Diary of an up and coming sociopath

3 years ago:
Josh and I met Douglas Coupland, the first time. By way of festivals, we went to V for a day with Relly and Graham. One of my favourite blogging experiences, the Muse album “review” I did that turned into an abuse-fest was still in full swing, and I was spending the summer intermittantly gamestesting at AP. Hey Ya was approaching release and sounded like a fresh new single ready to bring Outkast to the forefront with heavy rotation on XFM. Little did we know. We’d been at Morrell Avenue about a year, with another year to go. Claire and Debbie were moving out, Nikki, Tom and David were staying, and Ian was moving in.

2 years ago:
I was not at Reading, or indeed, any festivals that year. Josh, Nikki and I were discovering that Coventry has a carnival, and I am only now realising that it’s probably related in some fashion to the Notting Hill Carnival. I find it kind of funny that as a result of going to festivals for like 8 years I manage to totally ignore any other events of cultural significance around the end of August. The day or so after, we went to the Town and Country Show and discovered Alpacas, which are suddenly in the news quite a lot again this month, perhaps because of events like the town and country. This point was slightly before we had a house nailed down in London. I was living out of boxes at home, David and Tom had gone back home for good, and Nikki was back at home with her Mum. Josh was probably at his Aunt’s by this point, and Ian was living on George’s floor. It all came together in the end though.

1 year ago:
I was at Reading. I saw the Arcade Fire live, and the Pixies, and Eddie Temple-Morris doing a DJ set. I think I covered the more memorable stuff in the entry, to be honest. Festivals have this tendancy to blur into a hazy few days of watching bands and being filthy, but it’s always great fun. Ian, Josh, Al and I had lived here a year, and Nikki had just moved in full time, having finished Uni. I’d been doing my new job a couple of weeks and the company were preparing to ship us off to Tenerife, a reality I was still accepting.

Today:
We went shopping for one of the final times before we move out of our current house after two years. Ian’s got his own place secured, Al’s found somewhere to move in with Sam, and Josh is going to stay with Nikki and me in a place in Ealing Broadway while we begin the arduous task of saving up to try and buy somewhere. Seb moved down to Ealing a few weeks ago, and we spent the evening at his and Cappsy’s place debating whether Lost is actually any good or not (it clearly is), reading the Mr. Bean diary, and going over ye olde “What the hell’s wrong with the matrix sequels?!” debate. Nikki and I went to the V festival the other week and had a great time as ever. I’m listening to Frontline, the song Captain played at V which I liked the most. I’ll go see them next time they tour. At Seb’s, we watched Reading coverage on TV and it’s made me regret not going, even if the lineup wasn’t exactly great (though we also couldn’t get tickets.) This year I’m going to try and buy the 2007 presale tickets so that I’m definitely in a position to go next year, because I reckon I can afford it, for a change. It’s the best way to ensure we can go if we want.

Notably, it’s now less than a week until the glorious anniversary of my birth, the 24th, in fact, if we think of it in terms of your human years.