also circa 2002/2003 he had a phase of listening to Radio 1 at night while doing homework/revising. usually turned it off by the time Peel came on but would listen to Lamacq and Colin Murray and tape lots of songs from interesting new indie bands, and then would buy some of their albums. (we’d also video a lot of music shows and festival stuff of the TV for the same purpose)
a couple of years later i was doing the same thing through the internet (continuing to this day), he’d lost interest completely and would make fun of the ‘obscure’ stuff i was always buying and listening to. complete transformation, he’s never gotten back into that sort of thing since at all.