all, I don't spend an hour each morning glued to my Nicky Clarke straighteners, nor do I wander aimlessly up and down the supermarket aisles searching for anti-frizz conditioning serums. No, far from it, all I really need to do is to extend my face washing routine upwards by six inches and Voila! Oddly though, that's not quite where the story ends... Swarez looking like Gollum Those of us who are follicly challenged have more intricate and time consuming hair issues. Whilst most of the population worry and stress about making their hair look good we spend our time trying to stop it looking so BAD. Styling, lets be honest, is not really a concern for us baldys.