scaryblog

  It must have been about 1983 when I had the most homework - I was doing more O levels than was strictly necessary.  I'd have to say that even back then some of them didn't feel essential (my German vocabulary hasn't exactly proved useful in the intervening years) but I still liked to do my best and there was, at times, a lot of it.  Sunday night was "finish up the homework" night - we'd have dinner in the early evening and I'd retire to my room to get things sorted out and, completely coincidentally, also catch the end of the charts.  And I never, ever, ever imagined I wouldn't avidly listen to the charts for the rest of my life - deal with it, teenage me! After the charts finished, whichever faceless nonentity (that no-one really remembers these days)  was presenting it that week , whether it be Tommy Vance or Richard Skinner or Bruno Brookes would indulge in some idle banter with the follow-on DJ who was, without exception, Annie Nightingale.  And ...

In the summer of 1980, it's fair to say I didn't have any great idea what I wanted to do with my life.  Which was OK I guess - I was only 12, after all - but I was starting to think that maybe I should have some vague inkling.  I was doing fine academically, but I was at a school that I knew I was only going to be at for one more year before transferring out.  This made the usual minefield of friendships even trickier to navigate and I most definitely hadn't found "my crowd" - or was even clear that such a thing existed.   Then Mr Miles (probably the only teacher whose name I can remember from that school) announced he'd bought a ZX80 (retailing at £99.95, which was some money back in the day - but considerably cheaper than anything similar) and he was going to bring it in and start a computer club after school if anyone would be interested.  I'd heard of computers, but the idea of actually seeing one up close was impossible to resist, so I and a sizeable ...