Yesterday morning when I caught my bus into town there was a young lady at the bus stop. We don’t always see each other but we do enough to acknowledge each other when we are both there. Today we struck up a conversation.

She asked me what I did for a living and I said design and marketing and she said that she wanted to do design but the course she was on stopped and later the school closed.

I asked her what she was doing now and she told me she had a job in the freezer section of a local supermarket. I then asked if she still wanted to do design and she replied implying that she would but that it was now too late. It had been more than a year since she was studying.

I couldn’t believe it - she was only about 20-21. She had accepted her future was set as external influences had dictated so. Then my coaching skills came to the fore and I asked her some searching questions which I think hit home.

I haven’t posted much on here of late but I’m not having a normal time at the moment. The term ‘even keel’ may present itself in about three weeks if I’m lucky once ’stuff’ is out of the way.

I felt I had to write about yesterday though because it highlights what many parents are going through at this time.

In case you didn’t know, I am the proud owner of an incomplete set of internal organs.

Four years ago this very weekend the pain that had been bugging me like an ongoing bout of intermittent but ugly indigestion finally decided that it would wait no longer for me to visit my doctor.

I went to bed the previous evening largely uncomfortable but in no great distress but the pain was still there in the morning as I got ready for work. This was unusual but was more an irritant rather than a problem, then suddenly the pain intensity accelerated like a bat of hell.

They say that laughter is the best medicine and a while back I tried a very silly experiment to see if the theory was true.

What I did was devise a spoof psychological profiling quiz to see how colleagues and acquaintances would respond. Apart from asking impossible questions, I requested that those taking part should provide a seasoning for their answers. I was more than a little surprised therefore to find a shipment of paprika on my doorstep the following morning but it sure as did help with my Hungarian cookery classes!

A few months ago I read an article that implied that the decision as to whether the older generation could own a computer and access the Internet was being taken for them. As a business, this is a very dangerous game to be playing - have they never met my Nan?

You cannot escape hi-tech technology in the world these days with computers now comfortably outselling TVs in the UK at least. Outside the office where I work there are no less than four mobile phone shops within 30 seconds walk and a brand new Maplin’s gadget shop is accessible if you are prepared to walk for a further 30.

Certainly with mobiles we must surely be approaching saturation point with everyone who wants a phone, owning one. Computers and the Internet on the other hand are a slightly different proposition as there are still a great many people out there who dare not join the on-line world.

Always one to jump around random topics, here is an article I’ve written on County Wicklow in Ireland.

Ireland, the Wicklow Way

When thinking of Ireland what springs to mind? The emerald isle? Guinness?

The map of the country itself looks like the craggy profile of some old sage staring out into the Atlantic Ocean where nose is the counties of Galway and Mayo and the mouth is the River Shannon. However, for many people visiting Ireland they are attracted to Dublin on the east side of the country like a moth flapping around a bedside lamp. I mean, where else would you start? For those in the UK it’s a convenient hop across the Irish Sea either by air or ferry from ports such as Holyhead on Anglessey in North Wales and Liverpool.

Comedy as a passion rather than just as pure entertainment began for me as an unpleasant seven year old back in the mid-70s. For no discernible reason that I can recall, I was handed a Tony Hancock LP of recordings of two TV shows, “The Blood Donor” and “The Radio Ham”. To this day I have no idea why it was given to me - I was born after the death of Hancock, one British comedy’s greatest ever performers, and at that time I was far more interested in football than humour. However, as soon as I started listening I was hooked and began avidly collecting his other recordings after that.

I’m looking to earn an additional £10,000 to my salary by the end of the year. This will be achieved via a number of ways and I will expand on these over time.

I’m currently on day 4 of 292 days and here is my progress so far…

Based on the £10,000 in 292 days, I need to earn approximately £34.25 per day in addition to my salary. I have already been flexible with the figures as I’ve included all my writing earnings this year through Helium.com and the stage show NewsRevue, some of which I cannot claim yet. However, I am not concerned because my new earnings will compound and grow in time. I WILL catch up!

Additional income received to date: £11.26
Additional income to earn: £9988.74

Helium income earned: £1.43 ($2.8
Helium bonus earned: £45.41 ($91.50)

Current Projected Figures

Income Target by Day 4: £137.00
Current projected income and income received to date: £58.10
Additional income to earn: £9941.90

What suggestions can you make to help me reach this target more quickly?

All options considered…even donating my kidneys to medical science!

I was speaking from someone recently via an Internet message board who was asking about living and working in London. He was considering studying in the city and because my company was based there, I seemed to be a good person to ask about the place. Oddly, the fact that I lived 80 miles from the city did not deter him in the slightest for some reason.

As some of you will have read I’m a graphic designer / marketer from the UK with an interest in personal development. Some will also know that I have a tricky time of late of getting all the concepts to stick in my own life…but I’m working on it!

Curiously, despite this I have actually been doing a smattering of life coaching and this something I enjoy a great deal. I attended a one-day coaches training course and the basic methods taught to me then have served me well so far.