That odd little period in my life at the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties seems to be bubbling up out of nowhere at the mo. Christmas 88 I'd just come back from a term at Leicester University after realising that I wasn't going to make it as an astrophysicist. Three months where I spent more time at Another World Comics on Silver Street rather than lectures, paid a visit by train to Bedford in the middle of the night (I remember being stopped by the police on my way to the station, checking I wasn't up to anything nefarious. Oh, and the swans having a moonlight paddle on the Great Ouse) and bumped into my vegan housemate shoplifting in a vegetarian shop. It's when my brief career as a civil servant began (as mentioned in the last blog) with stints at the Social Security Appeals Tribunal (in charge of a giant photocopier!) and the DSS (updating inmates NI contributions), thanks to my mate Steph's dad (sadly no longer with us) putting in a word for us. I'd tootle round to his house of a morning for a lift, late more often than not (plus ça change). My God, pub lunches. I haven't had a job with pub lunches since then. I used to have two plain baked potatoes (just butter) and a pint of Heineken at the Land o'Cakes on Great Ancoats St. I wish they'd let us go to the Railwayman's Club on our dinners now, like the old guard (old guards?) used to do. Nostalgia is intoxicating.
Anyhoo, the reason that era is looming in my memory is a Facebook update from someone else from that time. One of the odd jobs I had around then was at the comic shop (with an odd shift at the neighbouring SF bookshop) outside the corn exchange. One of my colleagues back then is now the booker at the Blue Lounge in Manchester so upcoming gigs there pop up in my Facebook timeline. The Brilliant Corners are playing there in July after recently reforming.
Now, I'm not very musically inclined, but I remember that my then girlfriend's best friend was a fan so we went to see them at the Boardwalk in Manchester and they were great (I've just done a quick Google on the fan, who was brilliant and Cambridge-bound at the time and is now a published Doctor in Clinical Psychology. Sous-performant, moi?). I didn't know a great deal about them other than they were from Bristol and their trumpeter had recently left. So, in this internet age, finding out they had reformed led me quickly to iTunes and me downloading a tiny chunk of my youth. I still find that odd, that little bits of your past have been backed up in the cloud on your behalf, as if a stranger had the foresight to keep a journal for you, knowing there'd come a day when you'd need this stuff.
All of which leads us to Teenage, which was my favourite track. Take it away, OoToobay!
And then, suddenly, we're back in 2014, listening to this on the headphones on the way to work.
More soonliest.
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