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2005-10-10 - 3:50 p.m.

I was at my parents� house all weekend in the town where I was born. The first thing I noticed was the new sparkly bus station, as if people needed any more incentive to try and get away. A huge flapping lying banner lay across the front, with the words writ large: �Lancashire: A place where everyone matters�. Actually, that�s true, unless you�re black, gay, a woman, have any kind of ambition, dare to leave the place or support the wrong rugby league team. But apart from that, it�s pretty inclusive.

Case in point: I was at a party on Sunday, and the father of a friend of a friend was holding forth on the football that weekend, and chose to refer to one of the most famous players in the country not by his name, but as �that little darkie�, before going onto make some incomprehensible comment including the phrase �hot chocolate� � this from a leading figure of our local, loving catholic church. Ah, casual racism, how I�ve not missed you.

My main mission was to raid the attic and relieve my parents of my old junk � i.e. strip the place bare whilst my brother is out of the country and whack it all on e-bay. The more I searched, though, the more I saw that there wasn�t a fortune in waiting, my mum having tossed away my Star Wars figures collection �ages ago � I think I gave them to the Spastics� and the hundred or so Dinky cars showing a few too many signs of my destructive temperament as a three year old.

Going through the boxes was like an archaeological dig that showed up the random strata of my childhood obsessions. The toy cars, the toy soldiers, the library that complemented my membership of the Young Ornithologists Club (I was seduced by the thought of making a citizen�s arrest on someone that I would catch stealing Peregrine Falcon eggs), the football annuals, and, perhaps somewhat worryingly for an altar boy of several years, my immense collection of trashy novels about young girls who became the unwilling victims of demonic possession.

They all have great titles like �The Child Is Mine� and �Mine to Kill� and are written by authors who have an X for their middle initial. Reading the back covers, the plots do seem equally heavy on the sexual awakening of said possessed young girls, though I�m sure I was just interested in the spiritual torment that they each went through. The books were always based on a �true� story, which reinforced their integrity, I feel. Amazing how many lustful convulsions took place in the shower in those true stories, but you have to stick to the facts.

I intend to re-read them, just to make sure that I am still on the side of spiritual redemption despite my lapsed faith. I�m guessing I will be.

No e-bay millions to be made, though. I didn�t even dare to ask what had happened to my scale model Millennium Falcon.

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