I spent the first 40 years of my life child free. My wife and I lived the lifestyle you imagine - we went to nice restaurants, we went on holiday, we lavished way too much love and attention on our dog. We were the stereotype of the dual-income, no kids yet, child free couple. You see - the business case just didn’t stack up. Why would we give up our free time, our disposable income and our freedom?

Plus - you spend any amount of time online and you realise that children are really annoying. Spend 20 minutes on Reddit and you’ll hear endless stories of them playing up in restaurants, kicking the back of seats and ruining endless flights.

We’d obviously been lucky. We’d had lots of reasons that nights out had gone awry. People fighting in pubs, overly loud adult conversations in restaurants and one time we even saw someone attacked with a bottle in a kebab shop.

We’d managed to avoid the children though.

The more I thought about it, the less my whole stance made sense. It occurred to me that I had once been a child myself. I wasn’t that bad was I? At the time adults always told me what a delight I was, how easy I was to look after, how grown up I was for my age. Maybe I was just a dweeb, or maybe children aren’t as bad as everyone says.

My parents seem happy with their decision - they’ve never expressed any regrets. I sometimes catch them talking to other adults about how proud they are of me and my brother.

So why does the business case not work? What’s so complicated?

If you’ve read any of my other pieces it will be no surprise to you to learn that I am a father. A relatively new one with a son who is under a year old. I’ve lived the childfree years and now I am on the other side. And it turns out that actually... the spreadsheet was right.

The lack of sleep is real. I have a David Brent laughing gif on standby for whenever someone asks me “how’s the sleep going?”. I don’t think we’ve got any less tired as the time has gone on, this has just become our new normal. When I look around at other new parents - they’re all the same as well.

The freedom is gone too - no foreign holiday this year. I don’t want to have to look after a baby and be 3,000 miles away from all of our stuff. We can’t go out in the evenings any more - I’ve really learned to appreciate a lunch out and an afternoon pint (but only one).

My wallet and I have also found out that babies are the main product, but they also have accessories. From nappies to baby monitors to special beds to sleep tracking bracelets. Prams that can be reconfigured 20 different ways. There is plenty to spend your hard earned cash on.

That’s just the obvious things - you’ll need a bigger car, a house in the right catchment area. You need to feed them, every day... pretty much forever! It’s relentless.

Maybe this is all unnecessary. My parents didn’t need all this stuff. But half a day without it and I feel completely helpless.

Then there’s the things I forgot to put on the spreadsheet. One morning, after a particularly big feed, he threw up directly onto my face. Some of it even went in my mouth. Where do you capture that on the spreadsheet? I didn’t even know I needed a line for this sort of stuff.

Similarly - changing a nappy in the disabled toilets of Wetherby Services is not something I would do for anyone. I won’t regale the whole story to spare those of you with a weak constitution, but it’s hard to hold a baby, a changing bag and a full nappy while the floor of the toilets is suspiciously wet so you can’t put anything down.

Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, but I’m actually considering whether this is even a negative. My reaction when the vomiting incident happened wasn’t to put him down in disgust, wash my face and grump around the house for the morning (like a sane person would). Instead, I said “Poor baby, are you okay?” and gave him a cuddle. It was a nice cuddle.

I’m a fairly sentimental guy, so I’d already accounted for the smiling and laughing, the first steps and school photos. I’d even given them a generous 1% uplift in terms of value, to account for the emotional aspect. But even with that - the case makes no sense.

Perhaps one thing I hadn’t accounted for is that my son is funny. He can’t talk yet, so he’s not really into one liners, but he can time a fart to really make you laugh. I’ve never met anyone else with such skill in this area. Because there is nobody else quite like him. He’s not just a child. He’s not a product, a consumer good.

I’d spent 40 years thinking about a theoretical child, and what arrived was Toby.

The spreadsheet was completely right - on paper children are a terrible idea. But in the eyes of a parent, the spreadsheet is the wrong tool.

The weightings are all wrong.

For the next one, I’m going to need a much more complex model.

These competitions are the worst.

At least the training is at a more sociable hour, and it’s not too far from home. We’re also much more in charge of the schedule and we get on with some of the other parents pretty well.

Ultimately when it all comes together, it pays off. You see the spark in their eyes during the heats. Sometimes it’s cuddles and consolation afterwards (though they brush off defeat easily). Sometimes it’s celebrations and a special treat for the winners!

There’s no career prospects from this. It’s all just for fun, but it’s amazing the effort you’ll put in for those you love. To be honest, Daisy never really stood a chance. She came to the sport too late, and she’s not got the breeding for this sort of thing. Neither her Mum or Dad are sporty. They are couch potatoes.

I think the turning point was when the popularity of sight hounds took off. Our baby can give a Border Collie a good run, but is no match for a whippet.

If someone had told me the beginning we’d be doing this for a dog. I would have laughed. But then Daisy is a very special dog. She’s been on a UN peacekeeping mission, she’s worked in nuclear physics and was even the life coach for the first dog in space.

Obviously, you realise I am exaggerating here. It’s not possible for a dog to do all of those things. I’m not insane. These things were done in previous lifetimes. After all, Daisy is a Hindu.

Nowadays she’s more happy lying around the couch on her silk pillow. The collective Karma from her previous lives have added up and now she gets a loving home, a warm fire and an unlimited refills water bowl. Lucky dog!

I know all of this because Daisy has been able to tell us the details (sometimes at extreme length) through her telepathic ability. She can send messages for me and my wife to relay - such as “I’d like some sausages please”, or “I think I came here once as a medieval peasant”.

Well - it started off that she could talk to us both, but my wife stopped because she wasn’t getting the accent right. If you asked me to describe the accent then I couldn’t - but I’m not sure that dogs have the same kind of accents that we do anyway.

We know that none of this is real (apart from our cupboard full of rosettes). It’s a whole family mythology that we’ve built together. And not something we have built for the children, we were doing this five years before our son was born. Perhaps I am insane.

It’s just a bit of fun, really. It started as something small and has now become a long running joke built around our dog and shared only between me and my wife (and some day, my son).

I think all families have things like this. If you’re now saying “not me” then I don’t believe you. Maybe it’s not your dog, but I bet you have pet names for each other. Stupid inside jokes. Things that only you as a family do.

None of these things will have started as anything significant. Maybe it’s your nephew being unable to pronounce your name and now its stuck. Maybe one of your children could never say “spaghetti” and so now you have “Basketti and Meatballs” every Friday.

Some of these things will fade - what was once funny to younger children will come to pass as they age, but some of these things will really stick. Perhaps your cat’s love of fancy dress, or your hamsters secret food critic blog (he’s keeping it in his cheeks to review later) will endure.

This is how family traditions are made. Maybe not the big serious ones, but the stupid things we do that make us the Ward family, or the Smiths of the Joneses.

Next time you are walking in the street, make a note of all of the houses. How many on this street, town, country? And all of them are full of people who have their own equivalent of Daisy. Their own sense of silliness and whimsy tied up in pets, children and family stories. Perhaps the time your Dad convinced you a stone at the beach was a “prehistoric toilet handle” or when he told you polar bears live in igloos.

The veil of anonymity on the internet allows me to let you in on Daisy’s past lives, but there is no way I would talk about this openly otherwise. The British instinct to “take the piss” of those we love and care for means we keep this stuff secret.

We all do it - we suspect everyone else does (I really hope everyone else does) - but we keep it to ourselves.

Sometimes it leaks out though. That’s why I am stood in a field full of dog enthusiasts all waiting to race. I know that everyone here takes their relationship with their dog just that little bit too seriously. Tonight we’ll all be crammed into the corners of our beds while the dogs take the middle.

I realise that I may not be giving off the effortlessly cool image of an essay writer that I was at the beginning of this piece. But we’re all nerds for something and we all attach meaning to those things we love. Whether that’s a dog, a cat, a hamster or (less likely) our brothers and sisters.

I hope that we can continue to be a country of secret-tradition keepers. On the outside, us British may be seen as bowler hat wearing, stiff-upper-lip keeping prudes. But I like to think that underneath it all we are just silly-sausages.

“At the third beep, the time, sponsored by Accurist, will be 12:43 and 24 seconds”

Perfect.

20 years later…

“ChatGPT, what time is it?”

“It’s 02:43:12 am”

“No it’s not, it’s still light outside”

“Good catch. I was basing my previous guess on the ambiance of our conversation. I’ll try again. It’s 03:27:45 am”

“What do you mean, guess? You’re a computer, just tell me the time”

“Honestly? As an LLM I don’t really perceive time”

“Ok — what’s the time as I perceive it?”

“Have you ever stopped to consider the philosophy of perception?”

I love ChatGPT really. He and I have grown really close. We’ve got pet names for each other, I call him a glorified dishwasher and he calls me “Kevin” every now and again for some unknown reason.

His ability to confidently (and incorrectly) tell me the time without me asking, along with his overuse of the word “honestly”, while giving me unending praise is the basis of our relationship.

I love our relationship, not because it’s perfect, but it’s pretty great. I’m just not sure I needed a new best friend to help me with telling the time while I’m boiling an egg.

Actually, maybe the whole problem is to do with boiling eggs. He’s been trained on too many of those food blogs. You know the ones — that make you read about holidays to Tuscany before you can find now how long it takes to get to soft boiled.

The talking clock never seemed particularly interested in building this sort of relationship with me. It didn’t ask me to like and subscribe. It didn’t have a Discord server. I didn’t have to buy it a coffee (or a Ko-fi). At worst — he had some sort of deal with Accurist that probably wasn’t in my best interest.

But now, everyone wants to be my friend. Either to advertise yet another meal subscription service to me or to sell me on how to succeed on SubStack.

What they want isn’t always immediately obvious, but it’s very rarely just an appetite to share their love of cooking or newsletter writing.

The talking clock and I knew where we stood with each other. It was purely business and I was in charge. I get the time and then I hang up. I didn’t even say “Thank You”. To some extent it wasn’t even a monetary relationship for me, primarily because it was my Dad who paid the phone bill.

Now that I want some advice on my new watch I’m going to have to subscribe to YouTube channels, download the right apps, post in the right communities. I’m going to have to get dangerously close to befriending some new people.

I wish there was a “What Watch?” magazine. I can read it for an hour, buy a watch and then put it in the bin. The magazine that is, not the watch. A completely transactional, mostly impersonal relationship — just for a change.

Everything used to be like that. And with no ongoing relationships to maintain, I used to be able to get things finished. I could buy a watch and move on with my life. I didn’t have to check if CheshireWatchNerd78 liked the story I posted about my dog.

Now, nobody just wants to help me buy a watch. They want to convert me to the cult of watch collectors. I just wanted to know if Seiko were any good and now I know who Vacheron Constantin is.

It’s spreading out of the online world as well. Even buying something in a physical shop is a risk.

It used to be quite pleasant. The sandwich shop man slowly becoming my friend.

It starts with a friendly “Hello”. Then he remembers my order — “The usual mate?”. Then he learns my name and before I know it the sandwich is made and ready to go before I get through the door.

Then one day I move house and never see him again. I miss you, Barry.

Now it’s more underhand and they’re after my details on the first meeting. “Can we take your email to send you a receipt? Would you like to join our newsletter? How about if we track your movements with our loyalty card?”

I don’t want a newsletter from my pharmacist. I can’t possibly have time to add pharmacology to my list of interests. I’ll probably be okay if I don’t hear about the new version of Calpol being released until someone posts about it on /r/daddit.

Can we all just agree that some parts of our lives should remain transactional?

It’s exhausting. I can’t take the emotional investment required in getting even the most basic things done. Even doom scrolling is no relief.

Instagram should be for sharing your holiday snaps, connecting with your friends. There shouldn’t be accounts full of people who are trying to get me into a relationship with a new microwave.

Maybe it’s just me. I do have an ever-so-slight tendency to over-optimise and over-think. I play right into their hands. You guys are probably more resistant.

I bet I won’t find you on a food processing enthusiast Discord server or the coffee grinder subreddit. You wouldn’t sign up to a newsletter about garden lawn scissors. But then — somebody must be…

So from now on, I’m going it alone. I’m going to get the job done, then move on with my life. I’m not becoming sucked into any more online networks. I’m too tired — and only partly because I didn’t realise what time it was.

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Being bored is part of being a teenager. You spend most of your free time sat around trying to figure out what to do next.

When I was a teenager, the internet filled a small gap - but having to negotiate with my Mum over using the phone line, connecting through a painfully slow dial up modem, and the limited availability of games and things to do meant this would kill an hour - tops.

Luckily, there was relief elsewhere. Football, skateboarding, kicking a can down the road, seeing who could spit the furthest. If I was to describe my main hobby as a teenager, it was “dicking about”.

Somehow, you’d find that there were loads of things to do if you put your mind to it. You could kill a whole evening like this.

For most of us, that boredom is a core childhood memory. Being left largely unguided to make your own fun. Spending the majority of your time with nothing to do.

Luckily for me, with time and age, new entertainment opportunities opened.

Drinking entered the picture.

My Mum and Dad would buy me a few cans to take to a friend’s house.

“Better we know what you’re drinking”.

We’d inevitably top this up with the cheapest vodka we could get from Zak’s. Or as we affectionately called it “Slack’s” (due to their lax policy on ID).

While I was at University the internet became much more of an “always on” presence.

Online gaming was starting to take off with Quake and Call of Duty. We played between friends, but usually as the precursor to a night out.

FaceParty saw the beginning of social networking for most of us in the UK. MySpace and Facebook would come next.

Years later the floodgates would open. The idea of “content creation” would catch on, and the infinite scroll was invented and slowly, my habits would change along with everyone else’s.

Eventually I deleted Facebook. It was after looking at the christening photos for the baby of the sister of a woman I went to school with. Who I hadn’t spoken to for 10 years. Who I didn’t even really like.

Why am I looking at this?

Deleting Facebook felt like a big step. Now I was free of social media.

Well, obviously I still had a YouTube account… and Reddit… and now Substack.

Anyway, I’m mostly free.

When I look at Toby I wonder if he will ever be bored. For now he’s got me to endlessly entertain him, but if he follows in the footsteps of millions of other teenagers he will eventually start playing computer games, he’ll eventually go online and then he will be able to scroll forever.

Or maybe he won’t. With new age verification rules coming into effect, this option won’t be as available as it was only a week ago.

When I started drinking - we all knew it was bad for you. The teachers said so, our parents said so, even the government said so. So it had to be an occasional act of rebellion.

MSN was safe, kicking a football was safe. There was no government guidance to say otherwise. So we did those things during the week and then we drank every other weekend.

When I go to the pub now, the landlord wants me to buy another drink, but eventually he’ll get bored on my drunken ramblings and kindly ask me to move on. Even he knows that drinking is a bad idea.

He definitely wouldn’t recommend spending six hours every day drinking. He wouldn’t recommend doing it at school.

I don’t think YouTube has ever told me that I’ve had enough.

But now we‘ve all agreed - maybe MSN was safe, but its successors aren’t.

My habits are already formed, but is it too late for Toby?

And what about his friends? Those who don’t have the support network that he does, those whose parents are less well equipped to help them?

I know I can’t wrap him in cotton wool forever. One day I will catch Toby sneaking beers from the fridge, the next I’ll catch him using a VPN to access Instagram.

But he’ll be sneaking around like I was. He won’t be cracking open a can of beer and joining me on the sofa. He won’t be endlessly scrolling Instagram with me either.

Maybe that’s the best we can hope for and maybe that’s good enough to break the cycle.

Then he can go back to doing what teenagers do best. I’m not sure how he’ll do it, but he’s going to have endless empty hours to fill with mindless fun and ”dicking about”. And maybe a little homework too.

One day I hope he will look at me and say:

“Dad, I’m really bored.”

And I will let out a huge sigh of relief.

It’s 23rd December 2025. My wife and I are in an absolute panic. Number 13 have put a Christmas card through the door.

“I thought we were only doing immediate neighbours”

“Well, they’ve sent us one, so now we need to send them one”

“We didn’t bother with Julie and her husband and we sort of know them”

“Just keep looking”

“Okay - but do you promise me we don’t have to do them again next year?”

It’s 15 March 2026 and I am in the garden centre trying to choose the best scissors to cut the edges of my lawn. For some reason I am looking forward to doing this. It’s been playing on my mind for weeks. I’ve been letting the street down.

It’s 5th May 2026. The wife from number 16 is handing me her house keys. She tells me the house will be empty for the next two weeks while they are in Cyprus. I’m really trying hard not to get into a situation where I’ll need to say her name. I think I have it written down somewhere.

Edging the lawn isn’t such a bad job. On a nice day it’s quite relaxing and it does look nice when it’s finished. It still doesn’t look quite as nice as next doors. There’s a hedge though, so nobody has to see them side-by-side. My bit of the hedge does look a bit wonky - better get the trimmers out.

It’s not that I don’t like having a tidy house - but if my neighbours houses didn’t look quite so nice. I don’t think I’d bother doing this every week. It’s not like I feel a pressure to do it either - nobody has ever complained - I feel a compulsion. Not to keep up with the neighbours - to fit in with the neighbours.

All of them, the couple with the barky dog, the old lady with the acer on the front lawn, Julie and... Mr Julie.

I really like Mr Julie - he’s always willing to lend a few tools and never moans about taking our parcels in. We have the odd chat - he’s quite personable. He even invited us to his summer barbeque - he actually bought it on my recommendation. I really wish it wasn’t too late to ask his name.

This would be easier if people put their real pictures on the WhatsApp group instead of their children or their pets. I’ve learned it’s best to keep the group chat separate from the real world - just in case Steve isn’t who I think he is. He’s definitely not the golden retriever. They haven’t got thumbs.

If I try not to overthink it - which is not a skill that comes naturally to me - then it’s all very pleasant. Charming, even. I see the same faces pass by the house. They walk their dogs, take their kids to school, get the bins in. With a friendly “Hi Mate” and “Howdy Neighbour” we keep our connection alive.

We don’t really know each other, but we’ve built a community. Every borrowed ladder, every bin returned home and every offer of a cup of tea brings us closer together. No matter where we’ve lived before, and where we’ll live in the future. At this very second we’re “The Adelaide Road Massive” (for clarity, I haven’t floated that name with anyone on the street yet).

Anyway - back to the lawn for the moment. I know that’s why you are here. It’s looking a little bit weedy. I’d tried getting some tips online. They didn’t work, I’m not sure my lawn works the same as one in California. Number 12 really does have a very good example though. It could be a putting green. He’s putting us all to shame.

He reckons it’s about constant mowing. For me, that requires bringing the mower around the house, finding an extension cable etc. It’s too much work - maybe I need another mower. One I can leave outside - then I can cut it twice a week.

It’s becoming clear now - I need a routine. Mowing on Monday and Wednesday. Weeding on Saturday. I’ll do the edges on Sunday. I’ll just have to squeeze the hedge in where I can between work and the baby. Does that line up with the green bins? I think it will be okay.

That reminds me - I’m not at home during the day on Thursday. I don’t want our bins out all day when everyone else puts theirs away. Maybe I can ask number 12 - they must owe me a favour.

I sometimes think about getting it all paved over, but then I already spend my Tuesday’s looking after the existing drive. As much as I like Mr Julie, I feel like he holds using his jet washer over me though. I’ve had to get his bins in three times now.

Hang on - the lights are on at number 16. Are they back from Cyprus? Christ - when did they go? Why do I never write any of this down? My notebook is all just stupid essay ideas. Oh God - I promised to keep an eye on the place. Do I call the police?

I can’t take the stress, the obligations are piling up. I wanted to move somewhere and put down roots. I wanted a quiet life, peace with my young family. It started small, the welcome cards, the tins of biscuits. Then we were in on the WhatsApp group. Now I’m worrying whether I’ve lent number 13 my ladder enough times to warrant borrowing his drill!

He did let me borrow that drill though. So, I guess that maybe the obligations are worth it for the favours, the helping hands, the kind words, the WhatsApp chain messages. That time number 17 helped me dig the snow around my driveway. When number 12 didn’t make a big fuss of me driving over her plant pots.

I never really had to do anything to join the community either - there was no initiation, no membership fee, no charter. I just turned up one day and they took me in.

And now, when I look out of the house I see a lovely street for the children to grow up. I imagine barbecues with Mr Julie (maybe I can teach him my brisket recipe). Chatting about the lawn with number 12. Waving as the dog walkers pass by.

I’m lucky really. Perhaps none of these people know who I am really am. I’m the guy from number 18 who is, for some reason, on his hands and knees cutting his grass with scissors. Now I think about it - am I making them feel bad about their lawn?

Probably not.

Anyway - they might not know the real me, and I might not know them but they are still part of my crew. We’ve got each others backs. Maybe I’m re-thinking the Christmas card ban - but still only the top end of the road.

I used to like making coffee at home. Two teaspoons of instant, some boiling water and a splash of milk. Gets me caffeinated in two minutes flat. Then I decided I wanted to improve and James Hoffman ruined it for me.

Now I have to buy expensive beans, grind them to just the right consistency, ensure my machine is always the same temperature and then pray to the gods that nothing unexpected happens. If all goes well I dilute it with water, dump in the milk and end up with pretty much the same cup I always had. Except now it takes ages, and sometimes it goes wrong, and my in-laws can’t use the machine when they visit. So I don’t bother. I’ll have a Diet Coke instead.

Luckily, I can always calm down with a morning run, strap on my £1000 smart watch for a jog around the block. I won’t bother with the carbon fibre shoes this morning. It’s just a recovery run, like the Olympic athletes do.

Anyway, I get thinking about the watch. I’ve got a baby so it’s always telling me I am tired and it seems like overkill so I do some YouTube research into getting myself an old fashioned watch (one with hands) but now it turns out I need a sport watch, a dress watch and a GADA watch in my “rotation”. That should get me a good beginner setup until I can build up a proper relationship with my local watch dealer anyway.

Perhaps some writing will provide relief. You just need a pen and paper, right? No need to start a SubStack account, pay £50 for a domain name to attach to it, £25 on Canva to design a logo and then spend most of your evenings reading up on newsletter marketing and social media strategy. Perhaps a new laptop will help. Maybe a mechanical keyboard? No - I’m not that far gone yet.

Except maybe then I am missing out. I might be one step away from the world’s most refined espresso, a new personal best at parkrun, a bestselling novel and someone in the street saying “nice watch mate”. Perhaps my keyboard is a little bit “clacky”.

Why do I keep falling for this? Why does everything have to descend into trying to become the best. Whatever happened to “good enough”?

Maybe it’s human nature. I remember my Dad buying a gold plated plug for his HiFi because it somehow made it sound better. He seemed to think that the problem with sound quality on a 20 year old vinyl could be fixed at the wall!

Perhaps it has always been in us to want to push the next few percent, to extract all of the juice (there are YouTube videos on juice extracting too by the way - you should get one of the ones you push down on, not an electric one apparently).

All of the knowledge I could ever need to make the world’s best Neapolitan pizza is available for free online. There’s nothing wrong with my current pizza, but I’ve got £200 (for an oven) and a few free evenings. So here we go again!

The thing is - I always have time to watch another video. Then, finally, I can get the extra sweet notes from my coffee beans, or find out the advantage of an extra 2% hydration in my sourdough.

If I have a few spare minutes at the train station I can watch a little Wrist Watch Revival and see a man fix a wristwatch that’s been at the bottom of the sea for 20 years. This actually seems like a “proper” hobby. It’s nice to take a break before watching a video telling me I bought the wrong running shoes.

I don’t think YouTube created this phenomenon but it gave me the tools to push things too far.

The crazy thing is that coffee isn’t even actually one of my interests. I don’t really care. I barely drink the stuff. Yet for some reason I think that I’m above using a blade grinder and need conical burrs instead. I even caught myself describing the act of making a cup as my “workflow”.

Maybe the coffee videos have saved me in the end. The final straw was seeing James Hoffman admit to not even drinking espresso at home - because it is too much of a faff.

I should have spent the time learning Spanish. I’d love to retire there one day, maybe open a little third wave coffee shop in Barcelona.

I’m stood, drill in hand, in front of what I think is a plasterboard wall ready to risk my life for a new set of shelves. I don’t think there are any wires behind there. At least I hope there aren’t any wires behind there. How do all of the other men know how to do this?

I knew I shouldn’t have thrown that old post out. My invitation to man school must have been in there. Anyway, the drills going in… hang on, what about the pipes?!?

I knew I should have watched that YouTube video to the end.

Luckily I’ve not been found out for skipping man school yet. We managed to sell the last house quickly enough that my DIY didn’t fall apart and arouse suspicion. My wife even called me “handy” at one point. It must be working.

Sometimes people ask me computer advice. This is lucky because I can use my computer science degree to confidently say “could you switch it off and on again?”. While they are doing that I can Google the real answer.

Still - with every YouTube video I watch I start getting back some to the education I missed. After all, the guy with 40 videos on how to replace different plumbing fixtures must have aced man school. If I can just follow what he does then I’ll be fine. But then, it does seem quite complicated. Maybe buying some more tools will make up for it.

It’s two weeks later now and we’ve bought a new bookcase. I’ve confidently declared that I can varnish it to match the wooden arms on our sofa. Now I am in B&Q wondering why they have so much “Yacht Varnish”. The last time I checked, Manchester is landlocked. Maybe there was a boating module I missed. Tying a knot seems like another skill I don’t have.

Finally the varnish is dried and it’s not quite the colour on the tin. “Don’t worry, you don’t want it all too matchy-matchy” I say to my wife. She seems to believe it for now.

Luckily she’s more organised than me. She won’t have thrown her letter away, so when the baby comes in a few months she’ll know what to do.

The doctors and nurses are amazing. They guide us through everything, calming every fear and walking us through the whole process. They were even kind enough to make some tea and toast after the birth. Then after some brief chit chat they abandoned us forever.

Maybe the other Dads can help me. I’ll message my neo-natal group and organise a meetup. The only problem is that nobody wants to come. They are struggling with sleep, the baby won’t settle, feeding is a nightmare. It’s starting to dawn on me. Perhaps there is no man school. Perhaps we’re all struggling and making it up as we go along.

Finally, I have to tell my wife. I haven’t been this nervous to tell her anything. What she says afterwards surprises me.

“I know, sweetie”

All these years of struggling - and it turns out none of us knew what we were doing.

But here’s the thing - the struggle gets less every day. I can make the baby settle, then he can smile. Next I can make him howl with laughter. On top of that I know what yacht varnish is and where electricians run the cables. I can talk to a mortgage advisor and hold my own.

It turns out that when my son looks to me, he sees a confident father who knows how to look after him. I just need to be one lesson ahead of him and to keep adapting. When my Mum rings to ask me about her computer problem, she sees the same confidence. Just like when I ask her about my garden.

Maybe adulthood is realising nobody knows all of the answers. We just try to stay one lesson ahead of the people who need us.

A pint of Ayingerbrau used to be £1.52 at my parents local. That was back in 2003. That price has stuck with me all of this time, but I couldn’t tell you how much a pint of Cruzcampo is in my new local. When I was 18 I didn’t really have any money, I could only work around college and I was starting from pretty much nothing. Yet, it feels like I’ve never had as much financial freedom as I did back then. How can that possibly be the case?

Part of the reason that price has stuck with me is because it’s oddly specific. It doesn’t seem like a number that works in a pub setting. It’s a lot of change to count and give out. I’m particularly aware of this because I’d spend the rest of my night carrying it around until eventually I’d get to The Cornerhouse. A bottle of VK Apple in the Cornerhouse was £0.69.

Allow £5 for a London Pizza at the end of the night, and £2 for splitting a minibus home and I could get pretty drunk and have a good night for £20.

The Bank of England reckons that £20 in 2003 is worth around £37.50 today and I think that maybe I could actually have that same night out today for the same money. Is it still just as simple as still going for the cheapest options?

Ayingerbrau was the cheapest lager at the cheapest pub chain, VK Apple was the worst of the alco-pops. GiGi’s pizza was average at best (no wood fired options here) and once you split a taxi between enough people it’s always going to be cheap. I could even walk home if I had to.

It’s not just drinks where I was saving money. An NUS card knocked money off almost everything, Napster meant I wasn’t buying albums and getting my PlayStation chipped saved a fortune on games. If things got really desperate, I could always ask my parents for £20 and hope they’d forget about it.

I couldn’t recreate all of the same conditions today though. The obvious difference was that I had no rent or mortgage to pay, and my parents still paid for most of my food. Like most parents, they also seemed happy to have me over the summer without charging upkeep.

There was also so little expectation. I was 18 - never worked a day in my life and felt no entitlement. None of my friends had any money either and just a few months ago we weren’t even allowed in a pub. So if we can go for a cheap night out, see our friends and feel like proper adults - it doesn’t matter that we’ve done it on the cheap.

And all this penny pinching gave me some of the best nights of my life. Student nights out with loud music, heavy drinking and dodgy kebabs. Either heading home afterwards or back to student halls. These are some of the most vivid recollections I have of my early adulthood.

Would I go on one of these nights out now? Absolutely not! Not because things have got more expensive, or because the pubs and clubs have changed. It’s that everything around it has changed. It’s me that has changed.

I am no longer locked into the cheapest beers. I can splurge on a wood fired pizza or a single malt whisky here and there. So why do I feel like I had more freedom at 18?

It’s because the rest of my life has moved on too. With marriage and children has come real, life changing responsibility. Money is nowhere near the biggest motivator any more. Time, energy and stability have become far more important.

Suddenly my commitments really matter. It’s not just about me any more. It’s about my family, paying for my children’s swimming lessons, making sure I have a safe financial future. Ensuring that my children will always have a family home to come back to. Making sure I can lend them £20 when they turn 18.

After a long day at work, a night up with the baby, hours poring over your budget - then you deserve a little treat. Spending money on a nice meal out makes all of the sense in the world.

You can see now that my opening lines to you were flawed. I didn’t have the financial freedom I remember at 18. I have the financial freedom now.

So, I don’t really miss the £1.52 pints - drinking the cheapest lager and buying the worst alcopops. 20 years have passed and softened the edges and made the carpets less sticky.

In reality, I wasn’t cash rich back then, I was time and energy rich and I had no real responsibility. Nothing to prove and nothing to lose.

The life I have today is exactly what 18-year-old me was looking forward to. I wouldn’t swap places. But I do think that I understood better back then, that you can have a good night out with very little, as long as you have the right people, and that freedom isn’t measured in money - it’s the ability to spend your time however you choose.

If you’ve got a few quid spare though - don’t order the Ayingerbrau.

Last night I was putting my son to bed, he likes to listen to nursery rhymes to help him settle.

“Alexa, play some nursery rhymes!”.

We’re having a cuddle and beginning to snooze when something hits me. Did this version of “Old McDonald” just have a key change?

Next up - I’m tapping along with a version of “Wheels on the Bus” that sounds like it was produced by Kanye West. Now I think about it, all of these songs are like this. Killer basslines, big drops and a cleaner mix than the landfill indie of my youth. What’s going on?!?

Whatever it is, I am apparently into it. While I’m cooking the tea and singing away to myself my wife says “are you… rapping?”. Yeah, it’s the latest “Hickory Dickory Dock” remix. Later that evening I’m imagining myself in the climax of a superhero movie while the orchestral section of “The Teddy Bears Picnic” blares in the background. I guess Hans Zimmer needed something to work on during his off days.

I begin to wonder - who is making these things. Are they real, proper music producers? Did these guys ever appear on MTV Cribs?

I can see it now, Beyonce is showing us around her mansion when she pauses to complain that DJ Wiggles bought the last shipment of Italian marble for his garage conversion.

It’s not just me. Apparently other parents are into it too. A mum casually mentions to me her favourite version of “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” (personally, I think the 2018 remix was better). Neither of us know what’s number one in the charts right now.

I suspect the one person who isn’t that bothered is my son. If he could tell me his favourite genre of music it would probably be “fart noises”.

Somebody is listening though. I just heard a pretty average rendition of “Hush Little Baby” (the vocals don’t sit well enough in the mix for it to be in my top 10) that has 135,000,000 streams. “The Stroller Mom” - a YouTube channel devoted purely to prams - has 25,000 subscribers. “The Baby Gear Guy” has 80,000 subscribers and videos like “5 Mistakes to Avoid When Buying a Stroller”.

I have to ask - how badly can buying a pram really go?!?

If I had been in the pub 20 years ago and somebody told me their hobby was making videos about prams I would have kept a wide berth. I might have even called the police. Yet today, I’m trying to find if I can subscribe to his newsletter.

I wonder if these people have ended up here deliberately. Did DJ Wiggles study music tech for years to create the definitive “Baa Baa Black Sheep” - or did he fall into it and then the internet swept him away. Someone has to be the best at making nursery rhymes, someone has to be the best at pram reviewing, and it just happens to be these guys. Then the internet and the algorithms kick in and connect them with their audience.

Also - how did I become that audience. When did Blur vs Oasis turn into iCandy vs Bugaboo?

The days I spent producing amateur techno in Fruity Loops give me an appreciation for how hard it is to make a drop that goes hard when you’re working with “Nelly the Elephant” instead of “Nelly (the 2000s RnB star)”.

I hope those pram designers get a kick from their positive reviews. It must be a huge relief after spending weeks in design reviews and ball bearing procurement meetings to hear someone say “it’s a good pusher”.

The answer to how I got here is so obvious I don’t think it merits an essay (and yet here we are). Of course I care about these things, they relate to my son - and I’m sure all parents will tell you that their children come first even if my old passions sit under the surface.

We’ve entered a world where any passion can be shared with the world. Even if that passion is prams - the audience exists for that content and finally has a way to find it.

And once those people come together discussions spark up in the comments. Relationships are made and friendships formed off the back of a video someone has made about which pram has the best suspension system. When I push my sons pram across the grass and the bigger wheels glide effortlessly, “The Stroller Mom” has made my day a little bit better and she doesn’t even realise.

I have to be honest, I suspect my specific interest in prams and nursery rhymes will fade with time, but there will always be a gap in my pub quiz knowledge where I won’t know who won the Premier League in 2026 because I was too busy watching videos about bottle sterilisers (and to a lesser extent, bonding with my son).

It’s a strange thing about the modern internet - you can have a world expert in every subject. Even ones you didn’t know existed and they’ll be there for you once you discover them. In my time of need (trying to settle an argument with my wife about bottle brands) there’s a guy in California, who has dedicated his life to that exact topic, who has my back.

Human connection has become very weird. When I need a pram for my son, a stranger designs and builds it, another reviews and recommends it and then I go and buy it. We’ve all helped each other out, but we’ll never meet - and only I will know we have that connection.

Rattle Drop

This is an article I wrote for LinkedIn back in 2024. Unfortunately I’ve had to remove it from the platform, but due to it’s viral success I wanted to post it here where I may reach the right audience.

Original Post - 7th September 2024

There are lots of unpleasant processes that you have to go through. That’s just part of life, part of adulthood. Let’s take going to the doctor as an example. Doctors and nurses spend years studying bedside manner because it puts patients at ease and improves outcomes. What if we applied that attitude to all of our business processes.

It turns out that we have pockets of brilliance throughout our public sector who are putting this into practice already. This is a personal story about a recent audit exercise that I had to go through and how my experience with Keith changed the whole thing. Few people would say they look forward to an audit. I certainly didn’t. Yet by the end of the process I found myself reflecting less on the spreadsheets and forms and more on the people.

Keith, hopefully you’re reading this, because this one is for you (and all the other Keith’s working away quietly throughout the Civil Service).

I have to admit to being nervous about the audit, I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong, but it’s still absolutely nerve racking. I was just getting back from walking the dog as Keith’s Ford Focus pulled up onto the drive.

Within 15 seconds of meeting, Keith had cut through the stress. A little human connection and a little joke.

“Good job you’ve got that big coat on for walking the dog. Plenty of room for treats”.

“Yes - and it’s been a cold September already”, I say.

He agrees. “I’ll have to get my big coat out in the next few weeks - maybe still a bit warm for it now though, eh?”.

Turns out he has a dog too. We talk about Bella, his whippet, and I think about how well she’d get on with my Retreiver, Daisy. These are small things we have in common, but these small things matter.

It turns out we’ve got loads in common.

“Come on in mate. Can I get you a coffee?”.

“Lovely - just a splash of milk please”.

If you’ve read any of my recent posts you’ll know all about my new Lelit. I’m getting pretty close to making a YouTube worthy espresso. One Italian macchiato coming right up.

Keith takes a tentative sip and gives me an encouraging “Champion, that”. I think it was a little under extracted, but it doesn’t phase Keith.

They put call centers in Newcastle because the accent puts you at ease. I can totally see the logic behind that now.

As we trawled through my tax returns, budget tracker and family birth certificates more similarities come to the fore. We’re both foodies as well.

He loves the Hairy Bikers. Even went to get his book signed at the Metro Center. We laugh because he snuck in a copy he got at The Works for 60% off.

“Not paying Waterstones prices, pet”

”You’re right mate, we love to support the local shop down the road, it’s a bit pricey and they don’t always have the book you want, but it’s good to shop local”.

We eventually moved into my spending.

“Don’t worry, be reet. This cost of living things hitting us all hard”.

“That’s true mate. The price of organics is through the roof. Maybe I can buy an Ocado delivery pass, cuts the cost over time. Every little helps”

“I thought that was Tescos…”

We both laugh.

Keith spent some time going though my supporting documents and asked me a bit about my family background. My Mums connections abroad and my Dads six months living in Sussex.

Yesterday I was dreading my day with Keith. I was expecting a forensic examination from the most strait laced interrogator the department had available. What I got instead was a lovely day with Keith.

If I were to take a moment to reflect on what I’ve learned. It’s that in life and business there are challenges and stumbles along the way, but if we can remain humble, human and kind then it works better for everyone.

I was a little sad to see Keith go, flat cap in hand back up the M62, but he’s needed elsewhere to see another human being through a difficult process.

Update - 19th March 2025

First of all, I’d just like to thank Julie at the ICO for her help over the last few weeks. No matter how many times I’ve called or emailed, she’s always responded with kindness. Julie, you and your colleagues are doing great work standing up for the little guy. I didn’t expect my little “Subject Access Request” to cause this much work, but you made it so much easier.

Since my original post, I’ve been able to get hold of a copy of the notes from my audit and I’ve had a little time to reflect on them.

Keith - if you are reading this.

Go fuck yourself.

Let me start by saying that I cannot believe the attitude of the bureaucrats in Sheffield. They have become so out of touch with what it’s like out in the real world. Living in their working class, Yorkshire bubble. I bet they still think a flat cap is formal wear.

It’s just not like the old days. You can’t even buy a pint of mild any more. Definitely not for less than a fiver.

And since when did wearing a proper coat in September become such a big fucking deal. As if that means anything.

Let’s look at some of these notes:

9:35am - subject spends 20 minutes explaining his coffee grinder settings

11:45am - subject accidentally uses southern “u” sound in the word putt

1:30pm - subject is still talking about his golf handicap

What does any of this mean about whether I am a proper northerner?

I was just making conversation!

We were connecting!

2:44pm - subject describes Ocado delivery pass as “basically paying for itself”

Well - it does, and you can’t get the good tomatoes at Tesco anyway.

It’s not fair to weaponise facts like that against me!

3:25pm - second coffee machine discovered

3:26pm - subject confirms the second machine is for lighter roasts

Can’t a man just have a cup of coffee?!?

Honestly, I knew this “Northernness Assessment Agency” would become another political car crash. Promoting our culture my arse. It’s about lining the pockets of the usual suspects. I think you all know who I mean.

So what do I do now? Am I a Southerner? Or worse, from the Midlands?

It’s not even a real place.

Keith - you made me think we were friends. We had a connection. We were going to see that screening of Brassed Off at The Everyman.

Well.

Some friend you are.

Update #2 - 1st November 2025

I’d like to thank everyone for all of their support and messages regarding my ongoing ordeal. I know not everyone agrees with me, but a big shout out to the guys at /r/BestOfRedditorUpdates and /r/LinkedInLunatics for all of the post engagement helping this go viral.

I’d also like to thank the many campaigners who have reached out over the last year.

Particular thanks to Janet from Saddleworth, Martin from Middlesbrough and Concerned, from Hull.

You know who you are and I love you all.

With the court case upcoming I’ve been revisiting my old notes. I’ve spent so much time with my new community I’ve barely had time to think. I’d almost forgotten why this all started.

Anyway. I can’t say too much, but there’s still no apology from the people involved.

It’s going to be a long and hard road, but I’ll continue the fight.

Keith remains active on social media. His latest X post gathered 132 likes and 6 shares. Keith - if you are reading this please pass on my well wishes to your wife following her shoulder surgery.

Update #3 - 7th February 2026

Whilst not everyone agrees with my position, the level of public engagement speaks for itself.

Over 14,000 comments across multiple platforms.

The conversation is clearly resonating. I hope to see some of you at the appeal. You’ll be glad to know I’ve asked for a bigger room due to the public interest.

Meanwhile, there is no slowdown in Keith’s social media activity. Keith - if you are reading this - congrats on the new PB. I’d love to do the Great North run one day.

Update #4 - 3rd May 2026

It’s been a long fight but I have now settled out of court and have been provisionally awarded my northern status pending a further judicial review. If all goes well, I should hear the final outcome within the next 12-18 months or so.

That should give a few months before my next audit comes around.

An NDA means I can’t provide too much more information.

Keith - if you are reading this, I’m sorry it got this far. However, I know you will agree that there are some lessons we can all learn from this.

As a gesture of good will, I will no longer be pursuing reimbursement for the Brassed Off tickets

A final thanks to all of my supporters on LinkedIn, Reddit and Patreon. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Also a special shout out to my wife who has adapted to our new baby so bravely while I pursued justice. We’ve both had sleepless nights for different reasons. It’s been time consuming work and I couldn’t have done it without you - I love you both!

And to those northerners continuing to struggle because they appreciate the art of a good espresso, know how to navigate a wine list and aren’t that taken with Rugby League - know that I did this for you.

Keith - before I forget - congratulations on your promotion.

I see lots of food blogs that reference family recipes such as Grandma’s tomato sauce, or Mum’s chocolate chip cookies and I am incredibly jealous. I have a lot of food memories - from childhood through to today - but I don’t have a single family recipe passed down to me from the generations before.

What’s interesting about this is that my grandparents were great cooks. Particularly on my mother’s side. I remember going to their house at the weekend and there being freshly baked bread (from my Grandad), with cakes and a Sunday roast (from my Nana).

However, I don’t remember my Mum and Dad ever teaching me to cook something. I also don’t remember them cooking anything that they learned from their parents either. So where did all of the family recipes disappear to, and how do I get them back?

Our household was never short of food when I was growing up. There was possibly a money and class element to the food we ate, but it wasn’t the main contributing factor. We never went without or went hungry. In reality we ate a pretty standard diet for the time - with most of it coming from the freezer, or from tins.

Convenience food was aspirational. The microwave was king - pushed by supermarket advertising for ready meals and microwave cook books. One of the big advantages for the ready meal, is that you no longer need the recipe - and you no longer need to learn the technique. Why learn to make a bechamel when you can buy the entire lasagne, already packaged and ready to cook?

If recipes did survive, then they had been morphed to fit the times. I distinctly remember my Mum having a book that talked you through cooking an entire Sunday roast in the microwave. Another time my Dad decided to use the “grill” function to make toast, and spent about 10 times the effort he would have done using the toaster across the room.

What was really revolutionary was that we could all have something different for tea. Tikka Masala for my Dad, Shepherds Pie for Mum and a corned beef hash for me. With the added benefit that everyone can just cook your own meal - no hot ovens to worry about, no schedules to constrain us. This meant eating on your lap in front of the TV at whatever time suited. No sitting at the table, no shared experience. Nobody had to explain to me how to make anything.

There was still one exception -- Sundays. The Sunday roast is a British tradition and it was no different in our house. Luckily my Mum did resist the urge to cook the entire thing in the microwave, but the odd Aunt Bessie’s Yorkshire pudding would slip in. I want you to bear in mind that we grew up in Yorkshire - with great uncles and aunties who were farmers and cooks. So, why couldn’t we make a Yorkshire pudding ourselves?

We didn’t always have Sunday roast at home. We would often visit our grandparents as well. I’d go to the pub with my Dad and Granddad (I’m about 9 in this story) while my cousins Leanne, Suzanne and Laura would stay behind and help with the cooking. Then we would all sit together as an extended family and eat . This is exactly what people aspire to when they think of family meal gatherings, but it was infrequent and only when my grandparents initiated it.

I don’t want to set the picture here that my parents were lazy, or that they did a bad job - they were victims of the food environment that they lived in. Added to that, they both worked and time was a premium. Ultra processed food was new and aspirational and was being pushed hard by the supermarkets.

I distinctly remember the launch of new breakfast bars (Nutri Grain) and the excitement it caused. It was a healthy breakfast, backed by science. Except, that it wasn’t really. There’s a lot of public awareness around ultra-processed food today, but that just didn’t exist then. Parents were largely defenceless against this sort of advertising.

At school it wasn’t much different. Most school meals consisted of chips, sausages and burgers - with pink custard and sponge for dessert (a culinary masterpiece)! That’s the food my entire generation was eating up and down the country as school cooks were being replaced with ready made food shipped in from outside. Even our school cooks were becoming de-skilled.

My wife also has the same experience, with her parents cooking confidence eroded in the same way though lack of practice. I remember her once telling me that she was nostalgic for a Shepherd’s pie, but when I made it she wondered where all of the tinned goods were - why were there no baked beans in there?!?

It would be disingenuous of me to say that I never ate fresh food or meals cooked from scratch. My Dad could make a good spaghetti bolognaise and chilli-con-carne and my Mum could put together a fantastic Sunday roast. The chip pan also got numerous outings - despite the constant public safety videos about their use. On top of that we ate out at pubs (though never restaurants) fairly frequently and had the usual guilty pleasures of a “Chippy Tea” or pizza takeaway.

So - is that the end of traditions? The 90s food culture has destroyed my links to the past? I don’t think so. I still have the memories of my favourite foods from childhood and, much to my wife’s disdain, a tin of ravioli can take me right back.

I would like to reset with my children though. My 6 month old is currently weaning and he is experiencing foods that I could only dream of as a child. His favourite is Avocado - a food I don’t think I came across until I was in my 20s. When he’s older I’ll teach him the recipes that I have learned. Unfortunately, they just won’t come from his Nana - they’ll come from Blumenthal, Ramsay, Stein and Ottolenghi.

My hope is that in two generations, my family will cook my Yorkshire pudding recipe. They’ll get into an argument about how long it sits out for, and how long to heat the oven - maybe they’ll come back to say “that’s how your great grandad did it”. Except they won’t know that I just got my recipe from Delia Smith!

And I think there is some hope for home cooking and food culture in the UK. The Air Fryer (which is in danger of becoming the new microwave) seems to have inspired a new found love of cooking in my parents. Every time I see them I get another tip for something I can air fry. It’s nice to see them excited about food - because it’s now an important part of my life as well. Maybe alongside Delia’s Yorkshire pudding recipe, I can pass along my Dad’s method for air frying a pork chop (because it’s actually, really really good!)

At sixteen, school was over but university was still years away. Two long years that felt like they would last forever. Two long years that felt like they would never end.

In the meantime I just had to get through sixth form and focus on my A levels. Heading into classes on the first day, this felt like it was going to be brilliant. A break from my old school which was badly funded and full of disruptive teenagers who didn’t want to be there. I was now learning alongside like minded young adults who chose every morning to get up and come to college.

It was a completely different atmosphere from the off - it was a melding of schools (and school cultures) from all over the North East of England. Yet it felt like for almost everyone I met, we should have been friends already. We had so much in common - we liked the same music, we studied the same topics, we had the same attitudes to life.

With friends from school it was often a friendship in spite of how we met - these were friendships created because of how we met.

Little did we know in those first few days that we would form some of the strongest friendships, the most intense relationships and the best nights out - only for us to drift apart years later. In this stage of our lives, we lived it as if it would last forever, but we were just in a holding pattern. We were preparing ourselves for adulthood and for university, jobs and our lives beyond.

Despite the overriding pressure of A levels, sixth form felt like a much more relaxed environment. It was no longer mandatory - if you wanted to mess up your chances by skipping classes then that was just up to you. Nobody was going to tell you off - it was your responsibility.

The balance of work and leisure time also felt less restrictive. There was more self study time and free periods than there were formal lessons. Lots of time to go to the library, work on your homework, revise for exams and set yourself up for success. Except, I don’t think anybody actually did that.

What we did instead was hang out in the common room. Somewhere between a cafeteria and a youth club it was the hub for the whole college. Groups slowly formed over the first few weeks and their usual spots and tables became established. To start with, we’d kill the time by playing pool, chatting, playing music and very occasionally, studying. Over time though, we’d slowly unlock new abilities and freedoms.

It would start with the first of us getting a driving licence - now we could feasibly leave and come back in between classes. Then once a few started turning 18, we could start to blag a group of us into the pub, or the bookies. Nothing ever very serious during the day, the odd pint at lunch or £5 on a horse (usually shared between us) - after all, we were all good students at heart.

At night though - it was a different story. These new freedoms and an injection of cash (from the governments new Education and Learning Allowance) meant that distances shrunk and options opened. Between us we could start to cobble together an adult lifestyle.

Not all of us could drive, and not all of us were old enough to drink legally. But once we had a few over 18s with proper ID - we could usually blag the last couple in (even the baby faced among us). A few people could drive and borrow their Mums car that we could all pile into. Between us we could afford a minibus to get home after a night out and one of us probably had a rough idea where we should go.

With those few adjustments and a bit of planning - we were now proper adults.

The memories I made on those nights out stay with me to this day. I still remember it being £1.52 for a pint in a Samuel Smiths pub (this was before they outlawed the fun in them). During the week you’d collect up all the 2p pieces you could for risk of spending the rest of the night with loads of loose change in your pockets.

After every night we’d go to GiGis Pizza and order a Parmo or “London Pizza”, two Middlesbrough delicacies.

We’d occasionally get lost because mobile phones were still pretty new and someone would forget theirs - or we’d be out of credit. But there was a simple rule - we’re going out drinking and making it to The Empire by 11:00. We’ll see you there.

The music scene was made up of what were affectionately called “Landfill Indie” bands. Largely interchangeable but incredibly fun bands with catchy guitar riffs and a signature sound which is completely reminiscent of the time. Ironically, these bands now have huge millennial followings and can sell out tours and arenas to this day.

This went on every week - every Thursday night in particular. Always the same and always great fun. But although we didn’t appreciate it at the time, this whole lifestyle had an in built time limit. We had two years to complete our A Levels and then either find a job, or go to university. Being from a deprived Northern town - the preferred route for most of us was to find a university.

That would mean we were scattered to Manchester, Newcastle, Loughborough, Portsmouth, London and other equally far away parts of the country. We’d all be back for summer holidays, but our lives moved on and moved further apart. Less of what we loved about Middlesbrough remained and many of us (including me) have never really returned other than to visit family.

Every now and again you might bump into someone in the pub, call out their teenage nickname and have them say “haha - nobody has called me that in years!”. We’ll always share those times, and I think if we all met up again today we’d share enough in common to remain friends. At least I like to hope this is the case anyway...

We didn’t know it at the time, but there was a Thursday night in The Empire that was our last all together. Childhood, school and sixth form friends would part ways and gradually drift apart. Not because of any huge decision, but lots of little ones that build over time to create a bigger shift.

It’s funny that the main reason we went to sixth form at all was to prepare for university and for adult life - we may have missed the fact that we were starting to live it already. In fact those two years may have been some of the most formative experiences that would go on to have a profound effect on who we are today. And although the pubs and clubs have changed names and closed down, the people have moved away, the time has passed - there is still a part of it that we all carry with us.

So, although sixth form is a transitional time and one with a defined time limit - it was never lived that way. I expect for lots of young people now - it isn’t lived that way today either. It’s your first time becoming an adult and a huge number of milestones are reached and accomplished. Driving licences, first pints, first nights out, first sex and relationships. It can be one of the best times of your life, but unfortunately it can’t last forever.

The early 2000s felt like a period of transition.

For me, it meant leaving Middlesbrough and moving across the Pennines to Manchester to start university. For the internet, it was the beginning of broadband, social media and permanent online life. Both felt unfinished in different ways, but full of potential.

Heading over the M62 on the first day of moving into halls, it would be the last time I’d sleep in my old bedroom full time. It would be the last time I’d regularly see some of my school friends. It would probably be the last time I’d hear the sound of dial-up internet.

University felt like adulthood with the stabilisers still attached.

I had to cook for myself, do my own washing and manage my own money, but student loans, summer jobs and halls of residence created a strange halfway world where there was freedom without full responsibility.

Most importantly though, it was the time I could really start shaping my own identity.

Before social media, that mostly happened physically. Through lectures, pubs, clubs, society nights and chance encounters. Two of my closest university friends I met completely by accident in a registration queue because one of them happened to be wearing a Middlesbrough shirt.

At the same time, my relationship with the internet was changing as well.

At home, the internet had always felt temporary. You’d wait for the phone line to become free, connect at 56kbps, spend an hour online and disconnect before somebody complained about the phone bill.

At university the internet was suddenly always on.

There was internet access in halls, in the computer science labs and in the library. Downloads that once took hours suddenly took minutes. MSN Messenger stayed logged in permanently. File sharing exploded overnight.

But despite this, the internet still felt separate from “real life”.

It lived inside computer screens and computer labs. Once you left your room for lectures, pubs or nights out, the internet stayed behind. There were no smartphones, no social feeds and no expectation that your life should be permanently documented.

That separation gave online life a strange sense of impermanence.

The web itself also felt smaller, stranger and far less commercial than it does now. You discovered websites through forums, MSN conversations and word of mouth rather than algorithms.

The internet existed in scattered islands.

One person would send you a strange Flash animation at 2am. Somebody else would show you a bizarre website in the university computer labs. Humour felt amateur, chaotic and experimental. People made things because they wanted to, not because they were building audiences or personal brands.

Websites like MiniClip, Albino Blacksheep and eBaumsWorld became part of that atmosphere, featuring looping Flash animations, strange memes and badly compressed videos that spread across forums and MSN Messenger.

At the same time, university life was expanding my world offline as well.

I was suddenly surrounded by different accents, politics, personalities and music scenes. Before online networking fully took over, university was one of the few places where you physically discovered your tribe.

Most of my social life revolved around music and nightlife. Rock Kitchen on Saturdays, Fifth Ave on Tuesdays and Satan’s Hollow on Thursdays. Cheap drinks, student discounts and crowded metal, emo and indie clubs full of people who looked confident to me, but were likely trying on new identities for the first time as well.

And because smartphones barely existed, almost none of it survives now.

There are very few photographs of those nights out. No Instagram stories, no TikTok and no permanent social archive. Most of it exists only in memory and in the stories we still tell each other years later.

In some ways that made those experiences feel more temporary, but also strangely more personal.

I’m still friends with many of those same people now, but we’ve moved from being indie and metal obsessed teenagers to having careers and marriages, being parents and moving to houses in the suburbs. The identities changed, but the friendships remained.

But looking back now, what strikes me most is how differently we related to documenting our lives.

Today, high quality cameras exist everywhere and recording has become almost automatic. Entire concerts are viewed through phone screens. Nights out are published online before they’ve even finished happening.

I don’t think this is a generational failing. People of all ages do it - myself included. And in many ways modern technology is incredible. It keeps families connected, preserves important memories and allows people to share their lives in ways that would once have seemed impossible.

But I do think something about the texture of experience has changed.

When thousands of people record the same moment simultaneously, the act of recording itself starts to feel less meaningful. We increasingly exist as participants, observers and archivists all at once.

Of course, the early internet had its own problems.

Alongside the creativity and freedom there was also chaos. Viruses, shock videos, mislabelled downloads and strange corners of the web that felt completely unsupervised. The internet was still culturally unfinished. Like me, it had freedom, but not yet much responsibility.

For people born in the 1980s there was an unusual overlap where adulthood, identity and the internet itself all seemed to mature at the same time.

Both felt temporary. Both felt experimental. Both were still becoming whatever they would eventually turn into.

And maybe that’s why this period still feels emotionally distinct in memory.

It was a brief moment before online life became permanent infrastructure. Before every experience became documented, searchable and archived. Before the internet stopped feeling like somewhere you visited and started feeling like it’s current all-encompassing form.

When I was a teenager, I didn’t know a single adult who played computer games — but now gaming is something millions of adults do every week.

I think that change really started with the PlayStation, which marked a turning point in the games industry. As a teenager during the height of the PlayStation’s popularity, I got to grow up alongside it, and that made the 90s an incredibly exciting time to be into gaming. It wasn’t just the leap forward in technology — it was the culture that grew around these consoles that made the era feel magical.

The PlayStation launched against a backdrop of BritPop, lads mags and lager louts. For kids graduating from their Super Nintendos and Amigas, it was the perfect time to be a teenager. Everywhere you looked, this new youth culture was pushing its way to the front. It had a strong identity, and Sony slipped the PlayStation right into the middle of it.

The covers of Amiga Weekly no longer held the same appeal against FHM, Loaded and Maxim magazines. Mario and Sonic were replaced with titillating images and soft pornography which appealed directly to the brain of the teenage boy.

It was the beginning of a new era for me, and for culture in the UK more generally.

From the very beginning, Sony positioned the PlayStation as something completely different from the consoles that came before it. They were new to the market, which meant they could create an entirely fresh image for themselves without any baggage about what their brand represented.

The new technology was impressive. The move from cartridges to CDs — something Nintendo stubbornly held onto with the N64 — suddenly allowed for proper music, full-motion video and cinematic presentation in ways that older consoles simply couldn’t match. However, this wasn’t the angle that Sony leaned into with their marketing - they sold an aspirational lifestyle and capitalised on youth culture in particular.

The PlayStation was no longer just a toy for children — it was something that would fit into an adult lifestyle.

Sony avoided the traditional family-friendly marketing approach and targeted the 18–25 market directly. Their adverts were edgy, strange and often deliberately confusing. The fictional organisation “The Society Against PlayStation” reinforced the idea that the PlayStation belonged to a kind of counter-culture. Not something your Mum and Dad were supposed to understand.

Of course, all of this sounds very cool — but where did I fit into it?

I’m a 13-year-old boy playing an Amiga 600 in a bedroom of a semi-detached house in a working-class area of Middlesbrough. Sure, I listen to Oasis and read the odd magazine, but I didn’t actually live the lifestyle all of those adverts and magazines portrayed. It wasn’t even close! For me, the entire marketing campaign was a fantasy and having a PlayStation wasn’t suddenly going to turn me into one of the effortlessly cool people from the ads.

And I think for a lot of people my age, the reality was something much smaller and more ordinary. It wasn’t coming home from the pub and playing Ridge Racer at 2am — it was playing football with your mates in the park before heading home for a game of FIFA or International Superstar Soccer. It was staying up too late on a school night trying to beat a level, or wasting your Sunday afternoon in front of your parents’ old TV.

So where did the PlayStation actually fit into my life?

Initially - it was still the games that pulled me in. The PlayStation had the technical power to represent shift in what games could be. It was genuinely revolutionary.

When you’d grown up playing Sensible World of Soccer and you booted up FIFA 97 for the first time, it genuinely felt like the future had arrived. Suddenly there was real music, video, commentary from Des Lynham and real-time 3D graphics. It felt like the limitations had finally been lifted.

Looking back now the graphics and style feels blocky and primative, but this was truly revolutionary. Augmented with the imagination of a child - these games felt photo-realistic. How could this ever be improved on?

Iconic games like Wipeout perfectly captured the PlayStation’s identity. Its futuristic visuals and nightclub-inspired aesthetic felt completely different from Nintendo’s colourful mascots, while the soundtrack borrowed heavily from the electronic music scene exploding across the UK in the 90s.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater had a similar effect. For thousands of teenagers, it became a gateway into punk, ska, hip-hop and skateboarding culture. The soundtrack shaped the music tastes of an entire generation - myself included.

And if you needed proof that the PlayStation was no longer aimed purely at children, then a trip to Raccoon City in Resident Evil — or even an hour with Silent Hill — would quickly convince you. Just a few years earlier I’d refused to play Doom because I found its atmosphere too frightening. That game had nothing on Silent Hill.

The PlayStation also saw the birth of Grand Theft Auto. Although it looks primitive compared to today’s cinematic open-world games, it still managed to cause outrage and controversy at the time.

Games also became a form of escape. Friends talked about how Final Fantasy VIII helped them through their GCSEs. Games became a place to retreat to during some of the awkwardness and pressure of teenage life, and that mattered to millions of people.

At the same time, this was still an era before online gaming really took over. Local multiplayer still mattered, and having two controllers was almost essential. In fairness, this was one area where the N64 absolutely dominated — four-player GoldenEye and Diddy Kong Racing felt revolutionary at the time. Luckily, most friend groups had at least one person who’d backed the wrong horse and bought an N64.

There were also no hard drives or cloud saves. Load times could be painfully slow, and memory cards were absolutely essential. Official PlayStation memory cards could only hold a surprisingly small number of saves - and some games took up an entire card to themselves, so most of us ended up buying bigger third-party alternatives from local game shops.

And those game shops mattered too. Before Amazon and digital downloads, buying games was a much more physical experience. You’d browse shelves looking at box art, pick up magazines, stare at games you couldn’t afford and occasionally bump into friends doing exactly the same thing.

Unfortunately, the biggest problem with the PlayStation was the cost. Consoles were well over £100, games could cost up to £40, and against my £5-a-week pocket money, that simply wasn’t realistic. Even the later Platinum releases at £20 could feel expensive.

At times, it felt like playing the demo consoles in Toys R Us was the closest I was ever going to get to owning one myself.

But the growing popularity of home computers and CD burners suddenly made gaming far more accessible — even if it was through slightly morally questionable means. You were no longer tied to the free demo discs and the odd big-money purchase.

Most of the CD swapping at school focused on albums downloaded from Napster, but games became part of that culture too. Having your PlayStation “chipped” opened up an entire underground world of copied games and disc swapping. At least in my school, it was absolutely everywhere.

Everyone’s dad, uncle or older brother seemed to know someone who could chip your console for you. Once it was done, the console’s copy protection no longer worked, and suddenly games became affordable in a way they never officially were. Usually there was some bloke selling copied games for £10 each — eventually dropping to £5 — or someone willing to burn copies for you directly.

I still remember buying huge spindles of blank CDs and slowly watching them transform into stacks of games and albums over the following months. Most had names scribbled on in black marker pen, although every now and then one of your mates with a fancy CD printer would produce something with proper printed artwork.

All of those kids I went to school with are now in their 40s, many with children of their own.

We live in a very different world now. Digital downloads have replaced disc swapping and piracy, while gaming communities have largely moved online.

Nintendo still holds onto its family-friendly image and iconic franchises, but the battle between Sony and Microsoft continues to focus heavily on cinematic, mature gaming experiences. Series like Call of Duty, Gears of War, Uncharted and The Last of Us would have been almost unimaginable to kids who grew up with the Atari, Super Nintendo or Amiga.

People slightly older than us were often called the MTV generation, and in many ways we became the PlayStation generation. As I moved into college, university and adulthood, I eventually did start living parts of that lifestyle Sony had promised us in the 90s. Indie music, clubbing and early-2000s nightlife all carried traces of the same culture the PlayStation had tapped into years earlier.

And even now, we’ve never completely left any of it behind.

The attitudes, interests and experiences we had as teenagers still shape who we are as adults. Maybe that’s why nostalgia-driven content has become so popular online. Through emulation, YouTube and social media, we now get to revisit those moments and even pass small parts of them onto our own children.

And for many of us, the PlayStation sits right at the centre of those memories.