Aural Memory Trigger

While walking to work this morning, my generic MP3 player on shuffle threw up Champagne Supernova. As those initial soundwaves were lapping at my ears, I reached into my pocket to skip to the next song - I suffer from the same Oasis fatigue that afflicts anyone who liked their music in the mid to late nineties - but stopped myself and listened on. If there is one song that reminds me of being about 17, this is it - I quite clearly remember it drifting out of the radio in the sixth form common room, and selecting it from the pub jukebox on under-age drinking sessions. The child is father of the man, as Wordsworth put it, and I think I'm only just starting to understand what he meant.

17, decent grades, so what next? I followed the path of least resistance to an engineering degree, even though after the first week I decided that I didn't want to be an engineer. But, following the path of least resistance, I stuck with it. At the end, I applied for a few jobs, only got offered one - doing commercial work for an oil company - so I took it. 5 years later, I end up back doing engineering with the same company (the office work was sooo vacuous - I mean, Dilbert reads like my old diary). And I quite like it, apart from the fact that all I really achieve is making some fat Americans a lot of money who would squeeze small children if they thought oil would come out.

Actually, maybe they do. Olive oil comes from olives. Sunflower oil comes from sunflower seeds. Baby oil?

I digress. Dearest readers, lovely readers, please don't mistake my following the path of least resistance as laziness - rather, I am where I am through indecision & lack of any kind of clear direction. The decisions, or rather, non decisions made listening to Gallagher snarling in that common room have led blindly me to this John Cusack hitman-with-a-conscience mindset.

I just hope that Minnie Driver isn't my answer. I bet she can crush walnuts with that jaw (which is probably how they make nut oil....)