"And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on a carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In The Circle Game"

I am a hoarder. Maybe you already knew this, maybe you didn't. At any rate you do now. I keep tickets from events whether they are train tickets or the actual tickets, beer mats that I've had so long I've forgotten the pub they were originally from, random leaflets I've picked up because they had a slight connection to something, things I've printed out and then forgot I had and random bits of paper - some of which I want to keep and some of which I probably should have thrown away a long time ago.

Last week I had to go home to work. Whilst I was at home I was informed that I needed to have a huge clear out of the area under my bed. My bed is one of those high ones that is clearly trying to be a bunk bed but falls just short of it because it is only one bed and hence there is a LOT of storage space underneath. In fact, practically my whole life from the nineties is under there, if only in the hundreds of music magazines that litter the area. I had to be ruthless, I knew if I looked at anything too closely, nothing would get thrown out. So I threw 99% of it out. All my magazines went in the bin, though I think it was easier because I know that years ago I had already pulled out anything that I wanted from them. And all that stuff is amongst other crap in a huge box, also under the bed, that I was refusing to sort out yet.
Whilst sorting stuff out I found a lined piece of paper, clearly torn out of a notebook. And then I realised what it was. It was the piece of paper that I had shoved into James, Pete and Paris's hand to sign at Covent Garden. Can I just stress I only gave Paris the piece of paper so I could tell him his shirt was horrid. Covent Garden was, technically, the first time I met James and I didn't like him then. It was the second time I met Griffin and the second time I'd managed to not avoid the Fame Academy cameras. Needless to say, I decided to put this piece of paper in the 'keep' pile. I also found the flyer from Swindon that Griffin signed, spelt my name wrong but put 'love Ali'. Clearing out stuff is rather boring, most of it really is crap, and you only find the odd thing that makes you smile and you want to keep. Of course the BBC's listen again is a wonderful thing and the Breakfast Show kept me entertained for the four hours it took. With added entertainment when they gave their seven twenty time check and completely confused my mum who had just walked in and thought I was listening to live radio.

The reason I was made to clear out my room at home was so I could bring all the crap from Birmingham and put it in my room at home. Yep, in the space that has now been cleared. Except I don't just hoard in London, I hoard in Birmingham too, which means more stuff I forgot I had. I seem to have brought all my stuff from last summer up here too, I'm not sure I really know why. I found about ten programmes of various Broadway shows, Shakespeare plays, the Cliff Richard Tennis Classic* and Soccer Six @ West Ham last year complete with a blank middle page, blank except for the scrawled autographs of Chris Moyles and Comedy Dave. I also found numerous - and I mean numerous, there must be about twenty!- flyers from Some Sort of Beautiful, as well as the programme, signed by Corinne. Albeit without the 'Quartet is shit' comment.

I also found my yearbook and little notebook with messages in from camp. It is weird. Karaoke and Womble already left for America to stay at Joey's for a few days before camp. I can't believe it's been a year already and it's weird to not be going back to the madness that is Camp Hoffman. At least I can send random stuff -and British chocolate-out there, but it is still weird to know everyone's at camp. I miss them all a lot. But over here I get to watch the World Cup. And graduate. Though that's scary. I'd rather watch the World Cup.

On that note, I guess I should get back to filling the second trash bag with stuff that I don't need. Over and out.


*We went to see Griffin and spent most of the rest of the time in the bar.**
**We also established that Corinne and Gayle should go on X Factor.