1998 - Bristol - Djr

January: this is New Years Eve, beyond midnight, beyond 1997...

When I started working at the Agency in August 1997, I would often jump off the bus at night to go to the gym, and then walk through town, up Park Street and hang out in the Boston Tea Party, which was relatively new as a cafe in Bristol.

I was also hanging out at a new bar, just off Park Street, called Moles; it had set itself up as a pre-club venue and was, unsurprisingly, being run by my old mate Phil McVee. So between August and December 1997 I rarely came home straight after work... and spent most of my time working on notes (Heist / Dante's Fool) in the Boston Tea Party or partying it up with Phil and his loyal crowd...with Moles as the centre of operations. It's around now that I met the fluffy hairdresser (Melanie) with the big coat.

New Years Eve happened in Moles and then moved to a house in Easton... this is where my clubbing / party life took a radical shift... some of the innocence of the past 10 years came died this night.

This is also the night I met Samia.

1998 - Bristol - Phil McVee

January: New Years Eve, Phil was the central co-ordinator of much of the fun taking place.

1998 - Bristol - Duncan

January: New Years Eve, I'd known Duncan for a couple of years now... one of those faces on the Bristol scene. He ran a stall in St Nicholas Market, was the guy who first introduced me to Trudi...

1998 - The Happy Flat - Daisy

January: I was clubbing with Phil McVee one night, when a French girl he knew turned up... she had this great aura around her, a perpetual smile, was a cool clubber... I was transfixed by her. It wasn't long before we hooked up in a kind of strange half-serious, chemical romance kind of way... for the next few months our existence became all about the clubs...

1998 - The Happy Flat - Daisy

January: I'm not entirely sure why she was stroking the bacon but there were many times she could be a strange girl.

1998 - The Happy Flat - Zed

January: Zed started coming round after school so I could help her with her maths homework. As a bonus, Sonja came round with a huge ream of dark green velvet, an industrial stapler, and converted my solitary armchair ( a relic from the previous occupant) from something that could have belonged to Frazier's dad to a very comfortable and cool looking peice of furniture.

1998 - The Ying Yang House - Lizzy, Jake

February: I was still hooking up with Jess Starry Eyes and Stef from time to time; one night they invited me over to thier tiny pad in Fishponds for dinner. Walking in I was introduced to Stef's friend Jake, from Manchester, and Jake's wife Liz, from Canada.

Jess and Stef were making a dish involving meatballs. The cooking situation became tense and both Jess & Steff started bickering, loudly, creating an uncomfortable situation. It was then I discovered Jake & Lizz had just arrived back on UK shores from Canada and were planning on crashing with Jess & Stef until they got themselves a place. I scanned the close confines of the room... I listened to Jess & Stef arguing about not stirring the meatballs... so I told them I had a huge flat with lots of space and they were more than welcome to crash with me, until they got themselves a place of their own.

They were mightily relieved, I think, as were Jess & Stef who were quite possibly freaking at the immenent loss of personal space.

Jake & Lizz are fantastic people. No other way to describe them. I think they were with me for a week - maybe longer, but it was just lovely coming home from work and having them there. Matthias had gone away for a while and so I played Resident Evil 2 downstairs in his pad... I think because he had a larger TV or something, I'm not quite sure.

Some massive clubbing memories with these two.

1998 - The Ying Yang House - Daisy, Matthias P

February: Daisy had this sense of humour that came waaaay out of left field, which suited mine perfectly. Daisy became a regular visitor to the Happy Flat and shared in with some of the silly shananigans Matthias and I got up to.

1998 - The Ying Yang House - Djr, Daisy

February: The open-top skull and brain were props for a film Matthias was making as part of his final college project.

Notice the "Resident Evil 2" box for playstation.

Things at work had changed. We'd moved out of our small office in Block 1, and been relocated to a huge room on the ground floor of Block 2. I was still working a 6 month temping contract, or so I thought... but my boss, Kaiser Boot, was really keen to see me pick up the skills of his trade... so with the help of Matt R/s I got to learn about recabling. This involved me taking the pool car and doing a lot of journeys to the main HQ in business park about 12 miles away.

I had a tape I used to listen to in the car, and the track that really struck a chord with me, and in a way, became a soundtrack to this era of my life was the Chemical Brothers:

"Sunday morning I'm waking up... can't even focus on a coffee cup... don't know who's bed I'm in..."

It was also around now that the Agency extended my contract; meanwhile they made me into a regional administrator for all mobile phones in South West and Head Office. I now had a mobile phone, a massive black brick of a NOKIA 2110. At that time nobody else I knew had a mobile phone.

Within a few months, I started seeing more and more people around the city carrying them... and they had suddenly become smaller.

1998 - London - Louise

Feb: I had to deal with a 3rd party supplier of mobile phone services, specifically with the customer service team for corporate accounts... Louise was in this team; we got on well on the telephone so I jumped on the Bakers Dolphin coach to London and went to see her.

1998 - Arnos Vale Cemetary - Djr

March: Chris Waller wanted to take some photographs using a special type of film he had discovered. This image has not been digitally manipulated in any way.

1998 - Arnos Vale Cemetary - Djr

March: Another image taken by Chris Waller.

1998 - Bristol - Djr, Jake W

March: I really love this picture. Jake and Lizz had found themselves a place to live just down the road, in a row of 3-storey houses that reminded me a lot of Hotwells. The backgarden backed onto Arnos Vale so was quite atmospheric at night.

Jake took me to an Internet Cafe one evening after work; it was called Netgates. Even though I'd been using the internet quite a bit upstairs in Block 1, at work, this had only been for research on items for Heist / Dante's Fool. At Net Gates, Jake set me up with an E-mail address... and then he blew my mind by showing me how to have my own website.

Welcome to www.fortunecity.com/victorian/manet/216

Jake unlocked a door into cyberspace and kicked it wide open.

Back at work, I was having to drive over to the HQ in the pool car a lot. The HQ, I discovered, had a really loved library room, with three isolated PCs with internet access. I didn't have internet access from my 486 PC at home.

So this library is where I learned the basics of HTML and putting a basic (very basic) site together... I also came to make my first online acquaintance called Sunspider - who blew my mind with his poetry. The Internet consumed all of my spare time at work. This is where I started to learn the basics of photoshop and image manipulation.

1998 - London - Alex M

Alex had moved out of his shared pad in Camden and had bought a nice pad somewhere (can't recall where). He was living his dream, making a living from photography.

1998 - London - Djr

It's around now that I did a trip to London to hook up with Alex, and discovered Cyberdog clothing... wow... I was like a kid in a candy store. Tight lycra tops in bright fluorescent colours with loads of manga-style cartoon imagery...

1998 - The Ying Yang House - Djr

March: I'd more or less stopped working on Heist / Dante's Fool. I spent a lot of my evenings after work lying in bed, feeling ill... on a total come-down. I was clubbing Friday - Saturday - Sunday... this was when I was going to INFAMOUS nights, at Club Loco, just up from Stoke's Croft and coming out at 10 A.M., blinking into the light... looking a wreck and feeling terrible... I often did the walk up to Park Street, popping into a swanky restaurant to say hello to Daisy... then sitting in Boston Tea Party praying for the jaggedness to go away.

1998 - The Happy Flat - Djr

March: it's around now that I had a brief thing with Naomi... an older woman I'd worked with during my stint at the national social worker's body.

1998 - The Happy Flat - Daisy

March: memory of catching the last bus to Bath, finding a random club...Daisy working her magic on some guy at the very end so we had a ride back to Bristol in the wee-hours of the morning.

1998 - The Happy Flat - Frederiko

April: I knew Fred through Philippe & David... we spent a few months hanging out quite a lot, doing the clubs together, or just chilling in my place listening to music with lots of deep bass... he was forever rolling up, and had this way of talking, and making facial expressions, that was so totally DeNiro... "You talking to me?"

1998 - Outside the Arnolifini - Djr

May: It's around now that I discovered the absolute pleasure of a Bristol summer...sitting outside the Arnolfini, by the water's edge, with a glass of beer... watching the world go by in the chillout capital of the world.

I was still barred from the actual cafe, but my friends would go in and order my drinks for me.

1998 - The Ying Yang House - Matthias P, Jameson

May: whilst I still had a hard-on for all things Resident Evil, Matthias was ever more hooked into Lara Croft and Tomb Raider. This addiction spilled over onto Jameson when he came to spend a weekend in Bristol.

Jameson has been a friend of Matthias since they were both 5 or thereabouts. Anyway, they've been close forever. I would come downstairs in the mornings to share a cup of coffee...and find them both dressed in crumpled bathrobes, pale hairy legs, 48-hour stubble, bleary-eyed, playing Lara Croft... they did this for days and days in a row.

So, the photograph... like I said, they are close.

By the looks of things, I think it was a boy.

1998 - The Ying Yang House - Jameson

May: Jameson made a mean curry, and like myself had a passion for all things spicy. He and I both went through a bottle of Encona Hot Pepper Sauce, each, in two days, mainly with cheese on toast.

1998 - The Happy Flat - Djr

June: I started having girls pop round at 5 O'clock in the morning, fresh from some club... they'd have some fun and leave me to get to work for 9 A.M.

There was a girl I met at a free-rave on a boat moored opposite Redcliffe Parade...right in the centre of the city. we came outside after sunrise on a Sunday morning and effectively had sex on the bonnet of a car parked near the main road.

I was just a sleazy mess.

1998 - The Happy Flat - Djr

June: cracks were starting to show. Lack of sleep was making me sketchy... I can remember spending about a week of nights, coming back from work and going straight to bed. This is the week I dicovered James Ellroy.

Phil McVee had leant me a copy of American Tabloid, by Ellroy, around November the previous year. It spent months on a shelf gathering dust. So, lying in bed, a matress on the floor, feeling sorry for myself, I picked it up and started reading...

Ellroy blew my mind. I went into town the following day and bought every novel the man had written. I thought, "I would love to be able to write a novel like this!"

1998 - The Happy Flat - Djr

June: it was a bad night out with Lena P, at Club Loco... I'd had to take a taxi home, then spent a night and morning on the floor of the Happy Flat, shivering, convulsing, feeling my heart exploding in my chest... sweating and crawling around in a tight little hole of horror.

This had to stop.

The timing was perfect. The following week at work I was called into a room by my boss and his superior. "Your contract is up for renewal. We really want you to stay."

I said, "Okay, but I want more pay and some time off." I needed to get my head back together.

They said, "Okay... how much?"

I said, "Double... and five weeks holiday from next week."

They said, "Sure."

Ching-ching! I couldn't bloody believe it.

1998 - Outside the Arnolfini - Daisy

June: this is the last time I saw Daisy, properly, for a long time. She was going through a similar clubbing burn-out...her personality had become fragmented and prone to random outbursts...

1998 - Bristol - Djr

June: I left work for five weeks. I chopped off the blonde hair. I stopped clubbing. I read an article about a major hollywood script writer...he would go to bed really early, wake up at 4 A.M. and write before anybody elses day began...or could threaten to interfere with his writing.

I wanted to get back into the main vein of my creativity again, so, I started going to bed at 8 P.M.... drifting off to sleep with the "sound of rain" tape I'd got from somewhere... and then I'd wake up at 4 A.M. I can recall the almost sick-feeling of dragging myself out of bed some mornings... bleary-eyed and confused, I once sprayed shaving-foam on my armpits, thinking it was deodorant; another time I boiled the kettle and poured hot water all over my cereal, instead of into the mug for tea. But... most days, by 4.20, I was sitting in the small study at the front of the happy flat, which had originally been my bedroom back in 1995... with the first glimmers of sunrise pouring through the bamboo blinds... I got back into Heist / Dante's Fool in a major way. It was absolute heaven.

1998 - The Happy Flat - Jake W

June: Jake and his wife, Liz, were looking at maybe moving back to Canada. Toronto, probably. He wanted to make Jake is now making shockwaves in the Toronto DanceMusic and Visuals Scene.

A true survivor, Jake epitomises pushing the edge and savouring every nanosecond of Life. A photographer, his exploits into modern sub-culture should be seen by the world. His work should provide a wake up call to the Sheep Nation.

1998 - Amsterdam - View from the Greenhaus Cafe

June: I booked a flight to Amsterdam on my own. Got to Centraal Station, did the familiar walk into the Red Light district and found my old faithful... the Christian Shelter, tucked away in its alleyway across the road from a Thai Massage palour, with glass doors and bored women stretching along the road either side. The Christian Shelter was £6 a night, so I wasn't complaining.

I stashed my stuff in a beaten-up locker, grabbed my notebooks and headed out. I remembered one of the cool cafe's Philippe, David and I had discovered the previous October... and I was pleased that my memory was able to help me relocate it amongst the confusing intersections of canals and bridges. So enters the Greenhaus Cafe into my life again.

As usual, I quickly formed a routine... I'd wake up in a room of 40-or-so bunkbeds, with a variety of international backpackers, low-end criminals and the mentally unwell. I used to sleep with my money scrunched into a pair of socks stuffed into one corner of my pillowcase. I'd shower under a blue-light, designed to stop the junkies finding a vein. Breakfast was included in the price... hard home-baked bread, cheese, fruit, orange juice and coffee... it was basic but actually delicious and very welcome. Then I headed out... usually taking a long fast walk, powering through the city on my legs, enjoying the freedom to just explore... mid-morning I'd touch down in the Greenhause cafe, with tables formed of thick poured-set acetate containing thousands of trapped sea-shells and glitter, with lamps underneath that made everything glow... all the seat covers were formed of a fluffy nylon cow-hide pattern... I had a favourite table, in the window bay, overlooking the road and the canal outside. And that's where I'd spent a good four hours or so... writing chapters for Heist / Dante's Fool with pen and paper.

Then more walking, exploring, experiencing what I wanted from the city... there was another favourite cafe, where I'd spend my evenings supping beer... I got to meet a number of people there, and from the shelter... no friendships struck but pleasant company for the string of evenings I was there.

Sidenote: the same day I booked this trip to Amsterdam, sitting in the travel agent's on Union Street, I acted on a whim and asked about flights to New York. The woman gave me some options, and on impulse I purchased a ticket... for November.

1998 - Clapham / London - Helen J, Djr, Kate J

July: I came back from Amsterdam to find Jake & Lizz had grabbed a random flight back to Canada... permanantly; they'd found an unearthly cheap flight and with 6 hours notice just pulled up stumps, packed their bags, left a pair of my shoes on my doorstep and left.

Also, the Jenkins Corporation had relocated to London.

I died my hair blonde again and jumped on a bus to see them... their place in Clapham became the basis for DS Louis Cloud's pad in Heist/ Dante's Fool.

Returning to work I discovered that my boss had bought me a gift; a PSION Series 5. Black rubberised casing, about the size of a large bar of chocolate, it had a flip-up lid, black and white LCD screen, funky keyboard and a stylus-pen for touching the screen-icons. Better still, it had a serial port cable that allowed me to synchronise it with my PC at home. I could now stop writing my chapters out by hand & copying them onto my PC at night... instead I could now write directly onto an electronic device and copy those files onto my PC... it was a liberating step-change.

1998 - Clapham / London - x, x

July: where else can you get an amazing full-english breakfast at 4 o'clock in the morning. They even sold champagne if you wanted to have it with your breakkie.

1998 - Clapham / London - x, x

July: comedy moments with the new London version of the Jenkins Corporation.

1998 - The Happy Flat - Sonja C, Djr, Zed

August: This photograph was taken on the night Matthias' decided to do some filming for a project he was working on. I can't remember why I had to put on a dress and cover my hands in blood, but, Mathias usually had a number of strange ideas and I was usually up for going along with them.

1998 - The Ying Yang House - Zed, x, Ettiene

August: Once the film was finished, Matthias held a premier at his place. The film was called MIND GRENADE. Everyone had to get 'dressed-up' for the occaision, as seen in the pics below.

1998 - The Happy Flat - Nice Guy Tony

August: After being away for a year in Australia, Nice Guy Tony was back. He returned with a gift for me. A bottle of Bundaberg Black, this really really nice rum... something I've not been able to get my hands on since (as of 2007).

It was great having Tony back in Bristol and back in my life. I'd not had any players role-playing for a few months now, and I'd been working on a system of rules that blended Lovecraftian mythos with Gibson/Sterling cyberpunk. So he and I used to get together every few days at the Happy Flat and run small sessions, flexing the muscle of the new rules... I printed the rules onto seperate sheets of paper that were then placed into thick glossy black presentation packs - with transparent plastic sleeves inside. In the end I think we ended up with about 12 of these black books... and together they weighed an absolute ton, about 20 KG in total.

1998 - The Happy Flat - Jo

Around Feb/ March been a big shift in the people who handled the Agency's mobile phone contract; this led to a whole new team dealing with Agency enquiries, of which I was still the responsible co-ordinator for all of SW and Head Office regions... now on double my previous pay. There had been a hand-over meeting at Newbury Racecourse, where I'd met a couple of my corporate counterparts, a guy called Kelvin, and a guy called Russell... we shared some idle chit-chat and slowly developed a rapport over numerous telephone calls whilst dealing with work-related issues. Within a couple months Russell was interested enough in the concept of the Game I'd designed to drive over from Cheltenham and try it. The following week Russell came back and this time brought Kelvin with him.

Not long after this, a guy called Dominic joined us, soon followed by a young Zed, and of course Nice Guy Tony. So by Septemeber there was a full contigent of players for Game.

Meanwhile, Russell & Kelvin had a boss called Jo; she and I got talking via telephone and she started to come over to the Happy Flat to hang out.

1998 - London - Sky, Paula

October: Sky was still involved with the cool bar in Soho, and had met a lovely woman, an actress, called Paula B.

This is the weekend I was in a bar somewhere completely random; can't recall who I was with but got chatting to a girl who was having obvious issues with her b/f... they were arguing in public, he stormed off. Turns out they'd just split up. She and I headed back to her place at the end of the night... we got back to find the ex-b/f sitting in the kitchen, giving me dagger-eyes. She spoke to him. He left. We went upstairs. Next morning I said "What's your name and what do you do?"

She said, "Emily B... and I'm a literary agent."

I laughed, "Really?! Wow. Hi, my name's David, and I'm a writer."

So that's how I met my first agent.

1998 - London - Sky, x

October: I was staying with them one night, at a new place Sky and Paula had moved into near Portobello road. The cooker was a bit dodgey. Sky didn't have a kettle, so was heating up water for tea/coffee with a metal pan on the electric hob. When the water started boiling I grabbed the metal handle of the pan and was shoved back across the room as a bolt of electric current surged through me. Sky heard my yelp and called through from the other room, "Oh yeah... there's a problem with the cooker, you need to turn it off before you touch the pan."

Great time to tell me.

1998 - The Happy Flat - Djr, Zed

November: It was nearly time for me to fly to New York. I was excited and nervous. I'd never been to the states before. All I had was a hotel reservation and a guidebook.

Zed had become more and more an important part of my life, an amazingly old soul, confidante and awesome player of Game.

1998 - The Gershwin Hotel / NYC

November: For some reason, when I'd booked the flight back in June... I'd decided to go via Air India. Not an experience I will repeat in a hurry, although the air-hostesses were very nice... in particular one called Deepa... we got chatting on the flight and she gave me her number.

I remember flying over the coastline of America for the very first time, we were way North and following the East Coast... and my brain said, "Lovecraft country."

It was dark when I stepped out of JFK and lined up where the taxi's were picking-up. The taxi, big, yellow... straight out of a movie. I jumped in and told the guy the address, 25th and 5th, Manhattan... then I sat back but could barely relax as the bumpy ride from the airport took me towards the island. Then I saw it... all lit up, a picture-postcard view... Manhattan skyscrapers stretching left and right as far as I could see ahead of me. My God!

The cabbie dropped me off outside the hotel which had this bizarre arty-sculpture made of plastic...looking like warped icicles... jutting out above the entrance way. The whole place had this vibe that thrilled me. I checked in. Got a key to my room-share. Went upstairs and came out into a hallway covered in crazy art posters... the room was empty, there were four double-bunks. I took a bunk near the door, the bottom bed so I could use the floorspace underneath as a kind of storage area... I unpacked a few bits, sat on the bunk and looked out the window... a dark alley, lots of brownstone buildings and covered windows. Hmmm. I was in New York. Holy shit. I deliberated what to do for a few moments, then thought, fuck it... pulled on my Acupuncture sneakers, loaded a techno-tape into my walkman, put on my headphones, and hit the pavement... striding along... not knowing where I was going, just walking, walking fast, riding on adrenalin and excitement... I was here...

I ended up on 23rd and 3rd... found a little cafe and ordered something to drink... I pulled out my PSION and did a little writing, then headed back to the hotel to find my room occupied by another four people: enter Cian & Wendy, and, Tim & Dan into my life.

Cian & Wendy were a couple from essex. Tim & Dan were two lads from London... these two managed to blow so much money on shopping they had to fly home early, on Dad's credit card, and had to buy extra suit-cases to ship it all back.

1998 - The Gershwin Hotel / NYC - Emma, Gina

November: my second night in NYC I checked out the hotel bar and met a whole gang of really cool people.

Gina was this amazing, chilled, vibrant, cuddly, soft spoken Californian... we struck up a nice friendship that last the whole time I spent in NYC.

1998 - The Gershwin Hotel / NYC - Raymond Fx

November: my second morning in NYC I crossed the road from the Gershwin to a fab little diner that served an American breakfast. I sat at a window seat, munching through bacon and pancakes with maple syrup... and I saw this tall, lithe-limbed, well-dressed guy walking across the main road outside... and then I saw this scruffy tramp veer towards him... the well-dressed guy side-stepped easily, raised his arms, and floated past without a flutter. The guy walked into the diner and took a seat behind me. At some point we both clocked each other's British accent and got chatting. Enter Raymond F into my life.

An ex-dancer and male model, he was of Nigerian blood, English raised, father diplomat and a totally cool S-O-B. The day I met him, he was supposed to be in Australia, standing at an altar getting married... I guess he was here to escape his issues...

1998 - The Gershwin Hotel / NYC - Djr

November: I'm comparing noses. For most of my time in NYC I settled into a routine, usually involving a 30 block walk downtown to find cafes to sit in and write. The PSION attracted a lot of attention, in a nice way. In the afternoon I'd trudge back towards the hotel, and back to my first ever discovery on 23rd and 3rd... a place called Zido's.

Evenings usually revolved around Raymond and I, sometimes with Gina. Raymond had discovered this faaaaantastic bar called Oberts, about a mile from the hotel, and this is where I discovered proper black russians with crushed ice... lots of low light and small tea-light candles on tables... beautiful woman and mellow music... ahhh man, such awesome memories of those nights.

1998 - Zido's Cafe / NYC - David W

November: Zido's rapidly became my altime favourite place to hang-out. Zidos had all this amazing artwork on the walls from locals, was filled with students and eccentric local characters.

One day this man walks in, he has this aura about him, something very intriguing. He has confidence and style. We get talking and talk for hours about all manner of things. We're both enjoying the experience. He invites me back to his for dinner. My 'Gaydar' goes onto alert but I decide he's safe and agree.

'His place' turns out to be the Gramercy Park Hotel. One hell of a place. Dinner is at his own table in the hotel restaurant with his own chef attending us. I ate like a King. Then we went to the bar where I was introduced to wonderful and interesting characters.

David and I struck up a freindship for the duration of the trip; introduced Raymond F to him too.

1998 - Gramercy Park Hotel - David W, Doug K

November: One night I'm sat drinking with David and his best buddy walks in: this big, jolly, really casually dressed guy... he lived outside the city, doing-up busses and things. I liked his whole spiritual vibe and he and I remember that night vividly, and with much fondness.

Historical Note placed in 2002: I get an E-mail out of the blue from a Brad Thurwell of the New York Post. The E-mail asks me how I know David Weissburg and would I be willing to talk, because David killed himself the day before. At first I thought the E-mail was some kind of sick joke; I reply and Brad telephones me from New York and gives me the story...

...David jumped / or fell, to his death from the roof of the Gramercy Park Hotel. The reporter wanted to know if I knew anything about drugs charges and the alleged stash of weapons in the hotel basement. The reporter was digging for dirt. I felt sad, I felt sick. Later, I checked the NY Post website and found the story including a photo of David's body being carried from the scene. That image affected me for over a week. What really sticks in my mind is the night I took this picture, because we're standing right where he died four years later. My feelings go out to David's family, especially his brother who I understand took his death badly.

1998 - Zido's Cafe - Francesca, Raymond F, Wanda, x, Albert, David W

November: This is the night that Raymond and I met a whole ton of people in Zido's... all random strangers but brought together by this huge discussion around several tables. When the cafe came to close up for the night, a number of the customers came back with Raymond and I to the bar in the Gershwin Hotel... great night.

1998 - Manhatten - Camille, Djr

November: Raymond and I were strolling down broadway when we saw this gorrrrgeous girl getting out of taxi, carrying a suitcase, wearing 6-inch metal-spiked heels, black stockings and skirt that was shorter than the black leather jacket she had on. We said hello. She said hi. Enter Camille into my life. She'd just arrived from Chicago.

1998 - Manhatten - Camille

November: She had this fearsome sharp wit that I saw cut down several people with only a few words... wherever we went, people stared... there was something compelling about her... she an absolute scream to hang-out with.

1998 - Empire State Building

November: It wasn't far from the hotel.

1998 - View from Empire State Building

November: New York held two iconic references for me... one was the film "Ghostbusters"... the other was the amaaaaazing Call of Cthulhu Campaign "Masks of Nyarlathotep"... these were experiences from 1984 and 1986 respectively, so to be here, so long after and yet still be 'feeling that vibe' was really special.

1998 - View from Empire State Building

November: I was lucky enough to have gone to the roof not long before sunset. I got to see Manhattan during the day, during sunset and finally at night... beautiful.

Memory: there was a public payphone at the top of building. I shovelled in quarters and dialled my mum & dad, and then Sonja & Zed, saying "Guess where I am?" I was so excited to be there.

1998 - Frenelli's Bar / NYC - Linda, Raymond Fx, Djr

November: this was the day Raymond and I spent 24 hours drunk in Manhatten. Not something to be admired, but we did have fun... living off Black Russians and Deli Bars... until we found ourselves in this awesome "pub" tucked away somewhere near Soho... they served up this incredible chilli.

We met Linda, a tough cab

1998 - Soho / NYC - Djr, Camille

November: this was taken the last time I saw Camille; time in New York was drawing to an end so it was goodbye from me, and goodbye from her... we actually made a pact at this moment, and then proclaimed the words...

"To Success"

...as the picture was taken.

Camille is one of those random encounters who I would love to see again.

1998 - Frenellis' bar / NYC - Raymond F, Djr, Gina

November: my final night in New York and I got to spend it with two of the people I'd formed real bonds of freindship with.

Cian, Wendy, Tim and Dan were gone by this point.

Raymond & I had been raving to Gina about how great the chilli was in this place and so dragged her 30 blocks or so, on foot, at night, to try and find it... except, Raymond and I had been so hammered when we first went there... our memory of where we thought Frenellis Bar was, did not match the physical reality. It took about 2 hours to find it, but finally, we got our chilli. And it was worth the effort.

But, I can remember feeling really sad. I'd had such an incredible, met some fantastic people. But, I knew I would be back, I knew I would keep in touch... and I had some great things to look forward to back in the UK.

1998 - The Happy Flat - Zed

December: three things happened around this time. One, I nearly died in the Happy Flat. Two, I got a major promotion at work. Three, Matthias P had moved out from below... the Ying-Yang House was empty.

Meanwhile Zed was becoming ever more a woman; she and I started going out on the town at night.

NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE: I had an electric cooker in my tiny kitchen. My kettle was the kind you placed on the hob to heat up, rather plug into the mains supply. So one night I came back, went into the kitchen, turned on the light, picked up the empty kettle, turned on the cold water tap, filled the kettle... left the tap running as I went over to the cooker and placed the kettle on top. This fact saved my life. Because when I turned the cooker on, it was the change in the cold water tap that alerted me to something going wrong. When I turned the cooker on, there was a muffled bang, and then the familiar sound of the cold water drumming into the metal sink changed... instead, I heard a sort of whispering whoosh. Frowning I turned to look and saw that instead of cold water coming from the tap, there was now hot steam.

Eh?

I turned the cooker off, and the steam changed back to a flow of cold water. Cooker back on... water becomes steam.

Hmm. I walked over to the sink and I was about to touch the tap when a voice... I don't know how to explain, but something said "Don't"

I backed off, startled, confused... so I reached for the light switch, turned off the kitchen light and in the darkness, could see all the metalwork of the sink, and taps, arcing with electricity. Holy shit.

The landlord sent round a sceptical sparky the next day. He stuck his little tool in various places on the sink and cooker... no result. So I pointed at a part of the tap. He stuck his tool into it and there was an almight BANG - the guy was thrown back across the kitchen, into me, and the force of the impact threw me back with him into a wall. I held on him, he stood there shaking... holding up the tool and the staring at the melted smoking end... "If you had touched that tap," he told later, "You would have been toast."

PROMOTION: Within the space of a few days and a flurry of conversations, my boss advised me I was being slotted into a new role. The Agency had recently purchased a massive videoconferencing network, but the original project to deliver had some major flaws and oversights... so the rollout was becoming a disaster. Did I want the challenge? I sure did: but was there a payrise? There sure was.

So I dropped the reginal mobile phone co-ordinator role and became "National Video Conferencing Team Leader". Except, there was no team. Just me.

MATTHIAS P MOVES OUT: it happened quite suddenly and really left me feeling... odd. I'd been living above Matthias, who was like a brother to me, for over 3 years. Now he was gone. He'd moved to the basement room in a massive house in St Pauls. As an expression of his personal feelings about the place... Matthias left several skeletons in his room, placed in curious and disturbing poses; there was also a massive heart-shaped block of ice in the fridge... and several other oddities that really freaked out the letting agent when he came to clear-up.

1998 - Grassy

December: Christmas came and I did the 9 hour National Express Coach ride back home to Newcastle. Dad wasn't there to pick me up. I had to walk to the Monument Metro station, ride the subway to West Jesmond and then walk home. I actually loved it, because I was walking the same route I used to take as a schoolboy. So I got to walk through nostalgia.

It had been a year since the dark-days when mum and dad's financial situation had become so dire that they nearly lost the house, and everything. It was around now, that Dad finally got some money out of the cowards who stole his company... less than 10% of what they actually owed him, but... it helped. Sadly, this is when Dad's health took a significant deterioration. He was finding it difficult to walk. The doctor had removed his driving license. However, Christmas was fantastic... mum and I were closer than ever before... my sister was now 17, nearly 18, and into clubbing in a big way.

My first night there I flopped down into an armchair and turned on the TV. There was Grassy, presenting the bloody weather.