It crept up on me so slowly that I didn’t even notice. It began with minced beef. I went through a phase (when I was living on my own I must add) of eating spaghetti bolognese all the time until I decided that I just didn’t like minced beef any longer. It was not long after then while eating a steak that I realised I in fact didn’t like beef at all any more. Then my girlfriend started on this diet that included eating a lot of Quorn. For those of you who don’t know, Quorn is made from mycoprotein, which is a member of the fungi family (like mushrooms and athlete’s foot). It comes in a variety of formats to mimic meat products such as mince, chicken-style chunks, cottage pies, bacon and myriad other things.

Anyway, she started feeding me Quorn and much to my own surprise I liked it. In fact I liked Quorn mince a hell of a lot more than beef mince. I even love their cottage pies. I draw the line at their attempt at chicken breasts as they taste – for want of a better word – terrible. So when my girlfriend was working away I’d wander around the supermarket, think to myself “I could use some sausages”, and then find myself buying the Quorn ones instead of anything else. When I wanted a quick, microwave meal I’d buy Quorn cottage pies. Like I said, it crept up on me slowly. It was a long time before I realised that in fact the only meat I ate any more was in sandwiches at lunch and chicken when I’d get a curry from my local.

Let’s rewind a bit. I know quite a few vegetarians. I even know a couple of vegans. I’ve nothing against either. I could understand why people would go vegetarian (no idea about vegans though – anybody care to enlighten me?) but I just didn’t think it was me. Besides, with all the exercise I did I was doubtful that I’d have any energy without regularly eating something that used to walk, slither or crawl. In short, I never seriously considered it for myself.

But return to the present. I’ve spent the last year or so barely eating meat and with no ill effects. More energy than ever. So last week I decided, what the hell, I’ll stop eating meat altogether for a month and see how I get on (my local curry house does vegetarian alternatives that are excellent). So if I like it, I’ll stick with it. Of course, the first thing my girlfriend (eh, I mean fiance) did was buy some ham for my sandwiches (she never listens to me!). So with that out of the way I started again. So far I can still stand and don’t feel like all the blood’s been drained from my body. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I don’t know that I’ve really mentioned it here but I love films. I enjoy nothing more than watching a film that makes me think. Or makes me laugh. Or makes me cry (very rare). I particularly like looking beyond a film and delving a little more into what was going through the director’s mind as they were making it – looking at the choice of shots, scenes and just your basic cinematography. But what I love most of all is talking to other similarly minded people about films. And that brings me on to my friend Ian.

Ian Jackson was a guy I met when I worked as a consultant way back when. He was a fellow developer (although on the Java side whereas I was on the Microsoft side). I can honestly say that I had never laughed as much in my life up until that time. His quick and sharp wit along with his ability to prattle on and on trying to put me off while playing table football still makes me laugh now when I think back to it. He liked to call himself the People’s Champion you see, because you can never beat the People’s Champion – he’s always the moral victor! Fun days. Anyway, I left the company and eventually so did he but we stayed in touch.

Then I heard that he’d decided to have a bit of a career change. He’d had enough of the evil IT world and wanted to follow his dream. He wanted to be a film director. He started by doing it in his spare time, getting himself involved in film clubs and the like. But decided to do it full time as there just aren’t enough hours in the day! I’d never even realised that he was a film fan (otherwise I’d have spent many an hour talking about films, as I’ve done since). Anyway, I eventually got to see some of his work and couldn’t believe how good it was. I’d expected to be watching it thinking “hey, Ian did this, cool” but instead found myself just watching it and not thinking outside the film at all – which must be a good sign. Having seen his more recent work I’ve been even more impressed. (Although Ian, go and put Henry up on the site, I’ve not seen that one and I love cats).

Anyway, I’ll not go on like I usually do but just point you at his site so you can have a look for yourself at his work. All I really wanted to say is that I have maximum admiration for taking a relatively safe career and dropping it in search of what he really wants to do. It takes balls. And when he becomes Mr. Big Shot Celebrity and goes to fancy Hollywood parties, will I be pestering him for invitations? You better believe it.

So take a look at www.ianjacksonfilms.com for yourself.

Tim Booth put it best in the James song Come Home from the seminal album Gold Mother:

“After 30 years I’ve become my fears, I’ve become the kind of man I’ve always hated”.

Let me also quote this very site, written in March 2003:

“And before you ask, no. I won’t turn this into a John buying his house and going to DIY superstores weblog. I hate that sort of thing.”

Ha! What a liar I am! So I bought a house last year and it’s taken a while but I’ve finally turned into the sad sort of person I used to look down with scorn at. I’d be driving on my way to some adrenaline-packed weekend away biking or something and notice all these 30-something, overweight and out-of-shape guys dressing like teenagers, driving estate cars, maybe a few kids in tow, accompanied by the wife and on their way to a DIY superstore to look at paint, or power tools, or plants, or wallpaper, or garden furniture, or all of the above. I’d shake my head and drive on to continue my exciting life while they got on with their boring, tedious existence including washing their cars on a Sunday morning before walking the dog. I hated them.

And I’m starting to become one of them. I must point out that I’m still in excellent shape however (all washboard, no twin-tub). For example I spent one weekend single-handedly redecorating the lounge and dining room. I just spent the last weekend with my good lady doing gardening! If you’ve known me for years you’ll be particularly surprised to hear that (to be fair, it didn’t involve planting anything, only digging things up). I’ve been in here over six months and I love the place. I really do feel different about actually owning my own house. I’ve become the housewife who nags about keeping the place clean and tidy. So I’ve been asking myself what happened and where did it all go wrong?

But to justify this behaviour I’ve realised that it’s just an extension of what I’ve always been like. It used to be mountain bikes – all the shiny kit, keeping it clean, upgrading to newer, better and lighter components. Then it was cars – faster, noisier, redder, then more refined, more hi-tech and then faster again. Now it’s my [our] house – so what can I (okay, we) do to that? We can customise it by painting it nice colours that we like. We can keep it clean and tidy. We can buy fancy fixtures and fittings, hi-tech electronic equipment and more hi-tech electronic equipment. And we can make the garden a great place to have a barbeque. In a nutshell I haven’t changed. At least I don’t think I have – I’ve just changed scenes.

Oh, did I mention that we got engaged? No? Oh, we got engaged. I proposed when we were in New Zealand but she wouldn’t make it official until I got her a ring – lots of money later and it’s official. Job done.