You can escape completely, seeking an alternative life, or you can play the game and go absent without leave. How you do it is up to you.

There comes a time when you just have to say, “No!” – to the requests and to the system.

Workdays are, I imagine, rather like learning to ice-skate Torvill and Dean’s The Bolero. They start and end easily enough; it’s the bit in the middle that causes the pain in the arse.

I am not at work, or at the supermarket, or waiting for a bus (metaphorically or otherwise). I am free.

Soon I will return to the office, to shuffle paper, delete emails and avoid the Typing Dead.

Most of us, at some time or other, get sucked into the lifeless vacuum of work; the cogs of the corporate machine that we keep turning until one day, when we depart this Earth, we may earn the word ‘lubricant’ on our headstone.

The ever-increasing weight of responsibilities that enmeshes our lives keeps us locked into the system. We become the pulse that keeps the beast alive, but the cost is our own lives. The natural world around us shrinks, crushed beneath the suffocating might of work.

Win back two days of living? The sense of freedom is overwhelming! Switch off your mobile phone and consider your options.

The speed of modern life is an oppressive thing, and the corporate world is quick to punish those with an honest heart.