God is music

On a whim, I have decided to learn to play the violin. Well, it's not exactly on a whim. I wanted to do it when I was younger, but as my application to the Lyceum was to study piano, my mum got pretty annoyed when I announced that, actually, I wanted to learn violin.

After that, I pretty much ignored music. Before, it had been important. At my first school, we would listen to a different piece of classical music every day, and we had to be able to name a vast number of pieces. I listened to Mozart, Holst, Handel, even Beethoven when I wasn't trying to get to sleep.

I mean, it was all music that was designed to send me to sleep, but I did used to stay up and try to listen to it. Thankfully, cassette players (consult the history books if you're unsure what one is) used to finish each side with an enormous clunking noise, which usually woke me up if I was drifting.

Family tradition also dictated that we watch The Last Night of the Proms (on telly, naturally). We watched it religiously, planning ahead, inviting the neighbours around and all the rest of it. I thought it was brilliant.

Music left my life when I was about five or six. I'm not entirely sure why, but it did.

I still haven't got it back, but I'm trying, and it's a gradual process.

The one thing that really saved me, musically, was being forced to learn the recorder at the age of seven. This was at school, and they did it because recorders are cheap. I bought my own, because of the hideous bucket of spit-scented half-chewed recorders that got passed around each week. Words cannot describe how unhygienic that was.

For this reason, I hated the recorder, because, being disorganised, I often forgot my own, nice, wooden recorder, and had to borrow one of the disgusting plastic ones.

Time went on, though, and we were split into sets for music. This appealed to my already-strong notion that I was better than pretty much everyone around me, and when Recorder Club was created, solely for the elite, I was in my element.

I did, however, hate the instrument with a passion, and this was my downfall. I jumped when extra music lessons were offered, and left my recorder-playing days behind me in favour of learning the guitar.

In short, it didn't go well. Despite my disinclination to practise, I was better than everyone else, which was a good start. However, lessons were after school. My mum got a new job and was unable to pick me up after school. That appeared to be that.

I did, later join the school orchestra, though perhaps for all the wrong reasons. I joined because all members of the school orchestra were given a shiny red-and-gold badge saying ORCHESTRA, which was effectively a fast-track to the front of the lunch queue. Although practises were only twice a week, this came in useful on the other three days due to the magic phrase "extra orchestra practise".

To begin with, I joined my old Recorder Club chums, but I quickly came to realise that it wasn't for me. I became the orchestra's one-and-only percussionist, specialising in the glockenspiel. To this day I will get quite annoyed at anyone who calls it a xylophone.

However, that too fell by the wayside when I left primary school. I didn't even listen to music for my first two years at secondary school. I only started to because of homework.

My R.S. teacher (miserable witch- she hated me) told us to listen to the Black Eyed Peas' 'Where is the Love?'. Now, today, it sounds like patronising, meaningless faux-protesting, but I liked it. A lot of people did. It reminded me that music could mean something.

I started to buy CDs. I bought each copy of the Now series, I watched Top of the Pops, I listened to the radio. In the end I got into Green Day, which led me to the Ramones, and the Clash, and the realisation that the best music isn't necessarily what everyone else is listening to.

I started to play the guitar again, then the bass guitar, and the keyboard. I got really into music lessons at school- my teacher loved me to the point where he failed to reprimand me for punching another student in the face.

I elected to study music at GCSE. I watched The History Boys, and discovered The Smiths. I will never forget the day that my mother came home to find me listening to Morrissey. Maybe it was her disapproval that spurred me on, but I've never quite gotten over him.

I realised that not everyone can read music, or can write music for a whole variety of different instruments. I wasn't special, because I wasn't good at any of it, but I wasn't completely useless.

At Cheltenham, I didn't play music, partly because I didn't have time, but also because there was so much emphasis on being good. It's not my way. I'm clever, yes, but I'm not a mathematical prodigy. I can also write creatively, draw an adequate representation of someone's face, speak a multitude of languages to tourist level. I know that there are 88 constellations, and I can tell you the names of a fair few of them, as well as their brightest stars. I can't touch-type, but I know how to run an Excel spreadsheet.

It's not arrogance to say that if there's one thing I do well, it's everything.

So, coming home, I did what I should have done a long time before. I got myself a proper instrument. I've had the violin for about 24 hours now. She's not brilliant, but neither am I. It's something we have in common. I hope I do outgrow her. Then I can take up something else.

I've wasted a few years, but it's not the end of the world. I have relative pitch, which means I don't have to stick stickers on my violin to know where to put my fingers. I can play a major scale without giving anyone a brain haemorrhage. The cat even slept though my playing.

I'm reclaiming music.

Name That Cat

I just thought of an idea for a new game show, because I just realised that, even if I wanted to go to bed, I couldn't, because my bed has been taken over by a skinny tomcat called... well, that's just it. My cat doesn't have a name.

It's pretty much up to whoever's in the house to give him whatever name they want. So far, in alphabetical order, he's been called Bob, Bobby, Bobs, Cat, Cath, Chat, Mao, Robbo, Robert, Roberto, Robs and Socks. We haven't even had him three months.

At the moment, my least favourite is Socks, followed closely by Bobs. Up until recently, I pretty much called him Robbo, but the latest guest in our house started calling him Mao and it's kind of got stuck for me. Seeing as I mew at him anyway, to irritate him or something. How do you irritate a cat? It's difficult.

Anyway, any new ideas, send them to me.

I handled a puppy today. Probably not the best idea for someone who sees a dog and instantly wants to kill it, but it had escaped its house, and the owner was obviously struggling to get it back inside. I don't think the owner would have been keen if I'd let it run or just strangled it while I had the chance.

It surprised me how trusting it was. It felt really weird.

It's probably not dogs I hate; it's dog people. The people who think dogs have anywhere near as much value as humans. Well, they can lower themselves to that level, but they mustn't be surprised when I refuse to join them.

Then there's the people who let their dogs defecate in public spaces, and then don't clear it up.I'm sorry! Do these scum think the world owes them something? Do they think it's okay for them to leave actual faeces lying about in the sun for flies to breed in and spread disease? Or for small children to fall over in? (Actually, that's quite funny, so long as you don't have to clean the child in question.)

Next time you see one of these worthless, inconsiderate, expendable wastes of human flesh, tell them that they've dropped something. Do it for me, before I have an aneurysm.

Now it's time for the reviews. I've been revisiting a couple of things in the past few days.

First up, it was The Young Ones. 28 years on, it's still got a certain quality to it. It's a violent-slapstick, alternative comedy look at the nuclear family. Vyvyan will always be one of my favourite comedy characters. Unnecessary violence, the ability to eat everything and short bursts of incredible lucidity and possibly even genius (well, he is a medical student) make him absolutely brilliant. Also, everyone knows a Rick, the revolutionary who thinks Che Guevara is a Mexican restaurant.

I think I'm more of a Neil myself. He's calm, passive, keeps the place neat and tidy. He's the mother figure. That's just me all over. I'm well into peace and love and lentils and the rest of it.

I hate Mike, because he's pointless. He's supposed to be cool, and respected, but he's more of a loser than the rest of them. Aside from Mike, the other bad points were the talking scenery, which I don't think works anymore, and the dwarf in the episode 'Boring'. Dwarves just aren't funny, especially not when they're painted. In fact, they're rarely not.

Though, aside from the mindless violence and cute destruction of even the fourth wall, there is one last redeeming feature: the music. We need music back in sitcoms. Hell, we need Madness back in sitcoms, and not just doing adverts on GOLD. The Young Ones gets 4 stars.

I also re-watched Sherlock Holmes, the Guy Ritchie film. That took me by surprise, because I didn't like it. Everything I loved about that film, it turns out, is just Arthur Conan Doyle, and okay, a nice bit of bromance. There's my point though: get lost, Irene Adler! Mary's not much better, but at least she knows her place. It's not her fault she's just not pretty.

I think the issue Ritchie was always going to have was making a good film without gratuitous swearing or violence. That's what made Lock, Stock so brilliant: in particular, a joke involving the c-word that I won't repeat here.

Oh, it's clever. But nowhere near enough, not after seeing the BBC adaptation, not after reading the books and knowing what can be done. I think the trouble was, I hated the bad guy. Really, you've got to love the bad guy, and hate yourself for it. Blackwood was ugly, and we never saw enough of Moriarty.

Now, Moriarty was something the BBC did oh so well. That line, "Westwood." It just gets me. The film though, 3 stars, though I await the sequel with interest.

Oh, what else? Ah yes. Come Dine With Me. The narrator's mellowing, as are the guests. Bring back the bitching! This week, someone nearly vommed listening to an anecdote about phlegm, and someone else was made to cry. It's not enough! Daggers out, please! Two stars.

Oh, arsehole of the week: bloke who bought the violin I was trying to buy at a flea market for £12 and refused to sell it to me for any less than £30. May everyone urinate haphazardly on his shallow grave.