I discovered Morcheeba in… 1998… ish. Their song, Let me see, featured in that TV programme, Cold Feet, a major hit at the time.

Here’s a digression. That particular series was very “in” at the time with people my age group – late 20s – who were sort of professionals. It was particularly nice because it was set in Manchester and it made Manchester look good. And then came the property asylum seekers from London, but that’s another story.

Anyway the telly programme featured lots and lots of contemporary music. There were even Cold Feet compilations that you could buy on CD, compilations that featured all the music that appeared in the programme.

I LOVED this programme and was so thrilled when the DVD box set was released that I didn’t mind spending quite a lot of money to buy it. I remember receiving it and settling down to watch all those wonderful moments again. Within a few minutes I noticed that something strange had happened, the music had been stripped out and replaced by some generic studio crap that bore no reflection that which had appeared in the transmitted programme. I couldn’t watch beyond the first episode of that DVD collection and was pretty annoyed. How could they market a whole load of CD compilation albums of music “based on the TV series” then take all those tracks out of the DVD?

Because they’re a bunch of fucking arseholes, that’s why.

The same happened with Titty Bang Bang.

Anyway, back to Morcheeba. Their music was wonderful company for me when I was living alone in my flat in Sheffield from 1999 to 2001. It was a time when I was still actually enthusiastic about music; I sought out new stuff, knew what was what, talked about the intricacies of particular tracks and the flow of albums. I had a tape in my car: Big Calm on one side, Becoming X on the other. It played on loop for 18 months.

Then things happened and music became too associated with life events; I had to let it go.

One thing that I’ve never let go is my inability to get dressed unless a particular pattern is followed. I just tried to put on bed t-shirt right arm first and my head ended up coming out through the arm hole. I can’t put trousers on unless I have my socks on and then, I have to put my left sock on first – same goes for shoes. If I start with my right sock, I find myself pausing to analyse what has happened and deliberate whether I need to remove the sock and start again. It takes superhuman effort to tie my laces. It often takes two or three attempts to button up a shirt or cardigan and doing up the buttons on the cuffs of sleeves just doesn’t happen without the help of a third party.

I do remember my childhood, all of it, but I must’ve been off from school the day they had the “getting dressed” lesson. Maybe the cosmos is just trying to tell me to wear pull on-trousers, a vest and slippers.