It may well have been the distortion of personal perspective as I progressed through school, but the year groups I was in always seemed the most interesting going. The most exciting, the most social intrigue, the most active and extrovert.
Of course for vast swathes of time I had nothing to do with that end of things. I was quiet. Restrained. Pretty goddamned dull. But then I got bored and started to do things, and haven't gotten round to stopping just yet.
Now the kickbacks from my warped perspective occasionally pop up and remind me that I may well have been right. The niggling familiarity of one of the 118 118 runners (he had a much smaller beard whilst in 6th form), Colin Carmichael, who played the lead in a 6th form play 'Fiddler on the Roof'. I pulled out of playing a small, timid bespectacled Jewish glovemaker because with only my nose and glasses actually fitting the part, this small timid mouse of a glovemaker towered over most of the stage and I felt a bit ridiculous.
If you can imagine the weedier of the two 118 guys in Russian peasant costume with me (6'2", rugby player at the time) cowering in fear of him, then you have the reason I pulled out of the play, and no doubt an entertaining and enduring mental image.
And of course last night, Steve Gray popped up again. Steve spent a year or so touring with the RSC playing a faerie in A Midsummer Nights' Dream, and I missed his appearance as a gay dad in Casualty a year ago, so I was pleasantly pleased to espy him in The Bill whilst channel hopping feverishly, as he was in the act of squaring up to and grassing up his 'Dad'.
Hello there Stevey boy! I thought to myself, and settled down to commit myself to one channel for a bit in the hope of spotting more of a stellar Medina High alumnus in action, when The Bill ended. It's been a while since I've watched it.
Damn them, they've changed the theme music.
I always found that my year, especially my class was always the worst behaved in the school. I saw somebody who used to go to my school on a dating show yesterday (I don't make a habit of watching these shows, but a friend rang me to tell me to watch it).
My schoolmate David always seems to pop up on the telly. He's a bit of a quiz show guru.
He was countdown champion for nine shows in a row or something, won a grand of beadles money, won 64k on who wants to be a millionaire and did quite well on some other show that was on recently. Mental.
Oh, and I always pictured you as being tall, even if you weren't a suit wearer and were just a disembodied top hald of a head :-)
what do you mean...they have changed the music?
They've changed the theme music from the jazzy version to some sort of sad electronica shadow of it's former self.