Amateur Time Travel

The team had just landed, flown in from Japan this morning. We sent a car to collect them from the airport and bring them directly to our office. The meeting had already been going for a couple of hours by the time I was called in to join it at 11. By 4 oclock I was wishing Lincoln had ordered some lunch, by the time it finished at 7 I was ready to drop. Later Lincoln was trying to pursuade us that it was normal for the Japanese to close their eyes during a meeting, taking turns to be the one who looks like they are paying attention. Really they are all listening intently to what is going on.

We were all sat around a table, the bright eyes of hope untarnished by realism. We had just agreed a new funding round and were on a high, it was the late 1990s, we could do anything, we were on the way, man. The new economy, a revolution in ecommerce. And we were in the driving seat.

With us were some representatives from Racal, one of the premier HST manufacturers at the time. We were a small fish for them, lucky to have dragged them to the meeting, even.

"What would it take to buy Racal out of this business in the UK?"

There is a stunned silence, nobody can believe he just asked that.

Suddenly there is a car doing a pirouette in the outside lane ahead of me, I don't see what caused it but he's turning slowly around while still moving, overtaking. His front offside headlight clips the central reservation pushing the back of the car into the side of the MPV he was overtaking. I'm on the brake, trying to work out where the debris is going to go.

"Don't stop! Don't stop!" I look in the mirror and see what she means - theres a lorry getting alarmingly bigger - so I swerve through the flying pieces and step as heavy as I can on the gas.

"Do we need to stop?" I ask.

"No, theres nothing we can do or say that will help, we're better off out of the way"

I'm the first to get to the baggage reclaim belt, the display says its another five minutes until our bags arrive. There is already a few bags going around, looking alone and unloved. "Short connection", says one, "AMS, HEL". "XYZ, SOF" says another. What kind of an airport is "XYZ"? That should never have come to Amsterdam anyway. "ORL, AMS, BKK" another. Someones going to have a depressing start to their holiday in Thailand. After three changes I guess they shouldn't be surprised it goes awry somewhere along the way - but the lack of a "Short connection" tag suggests they'll have been travelling nearly 24 hours before they find out. Poor things. Mine is the fifth new bag onto the belt, I'm lucky this time.

Its more than ten years now since I stood on the hill by Alexandra Palace watching the apocalypse over London. We had sat at home waiting for the news of failures to come in from around the world, then figured that it would be more fun to watch as London blacked out, one piece at a time.

Its windy and the crowd, while busy, is gentle and mostly happy. Not like other years where it has been downright oppressive. We secure a spot with a good view across the city toward the Thames.

The tension rises as the time comes. Theres a cheer and we see the fireworks along the Thames, marking the speed of the earths turning into the new millenium.

Lights stay on, theres no chaos, no crash, no doom. Nothing. Just another night out. And next year we can usher in the real millenium.

"You will never believe what I've just seen in the car park". Steve arrives and I know he's about to say something offensive. "Theres this car with ghastly tiger print seat covers and a matching steering wheel cover. I mean, who would drive such an abomination?"

Sheepishly Theresa asks what kind of car, but we all know whose car he's talking about before she's even finished asking.

Thanks Steve, you've managed to make her quiet for another day.

I wake up and sit bolt upright. Somethings wrong. But I don't know what. I can't breathe. Theres no air. I'm scared. I panic. Deep breath, deep breath, deep breath.

Its the middle of winter and this happens for a few nights, one or two times a night.

Finally I look at the gas fire in my room, I've been keeping it on low overnight, since there is a hole in the wall letting the cold in. There are little rings of soot around the bricks where the flames live, they're an interesting shade of yellow.

I talk to my landlord, asking him when the appliances were last checked, to which he said they are supposed to be like that, its a flame after all.

When I got home from work a few days later there were some scary red notices on all of our gas appliances saying "Condemned" and they had been disconnected from the pipe.