Every Other Day of the Week is Fine

Artrockers,

Yes, this is an Artrocker mailout, on a Monday. Rather than seeing out the week with our usual Friday blast we thought we might light up the start of the week instead. Which sounds like a great idea. But...

What I failed to take into account is the fact that I generally feel like death on a Monday morning. It's nothing to do with excess alcohol, I'm effectively tee-total, or late nights in celebrity packed night clubs, I don't do that either. Rather, the reason I greet each Monday like a wrung out rag is that, like all self employed persons I tend to work longer than most. By Friday I'm fooked, finished, collapsed. But there's no rest for this wicked individual, because all of the other stuff I should do during the week gets delayed til the weekend. It's 2 days of washing, hoovering, rubbish disposal, checking a week's worth of personal correspondence, sweeping the leaves from the yard, cleaning out the fish, ironing, cooking, shopping...You know the score, or you do if you work for yourself. When I dream it's of 9 to 5 jobs, of being a civil servant who works on flexitime who finishes work at 4, with weeks of paid holidays and a pension. How amazing must that be?

And then I recall that many years ago I was a civil servant, and my dream turns out to be a nightmare. Never again.

I, like many self-employed, will work til I drop. I have no 'retirement' plan, just another 30 odd years of graft and weekends of madness.

Am I complaining? I am not. It's worth it all.

I may be having trouble keeping my eyes open today, but look at the result, Artrocker is a fine thing, I'm proud of it, proud to be part of a team, proud to fly the flag of independence, proud that we actually make something, a rarity in our country.

But I think I might need 40 winks now. I won't get it though, we've got a magazine to make.
Tom Artrocker