To steal a few (and only a few) words from a man who was equal parts morally questionable and a poet of great talent and intrigue, home is so… strange, or at least in my case coming home is. For those who know Philip Larkin well, or had cast upon them a forced familiarity with the man as a result of picking English Literature as an A-Level, it should come as no surprise that the words I pick from him are very carefully (and if i do say so myself artfully) selected; and for those who don’t know him at all, the man was a raging racist. Slabber aside, the first year of University, in all its adrenaline fuelled fury, had flown by… and was in what feels like an instant, over. Meaning once again, it was time to turn away from my dearly beloved friends, my sunny city and my happy new life, pack my bags, hang my head in despair, and return home. To avoid misunderstanding, it is not so much home itself that appears to me such a gruesome notion, but rather the painful and shameful transformation back into infancy that occurs during my stays. I arrive a grown man, who has spent the past months of his life fending for himself, learning valuable lessons, struggling, falling, getting back up on his feet and making a life for himself with none to thank or blame but himself, and leave with an unbearable personality that is some horrible amalgamation of a repressed little brother syndrome being beaten back into me, and a subconscious assumption that all my needs will be taken care of by my mother. To prevent any dramatisation or over exaggeration, I will provide a suitable analogy. I arrive at home a brawly great pinnacle of man, handsome, strong, seven feet tall, noble, kind and most of all free from any dependence. The kind of man who could be dropped in the Sahara and come out king of the desert. An Indiana Jones type if you will. Yet over the course of what is, in reality only four or so weeks, I leave less than a metre long and wider than ever, frail, horrid, self-serving and completely reliant on others. A king of the desserts. An Augustus Gloop type if you will. The transformation, on this particular trip at least, was nearly immediate. The irony of growing up so poor that the government is forced to pity you, is that when you go to university, though you are still undoubtedly poor, you feel (and admittedly are) wealthier than ever. What this means is, despite feeling like I might be able to afford a private jet or helicopter ride back to my impending lobotomization, what my great new wealth can really afford me, is an eight and a half hour sweaty smellbox experience. Upon entrance to my humid home for the next eight hours I was in a great mood, my glorious Glasgow self. I laughed and chatted with several fellow passengers and even offered my seat up so that a loving couple could sit next to each other. After waiting an hour, and realising I would not be overcome by a warm soft embrace and lifted up to the pearly white heavens for my blatant acts of selflessness and kindness, I decided to sleep. I awoke, and London’s offensive grandeur overwhelmed my senses, an amalgamous smell of fine dining, slime and sweaty street fighting infiltrated my sinuses, while the city’s trove of blindingly bright lights of every neon colour and shifting shape crept over my eyes like some technicolour dream. With this, so too did my disdain for everything living and non-sentient, the pavement was mucky and covered in patterned spots of brown and grey, while hooded men on electric scooters zoomed past me. Though in all fairness, did so with a sort of grace that can only be likened to that of a pod of dolphins floating alongside a boat. Despite an unexpected moment of awe, my misery was soon exacerbated by a strange screeching sound emerging from an enraged woman, at once both overwhelmingly loud and woefully ignorant to the swarms of people walking past her. In true London fashion, from what I could gather as a result of having her entire conversation forcefully rammed into my ears, her partner had cheated on her with, of all people, her best friend days before visiting her, and after clearly having decided one wasn’t enough, bedded her too. Now confessing all, he decided to make what can only be described as a frankly incomprehensible request to be exclusive with one another. To which I'm sure you can all imagine served only to catalyse the echoing screams. Although, it admittedly did cause a small secondary symphony of laughter from the other poor bastards waiting at the bus stop next to me. One abruptly paralyzed when she shot her head at us, sending all manner of rage and fury our way with just the look of her eye. A look which while putting the fear of God in me, ensured I knew one thing, I was home. With this, the pervasive sense that I was in for a long month infiltrated my subconscious. This was just the beginning.