“Parents just don’t understand.” Fresh Prince, The. (1988)

Had a smashing chat with Big Al yesterday.  We were on the subject of cars - by that I mean I was trying to get the conversation to a point where he’d agree to buy me a car - and ended up talking about what he did when he was my age.

Whereas I’ve gotten quite good at moping about and playing Championship Manager far too much, at my age (maybe even younger, actually) my parents had already sold everything they owned and sodded off to Cornwall for a few months.  It transpires that they were pyaar hippies, signing on once a week (you could sign on anywhere in the country, apparently) and spending the rest of the time camping on the beach.  My dad recalls people “queueing up in the dole office on a Monday in shorts with their surfboards propped up outside”.  Living.  The.  Dream.

I’m quite jealous of that, to be honest.  Back in the 70’s it seems there was a lot more freedom to up sticks and sit off somewhere else for a bit.  Nowadays everything is tied up in bureaucratic nonsense leaving you rooted to the one place.  The one place that HAS NO JOBS.

Of course, another noticeable difference is that by my age my parents had already been married for over 3 years.  Even setting aside my huge aversion to any form of commitment, my only positive female contact these days is when the fit woman in the Jobcentre calls my name every two weeks.  Still, it definitely counts.

Another smashing Big Al revelation was that he bought and drove his first car (one of these bad boys) without having a licence (there’s that 1970’s freedom for you again) and had to wait for his uncle to drive him home from the showroom the first day he had it.  He also, whilst teaching himself to drive afterwards, struggled as his knees were really pressed up high - due to his choice of platform shoes as footwear.

Well played, my parents.  They’re good eggs.

An artist’s impression of my parents, circa 1976

(Bonus story:  on more than one occasion my dad received a knock on the door to inform him that local youths had picked up and moved his car into the middle of the road and, at one point, even tipped it on to its side.  Fibreglass cars, eh?  Brill)

Let me check my diary.

I’ve never really hidden the fact that, for a 23 year old, I’m remarkably immature and /or naive occasionally.  My relationship with the phrase “I’ll have to check my diary first” is an example of this.

For me, this has always been just another idiom that people say but don’t actually act out - such as “pulling your leg” (rarely performed), “taking a rain check” (rendered superfulous with the advent of umbrellas) and my personal favourite, “I’m wearing a condom it’s ok”.

But recently I’ve begun to acknowledge that people - mature, grown-up people, often referred to as ‘my peers’ - do tend to be organised enough to keep an actual diaryand manage to keep it to date.  That is completely and utterly beyond me.  The last time I attempted to remain organised (for more than the immediately forthcoming 20 minutes) was in my final year of uni when I had about 6 essays due over the same fortnight.  No light task, and to help accomplish it I took the sophisticated leap of writing “DO ESSAYS” on my arm more over the 3 days I’d allocated to living in the library typing with the enthusiasm of a toddler given a Fisher Price typewriter.

Actually I’m selling myself short, it wasn’t just that - I’d also set “DO ESSAYS” as a reminder on my phone.  I’m nothing without phone reminders, to be honest; perhaps the most pertinent one that I apparently set at 2.35am on a Thursday night to go off in the middle of the following day’s inevitable hangover, reminding me to bluntly “sort your life out”.  Of course I heeded it for about 30 seconds before rolling over again and falling asleep while watching yet another episode of The OC.

What a series.

My point is that, over the last few months, I rarely do much of anything.  Over the past week or so perhaps the most productive thing I did was to try and listen to David Bowie’s ENTIRE back catalogue to determine which was my favourite song.  There are over 19 hours of music by David Bowie.  And it turns out that my favourite song was the same one as before I embarked upon this obviously necessary exercise.  On the plus side, I worked out the period where Bowie starts to show hints of synthesiser-based shiteness (it was 1975) and found the moment where he brilliantly goes a bit mental.

There was a Hawaiian man on Human Planet weeks ago who was a shark caller.  That is, his job was to sit in a tiny canoe in the pacific ocean and fucking SUMMON.  SHARKS.  No mess.  After getting one of these badboy reef sharks to swim next to him he then caught the shark with a noose and a plank.  Now that really is a righteous, worthwhile past-time.  In comparison, I occasionally play some X-Box.  Not really the same, is it?  Even if, through some bizarre chain of events, a girl discovers my X-Box achievements list and is so impressed that I got through Ravenholm on Half-Life 2 using only the gravity gun that she drops trou right there and then, it still wouldn’t be as cool as catching a fucking shark with a piece of rope.

Still, I bet yer Hawaiian man can’t name his favourite Bowie album.  He probably doesn’t even have an iPod.  Edwards 1, Hawaiian shark caller 0.

Jobs for the boys.

There is nothing quite like unemployment to wear someone down.

Since I turned 16 the longest I’ve ever been unemployed was the year I spent at Lancaster University.  Now, this should hardly be regarded as a time of honour or productivity as that was also the year I spent living off one meal a day (usually noodles or, miserably, a Rustlers) combined with, almost exclusively, imbibing the cheapest of cheap wine.  All this intertwined with a tragic period (two weeks) of wearing different coloured Converse on each foot.  Never in history has it been a good idea to wear mixed footwear, let alone in your first year of university in a town filled primarily with people that frown upon anyone daring to venture out without a Ben Sherman shirt buttoned up to the collar.  I once, in Lancaster’s premium Wetherspoon’s, saw a girl proper twatted out by an implausibly aggrieved woman.  That’s the type of situation that changes everything when you’re still 18 years old - had I ever seen a girl sparked out in Maghull?  Had I fuck.  

Amongst the few things I learned in Lancaster (local girls would end me, southern Catholic girls are disturbed, Cypriot girls look down on entire diets of noodles), one of the things I didn’t realise at the time was how necessary a job was.  Lancaster was my haven, a jobless wonderland where I’d wake up semi-drunk (not even hungover, God bless youthfulness) in the afternoon and merely plan the evening ahead.  Who has the time for job-hunting when you’ve got half a bottle of Lambrini on your windowsill from the night before and the latest episode of Prison Break season 1 has just come online?!

There was simply no time for jobs when your existence entails drinking as much as you can and being a tit; forgetting entire weeks’ worth of memories and trying your hardest to get into the fit posh girl who lived on the fifth floor of your halls who never did know your real name (my name is not and was never “Andrew”) but eventually settling for fellatio from her undeniably less attractive best friend who you lived next door to and subsequently avoided for the next 9 months, wonderfully assisted by the Uni’s decision to put bedroom door peep-holes in our college halls exclusively.

What the fuck was I talking about?  Ah, jobs.  Those elusive, necessary, bastard evils.

Probably should’ve looked for one instead of writing this, really.