Niall’s virtual diary archives – June 1999

Saturday 12th June 1999: 1.07pm. All around me right now people are moving their stuff out - yup, it's end of term time again. And what has happened to the last three weeks since an entry was made? Well, exam time did, and for those of you who know, that means severe party time.

Which is exactly what I have done. To so much of an extent I haven't had time for neither revision nor writing entries here. Still, no matter, because I had a cool time and it's going to be culminated by one of the biggest house parties of the year tonight. And in a few days time, I shall be off to Canada to work for the summer - London in Ontario apparently. So life will continue on, ten weeks from now I'll be back in Hull for my final year in university. And what a year that will be ... :)

Okay, I must dash - I just wanted to let you all know that I'm still alive, and will be posting regular updates here again soon as the party season ends and work season begins. Hmm, put that way, it sounds very dismal. Hell, maybe the party will continue on ...

Right, I'll be off, see you all again soon and until then, be happy!

Tuesday 29th June 1999: 4.46pm, except of course I'm now sitting in London, Ontario in Canada (so the time will be five hours behind). And yeah yeah, I know it's been over two weeks ... but I have a good excuse. The canadian office of the company I'm working for only got its internet access working this week, and I've either been too out of it or unable to reach an internet connected computer up until then. Sorry everyone ...

So what's happened during the last two weeks? Well, there was the Westbourne Ave party which I referred to last entry - and yes, it was one of the biggest parties of the year. My sister Aoife was visiting from Ireland and I had been attempting to persuade her of the merits of attending university, mainly by plying her with copious quantities of drugs - and while I may have succeeded by the time the Westbourne Ave party had arrived, I brought her to the party nevertheless.

We arrived pretty early with only a few hundred people there (yeah, I know, not many is it?) at around 12am with the main dance room (the front room) inside practically empty. In the secondary front room which adjoined the kitchen, there were loads of people sitting on couches smoking weed and drinking beer and mainly just talking. Typically, I didn't know one single one of them :)

Outside, it grew more fun. There were probably only about fifty to seventy people inside when we arrived, but outside in the back garden showed another set of decks with some ambient techno playing manned by none other than our Legalise Cannabis Society's secretary, Craig. I chatted to him for a while, then set off to explore the rather large garden which was populated not only by a few hundred people with spliffs and cans but also by lots and lots of lit candles, a pond, lots of chairs and a big bouncy castle which had a fair few people on it. I met a good few people I knew, some I hadn't seen in literally years. Amazing whom these parties attracts.

Having looked around, me and little sis settled down inside the dance room and smoked and talked to each other and people around us. I can't really remember much above that until two of my mates arrived when we moved to sit outside for a bit, and I can't really remember much past that until we left as the party came to a close. Oh hang on, I do remember one thing - the coppers arriving! Yeah, around 4am (it was just getting light, it's how I remember) two coppers turned up. They walked into the dance room first, which was a bad mistake as by that stage everyone had sat down and were either smoking joints, rolling joints or snorting various white powders off mirrors (there was plenty of coke, MDMA powder, speed and pills around that night, so no wonder). Amazingly, they completely ignored all of these illegal activities and simply asked for the music to be turned down - although the decks in the garden outside had to be turned off which was fair enough given the time. And then they were gone again.

After the party, we headed back to a friend's with a fair few others which we had picked up along the way - some of whom I knew, some I didn't. And we smoked away the comedown pretty much, with various people trickling off. Not a bad last weekend in Hull methinks. But it got better ...

Sometime during Sunday afternoon my mobile went with a friend of mine in Manchester who said "Niall, come to Manchester, we have lots of acid!!!". Since my sister was flying home from Manchester Airport on Monday anyway, I thought I might as well accompany her, to make sure she got the flight and all :) And well, we missed the flight (me waking up late - oops!), but we got her on a flight early on Tuesday morning, and she seemed to enjoy herself so that was cool. Hope she decides to come to Hull!

Tuesday to Thursday are a blur it has to be said, but I do remember being in a taxi around 4am on Wednesday morning heading to Heathrow in London to catch a flight to Toronto, Canada. And I do remember being pretty shaky on that flight, but I took it as an opportunity to sleep so by the time I arrived in London in Ontario I was fairly alright. And since, I have been working on various embedded systems stuff based on the ARM microprocessor, and things at work have been pretty cool.

What has not been cool has been Canada. I have been in this godforsaken hole for twelve days now, and I count every day until I leave (it's six weeks and two days now). If you examine the virtual diary archives of this time last year (choose the item in the bar on the left) you'll note that I didn't much like work, it leaves me feeling drained and altogether having far too little fun in life. Let me reappraise those statements - when you start voluntarily doing work just because you are so incredibly bored that you have no other choice, and you quite happily do seventy hour weeks without another thought - well, that's my life in a nutshell right now. I don't even have any frigging cannabis - so for the first time in over a year I have spent this past week completely and totally stone-cold sober. My asthma has returned, my joints ache, my neck is really sore, I feel like shit and most certainly, it is very hard not to get depressed about how shit it is here.

Y'see, it wouldn't be so bad if I were any place other than here. London Ontario is right next to the American border, and other than the money having the Queen's head on the back we are effectively in the good ol' United States of America (you may substitute "the epitomy of everything which Niall doesn't like about the human race" if you wish). This place is one of the most lonely and empty places I have even been - I mean with respect to the human population. Every day one must endure mind-numbing quantities of incredible American naivity, ignorance, greed and unfriendliness. Some people say this country is very friendly like the way people always wish you a "nice day" etc but I find it so very fake and plastic. Like so very much in this country, like its supposed democratically principled government.

Anyway, I'm not going on, but I think I have come to the utter opposite of any place I would choose to live in - even prison in some ways is better than this place - at least people talk to you there, or even respond to approaches by nice pot-smoking fellows like me. Don't get me wrong, I have met some nice people here, but strangely they all seem to not be from here or the states. Mainly Quebecers it would seem - strangely the same place friends from home have been to and said it was a pleasantly different place from the US - very like Europe I was told. Not like this town anyway.

Right, I'm off. I have email to read and reply to. Expect another update soon (only because I'll be terribly bored) and maybe I might tell you some of my extremely boring antics. Like not getting stoned or not getting pilled up or not even going anywhere except work for example. Crap, innit? Well, I'll see you all again soon, and until then - be happy!