I have a dream...

I’ve come to a conclusion. It’s taken me a while but I think I’ve done it.

You remember when you were at school, you had to go and see a careers advisor? Yeah, well I can recall I said something along the lines of wanting to be an archaeologist. I liked History and I used to be great at digging on the beach in Swanage or in my old back garden. A couple of big old holes were dug there with my brother and our cousin.

I was 14 and I had to decide what subjects I would choose to do at GCSE, excluding the compulsories like Maths, Science, English and French (Five years of French, you’d think I’d be fluent). So they made us speak to an “expert” about what we wanted to be when we grew up. A fireman, a footballer, a policeman, a tomato. Due to my career choice, I had to make the difficult verdict of picking Art over Drama (always fun) and Music (ex-choir boy and player of the guitar)

I was to painting and drawing what Stevie Wonder is to bird watching and Stephen Hawking to the 100m sprint.

Fast forward 2 years and I couldn’t give a hairy toss about archaeology. Sixteen, full of testosterone and a laissez faire attitude I pitched up at 6^th Form College more interested in forming a band and getting laid than digging a ditch in Wiltshire.

Another two years on and I was at Uni in Southampton with a particular pastime of seeing how much beer and tequila I could consume before blacking out or nearly getting arrested for re-enacting the ‘Going Out’ video by Supergrass in the bandstand in the park.

By the time I woke up and found myself working in a British Gas call centre, I’d almost certainly lost all interest in becoming an archaeologist, let alone the lawyer I had pretended I wanted to be when embarking on the law degree three years before.

So, 21, penniless, back home and no career prospects. Despite being 7 years older, I had no idea what I wanted to be. If by my early twenties I couldn’t decide my vocation, how on earth was I supposed to know in my early teens.

Thirteen years later, I think I’ve cracked it. Sat a desk, administering pensions, 34 years old, I may have had my road-to-Damascus moment.

I want to own a record shop.

That probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise to many of you who have read more than one of my blogs. The title of the blog is a big clue. My constant banging on about vinyl is a big hint.

There is a certain romance about opening your shop in the morning, the regular customers, the new releases, the smell of the vinyl, the useless employees. It’s all bit ‘High Fidelity’ at the moment. I’m John Cusack and I’ll employ my Jack Black and Todd Louiso. Although if Jack comes in with a mixtape that starts with “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves then he’s fired.

As much as generally have a misanthropic view of the world, surely there can’t be too many people coming in and asking for One Direction or the ilk. I could have a poster made telling them to sod off to HMV.

There will be no chart, but there will be a very specific new releases section. It is forever a bugbear of mine that some independent shops don’t have an area for new releases, probably a ploy to get you to peruse the stacks of vinyl, but sometimes you do just want that specific L.P released that week.  

Right now is the perfect time. Vinyl is in it’s renaissance, which may not last for that long, so the time to act is now. It’s still fairly niche, and that is unlikely to change unless the world abandons the digital revolution or there is a huge computer crash and we’re sent back into the dark ages when all we have is a wind-up gramophone. Therefore, only the discerning, vinyl obsessed nerd will come to my store. Basically, people like me. I will find my people. My kin.

I will get to live my favourite pastime. Listen to music and talk about music to people like me. We will argue and debate and have endless cups of tea and coffee and then close at 5.25, and run round to the pub, stick something great on the jukebox and chat more nonsense. Then get a kebab and go home and start the whole crazy merry-go-round again in the morning.

Well that’s the dream anyway. A fantasy. A film. A novel. Dreamt up, sat at my desk. Bored out of my tiny mind.