Amateur Time Travel

"Do you think you can do the job?"
"Yes"
"The job's yours. Oh, and is it true you punched Jerry Ferley?"
"No, but it was very close on a number of occasions"
And thus started my career as a contractor in the IT industry. Its been a patchy fifteen years since then, I've seen some good things, I've seen some bad things. This is a recollection of some of those things.

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.

The fat is getting nice and hot in the pan on the gas ring. I reach into the freezer to get the frozen mushrooms, they're a little frosty but seem ok. I toss one into the fat, which immediately causes the ice to melt, then boil, expanding rapidly pushing fat everywhere. Over the edge of the pan into the flame below.

My immediate reaction, which I realised very shortly was exatly the wrong thing to do, was to grab the pan and pull it away from the flame. This would have worked better if the flame lived entirely outside the pan, but now I was holding a pan with a six foot flame in.

I ran outside and threw the pan into the garden, it wouldn't do any harm there since we didn't really care for the garden.

Nobody asked about the scorch mark above the cooker or why there was a pan in the garden.

I'm sitting next to a Japanese businesswoman on the flight from Osaka to Haneda - I've been flying all night, redeye from Helsinki, after a day there which turned into an evening in Tampere too. Its a morning flight for the locals but I'm the most jetlagged I have ever been. We strike up a conversation during which coffee arrives. I'm perhaps a little over-animated and while the stewardess is sneaking the cup onto my tray I wave my arms to cause the coffee to fly, soaking all three of us.

I had figured there'd be buses to Dereham. How wrong I was, so I set out on foot along the road, with my thumb out hoping for a lift, but not expecting one. It was my first, and as it turns out, only, hitching exercise. I'd been walking for a couple of miles along the A47, it was getting dark now and I'd nearly resigned myself to missing the gig, when someone finally took pity on me and gave me a lift to the outskirts of the small town, from where I could walk to the centre. I was tired and hungry by the time I got there.

It was a Dr & the Medics gig, one of the most fantastic I ever saw, and I saw them a lot. I met the Dr after the show and turned into a babbling wreck.

It's another weekend and another club in Tokyo, they often don't start until 11pm and nobody really turns up until 1am. Indeed you frequently see times like "25:00 'til 30:00", the club opens 1am the next morning from the date shown.

Roppongi this time, two stops from where I live, so I'm in no rush to get ready. The trains seem unusually quiet as I'm heading there. I check my watch as I ascend from the platforms deep underground. It's nearly midnight. Then I falter for a moment and remember that it's New Years Eve. I have less than ten minutes to complete my ascent, find the venue and get through the door.

When I get there, panting from the run, I am welcomed with a relieved look and ushered straight through to the DJ booth. This is somewhat unexpected as I'm here only as a paying customer. It takes us both a couple of moments to work out what has happened, I have been mistaken for the American DJ who was supposed to be on the decks as the year rolled over.

The club organiser is frantically looking at her watch and asks if I know where Rob is, everyone else is dancing away oblivious to the passing of midnight.

An hour and a half later he turns up, hits the decks and we all celebrate the new year somewhat later than everyone else.

We board the tram towards Skansen, it is old, more a tourist attraction than a functional piece of infrastructure. There are tables set, we choose one toward the back of the carriage. There aren't any other passengers - everyone else got on the other carriage. The tram pulls away, rocking gently, turns through the square and onto the boulevard along the harbour front toward Djurgarden.
Shortly a waiter arrives to take our orders, I choose a coffee and cinnamon bun, Adelle a tea.
The tram tracks run down a tree lined avenue in the centre of Strandvagen. The coffee is very swedish, strong and it has the grey tinge of coffee of a certain age. The bun is nice, though, as is the view.
We cross the bridge onto Djurgarden, past the Nordiska Museet and Biologiska Museet, and finally Cirkus, arriving outside Skansen as we are finishing our drinks.
It is a short journey but has to be one of the best cafes I have been to.

Our office sits high on a hill overlooking the city, from here we can see the smoke rising from any fire in the city centre.

"I can't just sit here when I can see theres a fire, there could be people in danger and I might save them. I've got to call the fire brigade. Besides I'm sure thats the chinese restaurant I go to for lunch sometimes."

"But Simon, thats the third time in as many months you've called out the boys, and its getting closer to the office each time. People will start to talk"

Ashleys zebra pattern land rover was famous all around Norwich. He'd arranged a minibus from his school to take some of us, so I was driving the landy. My first experience in such a large vehicle. It kept jumping out of gear, but it took me a little help to figure out which of the four sticks had jumped.

There was only one minor incident on the way there, I had to make an emergency stop, and poor Andy Rowe flew along the bench seats in the back making his ear bleed.

Engine were loud, none of us could hear each other on the way home. Serious ROCK.

After the gig there was a huge queue to leave the car park, but since we were heading out of town the other way to everyone else we took a short cut across the pavement - thats when off-road vehicles come into their own.

I saw the car advertised on blocket.se a short bus ride away from our flat. There were no pictures of the passenger side on the advert. The first thing I did when I got to the sales lot was see why that was - there was a dent in the front passenger door. Fine, it's a 13 year old car with 160k miles on it, I'm happy if it's a little worse for wear on the outside.
I take it for a test drive, I have to leave my driving licence with the salesman but he lets me take it out on my own. It is my first encounter with a turbo and this one has power just where you need it, around 2000 rpm, more lively than anything I've driven before. I take a quick journey down the local dual carriageway and decide I'm going to take it.
I go back to the dealer and explain I'd like it and ask how I go about insuring it and if there's anything like an MOT. He arranges six months of insurance for me, for a very reasonable price and explains the bilprovning system.
Once I've collected the cash together (which takes longer than expected because my bank had put a limit on my withdrawals) I go back to pick it up, he loads up the winter tires and hands me the keys.

We were waiting in the bar downstairs for the doors to open for the Henry Rollins gig. We happened upon Mike, a friend of ours who had moved away to Leicester but was back for something to do with his studies here. We ask if he's going to the gig. He didn't know Rollins was playing tonight but definitely will come along if he can get a ticket. He rushes upstairs to try to buy one on the door. He returns with a smile, he's got one. Then a sudden look of concern, "Oh shit, it's Jos birthday. I've got to make a phone call, back in a minute"
Another of our friends asks who Jo is, having only met Mike tonight. "His wife"
Upon his return "Are you alright? Are you in trouble?"
"She knows what I'm like and she still married me"
We hear the soundcheck coming to an end and all head upstairs when the doors open.
The gig is intense.

"This isn't right, get us out of here, this wood isn't happy"
We had made a wrong turn, gotten off the highway one junction too early. We didn't know what we were looking for, but we knew we'd know it when we saw it. We turned around and back on the big road. To the next junction and try again.
This looks better, we soon find some signs to what we are looking for. We turn into another wood, this one is happier to see us.
Suddenly, from a small road on the left some wheels appear, it takes me a moment to notice they are attached to a drag car. We are definitely in the right place now. I stop to let him go first - he doesn't look like he's got the handling for anything other than straight lines. We follow him around until he turns back toward the airfield and we head into the car park.
This is our first of many encounters with Swedish drag racing.