Too middle class

I am listening to Alex James on Classic FM and simultaneously reading his column in the Observer Food Monthly. Oh dear.

Sometimes I worry that I'm getting too old...

I am 23 and a half and I know it sounds annoying but sometimes (most of the time in fact) I feel older than 23 and a half. God knows how I know what 23 and a half is supposed to feel like and thus how I know that I don’t feel that old but that is just the way it is. Thinking about age I was this week flicking through the NME and there is a photo of Johnny Marr (now playing in The Cribs) wearing nail varnish (on a side note , is Johnny Marr in any way related to Ronnie Wood and/or Noel Fielding? They all seem to be the product of some strange meeting between a human and a crow) Marr is now in his 40’s – now I wore nail varnish at school in a vain attempt to look like Nick Valensi from The Strokes who I remember seeing in a Q magazine photo shoot wearing black nail varnish, though artfully he only had it done on a few fingers. This for me at the time was the coolest thing I had ever seen and thus along with ripping up most of my clothes and painting on the ones that weren’t torn I created my look. I like to look back and think of myself as a bit of a fashion icon. After school on a Monday and Wednesday I would go and work for a PR company, so I would turn up to work wearing what I thought at the time were rather outré clothes. One day I decided to wear my granddads pinstripe wool suit jacket with ripped washed jeans and Zara suede slip on loafers (in purple – think rich, vulgar playboy) now I had seen something similar being done at Dolce & Gabbana (along with Valensi my fashion heroes of the time), no one at the time wore jeans and formal suit jackets (today no one bats an eyelid, in fact you see it on every high street on any Saturday night in this country) but at the time it was ... one of the guys who worked with me laughed me out of the building (i must have looked ridiculous) but he clearly liked the idea and said to me the week after that he had gone to a wedding at the weekend and he had done the jeans and formal jacket look, everyone had taken a double take and then decided that he looked cool. Thus I think I can make a valid claim to staring that trend...

Anyway, getting old...now wearing nail varnish in your 40’s, most people I think would go No, no, no but on Johnny it worked. Fast forward an hour or two to the Brit awards and I’m watching U2, half way through Get On Your Boots Bono (47) takes off his glasses and he’s wearing eyeliner! Now let’s be honest U2 have in the past looked ridiculous, I mean they are ridiculous, they are the most ridiculous rock group well, probably ever – they are also bloody brilliant (my over excitement at the prospect of No Line On The Horizon I will save for another post...needless to say I am very, very excited) so I forgive the eyeliner but then to round off proceedings at the Brits The Pet Shop Boys performed a medley of a good proportion of their 22 hits. Neil Tennant looked like a blacked up Michelin man staring in A Clockwork Orange and Chris Lowe like Shaun Rider in a pink wig, though in fairness to Chris he is nothing like the size of Shaun Rider (as you can see from the photo they have a history of looking like idiots) – so I think I need to lighten up a bit and stop feeling so old...I think tomorrow I’m going to go straight to Boots to get some make up and I’m going to rip up all my clothes and dust off those purple loafers...

PS Since originally writing this post I watched Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, the Cure played out the show. Now I’m sure off stage they all live very normal lives with everyday worries but on stage they are middle aged Goths and they are brilliant. I think if I have learnt anything from this it is: don’t age gracefully and join a band that enjoyed success in the 1980’s.

A short introduction to being Lost in the Country...

It sounds horribly pretentious of me but I never thought that at anytime I would be unemployed. Now this is probably partly my own doing, partly the recession and there are (a few) jobs out there (a recruitment agent phoned me the other today asking if she could put me forward for a role at an agency that handled PR for a very large tobacco firm, I was on the verge of screaming down the phone to her “this is why I don’t want to work in PR!!” in the end I declined politely) but I can’t at the moment quite bring myself to start that search as I am having quite a nice time doing not a lot, thank you very much.
So I am now to be found back home in Leeds living with my mum and dad and I thought I better put myself to some sort of use...the outcome of that thought is this blog. It is mainly to keep me doing something and to keep me writing and who knows by some miracle I might become a world famous blogger – we’ll have to wait and see. In the mean time I am going to write about my adventures in the country, my quest to (maybe) look for a new job and to hopefully start to do something positive with my time and life...

PS For those of you who weren't in the Young Ornothologists Club when you were younger the picture is of a red kite...i watch them over my house and they are absolutely gorgeous...you dont get them in Whitechapel!