Pragmatic for the people

Our Freeview box died recently. It wasn’t a massive surprise as it had become increasingly temperamental, freezing randomly and not recording programmes it was supposed to – and sometimes even the ones it did record contained bugs that wiped out a chunk of our memory. Then, like the blue screen of death on a PC, the word FAIL appeared as we tried to restart the box one Saturday morning after it had crashed again.

So, a click on the interweb beckoned. Finding a replacement in theory was easy but there was the added complication of needing a new TV as well. The one we had – a simple 14-inch portable – was still in great working order, but its age meant it was no longer compatible with modern set-ups. Right, prices. Lowest to highest, oops wrong way round. Hang on, what the… £2,159? People are prepared to splash out as much as £2,159 for a new telly? Really?

Yeah, but like it has, like, you know, interactive features and shit; you can feel Dermot O’Leary hugging you while he man-handles the contestants on the X-Factor, Luis Suarez actually dives into your living room when Premier League defenders breathe on him while John Terry celebrates making your dinner, Jon Snow introduces you personally before he reads the news headlines, and you can tell Alan Sugar he’s fired and everyfink.

Ah, so that was what I was missing out on? Fair enough. Except, no. The four-line paragraph advertising the product simply masturbated over how great the TV looked, how big it was, and how great it sounded. Admittedly that’s probably not too dissimilar to my profile description during my internet dating days but still. Its features were pretty generic – Now and Next programme guide, Autoscan channels, Digital Text, Subtitles, Audio Description, etc. Er, yes? Otherwise it was all sockets, sockets, sockets. “Includes 0 pairs of 3D glasses”  just about summed it up. You mugs.

Well, that was my initial reaction. Thing is, was it right? Was I taking the moral high ground? Was I just jealous? I mean, I’d love to have two grand as spare change. Was I simply getting old and overly pragmatic for the sake of it? After around 30 seconds I reassured myself that I had merely entered my pet hate world of style over substance, and the TV situation epitomised it. Sure, it would be great for hosting parties, film nights, big footie games, but unless your obligatory several hundred friends on Facebook were genuinely people you partied with every weekend then my portable telly wins out as far as I’m concerned. It had been mine for about seven years, surviving four house/flat moves and outliving two other Freeview boxes and a DVD player. It was already second-hand when I first bought it at a repair shop in Watford, for around £50. And if the analogue signal still existed we’d probably still be able to use it elsewhere.

My philosophy has always been similar with cars. Yes, I’m sure some laydeeeeeeez would rather be picked up by a flash geezer in a BMW Turbo Orgasm than a gimp in a 1994 Renault Clio, but as far as I’m concerned cars exist to get people from A to B and for absolutely no other reason. The Clio was about eight years old when I first got it, and though I could have upgraded to a newer car after putting a few thousand miles on its clock, I didn’t because it was incredibly reliable and barely touched the £100 mark in repair costs between then and its sad death in late 2007 courtesy of some local chavs who clearly should’ve gone to Specsavers. Obviously company cars need to be upgraded regularly, but it baffles me how so many people want a new car every year for the sake of it. People wouldn’t do that with mobile phones, would they? Oh wait.

How to actually talk to someone. Modmyi

Now don’t worry, I’m not going to slate the iPhone. Like many people I have one – albeit one I inherited rather than bought – and I do really like it. Having email and internet access on the go is great, and some of the Apps are genuinely very useful, especially the travel or location-based ones. Then again, a friend of mine who recently bought one took me to one side and said “Sorry for being thick but how do you make a call on this? I actually want to speak to someone.” I didn’t laugh. The iPhone has its strengths but its design isn’t one of them. The phone icon should be central and ideally the first thing you see when visiting the main screen, and not relegated to the bottom left hand corner. It is primarily a phone after all. Even when you tap the icon it doesn’t necessarily default to the keypad.

Thing is, I’m fine with most modern-day innovations as long as they  make life easier. Online banking, for example – great. Online airport check-in – great. Self-service supermarket checkouts – great. For every one of those, however, you have adverts claiming that women can have happy periods, or that wiping your arse with certain brands of toilet paper cleanses the soul.  

Going to the toilet should be the most functional thing in the world, though you’d never know it visiting a modern-day public loo. Not that I’m suggesting public toilets should revert to being traditional, er, shitholes, but if you need to go you need to go (even if it means paying – at the time of writing – 30p in several London train stations), and when I need to go I just want to get in and get out as soon as possible without being humiliated bamboozled by oh-so-clever machinery in between.

Freshening up has never felt so needlessly complex. Euromodul  

Right, the business is done, feel much better. So where do I wash my hands? There’s no soap. Actually, come to think of it, there’s no sink either. Under here, boss. Er, sorry? Under here, innit. Er, you’re a mirror aren’t you? Nah, one of them all-in-one machines. Put your hands under here, boss. No, left a bit. OK, nothing’s happening. Nah, put them back, you have to give it five seconds to activate. Ah, right. Hang on, you’re having a laugh, that’s not enough soap for a fingernail. That’s ‘cos you moved out too soon. Put them back in. What, again? Ah right, that’s better. So where do I wash my hands? Over here. Where? To your right, boss. OK. Come on, surely I deserve more than a dribble? You’re not far enough in. Story of my life, mate. Ah, good. So what about the dryer? Over here. Where? To your right. Nothing’s happening. Hold your hands in for five seconds. Er, still nothing. Ah, sorry boss, I forgot, it stopped working yesterday. See you again?

Basically, anything that requires visual instructions to undertake the process of basic and generic hygiene clearly fails to fulfil its purpose, and sensor-activated machinery in general tends to be useless from my experience. The worst shower I’ve ever had was after a game of five-a-side at a sports complex which used sensored shower heads. They wouldn’t turn on unless you were right underneath, and switched off as soon as you moved a muscle, say, for the privilege of using shampoo and/or shower gel. And because they turned on and off at will, the temperature of the water shifted violently from oven to freezer and back in the space of seconds. Never again. So apologies to anyone who sat next to me on the Jubilee Line every Thursday for several months afterwards.

But hang on a minute, I don’t hear you cry, surely the whole public toilet thing is worth it if it means your bladder feels comfortable again afterwards? Yes and no. Have you ever needed to go on a train journey these days, particularly with Virgin? I once did, so I made my way through a few carriages to find the toilet, which on first glance looked like a closed kiosk. I spotted the ‘Open’ button so tentatively pressed it and the doors slid open gradually in semi-circular fashion like an 80s game show where the star prize is revealed via the legs of Bruce Forsyth’s latest bit on the side. I was already nervous. Luckily I saw the ‘Close’ button on the inside fairly quickly and the same excruciating wait ensued as the door shut. Now call me thick but I assumed that if you pressed the ‘Close’ button whilst inside the sensor would automatically activate a lock on the outside. Apart from George Michael, who would not want that to happen? But no.

To speak to a customer service advisor, press #  4c Design

True, while I started peeing I did notice a ‘Lock’ button, but it was flashing and, again, wasn’t it just activating privacy from the outside? Apparently not. Suddenly the 80s game show door started its excruciating slide open again and I panicked as quietly as I could. Thankfully I’d just about finished so had the split-second I needed to button up my flies before the door revealed a guy in his 20s; we both shrugged it off. Well I technically couldn’t as I still had to wash my hands. This time I did manage to lock the door so I could relax a bit. So, where’s the sink then. Under here, boss.  

Now, I’m well aware that these toilets, which are nice and spacious, are designed with the disabled in mind, so no problem there. It’s just a shame space and sense aren’t compatible in this case. Obviously at the time I questioned whether it was just me, but on one recent journey two people within the space of minutes failed to fully grasp it either; both needed two attempts just to get the door open and shut. 

So there you go, needless tension and confusion surrounding everyday basic functions. Obviously if you're unlucky enough to need a 'next time' then the process becomes less confusing more straightforward, but you still have to rely on a machine to choose how much soap, water and heat you're allowed. Next time I want to do it the bog-standard way. We all need to move with the times, but life, for the most part, remains simple. It's people who make it complicated. Now where's that telly... 

Life inside an inbox

@ the back of my mind.  Image by Mickey Aldridge

I recently noticed I had over 12,000 emails in my Inbox. Time for a cull, I thought. It should be easy, shouldn’t it? Just drag the sidebar to the bottom and get going. Hang on, what the... 2003?! Suddenly the focus shifted, and within the space of an hour I had created a new folder full of messages that pretty much resembled a photo album in email form; a snapshot of more or less the last ten years of my life.

What should have been a functional few minutes became an emotional few hours. I found myself gulping at what I was reading. The last rolls of a dice at a company that was to fold imminently; invitations to nights out, some of which I could make, some of which I couldn’t, some of which happened, some of which didn’t, some of which proved fantastic nights, others totally forgettable; flirty exchanges with women I met on dating websites, some I dated, some I didn’t; online Christmas and birthday cards, some of which still worked, some which didn’t. That’s just scraping the surface.

Obviously I deleted a chunk of irrelevant ones – weekly mailing lists to sign up for five-a-side footie, for instance, or jokey messages that had been forwarded a thousand times from the other side of the globe – but ultimately I failed miserably. My plan was to plough through and delete 1,000 messages a day, but essentially I just moved them; the equivalent of tidying up a home to cater for visitors but choosing to shove everything into a spare corner rather than inside a giant bin bag.

I decided to email two people from the 2003 era – one of two Germans I partied with after a random night out in central London, and a girl from a dating site I never actually got round to meeting but bizarrely remained in touch with for a while as a sort of online pen pal. I kept the emails brief, largely because I was worried their addresses were no longer active, and made sure I sent them as a reply to one of their previous messages so they had some means of sparking memories.

Then it dawned on me I’d only reached halfway. What about my Sent folder? Obviously I’d covered some of that ground already, but what about those messages that had got away? Those that hadn’t been replied to, or those that had been buried by replies not containing the original message. Another several hours of occasional happiness, occasional sadness, occasional laughter and occasional what-the-hell-was-I-thinking followed. Stream of consciousness is one thing but some emails are just not meant to be sent.

Bring Back Alan Carr, Justin! Er, actually, no.

Cynics would just say fuck it, forget it. It’s the past, there’s nothing you can do. To an extent they’re right; it’s natural that we change over time, and I was certainly a different person back in 2003. And obviously it depends on the context. I remember cringing when I watched an episode of a Channel 4 series called Bring Back..., in which west country loudmouth Justin Lee Collins ran around like a lunatic trying to reunite people from various TV series. In the episode I saw he went on the hunt to find the members of Grange Hill who sang the anti-drugs song, Just Say No, in a bid to get them to perform the single again over 20 years on (that’s three-and-a-half minutes I’ll never get back). They clearly didn’t want to do it, and didn’t seem thrilled to even see one another again. They’ve moved on, for god’s sake.

The past is important to me, mind you, though you’ll probably have guessed that already if you’ve been an avid reader of these blogs. In addition to a half-decent memory, I’m lucky enough to still be in touch with a group of school friends I’ve known since the age of 13. Our lives have evolved, of course, but when we do see one another – around twice a year – it’s like we’ve never been apart; the same characteristics, wit and banter. Inevitably we catch up first – how’s the wife, how’s the FTSE index, do you want fries with that, etc – but it’s not long before random nostalgia kicks in.

“Oh, that reminds me of the sixth-form Winter Ball. Who was it who turned up pissed, was sick on the dancefloor and had to be carried home? Was it Andy Bell?”

“Er, no, that’s the singer from Erasure. You mean Andy Buswell?”

“That’s right. Hang on, was that the night you pulled his sister, Ju...”

“Don’t go there.”

“That’s what she said.”

There have been occasions I’ve bumped into others I used to know from school, and they’ve often mentioned how jealous they are that we’ve got such a unique bond. I used to think I was in the minority by embracing the past, but the success of Friends Reunited (well, initially) and Facebook clearly proves otherwise, especially when you hear stories of both sites wrecking marriages. I have a sort of a love-hate – or should that be like-it's complicated – relationship with Facebook. While I’m not obsessed like some are (i.e. the pricks who spend their whole days scoring a million points playing digital Kerplunk, or inviting you to groups that spread far-right hatred), it is a genuinely nice way to stalk catch up with old school/uni/work mates, and it occasionally opens up surprising new avenues.

14/20 is nothing to brag about. Image by Neatorama

To take a brief detour, you might be familiar with a half-decent US sitcom called My Name Is Earl, in which the main character makes a list of every misdemeanour from his past and sets out trying to repair each one. On Facebook I’ve found myself on both sides of the fence in that regard. I was shocked when a girl from my tutor group at upper school added me as a friend a few years back and sent me a message to apologise for being horrible to me during one school year. On the flipside I was also fortunate to come across a girl from my French and Italian class at the same school whom I’d once ignored during a Saturday afternoon in town due to being in a mood about something. She was actually really nice and I don’t think I ever got round to apologising. Sure enough, befriending her gave me the chance to do so.

Trouble is, there is always unfinished business and you can’t repair or relive everything. And finding some people is almost impossible if they are called Steve Jones or Emma Smith, or have married and taken their husband’s name. Hell, some people aren’t even on Facebook (the saddos).

One of my best mates recently joked that when a cab driver asks him where he wants to go, he replies “1995 please”. I laughed out loud, but there was a part of me crying inside. One of the downsides of catching up with others can be developing an unwanted obsession over your own status (no pun intended) in life. A virtual taxi ride to the past is sometimes more appealing than it should be. But hey, pipes up Facebook, you can do that via our groovy Timeline feature where we tell "your story". Thanks for that. I've always fancied having my life ghostwritten by a social media site. At least they haven't used the word 'journey'. Yet. I shouldn't complain too much, of course, as Facebook is the main source of advertising space for this blog.

Several weeks on and the two people I emailed have yet to reply. Not that I mind. In fact, after a week of intrigue I more or less totally forgot about it, to the point where it was only when I started proper work on this blog that it came back to me. Like many things in life, it seemed a good idea at the time. Just 8,875 emails to go. 

Euro 2012: A tribute to Spain's Phantom 9

Spain made double history at Euro 2012. Not only were Victor Del Bosque’s side the first to win three international tournaments in a row, they were also the first to win a competition with a surreal formation that largely omitted a striker. So to honour Spain’s ‘Phantom 9’, here are nine memories to take away from Poland and Ukraine.
The hosts show RESPECT

Before the tournament all the talk was geared towards crowd trouble, racism, monkey chants, the families of ethnic players being warned to stay away for their own safety, etc. Thankfully, just like the 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea, where police had allegedly learned English commands to stave off any hooliganism, the scaremongering in Poland and Ukraine largely – but for a few isolated incidents – proved fruitless.

On the pitch it was a shame that both host nations fell at the first hurdle. As with Austria and Switzerland four years previously, it wasn’t a massive surprise given Poland and Ukraine’s moderate talent, but both will see it as an opportunity missed.

For long periods the Poles battered an ageing and largely poor Greece side that played for around an hour with only ten men in the opening game, to no avail; dug out another single point against Russia; then simply ran out of gas against the Czech Republic after wasting a string of first-half chances. Similarly, Ukraine failed to take advantage of the euphoria which followed the superb 2-1 win over Sweden. With games stretching to midnight local time, partying in the respective countries was well under way. Pity the champagne ran out early.

Fandemonium

The premature departure of Poland and Ukraine, whose fans lit up their respective stadia, was a blow to the atmosphere, though plenty stayed on. In general it was a colourful affair; fancy dress, painted faces, the obligatory cameras panning to the pretty ladyeeeeeeeeeeeeez in the crowd (and Angela Merkel).

Perhaps the most consistently weird sight was of fans biting their fingernails and quivering as they prayed for their team to score or hold on to their lead. But wait a minute, sudden joyous face! We’re on telly worldwide – wahey! Who gives a shit about the footie now?

TV ratings

Obviously the BBC won as usual, largely due to the public not having to suffer adverts ad nauseum, nor idiotic commentary from ITV’s Clive Tyldesley and Peter Drury and their ‘oh-so-clever’ pre-scripted tripe. “Pirlo? Peerless, more like”, “Klose moves ever-closer to Gerd Muller’s international scoring record" and the clincher from Drury, who was clearly salivating when Georgios Samaras bundled home a Greek equaliser against Germany: “AND GREECE HAVE WIPED THE DEBT!”

Not that the BBC were much cop in the commentary stakes either, mind you. The main trio of Guy Mowbray, Jonathan Pearce and Steve Wilson were fine, but their right-hand men were cringeworthy. Mark Lawrenson did his best to emulate the ITV twats with his dry, unfunny puns every other minute, while Mark Bright, despite his child-like enthusiasm, remained endlessly irritating. Nevertheless, at least the Beeb refrained from the endless “And the last team to beat Spain? Yep, that’s right, England.” Thanks for that, Clive.

Over to Gabby for the latest from the England camp

As much as I want England to win an international tournament in my lifetime, at least inevitable defeat at some stage means we can then concentrate fully on subsequent games rather than be subjected to the obligatory non-stories and squeaky-clean press conferences.

As for Ingerland on the pitch? Well, it was a decent effort. Most fans were happy for the team just to get out of the group stage given the average bunch Roy Hodgson had at his disposal, and taking an Italy side that reached the final, tearing Germany apart on the way, to penalties was no disgrace. Although we still had to suffer the obligatory ‘tactically and technically we’re way behind the best’ whinging. No shit, Sherlock. Then again, the last team to beat Spain? Yep, that’s right, England. Thanks for that, Clive.

Dumbo number five

In recent years I’ve started to feel a little, just a little, sorry for Cristiano Ronaldo at international level. He’s been accused of playing for himself rather than his country, but to be honest he’s largely lacked enough quality around him to make a definitive mark with Portugal, so it’s a tad harsh, in my opinion. At the last World Cup, for instance, he suffered from horribly negative team tactics and below-par teammates, both of which meant he was starved of the ball for long periods.

This Portugal side were much better, though, and Ronaldo was largely a hit – until the penalty shoot-out with Spain, that is. I know, I’m our team’s best penalty taker so I’ll go last. That way I’ll be able to grab the glory, my teammates will pile on me, and I’ll be the hero. But hang on, what if my teammates don’t score and I don’t get the chance? Too late. Oh shit.

Music to our ears

The damn Spanish. Not only do they not need strikers to win matches, they don’t even need words in their national anthem. In all seriousness, the Marcha Real really is a powerful and euphoric anthem, and the fact we didn’t need to hear their players sing it was a definite bonus. Contrast that with the players from other nations, whose singing was generally laughably bad, most notably Ronaldo.

Now don’t get me wrong, these players were at the tournament to play football, but considering how many of them clearly spent hours meticulously slicking their hair back in male model styleee, you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon attaching hair clips as kick-off approached? Really? At least Petr Cech still wears his helmet for protection (snigger).

16 Nation Army

Along with Spain, the White Stripes were the tournament’s biggest winners. After every goal, the duo's rock anthem Seven Nation Army blasted from the speakers. Well, not their version (though that has hovered around the top end of the iTunes chart since) but a Euro equivalent, which every fan of the team that had just scored sang along to.

Great song, of course, but why the need for goal music? Yes, I know it’s becoming more and more popular around domestic leagues, but come on, this is an international tournament. Fans know how to celebrate a goal without having to be guided by bangin' choons. It will be upbeat organ music at corners next. And the obligatory countdown before kick-off? This isn’t America, you know. Er, rant over.

The Were-Spain-boring debate

Yes. Yes, they were. Accusations that we’re just bored of them winning doesn’t wash with me, I’m afraid. Manchester United have won countless Premier League trophies but although I’m not a fan, I’ve never felt bored watching them; they’ve always tried to play quick-tempo, expansive football. During the 1999 Treble-winning era, in particular, they were great value for couch-potato viewing as the likes of David Beckham and Paul Scholes emerged.

Spain were a similarly attack-minded side in 2008 and 2010, playing not too dissimilarly to modern-day Barcelona, but for 90 per cent of this tournament they played in third gear. Commentators masturbating over their ability to keep the ball didn’t help. I make that the 112th consecutive pass, Andy. They are so technically adept, aren’t they, Clive? Here’s Busquets, Xavi, Busquets again, across to Arbeloa, back to Busquets, he flicks it neatly to find Pique, Pique plays it back to Casillas, who effortlessly strokes the ball out to Jordi Alba. I mean, look Andy, Casillas plays like a modern-day sweeper, doesn’t he? Certainly does, Clive. Yawn.

Self-indulgence is all very well if you’re 3-0 up with 10 minutes left, but at 0-0 it’s plain arrogant. Had Croatia taken a couple of their late chances in the group encounter, Spain could have been on the next plane home. And then there was the Portugal semi, of course. Hi Cristiano!

Campeones

But despite the above, what do great champions do? They shove mockery back into their critics’ mouths and put on a scintillating display in the final, that’s what. Italy tried to live with Spain but simply couldn’t. The first goal was like watching the Russian ice hockey team at their most ruthless. And who needs strikers when you’ve got an adventurous left-back who can steam through a brick wall-like defence and finish like Messi? Barca fans will enjoy Alba.

Ultimately, strikerless Spain had the last laugh in more ways than one. Thanks to a late cameo, featuring a goal and an assist, Fernando Torres ended up waltzing off with the Golden Boot. That’s right, a striker. Takes the piss really, doesn’t it?

So, three major titles in four years, and with a side young enough to carry on winning several more. Who can stop them? Well, the last team to... Shut it, Clive.

Fish and chips

"Scuse me, boss, iz you fish and chips?"
"Er, sorry?
"Iz you fish and chips? It's what we call people who were born in the UK, innit."
"OK, er, yeah."

It was a Saturday evening and I was minding my own business sipping fruit juice in a local cafe whilst watching Barcelona hammer someone in La Liga. Suddenly I found myself randomly embroiled in a group discussion about identity, led by a young Somali.

The guy was around 21 but despite his ultra-urban London twang was actually born in Germany and had lived there until the age of 11. I was now surrounded by a group of four others - two British-born Pakistanis, a British-born Moroccan and her partner, whose roots were in Yemen. I know, it sounds like the start of a bad joke.

"Shit, so we only need a Chinese person and we've got the whole Unaarted Nations, innit?" he laughed. If I've ever had a more surreal conversation in my life I can't recall it.

"So, boss, where in the UK iz you from?"

...and it was all going so well. I get asked that a lot, and especially did during a recent spell working in Howden, East Yorkshire. The truth is I struggle for a definitive answer. In most cases I'm lazy and just say London; my life has been based there for more than a decade now and the Howden experience made me realise I do largely feel at home. Then again, a guy in Sheffield said "You dorrrn't sound like you're from Looondon," a while back and I guess it's true. I can't speak Ali G, nor am I capable of calling random people 'geezers' and 'muppets' without laughing.

My other default response is Northampton as I lived there for five years during my teens, obviously a hugely influential chunk of my life with GCSEs and A-Levels on the menu, and I still have family and friends there. I never picked up the accent, though, which is quite an achievement as it's surprisingly strong and rural for a decent-sized town in the middle of the country. In fact, it's downright weird; imagine someone pissed up doing a very bad impression of a West Country accent and you're not far off. Or to put it another way, if Petula Clark had been born in Northampton, her big hit would have been called 'Deyn Teyn'. Overhearing someone giving directions to go 'reynd the reyndabeyt' was quite amusing. I remember my first day at middle school and a classmate straight away realised I wasn't from reyned these parts (sorry, that's the last one). "You sound well posh," she said.

I've had that one quite a bit and it used to annoy me; even at that age I knew a 'well spoken' (that was what it was called back then - ugh!) accent didn't mean I was posh. And anyway, I wasn't. My background is a fairly modest one and [A-Level Sociology mode on] if I was using the Weberian scale, I'd be hovering somewhere just above lower middle class [A-Level Sociology mode off]. In Kingsthorpe, our area of Northampton, I lived in what I'd loosely describe as the middle tier; a three-bedroom terraced house close to what was and still is known as 'The Front', where all the supermarkets were. The more affluent people at school lived on estates closer to the outskirts, while the poorer groups lived in council houses dotted around.

Not that I'm whinging as I wasn't the only one; there was another guy in our year who was from Northampton but didn't speak with any kind of local accent either, so he got the same treatment.

Uni was a welcome distraction because a sample of the nation effectively came together and no-one really cared about backgrounds anymore. Instead we just spent Fresher's Week taking the piss out of each other and arguing about pronunciation and what things were called.

"What are you eating?"
"A crumpet."
"No, it's a pikelet."
"It's a crumpet, end of."
"It's called a bloody pikelet!"

Etc, etc. Back then the internet was still being powered by a hamster and sites like Wikipedia were well in the distance. The whole ‘posh’ tag thing did resurface afterwards - I failed to absorb any Nottingham twang either - but thankfully my sense of humour bypass worked and at times I've almost adopted it as a persona, particularly when I played Sunday League football in Watford.

In one game I was playing in my usual position of left-midfield but was switched to the right in the second half as the kid who had played there in the first half threw up at half-time and our management duo, a Glaswegian called Crawford and a west Londoner called Martin, who were on the touchline nearest him, wanted to keep an eye on him. I'm guessing we didn't have any subs that day. So I ran across to the opposite side again where our right-back Keith Hopping (known as 'Hoppy') now stood. I'd never played alongside him before.

"I'm playing in front of you this half, which guy am I picking up?" I asked.
"I didn't understand a word of that. What the fuck are you on about? Speak fucking English," he laughed.

Hoppy was the dressing room joker and wind-up merchant every team needs and I became his new banter target after that and almost a cult figure at the club (in a good way; I actually won ‘Sportsman of the Year’ one season, which only usually ever went to one of the veterans).

"I say, Kris, what a marvellous performance," Hoppy yelled in the changing room after one victory, much to everyone's amusement.
"Wonderful, old chap," I grinned. “You were shit, though.” More laughter.

I’d learned how to give it back by then, even if I was still a Sunday League swearing novice, something that Crawford and Martin particularly loved about me.

"For fuck’s sake!" I shouted on one occasion as I attempted to chip the ball into the path of one of our strikers, only to slice it for a throw-in. Rather than bollocking me they both laughed.

"Oi, watch ye language, Krassy," Crawford sniggered.

I should point out that I actually really like accents, and uncannily since I started writing this blog BBC Breakfast had a feature on ‘standard’ English and how some Essex primary schools were starting to introduce elocution lessons. The Essex accent isn’t the most attractive, admittedly, but really? Every accent has its own idiosyncracies – Yorkshire’s reluctance to use the word ‘the’ and Geordies’ endless struggle to find a simile (joke courtesy of Milton Jones; annoyingly I can't find a YouTube clip), for example – so who’s to decide what a definitive take on English is?

Mind you, women love a 'standard' English accent, don’t they? Particularly those from abroad ('Mmm, you sound soooooo English', etc) who have that cringeworthy romanticised view of Middle England that the likes of Four Weddings... attempt to portray. So yeah, I've played on it. Pronouncing the 't' in 'water' when singing 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' at karaoke nights has had its successes. And obviously there have been some generic Hugh Grant impressions - you know, random bumbling, the flicking of a centre parting and saying 'crikey' a lot. I've done fairly well out of it.

Not that I'd actually consider myself to be particularly English. Half of my family isn't for a start. I support England in sport but I'm not really fussed otherwise. What else is there, anyway? Tea and scones, grumbling about the weather and queueing? No wonder St George's Day is a non-event.

Technically you could argue I'm actually a northerner as I was born in Grimsby and lived there for the first 10 years of my life - so my spell in Howden was the closest I've been to returning to my 'roots'. It did bring back some nice memories, like being able to say good morning to people you don't know, or thanking the bus driver, neither of which happens in London, but other than that the whole culture of East Yorkshire seemed completely alien to me and I was happy to return down south.

Thing is, though, do I actually give a shit where I’m from? Of course not. It’s much more interesting that way. Actually, this topic always reminds me of early 90s music, which stopped being fun for a while due to chinstrokers in the industry deciding that pop music was dead and that everything had to be categorised in the wankiest way possible from then on. Suddenly we had acid house, acid jazz, grunge, europop, trip hop, Britpop, epileptic folk, etc. Rejecting bandwagons has always been one of my strengths.

Ultimately I don’t want my life to be pigeon-holed; it’s great dipping in and out of various crowds and cultures and just being an observer. That said, the ‘fish and chips’ tag is brilliant and I’m happy to settle for that. Mind you, with Indian food now the most popular UK delicacy, maybe the Somali community in Cricklewood need an update. In which case, I iz now chicken jalfrezi with pilau rice. Innit.

Photos by The Food Pornographer and Soccerprint Blog

Waiting for the right kind of pilot to come

It was mid-morning on a Thursday in early September, 2011. Wearing tracksuit bottoms, a grubby top, a bright reflective jacket and safety boots, I stood in a warehouse in west London holding a wheelbarrow containing a sealed box full of lighting equipment. Just as I opened the lift door to take the package up to the next floor, 'To the moon and back' by Savage Garden came on the radio.

It was as if my 20s had never happened. In fact, I had to slap myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. This was a song I hadn't heard since, er, my last stint at manual labour back in the late 90s. To be fair, I actually think it's a half-decent tune, but at the time of its original release, when it was played at least four times a day on Northants Radio, Darren Hayes's sugary vocals and his manner of singing 'affectiooooooon' made me start to lose the will to live.

Those who know me well will guess that doing warehouse work isn't exactly what was on my agenda. But money was tight and I noticed an employment agency near where I live. As I stepped in, I was met by half a dozen people originating from Eastern Europe and Africa who'd previously only done cash-in-hand - and that was just the staff (only kidding, of course). One of the real staff took one look at my CV and tried not to laugh.

"Er, you do realise we specialise in industrial work, right?"
"Yeah, but I need temping work and have done warehouse and factory work before during summers in between uni years," I replied.
He gave me a form to fill in, which I returned promptly, and within 48 hours I was assigned the warehouse job in Harlesden.

Previous experience had taught me that industrial work is usually a good bet for a quick fix (no pun intended). During those summers in the late 90s in Northampton clerical agencies were generally useless and basically told anyone without a car to fuck off. Then I joined Parkhouse Industrial, an agency specialising in warehouse and factory work, and suddenly I had work coming out of my ears (sometimes literally). They were brilliant and always laid on free taxis from their offices if we were able to get there; if we weren't, which was usually the case for early morning shifts, a member of staff would come to pick everyone up individually in a minibus.

Admittedly some companies relied heavily on agency workers, so the staff at Parkhouse were obliged to do everything in their power to provide the numbers, but even so, their service was first class. They totally loved me, as well, as I was willing to work anytime, anywhere, and was called a 'lifesaver' on numerous occasions when other workers had let them down and they needed to provide staff at short notice. On the downside, the jobs themselves were spectacularly awful, and back then Health and Safety was a Canon and Ball tribute act.

Several of us also had to face the double burden of being students, and permanent workers hated students. Maybe it was 'Common People' syndrome. So what were the worst of the worst?

Number three: Sonora Foods

Sonora Foods was a firm specialising in making bread and cake products. I had a two-week stint in its factory in Daventry, around ten miles north of Northampton, the first of which was spent in a remote part bagging slices of dough as they slid along a conveyor belt. It was tolerable to begin with, and I got to know a girl from the agency who was a student like me, so we were able to chat during the mind-numbing work. But then one of the bosses decided to speed up the machine (productivity, bla bla, etc), and it became impossible to gather enough dough in time before the stray pieces met their makers on the factory floor.

"Faster, faster, mate!" yelled the female supervisor opposite me in a tone resembling an imminent orgasm. My friend stood alongside me desperately trying not to wet herself laughing, and that gave me the giggles as well. Luckily, the machine couldn't cope with an increased speed and broke down.

Week two was the killer. I turned up to find out my partner in crime was staying where she was, while the powers-that-be put me in the main part of the factory. I spent my entire time carrying a mop and a brush, cleaning floors and various machinery, miserable as fuck.

Number two: Mailforce

Back in the 80s and early 90s, the long-running TV consumer show Watchdog was hosted by Lynn Faulds Wood, who became famous for using the phrase "a potential deathtrap" to describe pretty much every item or issue covered in the programme. However, those who parodied her had clearly never worked in the warehouse of Mailforce, based on the Brackmills estate on the outskirts of Northampton. Poor Lynn would have spontaneously combusted.

In theory it was a simple operation; around 30 people on each shift would stand alongside a series of conveyor belts and position magazines so they could be bound together effectively along the line and then wrapped in plastic. Unfortunately the machines were prehistoric and in places held together by sellotape. Inevitably it meant they would consistently break down and bits of paper would get stuck in machinery. Naturally I stayed well away. I was already a legend for breaking the Hegner Jigsaw at middle school, putting it out of action for the rest of the school year, and I wasn't going to intervene. Shifts, either 6am to 2pm or 2pm to 10pm, passed excruciatingly slowly, the warehouse was full of dust, and we were continually barked at by a supervisor who looked disturbingly like Yasser Arafat.

Number one: British Pepper & Spice

We didn't have the benefit of radio in either of the above jobs, so on paper British Pepper & Spice, which did, should have been bearable. Trouble was, local radio had some kind of mental breakdown in the late 90s, and suddenly each station's playlist, regardless of location, barely dipped its toes in the shallow end of variety. I should have seen the warning signs when me and my three housemates from uni in Nottingham hired a car and had a day out in the countryside near the end of term. By the time we'd drifted away from Nottingham we'd heard three songs on the radio. When the signal returned as we hit another local station, we heard the same three again within 30 minutes.

"Kristian, I should warn you that British Pepper & Spice is a difficult environment to work in as there's a very strong smell of herbs and spicy products," a member of staff at Parkhouse told me.
I wasn't particularly fazed. For a start, I quite liked the aroma of spicy foods; and secondly, I was fine at Sonora, where the dough gave off a fairly spicy smell.

British Pepper & Spice, however, was in a league of its own, and on entering the factory I realised I should have taken her advice more seriously. Despite wearing gloves, a jacket, a hairnet and a face mask, nothing prepared me for the stench of the various herbs being concocted. My job was mainly just boxing up stuff and delivering it to other parts of the factory, plus the odd bit of sweeping up, but it wasn't long before I was drenched in powder from head to toe with my eyes occasionally streaming in onion-chopping fashion.

And, of course, there was Northants Radio. In addition to Darren Hayes begging me to be his babeah, we were delivered a constant stream of The Corrs, The Lighthouse Family, Boyzone, Jamiroquai and the horrific 'Life' by Des'ree. And that was basically it. Admittedly there were occasional toe-tapping moments - 'Freed From Desire' by Gala and 'Free' by Ultra Nate, for instance - but they were rare highlights.

Even getting home was horrible. Although British Pepper & Spice was also based on the Brackmills estate, there was a bus stop right outside the factory so I didn't need a lift back. On paper the journey was fine, but the bus was a single-decker and therefore always packed. I knew I reaked, particularly of garlic, and hated putting other people through it, even though I wasn't the only person from the factory. But I still had to change buses at the station for the final leg of the journey home.

"Right, get in the bath!" were the comforting words of my mum as I turned the front door key. I didn't blame her, to be honest, as I couldn't wait to do just that anyway. Nevertheless, it still took three changes of bath water and half a bottle of shampoo to get myself clean(ish). Somehow I managed to stick it out for the rest of the week.

Back to the present and this job only lasted a couple of days. Compared with the horrors of Northampton it was bearable and I was shocked to find out there were others in the same predicament as me. I was completely knackered after each day, which made me realise how insulting it is when football managers and commentators talk about players putting in 'a good shift'. My short-term colleagues work bloody hard for pittance.

It was a strange feeling when the agency told me I was no longer needed the following week. On one hand, of course, I was relieved; this was the first job in well over a decade I'd genuinely dreaded getting up for. But when you're mentally prepared for a torturous few hours and your other half wakes up with you at the crack of dawn to comfort you and share breakfast, there's a small sense of disappointment knowing it won't last just a bit longer.

Besides, who wants to make proper use of their degree sitting in a cozy office anyway? Wouldn't you rather sweat buckets carting heavy boxes from floor to floor and take a crash course in Arabic for nine hours a day on minimum wage?

Copy-editing is for wimps. One more time, everyone: "So would you beeeeeeeeeeee my baby, yeaaaaaaaaaaah!"



Animated pic by John Dalziel

A bangin' night out

A few weeks ago I was on a nightbus travelling home from a dinner party and started feeling a bit nauseous. It was nothing to worry about; I'd just made the mistake of playing the Countdown-esque app Whirly Word on my other half's iPhone, forgetting that I'm not very compatible with anything reading-related during a bumpy bus ride. As soon as I got off the bus and got some air I was fine again, but that grogginess did remind me somewhat of being drunk, something I'd thankfully not experienced for many years.

I'm not anti-alcohol and still go to bars regularly with friends. It's the culture of drinking that has always turned me off, so much so that when I quit three years ago due to starting medication, there was a part of me that felt almost relieved - and I've never gone back. Generally the booze just didn't do anything for me, other than make me feel dehydrated and sorry for myself if I over-did it.

To begin with drinking was quite fun, partly because me and my mates started a year or so underage during the lower-sixth, and I guess it added a bit of a buzz when we entered pubs and wondered if we'd be served. Actually the answer was almost always yes, even if the landlord knew we were under 18. One of them definitely did as we started doing a weekly pub quiz, and a regular team cheekily called itself something like: "There are six teams tonight and only one is underage". Laughter all round – even from those behind the bar.

We were well-behaved but ultimately still novices, and that meant quite a few entertaining moments, the best of which was one of the lads yelling "Oi, watch it!" as he crashed into a lamppost.

By the start of uni, though, the novelty had worn off. I just wanted to socialise and chill out but instead it became drinking against the clock, the whole "Right, next round!" thing. I guess there was a certain logic, given that beer does taste vile after its head disappears, but getting wasted every night didn't appeal to me.

Luckily, on most student nights I managed to get away from all that, mainly because I was in a minority of men who weren't afraid to enter the dancefloor and boogie to Take That and Kylie without five pints inside them. By that stage I'd virtually abandoned beer anyway and switched to alcopops. Being in bottles meant they were more portable, and their fruity taste meant I didn't get dehydrated as quickly as I did with bitter or lager – even if I'd been on the dancefloor for a while.

Ultimately I was drinking less than people thought, to the point where my flatmates and people on my course thought I was some sort of invincible legend. I’d get home from clubs at 3am but stroll into 9am lectures with time to spare, showered, breakfast in belly and more or less unscathed.

On the flipside, I was ridiculed for drinking alcopops, commonly thought of as a woman's drink and at the time also a cause for concern amongst parents, who thought the manufacturers were aiming to entice youngsters into alcohol. It didn't help that alcopop brands largely had kiddie names like Hooch, Two Dogs and Spoof.

The now defunct Hooch was generally my preferred choice, and one Christmas the brand brought out a festive spin-off called Ho Ho Ho.

"What can I get you?", a female friend of mine asked as she prepared to head to the bar at a Christmas party.
"I'll have a Ho Ho Ho, please," I replied.
"Kris, I know I'm a girl but I'm not going over there and ordering a drink called fucking Ho Ho Ho." Well, she is northern, to be fair.

I hated getting uncontrollably pissed – being out of my comfort zone, I guess. The whole room-spinning-around thing actually scared me. You hear about people choking on their own vomit after a night out, so waking up the next morning still in tact was always a relief. I could never understand people who rose on a Saturday morning after getting smashed the night before and gasp "never again!", only to do it all again that same night.

On the other hand, I was in favour of the 24-hour drinking legislation introduced in 2005 – and I'm equally disappointed that the law looks like being scrapped. When I go abroad and notice how much more relaxed drinking culture is, it frustrates me. Whereas our Mediterranean cousins enjoy a relaxing evening and good food, knowing their bars are open until the early hours and sometimes beyond, we hit the bars early on an empty stomach, knowing most shut at 11pm. Then there's a kebab on the way home instead.

Less pressure to drink against the clock, and the chance to have dinner first, means there’s a better chance of alcohol being tolerated, and a more relaxed atmosphere. The likes of the Daily Mail claim triumphantly that the legislation has failed here. Not really. It’s just establishments largely chose to pretty much ignore it; pubs and clubs on the whole haven't radically shifted their closing times – it's still generally 11pm and 2am respectively – so drinking patterns haven't shifted either. The Mail make it sound as though drunken brawls, vomit and A&E wards bursting in the early hours were new phenomena.

If bars as a general rule relaxed their opening hours - until, say, 3am - drinking patterns and behaviour would gradually change and pub-goers would have better flexibility. I'm not saying our binge-drinking culture would disappear overnight, but I'd be surprised if it still existed to such a high level five years down the line.

Let's face it, we're sluts when it comes to absorbing culture or mannerisms from abroad. People started speaking with Australian upward intonation during the Neighbours revolution and still use Aussie phrases ("No worries" is mine); curry is now more popular than fish and chips; our kids love High School Musical; we now kiss on both cheeks, etc. I don't see why our drinking habits couldn't change with time. Ultimately the public didn't reject the legislation; it was never really given a chance.

I've been on three pub crawls and hated each one. I have no excuses for the first; it was with Nottingham Trent University's football team and with people I generally didn't like at all. The team was incredibly cliquey and I only broke into the second XI in the second year because a guy in our student digs during the first year managed the team.

Even worse, I thought I had a chance of making the first team if I could worm my way into the clique, so when one of the guys organised a pub crawl I put my name down alongside around 30 others. On the night barely 10 turned up. Now I was under pressure to binge without making a fool of myself.

To my surprise, I managed to hold my own and handled the booze better than several of the others. One of the guys went down an alleyway, threw up and shouted "Wahey!" before re-entering the city's Market Square. For me, vomiting means the end of the night. I survived until the club but wilted due to stupidly ordering a Coke instead of a bottle of water, which may have saved me from the inevitable.

The other eventful one, in Corfu, was a bit different. After being reunited following our respective uni exploits, me and four of the other guys from school went on – loosely speaking – a lad's holiday. I say loosely speaking because we went to Kassiopi, one of the quietest islands, which had only a handful of bars and one club, and we basically just chilled out.

However, we signed up to an island-hopping pub crawl one night. Despite still being coherent by the end, I somehow managed to get separated from the others. To this day I can't work out what happened; all I remember is being in dire need of a slash, so I went to a nearby Gents. I was in there for barely a minute. When I left I saw our bus back to Kassiopi disappear into the distance, and disorientation kicked in.

"You've got two options, mate," said a nearby rep. "You could get a taxi, but what I personally recommend is to stay here, pull a bird and go back to her place. Then you can get a bus back tomorrow."

This was a female rep. No wonder we're hated so much abroad. Naturally I went for the second option. Well, you laugh but... no, you're right, and the taxi was fucking expensive.

My personal “never again” experience happened several years later at a house party in Walthamstow, east London. I actually know the exact date (well, via Google) – Saturday 10th December, 2005 – because of a serious incident in the early hours of Sunday morning (not involving me!).

The party, though lively, was pretty civilised. However, the wine totally knocked me for six. Of all alcoholic drinks, wine is probably the most deceptively evil if you are not in control of it. My large glass was constantly topped up by the hosts, and I lost track of how much I was drinking.

I left the party at about half-past-midnight as I needed to catch a nightbus from the bus station back to Euston, and then get the last train from there to Watford, where I lived at the time. I felt a bit rough but no more. However, minutes after I boarded the bus for the 45-minute journey, the wine hit me.

Shit, I'm not going to make this, I thought as my guts started bubbling. In an ideal world I'd have got off at the next stop, taken some air, walked around and maybe found an offie to buy some water. But I didn't have that luxury. Sure enough, I threw up on the bus on two separate occasions. That's when I realised how much I'd had, because usually once is enough to clear everything out. But no, I still felt like shit. Bizarrely, I'm not sure anyone actually noticed as I was sat in a single seat tucked away from the rest of the lower deck; it's possible I was in the driver's blind spot as well.

The bus was late getting into Euston due to a diversion, and it became a race against time to catch the train. I had to run to the platform; not a good idea. I made it but my stomach churned again and I puked up twice more during the journey, which lasted another agonising 45 minutes. I may have got away with it on the bus but not the train.

The 2am train is always packed with piss-heads and I was ashamed to be one of them. Although some of them shouted at me, it wasn't in an aggressive manner, and some were genuinely sympathetic. They'd seen it all before. They'd probably all been there before.

I was massively relieved when I got out of the station. One lady wanted to take me to A&E as she thought I'd been puking blood, but I reassured her it was red wine. I've no recollection of my journey home after that but I'm guessing it wasn't by taxi if their cleaning fines are anything to go by.

Two hours after I finally got home and crashed out, there was a massive bang; so loud I actually registered it - usually nothing wakes me up that early into a post-booze sleep. Whatever was powering my brain at that moment did the equivalent of shrugging its shoulders, though, and I was out like a light again immediately.

I still had one obstacle left; I was due to play football for my Sunday League team that morning. My body did its duty and reacted to the alarm at around 8.30, and only then did I find out what had happened; there had been a massive explosion at a gas depot in Hemel Hempstead, and it was the first item on the news. Hemel is a fair distance from Watford but there were stories of glass shattering in nearby streets.

Although I no longer felt drunk or sick, I knew that, for the first time ever, playing football was physically beyond me. The ground we were due to play at was on the other side of town, and even if I'd had been fit enough to drive, I was probably still over the limit.

Amazingly I got a reprieve. The manager phoned me up to say the game was postponed. By a quirk of fate, our fixture was against the Metropolitan Police. Their players had been placed on emergency duty. Usually when a game is called off I'm irritated for the rest of the day, but on this occasion it felt like the best news ever. My head hit the pillow seconds afterwards and by the time I resurfaced it was three in the afternoon.

Red wine was never on the menu after that, though I still enjoyed a glass of white every now and again with a meal. Even now it feels weird drinking apple juice at a restaurant instead. Nevertheless, I still don't miss alcohol at all.

"I've often wondered what it tastes like," a Somalian guy once said to me in a nearby cafe.
"You're not missing much," I replied.
"It certainly smells like piss," he laughed.

I couldn't really argue with that. Orange and lemonade, please.

Photos by Dan Lynch, munitang, Matt Lucht and diamond geezer

A decade in the capital

I've now been in London for 10 years. Actually that's not strictly true as I spent over half of them commuting to work from Watford but I was there often enough to get a reasonable feel of the place. Before then my knowledge of London was virtually zero. I could only remember two occasions I'd been there, and even those memories were vague - a trip to Hamleys in Oxford Street when I was young, and a school visit to the Science Museum as a teenager. So suddenly starting work there in December 2000 was a tad daunting and I chose to initially live in Watford as one of my best mates was there. It was also partly because London seemed to me like some sort of bubble; the M1 stopped and I had visions of a bouncer pondering over whether to let this skinny, floppy-haired gimp in.

Of course, after a few weeks it all became fairly routine. The Tube journey, initially exciting as it was totally new to me, became functional, and places like Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus and The Strand didn't carry the level of mystique they had on the Monopoly board. What I did soon realise was how lonely the capital was for a single guy. The pace of life is so fast that nobody talks to you, and even though I had some friends from uni dotted around, getting to see them was tough as each of them had their own work stresses, meaning weekday meet-ups were very rare. It didn't help that email and the internet were still in their relatively early stages back then, and Broadband access was the exception rather than the rule. In fact, even my first, brick-like mobile was no more than a year old.

It all expanded rapidly, though, and in terms of escaping a degree of loneliness, I made a breakthrough in the form of internet dating. The whole Lonely Hearts phenomenon used to be taboo - maybe it still is in other areas of the UK - but in London it was the perfect opportunity to meet new people, and I suddenly found many others in almost identical situations to that of myself. For anyone in similar shoes to myself a decade ago, I'd definitely recommend it, even if it's purely for making new friends. Most of the dates I went on were simply that and were usually quite fun, particularly one with a Canadian girl who was a great laugh and obsessed with my English accent ("Hey, say 'water'", etc). There was also an Argentine who was bemused by the fact she was showing me around Fulham and not vice-versa.

The biggest eye-opener for me was how radically my perception of time and distance changed after moving here. Journeys in London are unique and people who have lived here all their lives don't know how good they've got it when it comes to public transport. You can get pretty much anywhere you want around the capital without a car, and the frequency of buses and Tubes is generally so high that people - myself included - tut when they see on the dot matrix that their next bus or Tube is more than five minutes away.

There are also nightbuses, the bonus of which means you can stay out late and not have to clockwatch like you would if you lived outside of London and needed to catch the last train or bus. The journey home may be a bit lengthy, and there’s always a chance the bus will be populated by piss-heads of the worst variety, but there’s certainly less chance of being stranded. You don't get such luxury in many places and it was shocking to hear on the news recently that there are potential transport cuts on the way in some rural areas of the country.

The time and distance thing really is a strange phenomenon. Every Thursday I play five-a-side with a group of mates in Tower Hamlets, south-east London. Travelling from my place in north-west London means a round trip of over two hours from doorstep to doorstep for a session that often lasts less than an hour depending on what time everyone arrives. If you'd told me I'd be doing this before I moved to London I'd have said you were bonkers but somehow it all seems strangely routine here.

The Tube journey is a psychological time-cruncher anyway, with it being punctuated by the relative close proximity of the stations on each line. Add in an iPod on Shuffle and it seemingly passes by even quicker as stations come and go, which probably explains why a commute of an hour is pretty comfortable for most workers if the journey isn’t too complicated.

In early 2007 my other half and I moved to Cricklewood and still live there today. Funnily enough, it’s barely a mile from the M1 exit so going by my analogy of the bouncer earlier it would probably be the equivalent of London’s cloakroom. Not knowing the area at all meant it was always a gamble moving there, particularly as we chose to rent a studio flat on Cricklewood Broadway, the area’s defining main road packed with multi-ethnic shops, market stalls, supermarkets, cafes, restaurants, banks, pubs and hotels.

Despite such richness, it was a bit daunting to begin with – living in the heart of such a busy area made me worried about crime and violence. There’s even a road called Shoot-Up Hill further up. But the gamble paid off and I’ve yet to witness any real trouble, which is a pleasant surprise considering how many different nationalities make up the population – always scope for tension. Off the top of my head I’ve met people from Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Somalia, Hungary, Romania, Estonia, Turkey, Poland and Croatia here. But ultimately people keep themselves to themselves, making multiculturalism either a glowing success or a spectacular failure depending on which angle you take.

London, despite its vibrant atmosphere and attractions, is of course an urban nightmare and undoubtedly a culture shock for people used to a slower pace of life in smaller towns. Apart from the likes of Hyde Park and Regent’s Park, greenery and fresh air are pretty much non-existant, to the point where you see joggers running alongside main roads packed with fume-ridden buses and taxis. Surely that’s doing them more harm than good.

Playing fields are few and far between and as a result sports complexes have to be built in some of the most bizarre areas. A London Bridge venue was built underneath a tunnel, and the one I go to now in Tower Hamlets was built on top of a car park. Taking a lift up to the pitches as drivers insert coins for tickets is a surreal experience. Luckily, secure netting around every pitch means the ball is never in danger of falling off the complex and knocking someone out below.

That’s not to say I find the whole place ugly, mind you. Covent Garden on a summer’s day is a brilliant place for chilling out with friends, and during the night the South Bank overlooking the River Thames and Hungerford Bridge is a photographer’s dream, as well as a romantic haven for couples young and old.

Ultimately, though, London is ridiculously expensive. We pay over £900 a month renting a one-bedroom flat. In my parental home of Northampton you could get a four-bedroom house for that, and Northampton isn’t even that far up, er, north. Basically, for me the city is all about the present and making the best use of its strengths before its drawbacks kick in. As new commitments arrive, the end of the love affair draws nearer. Do I see my future here? Very unlikely. Am I glad to have experienced London life? Absolutely.

Additional photos by Karen Bryan, Olivia Harris and David Howard