Happy Hour
2002-06-16 || 1:04 p.m.

Hey! I think I need this diary more than this diary needs me,

I've been feeling a bit strange since that last attempt at a cathartic diary entry. You know what I feel most bad about - the fact that it all marked me out as odd, as an outsider. How could I ever be the same as everyone else? I know that's a sweeping generalisation and there is no such standard of normality but you have to realise that I was brought up in a nice middle class area. My parents and all the parents of my friends had mostly professional jobs. We lived in a nice house. We went on holiday abroad. Most people's parents voted Conservative. I went to Brownies and Guides. To church on a Sunday. I went away in the summer holidays and stayed in boarding schools. But I was never really there.

What happened to me with that man was just one more pointer that I was not the same as all the rest.

I've just been listening to the first Housemartins album in the kitchen. What I like about the Housemartins is their combination of a biting social message with soulful music. My dad once accused me of having very narrow musical tastes but I don't think he was right. I have loads of stuff in my music collection. Stuff that others would probably be surprised I own. Yes, I have lots of punk - things that are not just the mainstream. Yes I have the usual grungy stuff - Nirvana, Pixies etc. Lots of Manchester - Happy Mondays, Soupdragons, James, the Farm etc. Rebellious Irish stuff, the Pogues, rebel songs, the Wolftones. But I also have Northern Soul, Blues, Motown - things like the Four Tops which, incidentally, I got into through Billy Bragg. And classical too.

Two of my favourite bands a few years back were Midnight Oil and Hunters and Collectors. Like the Housemartins they are Christian bands but they're the sort of Christianity that I greatly admire. Real Socialist Christians, like the Bishop of Durham, who, in the 80's was my favourite NME contributor. I remember him once saying that he would be surprised if Conservative voters got into heaven!

There's just so much to life. You can never be sure of anything. Nothing and nobody are what they seem. This is why I hate to label the children I teach. This is why I hate to test them. I hate to assign them a level. I feel like I have all these shimmering multi-dimensional souls in my care that I am trying to flatten and make 2-D. And I hate that.