Happy New Year!

A mail from when 2000 became 2001:

From: Alastair Mackay-James

Sent: 03 January 2001 17:32

Happy New Year!

Did you all have fun???

My NYE went as such:

December 30th, 2000.
Dug new car out of snow in Scotland (-15c!) and drove 7 hours thru blizzards, over the Pennines to Norfolk to see Mama

December 31st, 2000.
Drove to London, moved out of old flat in Ladbroke Grove, phoned ten of the dodgiest people I know: demanding metamphetamines and lysurgic aceed dialthialmide, eventually scored five leetil mitzoobishis and was chuffed, SORTED!

Moved into new flat in Muswell Hill. Absolutely no idea of where to go or who with, as all and sundry had buggered off to warmer climes. New Housemate (Andrew "Skin" Ingpen) claimed to know of cool party in Shoreditch, near Old Street Tube. Gave up hope of getting him to Brixton for massive Trance party and went along.

Was driven into the heart of London in brand new car other housemate (Jono)'s foolish employers had bestowed upon him. Nobody in their right mind takes a car into central london on NYE, "that's just what they'll be expecting" said Jono as he blasted the car down Muswell Hill high street, when I informed him of this well-known fact.

He then handed me a brand new A-Z and requested that I direct. Strangely enough, I managed to get us there, thru a thick haze of doobsmoke, and there was hardly a soul on the road, plenty of misreable, wet people waiting for buses and doubleprice cabs in the pouring rain.

How we laughed as Andrew produced another fine bifta and the radio screeched Dark Trace from the pits of hell as we swished thru puddles, drenching unfortunate bystanders in waves of mirth and muddy water.

We got to Shoreditch and were ushered into a beautiful flat, all modern, loike. Our host whipped out the biggest bag of Pablo Escobar's best and demanded that we tuck in. After many, many snowdrifts of The Good Suff, as well as innumearble beers and Wodkas, we decided that 11h00 was as good a time as any to ingest the metamphetamine.

January 1, 2001.
I realise that it is 4 am and that I am not, in fact at the same party as I started at. I have no shirt, no jacket, and no idea of what has happened in the last four hours. It is the New Millennium and I missed it. Andrew and Jono look like Secure Ward escapees and there are lots of unfamiliar faces (not that I knew a soul at the other party). I decided to go with it, at this point, as I had obviously been here for a while and nothing awful had happened.

Party ended at 8, at which time, everybody had gone, as had my lovely greenpornostarjakkt. Looked everywhere, no joy. Andrew's wallet had also been skillfully removed from his jacket, serves him right for sharing it with those Irish twins. At least we had a car to go home in...or did we?

We walked out into the pouring, freezing rain and realised that we were nowhere near the place where we had parked. In fact, we had no idea of where the hell we actually were and nobody could understand our incoherent ravings.

After a long debate over the relative merits of walking in the rain or getting an overpriced cab, we decided that we couldn't be THAT far away (and were buggered if we were going to let a filthy cabbie charge us a tenner to look for our car!). Half an hour later, wet, cold, jacketless, walletless, still compleetli bazoomi from our indulgences, we discovered, by looking at a bus map, that we had been walking AWAY from Old Street. This information was critical in the reformed decision to get a cab back to our car, which Jono somehow managed to pilot in a homeward direction, as the streets on the mapbook were writhing like snakes and not really making much sense.

Needless to say, we didn't make the New Year's lunch we were supposed to go to (sorry Ross, but I'm sure you understand).

All in all, another New Year, a New Millennium, entered in a state of complete and utter depravity and senselessness, the way it should be!

Yours,

In Utter Sincerity,

Alastair