World leader pretend

About this time 24 years ago I picked up a copy of R.E.M.'s Out Of Time from a record store in Arvika, Sweden. I was there as part of SK Sifhälla's P77 football team playing in a tournament (which we won). I'd come across the Losing My Religion video on MTV a few months earlier and was simply blown away. Whatta tune, whatta man, whatta bonkers video. Buying the album was a no brainer, and boy did I reap the rewards. By the time Automatic For The People was released the following year I was hooked. I mopped up their entire back catalogue, bar Chronic Town, couldn't quite get my monthly parental allowance to stretch that far. I searched high and low for rarities, video recordings, bootlegs, posters, whatever I could get my hands on. No magazine rack was safe, literally. My sixth form library quite generously subscribed to NME, and most editions had a nasty habit of finding a convenient hiding place in my bag.

I saw them live for the first time during the Monster tour, at Stockholm's Maritime Museum, with The Bends-era Radiohead providing support. Possibly the best live gig double whammy ever. Thom Yorke's vocal causing time to stand still during Street Spirit, Michael Stipe going nuts in It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine). Seriously unreal. In total I went to 10 R.E.M. concerts in 7 different countries, and only the very last one, at Berlin's Waldbuhne, was a bit of a dud. Not even Stipe could get enthused by Around The Sun.

R.E.M. have provided an omnipresent soundtrack to the vast majority of my life, from compiling mix tapes for my portable cassette player at GCSE to streaming tunes through Swift-less Spotify as a responsible adult. As a result, listing an R.E.M. top 10 is a tricky proposition but I'd say these are the ones I've played the most:

Wolves, Lower
Perfect Circle
So. Central Rain
Pretty Persuasion
Feeling Gravitys Pull
Begin The Begin
Losing My Religion
Country Feedback
Drive
Bang And Blame

My tastes have fluctuated since my first introduction to music in the form of Wham's Make It Big, courtesy of my sister. Had a proper grunge phase in the early 90s, long hair, flannel shirts, the lot. A few things remain constant though - Swedish pop, Kent, Madonna and R.E.M.

And Michael Stipe is pretty much god. As a precocious teen I was proper obsessed. Couldn't get enough of the man. Even tried to dress like him. Inspired by the What's The Frequency Kenneth? video I acquired a pair of black boots and baggy black jeans in Stockholm, and ordered an original red star t shirt from the US of A. Coolness personified, world leader pretend.

I've since discarded the red star t shirt, unceremoniously dumped on the scrap heap as I briefly embraced 'club wear' no doubt. So as a way of coercing myself to pick up the screen printing gear, I decided to recreate the iconic t shirt, but in black to stay true to the Kenneth video.

I've not done any screen printing for years, which shows. At least close up. Anticipating the potential for a printing disaster, I went all out and spent £2.50 on the t shirt from Primark. Good move. Believing in your ability is one thing, preparing for eventualities is always sensible. Or what say thee Kenneth?

Stupid is as stupid does

I did something really stupid last Friday afternoon. "Again??" you might decry if you're my mother. I'd love to be able to reply "I don't know what you mean" without the slightest hint of sheepish admission. Unfortunately that won't be possible. Whilst I see myself as a reasonably organised, sensible and careful individual, I'm never far from calamity. History keeps repeating itself on a fairly regular basis. Broken record I am. (That's a vinyl record for you kids out there, played on a record player with a tone arm that can get stuck in the middle of a tune if the vinyl disc is scratched. None of this digital download or streaming lark.)

My latest act of folly occurred as I was about to leave work. I'd been given a stash of post to drop in the downstairs post bag on my way out. The pile had been added to incrementally in a short space of time. As I was gathering my belongings, and the outgoing correspondence, I was handed a parcel by a colleague. I registered that it was a bag from Schuh which clearly contained a box of footwear and assumed that my colleague was returning a pair of unwanted shoes. Mail and parcel duly despatched in the post sack, onwards to Brewdog for food and ridiculously branded lager. The next day I received an email from Schuh informing me that my recent order had been delivered and thanking me for the custom. I was halfway through an internal "But I didn't get the delivery!" when it dawned on me what I'd done. So instead of a pair of amazingly bargainous Adidas ZX500 trainers taking pride of place on my shoe rack, a pair of amazingly bargainous Adidas ZX500 trainers have most likely ended up on the Royal Mail scrapheap of unfranked mailings. Or with a bit of luck they'll be mercifully delivered for a second time at some stage. 

So here's the intended subject of the blog post, as pictured on the Schuh website:

£26.99 they cost, which frankly is nothing. My excuse, one should always have an excuse, is that I wasn't expecting the delivery until midway through this week so it never for even a split second occurred to me that the parcel might have been meant for me. Stupid is as stupid does.

Much to the delight of @aimeehilton I thought I'd list the top 5 most stupid things I've ever done instead of gushing over a cheap pair of trainers. 

1. Scoring an own goal in basketball. You'd think it wouldn't be possible but I somehow managed. Junior school match between years 5A and 5B at Tingvallaskolan, Säffle, Sweden. I get hold of the ball, sprint towards the opposition's goal, and score with a perfect lay-up. Only it wasn't actually the opposition's goal, it was our own. And when the crowd was making what I thought were cheery noises, they were actually shouting for me to turn round. We ended up losing the game and I never participated in a school game ever again. My excuse: we'd swapped sides at half time. 

2. Trying to check in to a non-existing flight. Top tip for anyone visiting Istanbul: there are two airports, Ataturk and Sahina Gökçen. Flights to London Stansted depart from both. Make sure you check which one you're flying from before arriving at the airport. Although of course you would, you'd already know that from the point of booking the holiday because you're not way stupid. I am. My excuse: I was wired on Turkish coffee.

3. Trying to check in to an existing flight but on the wrong day. I got as far as the security belt at Oslo Rygge airport before a rather bemused security person informed me that my ticket was for the following day. Consecutive 4 hour round trips for my dad, exclamations of "Again??" for my mum. My excuse: I had originally been planning on travelling back to Blighty that day but somehow booked the flight the day after instead. 28 looks so similar to 29.

4. Chucking my house keys down a drain. With some degree of justification, I used to be paranoid about losing my keys on nights out. As I was heading out to some random student night, maybe Blessed at Republic or Shag at The Leadmill or Shag 2 at The Leadmill or Stardust at the Nelson Mandela building, who knows, they all blend into one, I got the 'clever' idea of hiding my keys in the bushes outside the front door at Fairfield Lodge. That way there would be no possibility of losing them whilst pissed. What I'd failed to spot however was the bush-covered ground gently sloping towards a drain so as I put the keys down they slid down the slope and straight into the drain. Idiot. Needless to say I've carried my keys round with me since then. My excuse: people do the silliest things when sober.

5. Posting a refund application without a stamp or addressee. One of the many cancellations and disruptions caused by the London bombings on 7 July 2005 was an R.E.M. gig at Hyde Park. I'd got a couple of tickets and had been looking forward to seeing them live in concert twice in a week. Cancelling was of course the right thing to do and the ticket agent offered a full refund, all I had to do was return the tickets by post. For most people that would mean putting the tickets in an envelope, writing the company's address on the envelope, putting a stamp on the envelope and dropping the whole thing in a red post box. Me on the other hand missed out the middle steps, rendering the whole process absolutely meaningless. Might as well have set fire to the tickets. 80 quid chucked away just like that. My excuse: temporary insanity.

The moral of the story is to run a mile if I suggest making travel arrangements, safekeeping valuables or handling mail on your behalf. I've been doing the same for the past 27 years whenever I've heard the word 'basketball'. Scarred for life.

Deo Adjuvante Labor Proficit

I love Sheffield. I've lived here since 1998. In August this year Sheffield overtook Säffle, Sweden as the place I've lived in the longest, and long may it continue.

The initial decision to move to Sheffield wasn't particularly deliberate. I had University offers from Sheffield Hallam, Lancaster and Edge Hill, Ormskirk so Sheffield really was the only option. No offence to the people of Lancaster and Ormskirk but come on, what was I thinking applying there??? 16 years on I've still not bothered to set foot in either place which speaks volumes. Regardless of circumstance, moving to Sheffield is easily the best decision I've ever made, followed by buying a copy of R.E.M.'s Out Of Time as a spotty 13 year old, resisting the temptation to migrate to London post-University and resigning from my job at Sheffield Contraception & Sexual Health Service without another job lined up.

There are a whole raft of reasons why Sheffield is a great city. Despite its industrial heritage, 61% of Sheffield's area is green space and apparently there are more than 2 million trees in the city, which gives Sheffield the highest ratio of trees to people of any city in Europe (thanks Wikipedia). We love trees. The Peak District is on our doorstep, living in the city centre doesn't cost a bomb, there are tons of cool stuff going on - @PeddlerMKT, @SharrowReels, @FestivalMind, @SensoriaFest to name a few, and there's a comforting sense of familarity, boosted by the fact that it's really easy to bump in to people you know. We love people bumping.

To illustrate the point, I've made a list of the 10 things I love the most about Sheffield. You can't go wrong with a list.

1. Sheffield people - It's not an understatement to say that Sheffielders are a friendly bunch. This was summarised to perfection by an older gentleman we got chatting to on a work's night out to Owlerton greyhound racing (chicken and chips in a basket!). Spotting the non-caucasian in the group, he proceeded to highlight that we're all cut from the same cloth by announcing "You're like me thee"

2. The Sheffield accent - There really is no better accent in my opinion. "Aye up duck", "Nah then", "Geeor", "Is tha mashin?", the list goes on

3. Sheffield Rules - Football as we know it was born in Sheffield. Nuff said

4. The Crucible - The home of snooker since 1977. Rumours of a future venue change for the World Championships better be just that, a mere rumour. After all, Ronnie loves it and he's god

5. Kelham Island - I've been fortunate enough to live within touching distance of Sheffield's real ale mile for the past 5 or so years. Award winning pubs galore, a mecca for beer tickers, attitude-free drinking and vegan pub grub. Can't go wrong

6. The Showroom - Support your local independent cinema people! If nothing else the popcorn's cheaper than at the mainstream multiplexes

7. Pulp - Different Class is definitely different class. A defining highlight of the Britpop era, it's one of my favourite albums of all time. I'm giving it a welcome spin as I type

8. Hendo's - Far superior to its more famous equivalent from Worcester. Better tasting, made in Sheffield, vegan (I'm not actually vegan by the way)

9. Cheap pints - It's not my pub of choice by a long stretch but the Brown Bear in the city centre pulls the cheapest pints going, outside of the dwindling world of working men's clubs. You can get a round in for less than a fiver, and by round I mean 3 pints. Up yours Wetherspoon's

10. Sheffield steel - In case you somehow weren't aware, stainless steel was invented in Sheffield by Harry Brearley in 1912. The world has been owing a debt of gratitude ever since

The Steel City moniker has ironically been steadily corroding since the 1980s. We all know who to blame. The steel industry has been drastically reduced but thankfully not completely eradicated. Sheffield made steel products are still synonymous with high quality so when I decided to buy a new chef's knife, Sheffield was again the only option.

I bought the knife from a Sheffield shopping institution: Atkinson's department store. Despite their best efforts to modernise, e.g. swanky new entrance, it undoubtedly feels as though time has stood still in the world of Atkinson's. You almost expect Mrs Slocombe to pop up behind the counter. Nevertheless they're still going strong and their cookware department is particularly useful. At £24.99 the chef's knife from Taylor's was a fiver cheaper than in the Sheffield Scene shop so smiles all round. Befitting as well, to buy a slice of Sheffield tradition and heritage from a shop that pre-dates stainless steel. And I am definitely unanimous in that!