Get It Down You Zulu Warrior

I'm having a bit of a nostalgic morning here at the desk of dreams.* I've been listening to the three albums that I most closely associate with my first year of University...these are -

1. Hot Fuss by The Killers
2. Inside In/Inside Out by The Kooks
3. Costello Music by the Fratellis.

It was obviously a time when bands were hot on using 'The' in the hope it made them sound like they were friends and not some money bagging manufactured enterprise.

I'm not by any means suggesting these were the best albums of the year 2005-2006, or the albums that will define that particular time when we look back in a few decades. But, for me, these are the three albums that stand out. I can't listen to them without being instantly flung back to my tiny little bedroom in Bossenden Court at the back of the student village.

We were the first of the Kent students to ever live in this accommodation - it was fresh built for us and, in my case, came with your own personal set of builders to fix the myriad issues that had not been solved during the building process. It was little things, like the windows opening. It took them a week to get my window open. In hindsight, we probably should have left it shut. I certainly didn't open it a lot after month 2 at University when a slightly crack addled 4th year climbed through it at 4am as I snoozed. That was an alarming evening. Thankfully it didn't occur to either of us to commit any sort of crime...we just stared at each other for a while before both apologising and him leaving. Back out through the window because I didn't want to disturb my housemates.

I loved my little room. In the infinite wisdom of University types, the doors were bright, lime green, the furniture was that deep blue of cheap office furniture and one wall was orange. It was almost like they were daring you to drink - Go on fucker, try and have a hangover in this environment... I combatted the issue by having an equally alarming green bedspread that neither matched the door nor the carpet. It all ensued to give you a calm feeling of nausea unless you were asleep. Perhaps that was the point? You must either be asleep or reading a book or you will vomit.

My housemates in the first year were brilliant people. I lived on an international corridor and my housemates were all from different countries in Africa - I have never smelt so many different foods that completely confused my nose. My brain was telling me it was food as it was on the hob but my nose was complaining bitterly that it didn't seem like anything we'd ever had before. We tried a whole heap of it. Me and my nose. Soem of it we loved - some of it we loved and my tummy hated. Some of it we just hated. It was a great learning curve. The beautiful thing about international students, in my experience, is that they tended to arrive with siblings and so you met the whole family at once. There were perpetually nine more people in the kitchen than lived in there. One of my favourite memories was singing Busted songs with a 6foot4 guy with dreadlocks who I found in my kitchen at 4am...

It is now unfortunately lunch time so this reminiscence must come to a halt. Hope it was enjoyable for you. If not, it won't happen again.







* Dreams generally consist of stapling people's fingers to their nipples while I paper cut them to death. Either of that or I am rescued from the dreary boredom of office life by Barney the Dinosaur dressed as the Count de Monte Cristo who puts me in Iggle Piggle's boat and sails me away to live with David Bowie.