CHLOE, 21 FROM STOCKPORT

Imagine waiting 15 years for Oasis to reform.

Imagine waiting 15 years for Oasis to reform only to lose out on tickets to Chloe, 21 from Stockport who just wants to hear Wonderwall live. Imagine your jealous fury, normal comforts turned to ash, all pleasure drained dry, tastes bitter, colours dull with injustice etc., tears welling up in your eyes as you sit at the bus stop waiting for the bus to take you home from the venue box office which you have, in tradition's name, lined up outside of instead of just buying the tickets on your phone. At least you have looked your foe (Chloe, 21 from Stockport) in the eye. Now imagine you have the chance to win the ticket back. Imagine you both lined up on two sides of a vast battlefield. You: shoulder to shoulder with others just like you, ready to fight and die in a final battle for what matters. Chloe, 21 from Stockport: also shoulder to shoulder with people like her, although those people are younger and treating the whole thing like a bit of a joke. You scowl fiercely at them, and they scowl back, but not as fiercely and with an ironic detachment which is so annoying. With ragged voices they sing Wonderwall. You and your side are also singing an Oasis song, but one that Chloe, 21 from Stockport, has never heard, or heard infrequently, or skipped over in favour of Wonderwall. Or just enjoyed less than Wonderwall. Or enjoyed more than Wonderwall but still made the decision to sing Wonderwall as the anthem of cultural consensus. You are ready to fight, and to die, if that is how God has ordained it, in this final battle. If that is how God has ordained you pursue a ticket to Oasis, having waited 15 years for them to reform. If Chloe, 21 from Stockport wants to hear Wonderwall live, if she wants to take your ticket to Oasis after 15 years in the wilderness, she will have to plunge the sword into your heart herself, if she thinks she can. Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you.