Playing up

Here it is upon us again. New Year's Eve. That went fast didn't it?

Rather than feeling daunted, I find I am quite addicted to the hopefulness of setting goals - something many of you will no doubt be torturing yourselves with today. Why must we make it such an ordeal?

Last year's resolution was to 'be crafty'. I'm sat here now, one year later, guiltily glancing at the Make Your Own Pompoms set that still lies untouched in a Bloomindales bag on the floor - well, at least they have enjoyed a chic 12 months.

I don't know about you, but I don't really have the imagination to be imaginative. I need a tour guide. It was the hardy estate-agent-cum-craftswoman, Kirstie Allsopp, who guided me into the world of pompom crafts. I couldn't have done it alone.

Despite this handicap I think it important, really important, that we let our creativity run free every once in a while - even those of us aren't quite gifted enough to create without a kit. Or without copying someone else. I love copying. I did it religiously as a child and I do it still. But what's wrong with that? All I'm doing is flexing a muscle. And while that muscle gets some exercise, the others in my brain can switch off. With this in mind I think my plan for 2015 will be, simply, To Play. 

We forget to play as we become adults. It's not our fault - we don't have the time when there are so many more pressing, important and boring things to attend to. Things that absorb all of our time and head space. But this is exactly why remembering how to play is so important.

Remember the invigoration that came from childhood play? The total abandon. The thrill at discovery. This is the stuff that keeps us going. Helps to fill the hole that creeps open as we age and the fun sort of dries up, becomes very much expected.

Of course, there are those humans for whom surprise is their raison d'etre. The kind that throw themselves at challenges in far flung locations, like white water rafting in places that have... I don't know... white water? Those who do something noble like volunteering in Africa.

But for the less adventurous and admittedly more lazier and, well, timid of us - there is play. Good old-fashioned messing about. MFI springs to mind. Yes, the furniture store. I've never visited an MFI as an adult, but as a child - oh! The fun my sister and I had! Allowed to roam free around the store as my parents browsed kitchen units stressfully. We acted out mini melodramas in secluded kitchens. Hid from the adults in bedroom wardrobes. Fondled the pretend fruit. Bounced on the beds when no-one was looking. Pretended to be pretend home furniture. It was such a treat, going to MFI. It is within the walls of this store only that I have imagined being a housewife.

Whenever life gets tough, or incredibly dull, I think back to those gentle MFI adventures. Go and hide in the bedroom for a while, behind the door. Play out a little story in my head.

Play must lurk like this in my subconscious somewhere, because without me even realising what I was doing for Christmas this year I got my boyfriend stuff that will enable him to make his own watch. Luckily, he does actually want to make his own watch. Now.

There he is in the corner, soldering wires together. Having a blast. Bigger projects are already emerging - a torch. More ambitiously, a light up table. Who knows where his imagination will take him.

And that's the point isn't it - why not wake up your inner child next year? Play up - you deserve it.

Too old for gigs

I did something I haven't done in a long, long time on Friday. I went to a gig. (For a second there, I was tempted to call it a concert.)

I don't know about you, but I've certainly noticed that I have a changing relationship with music the older I get. When I was younger, music was everything. I was totally consumed by it. I defined myself through it - I don't know how I'd have got to be the person I am today without music in my life. I'm not talking about actually making music here - I'm much too lazy for that, even as my younger more energised self. Just listening was enough.

But then you grow up. You work out who you are (ish), come to some kind of resolution. You find yourself settled, stabilised. And in this new, more adult existence, music isn't so central - in fact, it's veritably on the sidelines. Relegated to muzak. Something that gets rolled out only when it's needed, for grown-up social occasions, times when you need to make an impression. Impress on others - and yourself - that you've still got it. I suppose it's maybe easier if you have children - you can live through their music, press them for trendy bands in an emergency. No longer is music the provider of heady relief as it was in your youth. Well, not for me at least.

And it makes me feel very sad. I've still got the tinnitus at least but I mourn those days, that me. I would lie in bed into the small hours with a pair of headphones plugged into my (much-loved) hi-system. It had a multiple CD selector system, so I could load it up with 5 albums, pre-set which tracks I wanted to listen to, and just lay back in the dark and live out a life in my head to these very personal soundtracks.

When it was time for me to go to work (humph) I always had my portable radio with me for the bus rides. Then my cassette player. Then my (wholly unreliable) Sony disc-man. Before long (although a lot later than the rest of the world, I'm stubborn with technology) the iPod made it's way into my life - and has never left, still getting me through my daily commute.

It was all so much effort back then. But it never felt like it. I was at gigs all the time, sometimes more than once a week. And on weeknights. It meant I spent a large chunk of my life holed up inside a massive concrete dive of a building - split over three floors, the old Carling Academy in Birmingham's Dale End (the street even sounds seedy) looked and felt very much like the multi-storey car park opposite, but that was all part of its charm. Many a happy hot, sticky evening has been spent in that dark cave (sadly now closed), and there will always be a special place in my heart devoted to its memory. I've kept all my old gig tickets, pointlessly. I absolutely cannot throw them out.

All the things that would prevent you from actually going to a gig now were not a problem then;  standing for hours, holding your coat, not being able to see anything, sticky floors, pushy people, too loud, too hot, too late. Of course you occasionally toy with the idea, now, of going to see a band when one you really, really, definitely like comes on tour...but you know deep down you're never really going to go. You tentatively suggest it to friends regardless, pretending to yourself, but you know what response is coming - exactly the same thing you'd say if they had suggested it to you. Hmmm, it's a bit expensive, especially with the booking fee too. Oh, it's on a Thursday night?!

But although the flame is somewhat diminished, I hope it never dies out. Recent gig attendance would suggest not. By the way, if you haven't heard of Lucius you should check them out (I've done some of the work there for you, you're welcome). They are amazing. But what made you go to see them, I hear you ask? The clincher - it was on a Friday. That's an acceptable non-school night. And it was in Liverpool - who'd turn down an excuse to visit Liverpool?