HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY
I hope you are all loved up with your loved up lover. Anyway, it's time I kept this page up-to-date so Happy New Year as well :-)

Yes, another year begins and the last one just flew by - they're getting quicker I am sure of it. Here are some more boring and mundane words by the artist which he feels are important, but in reality they are only of interest to himself. But please read them if you so wish.

This is a list of intentions that I wrote at the beginning of 2011... How did I do?

• get back into the studio more - I feel my muse is returning
Well I didn't get back as much as hoped and this last year I did very little art work at the studio. I am going through a fallow period of productivity (in terms of painting) it seems. My trouble is I do work that no-one ever sees - it just gets stored in my studio after I have finished it. I don't have any gallery representation - never have done and I don't sell my work much at all. I have become to the point of thinking "why do I do this when no-one gets to view it?", and therefore not inclined to do more. I have become slightly dispirited about and disillussioned with the whole art malarky. It's only a passing phase I am sure. My muse is returning - I have been having vivid dreams about painting. Amazing abstracts which I want to create but have forgotten how they looked.

So, I have been spending time in my new place which is great - I really enjoy being here. Unlike my old place which was a relief to get out of sometimes. And the computer is here. So I have been at home being creative in other ways the last couple of years doing the wikidub videos in my spare time and working on the graffiti website (see below).

But it really is my intention on getting back to the studio. I am going to get another laptop, macbook if I can afford it

• start getting more revenue streams and opportunities
• leave my day job and start my own business
The two above are related really. So, I did leave my job and nearly start my own business in the cycle trade, but things did not go to plan and the company and shop didn't happen because my solicitor advised against it, so I went back to working for my old employers. However my boss was pleased to have me back and gave me a raise so I did actually increase my revenue streams! So that's a good thing!

In hindsight, it was good that the business did not go as envisaged because with my Dad being ill I was caring for him from time to time, and I would have found it difficult. My Dad is an a prescription which is making his condition a lot better and it is amazing the difference to him now and him in the summer and autumn last year. So that's a good thing!

• sorting my bad back out and keeping fit and healthy
My back has been getting progressively better throught 2011 to now, with the occassional tweaks, but nothing like the crippling pain I was getting. So that's a good thing!

However, 2011 was the year that I started getting noticible arthritic pain, which started in my left wrist and right foot. So this is something I am having to deal with. Arthritis is not nice. it hurts. But I am looking into ways of managing it and alleviating it. My food is better, lots of veg but must eat more fruit. It is weather or stress related too - when I went to Dominican Republic in November the pain disappeared. It has crept back since then. My Mum has arthritis so did my Grandad, so I am not surprised, but my sisters don't suffer which is good for them, because it is painful. My consumption of ipobrufen and paracetamol has increased. That's all the doctor said to me when she agreed with me that what I experiencing pain wise was most likely arthritic. Just go away and take pain killers. So that's a bad thing!

I need to start a fitness regime that will help my arthritis because I am sure a lot of it is with blockage of my chi. There is something that is disordering the way my body looks after it self. With arthritis it is about inflammation which is what the body does when it is healing itself normally, but it goes OTT with it and that's arthritis. I've read that acupuncture is good for the condition, but the effect wears of with each application. I need to look into it more. So it seems I will be having to live with this pain unless I find something that I can do that sorts it out. I intend to stretch more and I run from time to time. Cycling and my job keep me reasonably fit, but I do stand all day at work and it is really cold in the winter, these are not good I am sure. I like swimming, but I don't like the chlorine in the pools.

• keep things more in order and tidier at home
This I have been mostly good at and am improving. I still have yet to unpack completely from when I moved in 3 years ago though. I need to get bookshelves up so I can see my books which are all in boxes. Over all I am tidier on a general trajectory upwards although it is a bit messy at the mo I do confess!

• get a cat or two, or a woman - I need a companion
Well. Charlie has come into my life and she is mostly great. I was getting lonely at home and it was time to get a new cat. So, the was the first thing I did last year and she has been with her human for over a year now. She is finally settling down with the realisation that I am a nice guy who is going to feed her and not whack her. I don't know what her story was before I rescued her from Battersea Dogs and Cats home but she was wary of people. We do have the occassional argument and she gets wild and I tell her just chill, but now she has finally (took your time girl!) mastered the cat-flap things are going swimmingly. She didn't seem to mind too much when i went to DR for two weeks, but when I went off again soon after for a few days over New Year she objected to that, spitting at me and biting my nose upon my return to show her displeasure at being left home alone.

As for women...hmm.

• stop letting things get me wound up and worried - see 2011
I have been trying to to that. I have been trying to absorb less news because most of it is doom and gloom, which can only affect one's psyche for the worse. There is nothing, or very little I can do to change the horrible things so why worry unless you are directly affected. I am glad I don't have a television and watch doom and gloom soap operas like Eastenders because I feel suicidal enough as it is sometimes with all that cockney depression adding to my general malaise and melancholy. Only joking :-) I am generally positive I think, but we all have tough times. So that's a good thing!

• take more photographs
I have been taking some. Not as many as I should. I need to sort out the photography section of this website!
• pay off my credit card
I have paid off my credit card! I was only paying just the minimal before and I was on a ridiculous rate because I had missed a payment (accidently) and now I am uncredit worthy. I paid it all off with some money I got for my business adventure (thanks Dad!) and nowI am free. It would have taken me 22 years to pay it off at the rate I was going and the amount I was in debt.
• go back to Bayahibe and see my Haitian friends
Which I did, in November. And I had a wonderful time :-)
• learn how to use my smartphone
Still learning and have not got any apps yet. I am so old school. I liked the days when I was phone free. My phone is off half the time anyway.
• keep this website more up to date
I will try. I got put off because of continual hosting problems and because of the google adsense nonsense. I will propbably be getting unlimited hosting soon which should sort out problems I have been having with "This Is Planet Earth" where horrible people have been linking to images and using up my bandwidth so I have been fined by my hosting company.
• start selling from the website
Still not yet, even though I have been promising to do this for years, but I hope to have something soon. I am working in it!
• get graffiti1.com online
This is my website project about graffiti - photographs I have taken of it. Again this is an ongoing project and not on-line, although I have done a lot more work on it last year. Soon come.
• think about joining facetwit and booker
Still thinking....
• read more
I try when I'm in London, but there are a lot of distractions, not least what I read on the internet
• try to be less deranged
I'm trying, but it is hard sometimes. Especially in the depths of winter as I write this.
• say "no" to things more
I' m getting better.
• make more wikidub and notwikidub videos
I really need to spend more time painting in what spare time I have, than making youtube videos.
• make lists of things to do - sensible step by step goals
I've bought a post-it note pad and a whiteboard, but I need to be more regimented and do stuff when I actually think about it, rather than putting off
• achieve or create something everyday
A noble goal, and one I strive to achieve, though not always possible or achievable - and the I feel guilty.
• keep painting of the month more up to date
I shall do my best - I aim to get prints for sale on-line this year. I'm sorting it out.
• keep photo of the month more up to date
Okay, I will try harder if I can.
• keep print of the month more up to date
I will try.
• keep drawing of the week more up to date
So demanding, I will do my best - okay!
• sort out photography section - needs big update
Yes, I know, I'm still thinking about it. I've got a lot on, don't you know, not least finish Assassin's Creed Revelations.
• add more items to this list...
Or maybe not...

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So...it's been awhile since I wrote anything in What's New, which was looking very dated and soo last year, sorry about that, or updated the website. I got a bit dispirited because google adsense was taken off again by google for no good reason. I had appled to all the rules had not click on any links at all, although they said there had been illegal click activity. That meant I would have to go through the whole process of removing the code from where I had embedded it, which is a pain. Never mind, I hadn't earned any money anyway, well about £6.00, which of course I didn't receive.

So that was disheartening. As was being fined over £90 by my web hosting company for exceeding my bandwidth. Now the site overall is getting more popular (thanks!), but the main page that people were viewing (This is Planet Earth - much more popular than my homepage), had been hijacked by some people linking to the animated gifs, and it was eating my bandwidth. So, as I mentioned, I have temporarily shut this page down, well removed the images, and added different images with the same names so that these show upon the culprit's webpages.

Soon, I'll get it back on-line. I hope to have unlimited broadband when my present contract finishes - in a couple of months.

So, that is me more-or-less up to date. And I hope to keep things a bit more ship-shape in the future. I am actually very pleased to have finally sorted this page out, which has been a worry.

I hope some of your dreams and goals are turned into reality this year aand best of luck. Try to stay positive and healthy in these stressful times.

Thanks. Justin.