Niall’s virtual diary archives – August 1998

3rd August 1998: Well, this is going to be some entry ...

BUSTED!

Last night at around 9pm, I was detained at the pleasure of her Majesty's Government for the possession of a controlled substance as defined under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. Section 18 of that Act was promptly invoked and my living quarters were searched for further controlled substances; however, other than some questionable books on philosophy, politics and Irish republicanism, nothing was found.

So there we go, caught at last eh? Well, it was going to happen some time or other, but admittedly it was a stroke of extremely bad luck. What happened was that whilst sitting on Parker's Piece we just happened (as you do) to roll a few and got caught on camera. Weird thing was, none of my stuff was used and even more weirdly, I happened to have the full month's supply on me at the time. Unfortunate.

However, and unfortunately, I had broken the half ounce up into a quarter and two eighths with the intention of smoking an eighth a week for the next four weeks. Typically, this seemed to the police that therefore I must be dealing, and so they did a full body search (not pleasant) and a turning over of my room. During this time I lay on a mat on the floor of a police cell for about an hour and a bit, thinking about what tack I was going to take.

Eventually, it came to the interrogation and I was asked a number of questions relating to its form (why three pieces?) and where I had got it from. The latter I obviously didn't answer - I even went to the extent of not actually admitting anyone was smoking on Parker's Piece by cleverly dodging the question. With the former, however, I had a wee problem in that it did indeed look like I was dealing. So I told them the truth, which was that I had given the remainder of the half ounce (ie; three eighths) to a friend to look after at the start of the month, but he had gone and smoked some of it and so had given it back to me. Upon verification of this information, the officer immediately arrested me for possession with intent to resell, which I must say surprised me at the time (though I didn't say so on the tape), and hence I was looking at a possible overnight stay.

However, thanks to my charms and a rather nice police chap who said almost as much as he smoked himself occaisionally, I was released just prior to 12am that night.

This morning, realising that I could see six months inside for possession with intent to resell, and also because I didn't want to see myself screwed by the system, I sought legal advice and during that it occurred to me that I hadn't actually intended to resell my controlled substances. A quick read of the actual 1972 definition indicated I was right - I had not breached that part of the act as I did not intend for my mate to consume my smokes (actually, I wasn't best pleased either). So we can have that thrown out in crown court if necessary, but it's likely the Crown Prosecution Service will see sense and not bother bringing the charge.

So that leaves the possession charge. It's likely I'll be merely slapped on the hand and told not to do it again and put on probation for a while. Next time they catch me comes a caution (with fine possibly), and after that a bigger fine, and so on until I go to jail for a while. Potentially I could go away for years with multiple offences, I don't think I like the idea of that much. Got things to do yet before getting all chained up (physically or otherwise).

Anyway, just in case, I've spent tonight looking for information on English law on the legality of cannabis within the UK. And I've found an awful lot too. I've added the links to the Links page. Unfortunately there's nothing there that hasn't been contested by someone else before, but I have learned of organisations such as the CLCIA and the UKCIA, both of which are well worth reading. I'm sending away my subscription tomorrow!

Right, it's late now, so I'll be off. Be happy - and I'll try to get that section on relationships started soon!

4th August 1998: Things are getting worse. Last night on arrival at the YMCA I was informed that due to my arrest the night before, I was having my licence to stay there terminated immediately and I now have seven days during which to leave. This morning I prompty met with the appropriate people to explain to them that not only was this a breach of contract, but also ethically and morally it was wrong to chuck someone out of somewhere for doing something illegal nowhere in the vicinity of the place or remotely to do with the place. However, they didn't seem to agree and continued to hold that I will be evicted soon.

Now that irked me. I get mildly irritated sometimes, but I don't get irked too often. The last time I got irked was about Trinity College Dublin, and you can read about that here. So I went straight to my solicitors, confirmed that my understanding of the legal implications of this licence termination were correct, and had them write a good solid letter which I have now here beside me. This combined with character references from key members of staff both here at Arm and within the YMCA should ensure they have very little ground to stand on should they try to evict me - for which of course I'd sue.

People should really learn not to irk me ...

Now in addition to all this stress, I don't have any clean clothes and my health is failing rapidly, mainly due to lack of nutrition I think. Living off a fiver a week takes its toll very quickly, and I may have to consider emergency binges of nutritional goodness a la when I was in Dublin (every week I went for a chinese which only cost a fiver). However, right now, this chesty cough, bronchial infection, glands infection, throat infection and sniffy nose will have to contend with itself. Annoying, sore, but necessary.

Right, away from practical life then. I've been thinking a lot about this whole situation. Traditionally, I have had to keep my smoking habits semi-private for fear of conviction and the subsequent inability to enter countries such as the US which would hurt my career. However, now I shall get a conviction, I see little reason why not to "out" myself and declare myself even more publicly than this website that I am very much a cannabis user and supporter for legalisation.

And if you've been reading here for a while, you're going to quickly realise that yes, that means that as of my return to uni I'm going to become very much an activist in the legalisation effort (from within Hull uni anyway). I was so anyway, but couldn't be too explicit for fears as mentioned above, but now the shackles are freed and I'm able to do whatever with fear only of incarceration, which although not pleasant, is increasingly unlikely as the bandwagon rolls on. To this end, here you will almost certainly be reading much more of marches and demonstrations that yours-truly has been on, including the 28th September next where there will be nationwide protests against seventy years of cannabis prohibition. See the CLCIA event diary for more information.

Finally, if I may end with a mini-rant, I'll just say a few things about the current legal state of cannabis. Through my pursuit of the habit, I have gained a criminal record, been evicted from my home, may lose my job, spent lots of money on solicitors and yet within ten minutes of leaving the police station I had another joint in my hand, and have despite having all mine seized, I have smoked at least three joints every night since without spending a penny of my own. According to Home Office figures I am in exactly the same situation as over 100,000 people a year, and it's rising. The current legal status of cannabis is ludicrous with Home Office figures themselves estimating 3 million regular cannabis smokers with it probably more like 5-6 million.

This is around 10% of the total UK population!

Just think about that for a while. Some 10% of the total UK population smoke cannabis on a fairly regular basis. Many MP's have said they support smoking. Many top businessmen such as Richard Branson support smoking. The Independent On Sunday national newspaper support smoking.

And yet it's still illegal

Have a think about it, have a spliff for me, and be happy until next time!

5th August 1998: Well, the appeal to being evicted is in, and I also learned that work is waiting until next Thursday (when I'll be charged) to decide whether to fire me or not. Fun eh? On other news, I've been feeling terrible, but I think that's more down to what I reckon is really hayfever than a cold. Hayfever really takes it out of you, so perhaps that in combination with the stress has been causing me so much illness.

During all this madness, I haven't been letting my reading slip. As you'll know if you read regularly, my current book is A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. Now, up until last Monday, I felt this book was extremely tedious but during the last few days the book has really become very interesting. Did you know much of National Socialism originated from Plato? Well, I didn't previously, but to think how National Socialism is somewhat against my own edicate would thus infer that Plato is also against it.

Now, you might think I'd be daunted by one of the fundamental western philosophers being pretty much at odds to my theories. However, on closer examination of Plato's Republic, you'll notice quite a fundamental similarity - that being of philosophers being important. However, where Plato feels they should form the ruling council, I feel that all of society will consist of them (I call them relevents instead though, which is strictly speaking broader), mainly due to the diversification of species theory mine encompasses which Plato never considered.

Getting back to Plato though, it's interesting to note how his instruction on the rearing of children is almost identical to that used in today's society. Children must be shielded, he feels, and instructed in language, mathematics, philosophy and the stars. Well, maybe the last two aren't so similar, mainly as the last is no longer so important, but the second last certainly is not taught more through the very protection of the young Plato advocates. No corruption he feels. So hence it must be said that indeed today's society bears much resemblence to Plato's vision, especially in the more conservative societies (like in the UK which won't legalise cannabis for some daft paranoic reason ingrained into their being :( ).

Getting back to the education of children, as you'll notice within my theories, Plato's and current society's method is against what I propose. I propose a traumatic and expansionist childhood as so to better create relevents within society, which is hardly shielding them. However, this said, there are certain things, eg; being sexually abused by another, that I feel steps a bit too far into trauma. That said, it is interesting how some are (relatively speaking) unaffected by abuse in their childhoods as compared to some others who spend the rest of their lives in a form of torment. I have always traditionally put it down to their personality - some "deal" with it better and some certainly deal with it much much worse - and the unanswerable question I have always asked is what the person in question would be like if they had never been abused? I fear not much different, but it's unproveable within this society, so I guess I'm at a dead-end for now.

Hmm - I've just had a pang of annoyance - I can't remember what else I was going to write. I've had more ideas than this whilst reading the book, but the lack of an immediate computer to type in, and so der zeitgeist ist verloren worden, which is a pity as much of the interesting bulk of june was made of such immediate observations and these pages of late have suffered from the lack of them.

Ooo, look at the time! During the writing of this I've been doing some web browsing and downloading mp3's, so sorry for doing that. I got distracted by the lack of music to listen to which I've grown accustomed to whilst writing on such topics. Let's hope that Friday will see some updates to Niall's theory of relationships finally (tomorrow's curry night, so that's out). Until then, I'm off home (it's nearly 10pm), so be happy in the meantime!

7th August 1998: You may have noticed that the server's been down for the last three hours. My apologies for that - I made some changes to the structure of the site only to find FP98 had lost the page hit counts again and so effectively I flipped by going to public_html and doing a rm -rf * which is a bit drastic but necessary.

Anyway, I note that even after republishing everything I've somehow managed to free 4Mb of data. Amazing what crap FP puts on your site. I've also moved completely away from FP's hit counters and used good old count.cgi. I've changed all the pages and as I compiled it myself, I've managed to hide the count directory in a place no hacker shall ever be able to access (the wonders of .htaccess). Also, manipulation of my counters by those other than me has been disabled and no one will be able to use my server as a counter server either (which is good).

Well, what's been happening? Well, it's managed to publish 58% of the site as I type this, it'll take a while yet. Curry last night was okay, bit boring, and I went after for a few smokes with mates and watched some telly. And that was that really. I've also been informed by the YMCA I now am getting kicked out on the 17th rather than the 10th as at first. Small consolation I suppose, but that still leaves me with finding somewhere to live for three weeks.

Ooar, it's 11.15pm now - time to go soon. I've been at this fixing up of the site for four hours now, I hope you appreciate it. Ah hell, I'm getting ready to go - type to you again next Monday at the earliest! Be happy!

10th August 1998: 8.20pm, I seem to be getting used to doing all these extra hours. I'm not thinking about it twice at this stage - this is perhaps not good. Anyway, I'll stop waffling, let me tell you about this weekend in the minutest detail.

This weekend was pretty good. Hmm. Yeah, I do know it was pretty good. However, I can't actually remember much of the details. You see, this weekend could be called a weekend of excess somewhat in that I spent all of it pretty much oblivious ie; like I am normally enough in uni. Ah well, I'll try writing down what I do remember ...

I can't remember any of friday night after typing in the last entry below I'm afraid. I do know I went to bed at 4am and due to mucking up the alarm (yes, I was that stoned) I didn't get out of bed until 4pm. Somehow I had set the right time for breakfast but despite checking it three times (which I remember) I didn't actually turn the alarm on. Oh well. Anyway, friday night is a complete blur, so sorry about that. Blame not having a computer nearby to type on before I forget it!

Right, it's saturday. First thing I did when I woke up was skin up, and while I was smoking that a mate buzzed me but the intercom thing was bust and so I missed him. However, when I ran out front I bumped into some of the residents, and yup, before I knew it my room was populated with them all skinning up. Cool, I went for a shower, stayed for a few smokes for a while, then kicked around before heading out to call round to a few associates to let them know I'd been busted. Yeah, I know I should have told them sooner, but I was pretty busy, so I didn't bother. However, I did pick up an eighth whilst there - all I could afford, and then I called around to a few more mates.

Now that was fun. Y'see, it was a hot sunny dusk by that stage (around 7pm), and I thought it'd be nice to find some super quick way of going between town and East Chesterton. So I tried cycling along the river, only to end up in a field full of cows and getting bitten mercilessly by the insect life that follows cows. Blame the cannabis I think. So then I cycled back, crossed the bridge, and tried going through a housing estate instead of going round it. This meant cycling for another half hour completely and utterly lost.

Essentially, this went on for a while. And I ain't going to describe it, as it's tediously boring to read. But what I enjoyed about it was the feeling of freedom of a sorts, of being somewhere I hadn't before - much like the feeling you get when you bugger off somewhere just because you can. And it was nice, the sun shone, I was lost, and I felt very much alive. If you've ever seen Easy Rider you'll at least have an idea of the feeling - although I was just on my little pedal bike as compared to their proper bikes. Still the same sentiment though - honest!

I eventually got round to a mates, and it wasn't long before I was pretty stoned. He headed out to the Junction nightclub and I stayed for a while longer with his missus discussing people and their quirks. Interesting. I left before 11pm though to get to the shop in time to buy more tobacco and papers. I was pretty buggered by the time I got back, but no matter as I think I stayed up for a fair bit smoking. Not sure mind. Couldn't have been too late as I felt pretty okay next morning when I woke at 9am and went to breakfast.

Sunday was pretty quiet. It was also marred terribly by the lack of Babylon 5 as Channel 4 have stopped it for the time being until the US starts again (bastards). However, after breakfast I had a few spliff's, lay down (had to), and then got buzzed by two mates who took me for a pint at 12pm when the pubs opened. Finished that, had a few smokes and headed back to supposedly watch B5, which wasn't on. Bastard.

My day now ruined, the only thing to do was get way way way stoned. And that's exactly what I did. I wrote a letter to Kathryn (finally) from 4pm-6pm which by the end of I was unable to sit up in bed properly, and had to lie down. I remember smoking while I was reading over the letter and my arm slipping out from under me. Ash went everywhere. I hate when that happens.

After that things get a bit blurred again. I remember watching California Man, Witness and Flashback which is one funny movie when you're stoned. Especially the bit about Dennis Hopper dropping a tab into Kiefer chap's drink. Funny. Hehe, I'm chuckling again now ...

Then I went up to a mate's and smoked away there with another set of mates until about 3am listening to the blues. Which was why I was late into work this morning. But they don't know that ;) ... but besides, it was a good night and I did enjoy it quite a lot. Indeed I enjoyed the weekend quite a lot too. Not a bad weekend for quite a while.

So that's that. I haven't described a night in that much detail since uni I think. So I decided I would ... well, at least attempt to recall what I can remember of it.

But what else has been happening? What else in my life?

Well, the YMCA eviction thing sits static, as does work and everything else - all holds its breath until next Thursday when I get charged. On the ukcia mailing list, I've been generating a lot of mail directly and indirectly concerning the next steps to be taken in the legalisation struggle. Part of it is that I'm angry, and I ain't happy, and I want to see things change. No doubt I'll calm down eventually, we'll see I suppose yet.

I've also finished the Niall's theories bit for the time being. It's a bit less than what I wanted. In fact, all it is is a list of "memorable entries" from the archives, but I'm not sure if that's all bad. Because you see, I can't just sit down and write this stuff. It's got to come to me at the moment. And it shall. But not tonight - I've still got Niall's cannabis resources to do ... other something along those lines. It can come later, and I'll shove them into the theories section.

Right, I'll update this again in a moment - meanwhile, I'm off to write the cannabis stuff which will go here. See you next entry ... till then be happy!

11th August 1998: 10.20pm, nearing home time. I spent most of tonight reformatting and reinstalling everything onto my work machine so I haven't got too much done. What I have got done is on the cannabis pages, all about the why you shouldn't smoke it and types you can get. Go here to read it now if you want.

I see I've got pretty high on the Open Pages statistics - getting popular obviously. Cool. If you want a real taste of this virtual diary, see the highlights here!

Other than that, pretty uneventful this past day. I intend to call round to someone's tonight, let's see if we have an interesting conversation! Be happy!

12th August 1998: 11.20pm, phew it's late. I've written up some more of the cannabis pages, and I've added a natty new feature - a loading sign.

Problem is with web browsers is that if they're told to render a table they must receive all of the table contents before they bother trying to plot it. I personally think that's a bit stupid, but who am I to argue with Microsoft or Netscape? Anyway, this means that for some pages, especially the hardware page, which are long, you can get the top bit and ads and then have a several second wait while it fetches the rest. This isn't good, as some people get confused. It's not difficult to have the browser replot as it gains new information about the table, so for pages like these it can plot what it knows of so far and replot if needs be (the Acorn RISC-OS browser proves this ability).

Anyway, now on the cannabis page, there appears a "Now loading ..." message which disappears when the page is loaded. How? Cunning use of Javascript and what I have a feeling are MSIE4 only extensions I think. If you get a box appearing around the message then yup, turning off the box is MSIE4 only.

In other news, I go for charging tomorrow night and I'm beginning to not look forward to it. I got my blue bail slip back today so I'm now ready. Must remember not to bring any of my gear with me ... ;)

In related to that news, the Smokey Bear's picnic is on next Sunday! I may well go ... depending on money and other things. I'll talk to people tonight about it.

And that's that. Christ, in uni I had pages to write about in a day. Here I can just manage a few lines. Working life sucks ... still, only three and a bit weeks to go now. And speaking of going, I'm off - it's late and I want to go to bed. See you tomorrow night hopefully just before I head off for charging! Until then, be happy!

17th August 1998: Updated the hardware page by splitting the page into two. Why? Well, loading times are obscenely slow even for me, so modem users must be really feeling the crunch. So I broke the page into two tables instead of one which make IE and Netscape render the first table when it encounters the second. Why they can't render the table as they receive it I don't know (some "lesser" browsers do ...). I've also made the loading banner MSIE only as Netscape can't handle it (doesn't like you creating a form with javascript). All new pages from now on should have it too!

Earlier today ... Now that's what I call five days of fun!!!

As you might have noticed, I haven't updated here in five days. Why? Well, lots has been happening, which I'm about to tell you about now ...

The charging last Thursday went well. In that, they took me in, sat me down, and said "Would you like a caution?". Now for possessing half an ounce of the best resin broken into eighths, I thought this rather extraordinarily lenient, so I took them up on it.

You may be thinking there must be a catch? Well, there was of a sorts. I didn't realise it until the duty sergeant mentioned that as I only had a quarter ounce, it was small enough that there were only going to caution me. Quarter ounce I thought? Surely he means a half? But I kept my trap shut, and ten minutes later I was discharged with a bit of paper which essentially says "Don't do it again". Am I hauntedly lucky or what ...

So that was thursday night. Friday night I went out with a few mates, one of which spent the night giving me grief about how little money I spend and he's always having to pay for me. As I replied, I don't ask and I usually refuse your presents as I'm only too aware of my poverty. Didn't matter - he still yabbered on, and eventually I went home pretty pissed off.

However, on my way back, I bumped into the YMCA crew who were sitting on Parker's Piece. I decided to have a quick smoke or two, so sat down and started rolling up (made more difficult by the slight breeze which makes burning things down difficult!). It began to occur to me that it was odd everything should be out like so when usually they're off doing their own things (and many of them plain don't like each other), but as I soon realised, they were all tripping their faces off on some rather potent LSD. Seeing as it was so cheap, I decided I might as well too.

LSD is a strange substance. It's one hell of a powerful hallucinogen, with the only thing I've ever had which is stronger being Northern Lights skunk (skunk soaked in LSD - they have a very very powerful synergistic effect). You have the full caboodle of visual effects, things changing from one thing to another in front of you, streaks of colour, the works. It is very similar to substances used in age old by shamans, and when you're on it, believe me, you do realise a whole pile of stuff about ... everything ... that makes absolutely no sense when it wears off. Very mystical, trippy kinda stuff. And most definately, definately not somthing to be taken unless you really know what you're doing - this stuff has been known to drive people mad through what they see whilst tripping.

Anyway, after letting it soak into my tongue for a while, I headed up to the YMCA's kitchen's to cook some food. Which was fun actually. Y'see, I started out cooking fine, but by the time I was finishing I was having severe difficulties moving the spoon to my mouth and I kept nearly swallowing my tongue. Washing up was even more fun. But best of all was when I went into "the tripping room" where everyone else was tripping too and we sat and smoked and smoked and tripped together. And oh - we decided to batter this bloke's head in cos it would be fun and sense just about prevailed so we didn't (didn't think the idea of blood everywhere would exactly help create a good trip ambience ... :) ).

I toddled off to bed around 4am but I didn't sleep. I just drew trippy pictures, wrote trippy stories, and ultimately just sat there and thought trippy things. I completely wankered my arm muscles as I kept holding my hands in the air and moving them to watch the blurred rainbow colours leech off them. Eventually I lay on my bed, stared into the sky as it pitter-pattered onto the roof outside, and watched the dawn come up. Wonderful, even if my heartbeat was going like crazy (LSD is like amphetamine in that it speeds you up quite a bit).

I didn't bother going to bed that night - stayed up for breakfast at 7.30am when I attempted with great difficulty to eat a bowl of cereal (trips last eight to twelve hours), and on the way to my room to sleep I got captured by these spanish women whom made it very difficult to keep a coherent conversation. I slept for six hours, and believe me it was good ...

Saturday night I got talking to this spanish girl for most of the night; got to bed for 4.30am after a few smokes. Sunday I didn't get out of bed until 3pm, and even then went back to bed at 6pm until 9pm. The aforementioned spanish girl called round quite late and err, stayed quite late too. I won't go into detail on that yet - I'm a bit superstitious when it comes to these things!

So that's my weekend. I now have three weeks exactly to go before the return to normal life. And I'm looking forward to it - only three weeks. Next weekend sees me off to the Junction where I'll be consuming an obscene amount of controlled substances (I think everything other than smack and acid!); the following weekend is Notting Hill carnival, and the following weekend again is my last in Cambridge for this year. So hopefully I'll have something to write about at least till the start of uni!

Right, I'm off to see that spanish girl, so be cool, sorry for the late update, and I'll see you next update. Be happy!

18th August 1998: Updated my local copy of Winamp to v1.92 SP1 on the Useful page, updated the loading message to warn Netscape and other non-MS browser users that some elements may not display properly. Also, those without Javascript support now get a message telling them so. In addition, now you can search the website - cool huh?

Right, I want to write about (finally) Niall's theory of relationships. It's been particularly pertinent of late due to (a) uni growing ever closer and (b) the spanish girl I've been recently seeing. So, given I was discussing it with her last night and it's now fairly fresh in my head, I'll commit it here to paper (?).

BTW, the stuff below will remain in each new entry here until it's finished ie; it'll be here every day you open this page until it's done, when it shall enter Niall's theories on life. So don't worry if you keep getting deja vue! Also bear in mind it's in a state of flux - so some of it may repeat and/or not make much sense.

[Niall's theory of relationships cut and moved to most recent entry]

Right, that's all I'm doing for now. I'm off back to have a shower. Be happy until the next installment!

20th August 1998: Haven't been up to much these last few days - as usual! Well, there's a little over two weeks now and counting ... and this leaves me an interesting problem with the spanish girl I've been seeing. Problem is that, yup, Niall has done it again - he's found a woman with whom he could fall in love (she passed the girlfriend test last night), especially as there's no permanency in this so I don't have to apply all these new restrictions I've come up with since Kathryn.

Hmm. Difficult. Y'see, she is awfully good in bed. And me being quite physical but never admitting it to myself, that's very appealing. The English/Spanish thing is annoying at times, but nothing too major. Hmm. This is difficult. I think I already know what I'm going to do - but I won't admit it here!

Well, I've updated the theory below a bit - not much though as I'm tired and I want to go to bed to be honest. So until the next update (may well be Monday - ooo, that's going to be a weekend and a half!), be happy, and I'll see you then!

[Niall's theory of relationships cut and moved to most recent entry]

24th August 1998: Urgh, I feel like shit ... however, I've trimmed off the sizes of some of the pages on the site and moved Niall's theory of relationships to the theories page as it was irritating me ...

This weekend, as you knew before anyway, was going to be a bit of a handful. And err, it certainly was ...

Friday night saw your wonderful webmaster get home to find the spanish girl I've been seeing (whom we shall call Suzanna say - I've decided from now on I'm using aliases when it comes to people mentioned here) being rather standoff-ish. Now I twigged something was up despite her being nice but distant all night, especially when she didn't want to stay at mine that night.

So, on Saturday when we were meant to go out together, I completely ignored her for the entire day. Perhaps I was being a bit overreactionary possibly, but I was fairly sure she was playing with me for some reason and it was that which made me angry, nothing else. I have no problem with women finding me moving a bit quick (which is happening especially at present with less than two weeks to go), but I'd far prefer them say it than the other usual reaction which is to withdraw right back. However, Suzanna did neither - she became more distant but yet stayed doing all the physical stuff. It was mentally she was being more distant, and I decided that she was attempting to manipulate me.

Now, given my history of fucked up relationships, I did decide to react rather strongly. Y'see, the other thing that irritated me was that even with having only known her a week, I already cared, and that meant she could hurt me. But ultimately, just ignoring her was far less strong a reaction that perhaps what I could have done ...

Anyway, Saturday night came and just before I was about to go out clubbing I decided I'd better drop her a note and ask her to see me on Sunday. Just as I was walking down to the reception, Suzanna appeared after me having seen me leave my room. She wanted to know what was wrong with me, and I told her, and after a bit she said she had been coming across hot sometimes and cold other times to keep me interested. I pointed out that if I weren't interested, I'd dump her - she didn't need to play mind games to maintain interest (not that sort anyway). I also told her that if she had any problems, tell me and we'd sort them out - no need for manipulation which I usually react adversely to anyway.

However, I needed to go, so we only talked for ten minutes. Where did I need to go? Why the Junction of course, for my leaving do (there being two weeks to go and no more free weekends). It wasn't a bad night, although we didn't get any pills until 3am when it was a bit too late. However, the first lot of base we got before we went in was excellent - the second lot from inside made some of us vomit and also has managed to cause a very nasty reaction by my gums - I can't eat much at present as it's too sore. That should hopefully teach us to get all our stuff before going in - not there as you'll always get ripped off :(

Went until 6am, headed back to a mate's for some smokes, went back to the YMCA for breakfast. Couldn't sleep at all on Sunday (good base as I said), so I ended up spending the afternoon in bed with Suzanna, which is not a bad way to spend a come-down. And hence, pretty much, we lead on to today, during which I feel really really bad (all my muscles hurt from being given far too much exercise - some eight hours of dancing pretty much non-stop). I also didn't get much sleep last night, so my head hurts too. Also eating anything hurts too much, so I'm bloody hungry too. But ah well, I only do this once a year (after which I'm usually fucked for three days or so), and it wasn't a bad night, so good I guess ...

Right, that's me done - it's 8.20pm now and I'm off to lie down. Tomorrow night I must be at someone's, and Wednesday night I should be going out and getting drunk with Suzanna (so that I may have my wicked way with her - don't worry though, I've told her that myself!). So it may be Thursday before the next update.

Oh - I haven't told you how Suzanna fits into Niall's theory of women have I? Well, I couldn't be bothered typing it all in, but suffice it to say she's much of a Kathryn type (yes, I know, it's scary!) except that she's more innately self-confident. And definately very compatible with me, much as Kathryn was. But not compatible enough to not restrict me to a level I cannot tolerate - although here in this Cambridge life that doesn't matter as I'm hardly living a life I want to either. So it'll be fine for the next two weeks, but were she also at uni - I couldn't see it working for the same reasons me and Kathryn failed. Although, that said, much of what directly caused me and Kathryn to fail (ie; Kathryn's friends) isn't a problem with Suzanna, but I have a feeling much of the indirect causes would be the same - if you've been reading here for a bit you'll know what I mean.

Ach - I'm off. Sorry for not being able to type too well - my right hand's knackered for some reason (two fingers don't work properly). And my head and body hurt too much to think straight, so my apologies if this is a bit unreadable/makes me sound like a prat/whatever.

Now I'm definately off. Be happy, talk to you again by next Thursday at the latest.

27th August 1998: Hello happy internauts, it's 7.10pm and I'm feeling a lot better than the last update, which is very very cool. As you may have noticed, I've added some IE4 enhancements and I've tweaked with the underlying HTML somewhat to provide smaller files and more consistent output (again, only affects MSIE users). However, it's only this page that's been altered so far - it'll take a while to filter through to the rest of the site.

So, hmm then, what's been happening ...

Me and Suzanna are getting on fine. We went out last night and drank cocktails for the night, got very drunk, came back to mine, got very stoned and ... well, no, I didn't have my wicked way like I intended - cos she passed out! ;) I have to admit I was a bit irritated, but I can only blame myself - I fed too much into her as I was highly surprised to see twenty quid's worth of drink had little effect on her. As I found out, it seems it takes a while to sink in ... anyway, didn't matter too much really, we laughed about it this morning before I went to work.

Well, it's just under a week to go. I've been getting in contact with all the uni crew, and I'm glad to say that lots of people who graduated last year will still be around this year as they're staying around. Which is pretty excellent actually, as I like all of them. However, what I did find out is that most aren't going back until fresher's week at the earliest (bollocks says I) ... actually, let's use some natty HTML to give you a quick timetable (this won't look right on any non-Microsoft browsers - sorry!):

Now as you can see, I have nearly two weeks between leaving the YMCA and the majority of my friends turning up. In addition, there'll be almost no one there during the week starting the 7th, so I might as well (I reckon) enjoy the comforts of a girlfriend + smoking community at the YMCA for a few more days. Hence I think I'll leave instead on the 9th or 10th - why not eh? That'll leave me only eight days before uni life returns once more in full force :) !

I think that's about it for now. Oh - go visit the Smokey Bear's picnic website (click on the cannabis leaf above) - even better, be there!!! Next Monday sees me attend Notting Hill Carnival in London, I'll let you know what happened there on Tuesday I'd imagine. Until then, be happy, count down two weeks yourselves (using the counter above for those with Javascript capable browsers!), and see you next Tuesday at the latest!