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This has a point. Read it to the end.

When I was a child, I used to read the books of Redwall, by Brian Jaques.

Sound French doesn't it? Jaques.

Because the books were set around a monastery where everyone was nice to each other and the only people interested in material worth were the bad guys, I figured that Brian Jaques must have been some kind of deep thoughtful philosopher, and a French one at that, trying to instil into children a sense of worth in the finer things - performance, friendship, community and togetherness.

Then I met him.

Brian Jaques is an ex-docker from Liverpool, and at his book signing I could see from the queue that he paid more attention to people who had more expensive editions of his books. I had never been to a signing before and to show how much of a fan I was I brought my entire paperback collection. Apparently, paperbacks don't sway as much favour as the special limited edition illustrated hardbacks. The woman in front of me brought three books and had a five minute chat with him about them and the series as a whole.
I brought my entire collection and some from a friend (I was the designated class skipper at college that day to go get them all signed) and when he saw the pile of books, he was not impressed at my fandom. Rather he was annoyed at having to sign so many books.

The first thing he said was "I'll sign 'em, but no dedications."

That was pretty much the extent of our conversation. He silently signed them with a gold plated ball point pen, wearing masses of gold chains around his neck and big rings on his fingers. He looked like the pirates and bandits he described in his books. I was shocked.

I stopped reading Redwall. I stopped playing the unofficial Redwall MUCK. I just sort of gave up on the whole thing really.

But the year before that happened, I wrote a note to myself in the runic script from the Ultima games, and hid it. That note was an ultimatum to myself that I wanted to be living in Redwall within 10 years. Seems an odd thing to request of ones future self, expressing not only a desire to be transported to a fictional place but a deadline by which to do it.

But when I was 17, that was what I requested.

That gives me just under 2 years left.

I attempted were escaping reality through meditation, that didn't work.
I tried to work out a way that I could somehow make a living by building a place in the Redwall muck but unlike second life, back then there was no money in virtual worlds.

After various lame brained schemes and fan fictions, I sort of gave up. Looking back now though, I realise that at 17, I was a lot smarter than I had ever given myself credit for. What I wanted was not Redwall, although living amongst a subsistent community of badgers and squirrels would be awesome, what I wanted were the things I associated with it. A sense of community, belonging, contentedness, and ultimately communism.

In Redwall, practically everyone made songs and music to entertain each other, so I became a filker.
In Redwall, everyone was civil and intelligent, so I socialise in that kind of grouping.
In Redwall, there's beautiful architecture and history, so I moved to Cambridge.
In Redwall, everyone has a socially conscious job. I work in the public transport sector. Come on, that's pretty close.
In Redwall, there's no such thing as currency...

So really, I have two years to somehow instigate communism in the UK.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the reason I'm starting this journal, even though I had two others, is that in my other journals, there's a HELL of a lot of moaning about getting here. Even though I never said I where 'here' was (apparently Redwall), I was constantly going on about the trouble I was having trying to get somewhere I wanted to be with the people I wanted to be with in the state of mind I wanted to be in.

Now that I'm practically here, I want to start afresh. This place isn't Redwall. It wasn't a false utopia designed by a rich ex-docker. This is a place I crafted myself, and I brought all the parts together to make myself happy.

When I was 17 I started writing a series of short fictions about a community of mice who performed ritualistic magic by making crop circles. It was a five part story, but I only ever wrote the first three parts. The final part was going to be called the 4th circle, a title which has stuck in my head ever since.

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