I made the stupid mistake of sticking an old old mix tape on last night. I wasn’t made for me or anything, just one I made a long time ago to listen to on my paper round or something. I think the only reason it’s survived so long is that at the very end it has a short outtake of “I Know Very Well How I Got My Name” by Morrissey which I luckily taped off the radio one day. The DJ was Terry Christian (of Word fame) and he begins the piece by saying “Don’t tape it even though it’s really rare” - what more encouragement could you give a young Morrissey fan??? The track ends with the guitarist getting a note wrong and he and Morrissey fall about laughing. It’s great.

The tape marks a very definite and short period of time in my youth. These were my favourite songs of the time and there’s only about 5 different bands on the whole tape (The Wonderstuff, Pele, CUD, a band called Magik (I think I was given that CD by a friend) and another band called Fat Lady Sings who we saw once supporting Pele and thought for a short time might turn out to be good - they didn’t). Most songs I’ve still got but being on singles I doubt I’ve even listened to them more than a few times off the CD. I would always studiously copy them on long tapes and listen to them all together on the way to or from school, or like I said delivering papers.

It’s always a shock to hear something that you’ve literally not heard at all for so long. It has to be something you only heard at the time and you’ve never experienced since, like the smell of a childhood holiday or the taste of the bubble gum they used to give away in packets of stickers. For me it’s nearly always music nowadays which in some ways is a shame because it’s biasing my nostalgia towards a certain time and particular events which looking back in reality were no more halcyon than any of my other days.