I had another of those wierd little thoughts earlier which I better record here, just to stop it playing on my mind. When I was seven or eight or so, one of my big obsessions was Disney: I loved it, from watching their cartoons to finding out about the Disney theme parks. For some time I thought the Walt Disney company was the be all and end all of entertainment. Thinking about it now, it must have really got on my parents nerves, esther after they took me and my brothers to visit Disneyland in California.

The odd thing is, it occurred to me recently that, despite once being so obsessed, I have never typed “Disney” into Google. I have now been using the web regularly for over twenty-five years, Googling all kinds of things on a daily basis, yet to my knowledge I have never once felt compelled to find out about one of my favourite childhood obsessions.

More specifically, I remember being captivated by the idea that the Disney company could own and run its own theme parks: I thought that owning amusement parks was a sign of true, epic greatness. That excited awe only doubled when I learned that Disney didn’t just own one but two parks; only to increase further still when Eurodisney, as it was then known, began to be constructed in about 1992.

The odd thing is, I’m still not sure whether Disney owns a park in Tokyo. I have heard a few vague references to a park there over the years, but it strikes me as odd that I have never in fact looked it up. It would obviously take me about two seconds to type the necessary terms into google; yet I have somehow never felt like doing so. Of course I have long grown out of my Disney fixation, and usually have other, far more interesting things to Google. It just strikes me as odd that I’m still not absolutely sure how many theme parks Disney owns, having once been so obsessed with the question as a youngster.

I would be interested to hear whether anyone else has had a similar experience. Has anyone else had a really strong obsession with something as a child, only to totally forget about it when they have access to the internet?