I don't think I've ever forgiven myself for not getting into Hogwarts. I know probably every eleven year-old child who had read Harry Potter desperately wanted to go there, but I always felt that I wanted it that little bit more. While I was quiet and polite, and excelled in my work, for the most part I hated middle school; I know I must have enjoyed it sometimes, but I've always been better at remembering the bad parts of anything. As much time was spent daydreaming a million dramatic showdowns where I got up and shouted at my teacher and classmates just what I thought of them before either running out of the classroom and never going back, or stabbing myself in the neck with scissors/ a very sharp pencil and collapsing in a pool of blood over my spellings (depending on my mood that day), as actually doing the work. I don't understand why. It's not like I had any real reason to hate school- I was never bullied, I had some really good friends, I didn't find the work too difficult- and yet I never felt I fitted in, and that made me loathe it. Getting that letter from McGonagall wouldn't just have meant I was headed to a magical place, to learn magical things among magical people- it would give me a reason for not having fitted in, one other than just being a freak, a weirdo or whatever else people called me whenever my back was turned.

Of course, September came and no pieces of yellowish parchment had landed on my doormat; although quietly devastated, I just about convinced myself that this was because Hogwarts doesn't actually exist, not because I wasn't special enough. Year 7 began where middle school had left off, but things slowly got better and, year by year, I found myself enjoying it more and more. Now I'm in my last year there, and for the most part I love it. Despite a sometimes monstrous workload, what I'm learning has never been more interesting and I'm supported by a group of lovely friends and the most incredible boy I've ever met. Sometimes my tender self-confidence fails and it's like I'm back in middle school, so even when I'm spending an evening with my best friends it feels like everyone is either laughing at me or wishing I wasn't there. But the vast majority of the time it's good, and I'm good.

This is why I'm terrified about going to university. I'm scared that it'll be like starting secondary school again, and I don't know how I'll cope the second time around with the people who have kept me sane the past few years scattered across the country. I'm scared that I won't fit in, that I'll hate it, that I'll drop out and waste my days 'til I die. I'm scared that, just as I wasn't special enough for Hogwarts, I won't be special enough for university. And with everyone else I know seemingly being really excited about it, or being there already and loving it, I'm scared that feeling all this is proof that I'm a freak or a weirdo.

I wrote this because it has been plaguing my thoughts for the past couple of months, and there's no way I could say it aloud. I don't like talking about how I feel; at least when I'm writing, I can take the time to make it a little more elegant than whatever stumbling rubbish would fall out of my mouth otherwise. And while I usually get annoyed when someone posts song lyrics in a blog- get some of your own opinions, why can't you?- I'm going to relish in my own hypocrisy and do it myself, because sometimes a song can sum up your own feelings better than you yourself ever could.

'I get the feeling I'm just not cut out for this
all strategies, hidden agendas and politics
But if we can stand before legions of enemy, just you and I
then I'd gladly put up with this shit 'til the day that I die'

--Easyworld, 'Til the Day

Elliott Smith (1969-2003)

On this day some years in the future, I will be at this wall to pay my respects properly. For the time being, I can only say how much he is loved and missed. XO

***EDIT: all photos of the Wolf at the Zodiac are taken by the kindly mynameistalula, click here for the full set***

Not only is Patrick Wolf a GOD when performing live, but he is well-skilled in the art of knitting.

SWOON.

More information on the Cast Off Knitting Club for Boys and Girls is a simple click away. Their fabulous wares include kits for making knitted cigarettes, knitted first-aid kits and knitted penises, 'with realistic head and veins!' What more could you ask for?

The following live review is copied from my Last.fm journal, so apologies if you've already read it.



Patrick Wolf- 1st October, Oxford Zodiac

I am sat here in my oversized Accident and Emergency T-shirt and still dancing in my chair from memories of last night. I expect I will be for about the next month or so, it was THAT GOOD.

Apologies for the haziness of the following piece of writing; I've only heard odd songs off Lycanthropy, and WitW all the way through once, so I won't be able to give a setlist as I don't actually know the songs well enough. I'm sure in a few days/weeks you'll be able to find a competent review somewhere :)

I think the staff at the Zodiac think it's really funny to put the doors opening time on their website as half an hour before the actual doors opening time. Yesterday was the 3rd time we arrived half an hour late only to see a giant line of people snaking round into the distance, still waiting to be let in. A portion of chips, a pinbadge for joining the mailing list and a further half an hour later and we finally got inside to find the support, Danielle Stechhomsy, already up and running. Plucking daintily at a ukelele in a medieval-looking cowl dress and floaty vocals, she might have been a great performer in the right environment- say, a new-age gathering at Stonehenge- but in a slightly grubby venue, with people swigging beer and talking loudly, she passed pretty much unnoticed. She was helping sell T-shirts at the end though, so she did have some use...

Another half an hour wait, and a hush falls over the room as the lights fade. Three people get onto the stage: a chubby girl with a violin, a boy with a cello and bizarre one-pigtailed hair, and a girl in a maid's outfit, who takes up her station at the back with the laptop, keyboard and other miscellaneous electronic things. The string section starts playing and our lanky, red-haired hero, resplendent in stegosarus trousers, gold-sparkly hoodie and glitter smeared over his eyes, sits down at the piano and starts playing. We can't take our eyes off him, and he holds our attention for the rest of the night.

I don't know what that first song was. Songs I do know he played before the encore, in a vague attempt at the correct order, are:
To the Lighthouse
The Railway House
New Song
Teignmouth
Bloodbeat
New Song (Bluebell?)
The Childcatcher
Tristan
New Song
Demolition
New Song- The Magic Position

I hadn't previously realised quite how good a pianist he is, but he's as good on that as he is anything else. He spent maybe a third of the songs on the piano, and other than stopping midsong to complain that the peddle didn't work- the fault of Elton John having stomped on them with his great, fat feet, apparently- it was absolutely gorgeous. Other instruments we saw him play were the violin, of course, his beloved ukelele (which he managed to make sound sinister on one of the new songs) and a bizarre, plinkety thing which turns out to be an autoharp. Laptop girl- who turned out to have an amazing voice when she sang back-up vocals- kept the beats coming on the electronic tracks while Patrick danced, leapt, and bounded 'round the stage, singing, snarling and shrieking in just the right amounts. He was magnetic: dramatic, over-the-top and constantly engaging. You could see cello-man was loving it, head-banging whilst he wasn't playing, and both girls going all giggly whenever he came close to play a moment with them. Nevermind the stegosaurus trousers, every person in the audience, regardless of stated sexual preference, wanted him.

I don't see the point of encores in general- we know they're just faking going away, they know we know they're just faking going away. He hadn't even played the single the tour was promoting yet, so it was hardly a surprise when he comes back onstage again. What was surprising, other than the costume change (including different stegosaurus trousers, he must have a pair in every colour) was when the first person to get on stage is not him. In my crazed state I think, oh my God, Patrick Wolf is actually so incredibly, jaw-droppingly awesome he has magicked the real Ron Weasly into being, just to sing on stage with him. But of course it was not Ron Weasly, but the guy from Larrikin Love (an easy mistake to make), who proceeded to sing with Patrick on A&E, the two of them playfighting and boucing off one another the whole way through. While it was cute, it made me wonder- was Larrikin just sitting around backstage the entire night, waiting for his moment to appear? Was he watching from the back? Is he going to follow Patrick round on the entire tour? Answers to one or more of these questions would be appreciated.

A Boy Like Me brings the night to a close. It's already stunning enough when, rather than the usual reaching down to the audience so they can touch their god business, he actually drags two random girls from the front row up on stage with him. The security man at the edge of the stage starts forward, but doesn't quite dare to interfere. Patrick gives the girls a second mike, the three of them dancing and singing all the while (TWO DOGS, TWO CATS, A BIG KITCHEN AND A WELCOME MAAAAT), and it's not 'til he drags a third girl on stage that security man snaps. He reaches out to grab the hand of the third girl, only for Patrick to swiftly dance over and swat his hand away. This happens three of four more times for the duration of the song, security man looking increasingly murderous each time, 'til it finally ends, each of the three get a big hug and he sends them, and us, on our merry way.
Now I'm just worried that no future gig will ever match up to that. FANTASTIC.