On the delights of 104 bubble-wrapped M&Ms, younger girlfriends, and Blue Peter poetry competitions

There was a very interesting article in "The London Paper" yesterday, all about squatting. It's becoming common again, after having declined in recent years, especially among young single people. It's no surprise, given the insane price of property and the amount of empty space in London. I feel rather attracted to squatting. It's not much of an option if you want a stable family life for your kids - you can get evicted at very short notice - but it's very counter-cultural, sticks two fingers up at the twats that buy property and leave it empty, and does a lot to undermine the injustices of hardcore property capitlism. The article almost amounted to a how-to guide! It's only a civil matter in England and Wales, so you can do it without any risk of imprisonment, and it's pretty difficult for property owners to evict you without going through time-consuming legal channels. Unfortunately for us, with future plans, it's a criminal offence in Scotland, which rules it out as a viable option for me, so there you are. This seems to be an isolated example of Scots law being less fair and progressive than English law - it's usually the other way around. Scotland has much more enlightened views on access to land and trespass, for example.

I'm currently reading a book that Abby bought recently - it's called "My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary". It's the genuine, no-holds-barred 1989 diary of Rae Earl, who was 17 when she kept it. Therefore she's only two years older than me, and it's quite uncanny reading, as it's very similar to my own experience. She mentions all the same pop-culture things that I was into, and has music taste rather like mine (she was well into The Smiths). Unfortunately, I can't really compare notes. I was an avid diarist myself at the time, but I no longer have any of them. When I was about 18 or 19, I got rid of them all, pretty much because in a pious and zealous religious moment, I got embarassed and ashamed about what I was like. So silly, because I don't think I was radically different from any other teenager of the era - I was just good at making myself feel bad. It's a pain, because my memory is absolute shite and I struggle to recall things that were quite significant. Although to be honest...my diaries consisted of endless whining about my persistent lack of success with women. Well, in a one-sided way. When I became a Christian at the age of 15-and-a-bit in 1990, I might not have got anywhere romantically, but I did make loads of female friends, many of whom I still have (I got a letter from Anne-Marie just today, which was cool).

Romantically, I got nowhere until I was 19, and started going out with a girl called Lucy. This was a very short and slightly farcical relationship that taught me a lot of things about young love, including...

• If you're 19, and your girlfriend is 15, it causes a lot of raised eyebrows, and everyone assumes you're shagging, even when you're not. Which I wasn't.
• Going out with someone just because she obviously fancies you and likes similar music is not a good foundation for a solid, long-lasting relationship. It takes a bit more than that. Well, a lot more.
• If you have liberal parents who let you come and go as you please, going out with someone who has to live under a draconian curfew is no fun at all.
• It's bloody annoying when your girlfriend is very well-behaved, but her idiot parents are convinced she's on drugs or something.
• It's even more annoying when said parents assume you are a horrifically bad influence on their precious daughter...
• ...but extremely funny when said parents show you a video of your girlfriend when she was on Blue Peter when she was eight, reading a poem about pigs and nervously picking at a scab on her knee.

Anyway, it all got a bit much in the end and I finished it after four months, although the novelty wore off a bit more quickly. Not much happened romance-wise until I met Abby a couple of years later. The rest is, as they say, history. :)

Well, there you go - that teenage diary has made me all nostalgic. I often wish I could live certain bits of my youth again, mainly because I was far too square when I was younger. I'd also like to act a little differently towards Lisa, the girl I had a hopeless crush on for about four years. She was remarkably patient with me, and surprisingly nice as well, given how I just constantly badgered her for romance she clearly didn't wish to supply. We did manage some semblance of friendship for a while, though, and it was nice. One of the last conversations we had - in a crappy hotel room in Germany on the last day of a school trip - involved her telling me that I didn't really know her at all, and this was right. I idolised what I thought she was like - she might have been pretty horrible for all I know, but there was enough exotic beauty about her to keep me hanging on for ages. If I could change one thing about my teenage years, it would have been acting a bit more normal towards her. I worry that, all these years later, she probably thinks I'm (a) bit of a loser and (b) a slightly deranged stalker, and I'd like to show her that I'm neither. I've no idea where she is or what she's doing - teh intarwebz seem very quiet on that one, which in my more paranoid moments makes me think that she's deliberately maintaining internet silence to avoid me tracking her down. That's very unlikely, I suspect.

Anyway, Lisa - if you're reading this - look at how normal I've turned out! I've managed to get a proper woman and everything! And I've got a job and a family! Look at me! I'm not in jail or anything!

Although it's perhaps slightly creepy that I can still remember her teenage phone number, but can't remember my current work phone number.

Back to the teenage diary book - although it's real and not a work of fiction, it's uncannily like reading Adrian Mole, which goes to show just how amazingly spot-on Sue Townsend was when she wrote it. Funny that the definitive teenage diary was written by a middle-aged woman. Of course, Adrian Mole has a plot that moves along in a conventional style, with action building up through the books. In Rae Earl's reality, things are a bit more haphazard and random. I'm not convinced she was a particularly special teenage diarist - but then neither was I. I can pretend that I was amazing, though, because I no longer have evidence that might be contradictory.

In other news, Rebecca, Darnell and Mohammed are up for eviction from Big Brother on Friday. Abby and I have entered into a double suicide pact if Rebecca gets evicted. If it happens, can you (a) suggest what method we should adopt to kill ourselves, and (b) will someone please look after the children and the fish?