A Salute to the greatest summer part 5: On to Paris

The ferry trip across the channel was slow, not frustrating but just the soft undulation of the boat against the waves whilst me and Josh relaxed in the Ferry's lounge, people watching. It was the usual high-brow stuff you'd expect two 19 year old lads to be talking about:

Josh: (Seeing fat girl opposite) Don't think much of yours mate.
Me: I'd rather have a wank.

Like I said, high brow....

After enough idle banter to kill an hour, Calais came into view. It wasn't particularly impressive as entrances to the rest of Europe go and I remember the station platform to Paris being particularly podunk and brown; not the Eurostar jazziness of today. But then, this was probably where they sent the great unwashed backpackers that we all were. After a short delay, a proper old rickety train rolled into the platform; all dischevelled benches and compartments with the varnish coming off; it was lovely. And sure enough, straight out of the book of Harry Potter entrances (which was 3 years away) we found the one free carriage and slid the door open, which moments later slid open again to show two women, both our age asking if they could join us. Two singles blokes could not have said yes faster.

These two lovely ladies from Newcastle sat down opposite us and quite by chance Josh and I mutually agreed through ESP which one we would be sleeping with. His was the brunette, mine was the blonde in the purple top, synched in the middle to squeeze her boobs together. I remember this vividly for reasons you are about to find out. I digress, we rattled along in the french countryside, at this point the day getting late; I'm guessing it was getting close to 6ish. We made small talk with the girls whilst my Beastie Boys album wierded everyone out in the background (takes a good few listens of Hello Nasty to realize it's a seminal work). Talk turned to Paris and the fact that Josh and me had not booked anywhere to stay, it was the World Cup so accommodation would be tight - what were two boys to do? Suddenly my gorgeous blonde - and let the record show that she was very pretty - said "You never know, you might end up bunking with us" And winked at me. So not only was she incredibly hot; she was on the Go-Team. Now, Josh and me had talked prior to the trip about how much action we might get (forgive us, two 19 year old lads, not virgins but conquests you could count on one hand and nery a girlfriend in sight) and here we were; totally taken by surprise that right off the bat, someone might want to have some fun. Naturally it killed all conversation.

The suburbs began to roll by in the twilight and eventually the buildings of Metropolitan Paris were passing by the train. We pulled into Gare du Nord and lugged our backpacks and the girls' backpacks out the train and walked in silent anticipation out towards where the metro entrance was. It was crossroads time and it went down something like this...........

Girls: Well, it was really nice meeting you both..............

Us: Yeah............it's been great...............

Girls: Um..............well, I guess we might see you in Paris................

Us:.................Yeah.................

Girls: (looking perplexed)..................ok....................see you then.

And Josh and I watched the first of numerous opportunities for female company literally slip through our grasp. And hence I will always remember that girl in minute detail as I thought I was about to be the luckiest man in the world - blew it. Feint heart never won fair maiden. Four simple words would have done it: "Mind if we come?" Instead, sheer nervousness and pride left us in the company of Mrs Hand and her five lovely daughters for the evening. We looked at each other with that Martin Freeman, "I can't believe we just let that happen" look of incredulousness. However, it was probably getting on for 9pm, it was getting dark and we still had nowhere to stay in a big strange foreign capital city. It was find a hostel or find a bench time.

Leaving Gare du Nord, we started to walk the streets. Then something else occurred - cars were whizzing by us with the occupants hanging out the windows, waving tricolors, beeping their horns. We'd forgotten that it was the Semi Finals of the World Cup and clearly, France, the hosts had a few moments ago won and were through to the final. There was a carnival atmosphere on the streets, the noise was becoming louder and louder; it was time to party. But we still had no digs.

We walked on, unknowingly north into Pigalle, which we soon found out was the seedy red light district and a little bit worrying to backpackers as green as us; lots of dark alleys, lots of suspicious characters loitering about the streets. But then, walking down one of the major roads this tanned, muscley jock-american in shorts and a t-shirt approached us and pretty much came out with "Hey guys, if you're looking for accommodation there's a place down the road called Paul's Hostel; it's good and cheap".

When someone doesn't even ask you, but assumes you're looking for accommodation and tells you where to go, in the dark, in a dodgy area of a large Metropolis, you have every right to be a bit suspicious. Who was he working for? Were we about to be mugged and left for dead in an alley. Not that we asked him any of these questions, we said thank you and started walking in the general direction of where he pointed to - hey beggars couldn't be choosers. Sure enough, down a side street, between grimy shops with their metal shutters down was "Paul's Hostel". So the American had turned out to be our first demonstration of what I wil call The Backpackers Spirit, which was to be one of the greatest bits of our travels - how much people will help you. We walked in and found this tiny little office off a yellowing corridor that actually led out onto a nice little back yard terrace with soft lights and tables, it seemed ok! But when we got to our dorm, it was a pitch black room with the windows and shutters painted closed and two lumps already in two of the bunks, both asleep. It was not the Ritz, bit grim, but it would serve. Job one was to get dinner; neither of us had eaten since breakfast. We stuffed our backpacks into the lockers and headed back out to a little burger house we'd walked past, grabbing a hamburger each. There was definitely a buzz on the streets with France winning the semi and after wolfing down our dinner, went back quickly to the Hostel to unpack. On arriving back, both lumps in the beds were awake and quickly we introduced ourselves to Michelle, a cute looking South Korean woman (I think she was 24 which seemed positively old) and Aachen a German girl with a crazy red bob. Both were backpacking as well and we encouraged them to come out for a drink in the crazy atmosphere outside. There was a mini carnival going on and we soon found a bar to have a few beers. Two fat Brazilian dudes spotted us, both wearing Brazil shirts and engaged us in an attempt at conversation.

"You are English yes? Ah David Beckham! Paul Scholes!" When I said I was Scottish, I got "Ah Coleeeen Hendreeee!" They were great fun, and I've got a fantastic picture of me and Josh with these two.

Aachen and Michelle weren't drinking and soon enough, both decided to turn in. Me and Josh decided to stay out a little longer and soak up the atmosphere. It was great. We'd originally planned to stay in Paris only for a couple of days but I think we made the decision then that we had to be here for the Final, which was 4 days away. Until then, we needed to find better accommodation and also see Paris in all it's glory, so we'd need to get up early and secure some better digs - time for bed.

A salute to the greatest Summer, Part 4: London.

Dr J and I were on the GNER from York heading down to London; our big heavy rucksacks (plus useless overbearing and heavy tent in my case) resting in the adjoining sections of the carriages. We were too afraid to leave our bags and grab seats so we stood and chatted for a while and then the head phones went in and my tunes of choice were the Foo Fighters and their album, "The Colour and the Shape". I already knew tracks like Monkeywrench and Everlong, but the rest of the album (bar February Stars) blew me away; just a great start to the trek and before we knew it we were rolling up to Kings Cross.

We pulled on our bags and headed out into the hustle outside Kings Cross station. We then had a celebratory MacDonalds (the first of maaaaaaany) and then wandered off to the tube station to catch the tube to Manor Park (I think) and Josh's Cousin. I'd only been to London once before and remember that first intensity of the heat and rubbery smell coming from the Underground.

We eventually left the small underground station and headed to an area near Finsbury where there were some relatively modern high rises, where Josh's cousin lived. After being buzzed in we were met by this smallish brunette, who made up for it with a distinctly loud personality. Treating us with patronised warmth we settled in and she agreed to meet up with us later in the bars nearby. Josh and I headed back out, past Finsbury park and once again found ourselves in either Burger King or Maccy D's. At this stage I think our motive was to eat cheaply and save the cuisine for Europe. Most fridays at Sixth Form had ended with a BK, so we were actually in our element. We ended up in the street bars of Islington; eventually meeting up with Josh's cousin who continued to enjoy our greenness to the surroundings. As more celebratory ales were imbibed things got more and more rowdy. At last with the prospect of crossing the channel the next day we all walked back to J's cousin's.

Now, Josh's cousin was having a cheeky windup pretty much about how green and innocent we both were and the booze had gotten a little rise out of me - and I did something stupid. I may have said something along the lines of "Yeah, well I've stalked someone". And his cousin exploded.

First off, what I'd actually done was shoegaze whenever a particularly lovely girl was around me for pretty much all of my second year at Sixth Form. In related news, I was single at the time with nery a girlfriend in sight. I'd not stalked anyone; rather pined like an idiot in the puddle of my own shyness. However, I'd decided to brag about it; definately the booze talking and pretty much got admonished for the rest of the evening and unfortunately up to the point where we left the next day. Apologies were eventually accepted and on a sunny July morning me and Josh put on the rucksacks again and found our way throught the quiet streets of the suburb, back to the underground; this time heading for Waterloo.

I liked Waterloo station. Whether it was the kitchness of the Kinks song Waterloo sunset but there was something to the place. Maybe it was the fact it was our gateway to the south and Europe, but it just seemed friendlier and less industrial than the Euston's and Kings Crosses. Plus our train was a rickety old local affair with faded paint and a lot of wood in the carriages and it was wonderful slowly lumping along through the Kent countryside, the names of Stations causing a few childhood memories of living down that way to come back as the sun played into the carriage.

Eventually we rattled into Dover station, not the grandiose Eurotunnel one but literally the old station that had been there a long time; fellow backpackers also exiting the old train. Excited we hurredly left the station only to find that we were actually a fair bit away from anything. In fact I think we walked down a hill to the long stretch harbour front with hovercrafts and ferries about a mile in the distance. How did we get there? No pavements. Which method did we use to cross the Channel? Who knew. After a moment of indecision we caught the bus (like everyone else - how did we not spot that?) and got taken to the ferry terminus.

Having bought our tickets we boarded the ferry through what felt like one of those airplane gates and found ourselves in a big lounge area. Anticipation building, we sat for what seemed ages, but was probably minutes before the ferry moved off. At last the was a gentle suggestion of movement and the feeling of elation as finally we were under way; no turning back, off towards Europe. Exciting.

Once comfortable we headed off to Duty Free, determined to pick up some Cigars (in vogue with us ever since Swingers - we'd also purchased some white vests ala Double Down Trent and Mike, more on those later) and perhaps a bottle of Pierre Smirnoff. Sure enough, I found a nice box of Henri Wintermans and happened upon a new Vodka, Smirnoff Black, which was charcoal filtered to give it a smoother taste. Josh went for a bottle of Absolut vodka and fortunately we still had room for everything in our bags.

So booze, cigars, passports and two good lookin chappies, heading off into Yerp, looking out towards the horizon waiting for the welcoming line of Calais to appear........good times.

Shirley Valentine...........

Hi Folks,

I don't know if ITV3 were having an 80s-athon tonight but we had a double whammy of absolute nostalgia. And it was the worse kind; the stuff that makes you soulful for no apparent reason.

First we had "An Audience With Victoria Wood"; that classic performance with her in a bright blue overcoat, pink trousers and pink trainers, everso 80's. It's a seminal performance who everyone from a pensioner to someone age 30 will probably remember. Absolutely brilliant and the studio filled with the likes of Jane Asher and Jane Symour, looking young, well mid 30s. And of course we were treated to what was then one of the first performances of "Let's do it" (Spank me on the bottom with a woman's weekly; my favourite line).

It's funny how some things spark off certain memories. For me, assuming that was from the late 80s (all we saw at the end was that LWT produced it, so it's got to date around then). It makes me think of coming downstairs before bed (I was probably 9 or 10) and feeling warm; I'm sure we all had our heating on way too much in the 80's. The fuzzy sound of laughter would emanate from the thick TV, as much parents cuddled on the sofa.

Then after Victoria Wood, what came next? Only Shirley Valentine. Now, my other half who was born in 83 had heard of it but had never seen it. How best to explain it? I came up with this definition:

If, in 1989 when it was released you were between the ages of 18 - 30, you were either a student, a yuppie or enjoying the burgeoning house scene. Due to the publicity in the press you probably went and saw it and thought it was a funny film. However, if you were between the ages of say, 30 and 45, it was funny, thought provoking and from what I remember downright contraversial. Suddenly we had a story about a bored housewife in her 40s, leaving her husband and going on holiday to Greece. It was womens liberation version two and also a fantastic critical observation of Brits abroad. Next time you are in Greece, tucking into you Calamaris, remember the 21 years ago - British people would be generally asking for Sausage and chips. Blimey!

Anyway, I like Shirley Valentine as it's a good film but gosh, it returns me to a world where, I'm 11, I'm living in Somerset, I'm naive, probably out on my bike. Hell, the hardest part is I can actually remember my Gran, bright as a button going to see Shirley Valentine and loving it. Talking about it, these were the days when she still had her bungalow and would put on a mean salad whenever we arrived for Lunch; now she's in her 90s, still quite bright but in a home. My other Nan has as we know from this blog passed away.

It's funny what things remind you of the past and make you reminisce. I know that in 89, everyone hated Thatcher and the economy was about to go into meltdown but to me it always seemed a warm happy time. I guess that's the magic of Childhood. How ever did we cope without mobile phones, The adult Charlotte Church, Twitter and Price Comparison websites?

A Salute to the Greatest Summer; Part 3 - All Set

Well, there goes the summer, 1st September today and can't believe it's been two months since I last wrote an installment! I digress....

So, back in York, got the cash, got the idea, now what? Well, first things first was to definitely agree that we were doing it. That needed a session down the pub on the first Saturday back and both Josh and me agreed that we were going round Europe that holiday. I went home delighted.

From then on it took pretty much a week to get organised. We went into Leeds a couple of days later and secured our inter-rail travel tickets with a travel company and then got photos done for our international student card. In mine I had a smirk as Josh threw a condom into the booth. I remember going into York and buying the Rough Guide to Europe and then trying to settle on a route, which we had to do as my parents were worried, so we gave them a general direction of France, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Germany again, Holland and then Northern France / Belgium. We couldn't be any more specific than that as who knew where we'd be. Would we do Spain as well, Greece? Who knew?



Next it was walking boots and other bits. My boots were some soft leather Merrill Boots, so comfy throughout virtually the whole trip - only a few blisters towards the end. And I remember buying a cag in a bag; literally an emergency cagoule in a teeny bag. Advantageous if it rained yes - but a total bitch to get back in the bag properly.



Josh and I were literally doing this on the hoof, we had not booked anywhere and this came to be a worry for my parents; so much so that the sods made me (literally) pack a tent. Now I had already got one of those massive rucksacks that was weighed down with sleeping back, clothes etc and it didn't fit anywhere. If you attached it to the bottom it pulled you backwards (it too was flipping heavy) and if you put it up by your head it bent your neck forward. I think I ended up carrying it like a big gun for most of the trip; bloody thing. And as you will see - it didn't get used once. Oh well, better safe then sorry.

And so, the Monday before we were due to go, me and Josh did one final shop in town, with me buying two albums. The first was the Foo Fighters, "The Colour and the Shape", what I would call a traditional "me" album; a great rock album with loads of power chords and some cracking songs on there such as "Ever-long" and "Heroes". But then, recently I'd been getting into old school rap and subsequently bought the Beastie Boys new album, "Hello Nasty". All I'll say is that this album became the soundtrack to my entire trip; probably some of Josh's too and to this day I think cannot be surpassed as an album; just every track is brilliant. Buy it! On the way home we popped into Josh's cousin's house, Sarah. I'd had a bit of a thing for her at the end of my first year at uni that went nowhere but which seemed to obsess me throughout my second year, but seeing her again before we went off strangely gave me closure on the whole thing: Not sure why, but I remember leaving, dropping Josh off at his house and then feeling extremely excited that tomorrow we would be leaving, pleased that I'd got Sarah out of my head and I only allowed myself to listen to the opening first two tracks of the Beastie Boys album, because they were so bloody good and I didn't want to spoil it for the trip.

I slept well that Monday night and struggled to wake up when my Dad came to wish me well before going off to work in Leeds. I woke up very excited, showered, had a good breakfast, got a hug of my mum as she went off to work and was left on my own checking over my rucksack. Everything was packed; we had a rough guide to where we were going in my Rough Guide (lived up to it's name). I slipped the heavy rucksack on to my shoulders, buckled it round me, grabbed the tent and quietly left the house with a sense of both trepidation and excitement.

I distinctly remember the Tuesday morning; it was warm and sunny and I decided I would walk down to Josh's - may as well get used to it; we would be walking a lot. A neighbour passed me and asked if I was going somewhere; he was a bit surprised when I told him I was off round Europe! It's important to remember that nowadays when every man and his dog do "The World" (when technically what they mean is anywhere they speak English as their main language and maybe a beach in Thaliand), back in 1998 most people were still inter-railing and I'd not been further than sunbed Spain so to me at the time; this was diversity central and a big step.

The twenty minute walk down to Josh's flew by and before we knew it we were getting a lift to York station waiting for the GNER train that would whisk us to the launchpad for our trip, London. The anticipation of our journey was incredible.

Supergrass are 15, The Fans are 30

On the kind of day you wish for in unpredictable August, me and the other half traipsed off to Clumber Park for this years "Clumberfest"; a one day festival still in it's relative infancy. After much frustration with me and my girlfriend trying to secure late tickets to V or Reading we eventually found Clumberfest on the web and for £22 we were promised The View, The Lightning Seeds, Super Furry Animals and best of all, Supergrass. OK, they're not exactly current but it would represent a good trip down Britpop memory lane and was good value for money.

So we turned up yesterday to the beautiful Clumber park and found Clumberfest: a field with a big stage in the middle of the forest, 2 drinks tents selling Pimms and beer, 2 jacket potato stores, 1 ice cream vendor and a lot, and I mean a lot of Portaloos.

At capacity I'm guessing there were 1000 people there and it felt like our own little festival and was comfortable, but oh my gosh, I looked around and what did I see? I knew I was an ex-britpopper but my how we've all aged. You see, I was surrounded by safe groundsheets, pints of Pimms, people who would wear tight tshirts and Addidas Gazelles in the nineties now wearing comfortable slacks and sitting on fold-away chairs!!! And suddenly, there it was, the people of my misspent youth had all become HR Managers, IT Consultants and Teachers. Some even had small kids, good god! (But really what was I expecting?). I sent out a jokey text that everyone looked like they would rate the festival not by the music but by putting "Excellent toilets and tea and coffee making facilities".

I digress, what did we get? Actually a bloody good night. However, we we expecting "The Grass" to finish the mini-fest with a belting crescendo of noise as is derigeur for them but at approximately 6.20pm, the following occurred.

[No compere; suddenly on stage 5 men approach and one of them says "Alright?" on the mic. Everyone is sitting down, (we're all 30 remember), and suddenly they start playing. It's not a song anyone recognises, but slowly one or two people are standing up. The queue for both beer tents is still maaaaaaaassive].
Other half: Oh, it's the first band, erm shall we get up?...
Me: (Processing numbers, 5 members, don't recognise the song, must be the Furries), oh, it must be the super furry animals....
Other half: Oh okay, I don't know any of the their music.
Me: (Listening to the vocals), Hang on, that's Gaz. That is Supergrass!!!

So we ran forward and enjoyed what I can only describe as the most intimate "largish band" gig I'd ever been to. Why were they on first? They were on tip-top form. Had they come down so much over the past 4 years since I saw them support the Foo Fighters? We didn't get it and neither did the other 800 people who didn't join the throng for being in queues. There was all of 150 people watching Supergrass!!!!

Why were they on first? All the other bands were there (watching from the side)? Well personally I think they either drew straws or (and this is the real answer) Supergrass were using the gig as a measuring stick, for new material. They did a great show belting out the old classics like "Mary" and "Caught by the Fuzz" but they also used it to introduce their new rhythm guitarist and to try out some new songs, some which were great, some which were a bit formulaic. But overall, they were the highlight for me and the missus, brilliant and made the other two bands a bit of an Anti-climax. Yeah, they are a bit older and Gaz now clearly wears a cap to disguise a bald patch, but the tunes were still there....

The Lightning Seeds can be summed up by explaining that we used their slot to get potato wedges and have a loo break, but it was good to hear old songs like "The life of Reilly", bring ingback 90's MOTD highlight music memories and "Pure" which is a song I'd totally forgotten about.

And to top the day off, the Super Furry Animals. A quick note on my musical history. Despite being a mad muso in the Britpop era; especially between 1994 - 1997, I never really got SFA and to compound the issue, I saw them in 1996 playing a tent at T-in the Park and thought they were crap; hence I've never had any time for them, other than to know they did a song called "Golden Retriever". So imagine my surprise, that when after 13 years since I saw them, they've actually written some great songs and were really good live! Who knew?!!

All in all, a fun night, some fun memories and slightly bigger waistlines. Good fun.

A salute to the greatest summer; Part 2 - No Glasto

So the Monday after the Monaco Grand prix, a sea of time ahead of me, what to do, what to do? Well, what I conclusively ended up doing was 3 things:

Not a lot – I may have played some house golf with Bomber. This novel game involves a child’s mini golf set but holes that are realistically par 5s as the pin is usually in another room or on another floor. Proper house Nick Faldos we were. I think Stair ball was also invented at this stage. A game which involves bouncing a rubber ball off a wall, ensuring that it’s trajectory passes through banister railings on the way back (Yes we were bored, but this is a truly genius game).

We had a tiny little back garden, which consisted of a long piece of yard along the side of the kitchen and then a square of turf at the back amongst the high walls of the terraces. Now, it wasn’t exactly Kew gardens back there; in fact it was a little over grown from what I remember. But it was nice enough to kick back, buy one of Mr Patel’s disposable BBQ’s and throw down some beer and sausages. Anyway, on one particularly balmy day we decided to have a bbq and invite some friends round. The BBQ was bought, along with the customary crates of Starberg from Netto. We invited our friends from down the road and sure enough at around 7.00 the bbq started. Burgers and Sausages were eaten by all and a large quantity of beer and wine (not feel fine) was imbibed. At this point, me and Bomber, looked at the BBQ which was going out and had the cumulative thought of if this bbq goes out, our party is done; everyone will get cold and go in. I’m not too sure who did it, but a crisp packet (yeah great fuel, cough) was tossed on – went up in flames. Unfortunately, this was the catalyst: what next went on was:
· The cardboard beer crates
· Any magazines or spare paper
· Lots of big old cardboard boxes
· An old table
· Some old chairs
· Possibly a door, or two
It got wonderfully out of hand to the point where the heat generated was so great it melted one of the plastic chairs someone was sitting on. But like a beacon, more people came round, including my sister and her friend Rachel. And we sat out until like 2-3 in the morning; just warm and comfy; eventually roasting apples and potatoes in the embers. Happy memories.

The next day the garden looked like we’d bombed it and it never did recover; much to the annoyance of the landlord.

Football
Here is where, in my eyes, the greatest summer really became alive. Some pre-amble first about me and football:

As anyone who has had me on their team will know; I’m crap at football; although I’m not a bad goalie as my performances against my mates down the racecourse in that summer will testify. I had grown up with Panini Football albums but hardly ever being able to watch football, bar the FA and League cup, mainly because my Dad was more of a rugby fan. When I was a teenager, I loved the mysticism of Football Italia on Channel 4 and started watching match of the day; glory supporting Blackburn in the year they won the league. Then when I got to Six Form, I can only say that I dabbled.

When I got to Uni, Andy was an Everton Fan and Big Mike down the road a Liverpool Fan; so the rivalry continued and I was sucked in as a neutral and I kept my oar in enough to know enough of the elite players.

So, round about 6th or 7th June, on yet another bright and sunny day, me and Andy were kicking round the house when it occurred to us that the World Cup was just round the corner. Andy asked me, if I fancied a bet on it, doing a fantasy league team. I said sure; let’s get the Time’s fantasy football competition, which was very straightforward as the punter just had to pick only one player from each team to select a squad.

So there we we’re, putting our teams together and Big Mike came round. “What are you doing Lads?”. We explained and before you could say, “Would you like to play?” Big Mike had a team and in the lead up to the Wednesday 10th June when it started, so did all our other friends. Well, somebody needed to adjudicate this thing; someone who would be prepared to watch every single game to do the scores (actually not necessary as the Time updated their scores daily).

It would be a wrench, but OK, I would do it.

Shortly after, the day arrived; the opening of the World Cup 1998, 10th of June and off I strolled into town to buy my Scotland Shirt returning in time to settle in and watch that magical opener, Scotland v Brazil. Golly, what a game! And yes, OK, Scotland lost. But initially they ran Brazil pretty close and the World Champions didn’t look like a team that would eventually reach the final.

What was incredible about that World Cup though was the names that were on show. Let’s drop some names: Davor Suker, David Beckham, Alessandro Del Piero, Ronaldo (the buck – tooth Brazilian, not Skippy), Zidane, Raul, Figo, Sinisa Mijhailovic, Gabriel Batistuta. Just a murderer’s row of stars.

Happily I watched every single game in the opening rounds; loving every minute of it. And who can forget England’s performance up to and including the game against Argentina. The young Michael Owen having the breakthrough performance along with Becks. And that was pretty much the first part of my summer; watching every football match.

Meanwhile two things were happening:
1. My sister was getting ready to go to Glastonbury with her friend Rachel. It was a good line-up with The Prodigy headlining one of the stages and frankly I was quite jealous (though this was topped by this year’s Glasto, but that’s a blog entry in itself).
2. My student loan arrived, and it was for the sole purpose of travelling.

To explain, my cousin had gone “Inter-railing” when he was a student and the idea of jumping on a train and rattling around Europe for a month or two greatly appealed to both me and Dr Josh Casswell. The previous summer, 1997 we had mooted the idea a couple of times down the pub and the concept sounded great: get a student loan (yeah ok, not my finest societal moral money moment, but I had a great time and paid it off three years ago, so sod it) and then just go. It had got to just before my exams and the phone call came through: “Do you still fancy it?”. “Absolutely!” (well, it was that or spend another summer kicking round York and a lifetime of regret about not having travelled). So I quickly filled out the application form and received the letter confirming my loan into my bank account quite soon after. Brilliant! (And as anyone who knows me will know – how I didn’t spend that cash is nothing short of a miracle). However, at this stage, there was no route, no walking boots and not really any real confirmation that it was going to happen; we would worry about that when we returned back in July.

The day eventually came when the year results came out; time to go home. I’d got a “Desmond” for the year, ho hum and so it was that I left the world cup scoring in the hands of Andy, loaded my stuff into my Dad’s van and headed back up north. My sister wasn’t with us as by this time she was in Glastonbury; much to my envy. Unfortunately she wasn’t having a good time: It had rained very heavily and was typically muddy, their tent had been ripped, burgled, Rachel had tonsillitis and other than seeing Finlay Quaye, they came home after just one day, very wet and unhappy. We weren’t too happy in the van either, as we listened to the commentary of England losing to Romania.

However, other celebrations were about to be due.

A Salute to the Greatest Summer Ever, Part 1

Something has been irking me recently. As anyone who is anyone and who reads my blog knows (so that’s 0 people) about a month ago I wrote a pretty depressive blog about the ten year anniversary of my graduation. However, and I feel more significantly, I intended to write a “10 year anniversary” blog last year for events that happened in that long and happy summer. I’d actually already written an introduction (which I’m now over-typing) but as usual, the 9 to 5 and laziness had their part to play in fouling the celebration. In fact, we’ve crept past that anniversary again, but 11 years sounds just as daft as 12, and hence, it’s time to write about it. Pretty much as of the weekend of the Monaco Grand Prix, it is 11 years since the last great summer holiday of my lifetime.

Now it’s all very easy to make something sound so grandiose, but a year later, 1999 I would be a graduate, get 20-24 days holiday at everywhere I’ve worked and generally be shafted for time which will also no doubt be the case until I retire. I’ve already written about my experiences as a graduate so won’t carp on about them.

But 1998 was something else; the start of lots of things very dear to me and probably a couple of other friends, notably Andy “Big Bomber” and Dr J Casswell for reasons which we will now go into. This is going to be a Monster blog and subsequently I’m going to need to serialise it but it will begin on a Friday in a week late in May, the weekend of the Monaco Grand Prix 1998 and will finish in Early August 1998. This is not notes from a diary as unlike Dr JC I’ve never kept one; more memoirs from a memory trying to remember what was.

So without further ado , I raise a toast to possibly the best time of my life and begin my first blog entry of this serialisation:

End of May 1998: Exams, Alexander Wurz and Gay Chatups.
May 1998 was warm, as was the entire summer really. And a clear memory for me was walking out of my door in Agnes Road on various mornings and afternoons, equipped with a freezer bag of pens and a ruler and setting off in the sunshine for the old Greyfriars Offices of Barclaycard above the bus station in Northampton, back before they were the dilapidated mess they are now. This building had been empty for quite some time and had been temporarily converted into a series of exam halls for the duration of my second year exams. Throughout mid may I had tortured myself with some dubious revision efforts which translated into what I can only describe as bloody tricky exams. I should have done more but was in a relative educational funk; something which would show through with my final grades for the year; averaging a 2:2. Apparently, well according to the exam questions, I had missed great swathes of psychology and law and educated guessing wasn’t doing me any favours. Anyway, one exam left on the morning of Friday the 22 or 29th May, not sure which, myself and two of my friends sat a particularly tortuous law exam, criminal law, but somehow the questions fell my way and it wasn’t really that bad. I remember finishing and breathing a sigh of relief with Paul and Helen, my two buddies. As like everyone else finishing their exams that day we headed off to the Charles Bradlaugh, just up the road to sink a few pints in the cool sunshine of their beer garden; a feeling of relief and happiness passing through everyone. Once we’d sunk those, Paul and Helen and I took a long walk to the White Elephant in Kingsley; then a reasonably grotty student pub. We all got another pint and ordered a burger and chips each. Sitting at a foursome table, Paul and Helen sitting across the way from me, we munched on our burgers and dissected the exams. Across the way from us was this skinny slip of a man on his own, but very inconsequential. However, 5 minutes later and that certain someone minced over to our table and said “Hey, is it ok if I sit with you guys; it’s just that I’ve had a hard time recently and I could do with being with people”. Now, at this point can I please say I’m not a homophobe as this next bit is probably going to sound like I’m one, but this chap – if you asked someone to do a really bad impression of a gay man, unfortunately they would imitate him.

Hey, is it ok if I sit with you guys; it’s just that I’ve had a hard time recently and I could do with being with people. Well what can you say to that? Being the nice people that we were, “Sod off” didn’t seem like an appropriate response so after explaining that we were just talking about our exams, he settles himself down next to me. So he politely listens to our talk and realises that we’re students. He tells us he was a student who graduated two years ago. I ask him what he does now and he tells us he’s a writer who is currently writing a play called “Balls”. With his high pitched reedy voice, camp mannerisms and a play called “Balls” I think that he could be gay. Seconds later he comments Helen on her clothes and makeup in a “D’you know, I love your nail varnish” way and that pretty much confirms it. Shortly after he announces that as we may have guessed, he’s gay. Yup, he’s been having some trouble with his ex recently, which is why he is so down. We all make sympathetic faces and me and Paul shift uncomfortable in our seats as he tells us “actually, I’ve been a bit of a slut recently”. We start talking again. Then he focuses on me, looks me up and down and says “D’you know, you’ve got great eyebrows; you’d make a fantastic drag queen” – so I got that going for me...(if you’re a caddyshack fan you’ll get the last line [the lama.......long]).

Anyway in my uncomfortable-ness I get up and get a round in. I return and chappie is talking about love, asking Helen if she had ever been in love and then the same with Paul who had recently split up with his then missus, Julie. So Paul then get’s asked what his star sign was. Paul says Taurus and then our chap says “Oooh, the bull, you’re too strong for me; too strong headed”. Then he turns to me, hand dropping down to his leg; close to mine and asks me. I tell him I’m a Leo and he says “Oooh, my King, the lion, all big and strong!” Well, you’ve never seen 3 people all sink a pint quicker than you would have done that day. After a resounding “Oh is that the time?” we ran out of the pub giggling. Drag Queen eyebrows indeed. Never happened since; am I so unattractive? Anyway, after that we went home, had the usual Friday night boozy fun and a gentle hangover on a wonderfully sunny Saturday.

Now, if you’ve been a student, you’ll know that the morning after your final exams will feature one compulsory thought and either one of two options:
Compulsory: “Ow, my head feels like Jo Brand has been treated my brain like a bouncy castle, where’s the neurofen”.
Options: choose one of the following:
a) Right, exams are done, I’ll stick around for a week, then go home, do the responsible thing and not sponge off my parents. Instead I’ll get a menial job to raise funds for my next year and catch up with my old friends who’ll have nothing to say to me because they, like me, will be wishing they stayed in their University town until their results were released in the first week of July.
b) Whooooooooo! Party! Let’s stay here, get a tan, have a bbq and generally sponge until we get our results and have to go home and are forced to get a job. 4 months of monkey shines. The possibilities are endless....

Naturally, as per the previous summer which I’d also enjoyed, I chose Option B, which those who have a moral conscience will point out was not fair on the Bank of Mum-and-Dad; very true. But I think there was more gravity to the decision in that as I had already worked out, this would be the last three month stretch of immortality (June – September) before I went back to Uni for my final year and then almost inevitably (and which truly happened) got straight into a job. Therefore I stand by my reckless decision.

So the weekend trickled by and Sunday arrived, still in glorious sunshine; the weekend of the Monaco Grand Prix. Formula one is one of those things I dib in and out of and my general position on the sport is: watch the beginning for any potential crashes, then the first 4 laps, then it gets boring, tune back in for the chequered flag and inevitable champagne splashing. But Monaco ironically is the only one I usually watch fully from warm up lap to post race interviews, despite being the course with the least overtaking or anything of interest happening. There is something magical about Monaco; maybe it’s the continental street setting, maybe it’s the European glamour, but it floats my boat and on that Sunday; well it passed an hour. So I settled in, feeling good, and watched the race. I can’t remember who won but I do remember that Alexander Wurz had a spectacular ding with Michael Schumaker on the Casino hairpin; a big thing was made of it. It was an enjoyable race and little did I know that in approximately a month and a half I’d be standing on that hairpin.....

Following that race, it was difficult to know what to do; just enjoy the sunshine and have some bbqs sounded like the greatest plan. How wrong I was....

End of Part 1