A haiku is more achievable than Proust's tome

BUMPED into a painter friend this last week.

- Peter Mortimer

Not literally of course, which is just as well because he was carrying a mug of hot coffee at the time. There would be little point in his carrying a mug of cold coffee - unless of course it was iced coffee, a fashion which has grown in popularity, but which if you drink too quickly can give you a headache.

I digress, He is a man who paints pictures for a living and I am a man who writes down words for a living, so you might describe us both as ‘creatives: Though it's hard to think of anyone who isn’t creative in one way or another.

Once you get up in the morning (I assume you do get up in the morning) you begin to make creative decisions. Cornflakes or Weetabix? Plain blue socks or patterned red ones? I admit these decisions are perhaps not as monumental and as far reaching in impact as deciding to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or to knock out Symphony Number Nine (number nine apparently is a bit of a hexed number and once having reached it, most composers never write a tenth). But can these acts be called ‘decisions’ at all?