Rah Rah Ga Ga

Well it's all gone rubbish.

I started jogging, it made me feel good, I stopped jogging because I was tired/busy/terrified somebody I knew might see me, and judge me. I was on holiday, I didn't do much, then I stopped being on holiday, because I can't control time. I drank until it was a great night, then I carried on, now there's some stuff I don't know, and the stuff I do know has bits in it that make me a tit. I played two gigs in a row with my band, now we have no gigs until May. I haven't done the washing up. I ate tea yesterday, and immediately fell asleep afterwards. We came fifth in the quiz, out of seven, and we had more players than the rules technically allowed us to. I've fallen in love with a fictional character, and so has at least a quarter of the nation. I spent all my money, and then some more, and I don't have any decent underpants. I think one of the Grand National horses I bet on was made up, and I failed to predict the outcome of six Rugby League games, the most predictable sport known to man. The team I support is rubbish and next year they're going to dig up the stadium and turn it into something awful. I have no petrol in my car. My head is shaped like a bean and my ears aren't on straight. I'm hungry, but if I eat I'll fall asleep. I haven't been skiing in years. I'm getting hairier in the places I don't want hair, and balder in the places I do. I can't draw.

Right I'm done.

P.S. Everything is not rubbish, I've now written two blogs in fifteen minutes and have two more planned before bedtime, I own Harvey on VHS and I'm about to eat ratatouille. I just wanted to vent a little.

P.P.S. That I couldn't spell ratatouille first time, almost sent me into a shame spiral so crushing it would have finished in me buying a vest.

Lisa Thomas

The first girl I ever thought I was in love with was Lisa Thomas. I wasn't of course, I was 8. She was dark haired and pale, sweet but smart, and had just slightly too rabbity front teeth. I don't remember what I thought I was supposed to do about this, but I remember being told off for not paying attention to whatever edu-TV it was the teacher had taped from late night BBC2 because I found her distinctly more compelling to look at. It was OK back then, I was still vaguely bright, they didn't need to spell the word four times and make a song out of it, it said HORSE, there was a picture of a horse next to it and they'd been talking about horses in the introduction to the animation, I'd glance at the screen again when they moved on to sheep, just to check they weren't actually called sheap.

I kissed her; playing Kiss Chase of all things, which was always a slightly uncomfortable game, and I'm willing to guess is definitely banned now, punishable by having your name put on a list and having to sit in a different room at birthday parties, but anyway, I caught her against the wall at the top of the playground, she smiled and didn't turn her head when I lent in to kiss her, then I ran off immediately afterwards with that acidic fuzz in the roof of my stomach that, to this day, I've never fully understood the reason for. A few minutes later we were all playing British Bulldog and my focus turned to not being knocked over, playground surfaces are hard.

An indeterminable amount of time after that, I invited her to my brother's birthday party. Now, up until this point, I can recall no recollection of actually talking to Lisa, having a conversation. Though to be honest, what the hell do 8 year olds talk about? Why would they have any reason to actually converse with each other beyond 'You're it!' or 'Give me the red crayon'? I'm pretty sure on the school field me and my friends would indulge in elaborately constructed interactive Thundercats fantasy worlds without actually saying any full sentences to each other. How many words could I even have known back then? Just horse and sheep I imagine.

I think my best friend liked her too, I think his name was Graham, possibly spelt weird, like Graeme, he had one of those twinkly eyes.

But I invited her to my brother's birthday party, I was only allowed one friend and I chose her rather than a boy, our mums thought it was delightfully sweet, and I think she blushed a bit when I asked her. My brother was 6, there was no way we were going to spend the afternoon with him and his baby friends, so we sat in my bedroom playing top trumps, probably for hours, probably speaking only the words needed to play the actual game, then she went home.

I was invited to her birthday party some time after that, I don't know if that was her doing or her mum's, I've always got on well with mums, it was the only other time either of us went to the other's house. We did dance together at the primary school leavers party though, or I think that's what it was, we were 9 by then, I was wearing a canary yellow jumper, I think it matched her dress, I don't think that was a good thing, I don't think the dance was, mothers may have been meddling, Lisa may have discovered reluctance, I might have developed awkwardness.

There was another Lisa joined our class at middle school. She had shorter blonde hair, confidence, and legs. I had absolutely no idea why this was all so appealing, but I know I had to wrestle with myself over it. I was in love with Lisa Thomas, that's how it worked, this other girl was dangerous to that, it was wrong for me to feel drawn to her. I couldn't stop thinking about her.

It all gets a bit fuzzy after that. It's possible I just started thinking about dinosaurs a lot more, or wondering if there really was a 'beast' roaming the forest at the top of our road. I know for certain I was given a computer, a Spectrum 48K, so I was thinking in Basic quite often. I also know I'd started full on fancying the 13 year old who lived on the corner and owned a Commodore 64 with a brilliant game about working in a fast food restaurant. She was called Janet, or maybe Janine, her best friend was called Vicky and I definitely had conversations with her, about fancying Janet/Janine, she said I had no chance, which I kind of understood.

We must have moved away towards the end of the summer, somewhere between being 10 and 11, because I can find absolutely no final memories about school, or the Lisas, just of sun, and the playing field at the bottom of the road, and promising Vicky & Janet/Janine and probably some kids that were actually our age, that we'd come back and visit. Which of course we never did.

Then again, I think when we were 8-10 years old it was always the summer, except that week it snowed and we watched Dangermouse in the gym while we waited to be picked up from school.

Back Home & Well Fed

I'm sure Crimewatch never used to be quite like this, it's like Our Tune with pictures.

Remember Our Tune? I'm pretty sure it traumatised me as a child. We'd go to do the big supermarket shop; Mum, Dad, our kid and I, and of course, we'd learnt fairly sharpish that this was a family activity that went much smoother if the children just stayed in the car and listened to the radio while the parents went in to choose between luncheon meat and tongue for the next week's packed lunches. They may have returned four times out of ten to find one of us in tears and the other protesting complete innocence and ignorance as to how that came about, and why there was a toy car shaped bruise quickly forming on the tearful one's forehead, but at least they didn't have to drag us screaming along the soup aisle wondering at what point the surrounding shoppers would judge it acceptable for them to start throwing tins at us. I don't know why we couldn't just have been good quiet kids, I really don't, though I think having PSPs might have helped.

Our Tune!

The few minutes of calming strings that Radio 1 would deliver into the car to underpin the soft sincerity of Simon Bates' voice as he recounted a tale; a tale of love, of people coming together, complete happiness in their grasp, excitedly making plans for the future, truly beginning to discover the real beauty of life, stepping into a fairy tale ending. Then in the same gentle tones, but now with a merciless chill, one of them would die. Every single time.

That's got to be pretty damaging to an impressionable young kid, I've never considered this before, but it now seems obvious to me that Mr Bates is entirely responsible for my mis-shaped approach to those relationship things, for the fact I'm 31 and not a single lady has tried to put a ring on it, for my inability to fully enjoy rom coms.

Simon Bates is responsible for the fact I can't enjoy Love Actually, and I'm going to sue him for it.

Anyway, Crimewatch, I'm not sure it needs to be quite this emotive, I mean, I'm quite sure there'll be some folk in the country who sorrowfully watch the short story of the young girl attacked in her own home by a man claiming to have come to fix the boiler, and who, when recognising the photo-fit at the end as 'that boy who works at the bookies', will be moved to pick up the phone and, in playground vernacular, dob him in. I'm more sure however, that there will be some folk who watch the disturbing tale with a little more disgust, perhaps even anger, and head straight down to the bookies to duff him up, or perhaps even more likely, round to the actors house to give him a good hiding instead, because people are stupid.

I think they'd be much better emailing the nation each day with a picture of an offender and a note declaring that 'This geezer's got the last Rolo, tell us where he is and it's yours.', no vigilante justice, no mistaken identity, just hundreds of fatties sniffing the air for a whiff of chocolate coated caramel.

Oh, right, yeah. I bumped into Riyaz, said thanks. I think I'd left it a few days too long.

The Supper Predicament

I have a small quandary, a social situation I find myself unable to deal with quite as fluidly as I would like. An action has occurred to me which requires a reaction from me, but what to do I just can't be sure.

In short, I'm stumped.

Friday night, I arrived home after a long and particularly downbeat day at the office, the clock was ticking past midnight and I was simply hoping to salvage the day with supper. I came off the street and into the house that holds my flat, up the stairs, up more stairs, dropped my keys on the floor and knelt down to retrieve them in order to gain access to the three room loft conversion I call 'home'. Then I saw it, a familiar sight in an unfamiliar place, a takeaway carton, the kind you get from the Chinese, or the Indian, either way, it spelled curry. But why? I hadn't ordered any delivery food, and it doesn't seem like the kind of thing I'd have dropped on my way out. There was a note scrawled onto the lid, in biro;

'To Russel, from Flat 1 (Riyaz), Enjoy.'

Now, those who know me well know that I'm not a man known for emotional displays, certainly not for being moved to tears, but here I'd just been given food, supper, take-away, a fried rice dish no less, unprompted, by a relative stranger. I have to confess to a moment of weakness, a deep breath at very least. My relationship with Riyaz, to this point, involved passing him at the doorway, moving my car to let him park, moaning about the lights in the hall being out, general uninvolved chatter that those who find themselves sharing a street door tend towards from politeness. I don't know the name of his wife, or his child, or if that should be children. I'll be honest, I'd forgotten his name was Riyaz, so it's good he included his address.

I must admit, and I do so with a certain degree of shame, that I did let my elation subside for a flash, as I considered possible unfriendly motivations for this gift, from spittle based practical joke, to arsenic laced mass murdering tendencies, but concluded in doing so I was ruining what should be quite a humbling moment, by imagining myself important enough to be made a victim in a strangers plot. Besides, I was holding a pot of free fried rice, he could probably have told me the dog had been licking it and I'd still have stuck it in the oven and started polishing up a fork.

I'll tell you what too, it was tasty, mighty tasty.

But now, dear reader, what do I do? How do I make thanks for this truly incredible gift. Do I return the favour, leave a pie outside his door? Do I simply knock and offer thanks? I've never knocked on his door before, that would be a boundary broken. Do I go the post-it route, a short note saying 'Thanks!' left for him to find, or do I just wait till I pass him in the corridor and give him a hearty smile and a sincere hand-shake? I've never been in this situation before. What would Stephen Fry do?

It's become slightly more awkward now, as it happens, I elected for the 'Wait till I pass him' option, thinking it warranted a personal display of gratitude, but a knock on the door might be an awkward step, I figured the chances of this happening at the weekend were reasonable strong.

It didn't. It's been three days now. Too late now for a post it? Definitely too late for a knock? But is he starting to curse me under his breath? Do I have to elevate the gesture now? Do I have to cook lasagne for his whole family? Have I ruined a potential friendship, and worse, reduced my chances of surprise food in future?

Maybe he'll read this... cheers Riyaz, your unexpected gift made my week and filled my belly, for that, I salute you.

Stuart Cahoon

I once had a falling out with Stuart Cahoon. I don't know what the disagreement was, where the fault lay, or whether we eventually resolved things, all I remember is how we dealt with the incident in the moments immediately after the falling out.

The playground, as playgrounds typically are, was covered in a number of lines marking out various sporting courts, pitches and zones. Mostly at right angles, but with the occasional diagonal or even curve, the different coloured lines intersected each other. Stuart chose to display his disgruntlement by walking away from me, or I think it was us, but he walked only on these lines, turning at corners, or where the lines crossed. Of course we followed him in exactly the same manner, trying to catch him by travelling crookedly and inefficiently along these arbitrary guides.

I think, after what I'd like to say was twenty minutes, but was probably nearer five, we deviated from these paths and began to walk freely about the ground to head him off at points on his journey, standing to block him only to see him turn about face and scurry away. A small part of me believes we eventually resorted to physically barging him off the lines in order to break his path, his silence and his huff. It's distinctly possible this is exactly how we brought the whole thing to an end, smiled and became mates again. I don't think it was in this case, but who knows what kids do.

I think Stuart was my best friend for several years at primary school. In my only other lasting memory of him he declares a fondness for the music of Billy Ocean, who at the time I believe is a female singer. I don't know if his name should be spelt Stuart or Stewart, Cahoon or Kahoon. I've found two on Facebook, both spelt Stuart Cahoon, both living in Ireland.

I don't think he was Irish, but he may have been.

When we were two little boys.

I remember a house viewing, I remember a thick smell of pipe smoke, or maybe cigar smoke, though I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time. I remember a cheerful family with soft West Indian accents, I remember the old man of the house sat at a piano. I think I remember pots and pans being hung up everywhere, but I can’t think how that might have worked.

I remember becoming overwhelmed with frustration and bursting into tears because the sums in front of me wouldn’t make sense. I distinctly remember calling the teacher ‘mum’ and the laughter that followed. I remember it taking me months to acknowledge the distinction between ‘are’ and ‘our’ thanks to the accents I was surrounded with. I remember when Kirsty showed up to school wearing perfume and sat in front of me, how the nape of her neck suddenly became the centre of the universe. I remember the expansive rush that shot through my head as I breathed it in, something I wouldn’t experience again for nearly 25 years and in quite different circumstances.

I remember the doughy black girl from across the street, who had the hair and the combs that I didn’t understand, asking me to marry her as we played outside her kitchen window, and me turning her down because of the scented neighbour from school. Well, I don’t actually remember saying “No.”, it’s more than likely I just ran home without speaking and didn’t see her again for a while. All very childish at the time, but probably a fairly telling moment, looking back. I don’t remember that girl’s name.

I remember the first time I cycled ‘round the block’ and that feeling of guilty terror as I found myself in unfamiliar surroundings out of sight of home. I don’t remember how I felt when I got back onto my road, but I know I’ll have been at the bottom of a reasonably steep hill, so it’s possible I felt annoyed and resolved never to get myself into that mess again.

I remember hiding behind the settee when Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ video first came on TV. I remember standing terrified with my brother in Ben & Kirsty’s back garden while Ben pretended to ‘change’ into the wolf. I remember Kirsty discouraging him but clearly not being impressed.

I remember dad taking us to watch the Stock cars just up the road, I remember it being very cold, very loud, but mostly I remember he bought us pie. I remember playing cars on the terraces of the same stadium as the rugby took place on a slightly sunnier day.

I remember my brother running headfirst into the corner of our pebble-dashed house. I may or may not have pushed him.

Bradford is my hometown, it’s where I’m from, but this is the sum total of the memories I have from actually living there and, let’s be honest, there’s a strong chance I’ve invented half of those, I spent most of my pre-teenage years believing I had a false finger because of a scar that has grown from when I trapped it in a door as a toddler. Turns out I’d had a dream at some point about having it snipped off in A&E, it was only when I was telling the tale to a friend at school that I realised it probably wasn’t true.

My dreams are usually a lot more fun than my memories anyway, apart from those ones where I get trapped in a box, I'm not so into them.

Dumberer and Dumbererer.

When I was a kid I was smart, from the start I was smart. Right up until the teens kicked in I was quite satisfied with my own cleverness, always challenging for top of the class, rarely at a loss to understand anything that was set to me, head full of words, numbers and ideas that I could access with ease whenever the occasion called.

I wasn't a prodigy or any kind of exciting case study, I was just quite brain smart for my age, I read more than most, I found schoolwork fairly easy, I went the extra yard out of curiosity and learned stuff on my own, I was programming on my Spectrum 48K in Basic and not just getting over excited about the new racing game, although I did that too. Of course, I fully believed I was an exciting human being, almost some kind of super hero, and made sure those around me knew that, which obviously limited my popularity in exactly the way it should have, really I should have been thumped more often than I was.

Then I grew up and stopped being smart, at all. At 31, I haven't made a confident decision in weeks, I have to write down every thought as it comes to me or it goes away forever (as anyone on my Facebook will testify), I struggle to concentrate after more than a chapter or so of a book, when people ask me what my favourite something is? A film, a song, a comedian, a holiday, a friend, I don't know, because the only one I can clearly remember is the last one I thought about, or the first that pops into my head, I don't have full access to the big filing system in my brain anymore, I've been locked out, given restricted access. The other day I put a pie in the freezer... it wasn't a pie for freezing!

Saints alive, what is going on? Can I blame TV and the internet, or some form of undiagnosed condition that will be given a fancy name in a few years. Is this whole 'the brain is a muscle' malarky something I should be paying far more heed to? Or should I just let it happen, let my Freeview rest on E4, tattoo important information about my body and start taking photos of absolutely everything.

Of course, I don't know, maybe the nine year old me would, but I've no chance now.