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Your happiness at work will depend mostly, of course, on how much you like your job and your co-workers. However we all get the Monday blues from time to time. Luckily there are ways to take action against them. If you’re going through a rough patch or are lacking job satisfaction, check out these ways to have a happier work day.

Organise your day at work - If your average work day often leaves you feeling stressed and overwhelmed, it is time to calm things down by getting more organised. Make sure you arrive a few minutes early for work to give you time to organise your tasks for the day and get mentally prepared. Then organise your space by clearing away any clutter and streamlining your workspace Finally, make a list of everything that you need to do that day in order of priority.

Get extra monitors and a headset -  The ability to have multiple pages up at once saves a huge amount of time. Also having a headset is much more comfortable than using a conventional phone, and it lets you walk around freely whilst on the phone, which will boost your energy. Also organise your desk. Could you invest in some desk accessories to help stay organized? Could you replace that hideous lamp?

Where your favourite outfit - While many of us are required to wear a uniform if you do have more freedom to dress as you wish, try opting for clothes or accessories that boost your mood. Whether you opt for a piece of jewellery that reminds you of a special memory, a colourful bag to brighten up your day, that confidence- boosting outfit, or even your favourite underwear beneath it all, adding something special to your worn-in work attire can really brighten your day.

Be nice to your collueges - This is the right way to behave, and it will also serve your best interests, if you need that justification. In situation evocation, for example, we spark a response from people that reinforces a tendency we already have — for example, if I act irritable all the time, the people around me are probably going to treat me with less patience and helpfulness, which will, in turn, stoke my irritability.

Stay Active - If your working day is getting you down, try giving yourself an instant happiness boost by squeezing some exercise into your lunch break. Exercise is good for boosting self-esteem and letting off stress, and it also releases chemicals in the brain such as endorphins and anandamide which can boost your mood and leave you feeling great. If you have shower facilities at work you could go for a lunchtime run. Alternatively, a brisk walk around the shops will get your heart rate up without working up a sweat.

As we go into the new year we are going to see rail fares go up by an average of 5.9%, with some commuters even finding their season tickets rising by almost 11%. Chief executive Anthony Smith said they should not have to keep paying for a “fractured, inefficient industry”. Whilst the association of train operating companies (ATOC) claim the increases will help pay for better services.

The average rise for all rail tickets - including unregulated fares such as advance and business tickets - is 5.9%. However, the cost of a Chester-Crewe annual season ticket goes up 10.6%, as does a season ticket for travel between Llandudno and Bangor in Gwynedd and Port Talbot Parkway and Swansea, will increase by 8.7%.

With the price of UK train fares being the most expensive in the EU its hardly surprising the majority of the general public are in uproar at these ridiculous increases. The rises are bad enough for commuters who mostly cannot hope to match the fare rises with comparable salary increases. Yet things could have been even worse, as the Government had originally intended to raise the January 2012 annual increase for regulated fares from RPI inflation plus 1% to RPI plus 3%.

However the Government is apparently still planning to operate a RPI plus 3% formula for January 2013 and January 2014, leaving us hard-up passengers to hope that promises of a reduction in inflation will be fulfilled. There was a similar “reprieve” for London travellers who had faced Tube and bus rises of around 7% from today until an extra £136 million of Government was found to limit the London increases to an average of 5.6%.

Michael Roberts, chief executive of the Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc), stats money raised through fares helped pay for improved services. “For a number of years, the government has sought to sustain investment in the railways by reducing what taxpayers contribute and increasing the share that is paid for by passengers,” he said. “The focus of the whole industry is to keep on reducing the overall cost of running the railways as a way of limiting future fare rises and providing taxpayers with better value for money.”

Campaign groups and transport unions have bemoaned the 2012 increases which come at a time when rail regulators have warned Network Rail about poor punctuality on some long-distance routes.

Last week, the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) released figures showing that passengers in Europe can pay between three-and-a-half times and nearly 10 times less for their annual season tickets on routes of around 23 miles than their British counterparts. But the Government, train companies and London Mayor Boris Johnson have all stressed that fare rises are necessary to sustain investment in Tube and main line systems that are attracting more and more passengers.

Coca Cola has been successfully using Christmas to promote its brand for over 80 years now. These adverts are so successful that even when logging into facebook mid November, my news feed was filled with statues about how “You know it’s Christmas when the Coca Cola advert comes on”.

However Coca Cola is not the only cola brand that uses Christmas to promote its product. Alongside its rival Pepsi they have been in what’s arguably the longest running competitive battle in the history of advertisement. So what makes the Coca Colas Christmas adverts so special, that it brings people to quote the same line time and time again “You Know It’s Christmas When the Coca Cola Advert Comes on”; when in reality Coca Cola has nothing to do with Christmas at all!?

Before the first Christmas campaign was made, many people believed that it was a summer drink. Coca Cola wanted to change the outlook people had on this so adopted the image of Father Christmas as its unofficial logo. Now Coca Cola claims to have changed the world’s view on who Father Christmas is. They claim that before the first ever advert was made, many people portrayed Father Christmas as being fat, thin, small, tall to even the image of an elf.

Coca Cola art quotes - When the name Santa Claus is mentioned anywhere in America today, the image that invariably comes to mind is the one created by Haddon Sundblom for the Coca-Cola Company. In 2001 this same artwork was used again for the basis of an animated commercial.

Since the start of the Christmas campaigns coca cola has gone on to create many different adverts using catchy jingles, polar bears and penguins; and in 2010’s advertisement they even used a more modern approach and placed the world in Santa’s own snow globe. Coca Cola has cleverly taken a product that has no relevancy to Christmas and turned it into one of the most recognised campaigns in advertisement history.

As well as the new campaigns they produce every year, the same famous “Coca Cola Truck” advert runs alongside the new ones. This advert is the most powerful advert Coca Cola has ever created. Many people immediately associate it with Christmas as they have been brought up with the theme tune “The Holiday’s are coming”, taking many people back to their younger days.

Looking back at Coca Cola’s Christmas campaign it is clear to see that they have cleverly taken a product that had no relevancy to the Christmas period what so ever and turned it into one of the most recognised campaigns ever to have been created.

Christmas is supposed to be a time of peace, love and goodwill to all men. But with all the stress and commotion of the season, many of us end up feeling a bit more like Scrooge than Father Christmas. But for the sake of those around you and to renew your holiday spirit, you can make an effort. Here are few thoughts and tips to help you find your holiday cheer.

Shop early. Nothing takes away the Christmas spirit like fighting for parking and struggling through crowds. Leaving the present buying until the last minute may seem like a good idea at the time, but as the big day draws closer, it will be an extra stress you could do without!

Think about what the meaning of Christmas and what it means to you. Is it the birth of Jesus Christ? Is it a time when all the family get together? Does it bring some warmth and light in the middle of the winter? Does it show others that you’ve thought about them with the gifts you’ve chosen? Or is it simply about receiving presents? Think about what you’d like Christmas to mean to you and how you can work towards that goal, giving yourself that warm and exciting feeling about Christmas.

Listen to Christmas Carols and watch Christmas movies. Films such as “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a good one for reviving a flagging Christmas spirit, as is “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” Or if reading is more your thing there are novels availble such as “A Christmas Carol” and “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” Do any number of these things will enable your brain to start thinking of the festive season, and hopefully get you into the spirt of Christmas.

Don’t for get to decorate your house! Be Inspired by Decorations. Walk around your town to look at the Christmas decorations and lights, visit family and friends and decorate or bake together, do anything that you know have something to do with lights, and Christmas, this will be sure to have some influence on you. However if you don’t want the hassle of a large tree, opt for a small or pre-lighted tree. It doesn’t matter how clean your house looks for your family. Just relax and have a nice time with those you love.

The price of coffee has been going up throughout the world as a result of poor crops. In the past 7 months alone coffee prices have more than doubled with coffee stocks at their lowest for about 50 years. As well as poor weather conditions the shortage is due in part to an increasing taste for coffee in some countries; notably China, Indonesia & India.

For most of us this means paying more for our coffee in the supermarket. According to the Office for National Statistics, in Britain, a 227g bag of ground filter coffee cost £2.60 in March, compared with £2.28 a year ago, while a 100g bag of instant coffee – which is apparently what the majority of us drink here - was up from £2.27 to £2.47. In coffee shops the increase is less.

For Cubans, however it’s a very different story. There the authorities have responded to the current ‘coffee crisis’ by deciding to mix coffee with roasted peas. In fact this somewhat surprising & extreme sounding tactic is actually the reintroduction of a time honoured money saving measure in Cuba when things get tough. When coffee production slumped & then collapsed after the revolution in 1959 this was exactly what they did.

A trade ministry note announced in the communist party newspaper Granma: “It has been decided to once again produce coffee mixed with peas for the rationed quota.”

The decision has been met with mixed responses from Cubans. Isa Morena, a guesthouse owner in Havana said: “It’s got a thin, sharp taste. I never liked it. It didn’t help that we had no choice. It was that or nothing.”

For others, however, when an economic recovery occurred in 2005 & the pure coffee was restored, many found it unpalatable having become accustomed to the added flavour of the roast peas. “I like it better with peas,” Juan Hernandez Pedroso, a street sweeper, said. “I don’t know, maybe it’s because it’s what I’m used to.”

Indeed many Cubans refused to revert to drinking pure coffee, resorting to making their own roasted pea brew.

If, like me, you’d never heard of this before, you’ll be no doubt very surprised to learn about it. However, what is even more astounding was to hear about a further cost saving exercise announced by the Cuban ministry of trade “The rationed quota issued to consumers up to six years of age will be terminated. These measures will be applied as of this month.” Under sixes with a coffee ration – well I never!

Now I’ve always really liked those Lowry paintings – the matchstick men; you know & I’m not alone there by all accounts?! I mean they look real don’t they, not like all this modern abstract stuff. I just can’t fathom that at all!

Anyway I was horrified to hear that the Tate gallery owns twenty three – twenty three of his paintings & has only ever briefly exhibited one of them! (Industrial Landscape which he painted in 1955)

Leading figures in the art world along with other celebrities & headed by the actor Sir Ian McKellen are protesting at this state of affairs, & questioning whether his ‘exclusion’ is a deliberate response to what the gallery considers to be unacceptable – not good enough in some way; amateur, northern & provincial are words that have been bandied about.

Lowry repeatedly depicted northern life in his work & though there are many highly acclaimed northern artists none persistently portray the northern landscape & its people as Lowry did.

Referring to Lowry’s work musician Noel Gallagher - of Oasis fame - said: “They’re not considered Tateworthy. Or is it just because he is a northerner?”

On Easter Sunday a programme about Lowry’s exclusion narrated by Sir Ian McKellen will be shown on ITV. McKellen has said: “Over the years, silly lies have been thrown around that he was only a Sunday painter, an amateur, untrained and naive,”

“His popularity needs no official endorsement from the Tate, but it is a shame verging on the iniquitous that foreign visitors to London shouldn’t have access to the painter English people like more than most others.”

While the Tate have denied the claims being made re Lowry’s ‘northerness’ Tate Britain’s head of displays, Chris Stephens, says during the aforementioned television programme: “What makes Lowry so popular is the same thing which stops him being the subject of serious critical attention. What attracts so many is a sort of sentimentality about him. He’s a victim of his own fan base.”

Lowry’s estate is openly irritated by the fact that the Tate continues to store his work & have refused to give the gallery permission to copy Industrial Landscape for a temporary mural they’re doing on the work of landscape artists. His estate has donated a lot of Lowry’s unsold work for the Lowry centre at Salford Quays.

McKellen said: “If the Tate feels no responsibility to give the art-viewing public their favourite painters to view, perhaps they could let their stash go elsewhere. They could pass them on to a gallery like the Lowry, which shares its visitors’ tastes. Or perhaps a touring retrospective, with a twist – the exhibits would be for sale.”

If you ask me it sounds like pure snobbery on the part of the Tate!

Fifty years ago today I had just turned nine. I remember the excitement; I remember the name: Yuri Gagarin. It was an unusual name & I always had a hankering after the exotic. I didn’t really understand the significance of being the first man in space back then but everyone was talking about it & his name has often come into my head over the years.

Today is the 50th anniversary of that momentous occasion, & over the weeks leading up to today I’ve several times come across the name that has occupied a special place in my ‘nostalgic memory box’ & learned a lot more about the man & the mission.

When I have thought of him over the years I’ve vaguely wondered what became of him; why I’ve never heard any more about him or read interviews with him like you do about Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin. I just put it down to the fact he was Russian & didn’t think too much more about it. And so I felt an overwhelming sadness when I read that less than 7 years after that momentous space flight he was dead. On 27 March – aged just 34 - Gagarin took off  on a training flight from Chkalovsky airbase in a jet which crashed a few minutes later, killing both him & a fellow pilot. The cause of the accident remains unclear & the subject of the usual conspiracy theories .On 4 April 1968 a huge state funeral was attended by thousands. Afterwards his ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin.

I read too that he did become an international star after that voyage into space – something I wasn’t aware of at the time – touring the world & receiving over a million letters from fans around the world.

Apparently 20 candidates were shortlisted for that first flight into space but only 2 of them were slight enough to fit into the cramped Vostok capsule & Gagarin was finally chosen  over fellow cosmonaut - Gherman Titov -  who became the largely unremembered second man into space, a situation he never really recovered from. Speaking shortly before his death, he said: “Some people will tell you I gave him a hug when his selection was announced. Nonsense. There was none of that.” It appears that the final choice was politically motivated, supported by Khrushchev  who – like Gagarin – was a farmer’s son. He recognized the potential propaganda of spaceflight.

I learned that one of Gagarin’s favourite authors was the aviator Saint-Exupéry who disappeared on a reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean in July 1944.& his favourite book by him - Night Flight  - a novel about a doomed airmail flyer.

I discovered that after the break up of the USSR it turned out that one man had dominated the development of Russia’s space rockets -  Sergei Korolev  a survivor of the Gulags - was the brains behind Volstov 1.Gagarin’s successful flight became the stimulus for the American moon landing & though they did indeed win this race, things went badly wrong with the subsequent space shuttle & 2 accidents, & the tragic death of 14 astronauts. Because of this the American craft will be grounded later this year & the only way to proceed for astronauts of any nationality will be via the Russian Soyuz launcher derived from the R-7 that Korolev designed to put Gagarin into space.

Space expert Professor John Logsdon of George Washington University commented: “The rocket we now rely on to put humans into space is essentially the same launch vehicle, taking off from the same launch pad, that was built by Korolev and which took Gagarin into space. Half a century later, we are back where we started. It raises the question of whether or not the world is serious about human spaceflight.”

Fifty years later I know a little more about the man & the mission. I remember the excitement but now it’s tinged with sadness.

Well, what do you know?! The days of putting out a fire with a fire extinguisher - well a traditional one at any rate - may be numbered! This guy – Dr Ludevico Cademartiri – got a team together from Harvard Uni in America to carry out some experiments to look at using electricity to do so instead. The team were then able to report to the American Chemical Society stating that they had managed to put out an 18inch flame just by using an electrified metal wire.

A 600 watt amplifier – pretty much the same power that you’d find in a car stereo system - was used to produce the beam. In practical terms this means that fire fighters of the future would no longer need to transport & use a bulky hose & large amounts of water or foam, but rather a really small portable power pack & some wire!

This innovative method of putting out a fire is based on a realization some 200 years ago that the shape of flames can be changed by using electricity. There have been experiments in the past using a direct current or DC, but Dr Cademartiri’s team utilized an oscillating AC voltage & discovered that the result were notably different.

So what happens – how does it work? Well apparently somehow the electrical field charges the small pieces of soot – the ‘carbon particles’ -  resulting in an organized flow of the charged particles inside the flame that force the flame away form its fuel source, thus putting it out. Kyle Bishop, a researcher who worked with the team described it like this: “Essentially, the [electrical field] separates the region that’s hot and burning from the unburnt fuel, so that fuel will not continue to burn’’.

Cademartiri states that flames could be extinguished in milliseconds & consider this to be a much more efficient way of fire fighting. However he & his team also intend to consider other applications for the process such as controlling flames in the production of coal, gas & oil fired energy to render it more efficient.

Lots of people were really excited when it was announced that the 2012 Olympic Games would be held in London. Many are hoping to get tickets for the event & many more - like me – are eagerly looking forward to watching it on the telly.  However there‘re lots of other people going to be effected by the Olympics that you’d never even think about! I heard about some of these people the other day. They are the houseboat residents living on the river Lea in East London close to the site that is being developed for the games.

Apparently it has been proposed that the rules for living on the canals & rivers should change before the 2012 games, & this could mean hundreds of people being forced to move away from their homes on the water. British Waterways who manage the 2,200 miles of canals & rivers have put forward changes for the mooring rules on the river Lea which would result in the cost of living on the water rising from its current level of £600 a year to £7,000 a year! Now it doesn’t take a genius to know that unless you happen to be rich you’re not going to be able to afford that sort of an increase in your living costs!

Naturally people who’ve made this place their home are very upset as well as angry! Many of them see it as a deliberate ploy to drive them away & have accused British Waterways of an attempt at ‘social cleansing’.

Mike Well, a photographer and Lea canal-boat resident for four years, said: “My boat is about a mile from the Olympic park and it is almost inconceivable that the authorities would allow anything unsightly or tatty during the games. This is social cleansing.”

For one of the houseboat residents – Alice Wellbeloved, a freelance fashion designer – a houseboat on the Lea has been home to her & her partner for the past five years & they now have a baby. She spoke about what the changes would mean for the family life they had envisaged: “For us it would be disastrous,” she said. “We have a 10-month-old baby, and these proposals mean we could not work or get the childcare we need. We cannot afford to buy a new house. We feel we are being uprooted from our community.”

British Waterways says between 160 and 200 boats in the area are used as permanent residences by exploiting a loophole in the waterways legislation to use a “continuous cruising” license, costing about £600 a year, which allows owners to move just short distances every fortnight. The new proposals would mean that a maximum of 61 days a year could be spent in each of 6 designated areas or ‘neighbourhoods’ across 40 miles of canal networks with boats having to move to a new neighbourhood every 14 days.

Wellbeloved said: “People say we’re using the river on the cheap. We are desperate for a permanent mooring. But there are none to be had around here – they’re so scarce that the last permanent mooring near here was auctioned for £9,000 a year in rent.”

Nick Brown, legal officer of the National Bargee Travellers Association, which represents the interest of boat dwellers, said: “”These are extremely draconian proposals. BW is riding roughshod over the rights of a vulnerable minority group. The objective appears to be to stop new entrants on to the river and drive away existing canalside residents.”

Sally Ash - head of boating at British Waterways - said: “We want to encourage councils to support more residential moorings, but we have to control the number of boats, which have increased by 40% over the last four years on the Lea. The only way we can do this is through price, and some people will have to suffer.”

However she accepted that given the strength of feeling among the houseboaters in the area, British Waterways would need to look at incorporating some sort of transitional arrangements for existing residents: “We will have to do something we prefer not to, and unwillingly accept that we must consider a person’s housing position. We are a navigation not a housing body – but we have to send the message that in future, living on the river will not be such a cheap lifestyle option.”

Now that’s a real shame that is!

Well that’s absolutely amazing! I heard that in America an albatross who is known to be sixty years old just hatched a chick – well a few weeks ago!

John Klavitter - a biologist & wildlife worker spotted the bird – which has been named Wisdom - at a wildlife reserve on a small island in the North Pacific Ocean 1,300 miles northwest of Honolulu. He said she’d also nested there in 2006, 2008, 2009. & 2010.

They can recognize her from her banding & according to records she’s the oldest known wild bird ever documented in the United States.

Bruce Peterjohn – the head of the North American bird banding programme at the US geological survey wildlife refuge in Laurel Maryland – said:

“To know that she can still successfully raise young at age 60-plus, that is beyond words. While the process of banding (ringing) a bird has not changed greatly during the past century, the information provided by birds marked with a simple numbered metal band has transformed our knowledge of birds.”

Wisdom was first tagged by biologists from the United States geological survey back in 1956 when they estimated her age to be eight or nine. That was also the year in which she produced her first recorded chick. During the intervening years she has got through five sets of aluminium bands.

Wisdom has far surpassed the average age for the life span of an albatross & government biologists reckon she has probably produced more than 30 – 35 offspring. Interestingly albatross lay only one egg a year & they spend about a year incubating & raising their chick. Following that they usually have a year off. The birds mate for life, but in Wisdom’s case she may well have outlived her original partner.

In her extensive lifetime its reckoned she could well have clocked over 3m miles of flight - & that’s the same as flying to the moon & back six times! Wow!