1987

Summer 1987

Towards the end of the term - 30th May - exams right upon me, me and Dave went to this free open air gig in Kennington. Mighty Mighty and Mighty Lemon Drops were the main attractions. We went on the march first, I ended walking next to Paul weller, an honour, though I was too scared to talk to him. Also saw Ken Livingstone being interveiwed by channel Four. We deliberately walked behind Ken to see if we could get onto the news. I never found out if we did.
30/5/87

Kennington Park, London (Youth CND Rally)
With The Bathers, Mighty Lemon Drops, Lorna G, Janet Kenton
Read more: http://blogs.myspace.com/officialmightymighty#ixzz0x0Ui6nNe

Right at the end of term I went to Wembley to see David Bowie. - either the 19th or 20th June 1987 - Glass Spider tour. Terrible! And then it was back to Plymouth.
I remember arriving back and having to tell Mark about the gig - that it was pretty shit in fact. Big country supported and they were better than Bowie; and as always at these big stadium gigs, the biggest shitheads were present. The big shithead in this case was a drunken twat who at one decided to piss into a bottle, missed and pissed down my leg, and then through the fecking bottle ont he ground anyway. If he had to why didn;t he just piss down his own fecking trouser leg?!?!

David Bowie's "Never Let Me down" came out in April and Iggy's "Blah Blah Blah" which came out the previous October -I think I bought both over the summer, and soon regretted buying the Bowie album. it was awful. <--- ?? I have since bought it again on CD, but only for about a pound. What? I'm a completist!

This time I remember being slightly reluctant to leave London. I think Mark had gone to Scotland now, and Terry had died (?).

In fact sometime during this summer I made a trip back up to London with Colin and stayed at Patak's house. Patak had left for a year (I thought) in india with the kids. Mark was living there still.

I was a tourist in London for the first and last time. Got it out of my system.

Got my ear pierced? - might have been half term later in year.

I had the New Order singles compilation on my walkman and remember walking the dog round the sports fields listening to it. It included the new song, "True Faith" which was a huge hit.

I went out with two girls over the summer - not at the same time - just to releive the boredom. went out with the lads - The Bank - a new pub. I wore white trousers!! Asked a girl out who'd been talking to us.

After that I remember us going to a pub on Dartmoor - I guess bill drove us up there. I was mainly thinking about my forthcoming date. Needless to say it didn't work out. So I asked another girl out the same night she ditched me. I must have had something going for me cos she said yes too. We snogged quite a bit, went out a few times, but then she ditched me too, just in time for me going back to London

Final Year 1987 to 1988

Mrs P was in India. I'd been given the big room at the front - and I loved it. the door to the room was right next to the front door. We had new housemates - tony, dan et al. Loads of people came through the house and if I left my door open I saw who came in and usually passed a few pleasantries. that way I got to know loads of new people. A blessing in the first term, a curse later in the year after I decided to withdraw back into myself.
Mark's story about the creatures that lived in my sofa - he'd helped make my room habitable through the summer.
The start of my social souring was to do with a girl I fancied and made idiot of myself. I did the classic man thing where I thought a girl was interested in me just cos she was being friendly and normal towards me.
She was in first year. I met her going out with Dan and Tony, and we got on well. I got invited/ dragged back to her room early on and we snogged. She took me from the cellar bar early, leading me by the hand, and took me to her room. So it may not have been entirely my imagination. After that I turned up at her room unannounced. She was with her friends and about to go out shopping so I went too. One of her friends was Jayne – spelt like the band that we saw about this time in TP main hall.
It was a bit humiliating in the club that night when she informed me that she wasn’t interested, that I’d imagined it all. In fact I made it worse by quoting the overdramatic Morrissey from the latest Smiths LP.
I think I took it all far too seriously though, and the effect it had on me eventually killed my social life. I went back to my normal dorky existence soon after xmas. I couldn’t get on with Tony or Dan and they soon moved out.
I was on nodding terms with Jayne for a while, but soon took to blanking this crowd.

There was a night out to a pub - Lewisham and we ended up playing a truth or dare type game where we had to make a confession - and there were a few comments about what mine would be and who i fancied.
The odd thing is I had absolutely no mental map for getting to Lewisham then - or anywhere. We went on the bus. Someone clearly knew where we were going. I assume I followed everyone else back to Woolwich.
Geography - this is something that I was incredibly weak on despite being a cyclist, I didn't get out of woolwich and Plumstead much. Mostly cycled to lectures and back. The odd weekend I'd go a bit further, though don't remember ever taking the bike into London - just Kent and Sussex a few times. One ride I partcularly remember was heading south - and I think I went up woolwich Common, through Eltham, and I remember going through Mottingham. Mottingham road, red Hill where I checked the map and somehow took a swing out towards Biggin Hill airport, and yet avoided going into Bromley itself.
So about 6 or 7 years later when I was driven along Red Hill by S. for the first time, the area seemed strangely familiar to me. Odd to suddenly find somewhere you had no place for in your mental map suddenly slotting in somewhere. Like making a major breakthrough with a difficult jigsaw.
Another bike ride - in 1988 - a tremendous epic bike ride - the like of which I would not repeat, let alone surpass, for another 18/19 years. I set off in a pair of jeans with just a credit card, and a little cash, no tools, water or food. It may have been the same ride as above - after leaving Greater London I wound my way southwards eventually ending up in Brighton. I did take my walkman with me and had Quadrophenia playing on it. I listened to "I am the man who feeds the pigs" as I passed a pig farm. there was a level of synchronicity. rode along Beach Head and sparked a mini panic as everyone in the watch tower was standing up watching me while i peered down at the bottom of the cliff.
then down into Eastbourne and finally headed back north. Now I started to struggle but was quite happy and prepared to jump on a train at any point.
My legs were like jelly by the time I got back to Sevenoaks - 120 miles cycling and I was done in. So - train time. Only trouble was that the train was not running and I was told I could not take bike onto replacement bus. I had to argue an persuade - it was the only way I was going to get home. Eventually the guy let me on with the bike. Should have left the bike tbh as it never got used again after that. It was alreayd on its last legs and this ride finished it. The frame broke as well as all the other brake and gear related issues.
It was right at the end of term though and Terry got me a new abandoned bike in the summer, which was equally crap, but got me by until I had money to buy a decent one for myself.

Anyway - I enjoyed the room - had a tv and a stereo. Friday nights were great. A spell in the bar, and then back for the chart show, more beer, and then out with the gang. After a few weeks of this I was having nightmares, my throat was hoarse and i just felt geneuinely grotty. I wondered how people could keep this up for months on end. I had to stop. I had a series of nightmares where I was attacked by somehting powerful and violent, with teeth and claws. "it was that girl" was one quip.
18th November, in evening, there was a terrible disaster at Kings Cross. I was nowhere nar it at the time and nor was anyone I knew. but it makes you dunnit?
It was also to drastically change the environment of my future job - nearly a year away; I joined LUL right at the height of its knee-jerk reaction to this event. Instead of enacting one of the recommendations in the report into the fire, it enacted all of them, which was pointless, stupid, and expensive. fortunately in time, sanity emerged from the madness.

After a while I found myself cutitng off from Tony and Dan, was awkward around them; and stopped talkign to them. A familiar pattern which i seem not to be able to control. The tension was relieved when they decided to move out.