Jago, you got to love Jago. You got to love the way he floats through life. We'll come back to this.

And you got to love the way that I got principles. Credit crunch or no credit crunch, I told my work to stick their job up their bottom. We'll come back to this too.

First, though, be careful what you ask for. I asked the greag God Google for "naked chicks", and see what it gave me ...

If you, like me, know exactly which millisecond in a google video is used for the icon below, you'll be even more amused. The peope who did this were geniuses with stopwatches. It's called "Naked Chicks":




So this whole "not smoking" thing. It's apparently very tough and very difficult and, apparently, nicotine is more addictive than heroin. Ouch.

But I've got this theory, which we'll come to in a minute. Chief was over last night and - as is normally the case with Chief - he has a different theory.

His theory is that when you are dealing with an addicition to a seriously addictive substance like nicotine, you wean yourself off it bit by bit. You slowly reduce the dose over time until you aren't taking any anymore.

My own theory begs to differ, and kind of views that whole wean-you-off approach as a bit like defeating the point. My own theory sort of treats addiction to smoking like wallpaper. Yes, wallpaper - stuff you put on your walls. Bear with me.

Fell free to write a book and patent this truly successful method of quitting smoking - I like to call it the "No Half Measures Way To Stop Smoking".

Imagine that you move into a new house and the wallpaper is the most hidesously grotesque shade of lizard-scale green. Even if you happen to like lizard-scale green, this particular shade is too grotesque even for you. Even if you're somebody who likes grotesque lizard-scale green, it's still not giving you that warm fuzzy feeling that you want to be getting from your wallcoverings.

Right, so you find out that the grotesque lizard-scale wallpaper was actually put up over the top of some horrible mouldy lemon wallpaper. Even if you normally like mouldy lemon colours, etc ...

We're all kind of geting the point now. The paper has to go, with all its layers.

Now, common-sense tells us that the effort involved in stripping the walls is a direct function of how many layers of wallpaper we're dealing with and how thick each layer is. A single layer of lining paper is much easier to take off than a layer of gloss-painted woodchip for instance. So, that's two variables - the number of layers and the thickness of each layer.

We could use a small nail to scrape away every single inch of paper on the wall - like some mad Army punishment exercise - and it would take ages. Or we could use some kind of industrial steamer and do it layer by layer. Or we could just get some dynamite courtesy of our school physics lessons, and we could blow the wall up.

Either way, the effort involved in stripping this wallpaper will be the same - it depends on the number of layers and the thickness of each layer.

So, imagine that the number of layers of wallpaper is equivalent to how many years you've been smoking. Now imagine that the thickness of each layer is how many fags a day you smoked. These two are now fixed - it's THIS much effort needed, and THIS much pain to go through.

Now, you can take the Chief approach - wean yourself off it -or you could blow the wall up. You can have a little bit of pain every day for months, or you can have it all at once. You can peel the plaster off one hair at a time, or you can rip it off in a one-er. You get the idea.

I started Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday using those sticky patches things that give you nicotine whilst you suck on a biro or something. Meantime, I just kept on stuffing my face with all kinds of stuff. When I wanted a fag, I'd eat a pineapple or something.

On Thursday, I read the instructions for the patches. If you know me, you'll recognise this order of doing things as normal. First do it, then read the instructions later and find out how right you were - it's sort of like looking at the answers in a puzzle book.

Anyway, the instructions tell me it's like 3 months to quit smoking with the patches. 3 Months? I've got to go through this pineapple-munchy nonsense for 3 months? I'm bored now.

So, Thursday, I decide I'm not going to wear a patch at all. I'm not waiting 3 months, just because some bollocks instruction manual tells me to. All huffy-puffy stuff. By Thursday night, I'm thinking that it's not difficult enough and I want the ante upped a little, so we allow Chief and The Missus (previously hiding the fact they were lighting up) to light up in the kitchen whilst I'm there. Still not difficult enough and I'm still getting bored.

Alcohol. Every single book on the subject tells you to avoid alcohol when givving up smoking. So I've been avoiding it, but I magically acquired some tins of Guinness this evening and - thus far - the whole not smoking thing still isn't a problem.

My thinking is that nobody - ever - died because they didn't smoke. Sure, it might be unpleasant stopping smoking but it's not going to kill you. If I am not able to withstand the unpleasantness of not having my addiction fed, then what hope do I have of dragging a bike through dunes? I tell myself that if I really, really, want a fag then I can have one in Dakar and not before.

I still feel kind of cheated though - I thought it was going to be much much harder. If I can stay away from patches for another 2 days then all the physical addiction will be whipped.

Trail riding next week, and Martin will be lighting two fags and hading me one - just the kind of thing to catch me unawares (but not deliberate). We will remain vigilant, but that should make it interesting.

Yes, so anyway, Jago. I was supposed to take his bike up to Midwest on Sunday, so I tried to get an entry for the race but they were full. Graeme at Midwest did joke that he could always put me in Expert, just for the comedy of watching me trying to start my bike on the front row.

Knowing that I had to deliver Jago's bike on Sunday, and I'd be there anyway, I asked if they needed any travelling marshalls. Graeme's response told me everything I need to know:

"The more the better - it'll be a tough course, and we can't get the quads in"

Then, half an hour later, I find out that Jago's not even going. Me an my big mouth - I'd have been better to just sit in the van and do the crossword and read the paper and eat sausage and egg McMuffins. But oh no, instead I am a travelling marshall on a difficult course where they can't get quads into the woods, it's freezing cold and the forecast is for it to piss down.

Yummy ...

So, the job. I had a choice, a very simple choice. I was offered a "renewal" - this is the granting of a stay of execution and I am supposed to be grateful. I am supposed to be grateful despite the fact that I am training people around me who get paid more munny.

When conversations happen like this:

"I have made a decisions: xxx"

"OK"

"Are you happe with that John?"

"Does it matter if I am happy or not? Surely my job here - whilst I am employed - is simply to do what you tell me to?"

"Correct"

"Then why ask me?"

"True."

and then a decision gets made. And then, today, my contract finishes. So I say to my uber-grupen bosses:

"There is nothing on offer for me on terms that I can comfortably agree with. I is not coming back. My contract finishes today, I have discharged all obligations to you.".

So, technically, as at now, I am unemployed for the third Christmas in a row. I will spare you the details of the things I've been asking to change in the last 3 months. They'll either change, and I'll be back, or they won't - and I'll be looking for another job.

The root of it all is this. When you have a burning, festering sore in your gut and you bring it up and they tell you to bury it - that's problem number 1. When you are negotiating with people who know - for sure - that they have the upper hand and you are too scared to stand up to them? You stand up to them:

"Rather than sign what you are offering, I am walking away. I told you what I wanted, and this still stands. Good luck finding a pliable muppet on the open market."

But ot's right before Christmas! You're supposed to be scared, and pliable and very very grateful for the offer of a job.

I could get scared, and sign, and hate myself for the next three months. I will never, never, make a decision based on fear - I will die first. I will not be bullied or pressured, and I will do what I think is right. And, right now, what is right is to stand up to these arrogant people who think that the economoy is going south and that everybody will be grateful to have a job.

Make it a job that I am grateful to have, and I'll be grateful to have it. Only 1 job in the world can have me in it, so it better be a good one. You are the same.

If you ever, ever, have to make a decision based on fear then you should always makes the "wrong" decision. You have to live with yourself for evermore.

I will never bend, never give in. I will never kneel to the pressure of somebody else. They can kill me - if they like - but they will never own my mind. If they want me back in work on Monday, it needs to be based on something other than "John will be here because he's too scared not to be". Wrong. More accurately, "John will be here because it is in his interests and takes him closer to Dakar".

No matter what the pressure, what the price, do not try and bully me and - especially - do not second guess what I will decide because I am afraid. Even if, according to Nash, it is iin my interests to comply then you can bet a lot of money that I won't. I do what I think is right, even if it's wrong.

I am Manic Depressive. My world is black, or it is white. If it's right, I do it. If it's wrong, I don't. End of.

Work aside, taking a bike to Dakar is right, and that's what we're doing.

But I picked a heluuva week to give up smoking ...

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