18th January 2001 - 8:22 p.m.

Stop for a moment. Look around you. What has happened to your bedroom?

Ah, I can explain. The crumpled mountain of shirts covering the floor - the debris of the previous evening's rather desperate last-minute attempts to get ready. A broken iron, a few un-starched collars, and I'm thrown into complete disarray. And finally fall back on The Suit, to be worn out to a club at which I know suits are outlawed. I eventually arrive, of course, and I'm only slightly late, but I find that the original clothing-chaos has completely thrown me, and I have the shakes for at least the first part of the night. Notting Hill Arts Centre refuse us admission in any case, filled to the brink, as it surely is, with inkily-rancid journalists.

So Erica and I end up at the Undersolo again, and I find myself on the dancefloor, still entirely flustered, and in that mental state (it may be ‘sobriety’) where one is painfully aware of quite how one's body-parts fit together. The only known remedy, whispered by housewives down the ages, is an intravenous Shangri-Las dosage - and, as if by magic, I rediscover my swagger and do - it's true! - Whip It Up A Storm. I Shake It to Music, moonwalk a little to The Queen is Dead, and am introduced to someone with the words "Rhys, this is Peter; Peter, Rhys". I'm not sure which one I'm meant to be but am not, so wait for a lull in the conversation and make my excuses.

Back to my room again. Scattered all over the floor, we can see a myriad of novels, novellas, treatises.. My current favourite is Walter Kerr's 'The Decline of Pleasure'. Any book with the opening line "I'm going to start off by presuming that you are approximately as unhappy as I am" is sure to get my vote. But what a relief to be able to leave it all behind - to hell with your Outsiders, your Steppenwolfs, your Kareninas! - and enjoy oneself! Why would anyone stay in to scour dour texts of martyrdom, when they could be out dancing? We spend much of Wednesday night in a giggly chattering huddle, and I don't know that I make a jot of sense the whole time - and do you know? It doesn't matter one bit.