Describe a good friend who is important to you.

I'd like to talk about my friend Daniyar, though everyone just calls him Dan. He's someone I've known for the best part of fifteen years now, which honestly feels like a lifetime when I stop and think about it. We actually met back in secondary school — we were seated next to each other in a chemistry class, purely by chance, and I remember he leaned over and cracked some ridiculous joke about the teacher within the first five minutes. That basically sealed it; we hit it off straight away.

Over the years we've done all sorts of things together, but what really cemented the friendship was music. We taught ourselves guitar as teenagers, spent hours in his garage butchering songs we loved, and eventually we were half-decent, if I say so myself. We even played a couple of gigs at local cafés, which were nerve-racking but a blast.

As for why he matters so much to me — it's really that he's the one person I can be completely myself around, without any pretence. He's incredibly loyal; when my father passed away a few years ago, Dan dropped everything and drove three hours to be there, and he didn't say much, he just sat with me. That's the kind of friend he is. So even though we live in different cities now and can go weeks without talking, the moment we reconnect it's as though no time has passed at all. That's genuinely rare, and I don't take it for granted.