22 Dreams

Paul Weller, live at the Metro, Sydney, Oct 2010 1986 was the year my love of a certain songwriter-musician flew into high gear.  I was 16 years old in May 1986 when my sister bought me Paolo Hewitt's The Jam: a beat concerto .  I was immediately captivated with this biography: the photos, the story, the easy-to-read though poetic and incisive style of writing, and ultimately, Paul Weller.  I became a huge Jam fan, totally obsessed, and in varying degrees I remain so to this day. Here was a man who seemed to grow up with similar experiences to I and who looked so good and wrote such magnificent songs, who had such power and force of expression, and an acutely good musical ear.  Paul Weller, along with John Lennon, was my man. I never dreamt I would see Paul Weller perform live.  By 1986 the Jam were dead and the Style Council were moving into making album statements away from live performance; it had been the Council's tour of Australia in 1985 that awake...

I’ve gotten back into swimming.  I haven’t been out swimming for a long time; suffice to say that I took it up semi-seriously in 1989/90.  I was never a particularly good swimmer, I’m still not, and I came late to learn to swim for my childhood fear of the water.  This in itself is  unusual given that I grew up in the Eastern Suburbs where the swimming culture runs ramp in the collective blood of its residents.  Besides, I'm a Pisces.   I finally got the hang of swimming by age 11, albeit tentatively.  At then, at 19, I decided to get fit and do laps at UNSW pool. Twenty unbelievably quick years on and here I am, back in the Uni pool with a seeming vengeance to swim like a warrior with a mission, and as often as I can.  I’ve been back to the pool sporadically during the intervening years but never to any pervading purpose or plan.  There was an awkward period of a few years when the acquatic centre was being totally refurbish...