When people take a call at work they might twirl the phone cable, or drum their fingers on the desk, or play with the spring on their desk lamp, or doodle. Doodles can be abstract patterns, random lines or boxes, or sometimes elaborate floral motifs. But my doodling sees me accessing a part of my brain that I have never satisfactorily employed.
Before I fell into the all consuming void that is car sales, I graduated with a degree in car design. It was something I always wanted to do, and I assumed that four years of hard graft at Coventry University would catapult me into a world of design meetings, top-secret conferences and black turtle-neck sweaters. I imagined that, come graduation day, there would be crowds of corporate talent-scouts teeming outside the university gates, waiting to spirit me off to a new life in Stuttgart, Pasadena, Tokyo or Seoul. Instead, all there was outside the gates was rain and charity collectors.
