This year my neighbour is a mature student, called Robert. I’m not sure how old he is – about sixty, I guess, but the thing is, he loves to party. He says he loves university, which has probably invigorated him as much at it has me. We have become firm friends, and last night, for the first time, he took me out.

We went into Manchester. Its ironic that after four years of being a Manchester student, I’d never been out in Manchester. We went to a karaoke night in a student bar: rob seems to love singing and describes the buzz he gets from it with great passion. Rob drove us up, and we sat near the stage, watching the acts. I had watched rob sing a couple of times when I decided, for better or worse, that I wanted a go. I asked Robert to put me down to sing Greenday’s basket case.

While I had to wait a while to sing, and at one stage I thought I’d missed my turn while in the loo, I did it. Rob was right; you do get a buzz. How much the audience understood I don’t know, but I found the whole thing highly amusing. Rob was there, behind me, singing along even though he didn’t know the song, and together we thrashed out one off my all time favourites. To a certain extent I was playing to the audience – everyone knows basket case, so the fact that I couldn’t sing didn’t matter. The audience enjoyed it, I think, for what it was: a celebration of diversity, freedom, and punk rock.

Rob rules. I’m going to buy him dookie.