I was so much older then

There is nothing quite so cathartic, I believe, as going through your things and throwing stuff out. Sorry - one's things. Not your things. I haven't been throwing your things out. I've been rooting around under my bed, for this is where I keep my folders.

I have one folder of 'stuff' for each year of my life, from 1987 onwards. 1987 is when I started to have something resembling a real life, and accumulate letters, postcards, concert stubs and tiny mementos of the little things I wanted to remember. Things I might otherwise forget, or that have some nostalgic value. For example, I have a to-do list in the '1998' folder which reads as follows:

Write to Anna
Write to Mike and send him that tape
Clean up the white powdery stuff from behind the sofa
Write two songs for the Big If
Plan Monday worship
Buy a house
Go walking heroically

I like this list. I remember it being blu-tacked to my door for ages, and crossing bits off as I did them. (Interestingly, the one that remains un-crossed is the one about the powdery white stuff. I wonder what that was?) I like the little snapshot of my life it provides.

Anyway, there will probably be lots of me ruminating on this in the next few weeks, as Summer is when I tend to take stock of what's going on and get all self obsessed. All right - more self obsessed than usual. I have thrown a lot of stuff out - stuff that is no longer really significant to me and holds no real memory - and it feels good. But it also induces a state of reflection and, in some cases, realisation.

For now, please enjoy/despise these pictures I found. For some reason I have kept most of the ID cards I have owned over the years - Student Union passes, work IDs, buss passes etc. I think they present a fascinating study of a young man succumbing to the ravages of time.

I think I'm about 16 here. I am clearly contemplating a career in stabbing people and stealing their things.

Here we find me embarking upon my time at University. Clearly taking things very seriously. Little realising that being the cleverest person at a school in Bradford was not, actually, the same as being clever anywhere else.

A couple of years at university turns me into this grinning idiot, who clearly believes himself to be 'zany'. If I ever get to travel in time, I hope I don't meet this version of me, as he is an idiot and I would have to punch him in his stupid face.

My next foray into student life, this time on a PGCE. You can't quite tell, but my hair here is tied back in some kind of weird pony tail. Sorry, hair.  I do still appear to have the eyes of a violent killer. Which I'm really not, at all.

This is probably around the same time. Look at my lovely hair! And look at me, taking it for granted. Stroke it, man! Tell it you love it! Plead with it not to go.

At this stage I have become a teacher, and thus look startled and quite close to crying. I maintained this look for about three years.

 

I know, I know. I pierced my ear, dyed my hair blonde and grew an evil beard. But look - I've clearly gone mad. You can see it in my eyes. I believe this was about the point when I was really looking forward to the Phantom Menace. So you can see, I hadn't yet really experienced tragedy.

A few years later, post Phantom Menace, post 9/11, and look - I'm auditioning to be the guy who programs the evil computer in a Bond film. Looking at these, I'm starting to understand why my hair left.

Ah - wrinkles, receding hair and a clear sense of drinking too much. This is the me I start to recognise, seen here in a ID card for Dewsbury College. I taught there for a year, and quite enjoyed it. Especially Friday mornings, when I got paid to hang about with fashion student girls and chat to them while drinking hot chocolate.

And this brings us more or less up to date - my student card for my MA. Compare with the first photo and see the terrible toll the years can take. Still, at least I don't look quite so much like a heroin addict now.

 Anyway, that's the kind of self obsessed nonsense you can look forward to for a while. Though I'll probably review Inception in a bit, as by then hopefully enough people will have seen it to understand what I'm on about. And maybe even some more Star Wars stuff.

Hope you're not too miffed. Byeee.