Also, I had no idea that Nottingham is statistically the ‘poorest city’. My partner Kat and myself are poor NTU graduates working part-time jobs, no doubt dragging the average down As you pointed out yourself, Nottingham has two universities and a huge student population which surely skews the statistics. Nottingham has never struck me as a particularly ‘poor’ city.

“I can come home and find it very difficult to write precisely because my brain is fagged from too much dull, non-varying work in a non-stimulating environment. The days when I can get out of the office, meet people, do something different are usually busier but also mean that my brain is wired and excited when I get home. You have to be ever vigilant and determined to wake yourself up to new things when you get in – it’s so easy to turn the TV on instead.”

It might be someone’s choice in the first place, albeit a bad one, to get wrapped up in a job that zaps their enthusiasm; but it’s a very real and difficult trap to get out of – if they don’t want to live in poverty or completely burn out from trying to achieve everything.

I find the video you posted really depressing, because it’s true! There’s a lot of shame in creativity; by the time kids grow up, those interested in the arts are seen as the ‘weird, whimsical kids; that will probably never end up with a proper job.’

As Ron G Holland, my favourite entrepreneur and creative thinker would say: creativity – when it’s encouraged and developed properly, breeds innovation and clever solutions to problems. The kinds of solutions that the flat, unimaginative and logical brain rarely conceives.