Travelling around at about half pace
Getting tired before the race
Work is always just half done
And getting there just ain't much fun
I try so hard to keep my smile
To always go that extra mile
But I'm losing faith and losing hope
For how long more am I able to cope?
A change of balance is what I need
And more enjoyment on which to feed
It's in my power to change the game
And if I don't I stay the same
To live my life as I want it to be
All the focus must come from me.

I have never been seen as a DIY specialist. Indeed, plenty of people find the very suggestion quite hilarious. The truth is that, like most blokes, I have had to turn my hand to a car repair, or some home decorating when it was necessary. I’ve even been known to do a bit of rewiring in days gone by without doing damage to myself or those around me. I won’t pretend that I enjoy DIY. I find it frustrating when I get partway through the job and realise that I need a particular tool that not only do I not have but nor do the local B & Q, Wicks, Jewson, Travis Perkins or any other supplier within a twenty-mile radius.

It’s either the missing tool or the instructions that I am following meticulously bear no relationship to the job in front of me. My fuse is very short on such occasions and the air rapidly turns an unpleasant shade of azure. But needs must sometimes.

As I progressed in my career and my earnings started to rise, I soon came upon another problem: I was losing more income taking time off work to do the jobs I didn’t really like than it would cost me to buy in some expertise.

And then I got to thinking.

What would Chris Evans do?

The answer was simple: work at the job that I enjoy and get really well paid for and pay someone else to do the stuff I find frustrating and unrewarding. Since that ‘lightbulb moment’ I haven’t looked back – well maybe just that one time!

We were expecting our lifelong friends to visit us for the weekend and, as you do, my wife decided that the light fitting in the guest bedroom should be upgraded. Late on Friday afternoon she presented me with said light fitting and asked me to put it up. How tough could it be – especially with my trusty camera phone to take pictures of the current fitting (which was working perfectly well) in situ.

All went well until I turned back on the power. Bang!! Everything tripped out. I checked my installation against the photo and, seeing nothing wrong, I tried again. Same again! At six-thirty in the evening, in gathering dusk and with an hour before our guests arrived, I was left with no alternative but to call out an emergency electrician. A tattooed and musclebound ex-boxer arrived within 20 minutes and looked at me with a smirk on his face.

‘How many times did you blow the circuit then?’ he chortled.

‘Only the once,’ I lied, ‘then I decided that life was too short…’

Having the advantage of experience, and not being held back by colour blindness, he had the job done inside 10 minutes and walked away £60 the richer.

A few weeks ago, I took my grandchildren into my home office to find some scrap paper for them to play with.

‘What’s that big machine in the corner, Grandpa?’ asked Darcy.

I proudly explained that it was a photocopier with a sorter.

‘What, like a printer or a scanner?’ she enquired, using her 21^st Century knowledge to explain my 1980’s pride and joy.

‘Well, sort of. But you can copy anything – like a photograph for instance.’

‘Like a scanner, then?’

‘Well yes but you can do much more.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, when we had one in our office, people would sit on it, pull their trousers down and take a photocopy of their bum and then pin it on the office wall.’

‘Did you ever do that, Grandpa?’

‘No of course not! Well, maybe once after the Christmas Office Party, but I was very young!’

‘Cool! How come they don’t use them now? They are quaint and my mates would be well amazed to see this kind of old-fashioned stuff. And what’s this do?’ asks Darcy, pointing to my now defunct fax machine.

‘Oh, this would send a message from one office to another.’

‘And it would come up on their screen?’

‘No, it would come out as a piece of paper.’

‘What? It produced paper, this fax machine?’ incredulity in her voice.

‘Well, not exactly.’

And then I got to thinking.

What would Chris Evans do?

That’s when I came up with the idea: Fax Fest. A family festival of music and machines, mid-twentieth century office equipment like photocopiers, cathode tube computers, punch-tape machines, even Xerox machines.

The juices flowed as I thought of the kind of music that would enhance Fax Fest.

We would definitely need Florence and the Machine to top the bill, and Rage Against the Machine. I like the Wurzels and maybe The Undertones or Lick the Tins. And of course, it would not be complete without Sharleen Spiteri and Seasick Steve on stage.

My Nan used to have a wealth of terms to describe ‘the Human Condition’.

Some days she said she just felt ‘anyhow’ and others she thought that the world was ‘arse up’ards’.

She knew that you could not bring you’re ‘A’ Game to every single day and I began to believe her.

And then I got to thinking.

What would Chris Evans Do?

So, the next time I woke up feeling ‘anyhow’ I set about sorting out my sock drawer and reorganising my wardrobe.

Firstly, I rolled my socks up into neat pairs and laid them in a colours sequence running from left to right – light socks to the left going through the shades to the darkest on the right. A feeling of happiness was starting to settle over me, but this was nothing in comparison to the feelings I got when I moved to the wardrobe.

I started looking at my array of 25 shirts and made some hard decisions about how often I actually wore some of these garments. Soon I had culled 10 shirts, some much loved friends, because, in truth, they had not fitted around my stomach for many years.

Then I started to sort, again light to the left going to the dark on the right. But I was getting even more sophisticated with my sorting. Short-sleeved to the left, long-sleeves and then double-cuffs on the right – each group cascading in its own rainbow spectrum.

Now I was ready for the day.

I was finding the daily grind of office politics was beginning to take its toll and my patience was wearing very thin. I was thinking ‘get a life!’ every time I was asked to referee a dispute over the ginger nut biscuits (who bought the last one and does that give them the right to eat the last one?). I took to staying in my office, head down, just to avoid getting sucked in.

And then I got to thinking.

What would Chris Evans do?

 The next day I surprised my colleagues by bringing into the office a fully mature pig. I roped off an area in my office and placed my new workmate in his own boxing ring.

I changed my attitude to personal isolation and wandered the offices almost seeking out disputes between workers, and it didn’t take me long to find one.

‘Dave, you’ve been here a long time. Can you sort out a dispute for us? My department, Office Requisitions, buys all the stuff we need to run the office, right? So that obviously includes the purchase of envelopes, right?’

I agreed.

‘But we are not responsible for buying the stamps – that’s the job of the Postal Room, surely?’

‘Hang on, Paul,’ intervened the Head of Outward Physical Communications, ‘first we haven’t been called the Postal Room since 2010 and second your envelopes are useless without stamps so it’s obviously your responsible to make the envelopes fit for purpose!’

‘Not at all, Mike, how are we, in Office Requisitions to know how many stamps you use?’

‘Same way as you know how many envelopes we need – WE TELL YOU!’

I stepped into the skirmish with alacrity, ‘I have this new resource in my office to resolve such disputes. Both of you come to my office in 5 minutes.’

‘OK’ said Paul, ‘should we bring anything with us?’

‘Only a sponge and some soap.’ I replied.

I strode away, not looking over my shoulder but smiled as I could only imagine the expression on Mike and Paul’s faces.

Ten minutes later Mike and Paul entered my office – Mike clasping a sponge and Paul carrying a bucket full of soapy water.

‘Thanks guys, pop them down by the ring.’

They walked hesitantly towards the pig, restrained only by a makeshift rope ring, placed down their items before scurrying back to the comfort of two chairs by my desk.

 ‘You’re probably wondering about the pig?’ I asked rhetorically, ‘well, I’ve just finished reading a book recommended by Chris Evans called ‘Pig Wrestling’ which is all about how to reframe a problem to resolve it and avoid confrontation. I won’t go into it in detail but here’s the bottom line – one of you has to wash the pig and one of you has to buy the stamps. Now which way is it to be?’

Within a minute Mike and Paul left my office, all conflict resolved. Thanks Chris, my only worry is that we might end up with twice as many stamps as we need!

Over the years, my wife had wanted to move – not that our current home did not fit us like a comfortable old shoe, just that she did not want it to be our ‘final home’.

I felt more relaxed in that house than any of the other dozen that we had lived in in our lives, but I could appreciate the sentiment. We watched all those TV programmes about escaping to the country, finding our place in the sun – we had even spent a few seconds thinking about a life Down Under. The challenge was how could we move from our ideal home and guarantee that we would be moving to something equally ideal, just somewhere else.

And then I got to thinking.

What would Chris Evans do?

The colossus of British broadcasting had spent a number of years building up a reputation and a huge following based upon familiar sounds, a familiar format and familiar voices. Then he decided to give all this up and chase a new challenge.

We would take a leaf out of his book!

We had a detached house; we would buy a new detached house. We had three bedrooms; we would buy a three-bedroom house. We had a conservatory; we would buy a house with a conservatory. We had a south-facing garden; we would acquire a south-facing garden. We would take all our old furniture and curtains with us. Why, we would even take all our white goods with us!

Furthermore, we would be sure to find this new house in a leafy avenue just like the old one.

And so it worked out. Within a few days it looked, felt and smelled just like our old place.

But, as Chris will tell you, it is always important to chase a new challenge!