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Author: drnicko

Awarded an MBE for services to arts-based businesses, I am passionate about generating inspiring, socially engaging, creative practice within educational contexts both nationally and internationally.

The Business Allotment: Forget the Clichés!

Carla slumped into the chair at the end of a  miserable day and looked despondently into her mirror. Her unique make up offer (Stickless Lipstick) was looking distinctly unimpressive: sales had slumped, her website designer had started to resemble the Jurassic Park Fat Controller and her overseas supplier had clearly decided to up sticks and move to the Himalayas for all the communication skills he was demonstrating. She wondered, not for the first time this week, this month or indeed this year, whether this new  business start up business was all it was cracked up to be.

But this is all in a day’s work for the aspiring entrepreneur. There will be many days when sales  suck, profits revert to losses and your products look pathetic. There’ll be days when the cliches fly thick and fast as you attempt to hold onto any motivational cliché you can summon up at two in the morning when the kids aren’t sleeping, your partner’s out boozing and the cash flow is freezing before your very eyes. ‘Dream It Large‘; ‘No Sleep Till Christmas; ‘Pull Out Your Hair Until Your Head Bleeds‘: will all come flooding into your consciousness and add to your general feelings of inadequacy and defeat.

But this is all fine and should be welcomed by the aspiring entrepreneur because after all, you’re allowed to have bad days: very bad days in fact. You’re allowed to feel a failure and not step up to other people’s plates and you’re allowed to disappoint as many people as  you can before breakfast. Building your business is not about pleasing  others but looking at yourself in that mirror and accepting yourself,  warts, beauty spots and peculiar skin blemishes and all.

After a long days night of trawling around the internet, Carla subsequently found her own source of aspirational aphorisms to slow her to sleep and face the next day with renewed vigour and purpose in the form of Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies.

‘Imagine a caterpillar moving‘ rekindled her internal locus of control; ‘Repetition is a form of change’ was a comforting reassurance that even  the biggest thinkers of the era aka Albert Einstein can sometimes get it disastrously wrong; ‘Pay attention to distractions’ allowed her to stop obsessing with the orthodoxy that expects obsession: and ‘Disconnect  from Desire’ jolted her into remembering that having a desire for your  business is one thing but that sometimes desire can get in the way of  allowing things to happen of their own volition.

Carla’s current fave track is Pharell’s HAPPY is fantastically infectious and a great incitement to keep your spirits up: but sometimes its OK to realise that there are very good reasons to be miserable about the state of your business. It won’t be the end of the world and it won’t be the end of your business, or indeed your life.

More tales from The Business Allotment here!

Publish and Be Damned! Write your most damning review and win a prize!

“And there it is… the stupidest fucking thing I’ve read all day” says a reviewer of Confessions of An Ageing Tennis Player recently.

So as Christmas is fast approaching, we’re delighted to run our seasonal promotion campaign where you get the chance to win not one, not two but three – yes three! – signed copies of Confessions of an Ageing Tennis Player. The really unlucky winner will also receive a copy of the un-illustrated version of Confessions of an Ageing Football Player! now available on Amazon.

All you have to do is send in your most negative, critical or damning review of Confessions of An Ageing Tennis Player to this website by midnight on Wednesday 1 December to be in with a chance of winning our top Christmas Confessions Prizes!

1st Prize: one signed copy of Confessions of an Ageing Tennis Player plus one signed copy of Confessions of Ageing Football Player

2nd Prize: two signed copies of Tennis Player!

3rd Prize: three signed copies of Tennis Player!

To qualify, please post your review on this site and add your name and contact email address. The judges retain the right to remove your post if it’s offensiveness is based on racist, misogynistic, homophobic, disablist or any other forms of hatred. (Yes, you may feel you can publish what you like – but not on this site).

Prize winners will be announced on Saturday 4 December on this website and on all the usual social media channels.

The judges decision will be final and not open to appeal.

“I put it all down to Lord Andrew!” Cameron Norrie bares his soul to Lord Andrew John Paul George Ringo Murray of Kirkintilloch.

 

Cameron Norrie, one of the best men’s tennis player in the world, produced one of the most predictable Masters 1000 triumphs in recent memory last night. From a set and a break deficit, Norrie recovered to comprehensively thrash Nikoloz Basilashvili and become the first British man to win the prestigious Indian Wells title. Ever.

In a NOP exclusive, Norrie gives a unique insight into his playing style and why he puts his entire success down to the hard wrought experience and wisdom of Lord Andrew John Paul George Ringo Murray of Kirkintilloch, currently being Pleasured by Her Majesty at a secret location somewhere in the depths of the Californian desert.

“When I was two years old, I used to watch the tennis on the TV and especially the guys like McEnroe, Borg and Nastase” confessed Norrie to Lord Andrew over a steaming mug of gruel.

“Round about Wimbledon time, my brother Decameron and I would play a kind of tennis out on our grandfather’s lawn. I would take on the role of John McEnroe and he would enact Jimmy Connors.  I would invariably win as I was two and he was just beginning to get to grips with being swaddled.  It was all done to the fact that I had a proper tennis racket and knew how to score properly.  He had nothing and knew even less.

As I’ve gotten older, it’s become clearer that proficiency in tennis is not all about age but all about who you know and what inspirational illustrated comic guide books on how to play tennis you can read before breakfast. Your book, Lord Andy, if I may call you that…?”

At this point, Lord Andrew JPGRM of Kirkintilloch nodded sagely, giving the young buck licence to bare his soul, prostrated at his master’s bare feet.

“Your book, Lord Andy, offered me a veritable cornucopia of playing tips and tricks which helped me deal with all sorts of opponents of all sorts of sizes and shapes, playing all kind of strange shots in the oddest of circumstances.  The Californian desert being one of them.

Part two showed me how to apply those skills and strategies to go on and win a major international tennis tournament.  Last night of all nights!”

At this point, Lord Andrew’s security advisor arrived and informed the visitor that his time was up and there could be no more advice and guidance from the oracle.  Cameron Norrie however refused to leave the company of Lord Andrew and protested vigorously at his imminent ejection.

“But I need some excellent advice on how to deal with the media interest and the furore around becoming an international tennis superstar and Sports Personality of the Year!  Which is surely mine now that Emma has disappeared in a Transylvanian smog of her own making?” shrieked Norrie as the security advisor doubled in size and number.”

Lord Andrew of Kirkintilloch took pity on the young tennis buck and offered him these words of peace and harmony.

“My book, Cameron, is for everyone who has suffered at the hands of pomposity or institutional inertia and feels that the traditional English values of fair play, a stiff upper lip and self-deprecation are lacking in many areas of our public life. 

With this in mind, part four offers some hard-fought wisdom about how to deal with the Machiavellian politics of the sports club and by extension our Great British society as a whole; something you have just witnessed firsthand. And for that ignominy, I am truly apologetic.  Ours is not to reason but just to sit back and take it on our substantial Roger Federer inspired chins.”

As Lord Andrew has shown many times before, Britain is not as ‘Great’ as it might like to think it is and the treatment of Cameron Norrie is yet another example of how mighty empires rise and fall.

You too can become an international tennis superstar and be inspired by Lord Andrew John Paul George Ringo Murray of Kirkintilloch by joining him in a rare attendance at Westfields Tennis Club at 21 Eastfield Rd, Leicester LE3 6FE on Thursday 21 October from  7pm.

“It’s never too late to leave your mark on the tennis court of life” as he sagely remarks here.

My name is not Russell Crowe. Lord AJPGR Murray dispenses advice to Emma Raducanu.

My dear Emma,

To say I was hugely disappointed at your news this morning that you had fallen at the first fence of the BNP Paribas Open in Indiana Wells in such a miserable fashion would be an understatement.

I was devastated, distraught and filled with remorse that I was unable to guide you through those early baby steps outside the hustle and bustle of the Grand Slams.

I realised too late that I should accepted your request to be your coach once you had dispensed with the services of that previous no-hoper you employed. Tim did his tiny best I am sure but it should have been me on that aeroplane with you to California.

Too late, too little: such are the risks facing eponymous tennis champions and their coaches and failure is a tough lesson to learn for both of us.

But never-mind Emma: now is not the time to crow or wallow in self doubt and recrimination.

We will return in style and I will make it my number one priority to be court-side with you (albeit via a Zoom call as my current location doesn’t allow for personal visits) on Monday morning to pick you up off the floor, put that determined little smile back on your chubby cheeks and get that forehand swishing again properly.

Indian Wells will be but a distant memory on Monday afternoon as we prepare for your next great challenge: Frinton on Sea Lawn Tennis Club in November.

 

More insights from Lord Andrew John Paul George Ringo Murray here.

Mmm peachy. Lord AJPGR Murray confesses.

I’m not a little relieved that my impersonator has been reunited with his plimsolls over night.

The accusatory looks I was getting from my so called neighbours was all getting a bit too much.

“The scent of peach around your legs is a bit of a give away” remarked one local wag, as his dogs kept on sniffing sniffing sniffing around my nether regions.

Just cheap aftershave I explained, trying to shoo them away in the process. The dogs weren’ t listening though and it soon became clear that I would have to take drastic action.

Fetch! I threw my trainers over the railway crossing as the gates came down, hoping those infuriating hounds would leap on to the railway track about the same time that the 15.47 Liverpool train was passing.

Jump they did, fetch they did but true to British Rail form, the 15.47 was 2 minutes late and they were able to bring me back the trainers intact, albeit covered in a slime of dog slobber. I held them up, scrutinised them and held them to my nose. Mmm, still peachy.

I put them back on my feet and marvelled at their perfect fit. My impersonator had clearly done his homework. Quite how he had found out about my size 16 feet is anyone guess – and quite how he thinks he can get around a tennis court carrying those barges at the end of his legs is quite beyond me too but I have to admit, they felt comfortable, well worn in and clearly had many tales to tell about their owners trials and tribulations on the world’s tennis courts.

I luxuriated in them for a bit longer before reconciling myself to the fact that they would need to be returned to their rightful owner, even if he was unwilling to return the title of Wimbledon champion and Sports Personality of the Year to me.

Timing is everything I mused as I posted them through the outsize postbox on the front door of his bungalow. I rang the doorbell and scarpered away as fast as I could back home. I wasn’t in the mood to confront my imposter, even if his plimsolls reminded me of the Algarve.

More insights from Lord Andrew John Paul George Ringo Murray here.

Imposter alert! Lord Andrew John Paul George Ringo Murray of Kirkintilloch puts the record straight.

The news that some two bit tennis player who calls himself ‘Andy Murray’ has had his wedding ring stolen whilst attached to his plimsolls has led to various accusations that yours truly is implicated in some way in this heinous crime.

I would like to assure my many fans that these rumours are unfounded, untrue and unnerving in the sense that they suggest that one’s private life is not as private as one would like it to be.

The proposition that I would somehow have the capability to track down the location of this so-called ‘Andy Murray’, then be the slightest bit interested in his plimsolls – even if they did reek of a rather pleasant peach like odour – or even be a bit remotely bothered by the wedding ring which was probably carelessly entwined around the aforesaid plimsoll laces without any consideration of the poor woman who had foolishly pledged her life to follow in his footsteps (I warned her, I really did) – is just plain ludicrous.

Quite where these spurious allegations have arisen is a complete mystery and unfortunately, given my current circumstances, somewhat difficult to contest.

But contest them I shall. And Mr. so-called ‘Andy Murray’ will regret the day he attempted to brief the paparazzi against yours truly. Mr ‘Murray’: je ne regret riens but you may well do very soon.

More insights from Lord Andrew John Paul George Ringo Murray here.

Lord Andrew John Paul George Ringo Murray of Kirkintilloch speaks!

We’re delighted to inform our readers that far from disappearing downstream into the morning mists of the River Mersey all those years ago, the Mighty Lord Andrew John Paul George Ringo Murray of Kirkintilloch has resurfaced ready to share his wit and wisdom with all those who care to listen to his recent forays into the steaming cauldron that is International Tennis.

This weekend saw him pull off one of the most incredible achievements in living tennis memory: the complete and utter obliteration of his opponent in the Women’s Final of the US Open Tennis Championship in New York. Whilst not a man of many words, we managed to pin him down to say a few words for our readership.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you all. I can’t believe that this has ended in such a thrilling style, with so many decisive moments, nerve tingling decisions, and life changing choices.

Fergy was an incredible opponent this afternoon, but I agree with her when she says the best woman won (i.e. me).

So, congratulations to her for putting up such a spirited fight, and congratulations to me for pulling out all the stops and astounding everyone.

While now is not the time to crow, it is worth remembering those who fell at an early stage during the competition and for the valuable contribution blah… blah… blah… they have made to the upper echelons of the tennis fraternity.

Holding the trophy aloft will stay in my memory for the rest of my life and I would like to finally thank you all, my supporters, my coach, my advocates and my enemies for the encouragement you have given me or the motivation which has spurred me on to prove you all wrong. This year’s US Open has proven to me that anything is possible, with the right attitude, guts, determination, and fertile imagination.

My club, my tennis, my world, my gender, will never be the same again.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you.

Lord Andrew will be available for book signings, contracts and endorsements at the usual address.

Advice from the NOP Werkshop: what could schools do for writers? 6 Easy Pieces…

Many years ago, the Labour Party had the bright idea of engaging artists, celebrities and other media types to support the campaign efforts of the party. Entitled, Arts for Labour, the programme involved wheeling out celebrities and artists at key moments during the 1987 campaign. In hindsight (always a best friend, Mr. Hindsight), this may not have been a particularly effective use of many people’s time and energy: but one thing it did do was getting artists asking of the Labour Party, how about a Labour for the Arts parallel campaign? Or, what did the Labour Party ever do for the Arts?

This fell on deaf ears at the time but these days, what with schools engaging writers in a kind of Writers for Schools campaign, one might be tempted to ask, what about Schools for Writers? We might ask ourselves what did schools ever do for writers apart from pay them modest remuneration for a role which can be confused, disconnected and intended to provide short term attainment fixes to long term systematic problems?

Here are 6 things schools could do for writers if they had the health of writers at heart:

  1. Commission new plays from new, local playwrights rather than repeating yet another version of Willy Russell’s Our Day Out
  2.  Install a writer in residence for a term with a brief to capture the ‘essence’ of the school which is not just flattering and designed for best possible impact in PR terms, but is critical and capable of shaking up a few well held preconceptions
  3. Role model creative writing by all school staff to students which encourages the development of voice, style and expressivity and goes beyond secretarial niceties
  4. Encourage the whole school community to read any kind of writing – literature, pop culture, graphic novels – for pleasure as opposed to reading for assessment, policy keepie-uppie, and duty.
  5. Appreciate that different authors give you new knowledge of the world – not just different perceptions of existing knowledge – and build that knowledge into the curriculum.
  6. And thanks to Ruth Pringle from Blue Noun... “Encourage blogging, social media posts. Loads of school kids are being massively creative on their own SM platforms. I guess schools don’t even see this, and I know unmanaged SM/kids a minefield but it’s a really valuable modern day skill which kids are developing themselves – often excelling in and being massively creative in without the school ever seeing/grading those skills. A resident writer working on a media project/website/blog could get them engaged and expressing themselves in really workplace relevant ways.“

More from the NOP Werkshop here.

You can also download the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) research report on the impact of writers in schools, Class Writing here.

Please feel free to share your tips here too!

Class WritingDownload

Back to school armed with weapons of mass destruction and learnings of the third kind.

It’s a new school year and memories of tests failed, repeated years and thwarted ambitions waft through the air again as the leaves start to turn, the air chills and the first signs of Christmas appear on the supermarket shelves.

What did we learn from our summer break that will see us through the darkening days? That some weapons are more righteous than others? That whilst we might hope that it’s never too late to become the tennis player we always wanted to be, that in fact it is? Much too late? That our grandiose political aspirations are crumbling faster than a cup cake straight out of the oven in the Great British Bake Off?

The sound of lives cut short, the acrid smell of relationships souring, the sound of economies going pop, this is what we’re learning this summer.

It may that after the heady hazy days of summer that we cast a quizzical look at our new school pals, throw an astonished glance to the teachers in charge and run out of the school gates as fast as our little short trousered legs will carry us.

It worked for me for a while when I was about to turn five although the inevitable grip that school was to exert eventually meant I donned my cap and blazer with the best and the rest of them.

Teachers, when you’re back in that classroom, counting them in and counting them out, please save some extra time for those in front of you who are yearning to run a mile at top speed out of the classroom, down the hall and out into the road. They may have learnt far too much for their own liking over the summer and just may not be ready to soak up your phonemes and calculus.

Come and join the ATP Circuit at Cambridge Lawn Tennis Club!

Whilst we have now completed our first 2 launches of Confessions in Nottingham and Liverpool, I’m delighted to let you know that we have had interest from Cambridge Lawn Tennis Club to host a similar event later this autumn.

So, in case you were unable to make the Nottingham and Liverpool events, (or indeed, would like to repeat the experience!) you are now invited to the East of England launch of Confessions of an Ageing Tennis Player at Cambridge Lawn Tennis Club, Stacey Lane, Wilberforce Road, CB3 0EQ on Saturday 9 October at 4pm.

As before, the Cambridge event will involve performed readings from the book, refreshments will be available and it will take place from 4pm -6pm. 

Places for the reading are limited. If you would like to attend, please confirm your place by emailing nick@nickowenpublishing.com

We hope you are able to join us on 9 October!