 
Nick Fisk

Gospel and Gossip

Dedicated to Richard Davies, and all the friends I've met along the way

PART 1

I had my first girlfriend when I was aged about five. Five! I was going to Coryton school in Cardiff at that time. We had not long moved back to the UK from Zimbabwe, where I was born. I don't remember too much about my time in Zimbabwe from that time. Obviously, I remember it was hot! I remember my grandad buying us ice creams one time, and the ice cream starting to melt even before we'd started eating it!

I don't remember my first girlfriend's name, but I do remember us standing on steps by the school while most of the other boys went to play war, or other games, in the fields nearby. I did play with the boys sometimes. I had really good friends in Coryton. Everyone was friendly, and it was a happy time for me. My teacher, Mrs Cox, was great. My best friend was Matthew Patterson. He had three brothers, so was similar to me, as I had two.

I think my girlfriend invited me to her birthday party. And I invited her to mine. Obviously, when I say girlfriend, she was just a girl, who I was friendly with. But I suppose I was a bit different to a lot of boys under the age of ten, who generally seem to hate girls. This girl, whoever she was, lived in quite an unusual location. There were just a couple of houses actually on the roundabout by the M4, next to where the fire station was, and she lived there. It might have been partly the fact that she lived there that I found intriguing.

We had a house in the Whitchurch area, opposite a cinema, which was great. We used to go to the Saturday matinees, which were especially for kids. The cinema's been knocked down now, with a block of flats built in its place.

As my mum and dad both worked full-time, our neighbour would quite often look after me and my brothers. She was kind of like a granny to us, so we called her Nan Jones.

Life was generally pretty good, despite the fact that I was involved in two car accidents. I can't quite remember the order they happened in. But in one of them, I was in the car with my mum. I looked at the traffic lights and saw that the green man was flashing. Obviously, as a person who more commonly went around on foot, and was used to going when seeing that the green man was flashing, I shouted to my mum, "It's green mummy!" She took my word for it, went on the red light, and smashed into a car. Fortunately, there were no injuries on this occasion.

But another time, my mum was taking us to the library. My older brother had got out, and gone across the road to the library. My younger brother was still just a baby, and my mum was taking her time to get him out of his seat. I decided to go against my mum's demands for me to wait for her, and got out of the car to run across to join my brother. Unfortunately, a car was coming, which I had not even seen, and went straight into me. I was lying under the car, screaming and screaming. I must have been in a lot of pain, and I think there was a lot of blood. All I could think to say over and over was, "I'm sorry, mummy, I'm sorry!" Eventually, an ambulance came. I was put into the back, still crying. The driver said, "If I put the siren on, will you stop crying?" I wasn't sure what to say to that, but he did put it on, and I stopped crying instantly.

I was in hospital for about a week. I was treated by JPR Williams, the famous rugby player – this was a time when rugby was an amateur sport, of course, so most of the top players all had other jobs. Even my gran from Africa came to visit. She gave me a toy laser gun as a present, which I had fun shooting the nurses with. Well, I was soon up and about again, even if I was on crutches to begin with.

When I was very young, I used to dream about a witch. There was some confusion as to whether this witch was also my mum. I used to talk about the witch, and my gran even bought me a witch puppet. But one night, I dreamt that the witch died, by falling off a swing, and from that point on, I never dreamt about the witch again.

My older brother and I had both written stories for a competition. I don't think either of us won first prize, but we must have done quite well, as we were invited to London by the publishers. I was hoping to meet the author, Nicholas Fisk, but that didn't happen. But anyway, soon after I think, my dad got a job in Bridgend and we were going to move, but before we left Coryton, my brother and I were called up to the stage at the assembly, I think to congratulate us for doing well in the competition, and to say goodbye to us.

We moved into a large house in Bridgend on a street called Merthyr Mawr Road, and my brother and I would now be starting in a school called Oldcastle. I can remember my very first day, being on my own in the playground, and just crying, not knowing what to do. A very kind boy called Huw, from the year above me, looked after me that day, but henceforth, I was not to have a happy childhood.

There was a boy who lived on my street called Richard Patterson, but he was not like Matthew, of the same surname, from Coryton. I made some other friends, but I don't really know why, I had trouble fitting in. Maybe it was because I was the new boy. There were two girls in the class called Felicity (known as Bucket, for some reason, a nickname given to her dad I believe) and Georgia. I quite liked them both, but perhaps there was some sort of competition for them, even though that wouldn't have been the expression used by five or six year olds.

My brother too was not having a particularly good time. There was one teacher called Mrs Bevan who he had a very hard time with. My brother, Jerry, did very well in school, but I think Mrs Bevan was always comparing all the other children to my brother, and this made things difficult for him. It got so bad that my mum decided to remove him from the school, and I think he had a better time in another school in Bridgend.

I even had Mrs Bevan as a teacher myself a few years later. I remember even within the first couple of weeks, we had been given a test, and Mrs Bevan accused me and the boy sat next to me, Neil Timbrell of cheating because we'd both got all, or most of the answers right! Well, I know I hadn't cheated, and to be honest, I also doubted if TImbrell had cheated as he was pretty bright himself. But we both got sent to see the headmaster. I think there might have been more tears. She was just an evil teacher, really, but I had to stick her out for a whole year.

I don't know whether that was a thing in all schools, in fact, I don't remember it being a thing in Coryton, but in Oldcastle, and also in the comp I would later go to, Brynteg, the boys always called each by their surnames. Maybe it was a way to show that you were "hard".

There certainly was no shortage of violence in my school years. I was to get bullied a lot and it was not enjoyable. For one year, I was in Mr Murray's class. He was an appalling teacher who had absolutely no clue about how to handle a rowdy classroom. But I do remember, one time, I hit Felicity, or Bucket. It was a completely inexcusable thing to do, and I felt very guilty. I didn't want to hit her at all. She was somebody I liked! But I think I was so badly affected by the treatment I'd been getting by certain boys that I didn't know what to do. I wanted to hit out, and unfortunately, she was the target. Fortunately, she seemed to be ok about it.

A year or two later, by the time I was nine or ten, I decided that what I was going to have to do was start having fights with boys. I initially picked on easy targets, like Darryl Gibbs, again, a person I had nothing against, but somebody I knew I could beat easily. So I had a fight with Gibbs, and beat him. My next target was Morris. He was part of the crowd I was having problems with, but I did think I could beat him, and I did.

It seemed as if I'd worked my way up, and I was due to have a fight with Renwick. Everybody loved Renwick, he was the main setter of fashions, the cool one, but he was also a horrible bully. Well, I remember having a fight with him, with a lot of people standing around watching, and I was soundly beaten. Fortunately, we didn't get into too much trouble. The school was probably more worried about the likes of Blake, and so long as it wasn't Blake causing problems, they probably didn't worry too much.

I suppose school wasn't all bad. I used to enjoy playing marbles. There were no playing fields at Oldcastle, no grass at all, but there was an area where we used to play marbles. Our sports days were held at the blind school, a short way from Oldcastle. I won the sprint once – I've got a photo of me beating Renwick somewhere – and I was generally one of the fastest. It always seemed to be though that the top two or three boys were always injured when it came to sports day though, so my achievements were never really recognised.

But I do remember when the sports teacher came to ask us who had won the sprint the previous year, some of the boys reluctantly pointed to me, so it was decided I should play on the wing for the rugby team.

I did enjoy playing rugby, but unfortunately I tended to succumb to handling errors, ie. I dropped the ball a lot. I could be in prime position to score a try, someone would pass it to me, and I'd just drop the effin thing. I mean, obviously I scored a few tries, but try as I might, I never mastered the game.

I can't really fault my parents the whole time I was growing up. They were never that generous when it came to birthday and Christmas presents, but they always ensured we had good summer holidays, taking us to France, Holland, Malaysia, America, all over. I met a nice girl called Basak on one trip to Turkey. I had just been doing a sketch of a nice looking house, and asked for a seat. Basak, who was a bit of a stunner answered, and a couple of nights later we went for a stroll together.

We went back to visit Zimbabwe a couple of times of course, once the situation in the country had calmed down a bit. We visited friends and relatives, and went to the tourist attractions such as Victoria Falls. When Mugabe introduced the Land Reform policy, many of my relatives, who had farms, had to leave the country. I suppose, in principle, you could not disagree with the policy, in terms of giving native Africans better rights, but in practice, at least in the short to medium term, it made things for all Zimbabweans much worse.

My dad was quite strict, and my mum used to threaten us with the rolling pin, but I suppose that was just their way of ensuring discipline. My dad did used to quite like playing tricks on April Fool's Day. Sometimes it would just be simple things like swapping the cereal around in cereal boxes. But one year, he played a trick which really freaked me out. My older brother and I were in our parents' bedroom, as we often were when we got up. My dad had set up his dictaphone in a cupboard which just kept saying "I can see you...With my secret EYE!" This actually quite scared me, and I've never quite got over it.

At weekends, we would quite often go for walks, most often in the Brecon Beacons. We had one particular favourite spot, where we would have picnics, and walk along the path by the river, passing some scenic waterfalls. We had two dogs, Tibby and Penny. Tibby would always find a stick. They were both quite small dogs, but Tibby, as if for our amusement, would always try to find just about the biggest stick he could, and carry that along with him.

In the summer holidays, we'd cycle over to my Gran's who'd now moved back from Zimbabwe. This was my gran on my mum's side, who I was always closest to. In Africa, she had kept servants, which I was sometimes uncomfortable about, but after all, that was pretty standard back in the day. Also, my Gran's main servant, Marco had actually walked from neighbouring and had knocked on my Gran's door asking for work. She had also campaigned for the rights of native Afticans. Once my gran no longer needed Marco's services, my family continued to look after his family, buying him a minibus so he could start a taxiing business, and also a house, and we are all still friends. My Gran was the last of my grandparents to die, at the age of 88 (when I was much older), which was a very sad time for me. It didn't help that her death coincided with the London Riots, so as I was trying to grieve over my Gran, there was a lot of fuss about a totally unrelated incident on the news.

But back to my childhood. One day, my dad decided he was going to buy a computer. He was considering buying a ZX80, but he got a letter saying that Sinclair were about to release the ZX81, which was much better, so he ended up buying the ZX81. Thus began our love affair with computers, particularly Sinclair computers, and more especially, our love for computer games.

Obviously, the games on the ZX81 were pretty basic, but we did have a lot of fun with games like Mazogs and Monster Maze. I think there was a game called simply, Gold. My dad had joined the ZX Computers Owners' Club that was based in Cardiff, and the guy who ran the club told a story about the time he'd completed the game. Supposedly, he'd stayed up all night playing it, and when he got to the end, he shouted out "I've found the gold!" and surprised the postman. I was never sure whether to believe the bit about surprising the postman.

My dad took me and my brothers to a computer games exhibition in London where the ZX82, or ZX Spectrum, was being unveiled, and this was incredibly exciting. The clamour for this item was immense.

So of course, we got a Spectrum and for the next four or five years, my brothers and I obsessed over the Spectrum. There was a shop in Bridgend called Dukes of Hazard ("Dukes") where you could rent games instead of paying the full price to buy them, so of course, we rented loads of games, and copied them on cassette at home. We loved all the games by the best company, Ultimate Play the Game. When Jet Set Willy came out, I think we had to actually buy that because there was a coded system which made copying it tricky. Wheelie was another favourite. Formula One did not get great reviews, but we loved it as it was a multiplayer game, and we would have friends round and play it together.

Jer and I even set up our own computer games fanzine called Games Monitor. We would review games, in much the same way as popular magazines like Crash would, and give our favourite games a "GM Explosion" instead of a "Crash Smash". Maybe didn't have quite the same ring to it. But we'd sell a few in school. Jer's friends, O'Baid, Webber and Rawlings also contributed.

Later on, I got to do a few reviews for a much more successful fanzine based in London called The Bug. I got to meet the people who ran it, who lived in Muswell Hill. One of these was a guy called Jeff, who was a bit of an eccentric character. His bedroom was decorated by Communist posters. He went on to a career as a photo-journalist and is now quite a successful DJ and promoter.

My other passion as a young teenager was music. It was kind of like an obsession. I remember my gran introducing me to the charts. She and my grandad, who we referred to by his first name, Ken took us on a holiday to Cornwall, and my gran put the charts on the radio. Or actually, it might have been my mum. But I loved the charts. I think it's a real shame that the charts no longer really mean anything.

The first record I ever bought was "Maid of Orleans" by OMD. I'm not quite sure why I picked this one. Obviously, I'd seen it being performed on Top of the Pops. It was one of those songs that had lingered around for ages. I think I liked most of the Top 10 at the time – it would have been around the time John Lennon was shot – but this was the one I picked out. And from then on, a lot of my pocket money would go on buying records.

The first LP I had, as a birthday present, was Shaky by Shakin Stevens. I loved Shakin Stevens. I came third in a Shakin Stevens dancing competition in Oldcastle (I think Timbrell was first or second). I remember seeing him on the kids' TV programme, Swapshop, and being a bit confused by his accent. I knew he was Welsh, but it didn't sound like a Welsh accent. I guess this was because he was from Ely in Cardiff, and the Cardiff accent is a bit different to the stereotypical Welsh accent.

Madness was another band I loved, and I had Madness wristbands. I got quite into Madonna, and would buy Smash Hits. The thing I liked more than anything else about Smash Hits was that it was a funny magazine. They had a habit of putting "everything" in inverted commas, and used made-up words like ackchewloi.

But at some point, I also discovered indie music, and the NME. The NME became far more important to me than anything else, along with a sort of esoteric feeling of being "in the know". The NME told you about bands that you could actually _go and see_ and also, it had the indie charts. Maybe it was because I'd started listening to John Peel on Radio 1 that got me into the scene.

So there were bands like the Wedding Present, The House of Love and The Wonderstuff. I had the Wonderstuff's debut album, Eight Legged Groove Machine, which was kind of on the more commercial side of indie, and I'm pretty sure it was The Wonderstuff that would be the first band I'd go to see live.

I think I went with my friend, Chris White, his girlfriend, Caitlin, and a girl I invited who lived down the road from me. She lived next to a park that we used to play at sometimes and I think I thought she looked kind of indie and might be into it. I kissed her at the gig, but it was a bit strange. Actually, maybe it was the La's I took her too. Or maybe the Darling Buds. Once I'd got a taste for going to gigs, there were so many, I forget all the details.

She wasn't the first girl I'd kissed of course. I'm not sure if I ever kissed the girl I was friendly with as a five year old. The first girl I got off with was called Cathy. When I was fourteen or fifteen, I used to regularly go to discos that kids from school would have for their birthdays. Most of them were held at a hall in the YMCA in Bridgend, but there were some at other places, like a hall in Brackla. At one of the discos in Brackla, I'd got talking to Cathy and I quite liked her. Well, a couple of days later, I was dragged along by a few people in school to meet Cathy and it was all a bit embarrassing. But then it was arranged that I would get off with Cathy at the next disco at the YMCA. Most boys I knew had already got off with someone, so now it was going to be me. We went outside, and kissed, open mouthed of course, and that was about it really. I think we danced to a smoochy song at the end of the disco.

But Cathy would be the first girl to break my heart, as soon afterwards, she was into someone else. I got her a card for Valentine's Day, which I think was passed on to her by a friend, but it was returned to me, not wanted.

For my A Levels, I chose English, History, and Philosphy. I was always more into the arts, unlike Jer, who was more maths/science. Philosophy was a new subject at Brynteg, which was taught by Mr Archer, who was also my English teacher. He was a great teacher, who got children really enthusiastic about things. I struggled a bit with History though, taught by Mr Tapper. I found writing the essays tricky. But this wasn't the only problem I was having. I was still having a problem with being bullied.

The Christmas after I'd started my A Levels, something happened that I thought would alleviate all my problems. I fell in love, properly, for the first time. Or at least, I thought I did.

My mum and dad had booked a holiday for us all at Center Parcs in Nottingham. On the way up, my older brother, who had only recently passed his driving test, and was driving me and my younger brother, Ade, in my mum's car (with my mum and dad following behind in my dad's car), managed to turn the car over. Fortunately, we were all fine, but a bottle of ketchup had leaked from the car, and when my mum and dad reached us, they thought it was blood! Somehow, with all the stuff we had between the two cars, we did still manage to get to Center Parcs.

Obviously, Center Parcs is known for all the facilities it has to cater for families: swimming pool, bowling alleys, nice places to walk etc. It also had a disco, and I went along one evening, possibly with my brother the first time. Here, I saw the girl I fell in love with for the first time. She was stunningly beautiful, with long black hair. And of course, looked indie! She appeared to be dancing with her dad.

The next night, I decided to go back to the disco, and she was there again. I must have somehow plucked up the courage to talk to her. And to my amazement, she agreed to meet me, perhaps the following night.

I think I would say this was the equivalent of what would now be called a date. I think we did buy alcoholic drinks, although we were both underage (I would have been seventeen, my date was just fifteen at the time, soon to turn sixteen). This girl was Claire, from Tunbridge Wells, and without doubt was the most beautiful girl I'd ever met.

I was very nervous, but I think Claire was too, but nerves aside, things went really well. We chatted and chatted and chatted, and found that we had a lot in common. We both liked The Wonderstuff. We also both liked The Stone Roses, who were the new big thing at the time. Claire had an older sister, who had stayed at home. Claire's birthday was 11th of Janurary (11/01), while mine was 11th of October (11/10). We must have danced, I suppose although I don't remember that so much, even though it was her dancing that I think captivated me the most the first time I saw Claire.

Eventually, it came the time to leave and wander home. We carried on talking as we were walking. It was quite cold, being December of course. I remember there being a low mist. We were just walking fairly aimlessly. Eventually, Claire said something like "Where are we going?!" and I said I didn't know, but for some reason, at this point, I decided I would try and take the chance of kissing her.

Fortunately, Claire was ok with this, and we had a nice kiss. Claire was fairly short, so when we stopped at one point, she said something about standing on the sleeping policeman. I had absolutely no idea what she meant by this, never having heard the term, but then I figured out she meant she should stand on the speed bump nearby! So she did that, and we carried on kissing for a bit longer. Finally, we stopped, Claire said, "Well, that warmed me up!" and now I walked her back to her chalet.

We said our goodbyes and arranged to meet up the next day. I walked back to my chalet on Cloud 9, wondering if it was all real.

Claire and I were quite inseparable for the rest of the holiday. I introduced her to my family of course. We went swimming, which was quite good fun, even though I was a bit worried I might get a stiffy at the sight of Claire in her swimming costume! One day, we even ventured out of Center Parcs to visit Nottingham town centre. We went to a record shop together. I bought 90 by 808 State and Claire bought Bizarro by The Wedding Present, on my recommendation.

We got off the bus near to Center Parcs and had to walk up the long driveway into the complex. Claire said something about bunny rabbits doing it in the woods, and I wondered if she might have been hinting that that's what we should be doing. For the last couple of days at Center Parcs, I wondered about getting condoms and whether it would happen, but it didn't, although I did get to kiss Claire's boobs the second time we went out (which were amazing).

The last thing I did before we left Center Parcs was leave a love letter for Claire, an NME/CND compliation video I had, and a carnation (I couldn't find a rose). I wrote the letter in spindly handwriting and quoted the Stone Roses, changing the wording slightly to "Have you seen her, have you heard? The way she sways there are no words. To describe the way I feel."

A few days later, I got a letter in the post from Claire – we must have swapped addresses at some point. It was similarly filled with love and was quite gushy. I think it made reference to Romeo and Juliet. I was pretty sure this was the real thing. We exchanged another couple of letters.

But then, disaster struck. I got a jiffy bag in the post, with the NME video. That's fine I thought, Claire's returning the video, even though I don't think I'd asked for it back. But it did seem a bit odd that she'd just sent the video, and no letter. I panicked. I must have said or done the wrong thing. I sent a letter back, filled with urgency, asking her what I'd done wrong, and saying that surely this could not be the end.

A couple of days later, there was a phone call which my mum answered. "It's Claire," she told me. Hmm, what could this mean? I wondered. Claire simply said to me, "Nick....Open the video box!" I ran to the video box, and inside was a beautiful, perfume-scented letter. What had I done?! I quickly thanked Claire, read the letter – it was a beautiful letter – and of course, wrote back soon after, hoping that things would resume as before.

But sadly, from that point, things never carried on as they were. I had doubted Claire, and understandably, she was affronted. I bought tickets for the House of Love at The Angel Centre in Tunbridge Wells, which I told her about cryptically in a letter. We did go together, but Claire was not keen to even hold my hand. I was given her room to sleep in while she slept in her sister Jacqui's. On the wall was a big "Boys Don't Cry" poster by The Cure. I scribbled underneath, "Oh yes they do!" That didn't go down very well.

I actually had a "Boys Don't Cry" t-shirt which I sent her to make up for this (I'd gone off The Cure myself anyway), which she did like, but it was becoming clear that from now on, we were really just friends.

Just before I'd met Claire, I'd applied to an ad in the lonely hearts' section of the NME written by "two bookish indie girls" seeking friends. I got a letter back from one of them, by chance, also called Claire. I think I told her that actually, I'd just met someone after all, but we did continue as penpals. We got to meet up. Typically, I preferred this Claire's friend, Carolyn, who I also met, but I never got to write to her.

Anyway, the Stone Roses' big gig at Spike Island was coming up. I'd missed Blackpool, I'd missed Ally Pally, so no way was I going to miss this. I got two tickets, and hoped that Claire from Tunbridge Wells would come with me. Unfortunately, she wasn't up for it, so the other Claire came with me instead.

This Claire, from Essex, was not really a big Stone Roses fan. She was more into indiepop, and obscure stuff like bands on the Sarah label. She stayed at mine the night before the gig and we weren't getting on that well. We went to Spike Island by coach, but although we weren't really getting on, as we walked into the arena, I decided I should hold Claire's hand, and although we didn't say much, we tried to enjoy ourselves.

It was a beautifully hot, sunny day. There was a general feeling of excitement in the air. One of the bands we all knew and loved had made it big. I heard the Charlatans "The Only One I Know" over the speakers for the first time – wow, what a tune, I remember thinking.

Claire and I camped out near the back. And we really didn't have much to say to each other. So we just kissed instead. And kissed. And kissed. We literally did practically nothing else. God knows what people around us must have thought. We'd stop for a bit, have nothing to say, so just keep on kissing. We went to get food, had the food, then more of the same. I think I was thinking that maybe we should go somewhere to have sex, but I didn't have the guts to suggest it. Would have been a cool place to lose my virginity though.

It was a slightly odd gig as there were no support bands, just DJs playing mostly fairly obscure stuff, so it was a long build up to the main event. Finally, The Stone Roses did come on. I don't actually have that much of a recollection of their performance. Even though they were masters at making gigs real events, they were never that well known for producing a fantastic live sound, which I know sounds odd.

I remember the journey home, and more kissing. We touched each other over our clothes until I finally came. Eugh. I know.

I had done one issue of a music fanzine, which was mostly based around the Wedding Present, called Not Ukrainian. Essex Claire helped a bit with this, although it was more dedicated to Claire from Tunbridge Wells. I'd done an interview with David Gedge of Wedding Present, and also one with Birmingham band, Birdland. I had a competition to win tickets to see the Happy Mondays at G-Mex, but as no-one entered the competition, I ended up going with my brother (where I got mugged for a spare ticket I had). The next issue was to feature an interview with Tom Hingley of the Inspiral Carpets, and possibly a feature on Carter USM, but it never happened.

By the time it got to around March or April of 1990, I was starting to have a really hard time at school and I was really depressed. There was nothing for it, but for me to leave school. I spent a fair bit of time basically just locked up in my bedroom, not knowing what to do.

Finally, I made the decision that I would go back to school the following year, and I would still study English and Philosophy, but instead of History, I changed to Art. And also, I would be in the year below.

Starting school in the year below was a complete revelation to me. These people were actually _friendly!_ It's almost as if I'd forgotten that such people could exist in school. The kids in this year were a pretty brainy bunch and worked hard, but they had a lot of time for having fun and just enjoying themselves. I was taken under their wings and quickly adopted as one of them. I was so relieved, but also, truly thankful.

I was still a bit worried about whether I'd be able to write essays. The first time I was set an essay by Mr Archer, I went down to the local playing fields, Newbridge Fields, and sat on a swing, listening to one of my favourite albums, The Comforts of Madness by The Pale Saints.

When I got home, I started to write the essay, and it came to me relatively easily. I was quite pleased with the final result. I got a good mark, and Mr Archer showed my essay and another of the class's essays to everyone else (I think the other person's essay might actually have been his daughter, Becky's, who had just moved from Bryntirion school).

So generally, things went far better for the rest of the time I did my A Levels. I really enjoyed Art, so it was definitely the right thing for me to have changed subjects. My new best friend was Andrew, whose surname was Hider, so I mostly called him Spide, Spider obviously rhyming with Hider. Andrew lived on the Brackla housing estate and was best friends with a guy called Matthew, who lived near to him, but went to a different school. The two of them were both massively into hip hop and skateboarding, although Spide also liked indie music, Matthew to a lesser extent.

There were two people in this year who I'd known since Oldcastle, Julian and Becca. I'd always fancied Becca a bit. I knew where she lived, and one time, I knocked on her door and asked her out, and we went to Cardiff shopping together. But we were always only friends. In fact, I set her up with someone else I was friendly with, Matthew Clubb, who was in the year above me. Matthew was the head boy at one stage, was the deputy headmaster's son, and something of an intellectual, but still, quite a good laugh. He introduced me to Stephen Fry's "Saturday Night Fry" radio show.

Becca had a best friend called Helen. The two of them who were rarely seen apart. Helen used to refer to me as "pratt". I think that was the unsophisticated term. They'd walk past me, and she'd jokingly say, "Oh look, there's pratt!"

Well somehow, Helen and I ended up going out together. She'd had a house party and had shagged Matthew Clubb's younger brother, in a tent in her back garden I think. I was very jealous of this, and realised it must be because I had quite strong feelings for Helen. We had been hanging out together quite a bit. Not long after the party, I was round her house one time, and just tried kissing her on the stairs. She was a bit taken aback, but then I explained my feelings and we eventually became a couple.

I finally lost my virginity with Helen on a sofa at Becca's house. Becca was upstairs with Andrew who she was now going out with. It was very brief, but at last it had happened. The only bad thing was, I think Helen cried. But she said it wasn't because of me, it was because of things that had happened to her in her past. It was all a bit emotional.

Fortunately, things got better after that and Helen became my girlfriend. I started calling her H, and she would call me N. We'd meet up with friends in the King's Head, or get drunk on Thunderbird. We had slightly different tastes in music – Helen liked bands like the Ozric Tentacles and The Levellers, but we did both like dance acts like The Orb.

I didn't do much for my 18th birthday, but I did have quite a big party for my 19th instead. My mum and dad went out, and I don't think my brothers were around either. Instead, loads of people I knew came to our house, as well as quite a few people I didn't know. Word must have got around somehow. A friend called Neil and I had gone mushroom picking a few days before, and we made a big mushroom tea. A load of druggies were in my mum's conservatory, doing bongs and drinking the mushroom tea.

Just before I'd started back in school, there was one day in the summer holidays when two very attractive blonde girls were doing some drawing outside our house. One of these was a girl called Rachel Jenkins who my art teacher had told me (to my amazement) wanted to hook up with me. So I'd had a brief thing with her kind of just before Helen. Anyway, she was there at the party.

I think Helen might have cheated with me at this party with this bloke she knew from near to her in the Valleys, so that wasn't great.

A had a friend who was six foot seven called Max and he somehow managed to walk through the glass door that led into the kitchen. There was a load crashing sound of course and this made all the druggies in the conservatory think the police had turned up, so they left. This was fortunate as I didn't know how I was going to get them to leave otherwise. A girl called Ruth and her boyfriend Dan, who was usually known as Jesus due to his long flowing locks helped clear up the shattered glass. Things died down soon after this.

Inevitably, when my mum got back to the house the next day, she hit the roof when she saw the smashed door. She threw me and Neil, who'd stayed over, out of the house, and we went into town and stopped off in a cafe for a bit, waiting for my mum to calm down.

Helen did cheat on me a few times, but I usually forgave her. I didn't really want things to end with her after all, and at least she was honest and usually quite apologetic. There was one time she was quite brazen about her activities. We'd gone to see the Swansea band, The Sweetest Ache, in a small venue, somewhere in the Valleys. She had gone to ask the manager for a light, and they were just chatting and chatting and chatting, while I was sat fuming with Julian and Max. I think I eventually went to get her, but by this time, they'd swapped phone numbers. I was absolutely livid. I had by this time become a Cardiff City supporter, and it was almost like this spurred me all the more to hate all things Swansea!

The journey back home was not an easy one, with me still very angry and not wanting to talk. Helen insisted I drop off Julian and Max home first before taking her back. We had a regular spot near to her house in Llangeinor that we would go to for a kiss and a cuddle and to watch the stars. I didn't really want to go this time, but she insisted. It was here, tonight for some reason, that she decided that this was the right time to tell me about how her dad had molested her as a child, which was obviously quite shocking. Even though I had been angry with her about what had happened earlier in the evening, this brought us closer together again.

Helen had regularly gone on summer holidays to Scotland with her parents, so we decided we'd also go to Scotland on a camping trip. Helen, who was keen on cars, drove in her ancient old brown Austin Allegro, known as Rustin Aggro. It couldn't go more than about 50mph, so it took quite some time to get to Scotland! We went to Scotland twice, and both times were quite good fun. I remember us driving around the Highlands, listening to The Orb in the car and thinking, this is the life.

So I managed to finish my A Levels, and came away with two Bs and a C, the C being in Philosophy which I was a bit disappointed at as I thought that was the subject I'd most likely get an A in. Still, not bad, all things considering. Unfortunately, it was around this time that I began to lose my marbles for the first time.

I had started to become a bit of a drug user. We all smoked a bit of weed, and it was nothing too serious. We did sometimes do bongs, sometimes at the nearby Prisoner of War camp, which was a bit heavier – well, a lot heavier, didn't really do me much good at all. I also sometimes smoked weed in my friend Will's garage, where he also had a pool table. Will loved to listen to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.

But at Glastonbury in 1992, I took acid for the first time. At Glastonbury in those days you could hardly walk five yards without someone offering you drugs. Not sure what it's like now as I've not been since 1999. Anyway, I bought an acid tab for five pounds, and Helen and I did half each. It took a while for the effect to take a hold. I think I'd gone off on my own to see the end of a set, maybe by the Chemical Brothers. By the time I started walking back, the effects were starting to take a hold, my perception was distorted, and things were generally just a bit odd.

When I got back to the tent, Helen was sat around a fire. As I looked at the fire, I started seeing figures dancing in it. There were some guys who told us what else we could expect on acid. I went to go into the tent, and thought there was someone in it, when there wasn't. Eventually, the two of us just went to bed.

Helen seemed to be enjoying herself, but I felt very uneasy. If I closed my eyes, I could mostly just see cartoons. But then I started having some weird thoughts about God and stuff. And then for a moment, I thought I might die. As a matter of urgency, I thought Helen had to say she loved me, otherwise I was going to die. I asked her, "Helen, do you love me?" "Yes of course I do," she said, thankfully.

When I got back to Bridgend, for the next couple of weeks, things generally started getting a bit weird. I started having thoughts about angels, and other unusual thoughts. I thought I was onto something, but I didn't know what it was.

It was Will's birthday on August 11th and the night before, we were at the house of his friend Rob (who has now sadly passed away). We had a couple of bongs. Will and I had to walk back across the Brynteg school playing fields to get home. I was finally home and got into bed, feeling pretty stoned.

But then a very weird thing happened. I suddenly thought I heard God talking to me. I heard a voice that simply said, "Name your God." I wasn't really scared by this, if anything I actually remember finding it quite funny, that God should be talking to me. Obviously, I'd studied about God in Philosophy, but always from the point of view of being an atheist. Now, it seemed, I was being spoken to by something I previously hadn't believed in. And that was the thing, I had little doubt that this was actually God talking. I went through other possibilities, like it was a Government scheme, an MI5 thing or something, that it was just my stoned imagination, etc. etc. But I eliminated all other possibilities and was convinced this was the real deal.

So then I thought about what my answer to the question would be. I looked around my room, in the dark, and saw all the posters for my favourite pop stars, etc. I thought God wouldn't really be very impressed if I named someone from a band. I thought possibly of Stephen Fry, who I did admire as a funny guy. But then I saw a photo I had of Woody Allen. I decided, after spending a good while considering other options, that I should give the name Woody Allen. After all, don't they say laughter is the best medicine? Isn't humour one of the best things to alleviate pain? And Woody Allen's films were amongst my favourites. So that's the answer I gave.

Then I thought, well, while you're here, God, could I ask a couple of other things. Like, who would I marry – would I marry Claire? (even though I was going out with Helen, I was still pretty hung up on Claire from Tunbridge Wells). By this stage, God now seemed very distant, but I felt like I got the message back that marrying Claire would prove problematic.

I cannot confirm that I also said, well, I tell you what, if you're God, how about forming a band featuring an Inspiral Carpets' roadie? I seem to remember thinking in my stoned state that it was just such a silly thing, but that if it happened, that would prove His existence. But...I might not have done that. After all, if I hadn't said that, I might just say I'd said it anyway, mightn't I?

Anyway, at around about the same time that I heard God, I also heard a banging noise from next door, or maybe something like a ball being kicked around or something. Which was very odd, as our elderly neighbours were supposed to be away. I decided I wasn't going to tell anyone immediately about the God thing, but I did think I'd better get my dad up in case there were burglars next door or something.

So I woke my dad up, and we went out into the street to see if we could see anything. There may have been a light on next door, I'm not sure, but my dad decided there was no cause for alarm, and we should go back to bed and get some sleep.

The next day was a strange one. I woke up, remembering what had happened and wondered what on Earth it could all mean. Due to the way I'd been behaving in recent weeks, it was possible I was on the verge of some sort of psychotic breakdown, and my dad (who was a psychologist himself) must have spoken to a psychiatrist friend of his who had a tablet for me to take. Not sure what it was.

That evening, my friends Andrew and Matthew came round. I just kept repeating "Woody Allen's God! Woody Allen's God!" to them. Obviously, they thought I was barking mad.

And then something even stranger, at least to me, happened the very next day. Woody Allen was suddenly all over the news on TV. It was not for a good reason, however, but because the news was emerging that he was having an affair with his adopted daughter. The actual content of the story meant little to me though. The fact that Woody Allen was on the news, which was not a normal occurrence by any stretch, was a signifier of some kind to me that events from a couple of days previous were real. I didn't know what it meant, but here, in some sense, was my "proof".

The problem was, this still did not tell me how I was supposed to continue with my own life. Helen had gone away for a week with the Quakers. My thoughts turned to Claire, who I was still in touch with. I was quite a regular hitch-hiker when I was younger, and it was still the done thing to do. I decided I was going to hitch down to see Claire in Tunbridge Wells.

I was picked up not too far from the motorway by a guy in a bright yellow Mercedes. He was going to visit his girlfriend and he took me all the way as far as Kent. On the way, we'd stopped at one point, and I'd spilt coke (the drinking kind) on his gear stick, but fortunately, I don't think it caused any real damage. Anyway, I travelled the last part of the journey on the train with what little money I had.

Claire had recently moved to a new flat with her new boyfriend. I hadn't told her I was coming, so of course, she was surprised to see me. I think it was actually her sister who answered the door to me. It was a very awkward situation, with her boyfriend being there as well. Jacqui, Claire's sister, was at least being polite to me. Claire did not say much to me at all.

A couple of years previously, Claire had done some work experience for Sony Records, and while she was there, had sent me two records by two Liverpool bands signed to Sony, The Real People and Rain. I never really liked Rain, but I did get quite into The Real People. On the wall of Claire's room was a huge canvas with the cover of the Rain album. It looked as if it had been hand-painted, presumably by Claire herself.

Anyway, eventually, Claire's boyfriend suggested the two of us should go for a walk. We talked a little about life. He was a bit of a philosopher himself. He said we could go one way, I said we could go the other. We were sort of talking philosophically about how differently our lives could go. But it was all bollocks, I know really. I should not have been there at all, it was a big mistake.

When I got back, it was suggested I have lie down in another room for a while. I was given a book of Claire's boyfriend's poetry, which was actually very good (I think I decided at that point that I should try writing poetry myself). Then at some point, my dad turned up. They must have rung him. Not quite sure where the hours had gone. Maybe I'd actually fallen asleep. So my dad took me home. When we got back, my dad told me very sternly that I should never contact Claire again.

I had to go into a mental hospital, which was pretty horrible. Got put on more pills. It was a horrible old place, closed down now. Some pretty ill people. I didn't really know how things had come to this. Maybe it was the drugs, or my unsettled childhood. Maybe I actually had a condition, who knows? Whatever it was, something that initially seemed to be something I hoped would be transitory, being mentally troubled, would be the blight of my life henceforth.

PART 2

So now, not only had I gone back a year in school, but due to my time in hospital, I was not going to be able to start at University straight after finishing my A Levels, as planned. I had a place in Reading (if I'd got better grades, I'd have been able to go to Bristol), and my dad did take me to look at possible accommodation. But I was not going to be ready in time, so I had to take a gap year.

Jer had a few ideas and one suggestion was that I went on a kibbutz, so I did that. That was quite good fun, I suppose. I was there from about January to March, 1993. I met lots of different people from around the world. I shared a room with a guy from South Africa. There was different work to do, whether it was picking apples, or packing apples, or machine assembly work. Sometimes you had to be up at about 4am, but at least the hours weren't excessively long so you had a good amount of time to do other things after finishing work.

Twice a week there was a disco, with free booze, so we all used to get pretty sozzled. We were also given free cigarettes if we smoked, and a small amount of pay. Most people's favourite brand was Noblesse, if only for the comedy value in the name.

Even though we were in Israel, it was right up in the north, so was actually pretty chilly sometimes, especially at night. I think it might even have snowed once. Occasionally, there were scares of a bomb raid.

It was while at this kibbutz that I cheated on Helen for the first time. She'd done it to me countless times, so I decided, what the hell? There was a girl, also from South Africa, who I had a little thing with. Nothing serious. But anyway, my dad decided he was going to come and visit me. He'd come over round about Valentine's Day and had brought a Valentine's Card for me from Helen. It was a very nice, hand-painted card depicting the Owl and the Pussycat, which I'd never really thought of before as being romantic. We'd never spoken about the story that I could recall, so I wasn't quite sure why Helen chose this scene. But it was a very nice card, nonetheless.

Anyway, I spoke to Helen on Valentine's Day on the phone. She did ask me if I'd been with anyone, and I did confess I had kissed someone – I didn't tell her more than this. She seemed to be accepting enough.

I think I then spoke to her again a couple of days later. Maybe this time I owned up that I'd had sex. I can't quite remember the exact order of events. In one of these conversations, Helen also told me she was pregnant. Obviously, this came as a bit of a surprise, and was not the best timing. Helen had started Uni in Leicester, and one time when I'd gone to visit her, she had said something about wanting to have a baby, and we'd had unprotected sex. I don't think I'd necessarily taken her that seriously.

Well, anyway, I don't quite remember, but I think I was a bit mean to Helen on the phone saying it wouldn't be a good idea for her to keep it with us going to different universities, etc. Helen did decide to terminate the pregnancy, and I suppose I regret that now, as now, speaking as a forty-seven year old, childless man, who is likely to never now have children, I probably do wish I had had a child, and Helen, I'm sure would have made a great mum. I only found out exactly how Helen terminated the pregnancy a few years later when Julian told me, and I'd rather not speak about that.

I spent the last couple of weeks of my time in Israel in Eilat which was a lot different to being on a kibbutz, obviously a lot warmer being in the south. It was a reasonable break all in all, a good way of clearing my head a bit.

Helen and I did carry on again when I got back – in fairness, Helen was fantastic the way she stuck by me even while I was ill, in hospital, etc. but when I started Uni in the autumn of the same year, we started to drift apart.

My first year in University was quite a fun time, filled with friends, parties, drink, drugs, but not much sex. I was in Halls for my first year. We were expected to attend a formal dinner at the start of the first term. For some reason, everyone was asked to stand to sing the national anthem. I was not going to sing God Save the Queen so I remained seated, and a guy from Shrewsbury called Iain who I'd befriended and was sat next to me also refused to stand and sing.

I made friends with a slightly older mature student called Richard who was American. He was quite a big dope smoker. I sometimes went round to his room first thing when he would "wake and bake" (roll a joint). I was turning twenty-one just a couple of weeks into the first term, when most students were not even nineteen yet, but a lot of them helped me celebrate. Maybe the fact that I bought a crate of beer and took it to my room helped.

One time, a few friends and I were smoking in my room. I had gone out for a couple of minutes, only to get back and find one of them had set fire to the carpet! They were just calmly sitting around as if nothing really had happened. We were all cautioned, and I think the guy who started the fire was billed, but I don't think he ever paid.

Of course, you'd also meet people from other halls when you went to lectures and seminars. There was a girl from a nearby hall that I got friendly with within the first few weeks and I think she came out with us on my birthday. We were just friends though.

A couple of guys and I did of course indulge in the common practice of going on hall crawls to meet new people. One time, we went to one hall, and across the room from us was a girl I'd had my eye on a few times in Philosophy lectures. I'd named her the "Secretary Blonde". This was my chance to actually go and talk to her. However, I made the fatal mistake of inviting my friend Mark to come with me.

The two of us went to talk to this girl, who turned out to be called Kirsty, and her friend, Kathryn I think. But Mark struck up a conversation with Kirsty and would not stop talking to her! I was left to chat a little with Kathryn. This was definitely not the plan at all!

Kirsty and Kathryn started to hang around with me, Mark and Richard. There was also a friendly Belgian guy called Fred. We were a bit of a gang. But I was still hoping that I might start going out with Kirsty. Helen and I were more or less over by now, though still friends. She came down to visit one time, and got to meet Kirsty, which maybe wasn't the brightest plan either as I think this might have put Kirsty off.

After maybe a month or so of us all just hanging about together, one night, I thought I'd go and visit Kirsty on her own and ask her if she liked any of us, and if so, who, etc. This was a bit of a silly thing to do. It was just awkward and didn't go well. I remember around about this time, Kirsty and Mark were getting on a bus to go to London together. I don't think they necessarily minded me coming with them, but it seemed as if I shouldn't, so I didn't get on the bus. Maybe soon after that, Kirsty and Mark became a couple.

Again, I don't recall the exactly when, but during one holiday, when I was back in Bridgend, I did get quite a nice letter from Kirsty which made me think I might still have a chance with her. Because we sometimes called her Crusty, I sent her back a short note written on a crust of bread. Can't remember what I said, but I think she thought it was quite funny.

I must admit, Kirsty was not the only girl I fancied in Uni, or should I say, was desperate to try and get into the knickers of. There was Helen (another Helen!) who was in my hall. We were encouraged to join societies while in University, and I had started a pretend society called HelSoc, which was supposed to be the Helen appreciation society. Helen did not like this. At least I did get off with her once when she was drunk, I think.

There was a girl in a different hall who I liked, partly simply because she was Welsh, but also, she was pretty and a bit of a music fan. But I never had any chance with her. She was one of three or four girls that I labelled as Targets. I appreciate this will sound incredibly sexist. But say she was Target No.2, well there was also Targets No.1, No.3, and No.4. I don't think there were more than four. Kirsty was probably Target No.1, I can't quite remember. But I might discuss these targets with my friends when we were having our meals in the canteen. "I saw Target No.2 in the bar at the Union today," I might say for example. Or Simon might say, "I think I saw Target No.3 buying fags in the Spar earlier." It was like I had spies working for me. Feel free to chastise me for this, but on the other hand, with this sort of attitude, you can appreciate why I wasn't getting any action.

There was a fantastic club in Reading called Checkpoint Charlie. It was a techno club, held once a month on a Thursday in a small venue called The After Dark. I'm not sure at what stage we started going there. But once we started, we went every single month without fail. The atmosphere was absolutely superb, and they got some pretty big name DJs, even though it was a small place. They never announced the DJ until the night, which made things doubly exciting. The likes of Carl Cox and Mr C played there, but our favourite was a guy called Billy Nasty. Anyway, it might have been at Checkpoint Charlie that I first spotted Zoe.

Zoe, I would discover, was a second year Philosophy student from Newport. She was very pretty with short hair, so I imagined she probably also liked indie music. The most incredible thing about her though was the way she danced. Most people at Checkpoint would be raving away, arms flailing all over the place, just like you see in videos from the time. But Zoe's style was unique. She would just go left to right, left to right with her feet, nothing more than that, all night. It was quite hypnotic (I've just recently learned that this is technically called "two step"). Sometimes, I'd be in a corner, arms and feet flailing away, but sometimes, I'd edge closer to Zoe, and copy her style for a bit. She was another person I was a bit too wary to try and approach. She seemed a bit too cool.

Richard and I took our first E at a house party, probably later on in the first year. The first time, we took just half each. But we definitely enjoyed it and got a buzz from it, and from then on, we'd usually take a whole one each, maybe about once a month. They were about £15 a time in those days, and quite strong. There was a really nice guy called Toby, a real wide boy from Portsmouth, who we would score speed off occasionally, maybe pills as well.

Although I'd originally thought that going to Reading would mean visiting London a lot, I didn't actually go to London all that much while I was in Uni. One time though, we did go to Club UK in London. We did Es there, Toby was there, it was a good time. I remember us staring at a poster for the Orb's Pomme Fritz as we were coming down from the E on the platform of a station in London, catching the first train back to Reading.

But I would encounter Zoe on a couple of other occasions. I'd gone to see Pulp Fiction in the cinema twice. The first time, Toby and his mate Simon were there and we were drinking and smoking and having a laugh. The second time, I went to a different cinema I think and I went with Richard. We went in and found a seat. Then I looked to my left, and there was Zoe, just a couple of seats away from me. Well, surely this would be a reasonable time to say hello, I thought. But I just didn't. I somehow managed to go through the whole film without saying anything to her. We saw her and her friend outside afterwards, and I still stayed mute.

One good thing was that a friend from school, Stu (from Andrew's year), was also at Reading. I think he started the same year as I did. He was in a hall right the way across the campus from where I was, just off campus. But I'd pop across to see him quite often. Stu was pretty good at making friends, and did have quite a few friends, including female admirers. He liked a bit of a drink. He used to joke about holding the record for the most wanks in a day. We were not necessarily that close as friends while in school, but now we were in the same Uni, we did become quite firm friends.

Stu was not heavily into music, although he was partial to The Smiths. But the main thing we had in common was a love of football. I think I can rightly claim to have got Stu into following Cardiff. We were able to go to a couple of away games while in Reading, such as Wycombe and Barnet. Stu usually had a girlfriend, and one of his girlfriends came to a game with us once. There was a red headed girl who was nice, but very Christian, and Stu couldn't quite go along with her churchiness.

Helen from Bridgend was a redhead too, and in fact for a while, it was almost as if I had a thing for redheads. I went out with a girl I'd known from school, Emma, for a short time. She came up from Bridgend on the train for my birthday once when I was in my second year, and now living in a shared house, almost falling off the train drunk. She was quite nice – an excellent artist – but it was never really meant to be with Emma. Jesus did she scream when having sex though! It was just too much.

Problems started again once I was into my second year. I shared a house with my American friend Richard, Mark, Martin, and Martin's girlfriend (now wife), Catherine. I had the smallest room on the middle floor, at the back. Mark had a large room directly above me. I would regularly hear Mark and Kirsty having sex above me, which was pretty torturous. And then when I was asleep I would even dream that it was me shagging her!

I had an Oasis poster on my wall, but I went off them after the second or third single, I think because I'd heard them say they were going to be bigger than The Stone Roses, which I didn't like at all. I also had a picture disc on the wall by the band, Shampoo. I made it quite a colourful room.

We'd gone to the pub for Martin's birthday. They made him down a yard of ale. It was the night "Love Spreads" was going to be aired on Radio 1 for the first time, and the pub was playing the radio in the background. I strained to listen to it. Obviously, there was a great deal of anticipation, with this being the first new song by the Stone Roses for over four years. It sounded pretty awesome, with Led Zeppelin influences as had been talked about in the music press. I remember when it was released, I was listening to the charts with Richard, telling him it was going to enter really high and he didn't believe me. It went in at No.2. Even so, I was a bit disappointed it didn't make No.1.

When the album, Second Coming, finally came out a couple of weeks before Christmas, I went to the record shop in Reading and bought it on cassette so I could listen to it on the way home on my walkman. I certainly did not instantly fall in love with it, but it definitely grew on me, and was appalled that it was given the mark of just six out of ten by the NME. I wondered whether this might have been as they had originally given the debut album, now considered to be one of the best albums of all time, a mere seven out of ten, and felt they couldn't give this album the same, or a higher mark.

The following year, I went to see Oasis live in Cardiff. I had definitely gone off them by now, so I don't know why I was going really. I went with my younger brother Ade, and a friend of his, Iolo. Before I met them, I'd hand-made these silly leaflets saying "Hail The Second Coming" on one side and "Burn Your Oasis Albums" on the other which I would later give out after the gig. During the gig, I was near the front shouting obscenities at Liam Gallagher. I was a bit of a twat really, as Liam himself pointed out when he said, "I hope everyone enjoyed the gig, except for that dickhead over there," meaning me.

When I was back home in Bridgend, I did at one point burn my vinyl copy of Definitely Maybe in a slightly ritualistic fashion. I took it at night to the nearby playing fields where there was a stone circle, and set it alight. Bizarrely, quite an odd character approached me and asked if I'd like to go and have a spliff with him. So we walked off to have the joint. As we were doing so, he started wanking himself off! He even then asked if I could finish him off. I declined, and I think I left him to it, and went back home. How strange that I would meet some local pervert while burning my copy of Oasis' debut album.

But anyway, what were the problems? I suppose drugs were still a bit of a problem. One time the house decided they wanted to do some acid. For Martin and Catherine, I think it was their first time. I kept clear while the rest of them did this. But I was still smoking too much weed probably.

When we came back after the Christmas break during the second year, there was something definitely not right with Richard. He was saying some strange things and acting a bit oddly. I think he told me he'd had a bad E while he was back in the States. Richard also liked Kirsty. One time, he'd gone to a club with Mark and Kirsty, and I'd got left behind somehow. I went on the next bus to join them, and I decided to punch Richard in the face. Shortly afterwards, he hit me back. So there was a bit of tension. I think I also had an E which had a negative effect.

The really bad night though was one time when I was round at Toby's house. There was a club night in the students' union that night which I was intending on going to. I'd had a bit of speed I think, and then I had a bong as well, while at Toby's. This knocked me for six, and I went upstairs for a lie down. Then my head started really going, and I went to leave and left my wallet behind for some reason, intentionally.

I walked home, feeling very strange, passing a couple of Kirsty's friends on the way I think. I got home and went up to my room. The next thing, it was like God was flooding back to me again, but in a different way to the time before. This time, it was as if He was showing me all these visions of possible futures, and at the same time, I think He was giving me a ticking off for going astray. This went on for some time.

Eventually, I decided I would try to go to the students' union. I bumped into Toby and his girlfriend coming back from it as I got closer. We exchanged a few words. I got into the club, and Zoe was there. I took off a couple of layers to intentionally show my Love Spreads t-shirt which was just the Newport shield, with no words on it. I don't know if Zoe noticed it. And then I think I just went home.

Again, the following day, I felt a bit lost. I went round to Toby's, and apologetically asked for my wallet back, which he gave to me, no problems at all. Everyone was a bit concerned for me. For the next few years, I would be stuck with these bloody visions. What should I do to make that happen? Should I do this to make this happen? Is this the vision happening now?

I went round to Toby's again with Richard this time. I think Richard was expressing some concern about me. Then it seemed as if, for no reason, Toby suddenly launched into a long explanation into the meaning of life, along the lines of Karl Marx! And Toby didn't even study Philosophy, it was really bizarre. Toby was also saying about how he and his girlfriend were going to clean up their acts and get jobs. It sounded like a good idea to me. There was one guy in the first year who'd dropped out to pursue a career as a music journalist.

The next week or two were a bit strange in general. Kirsty actually broke up with Mark, and I probably hoped I might be able to start seeing her instead, but there was really no chance of that happening. One time, I rolled up a joint in the students' union. You could smoke indoors back then, but obviously not weed. I took the joint to where I'd seen Zoe sitting with some friends. I'd heard she'd also recently split up with her boyfriend. Anyway, I just went up, lit up the spliff, started puffing away and talking nonsense. I offered her the spliff, and they all just stood up and walked away.

I had started up another joke society based around the game Pass The Pigs. I even had a stall on the Societies day at the start of my second year, with badges and leaflets and everything. It was a ruse to try and meet girls really, probably. But anyway, I had written off to the makers of Pass the Pigs, and along with some foreign editions of the game, they'd send back a big Pass the Pigs mobile (all too late for the Societies day) with large cut out pigs that Catherine one day decided to put all around the living room. It was just a bit odd. But anyway, we were all sitting in the living room, watching Blue Peter I think, and I'm certain that for no real reason, I suddenly blurted out a fairly ridiculous piece of dialogue which one of the Blue Peter presenters then related back, word for word, immediately afterwards. I'm sure Catherine then said "Did that just happen?" and no-one really knew what to say.

But anyway, inevitably, soon after, the proverbial men with white coats turned up, in the form of my dad and I think a social worker, to cart me off to hospital again. . I think it was this time that, before I was actually admitted, I nicked my dad's car and drove all the way back to Reading. I left the car on a roundabout and walked to Toby's house, where he was chilling with some friends. But I think by the morning, the authorities had caught up with me and I was herded back home.

This time I was on a ward at the Princess of Wales hospital. There were two relatively new mental health wards attached to it. I met a couple of odd bods here. There was a guy called Jason who wrote some pretty out-there poetry, but he did inspire me to try and start writing poetry, as I'd planned to. There was a woman who I thought was sort of "meant" to be there. At one point she speculated that Richie of the Manic Street Preachers, who had recently disappeared, would probably turn up at our hospital. A week or two later, I walked past someone in a corridor who did look exactly like him. I didn't say anything though, expecting I'd see him again. However, later that day I saw this person being driven away in a large limousine, so I will never know if it was him.

When I got out of hospital, I do also remember having a dream where I met Richie Edwards in a bar on an island, something like Fuerteventura. Spookily, a week or two later (I was back in Reading, resitting my second year by this time), I read a story in the NME about Richie Edwards actually being spotted in a bar on an island, exactly as it had happened in my dream.

My dad has said that he did once treat someone who gave his name as Richie Edwards. But he's never said anything more than that. He's probably not supposed to, patient confidentiality and all that.

What I can tell you, is that if God ever speaks to you, inviting you to see into all your possible futures by way of a series of elaborate visions, tell him, you'd rather not. It can really fuck you up.

I had one day on the ward that one of the nurses referred to as my "naming a God day". I think I tried to envisage a time thousands of years into the future, when Woody Allen had been replaced as God and others took His place. Early on in the day, I decided that the next person to be God should be one of the nurses on this ward, a red-headed guy called Steve. Steve was a funny bloke, quick witted, an expert table tennis player, just a generally nice bloke. I imagined that when Steve took over as God, the world would quickly change. I imagined skyscrapers being built in a flash, and other amazing things. This would be not too far into the future and I vowed that when Woody Allen died, I would have to tell Steve that he was now taking over. I still think I need to do this even to this day. I think Woody Allen would still be some kind of "supreme" God, but Steve would take the reins to some extent. God knows what he would think of that.

I named other Gods throughout the day. When I said "Toby's God", I'm sure I instantly heard a bang in the sky, so considering this could be a turbulent time in the world, I quickly switched back and said "Woody Allen's God". I envisaged the first female God, and named the patient on the ward. It was generally a pretty silly day. Clearly, I was barking mad. The next day, it was as if nothing had happened.

I do remember a young girl on my ward who one morning, before I'd even got out of bed just came up to me and simply said "God's gone to the sea". There was one time when another patient and I envisaged underwater palaces that would wage war on each other which we talked about, good-humouredly.

It was while I was on this ward that I first imagined I could talk to other people telepathically. I thought they were giving some of us drugs that enabled us to do so. It wasn't really a very pleasant experience, allowing others to have access to your mind. One time, I thought they'd called me in to discuss how this worked. It seemed to me there always had to be three people involved for it to work. Again, quite possibly I was just barking mad.

So I was back in Reading to repeat my second year, Things had apparently not gone well in my absence as Richard had even tried to strangle Mark. This time, I moved into a shared house with Stu and three first years. I think I liked the advert that specified "We smoke". One of the three first years was Joe, who looked like a bit of a punk, and who Stu and I called Joe Smokes, or just, Smokes. Smokes hated being called Smokes, but we never stopped calling him Smokes. There was also Turtle, who I think was a heroin addict, and a girl called Alex.

Stu and I spent a lot of this year watching football in the local pub, the College Arms, or as Stu called it, The Jarms. I should point out that Stu has a fantastically good sense of humour. Practically everything he says will somehow relate to some form of joke. Sometimes the joke is a bit obscure so it might take a while to get it, but in the majority of cases, there is some kind of joke.

We also spent our time eating beans on toast with cheese which we could Beans Supreme, or just Supreme, and drinking cheap red wine from the Co-op, or as Stu called it, wiiiiiine, in a whiney way. Sometimes we'd splash out on a Snappy Tomato pizza. These were square, and the most popular choice amongst Reading Uni students. It was always pepperoni with extra pepperoni for Stu, and vegetarian for me. I was a vegetarian at this time. It seemed like the right thing to do, to become veggy, after studying moral philosophy.

We also spent a fair bit of time in a little box room that had a TV, mainly watching the quiz show, 15-1, hosted by William G Stewart. It was a tricky quiz, but Stu was very good at it, getting a lot of questions right. He should have applied to go on it.

Stu was now going out with a girl called Vicky, who had quite big horsey teeth. I think Stu himself did not even mind her being referred to as horsey, so apparent was the feature. I was still girlfriendless. I might have still seen Emma occasionally, but I had failed to pull a girl in Reading. After going into hospital, I had kind of broken off friends with most people like Kirsty that I'd been friendly with before. Things had actually just got a bit too weird. I did go to a rave that Toby and Zoe were at. I finally got to have a relatively normal conversation with Zoe, so that was good.

Stu and I both struggled for money. Stu borrowed a fair bit off me as my parents gave me money, but his didn't. During one holiday, I'd gone home to Bridgend, leaving my cheque book behind in a draw in my room. When I came back, I discovered that Stu had been ordering Snappy Tomato Pizzas using my cheque book to pay for them. Naturally, I was somewhat displeased about this. Not long afterwards, at one time, I decided to put all Stu's possessions out on the street outside. This was a testing time for our friendship (I should point out that Stu has since paid all the money back, and as it was money my parents gave me, it should really have gone to them, but I kept it).

Another time when we were skint, we tried to make some money by playing fruit machines. There was one particular bandit in this fruit machine place in town that seemed to pay out a lot, so we made a bit initially, but inevitably, we soon lost it all and were then even more skint than before.

I got a job, I think it was in a bookshop, but I only lasted a couple of days. I seem to remember I was late on just the second or third day, possibly due to going to a Charlatans concert the night before, and I was sacked.

Also in this year, The Stone Roses did their Second Coming Tour. I went to three of the gigs. I went to the first gig on the tour which was in Cambridge, but I didn't have a ticket, and however much I wanted to see them, I refused to pay the excessive amount touts were charging, so I just listened from next to the fire escape along with some other fans who'd been unable to get in. I went to the Newport gig with Ade and a couple of others. It was here that I was involved in quite a notorious incident, which is well documented elsewhere, including in my other book, The Blues Are Back in Town. To cut a long story short, I threw my Cardiff City shirt on stage, which Ian Brown wore, and because it was in Newport, there was later a riot. I'm sure you know the story. I also went to the Reading gig.

Stu and I were probably doing just about enough work to get through our second years. I can't quite remember if Stu was now in his third year, or if he was also repeating his second. I know he struggled with a dissertation, but this might have been after we'd left this house. Uni work was really not a top priority for us as students.

By the time we got to the end of the year, although we were still friends, it was clear that there was no way we were going to be living in the same house for the following year. I looked for a new place to live. I went to the University accommodation office and saw an ad written by three girls who were looking to share with one other. I seemed to remember a vision about living in some house with three women, so I decided this would be it, even though it wasn't in exactly the right area of Reading that I was thinking of.

I went to go and meet the girls. I was greeted by a friendly Welsh girl, whose name I don't recall. We seemed to get on ok. I'd left it a bit late, and did need to move in somewhere, so it was decided I could move in, and my brother, Jer, who was living in nearby Basingstoke at this point, helped with the move.

I met one of the other girls, then a week or so later, the third girl was also back. This was Caz, who I took an instant like to. She was pretty, but also seemed quite understated. There was just something about her.

Anyway, it wasn't like when I was living with Stu where we were always doing things together. In this house I was kind of an outsider. But one weekend, the other two girls were both going away, leaving me and Caz in the house on our own. This was a bit of a turn on for me! We decided we'd go out for a drink. I took Caz to a bar I quite liked. We were having a nice friendly chat and everything seemed quite normal. I asked Caz what her dad did for a living. "He's the head of MI5," said Caz. "What???!!!" I said, alarmed, amazed, incredulous. "Yeah, he's the head of MI5." said Caz. She did not appear to be joking.

I think I decided to just take Caz at her word. The moment she'd said it, I'd looked around, and there was a stocky looking guy at the bar who I suddenly imagined was something like her security guard. I didn't know how to react, really. It was just such a weird thing because it almost seemed to take on extra meaning. I'd always had this weird suspicion that my dad worked for MI5, and the last time I'd been in hospital, I'd gone around telling people this. But that was just me being mad, I suppose. I had always sort of thought about MI5 though. It did seem to make sense; that I was right after all that I should have moved into this particular house. But at the same time, I suddenly felt slightly protective of Caz – surely what she'd said was not supposed to be common knowledge?

There were a few people I knew in the bar, and I decided to get up to talk to them, on a couple of different tables, making a point not to mention anything about what Caz had just said about her dad.

Intriguing as the information she'd given me was, in some ways it spoilt the evening a little, as this information became more of the focus for me perhaps, rather than trying to have a good time with this girl that I fancied. As we walked home, Caz needed the loo, so I suggested we stop off at my friend Simon's house on the way back. While Caz was in the loo, I decided I would finally break the news to someone, and told Simon about Caz's dad. I think I said something like, "I'm probably not supposed to tell you this, but..." I think Caz was ok with it.

The following night, I was in The Purple Turtle with Stu, playing table football. We played a lot of table football. We would usually play doubles, and I was the defence, with Stu in attack. I say I was in defence. I mean, I manned the goalie and defenders. But believe me, I scored a lot of goals as the goalie – I had a ferocious left-handed shot.

Anyway, Caz was also there, and I had also told Stu about her dad. Stu didn't believe me, and said to Caz, "Nick told me your dad's the head of MI5" in a disbelieving way. "He is," said Caz. "He's going to be in the Sunday Times tomorrow if you don't believe me." It seemed even more likely, in that case, that Caz was indeed telling the truth, something which I had not doubted myself.

And so the next day, a Sunday, Caz and I went to buy the Sunday Times. And there, just as she said was an article about Caz's dad, Stephen Lander. She read through the article, and laughed a few times, saying that he was nothing like the way he was being portrayed in the paper. It seemed that because he had only recently been appointed to the role, and it was going to be made public, such as in this article, Caz's dad had had to tell his daughter where he worked. Later that day, I was due to have lunch with my brother. I invited Caz along, but she didn't want to join us, which I was a bit sad about. We did spend a little bit of time in Caz's room, playing on a computer game. I really wanted to kiss Caz, but it never happened.

Around this time, I'd decided to stop taking my medication. I was sick of it anyway. Not sure what I was taking at the time, but I never got on with my meds back then. I was taking lithium at one point and that really didn't agree with me. But it wasn't just that I got side effects. I just really did not want to have to take medication while I was "well". No-one had ever told me how long I'd have to be on medication. I kind of assumed I'd have to take it for a short time, like anti-biotics, and then just come off it. I did consult with someone about coming off my meds, and they didn't think it was a good idea, but I did it anyway.

Inevitably, this was a big mistake. I quite quickly became quite psychotic. Every night, I imagined I was able to talk to my three housemates telepathically, and in the morning, I assumed they knew all about the conversations "we" had had. I was listening to Led Zeppelin at this time.

At around this time, The Stone Roses split up. The previous summer, they'd performed an awful gig at the Reading Festival, which I witnessed. It was really bad. The break up seemed fairly inevitable. I seem to remember Guns n Roses splitting up at about the same time, but I may have got this wrong. I remember a friend asking me what I thought about the Stone Roses splitting up. I straight away said, "We haven't had the second comeback yet."

I had posted up the lyrics to The Second Coming on the walls all around our living room. I started to see deep meanings into the lyrics. I was studying religious philosophy at the time, and started to read things into texts I was reading. I saw Stone Roses lyrics leaping out at me from other books in the library, maybe Sylvia Plath.

Disturblingly, I started to imagine the lyrics related to me directly. There was one day when all the girls were out, and I was thinking about why Caz couldn't be my girlfriend. I thought, if she was not going to be my girlfriend, I should chop off my ring finger. One of the girls in the house must have been a big Beatles fan as there were loads of Beatles DVDs. I put one of them on at random, and there was a scene in which one of the Beatles was going to cut off his ring finger. That was a bit bizarre. I burned a book of my poetry. I stood outside and ate a five pound note, I think in view of our neighbours, perhaps trying to signal to them that all was not right.

Once I start becoming psychotic, my belief structure goes completely off the scale, and I start to believe all kinds of ridiculous things. I think I might have thought Caz was actually my sister, in reference to the lyrics to Love Spreads. I was out one time, and came home and couldn't get in. Maybe they'd even changed the locks as they were now frightened of me. "Caz! You're the resurrection!" I shouted through the letter box. Although I was in a very confused state, I think there was also the fact that because I liked Caz so much, I kind of felt that I was finally free from the shackles of Claire – that this person might mean more to me than her. But of course, the feeling was entirely unreciprocated, particularly now that I had got ill.

Soon after, once again, the doctor was summoned, and my dad was there again. I was to be taken to a hospital near to Reading. I wanted to just say goodbye to Caz, but this was not permitted.

It was the middle of the night, and I was just left sitting on one ward. I imagined I was talking telepathically to the other patients in the smoking area. I had been designated a bed, but I didn't feel like going to bed. I had read some of the Koran, and thought it tied in with the Stone Roses somehow. I went around the ward shouting "The Koran! The Koran!", throwing water over things like the pool table.

I was taken to the ICU. I was kept on there for at least a fortnight without being allowed off the ward once. It was quite a scary time. There were some real fruitcakes on this ward. There was a guy who thought UFOs were landing outside. There was a guy who wanted to have a swastika tattooed on his back. I implored him not to do this. "If you do that, they'll bring back the death penalty" I said to try and deter him.

One day, at meal time, one older patient started singing a song about somebody throwing a tomato. For no real reason, I decided to throw a tomato at him. For this, I was taken to the detention room, and pinned down by, I think, six nurses, for many hours. It was a really horrible nightmare of a place. I recall just one friendly nurse who was Welsh.

Eventually, I think it was arranged that I should be taken to Whitchurch in Cardiff. I was driven in a car with a nurse either side of me and we did not stop once. I remember the Happy Mondays being played on the radio as we set off.

It was nice to be home, in a sense, even if I was in a hospital. The night I was brought back to Cardiff was the night of a Cardiff v Swansea derby. I was allowed to listen to it on a radio. It sounded like quite a dramatic game, although I seem to remember Cardiff lost something like 0-3 and I imagined all kinds of shenanigans happening in Cardiff town centre that night.

Everybody here in Cardiff was very kind to me. I only had to stay on the ICU here for one night before I was put on a regular ward. I still had to be on good behavior so I wouldn't be put back on the ICU, but things became calmer then. There was one female patient who I was certain worked for MI5, but of course, this was probably purely in my imagination.

One significant thing that happened was that I stopped being vegetarian. My mum had brought me a Gregg's cheese and onion pasty, and I instead asked if I could have a big Mac, so she instead got me one of these. The staff said that because I'd eaten meat, I could no longer be served vegetarian food, which I simply had to accept. From a moral point of view, I wish I was still vegetarian, but I must admit, I do now enjoy eating meat. Can't beat a Wetherspoons mixed grill!

I must have gradually worked my way out of hospital, but there was now no way I could go back to Reading, so I never completed my degree.

My twenties were generally fairly forgettable. I was still plagued by my visions which didn't help. I was by now a big Cardiff City fan, and a regular at Ninian Park, along with friends I had met like Neil, and also his friends, Nigel and Blakey. I had a job working at a stalls for NTL (now Virgin Media). It was a pretty tedious job. After six months or so, I felt like I needed a break and took myself off on my own to Barcelona, with nobody really to go with. I watched a Barcelona v Man Utd game, wearing a Stone Roses t-shirt (I was sort of a secret Man Utd fan due to a. The Stone Roses supporting them, and b. the fact that they had Welsh players like Hughes and Giggs). I saw PJ Harvey there, with Gomez in support.

But I didn't last the job out for longer than about a year. I had an idea that I might like to try setting up a record label. I read the KLF's book called "How To Have A Number One The Easy Way" and set about trying to follow their advice. I got a dance track produced in a Cardiff recording studio. As the book said, I simply needed to find a decent studio that had a decent sound engineer who would basically make the track for me. At this particular studio I found was a guy called Rohan who had produced Jean Jacques Smoothie's Top 20 hit, "2 People". He made a dance track for me, as requested, based around The Stone Roses' "Standing Here". It was a cool tune, with only the bass-line letting it down (this was the bit he got me to do myself). I paid a vocalist just ten pounds to record the vocal. I got a popular Cardiff DJ to do a remix, and it was all going quite well.

The only snag is, a lot of the advice in the book is along the lines of "get a promotions company to promote the tune like hell and tell them they'll be paid once the record hits Number One". In reality, things didn't seem to work that way as companies wanted cash up front. But I had a great tune, and a great remix, paid for via a small grant from the Prince's Trust.

In case things didn't work out, I did also look for other work. I actually applied for a job with Cardiff City, in their marketing department I think it was. To my amazement, I was given an interview, and at the interview, my interviewer basically seemed to be telling me that he thought I was the best candidate for the job, even though to my mind, I had virtually no experience. I'm pretty sure I could have accepted the job, and potentially this was one of the stupidest things I ever did as I declined the job saying I really wanted to concentrate on trying to set up my business.

Truthfully, I think I was just too lazy to accept a decent full-time job. Even more truthfully, the reason that I'd applied to work for Cardiff City was because I thought I'd actually had a vision of being a playerfor Cardiff City (this was despite being too old, unfit, and unable to play football), so this job was not quite what I had supposedly "envisaged". Like a complete clown, I accepted the far more inferior role of matchday programme seller!

So for one season, I got to meet a few of the players, and made friends with a few other fans. It was a bit pathetic really compared to what I could have been doing, and inevitably my ambition of becoming a record label owner did not come to fruition.

For some reason, I decided that there should be an elaborate launch party for my single. Once again, I think I thought I had "envisaged" this. There was a warehouse in Splott that held "illegal raves" and I decided this should be the venue for the party.

I booked a Stone Roses tribute band to play at the event, when tribute bands were still not really that big a thing. This band even toured with the real Mani from the real Stone Roses as a DJ. Too good an opportunity to miss I thought, though it was not going to be cheap. No problem, I thought, I'll sell loads of tickets, it'll be great. But I had no real clue how I was going to sell the tickets.

The venue said that, to elude the law, there could be no posters or anything like that for the event. I got some flyers produced, but I hardly did anything really in terms of distributing the flyers. I was not even allowed to give details of the exact location, instead simply giving a phone number on the flyer for people to ring for info. I mean, in theory, it all sounded kind of cool. And rest assured, no worries, I'd had the vision, it was going to happen, there'd be no problem.

But of course that's not how it happened at all. No fucker turned up except for a few friends who didn't even pay cos they were on the guestlist. And just a handful of others.

The band certainly did turn up. Along with Mani. And along with their manager. And they wanted money. They had not come all the way from Glasgow for nothing.

I had even booked some security, but clearly they were not going to be needed, and they graciously accepted a small fee for just showing up, before packing up and leaving.

I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do about paying the band. I literally had no money. My friend Julian offered to lend me a bit. I tried to come to some arrangement with the band that they could receive less than the agreed amount, but they were having none of it. At one point I said to the band something along the lines of "I can't confirm or deny if I can get the money" and they just looked at me like I was a loony.

I eventually figured there was nothing I could do but ask my mum and dad for help. They were pretty angry as you might expect, but my poor mum went round a few cashpoints getting out the required money and brought it to the grotty old warehouse. This was without question the most embarrassing night of my life. When I had envisaged a massive rave up! I gave the band the money, and they were ready to just pack up and leave, but I had other ideas. You're here, you've got the fucking money, you can still at least pay you fucking cunts, I thought. Mani had still DJ'd, and thank Christ he was still being friendly in spite of the whole awkward situation. We talked about how World of Twist were probably the best singles band ever.

So anyway, this fucking Scottish tribute band did their set for the small number of my select friends who were there as guests. What a total embarrassment. But nonetheless, I still turned up at the hotel I'd also booked them the following morning to pay their hotel bill. I paid for the manager's room as well as the band's. I think he'd also wanted an extra room for something, but this hadn't been agreed, so I was fucked if I was gonna pay for that.

Soon after, I went into hiding. I left Cardiff, and rented a small flat in Bridgend with the intention of simply disappearing for a while. I didn't know how I was ever going to get over the embarrassment.

But why had I said "I can't confirm or deny if I can get the money"? I had taken inspiration from a letter I received, on MI5 letter headed paper from Caz's dad, Stephen. I'd sent him a letter apologizing for the way I had been when I'd lived with his daughter. He sent me a kind letter back saying he would pass my good wishes on to Caz. But did MI5 actively pursue the Stone Roses, I'd asked him? He could neither confirm or deny this. I quickly burned the letter.

I still had a bit of an interest in MI5. The internet was starting to become a bit of a thing, so I looked up their website. There was information about how in the 90s, most of the organisation's activities revolved around stopping drug trafficking. At that time, with the IRA having more or less ceased activities, MI5 were apparently doing practically nothing with regard to preventing terrorism. This changed completely come the new millennium. There was the rise of a new form of terrorism, and MI5 stopped concentrating on drug trafficking entirely. Stephen Lander left MI5 to set up a new organization, the Serious Organised Crime Authority (SOCA), and this organisation's main concentration was on drugs, so I learned.

Andrew had told me that because of my mental health, I could never get a job with MI5, and just to try and prove him wrong, I applied for a job as some kind of basic admin assistant with MI5. There were four or five stages to the application. I got past the first stage, then the next stage was to sit a logic test at an office in London. I was sent sample tests to try at. The test was for me, impossibly difficult, and even though it was multiple choice, there was just not enough time given to complete the test, for me at least. I think I had to simply guess some answers, and I failed at this stage. Oh well, I'd tried!

The millennium was obviously quite a big thing. One of my friends from school, Paul, decided that we should book tickets on a boat on the Thames to see in 2000. He initially was going to book us on a boat which I think was £200 a ticket, but we eventually went for one that was £100 a ticket. What we didn't know until we boarded the boat was that the boat would be moored! So it didn't even go up and down the Thames as we'd expected. But we still had a good time, albeit an expensive time. All the others had ordered special fluffy outfits. I was the only one not in fancy dress, but I did wear a nice suit. We took Es and watched the fireworks and drank expensive drinks. At least there were no queues for the bar.

A few months prior to this, Stu, Paul Veck and I had gone to Cornwall to see the eclipse which happened in 1999. Some people had arranged festivals to coincide with this occurrence, but the media had tried to massively play down the event and discouraged people from travelling. There were some hugely experienced festival organizers who I think lost a lot of money as a result of this, possibly even going bankrupt. But anyway, we were still there, and saw it happen at, if I recall, eleven minutes past eleven on August 11th. This was also Will's birthday, and seven years to the day I believed God first spoke to me. So that was kind of spooky too.

I saw in my 30th birthday, again in London – I always liked travelling to London – this time with my good friend Paul Bartlett and his girlfriend, Candice. We went to see St Etienne who we were fans of. Paul also brought a friend of his, funnily enough called Claire, but for some reason, I was under strict instruction not to try it on with her. This Claire and I did get on pretty well. I was quite surprised that she'd heard of the band, The Telescopes, who I think I mentioned randomly at one point. I didn't really know why I was under strict instruction, but I did basically try to honour Paul's wishes.

I stayed the night in Paul and Candice's cramped, but very expensive, little pad. Candice made me a nice birthday cake. I hadn't really been looking forward to turning thirty, it seemed like this signaled the end of szamy youth, which I'd wasted a bit anyway, but at least the two of them did give me a good birthday.

PART 3

I was fairly positive about the new millennium. With Blair in power, people were generally more liberal. I was hopeful that as we went into the new century things like racism, which I've always deplored, would simply become a thing of the past. I got that a bit wrong, as instead, we had the Iraq war, and a lot of people starting to be quite anti-immigration, and if anything, racism reared its ugly head again.

I had another hospital admission in 2000. I had done some bar work while in Bridgend, but I wasn't having a very good time. I didn't like the meds I was on, so came off them again. This time, I was finally put on Depakote and Quitiapine, which seemed to suit me quite well – I felt pretty normal and there were only minimal side effects. That's what I've stayed on now mostly for the last twenty years.

I was starting to get quite into the poetry scene. In 1999 I had put out my first self-published book called Futurist, which I priced at £5.01. It was a very stylised book. I was trying to write in some kind of post-post-modern way. I tried to also get some humour into it. It featured a "Free Pull Out Poster of The Holy Ghost" (a blank piece of paper). I don't think the poems were really very good. Peter Finch was to say of it "not really very futurist".

I wrote a few more poems while in hospital, and along with a couple of other poems I'd written within the last year or so, I compiled these into a little book called "Pure Diamonds". I would go to Chapter, where I met and watched other poets like Topher Mills, Ifor Thomas, Chris Brooke, Lloyd Robson and Kerry-Lee Powell. I went to Seren nights. Seren was actually run by my former English teacher, Mr Archer at that time, and the events were hosted by Amy Wack.

I went to a writers' group that Topher ran. I met some other poets like Sasha and some other people whose names I don't recall. The group was good for helping out with inspiration for poems. I remember the group meeting on the day of 9/11, which I had seen on TV earlier that day with my mum, and wondered what on Earth it could all mean.

"Pure Diamonds" was followed by "Rushin on Diamonds" which was followed by "Diamonds and Dragons" before finally, in 2004, a compilation called "Daimunz R 4E4". I had a launch event which I titled "An Evening of Contemporary Comedic Poetry". I actually got permission from the singer of Spacemen 3, Sonic Boom, whose email address I'd got hold of somehow, to use the music from their flexidisc "An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music" as background music. I think it was held on 04/04/04 and I probably charged £4 entry. John Brookes, a fantastic Cardiff poet who I'd recently discovered also read at it, along with a few other people like Tracey Rhys, whose work I absolutely loved, and it was quite a good fun event.

This last book featured a picture of an old style mobile phone on the cover, with the words and my name on the screen of the phone, as if in a text message. I started my own poetry website, www-pure-poetry.co.uk (some of it is now on purepoetry.co.uk) and put some of my poems on this.

The turn of the new century did of course see both mobile phones and the internet really taking off. Everyone was starting to get phones, and everyone started to have email addresses. In the early days of the internet, I think people felt the need to be a bit secretive while online, and people tended to use whacky pseudonyms etc. I was looking around deciding which email provider I should go with. I initially thought I should have some kind of whacky email address, and I think I had searched along the lines of "Out of this world" or "Interplanetary" or something. I was somehow directed to a provider called mail.com that allowed for an enormous array of @addresses. One of them was simply, @email.com. This seemed to be the most obvious, and I thought, well, if I'm going to let people know it's me, I might as well register nickfisk@email.com . For some reason, if you put email.com into a search engine, you don't get directed to mail.com so you can't register an @email.com address that way. So people always wonder how the hell I've got an @email.com address. Anyway, increasingly, people seemed to veer away from using pseudonyms, and were getting email addresses using their own names, but with the more common @yahoo.com or @hotmail.com etc. tags.

The first popular social media website was friendsreunited. At last, it seemed, the thing people had been waiting for, a means to contact that long lost girlfriend who you didn't have any other way of contacting! I contacted Kirsty, who just said something grumpy like "we've all moved on Nick" (erm, as if I hadn't?!) and that didn't go very well. Inevitably, I tried to contact Claire, and drew a blank there. I did make one or two successful contacts I think. I managed to find Mani of the Stone Roses which was exciting for a brief time. One Valentine's Day, I got an incredibly heart-rending message on friendsreunited from an anonymous sender. It went along the lines of "Oh Nicholas, I am married now, but you will always have a special place in my heart, love, etc" I mean, there was bit more to it than that, but I can't quite recall it. I think there might have been one or two pointers as to who it might be.

Inevitably, I wondered who this could be from. I wondered if it could possibly be Claire, though it seemed unlikely. There weren't many other people I could think of! I think I probably ruled out Helen. It could possibly be a girl called Kathryn who had lived in Porthcawl who I went out with very briefly. Maybe it was Rachel Jenkins? Well, anyway, I think I was able to reply to the message, but I had no access to the sender. Foolishly, I think I might have jumped to the unlikely conclusion that it was Claire, and asked if it was her in my initial message. Sadly, this might have put the sender off, and they never did write back to confirm who they were. I did consider it was possibly someone playing a mean trick, but I think I again ruled out this possibility for some reason. I tried to contact friendsreunited to ask if they could let me know who it was, but they told me they had to respect the sender's privacy. I mean, this was really important to me, and I was very angry with them for not letting me know.

Somehow, whether it was through friendsreunited or whatever, I did discover that Claire had got married. Pretty tragic I know that I was still thinking about Claire, but I'd been mostly single for quite a long time, and really, she had meant a hell of a lot to me when I was young. Anyway, I discovered her new married name, and I also managed to get an address for her. I might have even paid money to find her address, which is going into stalking territory, I realise that of course. I decided I should go to this address, but it seemed that if I did have what might have once been the correct address, Claire had moved again. Well I somehow found her correct current address.

It would be coming up to Claire's 30th birthday, and I decided I wanted to drop a present off for her. I travelled down to an address, somewhere near Bournemouth I think it was, with a copy of the 12" of the record I'd got made, featuring the words, borrowed from the Stone Roses song, "I'm standing here and I'm in heaven when you smile". It was stamped with the word Truth which was the name I would have used if I'd got the label going (it sounded a bit like Claire's old surname, and I'd always thought we could run the label together). I also took a card and a rose – the rose I hadn't been able to give her all those years ago as a teenager.

There had been quite a heavy snowfall, and it was quite a cold day. I got off the train, and boarded a bus that took me to the address. I knocked on the door, and did not get the reaction I'd hoped for. Claire answered, although she looked quite a lot different to how I remembered. She straight away remembered me though, and she looked in complete shock, she almost looked scared. Before I could get two words out though, she slammed the door in my face and that was that.

I really did not realise just how badly affected she must have been by things that had happened in the past. I'm not sure exactly what specific things I'd said or done that must have made her feel this way. I don't remember my behaviour being that bad the time I'd hitched down to see her. Maybe the fact that I hadn't simply let things lie and let her be, instead continuing to pursue her (although I did stop writing to her back when I was about nineteen as my dad had said – I think I'd written just one or two more letters). Anyway, I left the things on the doorstep, and just got a bus back to the station.

I had a phone call from the police, and I explained that I meant no harm, I just wanted to wish her a happy birthday and that I was now going home. The policeman I spoke to seemed okay with this. I also at some point got an angry call from Claire's husband. He wondered if I just wanted "closure". I suppose basically he was right, that was what I wanted, although ideally, I think I'd actually hoped, as adults, we could be friends. I asked if she would just speak to me but she wouldn't. If I could just know what she thought of "The Second Coming" that would be something!

I think if you don't manage to get a new partner, you can tend to put too much focus on people you've been involved with where things don't work out. People say there are plenty more fish in the sea, but it seems difficult to find the right type of fish. Fortunately, I would eventually find the love of my life (more of her later), and I can say to anyone struggling to find love, hang on in there. Genuinely, you never know when it might just come along!

My dad had bought a house in Cardiff – one of the first new houses to be built in Cardiff Bay. I had moved back from the flat in Bridgend, and was living back with my mum and dad for a spell. I had a job as a shop assistant in the local Spar. I stuck this out for about 8 months before getting a job through an agency with the AA. I was to be a debt collector. I'm not sure if the role necessarily sat comfortably with me, but after a couple of months of training, I was able to do the job to a reasonable standard, so I stuck it out. The team were mostly quite friendly. The assistant manager, Ceri and I hit it off from day one as we were both City fans. Ceri asked me if I was part of the Soul Crew, and I joked that I was in the sad crew which made her laugh.

I moved into a shared house down the road from my mum and dad's in the Bay, along with a friend of my friend Nigel's called Mark, although he was known as Jack because he was a Swansea fan. In time, Jack started going out with Nigel's sister, Rachel, who I had also had a very brief thing with about a year before. I really had no problem with it at all though. In fact, they eventually got married, and I was quite happy for them. It was quite funny that a Swansea fan was marrying the sister of a diehard Bluebird!

I went to a few weddings around this time. Previously, I'd gone to Nigel's wedding. He'd got me to write a poem for the wedding. It was not really my greatest work, but I was put under immense pressure as Nigel's best man did not have any kind of speech. He just said something like, "Um, I'm not really a man of words, so instead, here's Nick with his poem"! So instead of there being a best man's speech, a highlight of most weddings of course, here was I having to read my poem in place of it! Well, it went ok I suppose, but I would have preferred not to have been placed in this spot.

My older brother had got married, my younger brother was getting married. I went to Ceri from work's wedding (which was a grand affair in Caerphilly castle, for which I bought a posh suit and a nice Welsh tartan tie). I had cousins who got married, one of whom had two ceremonies for the one marriage, one in the UK, which I didn't go to, and one in Majorca, which I did. My friends, Paul Veck, Stu and Paul Bartlett all got married. It seemed like everyone was getting married, except me who didn't even have a girlfriend! It was quite ironic in a way. I remember being in the Clubbs' garden one day with a couple of people, probably Paul Veck and Stu and a couple of others, maybe around the time that we were leaving school. I think one of them said something like "What do you want to do when you're older?" and I just said, "I'd like to get married." They all laughed saying they didn't even want to have girlfriends, just one night stands and stuff. Most of them are married with kids now!

After I'd been working at the AA for about a year and a half, a young girl called Claire started working on our team. I know, yet another Claire. The funny thing was, I don't think I can recall knowing a single Claire who went to my school. Not even a Clare. Obviously, a Clare was not the same as a Claire.

This Claire was probably far too young for me, and not necessarily my type, not being into my type of music, etc. but God, was she sexy. She had a great figure, was very pretty, and blonde. I did seem to have developed a bit of a thing for blondes over the years. Anyway, we did get on quite well, and once or twice, we went to lunch together.

There were other women I liked in work. There was a girl called Carly, who again was probably too young, but who was also a bit of a stunner with beautiful long black hair. I probably always thought something would happen with me and a girl called Kelly, who'd started at about the same time as me, but she just wasn't interested. I wondered if she might have fancied our boss. Maybe I should not have imagined getting it on with someone from work at all. Some people say it's not a good idea, although, of course, it happens all the time. Quite sadly, Louise, a good friend who was on my department broke up with her husband who also worked at the AA after he started having an affair with someone else at the AA who was much younger than Louise. I think Louise is now remarried, so good for her.

After I'd been at the AA for a couple of years, can't quite remember why, but I decided I'd like to try and learn Welsh. I started doing an evening course in Cardiff Uni. It was three nights a week, starting at 7pm. The only snag with this though was that I was usually working 12-8pm (which suited me better as, especially with my meds, I struggled to get up early in the morning). So anyway, to get around this problem, I had to change my hours from 9-5pm. I thought the only way I was going to be able to start getting up at 8am was if I stopped taking my meds, so I did that.

Well, surprise, surprise, problems started happening. I started going off the wall again. Things got a bit weird with Claire in work. I suspected one of my Welsh teachers was sleeping with one of the students. There were just funny things happening, and things were not going well for me.

Over the previous year or two, I'd moved out of the flat with Jack, and instead had moved into a couple of shared houses with a guy from work called George. George was a bit older than me. He was a bit of a loudmouth. He did have a sense of humour, but he also had mild OCD I think. He was also a BNP supporter, which I was completely appalled at. I knew one or two BNP supporters at this time, and I wondered what the hell was going on with these people. I once logged on to a PC in my lunch break to find the last person on it had accessed the BNP website. I reported this to my boss, but I don't think they took this very seriously.

Well eventually, I stopped living with George, and found a place myself on Harold Street, off Broadway. There was a young lad there who was a builder who was a big Chelsea fan. Sometimes we'd watch the football together. But I could not believe it when he told me he supported the BNP as well. It was like going from the frying pan into the fire. It turned out this bloke was also a violent criminal. He would come back from nights out telling me he had just beaten somebody half to death. It began to get quite frightening living in the house, and eventually, having not found anywhere else to live, I moved back in with my mum and dad, intending this to be a temporary solution (within a few months, the guy at the last house was locked up for aggravated burglary).

I did not find it especially easy living with my parents again. But worse than this, as mentioned, things were not going very well at work. I think I thought one of the assistant managers was having an affair with Claire on my department. I had probably got this completely wrong, and it was just a delusion, triggered from having come off my meds. Who knows, maybe I was right? But anyway, one day, as it happens when both my boss and the other assistant manager, Ceri, were not working, I turned to this guy and quite loudly called him a cunt, so many of the people in the call centre around us could hear.

The word cunt these days is in pretty common usage, but back in the early 2000s, I'm sure it was a much more taboo word. These days, the word cunt is probably used as much as the word twat, if anything, it might be used more, both as an expression of someone or something very bad, but also it's now sometimes used in a jovial way. But like I say, back then, it was more shocking to call someone a cunt, I'm sure.

As soon as I said it, I knew I'd be in trouble. I tried to carry on working, as if nothing much had happened. But within about half an hour, I was spoken to, I think by the floor manager, and I think I was asked to leave the building.

As it happens, the AA had offered us the opportunity of taking redundancy. I'd been there for no more than about three years, so I wouldn't get much of a pay out, but really, I was glad for the chance to get away from call centre work, so I'd accepted the redundancy. I was only due to work for about another six weeks or so before I would be made redundant. If I was sacked before this, I stood to lose about £3500, so it really was a pretty stupid thing for me to do, to put the chance of me getting the redundancy payment in jeopardy.

Fortunately, at a disciplinary hearing, where I was able to explain that my mental health had deteriorated recently, and where they did say I had been a good worker for the last few years, it was decided that I would not be allowed back to work, but instead I would be put on "gardening leave" for the last month of my employment, and they were still going to let me receive the redundancy payment. Well, that was a relief. I still went to the staff leaving do, but unsurprisingly, it was all a bit awkward, with people not knowing what to say to me. It had become a bit of a pattern to my life, me getting "ill", resulting in some pretty extraordinary occurrences and then some general bad feeling with people I had previously regarded as great friends. At least Ceri was nice, saying she thought that if she'd worked the day I called the bloke a cunt, it wouldn't have happened, but to be honest, whether or not that was the case, it was probably inevitable that the shit was going to hit the fan in some sense.

The wise thing for me to have done having left the AA I suppose would have been to go straight back on the meds. Whenever I've stopped taking medication though, I always find myself reluctant to go back on it, irrespective of the weird things that seem to start happening, the weird thoughts I start to have or the general feeling of unease. It's almost like I want to keep riding the ship until it smashes against the rocks.

I think I even started imagining my dad was having an affair with my younger brother Ade's wife. My poor dad, I don't know how he puts up with me. Anyway, I think I had decided I was going to drive to Bridgend to confront Ade's wife about this. Instead, on the way, I parked up somewhere, and just got out and started walking. I was near a wooded area, somewhere near Ely in Cardiff. I just kept walking and walking. It started to get dark and I was a bit lost. At one point, I think I lay down somewhere, and started having these sort of visions again. I think I imagined the cricketer, Freddie Flintoff, as the king of England. Eventually, I carried on walking again. At one point, I somehow fell into a heap of cow shit!

I had got back onto a road, where there were a few houses, and I decided I'd better knock on someone's door to ask if I could use their phone to call for help or something. They must have looked at me, covered in cow shit, and wondered what the fuck?! I don't think they were very polite towards me, and I continued walking. I think they had however called the police as within about half an hour, a police car pulled up and one of them began to question me. He asked me who I was and I said, "I'm..I'm..I'm Freddie Flintoff!" I think the policeman doubted if that was the case, and he asked to see my ID. I showed him my driving license. Well, I think it was then decided that I should be taken to a place not unfamiliar to me, Whitchurch Hospital.

The nurses were all very kind to me, and got me cleaned up. I was quite badly ill initially. I think I imagined people were watching the Nick TV channel which was a channel that just documented my life which was of course entirely a fiction I had created in my mind.

I did meet some nice people on the ward this time. I'd been admitted just before Valentine's Day I think. I think it was on Valentine's Day itself that I got off with a girl called Lisa in the smoking room. We had a bit of a thing for a bit. I did get very frisky on the ward this time. I shagged three or four of the other patients! There was a girl called Sabrina who was quite dirty, but also quite mad. Another woman called Vicky. An older woman called Sue was admitted. She was quite badly psychotic initially, but she did calm down and we became friends.

When I got out of hospital, Sue and I continued our friendship. I think I hoped we might get into a relationship, but Sue only really wanted a friendship. We did eventually have sex, but I said something like "I don't think I fancy you" after we'd had sex, which naturally Sue was not impressed by and things immediately turned sour.

One problem for me when I was to come out of hospital was that I really did not want to move back in with my mum and dad. I didn't know where I was going to live. Eventually, my parents decided they would buy me a flat. They had always supported me, but this just seemed like too much. I sought advice from friends, including my friend Archie who I'd started going to the football with.

I'd first met Archie on a Wales away trip in Austria. I also got to meet his brother, and other members of his family. Archie, his brother Richard and I quite often had curry nights. Sometimes, we went abroad together, sometimes buying cigarettes to bring back home, or sometimes just for short breaks, usually to Spain. Archie was a lot older, and perhaps wiser than me, and he said I should accept my parents' very generous offer.

So eventually, I did accept their offer and I moved into a very nice, recently converted flat on Richmond Road, between Roath and Cathays. I was reluctant to start work again as it just seemed to me that my mental health issues were just always going to get in the way. I decided I would go on to sickness benefits. I went on to ESA, and also applied for DLA which I got on appeal. I got housing benefit which meant I could at least pay my mum rent. I still thought I would struggle to manage and pay bills, and my dad even kindly said he would help with this.

It always takes me a while to settle back into normal life after what is usually around three months of being in hospital. But once I'd done that this time, I did get part-time work. I think after my funny ideas about Freddie Flintoff, I thought I could work at Glamorgan Cricket club. They had recently built a new stadium, and I got a part-time job there as a catering assistant. The staff were all quite friendly. My mental health was still not 100% but I just about managed. I think I'd been taken off Quitiapine for some reason and put on something else which did not agree with me, but fortunately I was then put back on Quitiapine.

Because of the new stadium, Glamorgan hosted the first Ashes test that was coming up. I went to the first and last day of the Ashes held in Cardiff which England (and Wales) dramatically managed to draw. I also decided to go to The Oval for the last day of the final Test. I was not able to get a ticket, but I managed to sneak into a nearby house where they were holding a watching party on the rooftop. This was the Test in which Flintoff won man of the match and England (and Wales) won to win the series.

Another thing I did not too long after getting out of hospital was visit Miami. While I'd been sectioned, I used to read Mixmag and DJ mag a lot, and listen to the free CDs. I read about something called the Miami Winter Music Conference, and wished I could be out there. I could have spent my redundancy pay-out to get there. As it happens, I spent this quite quickly, but the next time I had just enough money, I decided I'd go for it. It was all a bit last minute. At the time, I was facebook friends with Mr C of the Shamen who was due to play at it, and the night before I booked my flight, he was encouraging. I had bought a mix CD by Tom Novy in hospital which I'd liked and I actually got to see him at one of the clubs out there. As someone I met in Miami said, the term Winter Music Conference is a bit of a misnomer as a) it's not held in winter and b) it's hardly a conference, more like a big rave up! It was a good time.

I started to go to a new writers' group, The Square Writers' Circle, which was run by Chris Brooke from his address on Adamsdown Square. Here I met people like David Foster-Morgan, Paul Yoward, John Davies (also known as John Mouse, who I'd met before in Rohan's studio), Shelagh Middlehurst and Andrew Shakespeare (great name!). This was a good fun, quite creative group. Chris had his first book of poetry published at this time called "& The Concept Of Zero".

At some point, I was invited to be part of a team representing Wales to take place in a tri-nations poetry slam in Bristol, featuring Chris Brooke, John Davies, me and one other. We did not have an especially strong team, and most of our poems were not really slam-style poems, but I think we did still manage to come second if I recall correctly, beating the English into third. I think I actually managed to be the highest scorer of the Wales team. The slam format was great though, and I attended the event, held once a year as part of the Bristol Poetry Festival, a few more times as a member of the audience in subsequent years and saw some really top quality slam poets.

At the third time of asking, I made it to the final of the John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry, which was organised by Academi (now Literature Wales). I had three quite strong poems, and thought I had a reasonable chance of winning. I've never been very good at learning my poems, but I thought for this event, it would be best to try and learn them by heart. I rehearsed them quite a few times, and knew them pretty well, but really not well enough to be sure I could do them without making mistakes. But anyway, I made the fatal mistake of not even taking the poems on stage with me as back up. I began to recite my first poem, and after the first verse, my mind went blank. There was nothing I could do but run to the table I was sat at, grab the poems, and return to the stage. You had just five minutes to read and I was now not going to be able to complete all three poems. I just about got through two of them. It was a total disaster really, and another embarrassment. I may not have won as there was an excellent performance by Leeum Johnson, and one or two others. But I'll never know if I might have fared better.

The Square Writers' Circle decided it might be a good idea that we formed some kind of magazine to feature our work. John Brookes had quite recently stopped producing his Yellow Crane poetry magazine, based in Cardiff, so there was kind of a gap in the market. And so Square was formed.

The original intention was that a few of us would work on the magazine together, but as I had the most time on my hands, I basically took up the mantle of putting the magazine together. The first issue mostly featured writers from the group, but also one or two others, including Mab Jones, who was just starting to make a name for herself (at this stage, mostly doing comic verse based around her time growing up in Ely), and I even got permission to use a poem by the quite well known comic poet, John Hegley. The cover featured a photo I took myself of Adamsdown Square, the magazine was square in format and I did all the design work myself.

After the first issue, I managed to secure some funding from the Welsh Books Council which helped. I had launch events for each issue, which contributors who were able to make it to would read at. I sold the magazine mostly at poetry events. It would still feature writers from the group, but I began to get contributions from around Wales, and also from further afield, from Europe and the USA even. Rhys Owain Williams, now a published poet, was one of the first contributors. Aisling Tempany, Ifor Thomas and Peter Finch also submitted poems, or I requested poems from them. I tended to have themes to each issue. The second issue had an art theme. The fourth issue, which I renamed "Cool" had a Stone Roses theme as it was the twentieth anniversary of their debut album, and I just didn't think a magazine with content about the Stone Roses should be called "Square"!

I had been introduced to a female poet called Gemma June Howell by Chris. Gemma was quite a feisty poet but we were quite friendly at least initially and she agreed to help out with Issue six which predominantly featured work by women writers.

I decided at one point that it would be nice to put out a book under the Square banner by my favourite Cardiff poet, J Brookes. John settled on the name, The Dresden Cantata for the title of the book, named after one of the poems in the collection. He decided he'd quite like a painting by the Liverpool realist artist, Naive John as the cover, and fortunately, the artist was quite agreeable to us using his painting. I again got funding to cover printing costs for the book. I got a thousand made, as due to the printing process I'd elected to go for, it was far more economical to get more done. However disaster struck as I somehow managed to send them an image for the cover which featured a very slightly blurred version of the cover image. There were one or two other minor flaws.

Due to the fact that Naive John was a hyper-realist artist, I really didn't think he'd be very impressed that the cover featured a slightly lower resolution version of the painting. I decided there was nothing for it but to get the books printed again, which effectively meant I might as well have not got the Books Council grant at all. So I got the new editions of the book back. To be honest, you could not really see that much difference, but it was done now.

We did one mini-launch in Liverpool, where we met Naive John who was a lovely guy and very kindly showed us around a couple of art galleries in Liverpool. Then we had the main launch in Cardiff. I had been to a launch Peter Finch had done in the Welsh Assembly building and thought it might be an idea to hold the launch there as I'd learned it was free to hire, you just needed the backing of an Assembly member. Leanne Wood, the Plaid Cymru AM (before she was the Plaid Cymru leader) and her team kindly agreed they would support the event, so everything was in place. It was free to hire, but we also ordered some bottles of wine which was a little on the pricey side. The event went ahead reasonably well. We did at least one more smaller launch in Pontypridd.

I quite quickly realised that selling poetry books is not easy though, however good the quality of the poetry is, and I still have many unsold copies of the book. So my first ever attempt at entering the world of book publishing was not altogether successful and I decided this might be the first and only time.

Towards the end of Square, although I still enjoyed putting the magazine together, I was starting to find selling the magazine an increasing burden. I suppose the internet by this stage was starting to take a hold, and print magazines in general were selling less. But in addition, poets are not generally known for having a lot of money. They are generally so focused on their own work that they do not very often dip into their pockets to buy books or magazines featuring other poets. I got to Issue ten and decided, after three years, I would call it a day. The last issue was a "Revolution" issue, and came with a free CD of some poets reading poems revolving around the theme. There were hints that the magazine might start up again at some point, but thus far, it hasn't happened.

After Chris Brooke put his book out, which was a great book, he seemed to then go into a really bad writers' block. He stopped writing poetry altogether, and I'm not sure whether that is still the case. He was however also a big music fan, and soon after the book came out, he started doing an online radio show which went out on a couple of websites.

He got me to become the co-host for a while, which was good fun. He was very good at what he did, although to some extent, he was a bit of a shock jock, and he often said things that I don't think his girlfriend approved of.

Chris got sent music from all over. He did play a lot of alt-folk on his show, which I was not really into (I never imagined folk music would enjoy a revival in the 21st century, imagining most music would be synth-based), but he also played more general indie music. I got to meet some of the bands he played who might come over to play a gig, such as The Smiles and Frowns, Those Dancing Days and Ida Maria. I even did an interview with Ida Maria. I also went to visit Bonnie, a cockney who lived in Edinburgh, who had been the co-host before me.

Chris decided, for some reason, that we should both attend a free radio presenters' course that Radio Newport were doing. To be honest, it wasn't a particularly useful course in terms of the content, and most of the other people on the course were much younger than us, maybe not long out of school.

On the last day of the course though, I'm sure one of the girls in the group, from Newport, was coming on to me. I think we might have swapped numbers or something. I was friendly with this girl, Lana, for a while, went to one or two of her parties, but she had a terrible temper, could almost be a bit scary. She was ok as long as I kept my distance, so I switched to mostly just talking to her on the phone, if I talked to her at all.

Well anyway, another time, I also co-hosted a sports phone-in on Radio Cardiff for a short time. That was quite good fun. And I also started doing reviews of gigs for various websites. I was not doing proper work, but I had lots of little things that kept me occupied. And without the stress of full-time work, I managed to stay out of hospital for around twelve years, my longest ever spell of not going in, so maybe I'd made the right decision to go onto benefits.

Towards the end of my time at the AA, I started getting into poker. I had always played backgammon, and did try playing a bit of backgammon online for money, but it quickly became apparent that the backgammon sites were rigged, so I stopped. Texas Hold'Em had recently started to become popular in the UK as the laws were changed to allow poker to be played in pubs.

I think the first proper live game I ever had was a game between some work colleagues while I was still at the AA. We hired out a room at the Model Inn. I was still getting to grips with the game, so I don't think I fared very well, but I did enjoy it. My brother, Ade was into it before I was. He won a tournament at the Grosvenor Casino one time, and apparently, at that time, they put the winner's name up in lights for a week or something.

I tried out a few of the poker sites, like Full Tilt, Sky Poker and Pokerstars, initially just playing for play chips. I sought out places to play live, near to where I was now living in Roath. There was a weekly game at the pool hall on City Road (which is now closed down). I think I did quite well the first time I ever played there, and I became a bit of a regular, and started getting quite good.

There were a couple of games in the local pubs in Cathays, the student area near to me. There was money involved, but they were just friendly games really. I think the first time I ever played at one of them, there was an old guy called John who was so pissed off with the way I played that he swore he'd never play with me again. I think he eventually managed to tolerate me. There was one couple I remember, two students, who were regulars who were quite a good laugh. There was one incident I remember involving them though. I had met them by chance at a bar in town when I was on a night out with a friend. I think I might have told them about having gone to watch the Ashes test. The girl, whose name I don't recall, said that she'd heard on the radio they were playing at her home town. I looked at her strangely. "Aren't you from Somerset?" I said to her. "That's right, she said, Yeovil." It took a second or two, but I realised she had misheard when they must have spoken about the Ashes Test at The Oval! There was a slightly awkward pause, but at the same time, it was quite a comical moment. I decide to get a T-shirt printed with the wording "Yeovil Cricket Club SE11 5SS" (The Oval's postcode) which I took to the next poker game, just to tease her.

Some pubs held leagues which were taken a bit more seriously, but the money involved was still pretty meagre. For a serious game, I soon learned, you really had to try going to the casinos. There are three casinos that have poker in Cardiff, The Grosvenor, in the Bay, Les Croupiers (known as the Croups), now in the out-of-town complex next to the Cardiff City Stadium, and the Rainbow in town, which now only has cash games.

For a while, The Grosvenor was the most popular, especially when a very friendly Hungarian guy called Kris was the cardroom manager. They also used to have a very attractive and friendly dealer called Pippa which might have helped attract punters. These days, for various reasons, the Croups has overtaken in popularity.

I generally did okay in the casinos, but the standard was a lot higher. You really did get to meet some characters though. A lot of poker players are into sports and betting in general of course, but a lot of them also have a great sense of humour with some quite amusing anecdotes. By its nature, you can never really get too friendly with fellow players – after all, you're competing to win money off each other – but to different extents, you might have respect for one another. There would be regulars who you would see week after week for years. There'd be newbies, who you could try and take advantage of. Sometimes you'd see really good players but then for some reason after a year or two, you'd just never see them again – for whatever reason, they must have decided to get out of the game. There are still a handful of players still playing now that I would have known from maybe about fifteen years ago.

Sometimes I'd venture further afield to play games. Coventry was the focal point for the UK's biggest tournament (in terms of the number of entries), The Goliath, so that would be a highlight each year. Poker definitely became a big part of my life, it almost took over football as my main passion.

PART 4

At one of the launches of Square, which I held in my back garden, someone who I'd known for some time and who I almost counted as a friend, Ian, commonly known as Jah Scouse, brought along a friend, Karen. One of the first things Karen said to me was that she thought she'd seen me in a dream, which I thought was quite intriguing. Karen got quite drunk and Jah Scouse left without her. Karen eventually left the party with some others, but she came back soon after on her own and stayed the night. We had a bit of a cuddle, but nothing more than that, and the following morning, I walked Karen back round to Jah Scouse's flat down the road.

Karen did not have a phone, but she left me her address, which was in a small town called Troedyrhiw, near to Merthyr. A week or two later, I decided I'd go and visit her. I think the first time I visited, there was no answer, so I left a note with my address and phone number. Within a few days, I had a phone call from Karen and I went to see her again. If I recall, on the second evening I visited her, her house was in darkness. When she answered the door, it appeared that she had no electricity, so I think I went to get some electric for her, and probably a bottle of wine which we shared.

A couple of days later, I was due to go to a festival where I was going to sell copies of Square. Gemma and her boyfriend were originally going to go with me, but in the end I took Karen. Karen insisted I buy booze for the journey, and this became a bit of a recurring theme. The weather at the festival – towards the end of September, if I recall – was pretty bad and it wasn't going very well, so I think we ended up only staying the one night.

I did sort of start going out with Karen. It was always a little unclear exactly what her relationship with Jah Scouse was. She seemed to imply they were just friends. There were other things I discovered about Karen. Apart from her quite apparent drug problem, I even suspected from some of the things she said and did that she might be some kind of prostitute.

She did lead quite a pitiful life. As we walked down the street, some of her neighbours would call her names from the window, like "Psycho Sue" or something. She also seemed to have the nickname "Cherry Lips" as she always wore bright red lipstick. At one stage, at Karen's request, I went round to one of the neighbours' to ask their daughter to stop calling her names, and the name-calling did seem to die down.

As well as this though, Karen had very meagre belongings. All she had in her bedroom was a broken camp bed and not even a wardrobe for her clothes. She had apparently been left like this by her ex-partner. In time, I bought her a new bed and a wardrobe. I think I also get her a TV and one or two other things.

Karen was quite attractive for a woman in her late forties, and did have quite a smart, unusual dress sense. She bought a lot of clothes from charity shops. She was proud of the fact that apparently, a distant relative of hers was JM Barrie, the author of Peter Pan. She seemed to have a similar, childlike outlook on life. She was actually also an excellent artist. She liked to do children's illustrations, pictures of bears or bunny rabbits in clothing. She also liked to paint flowers.

I mean, her art wasn't that exceptional, but I do remember one day visiting her and she was in the middle of painting quite a large painting of flowers, and I just remember wondering how on Earth she had done it – it was far better than any of the other artwork I'd seen her do. She completed it, and it really was excellent, and she then did a series of five or six of them, all very good.

The Made In Roath festival was coming up, and one of the things they did was to allow "open houses" where artists could exhibit art at home. Obviously, Karen did not live with me, so was not technically a Roath resident, but I thought it would be okay if Karen put up some of her paintings in my flat. I got some of them framed, and they all looked quite good. For some reason, Karen wasn't that happy about it though. Perhaps this was partly because we did not have many visitors. I also got a calendar made with twelve of her works, including a few of her older ones, and sold a few to local businesses.

I tried to help Karen in various ways, but it was not easy. After doing a bit of research, I was fairly sure that Karen suffered from Korsakoff's Syndrome, which is a drink-related form of Alzheimer's. Of course, she was reluctant to admit to even having a problem with drink. It was disappointing that it never seemed to be picked up by her GP, who she did see quite often for other ailments she claimed to suffer from. I got her some thiamine tablets, which were supposed to help, which she did take, but there was only a very slight improvement.

Within the first few weeks of meeting Karen, I'd decided that we should go to one of Seren's First Thursdays, where Dannie Abse was reading. I met her off the train at Cardiff Central, and unfortunately, she was clearly quite drunk. If I'd had any sense, I'd have simply cancelled the evening out, but I was still quite keen to go, so we did. We got in late and Karen was talking throughout. They were actually filming Dannie Abse, and this was to be one of his very last performances before he sadly passed away, so understandably the organisers were not at all happy. However, there was still no need for one of the audience members to, as he did, punch Karen and cause a real fuss. One of Seren's staff led us away and it was all a bit embarrassing. If I'd had any sense, I'd have ended things with Karen there and then, but at the same time, I suppose I took her on as a kind of challenge.

I did get to meet both her sister and her ex-partner, who now looked after the child they had had together. Her sister was nice enough, tee-total. Her ex-partner seemed okay, but I was quietly quite angry with him the way he seemed to have just dumped her in this horrid little house without even a proper bed. He claimed she had just been too problematic. The first time I met Karen's teenage daughter, she ran off at the sight of Karen. On another couple of occasions, things weren't quite so bad. Karen definitely loved her two children (she had a son from a marriage early in her life), she talked about them constantly, but clearly, there had been many trying times in the past.

Without doubt, it was almost as if I was her care assistant at times, although rather than me getting paid, it became quite costly, with all the drink I would buy her, transport costs etc. Karen did get herself into scrapes and was in hospital with injuries a couple of times. One time, at around Christmas time, I turned up to Karen's house and she was covered from head to foot in cuts and bruises. I wondered what on Earth had happened to her. She acted as if she didn't even know what had happened, as if she hadn't even seen herself in a mirror. My initial reaction was that she'd been beaten up. It's possible she had just fallen down the stairs, as at the bottom of the stairs was a broken picture frame. Either way, I was sure she needed to be seen. I think I even got my parents to come and take a look at her.

On this occasion, she may not have broken anything, but we did go to A and E. I think it might have been New Year's Eve when we went. We got back to Cardiff just in time to go out for a drink. We got back to mine in a taxi, got out and were about to go into my flat.

Three or four young lads saw her and said to her "Did he do that to you?" "Yes," Karen said, and before I could try to explain, they were on to me. I ran down the street, fearing for my life, screaming that she was making it up and was ill. They eventually let me go.

But after that incident, I decided I wasn't going to let her stay. I didn't care if it was cold, and she had no money. I locked the door, and wouldn't let her in, ignoring her screams outside. I probably hoped one of my neighbours might let her stay. I think that might actually be what happened. I think the next day she was arrested for stealing a scarf and I think taken home. I did pity her a bit, being out in Cardiff on her own in the cold, but at the same time, I also thought what she'd done, putting my own life in danger, was almost unforgiveable.

Nonetheless, I did continue to see Karen for a while. There were other men involved in Karen's life as well. The sensible thing would probably be for me to find someone else and stop seeing Karen altogether. And eventually, that exact thing happened.

While I was still kind of with Karen, a young female came into my life unexpectedly. Karen had a cat called Cimba, which she was unable to take care of, so my mum and dad eventually took Cimba on. There were a couple of cats that would call around to my flat. One of them was a very skinny cat, with black, white and a sort of orange colouring. He, or she, would come round, and despite being skinny, would not really want any food. The cat would just keep me company for a couple of hours before disappearing.

But within a few months of this cat calling round, another young cat, with similar colouring, also called round. This cat seemed keen to stay a bit longer, she did not apparently have any other home to go to, and was quite comfortable staying overnight. I started to buy the cat food, and she basically just moved in.

I always wondered if she might have been the kitten of the skinny cat that called round, as they had similar colouring. I wondered if it was just possible that her mother might have somehow encouraged this cat to go to mine. Quite a few months after this cat had moved in, a cat did come round, with similar colouring again, although she looked a lot better fed. I remember this cat leaving, turning, as if to say goodbye, and then it never returned.

So anyway, the cat moved in and I named her Treacle, partly because of its colouring, and partly because I thought it was amusing to say to the cat, "Alright Treacle?" In time, this was often shortened to Treaks. I always thought that Treacle did not particularly like her given name, but she was stuck with it now.

She was a very purry and affectionate cat. She was always very friendly with anyone who called round, but seemed to hate all other animals, even other cats. She did not take to wet food, and would not eat any human food at all – except perhaps ice cream, she did like that – but generally, she was happy with the dry food I put down for her, and did like Dreamies as a treat.

I suppose there must have been at least one cat Treacle liked, as in time, she did have kittens. There were just two of them, tiny black and white things that I named Tate and Lyle. They were born perhaps around late October time, and I sold them both on Gumtree not long before Christmas to a yuppie couple who had travelled from England to pick them up. They even wanted to take Treacle with them – fat chance! Within a day or two, Treacle did not really seem to miss her kittens and not long after, she got the snip.

Treacle's arrival also coincided with another lady I met.

I had met a guy called Tom in the beer garden of Buffalo Bar in Cardiff (which has since closed). He told me he wrote poetry, and he recited some of it to me, which was excellent. Another event I'd started putting on was a Cardiff v Swansea poetry slam, based on the slams in Bristol, in aid of Oxfam. These went pretty well and Tom got the best marks in one of them. I met Tom's girlfriend at the time, Dawn, and I think it was through Tom that I got to meet another of Cardiff's characters, known as Shaky Tom, who has Parkinson's, but has a sense of humour, and does not mind this moniker.

At this time, Shaky Tom was living in quite a posh block of flats in the centre of town called Altolusso. His birthday happened to be the day after mine, and he was having a party in his flat. It was to be an all day/all night party. I turned up mid afternoon when they were still getting things ready, blowing up balloons etc. There were just a few people there, but one of these was a girl called Christina who struck me as being quite a character. She was quite pretty, but also seemed to be a good fun person, full of life, and I got on quite well with her.

There was an online poker tournament I wanted to play in that started at about 5 or 6pm, so I decided to go back and play this. I won a few quid in it, and returned to the party at about nine or ten. By the time I got back, there were loads of people there. It appeared that Tom was quite popular. I was hoping to chat more with Christina, but she was occupied in another room with some friends.

After the party, I did add her on facebook, but she didn't seem to be a very prolific reader of facebook. Over the last couple of years, as mentioned, I'd started writing gig reviews for different websites. I never got paid anything, but would at least get free tickets to the gigs, usually. The first site I wrote for was Welsh Icons, run by quite an eccentric character called Dom Stocqueler who has quite recently passed away. I also wrote for GodisintheTV and one or two other sites. I had found out about a site run by the well known music journalist, John Robb, called Louderthanwar and did one review of a Pixies concert which I was lucky enough to get published by Louderthanwar.

Louderthanwar had got me, plus one, on the guestlist for the Bristol band, The Blue Aeroplanes. I had noticed that Christina was online one time (it was coming up to Christmas time and she'd been asking people if they would like to send her Christmas cards). I started chatting to her, and asked if she'd like to go to the gig with me. "Sure!" she said, and it was arranged.

We had arranged to meet at the Juno Lounge on Wellfield Road, which does excellent tapas, but Christina was late to meet me there. I was worried she may have decided to cancel, but I think it was eventually agreed that I should pick her up from her flat in Llanedeyrn. Instead of going to the Juno Lounge, we had one drink in the Pear Tree, which is also close to where the gig was taking place at The Globe. Christina looked stunning, and I felt quite privileged to be out with such a good looking young lady.

We were fairly chatty, talking about ourselves and getting to know each other. At one stage, Christina decided to tell me a very long, and not very funny joke. I think I was just impressed by her confidence. The night was going quite well.

So we got into the gig, and again things were going well. Christina was getting fairly drunk. I think I must have not been drinking so much because I was driving. At one stage, we nipped outside for a cigarette. As we did this, Christina got the hiccups. A thought popped into my head and I said, "I've got a really good cure for hiccups." "What's that?" said Christina, and I moved in to kiss her! Her hiccups seemed to stop straightaway, so not only had I discovered a really good cure for hiccups, but I'd also been able to kiss Christina!

After having had a kiss, we were both more now at ease, and able to enjoy the gig more. It was a good gig, and Christina danced away quite happily at the front.

Finally, it was time to drive Christina home. Christina invited me in, and we continued chatting. Again this was going really well, we really were getting on well. Eventually Christina said, "Shall we go to bed?" and this was music to my ears. We had the most amazing sex. I think I was a bit worried that I might not last very long, but I needn't have worried. It was really intimate, and we made love in several different positions.

I stayed over, the morning came, and I think I must have almost felt like I was in heaven, waking up to this beautiful woman. I didn't want it to end. I'd decided this girl was definitely a keeper! The only slightly annoying fact was that Christina was on the phone for quite a long time with someone discussing a Virgin bill. Much as I wanted to stay, I thought I was going to have to go home to start work on my review of the gig – I find it's always best to get it written while it's still fresh in the mind. There was another gig the very next night that I was also planning to review, so we made tentative arrangements to go to this together as well.

I got my review of the Blue Aeroplanes gig done – it was full of praise as it had been a great night – and now all I wanted to do was be with Christina again. We met up again, in town this time, for the other gig. But she did not seem to be anywhere like as enthusiastic as the night before. I wasn't quite sure what the matter was. I think Christina has told me since that she wasn't necessarily expecting that things would keep going between us and that it might just be a sort of one night stand. I definitely had other ideas, and was not going to let her go!

We met up on a couple of other occasions. One time, we met up at the Andrew Buchan. There was another guy there called David. I think Christina had told me they had been in a relationship, but that they were going to be splitting up. Well, he was definitely an obstacle of some kind anyway. There was also Naz, an older bloke (this was the person she was on the phone to for ages the morning after our first date), and it appeared that he was also some sort of competition.

It was approaching Christmas Day, and I was to be spending Christmas in Derby with my brother. I had wondered if Christina would like to come with me, but she wasn't into this idea. I got her quite a lavish Christmas present, quite a nice tablet. I think this was to somehow show how keen I was on her. On my return from my brother's, Christina and I did start spending more time together. I got her into playing poker, and she became quite keen (part of the idea with the tablet was for her to play online poker with it). After a little while longer, we finally posted a photo of us together on facebook, and at some stage, we officially declared on facebook that we were an item. Karen was now out of my life for good, and I intended for it to stay that way.

It was approaching both Christina's birthday, and Valentine's Day, and we decided we should go away together. When she'd had a bit of money, Christina had bought a small property in Bulgaria, which she wanted to go and see, so we booked flights to Bulgaria. I was expecting it to be very cold in February, but fortunately it was not quite as cold as anticipated. We spent a few days in Sofia, before heading to Vratsa, in the mountains, where Christina's little place was.

On the first or second night in Sofia, Christina had gone out for something, and was gone for quite some time. I think I was unable to call her, and I was worried she was going to get lost. She was away for most of the night and in fact, as well as being worried, I was quite angry with her. She did finally return in the early hours of the morning, with the excuse that she had been looking for a place where she could buy poker money. This seemed like a ridiculous excuse, and I was concerned about what else she might have been doing.

The very next day was in fact Christina's birthday, and the day had not started well at all. Christina had got quite upset, and was even crying. We had planned to go to the nearby zoo together. In the end, I decided I would go on my own because I was that angry with her. It was a reasonable zoo, but I wasn't really focussed, thinking about Christina, and that perhaps I should try to make it up with her.

There was actually a cake shop not far from our hotel, and I bought Christina quite a large birthday cake, and also some balloons and one or two other things. So I think we must have made up after all, and Christina was able to still enjoy her birthday. We then went to the zoo together a day or two later.

We stayed in the hotel in Sofia a day or two longer than planned, but eventually, we headed off on the coach, heading towards the mountains. We had a hotel booked in Vratsa, but in fact, it wasn't in the town centre but right up in the mountains. A taxi driver seemed quite surprised that we would have booked there. It was actually quite a romantic spot. The early argument aside, the whole trip was pretty romantic. This hotel was pretty basic, but we did have a very nice meal in the restaurant, some kind of stew I think it was.

We were tending to get up very late, which did mean we did not make the most of our days. In this case, it meant that when we visited a nearby park, we were unable to go into the caves, an attraction there, as they had closed by 3pm, or whatever time we had got there. But we took some photos of each other messing around in the park.

We had booked another hotel in Vratsa itself, and got another taxi to this place. Christina made arrangements to meet the man who she had bought her house from. There was one issue that for the property to become legally hers, there was still some paperwork to be signed.

Before meeting this man, we decided we should finally go and see the house. A taxi took us near to the location of the house, according to Google maps. But it appeared to be a long way from the main road. We spent hours wondering around a mostly wooded area. The only houses around here were very basic farmhouse type places, more like huts than houses really. We must have been roughly in the right area. I think we did eventually find what we thought was Christina's house. It was a derelict little place that looked as if it was about to fall down! There were a few things inside it, some jars of something like pickle, a couple of rags, and a newspaper from about twenty years ago. It did look as if no one had been in here for about as long as that. And clearly, this was not so much as a house that someone might live in, but perhaps a place for a worker to shelter in. There was a bit of land with a very overgrown vineyard, so maybe this had been worked on at some time.

I'm not sure if Christina was disappointed. She'd got to see the place at last. I'm not sure if she had been expecting more. She had after all not spent that much money on Ebay. Well, anyway, we took a couple of photos, and now had to find the main road again, with darkness approaching. We did eventually find the main road, and in fact managed to find a small bar, where we had a drink and got another taxi back to our hotel.

We met up with the guy who'd sold Christina the house. He was British in fact, and seemed nice enough. Personally, I had suspected that the whole thing was a bit of a con. These "houses" they were selling were, as I say, hardly houses that you could live in, and it was unclear whether you could in fact properly own them anyway.

Nonetheless, we did then meet with a solicitor, and some money changed hands. There was still one outstanding payment of around £200 which would need to be made for the property to be legally in Christina's hands. I must confess, we put off making that payment, and to this day, five or six years later, that payment has not been made!

Christina imagined that she might come out here to live, and work on her little place. I didn't want to sound too negative, but this did sound like a bit of a fantasy. It would probably cost quite a bit to do the place up, and even then, it was hardly the sort of dwelling you could live in.

The seller took us to view the house again. He was able to drive right up close to it. We had another look around. He did mention that the owner of another nearby hut might like to buy Christina's place. Selling the property seemed to be the most sensible thing to do to me. But as we never made that £200 payment, this never happened either!

While we were in Bulgaria, we discovered a type of music called chalga. It is a cross between folk and pop, and was popular in clubs, although we did not end up going to a chalga club. However, overall, our trip to Bulgaria was quite successful, barring one or two hiccups. As mentioned, the whole experience was quite romantic, and it sealed us as a couple.

When I first started going out with Christina, she was actually still a student, although she wasn't having a particularly good time of things. I wasn't sure whether to encourage her to try and stick it out, but as she was attending fewer and fewer lectures, and not really doing any work, she eventually dropped out. Obviously, Christina was a lot younger than I was, but most of the time this was not really a problem. I was in love with her as a person, she was unlike anyone I'd ever met before. And she had after all previously had a thing with someone older than her (Naz), so it was not new to her.

Christina was not especially close to her family. They only just about stayed in touch. Despite this, I did get to meet her parents a couple of times. Cris definitely got her sense of humour from her dad, a second hand car salesman, and also a very good artist. Her mum was very cheerful, as was her gran, who lived near Coventry, who I also got to meet (and who has quite recently sadly passed away). I even went to Christina's sister's wedding. There was a bit of an age gap between them, and they were quite unalike, Cris's sister being far more conventional. She also had a brother who she had not seen for years.

Cris moved into a shared house, not too far away from me in Roath. For a time, we both had other jobs – Christina for a while worked at the Tesco call centre, while I worked for a while as a canvasser for a gardening company and then as an assistant at a slot machine place.

Christina and I did have a lot of sex. At one stage, we had a thing for having sex in castles. We did it at Ogmore Castle, once we went late at night to Castell Coch and had sex on the moat. We got "keys" to Cardiff castle and I think we did it in the keep. We imagined we might have sex in every castle in Wales! We went to the first Glastonbarry festival – a small festival in Barry that has tribute acts. Christina pulled me into an empty catering tent and wanted to have sex there, but with people just outside the tent, I couldn't quite bring myself to comply.

Our regular stay-at-home "date night" was Tuesday, when we'd watch first Dave Gorman's "Modern Life Is Goodish" followed by the late night poker programme. We went to see Dave Gorman live at St David's Hall together once. One of the poker programmes was called the Sharkcage, which would feature one amateur player each week. The only amateur player to get through to the final was a guy from Cardiff called Gareth Coles. He got unlucky in the final – where the prize to the winner was $1million. But I met Gareth by chance on Newport Road and even invited him round for a home game with me and Christina. We also watched the entire series of Breaking Bad, and went to a one-man show where he acted out each episode of the series, also at St David's Hall, which was quite good fun.

Christina did get pregnant twice by me. Both times were in the later stages of our relationship. The first time, she informed me just a couple of days before she was due to have an abortion, so there was not much I could do or say about this. The second time, she was in a fairly late stage of the pregnancy. At the time, it was at a particularly rocky phase of our relationship – I might have questioned whether it was even mine. I think as I was getting on in years, and still childless, I would have quite liked her to have kept the baby in this instance. We went to a clinic together for her to discuss options. She was quite determined she did not want to have the child. She gave one reason for not wanting it as she had also had a termination with Naz, and she thought that if she had a baby with me, this would upset Naz. I did not see this as a particularly good reason myself. Well anyway, because the pregnancy was in such a late stage, she was going to have to travel to a special clinic either in Brighton or in Scunthorpe. She immediately chose Scunthorpe as she had a friend who lived there that she could visit. It did seem as if she wasn't taking this very seriously, with the notion that turning the trip into a social visit was more the focus. So eventually, she set off to have it done. I did talk with her on the phone on the journey, and she also spoke to her mum, but she was not to be deterred, and went ahead with the termination.

Before we eventually split up at the end of 2015, we did separate for a short time a couple of times before this. I was never happy that she always wanted to do something special, without me, for Naz's birthday, and I think one time, we split up because of this. I think the first time we split up, I got quite emotional and made her a CD mixtape which I think she quite liked. We would generally be separated for a week or two, before getting back together for whatever reason. One time, we had gone away to Coventry for a poker trip. I suppose we were not technically an item when we'd left. But this particular trip must have gone quite well, I said to Christina, "If I ask you out again, will you say yes?" I think she said she wasn't sure, but anyway, I did ask her out again, she said yes, and we were a couple once more.

We did go on quite a few poker trips together. Within the first few months of our relationship, we went to Coventry for the national student poker tournament. Christina did not fair especially well in the main event, but she did make the final table of one other event, and also did very well in the ladies' event. There was quite a nice trophy which Christina set her sights on winning. It got to the heads-up stage, with both Christina and her remaining opponent having roughly equal chip stacks. They were both all-in, and Christina had pocket aces, while the other girl had pocket sevens. A dream scenario, you might imagine, but Christina's opponent made a straight on the river and Christina had to settle for second place. She needed some consoling after that.

We went to the Goliath in August, which Christina cashed in, despite not even having been playing for a year. I think for her 23rd birthday, I got her entry into quite a prestigious ladies' event in London. However, there was a bit of a mix up as the tournament for some reason started an hour early (I had never heard of a tournament starting early). Cris still entered it, but she was at a distinct disadvantage, and quite flustered, so did not do very well. We complained to the organisers, who then agreed to give her a free entry into a tournament in Nottingham. This tournament in fact had a bigger buy-in than the ladies' event Cris had crashed out of, so of course, we were happy to accept this. And then Christina managed to do very well in this, cashing for over £800. It was pretty clear that Christina had become a good little player (with my coaching!), with some better wins in live tournaments than I'd had after having played for a lot longer. We both were still making the mistake of playing online though, and at one stage, Christina did lose a fair bit online.

The big tournament Christina had her eye on was a UKIPT event on the Isle of Mann, the home of Pokerstars. She had saved up a bit of money, but tragically had one night when she lost a fair wedge in the Grosvenor, going out of a poker tournament, and then throwing away a fair bit playing blackjack and roulette. She was distraught, not knowing how she was going to get the money back and fund the trip. The following day, I tried to think how I could help her. Wales were playing England in the rugby World Cup. I quite liked the look of a bet which was Wales to score first and win at 11/2. I put £100 on this, a lot more than I would normally put on a bet, but this would more than cover Christina's losses from the night before. We watched the game in eager anticipation. Fortunately, Wales did score first, so that part of the bet came in, Now Wales just needed to win the match!

Wales were behind for most of the match, and we didn't think the bet was going to come in. But towards the end of the second half, they managed to sneak into the lead. It was a couple of minutes to go and Christina and I were on tenterhooks. Then, England got a penalty. If they kicked for goal, it would be a draw, and most likely both teams would go through to the next stage. It seemed obvious that they would kick for goal, and it was an agonising wait as they made their decision. Bizarrely, England, perhaps arrogantly wanting to go for the win, decided to kick for the corner. We were ecstatic as this meant we could still win the bet. And sure enough, England's decision proved to be an awful one, as no try resulted from the line-out, Wales won, and I would pocket £650!

We were both over the moon, and went for a drink to celebrate. I was more than happy for most of the winnings to go towards the trip Christina had planned, as it was not as if I would have put the bet on under any other circumstances. It even meant I could come along too, although I had no plans to play the tournament (the buy-in was a bit much for typically low-stakes me!) so I booked my flight and a week or two later, we were heading off.

On the flight over, we got chatting to another couple of poker players, one of whom had won a package that included entry to the tournament, as well as a stay at a hotel on the Isle of Mann. I think because he had already booked another hotel, he said that we could have the hotel room in his place. I can't quite remember what arrangements we had made, but anyway, we gladly took him up on his offer.

This trip did not turn out so well. There were a few plus points, like getting to meet a few of the famous poker players we'd seen on poker TV programmes, such as Jake Cody, Liv Boeree, and even Chris Moneymaker, who once won the main event at the World Series of Poker. And Christina did make Day 2 of the tournament she had entered.

However, the night before Day 2, there was a free bar laid on. Christina got quite drunk, and also did one of her disappearing acts, leaving me not quite knowing what to do. She eventually came back to the room, only for us to have a big argument, and she disappeared again, for some time. When she finally got back this time, with no explanation as to where she had been, I told her we were going to have to split up again.

Miraculously, despite having got very drunk and not having had much sleep, Christina did manage to get up to go and take her seat in the tournament. I took a little while longer to get up. When I did finally emerge, I decided I might as well go and see how she was getting on. I got to the hall where the tournament was being played, and could not see her. I saw a woman who we'd spoken to at the bar the night before who gave the signal that Christina was out. Oh dear, I thought, and wandered out into the street, which was near to the sea front.

I wandered around for a while, not knowing when I would see Christina, when all of a sudden, I spotted her on the other side of the street, also looking a bit lost. I ran up to her. Clearly, she was not in a particularly good mood. She told me she'd gone all-in with a pair, something like 8s I think, and this had been her exit hand. We strolled around the town for a bit longer. We later went for something to eat in a pub. We tried to just about enjoy what time we had left before having to fly home.

This was about the last trip away Christina and I had before finally splitting up a few months later. My book, The Blues Are Back In Town, which I'd been working on the previous year would be coming out soon. Christina had been supportive while I was writing the book, but then when it came to the launch, I felt a bit put out that she spent a fair bit of the time at the launch chatting to other male friends.

I did feel like I was constantly on my guard with Christina. Whether this was justified, or whether I was a bit paranoid, it's hard to say for certain. It didn't help that I regularly used to dream that she was sleeping with other men. I would wake up and accuse her, which was very unfair, as of course, it was just a dream, but I imagined at least that there might have been reasons why I would have these dreams.

The relationship finally ended almost exactly two years after it had begun. Almost fittingly, we were going to a funeral together of an artist we both knew who tragically had taken her own life. Cris knew her a lot better than I did, but I went along, partly as the driver, with Naz and their friend Anthony also accompanying us. It was quite a sad occasion. That evening, I also wanted to go to a poetry event, so I went to that, while Christina stayed at home and cooked for the other two. When I finally got home, I think I was quite cruel, accusing Christina of certain things. Anthony was imploring me that I should trust my girlfriend, but I wouldn't listen. I even put on Just Jack's "The Outer Marker" album, which I see as being a break up album.

The following morning, Christina packed up her bags and got up to leave. I was still just about coming round, probably a tad hungover. Despite how things had been going, I still did not really want her to leave. I was sure we could work things out. Christina was after all the first woman who had ever lived with me – she'd moved into mine around about a year before. It was quite a big deal really. But she was adamant that she was moving out. She said it was just going to be a break, and we would see how things panned out.

The next couple of weeks were agonising for me. Cris would not even tell me where she had moved to. She'd told me she'd moved into a hostel, but didn't say which one. A few days after she'd moved out, she did call by on her way to the casino. She looked absolutely stunning, but she wouldn't let me go with her. I wondered if she was going with another man.

We agreed that our "relationship break" should last for two weeks, and during that time, we were not allowed to have sex with anyone else. Of course I stuck to the rule. It got to the end of the two weeks and we arranged to meet up in a bar. We talked things through, but it didn't really go very well, not how I had expected. I think I really thought that following this meeting, we would just go back to how things were before. Instead, it seemed fairly clear that as far as Christina was concerned, it was over, and this time there would be no going back. I offered to at least walk her home, or for her to walk me home, but no, that wasn't happening. She was more interested in going off to the casino again! Eventually, when I realised that I wasn't getting anywhere with her, I walked out.

The next couple of weeks were quite odd. I thought I should at least get Christina a Christmas present, and couldn't think of anything else to get her than an engagement ring, despite the fact that we had split up. We had been in a pub a few weeks before and a couple of older women had told me that I was a fool imagining that I could keep this young, attractive girl as a girlfriend. They reiterated that old saying, "If you love someone, set them free" which I must admit, I've never really understood – if you love someone, surely you'd want to stay with them?! But I guess setting Christina free was what I was going to have to do in the long run. I had been very much in love with her. She was (is) quite a unique person, full of fun, with a great sense of humour, very intelligent, a free thinker. But I suppose I was going to have to let her go, however hard that was going to be.

A couple of days before Christmas, I did actually ring her parents, with the intention of asking her dad if I could marry Cris! Instead, her mum answered and I just had a chat with her, crying at one point I think. I knew it was all over. I eventually discovered that Christina had in fact just moved in to a slightly dodgy hotel just a few doors down from me! I couldn't believe it when I heard this – that she'd been living less than a couple of hundred yards from me! She was not keen on me even visiting her there. It was starting to become quite a messy break up.

Christmas came and went. It was quite a depressing Christmas. I didn't spend it with family as per usual, but instead just stayed at home and cooked my own Christmas dinner. I'd hoped Christina might join me, but of course, she didn't, although I think she did call in on Boxing Day.

My mental health started to deteriorate quite badly. This usually only happens if I have stopped taking my medication, but this time, I hadn't stopped taking my meds, I think it was just the break up that caused it. I started imagining that every man under the sun was getting involved with Cris, poor girl. If a man even spoke to me, I imagined this meant he was up to something with Christina. I had a very negative outlook on everything and everybody. I was very much affected by "confirmatory bias" where everything I saw or heard confirmed things in the imaginary world I was now living in, and I was eventually sectioned once again.

PART 5

The night before I was sectioned, somebody came round who I had started to imagine was involved with Cris in some way. It seemed like every time I tried to call her, he would ring straight after. Anyway, this time he'd come round, I was a bit afraid. He said he was going to "do something for Christina" and I thought this meant he intended to beat me up. So when I got the chance, I walked out of my flat, not caring that I was leaving this guy alone in the flat. It was freezing cold – January or February – and I was not properly dressed for the weather, and had no cigarettes.

I just carried on walking and walking. At one point, there was even a brief snow shower. I eventually got to the Motorway turn-off, just beyond Whitchurch, and did contemplate walking all the way to Bridgend. But instead, I just paid Whitchurch Hospital a visit. I rang the buzzer, but they wouldn't let me in as it was so late. But it was as if I sensed that that was the place I needed to be. Eventually, I began walking home.

By the time I got home, it was almost light. The guy had left my flat, and I went to sleep. But the following morning, my dad called in. He eventually persuaded me to go to the Link centre – a psychiatric support centre. Soon after, the police were called and I was carted off to Whitchurch.

The first night I was there, I had another vision. I had not really had any experiences of this kind for some time. It was as if God had felt I was coping ok on my own. The only thing in recent years that I might attribute to being an "act of God" was when a huge tree fell down outside my house on the day Cardiff went back to being blue, having played in red for a couple of seasons. Oh, and I suppose there was the time when my Gran died. At almost the exact time that she passed on, a glass exploded in my kitchen, which I guess I also attributed to being an act of God.

But anyway this vision was very clear and quite powerful (although actually, I don't think I did really think it was God showing me this in this instance). I was just sitting alone in a quiet part of the ward when it came to me. I had always had thoughts about "the revolution" and what this might mean. It often centred around some kind of event at Buckingham Palace – presumably connected to the Queen being dethroned.

In this vision, Christina was now the Queen. In some ways, I saw Christina as a perfect person masquerading as imperfect. I saw a party taking place at Buckingham Palace. No doubt my favourite bands like The Stone Roses and Public Enemy would be playing. The best part about this vision was seeing my friends Andrew and Matthew on stage. Matthew delivered an incredible act, involving a spectacular light show in the sky where he seemed to be explaining everything about the Universe. It was an incredible thing to see, like an extraordinary waking dream.

I would meet the usual oddballs during this admission. I mean, I was pretty off the wall myself for much of the time I was in there. It was like I was on a high, and the staff were really struggling to bring me down.

In real life, the Stone Roses had announced gigs at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester City's ground, which I did think was a bit odd given that three quarters of the band are Man Utd fans. They had first announced they were reforming back in 2011, close to my birthday, which of course I was over the moon about at the time. Along with a couple of friends, I'd gone to one of their comeback gigs at Heaton Park in 2012.

For much of the time that I was in hospital this time, I planned to go to the gig at the Etihad. I often like to set myself goals while I'm in hospital for when I got out. One time, I'd seen that there was a 5k run taking place which would be shortly after I hoped to get out of hospital. One of the physios in the gym at the hospital at the time was kind enough to get me fit enough for the race, even taking me on runs around Whitchurch to get me ready, and I did indeed complete the race once I was out.

Whitchurch was due to close while I was in there this time, with all the patients due to be moved to Llandough. I decided there should be a "closing party" at the hospital. In my mind, I think I imagined members of Public Enemy were going to come and play at the Whitchurch closing party! Obviously, that did not happen, but the staff did facilitate a pretty basic party with cakes etc.

However, the quite extraordinary thing was that The Stone Roses announced that Public Enemy would be supporting them at all the gigs at the Etihad. It was as if my mind had foreseen this, in some twisted kind of way. I was still convinced that The Stone Roses were going to switch venues and play Old Trafford instead of the Etihad (due to the fact that three of the four members of the band are Man Utd fans, not Man City), and had a bet with one of the nurses that this would happen.

I had quite a tricky time of things during this admission, and was on the ICU for most of the time. However, it was finally decided that I could leave, and this was just a couple of days before the gig at the Etihad, for which I had a ticket. I also had a ticket for Wales v Russia in Euro 2016. My psychiatrist told me that I could go to the Etihad gig, and if I managed ok doing this, she could think about whether I'd be alright to go to France for the match.

So just a few days after being discharged from hospital, I was on my way to Manchester to see the Stone Roses. It was going to take place at the Etihad after all. I went to a pub near to the ground first, before finally going in. It was a very impressive stadium. The only thing was, I felt a bit unwell, and felt I had to speak to the ambulance service that was on hand. They checked me over, and said I should be ok.

Public Enemy came on, and although in the past, I've always considered them to be a phenomenal live band, at this gig, it didn't quite seem to work, I think with everyone's anticipation to see The Stone Roses. I was seated near to the back of the stadium, as I say, not feeling the greatest, but once the Roses did come on stage, I suddenly felt a wave of energy, and almost ran down into the standing area. I was at last enjoying myself, among mostly excited Mancs, it seemed.

Then at one point, I turned round, and there was Stella, the nurse from Whitchurch who I'd had the bet with! This was a bit of a bizarre coincidence. She seemed pleased to see me, and said she'd been having a bit of time off work. We danced together for a bit. I gave her my Kangol bucket hat by way of settling the bet. I told her I was still feeling a bit peculiar, and took one of the valiums I'd been given in front of her. I then popped off to the loo, or to get a drink, but by the time I returned, I could not see her, which was a shame.

It was getting towards the end of the gig, and I actually did not have a plan about where I was going to stay. I decided I should leave just before the end (missing I Am the Resurrection) to be sure of catching a bus to the train station. But back at the station, I realised I was not going to be able to get a train home. I think I got a train to Crewe and then thankfully, my brother, who lives in Derby, picked me up, so I stayed the night there before heading home.

Well, I saw my psychiatrist again, and I think she was pretty amazed that things had gone relatively smoothly in Manchester, and did agree after all that I could go to France. In order for me to do so, she was going to have to either fill out some kind of form meaning that I was still on section, but abroad, or take me off section altogether. Fortunately, she did the latter, so conveniently, I was now off section.

I had a good time in France – Wales' win over Russia was pretty emphatic – although I was still not 100% - but at least I got home alright, in one piece.

Disappointingly, The Stone Roses never released a new album as so many people had hoped, but just before the Etihad gigs, they did release two new songs, All For One and Beautiful Thing. I remember being huddled around a radio on the night All For One was first played, like the old days. I actually liked it, although a lot of Roses fans are not very keen on it.

While I had been in hospital, I'd tried writing a few songs myself. Most of them were not much cop, but one that I'd written called "Daybreak", which was basically about Christina, was a bit of a stand-out. I found someone from America on a website called Upwork who I asked to put it to music, making it sound a bit like The Stone Roses. Within about a week, it was returned to me. As I did not have internet access for most of the time while in hospital, my good friend, Tim Brenan, who I considered to be like my "agent" did the work of being in touch with this guy, etc. Once the tune was made, he brought it in to the hospital for me to listen to. I cried when I first heard it, it was that good, really a fantastic piece of work.

Once I had the chance, I did just a little bit of editing to it, speeding it up a fraction, cutting the intro and outro. I also decided to get the vocal re-recorded. I had asked the American guy if he could send me four versions of the song – an electric version, an acoustic version, and one of each without the vocals, just in case I wanted to alter the vocal. I did think he had sung the song in maybe just a little too sombre a way (it was a sad song in a way, but I still wanted it to sound more uplifting), and also there was one lyric I wanted changed, so I eventually got someone I'd met at the 147 Club in Cardiff to do this for me. As my tune was made more-or-less the same time as The Stone Roses' "All For One" was released, I decided to initially release it on Youtube as "Daybreak" by The New Stone Roses, hoping it would get some hits by people looking for the new Stone Roses song.

Also at almost exactly the same time, my good friend Matthew, who had featured in my vision, released a new rap tune called Stadium Invasion. This seemed fitting given that the Stone Roses were now playing stadiums. Matthew's tune, in the guise of Junior Disprol, was absolutely superb, and I would listen to it endlessly.

Due to the fact that I had become unwell without coming off my medication, my psychiatrist decided that it might have been the case that I had become too used to Quitiapine and it was no longer effective. So instead she put me onto Olanzipine. I really did not get on with this drug at all, and I found the side effects quite annoying. I was initially on quite a high dose. I found it very difficult to keep still, and would pace about constantly.

I was finally out of hospital again, and living back in my flat. After I'd broken up with Christina, I had thought of moving out, partly because of bad memories in the flat I suppose. A couple of months earlier, I'd looked at other places, and had even put money down as a holding fee for one place. However, my dad decided he wouldn't act as my guarantor, and I simply lost this money. That was not to say my parents were not behind the possible idea of me moving. I even contemplated moving to Coventry, where I had seen some new properties built near to the Ricoh Arena and did have a look around there with my brother at one point, but they were mostly a bit too expensive.

What I did not know about while I was in hospital was that over the previous few weeks while I was still in there, my family had in fact packed up all my belongings in readiness for me to move, even though I did not have anywhere new lined up. However, in the end, a meeting was held between my family, my psychiatrist and my social worker, and it was agreed, without me even having any input, that I should after all stay in the flat, so that's what I did.

To help me with being more mobile, my uncle very kindly bought me a little second hand car. I went to London to pick it up, and then had to drive it back to Cardiff, which was a little bit hair raising as I had not driven for some time, and with the medication making me feel a bit peculiar, I was just glad I made it back in one piece.

By this stage, Christina had got a new boyfriend. At least she had not gone straight into a new relationship after things had ended with us, she'd left it a few months at least. She'd got together with him while back in her home town, Bournemouth. He had actually been the partner of a male mutual friend of theirs called Joe, which was a bit odd. One positive for Christina was that this guy, Tom, was a lot closer to her in age.

The good thing as far as I concerned was that Christina and I were getting on again as friends, and we have remained good friends till this day. There was one time that Cris and I went out for a drink, and she did confess that the time we'd been on the Isle of Mann and she'd disappeared, she had after all gone to some guy's room. They'd apparently done some coke together. She said he'd asked her for sex, but she'd told him no. I don't know for sure whether the last part is true or not, but the good thing was, Cris had finally come clean about something that I had had a niggling suspicion about for some time. Anyway, all that aside, she is such a unique person and I'm glad to still have her in my life, even if it is just as friends.

Slightly bizarrely, Christina's other ex, Naz, who, while Christina and I were going out, was very much enemy of mine, started to become a good friend. Naz himself had had to go into hospital, perhaps a year before I had. Naz owned quite a large house, also in Cathays, which is known as Hotel Vortex, due to the strange goings on there and the fact that when you went in, you never really knew when you would leave. It was a three bedroom house and Naz regularly had people to stay. Sometimes people would just stay on the sofas.

But Naz had allowed his house to get into quite a bad state of disrepair, and a lot of junk was getting piled up in the house. In addition to this, Naz's mental health had deteriorated quite rapidly. At one time, Naz was married and had in fact led quite a successful life as a university lecturer in Japan. I don't know all the details, but somehow he'd allowed his life to slip a bit. Certainly, there were drugs involved.

But anyway, now that we were both a bit better, we did somehow become friends. Initially, it might have simply been because Christina stayed at Naz's quite a lot, and I might go round there to see her. But in fact, Naz and I had quite a lot in common, similar music taste, both enjoyed sport. Naz is also quite a funny guy, and very sociable. And perhaps the fact that we both loved Christina, even though neither of us was involved with her any longer, was another thing.

I certainly started to meet a lot more people through Naz, so I began to have quite a large social circle. As I was the only one with a car, many of these people would call on me for lifts, which I mostly didn't mind too much.

One thing I did find with the Olanzipine was that it did make me go into my shell to quite a large extent: I found it very difficult to be sociable – I simply could not hold a conversation with people, which was really quite frustrating. Naz and his friends dabbled in a bit of speed, and I did find speed made me slightly more capable socially. The others took quite large quantities, but I found I only needed a very small amount. But of course, the flip side to taking speed was that sleep would be very difficult, and the comedown wasn't great, so I took it only very occasionally. Which meant for the majority of the time, I was not very sociable, and if anything, I even tried to avoid social situations. It was a bit of a Catch 22 situation. Eventually, my psychiatrist did agree to put me back on Quitiapine, and this did help a lot (after a transition period of a couple of months), although this was only after a couple of years, and even now, I'm still not sure if I'm back to being how I was before my last hospital admission.

At the start of 2017, I decided I would go to visit my friends Paul and Stu who were both living in Jakarta. I would get to see Paul's new baby, Tulus (named after the singer that Paul and his wife Shinta had gone to see when Paul had decided to propose), and I would also get to meet Stu's wife for the first time. There is quite a funny story attached to Stu and his wife, Melisa. They had met online before Stu was even living in Indonesia. But the bizarre thing was, Melisa was in fact the boss of our mutual friend, Paul! What are the chances of that?! As it happens, Paul had not got on with Melisa particularly well. The pair had kept the information that they were couple from Paul. Stu and his wife had got married in a very small ceremony in America. But after they'd got married, Stu went to see Paul. He showed Paul a picture of his new wife. Paul had said, "That's my boss!!" Apparently, the two of them then spent the next half an hour in absolute stitches over the whole situation. Given that Stu enjoys a joke so much, you might even imagine he had got married to Melisa almost as a joke to wind up Paul, but I think this would be taking a joke a bit too far.

So I arrived at the Jakarta airport and initially Paul was not at the agreed meeting point, and I couldn't get hold of him on the phone, so I panicked slightly. Fortunately, within minutes, there he was, and all was well. Both Paul and Stu have their own drivers. Paul also has cleaners and a nanny. It seems like they both lead quite a cushy life, although they both work hard.

At this time, Paul had a very nice apartment, one down from the penthouse floor. He had quite a fantastic view of the city from his balcony, and we admired the view while having a beer to celebrate my arrival. Paul mostly had to work while I was there, but he did still have time to take me to some of his favourite bars, and introduce me to his friends, one of whom had been a poker journalist, which sounded like a great job to me.

Despite the fact that they lived in the same city, sadly it would appear that Paul and Stu were no longer best friends, and in fact had not seen each since Paul's wedding a couple of years prior. Even with me being there, they did not see each other, and I would only see them separately. I stayed with Stu for a couple of nights. We first met up in a bar. It was a great moment as I waited in the bar, and in walked Stu, who I would probably say is my best friend in the world.

Inevitably, Stu still likes a drink, and we got a pitcher of beer and played some pool. I had to be just a little careful with alcohol with the medication, but it was ok. Embarrassingly, I had even accused Stu's brother Ben of being involved with Christina, and we did broach this subject. I think Stu told me that Ben had been ok about it. As I've said, it is fortunate that I have friends and family who are so forgiving.

I was really well looked after while I was in Indonesia. Stu took me, along with Melisa and his daughter, for an excellent meal in a seafood restaurant. We had a good catch up, and did continue to drink quite a bit. The weather was generally good while I was there, and it appeared that Stu was quite enjoying his life there. I was happy for him as it seemed he'd done well for himself.

I did spend most of my time with Paul however. Along with his apartment in Jakarta, Paul also owns a holiday home in Bali which he rents out on airbnb. Anyway, we had arranged to go there for a couple of days. It was an absolutely beautiful place, very nicely decorated. Bali is very much more of a holiday destination than Jakarta, so in some ways, it might have been nicer for me to have spent more time there than in Jakarta. But nonetheless, I got to see a fair bit of it, and I had quite good fun. I was still struggling a bit with the socialising aspect because of the meds, but Paul and his friends were all quite sympathetic and I was well looked after. It was a really good break, overall.

Richard, of Parthian Books, who had published The Blues Are Back in Town, and who I'd become good friends with, kindly kept me on doing little bits of work for him. Sales of the book had slowed down after some initially good sales figures (the book was Parthian's top seller for the first two months after it was released), but I instead turned to doing other bits and pieces for Parthian. One Christmas, we had a shop in one of Cardiff's arcades, and I helped out there. I would also help out selling books at other occasions. Parthian was going to have a stall at the Eisteddfod in Cardiff in 2019, and as Richard did not have any Welsh speaking staff, he suggested that I should learn Welsh, and he paid for me to attend a basic Welsh course. I did quite enjoy this, although I must admit, I found it very difficult. This time, I was able to complete the course, but my Welsh was still extremely basic. When it came to the Eisteddfod, I was still not really able to converse with Welsh speakers, and unfortunately had to still ask most people if they would not mind speaking English. Fortunately they did not mind, so in some respects, attending the Welsh class was a little bit of a waste of time. I must admit, I was increasingly finding some of the other work Richard wanted me to do for the company a bit tricky, and as I was still not 100% mentally, I eventually stopped doing Parthian work, although fortunately, Richard and I are still friends.

In 2018, I got a bit of a shock as the benefits people decided I was due some kind of back payment. I had quite a long telephone interview, and then shortly after that, I was given quite a large sum of money. At around this time, a friend who was doing a masters in Art was in a bit of difficulty as she did not have the money to be able to complete the course. As she'd done so well up to that point, I thought it would be a real shame for her to be unable to complete the course, so I helped out with that.

Another thing I decided I'd like to do with some of the money would be to put it towards promoting my song, "Daybreak". I looked up about promotions companies, and got in touch with a few. Two of them got back to me with proposals. One of them very much liked the song, and said they should be able to get me some radio play. But the other company seemed to offer a more extensive package in terms of the publicity they could get me, so I elected to go for the other company. Both companies were going to charge about the same, around £1500. Quite a lot of money of course, and some people thought I was a bit mad doing this, but I went ahead with it after all. As it turned out, I really wished I'd gone with the company who would probably have got me the radio play. The company I did after all go with seemed to be getting me practically nothing. Their campaign was due to last for, I think, six to eight weeks, but after about a month, and with no evidence that they were helping at all, I asked for them to stop the campaign, and they agreed to refund £500 of the money I'd paid. But really, it seemed like I had effectively paid £1000 for nothing, and like I say, I just wished I'd gone with the other company.

I also put some of the money towards a trip to New York. Fellow Parthian writer, Lloyd Robson, lived there. Richard had been considering putting out a new edition of one of Lloyd's books. He also wanted to put out a "Premier League" edition of my new book, now that Cardiff had won promotion back to the Premier League (and this time, we would be playing in blue!). Lloyd was a keen member of the New York Bluebirds, a group of fans who would get together to watch Cardiff matches. It seemed like a good idea that I could do some kind of launch of my book over there.

As it turned out, the new edition of Lloyd's book did not get released, and although Richard did get some more copies of my book printed, it was essentially the same as the earlier edition (I had written an afterword, but Richard decided after all not to include this in the reprinted version). Nonetheless, I suppose I fancied a holiday, so off I went to New York in the autumn of 2018.

I was slightly wary about staying with Lloyd. I did not after all know him that well, and a couple of the messages I had from him seemed to imply that it might be slightly inconvenient for him. I need not have worried. Lloyd really was an excellent host, a good laugh, and very kindly showed me around many of New York's most famous landmarks. I didn't go right up close to the statue of Liberty, instead getting the Staten Island ferry, which was free, and passed it, just a bit further away. We went to Times Square, of course. We had a nice walk around Central Park. He showed me Grand Central Station, which was indeed quite grand. Lloyd also enjoys a tipple, so we went to a few bars, including the White Horse, where Dylan Thomas famously drunk himself to death. We had a couple of nights out in Lloyd's local, including going to their Halloween night (which was not actually on Halloween, but this was fine by me as in fact, I'd be travelling back on Halloween itself).

Lloyd also gave me time to do things by myself, so I went to the Museum of Modern Art, and also the Guggenheim Museum, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. I also decided that since I was in New York, I should go to the bar where once a week, Woody Allen plays clarinet, along with a band. Tickets for this were, as you can imagine, quite pricey. If you did not have a ticket in advance, you had to arrive early and hope you could get a seat at the bar. This worked out, fortunately. After we'd queued for maybe an hour, the doorman said he would recognise us all, and we could come back in an hour just shortly before the performance was due to start, so we all did that. When we returned, we were told that there was one seat available at one of the tables, and would any of us want that? It was a little bit more expensive, but I piped up and said, yes, I would have this seat.

However, it turned out that this seat, although it was near to the stage, was around the side, which meant that you could not really see the band, and in particular, you could not see Woody Allen hiself when he came on. So I asked the staff if I couldn't after all have a bar seat, which provided a much better view, and the staff were able to accommodate me.

So here I was, watching Woody Allen play clarinet, the man I had once suggested could play the role of God! It was quite a surreal experience. We had been advised not to take photos, but it seemed as if most people were not heeding this advice so I, like others, took a few photos and videos. I must admit, I'm not sure if Woody Allen is necessarily the greatest clarinet player. If it had been anyone else, I certainly would not considered I was getting value for money.

I had hoped I might be able to speak to the man, perhaps get an autograph – I'd hoped to maybe let him have a copy of my book. But, it seemed, this was not happening at all. At the end of the performance, Woody Allen simply left the stage, and did not respond to anyone who tried to speak to him. I instead gave a copy of my book to a couple of friendly Spanish guys who I'd got chatting to in the queue earlier.

Other than this, I suppose the other highlight of the trip was the "launch" of my book. I had timed my stay to coincide with the Liverpool v Cardiff game. I had been in touch with the guy who runs a bar in New York called The Football Factory, which is opposite the Empire State Building, who agreed that I could do a little reading there. They show all the Premier League games there. Because of the time difference, the match was due to start at around 9am, so it was an early start for Lloyd and me as Lloyd lived in Jackson Heights, some way away from Manhattan.

Jack, the owner of the bar, could not have been more accommodating. He gave us each a free drink on arrival. In exchange, I gave him some pieces of memorabilia, a couple of programmes, a scarf and one or two other things that Vince Alm from the Cardiff supporters club had kindly donated.

I ordered some nice waffles for breakfast and settled down to watch the game. I got to meet some of the other New York Bluebirds, quite a diverse bunch, but all very friendly, as well as fans of other teams, who were also there to watch their team play. Jack has each set of fans placed in different corners for each game that is on, and gets out the flags for each team for each game – it's a very well run operation, and he really does look after fans exceptionally well. Sadly the game did not go well for us as we lost 4-1, but perhaps we could not have expected a good result against the mighty Liverpool.

The New York Bluebirds have a curious ritual whereby newbies like myself are encouraged to sign a special copy of Craig Bellamy's autobiography, and read a passage from it! So I did this, while the others knelt down to listen (I think this is also part of the ritual).

Once the game was over, I did my little reading in another corner of the bar. I had intended to read a passage from the book about a memorable trip to Millwall. However, the light was not that good, and I quickly realised that for those watching me, just hearing a section read directly from the book might not be that entertaining. So instead, because I remembered most of the anecdotal details about the trip, I simply spoke about the trip from memory. I sold quite a few copies, including even a few to non-Cardiff City fans. My mate Will from school, who now lives in New York, even turned up, even though he is not a football fan. Then we all went to another bar down the road to continue drinking. It was a good day, all in all.

I only stayed for about a week, but it was enough to get a flavour of New York, and I'd had an enjoyable time. Like I say, Lloyd, and everyone I'd met, had looked after me well.

Ian Brown released a new album, Ripples, at the start of 2019. I found it a bit sad that he was releasing an album after the reformed Stone Roses had not, and initially, I wasn't too sure if I liked his new solo stuff. But the album grew on me, and I got to really like it.

For a while, Christina and Tom were living in London. Ian Brown was doing a record signing at the Rough Trade shop in London, which Ade told me about, and I decided I'd go along to try and meet him, which would also mean I'd be able to catch up with Christina. It was a ticketed event, and I was too late to get a ticket, but I thought I'd still go on the off chance. Christina was busy on the day of the launch, so I went along with Tom, who I suppose I was a slightly reluctant friend of. It was a very cold day in February. I had to buy myself a scarf. I enquired in the shop, but they told me, without a ticket, I wouldn't be able to get into the signing which was being held later that day, despite the fact that I told them I was intending to cover the event for Louderthanwar.

But I was not to be deterred. I spoke to lots of other fans, either people in the waiting queue, or others I saw around and about. The time came for the launch to begin, and people were starting to be allowed in. Finally, I hit the jackpot, and there was a guy who'd already been in who just so happened to have a spare wristband. I was understandably ecstatic and this very kind bloke did not even want any money for the wristband.

So I joined the queue and now all I had to do was wait for a bit. Suddenly, it did not seem so cold. I was slightly worried that they would check wristbands alongside a list of names, but fortunately, that didn't happen, and before too long I was inside the shop.

There was still a small queue inside the shop, which was quite large, but I could see Ian Brown in the corner at the back. I planned a few things I was going to say to him. They had specified that you should only really get your copy of Ripples signed, but many people had brought other things to get signed, and it appeared that Ian was obliging. For Christmas, Ade had got me the identical gold away Cardiff City shirt that I had thrown onstage, and which Ian had worn all those years ago. In recent years, I had actually been in touch with someone who had claimed to have the original shirt, and I'd hoped to meet him, but unfortunately, there was a breakdown in communication.

But anyway, here at last was my chance to meet Ian Brown. I had met Mani a few times – as well as at the disastrous "launch party" I'd tried putting on, I'd also met him at a My Bloody Valentine gig and when he'd DJ'd after a Primal Scream gig. Each time, he'd been all jokes and smiles. I'd met John Squire a few times as, while the Stone Roses were split up, for a while he'd concentrated on his artwork, and I'd been able to get in to a couple of exhibition launches. John was far more reserved and quiet, but still, very nice. Still to meet Reni!

Anyway, finally I was at the front of the queue. I was wearing the shirt Ade had given me. I showed it to Ian and asked if he remembered it. I even asked if he'd like to try it on, and he joked that he'd better not or he might start a riot. He did relate to me a short anecdote about a friend of his called Big Benji who'd been at the Newport gig. Anyway, we had a photo taken, and Ian graciously signed my Ripples CD to my brother Ade. There had been so many things I'd wanted to say, but when it came to it, I must admit, I was a bit starstruck and slightly lost for words. Obviously, I was also aware that there were still plenty of people in the queue behind me. So I just told Ian that I loved him, and walked out. As I did so, I turned and asked if it would be possible to do an interview for Louderthanwar, but he said he longer did interviews. So then I just went to meet Tom and Christina – who had now come to join us – in the bar next door.

It was only now that I remembered some of the things I'd planned to say! For a start, Ade had thought it would be a good idea for Ian to sign the shirt – I'd forgotten to even ask him to do that! I'd also forgotten to give Ian a copy of my book, as I'd intended to. I went back to the Rough Trade shop, just in case they'd let me back in to see Ian again. Sadly, they told me that would not be possible, but a member of staff did take a copy of my book which I asked to be passed on. Overall, it was still a great experience.

Although I'd done a few good things, I must admit, it did seem as if I'd squandered the money I'd got earlier in the year a bit. However, the following year, 2019, I got back from a short break to Benidorm with Archie, to find another letter, advising me that I would be getting yet another payment. I really didn't understand how I could be entitled to yet more money, but I was hardly going to turn it down.

This time, I decided I might spend some of the money on a poker trip. I knew that the fiftieth anniversary of the World Series of Poker was coming up, so I looked up about that. It turned out, it was this year! So I decided I should go for it.

I was not about to play the main event (which has a $10,000 buy-in), but there were side events that I could consider. There was an event called the Big 50, to tie in with the anniversary. This had a buy-in of $500, and this was one I could have gone for, but it was one of the first events of the schedule, and I would not really have enough time to plan for this one. So I decided I should go for what was called the "Mini Main Event" which carried a $1000 buy-in, and was just about within my price range.

I managed to get a relatively cheap flight, and also booked a cheap hotel. On the flight over, I was sat next to a guy who was part of a nine or ten man stag do. If anything, this bloke was probably the loudest of the lot, but still, quite friendly. I told him I was from Cardiff and he said he'd been there recently for the Spice Girls. I told him that I'd heard the sound wasn't very good. At this point, his mates all around him started laughing. I didn't think too much about this as they had been laughing and joking all along. However, a few hours into the flight, I gathered that in fact, the reason this guy had been at the Spice Girls gig was not as a punter (as I'd assumed), but in fact he'd been one of the roadies! I had to contain my mirth with the realisation that it was no wonder my comment about the sound not being so great had induced laughter amongst his friends!

Just like when I'd been in New York the previous year, getting through customs in Vegas took a very long time, but once through, it was a short taxi ride to my hotel. I'd booked somewhere that was close to the hotel/casino complex where the WSOP was taking place, the Rio. I could actually see the Rio from my hotel, but distance in Vegas is quite deceiving. Places look closer than they are, simply because they are so enormous. Shortly after checking in, I decided I should pay the Rio a visit for the first time. It was just about walkable, but with the heat first of all, and coupled with the fact that it was not very easily accessible by foot, I realised that for most of my trip I was going to be getting around by Uber.

Once inside one of these places, it is just staggering. The number of slot machines is quite overwhelming, and the size in general is extraordinary. I managed to find my way to the main hall where the majority of tables for the WSOP were. And again, seeing the sheer number of tables in here was jaw-dropping. The Goliath, which is the biggest tournament in the UK in terms of the number of entries, is quite miniscule compared to this. The main hall at the Rio must be ten times as big as the main hall at the Ricoh where the Goliath takes place, or perhaps several more times bigger than that even.

In some ways, seeing so many tables stretching out before you does take some of the glamour away from the event. When you see any poker event taking place on TV, for the most part, they focus on the "feature table" which is made to look a lot more special than all the other hundreds of ordinary-looking tables. I guess in general, the impression that gambling is glamorous is quite false.

Well anyway, of course I did do a fair bit of gambling on this trip. On my first full day in Vegas, I made my way to the strip. Everywhere was a feast for the eyes and quite gobsmacking. Just an incredible array of sights and sounds, and of course, money being spent everywhere.

I made my way to Caesar's Palace, and was quite quickly into a tournament with a $150 buy-in. A lot more than I might have been used to on a regular basis in casinos back home, but this was Vegas, where things were different. I found players were generally playing quite loose, and I accumulated chips quite quickly. From a field of maybe fifty or sixty, I managed to make the final table, with the not inconsiderable cash prizes in my sights.

However, within a couple of hands, it was folded round to me in around about the dealer position with the quite moderate hand of K/8 off-suit, which I decided to raise with. A woman in around about the small blind position, with quite a large chip stack, announced raise. However, it appeared that she had not noticed my initial raise, and as she'd already put some chips in, she was only allowed to make a min-raise.

The flop came something like jack/8/something, so I had middle pair. I think the woman must have checked, and having hit a pair, I think I went all-in, with not that much left behind. She quickly called, with queens, and that was me, out. Pretty stupid of me really. I'd played a hand I should not even have played in the first place quite badly. And I had by no means been the short stack at the table. I think if the woman had known I'd made an initial raise, she probably would have gone all-in pre-flop and I would have quickly folded then. It was just possible she was "angle shooting" (making use of the rules to her advantage), but I'm not so sure. Either way, it was a pretty disappointing way to go out, when really, I should have held out for the money. I was kicking myself as cashing in this tournament, which I was so close to doing, would have gone a good way towards paying for the trip. So after a good few hours' play, I made may, quite sadly, back to my hotel.

The following day, I took the advice of someone who'd been to Vegas before and played a bit of cash in a different casino. This also did not work out well. I got unlucky a couple of times, and quite quickly lost my initial investment of $100. I reluctantly laid down another $100, and still had no luck. I bought into a low stakes tournament, and got very unlucky once again. Things were not going well.

It was still a couple of days before the main event I was planning to play. I thought I'd do something other than just playing poker, and went to a rooftop bar, which was free to get in before a certain time. I got chatting to a guy at the bar who I guessed was a poker player. This turned out to be Adam Weinraub, who was quite friendly and told me about the film he'd been involved in producing, "7 Days To Vegas". This was quite intriguing, and it was nice to meet someone moderately famous.

This bar was actually in the Rio, where the WSOP was taking place. Along with all the actual WSOP tournaments, every day there were also loads of side events and satellite tournaments. I decided while I was there, I might as well play one of the satellites. As I was queueing up, I got chatting to the guy behind me who turned out to work for a website called Poker News. He told me, as luck would have it, that Chris Moneymaker, former winner of the WSOP main event, and who I'd met briefly on the Isle of Mann, would be playing in one of these satellites as a kind of promotional thing. So if I hung around, I'd be able to play at his table!

Obviously this was quite exciting. The buy-in for this one table sit and go tournament was $125. Quite expensive for me, but obviously small potatoes for the likes of Chris Moneymaker. Chris joined us, and was all smiles. He popped to the loo while the rest of us made our way to the table. Once he came back, everyone wanted their photo of them, and he got out a huge wad of notes and was making loads of side bets. I couldn't even join in with the side bets because I didn't have enough cash on me.

You started this tournament with a very low chip stack, so you were basically going to have to be very lucky and win any hand you played, and hopefully pick up some good cards. I won a smallish pot, which helped. Chris was out early after going all-in with a weak hand from the small blind. There were more photos and he moved on. But then I picked up pocket kings. The guy to my right went all in, so I hollywooded for a bit and made out I was making a reluctant call. There were then two or three all-ins after me, which in some ways was a dream scenario, though my kings had to still hold up. Thankfully they did, and I now had a huge cheap lead with just three or four players left.

It got to the heads-up stage and I had probably more than six times as many chips as my opponent. This guy also worked for Poker News, and a couple of the other Poker News staff were gathered around. Unbelievably, they were trying to get me to do a deal. This seemed ridiculous given my chip advantage, and of course I declined. Then my opponent, a guy called Jesse, also had pocket kings and doubled up. I still had a very good lead, but I guess maybe I was starting to get slightly more nervous now, even though heads-up is generally my speciality.

Well they were all still imploring with me to do a deal. I probably should at least have carried on in case we did start to get more even. But I did think that if that possibly did happen, he may then not want to deal after all. Well in the end, I caved in, and accepted one of the worst deals in poker history. I took $600, plus the $20 Jesse had won in a side-bet with Chris Moneymaker, while Jesse claimed $500. I would have had $1000 if I'd just carried on till the end, with Jesse getting $100. As I stood up, I looked again at the difference in chip stacks and did feel a bit of a fool. But I guess I'd still profited in this event, and I was now roughly even for the trip so far.

We were each presented with chips worth $500, and Jesse gave me the extra $120. If I'd had the two $500 chips, I could have straightaway gone and paid for my entry to the mini Main Event I wanted to play in, but as things stood, I had to now withdraw some more money in order to do so, and as I was finding everywhere, it seems impossible to withdraw money in Vegas without a fairly hefty charge being imposed. I guess things could have been worse.

The next day was a rest day, where I spent most of the time in my hotel room. I ordered a pizza, watched a film, and had a few beers. Generally, I just chilled out.

The following day would be the start of my main event. I had a healthy breakfast in the diner at my hotel – the food here was excellent, and not at all expensive – and got an Uber to the Rio. Once I'd sat down, as I'd been informed, someone from Poker News came over to take my photo, and I later did a short interview for them. They were going to use me in a feature called "Faces in the Crowd". So maybe it had worked well to keep things friendly with the Poker News people. I even wondered if I might be able to work with them at some stage.

Naturally I was a bit nervous once the poker started, but I didn't find there were any players at my table that I needed to be especially nervous about. At the first break, I was up a little bit, and I think I might even have been the table chip leader. Shortly after however, someone who looked like a famous player sat down at the table. I later learned this was seven time bracelet winner, Men Nguyen.

I had ace-queen in the big blind, and I think a few players had just flat called, so I made a biggish raise, which got rid of everyone except Nguyen. The flop came k/7/something, so really not a particularly good flop for a/q. I wasn't sure what to do. Really, I probably should have bet, but I elected to check, and I was quite surprised that my opponent also elected to check behind. Not sure what the turn card was, but it was not an especially good card for me, but now I did at least make a biggish bet and was called.

The river was another seven. I was a bit stuck as to what to do again. I took the safe option and checked. Now my opponent put in a big bet of 25,000. This did look a bit bluffy, and it was exactly the sort of bet you'd expect a professional to make to force an amateur to lay down his hand. I really wasn't sure what he could have. I thought perhaps he might have a pair, like eights or something, or possibly something like A/10. I spent a bit of time deciding what to do, thinking my A/Q might still be good. I looked at my chip stack. If I made the call and was wrong, I would be crippled, but if I was right, I would up to about 100,000 or so and would be in quite a good position. In a way, if it had been a re-entry event and I was contemplating re-entering, it wouldn't be such a bad call. Ironic of course that it wasn't, and I was preferring to play in it partly because it wasn't. I was about to say "Will you show if I fold?" but I was fairly sure he probably wouldn't show. Instead, the words that came out of my mouth were "I call!"

It was a huge hero call in the early stages of a $1000 entry tournament. Generally, hero calls I'd made in other tournaments I'd played in over the course of my stay had worked out well. I made a hero call in one tournament with ace high, putting my opponent on a missed straight draw and was correct. I made another call with king high on a double paired board, and again, my opponent had nothing. But in both those cases, the bet size had not been anywhere near as much and making the call would not badly affect my stack size.

Well, in this case, regretfully I was wrong! Nguyen showed 7/10 hearts for trips. Not sure why I had not even really considered that he had a seven. I think if I had put in a bigger bet pre-flop, there's no way he'd have come along with 7/10. Obviously a bit of a gamble on his part playing it at all, but of course, those sorts of cards can reap big rewards as they did in this case. I was pretty devastated. What on earth had I done?! I was now down to just over 15k and was going to have to pray that I picked up some good cards pretty soon.

Well, sadly, I didn't last too much longer. I had J/10 of clubs, and went all-in against a player who I think had flat called or min raised with A/5. The flop came 10/2/4, so at least I began ahead. I cried for no three. The turn was another 10 and it was looking quite good for me, but tragically, the three did indeed come on the river, and as Norman Chad would say, I was whamboozled!

I rang Christina, who I'd been in touch with, to let her know the bad news. When I finally confessed to the call I'd made with A/Q she was pretty angry with me. I know, I had been a fool. Wasn't quite sure what to do now. I think I contacted Jesse. Jesse got back to me quite quickly to invite me to a charity karaoke night in a bar not too far from the Rio. What the hell, I thought, might be fun.

The time was about 6pm or so, and for some reason, I had thought the flyer he sent me said it started at seven, so I thought I might as well head straight over. It was quite a funky little bar in the Chinatown area. Somehow, I had mis-read the flyer as it turned out the karaoke didn't start till 10pm, but at least there was a band playing before then, and it was happy hour when I arrived, so that was something. Inevitably, there were games machines at the bar. The guy next to me was betting quite big on blackjack, and we got chatting. I played a bit of blackjack as well for lower stakes. He owned a t-shirt business, it turned out. At one point, he showed me a ticket of his winnings which were over $300 and he said he'd buy the drinks all night, but I said he didn't need to do that. I ordered some chips and was given a bowl of crisps. Clearly my order had not translated well, and I should have ordered fries.

Eventually, 10pm came around, and Jesse was there, and people started asking for songs to sing. People were picking some quite obscure songs. There were a few people from Poker News, as well as some people they'd invited, some quite well known in poker circles. I got to meet Norman Chad, one of my favourite poker commentators who is quite a lively and funny commentator, but in person came across as quite reserved. Also there was Jake Cody, who I'd also met on my trip to the Isle of Mann. When I'd met him before, he seemed to be a nice, friendly person. This time, he came across as a bit more aloof. It may have been because he had a posse of people with him. Or it might have been because as time went on I was becoming increasingly drunk! I tried to chat to Jake about football and a couple of the women he was with shooed my away.

Also there was a professional player I hadn't heard of before called Vanessa Kade. She turned out to be pretty friendly. She was quite attractive and was definitely getting the attention of quite a few of the men at the event.

I sang a couple of songs. Singing really is not my strong point however. I am ok when it comes to joining in chants at football matches, but singing solo, I am really, really bad. I tried to pick songs that would not be too difficult, or at least I hoped. I tried "I Wanna Be Adored" by the Stone Roses and I think murdered it. I also sang "Step On" by The Mondays and "Where Is My Mind" by the Pixies. I sang these just as badly, if not worse, but I tried to redeem myself by dancing a bit on the stage. Actually, this probably made things even worse.

So in general, I don't think I was coming across very well to everyone. At least Jesse and the Poker News people were still being nice enough to me. It came around to 2pm and closing time. I had now been drinking for around seven hours so I must have been quite drunk. People were talking about going elsewhere. The two women who had been with Jake Cody left to go somewhere. Jake, Vanessa and a couple of others went to leave. I followed them out, thinking I could go along with them, but when I got to their waiting vehicle, Cody told me there was no room. I did feel like this was a bit of a snub. Maybe there genuinely wasn't enough room, I don't know. Anyway, I honestly didn't care too much. I was probably too drunk to be going on to another nightclub. Maybe I should just let the youngsters enjoy themselves without a drunken old timer like me spoiling their fun. I said goodbye to Jesse and got an Uber back to my hotel.

I awoke the following morning with a bit of a hangover, but I was still keen to play a bit more poker. I headed back to the Rio and entered into the 4pm deep stack tournament. You got a 15k starting stack so it wasn't especially deep. I did ok for a while. Then I picked up jacks, and again there were a few callers, so I put in a raise, but two or three people came along. It was a queen high flop which wasn't too good for me. Someone before me went all in for about 8k. It was obvious he had the queen, but given the pot size, it made sense for me to also come along as I still had a fair bit behind. Sadly his Q/10 held up. I kept going for a bit longer. Can't quite remember my exit hand now. At least there'd been a fairly entertaining Canadian guy who looked a bit like Dustin Hoffman. He kept us entertained with his jokes. Also at the table was a guy who was known as Mr Possibility. He had it written on his cap. He kept saying that he had "possibilities" with regard to his hands. I think he said he was planning to play the main event.

I think I had now had just about enough of playing poker. I got a couple of WSOP t-shirts as souvenirs for myself and Christina. Got another couple of things from another souvenir shop at the Rio and headed back to my hotel.

The following day would be my final day in Vegas and I decided I would do a couple of things other than play poker. I headed over to the rollercoaster that I could see from my hotel and went on that. It was quite a good one. Had a couple of games of pinball. I walked around the MGM Grand and a couple of other places that I hadn't yet visited on the strip. As I came out of Planet Hollywood, I stopped to talk to a guy who was a Vietnam War Veteran (it said so on his t-shirt and cap). He was a lovely old guy and we chatted about politics (he hated Trump, as did most Americans I'd spoken to), chatted about good places to travel to etc. He said he loved Prague. We must have just stood chatting in the street for around twenty minutes before finally saying our farewells.

I did plan to go back to the Rio later to possibly catch some of the first day of the Main Event, and as I was going back there, I bought a ticket for the show they have there, Wow. This was quite good, mostly acrobats and juggling artists, with dancers, etc. Then I met up with Jesse again who was covering the Main Event. He showed me the room where the feature tables were, so that was quite good to see. Eventually I said goodbye to Jesse and headed back to my hotel once more, where I packed, had one more beer or two and settled down to bed.

It was the day of my departure, July 4th. In some ways this was another bit of bad planning as it might have been good to see the Independence Day fireworks. My planning in general had not been brilliant as if I'd arrived a couple of days earlier, I could have played in the Colossus, another side event in the WSOP, and then, as mentioned, it might have been better to stay one or two more days longer. But on the other hand, I had done most of what I wanted to do, with the Mini Main Event being my primary focus. I possibly could have made more of my time in Vegas. Maybe I will have to go back some time. I hadn't had a very successful time with the poker, but I'd had some good experiences. Along with the pro players mentioned, I also ran into Will Kassouf and saw Elky from a distance.

I had breakfast and got an Uber to the airport. Was not surprised to see yet more slot machines in the airport! I was sat next to a quiet guy on the journey back, so I mostly just watched films, played games etc. I still had the four hour train ride from Manchester back to Cardiff, but this wasn't so bad as it was a nice day and the scenery was beautiful on this route. I was finally back home and caught up with friends who were keen to hear about my adventures. Fortunately, I didn't really suffer from jetlag either way. I do wonder if the concept of jetlag is just a bit of a cliché, invented by people who are not used to being all night on the sesh! The following day I was at a free party in a forest in mid Wales, but that's a whole other story.

I had wondered about going to Vegas with Christina, who was quite keen. In the end I reasoned that paying for us both would have been perhaps a little bit too pricey (unless one of us had won a decent amount of course), and we were after all no longer an item.

Nonetheless, we did go to the Goliath in Coventry a couple of months after I'd got back from Vegas. Even this turned out to be quite an expensive and unsuccessful trip, and I had now spunked a fair bit of the second lot of money I'd been awarded.

Earlier in 2019, Richard from Parthian had decided that he'd like to put out a book of John Brookes' poems. I was really pleased about that. In spite of the fact that he is, in my view, one of Cardiff's best poets, other than two books I had helped with (Dresden Cantata, and an equally unsuccessful book simply titled, Book), John had only ever self-published his work. He had done around fifty issues of his magazine, The Yellow Crane (which also contained a lot of his own work, often under pseudonyms), and he had been published in just about every respected poetry magazine in Britain, including the TLS, but thus far, had not been properly published.

It was decided the book would be a new and selected poems, to be titled "Hymns Ancient And Modern". There was some discussion about the content, but the real sticking point was the cover. It was eventually decided that a nice old painting John had done himself would be used. I myself had very much drifted away from the poetry scene. I'd put out a pamphlet just after coming out of hospital featuring some poems I'd written from around that time that I titled "Funny Business", but other than that, I hadn't written a poem for about three years. Naz was writing poems, and we would go to watch him read his quite amusing poetry at open mics. A guy called Chris Stoodley wrote a song called "Naz is on a Ketamine Comedown" and Naz would read poetry during the instrumental breaks.

But anyway, Richard asked if I could help out with putting a bill together for the launch event of John's book. I was also to compere the event, which is something I enjoy doing. I also did a bit of promoting for the event. Overall, it went very well. There was a very good attendance, although I wasn't too sure where the people had come from, as I saw practically no-one who I'd given flyers to at events over the previous few weeks. We had an amazing supporting line-up featuring some of the best known Cardiff poets such as Peter Finch, Topher and Ifor Thomas, who all respected John as a poet. There were also rising stars, such as Rhys Owain Williams, the former Square contributor, and Gemma travelled from Swansea, where she was now living. I think John himself was quite pleased.

In my personal life, I had got into a bit of a rut. I was getting up quite late, and not being very productive. I had very brief things with one or two ladies, but none were a match for Christina. I saw Naz a lot, and his circle of friends, such as Zoe, Anthony, Larissa, Debbie, Alex, Gareth, Leon, Mel, Miira, Amal. These were what you might call the Vortex crew. As I was the only one with a car, I would often give them lifts via the Fisk taxiing service. If they had money, they'd give me a little bit of petrol money, but quite often they were all skint.

This was partly because most of these people didn't have jobs (some also suffering from mental health conditions), and partly because they were perhaps spending too much money on drink and drugs. I did still dabble occasionally. I tried ketamine once or twice, which was a bit of a mind-bender. Fortunately the effects only lasted for about half an hour and I was always quite relieved when it was over. Other people used the drug more frequently, which I thought was a bit crazy.

But I shouldn't paint too negative a picture. We all kept each other going. Sometimes, there were brief relationships. Naz got into a relationship with Larissa and he was sure they were going to stay together for years but in fact they've recently split up and Naz is still a bit cut up about it. A guy I was in hospital with who hung out with us for a while, Matt, briefly went out with Mel. Christina and Tom have stuck together. It's now been almost four years, and they're planning to get married. Not sure how I'll feel about that!

There is a cultural hub that is known by a lot of people on the party scene known as Netty's. It's open twice a week on a Wednesday and Saturday. It's an alternative to going into town, and there'll always be a friendly face there. Shaky Tom loves to go there; Tim is a regular. For a time, one of the dealers at the Grosvenor Casino would go there with his girlfriend (both of whom were always very nice to me and Christina when we used to go there together) – he was one of the DJs. Once you go in, it's hard to get out, so you quite often find yourself staying till beyond 6am, which pretty much wipes out your next day, but it's always a good laugh. There are bongo drums and I usually like to play on those when I go. A guy called Jason, known as Doghouse who used to be in the band Sicknote, also DJs there.

Netty's has been going for years, but before that, there was a club on the corner, on the same street called Journeys. This was a favourite place of mine as far back as when I worked at the AA. Again, you could go on your own, and there'd always be a friendly face. There was another Jason (now known as Flapsandwich) who was also in Sicknote was often at Journeys. It was here that I met a girl called Siobhan who I briefly went out with, and one New Year's Eve, I met an Australian girl there. We went back to my flat and had sex about twelve times in about the space of about twelve hours! How that happened, I do not know. One time there was a big painting of Stevie Wonder up in Journeys that was for sale. It was done by a local graffiti artist called................. in spray paints. I think, despite the excellent quality of the work, I liked it because it depicted Stevie with a big smiling face, and I decided I'd like to buy it. I think it only cost me £100, or possibly £200 at the most. It has hung on my wall, in one or two different places, to this day.

But more recently, in the last year or two, a guy called Luke opened up a place round the corner from me which was known by different names, Mellow Yellow, The Float Machine, or more commonly, just the Float. It was a bit bigger than Netty's and started to attract quite big crowds. It was good fun, I met more local people, like Paige and Ste. Monica and Martine were regulars there, as was Risky Rhi and her boyfriend Lee. There was a nice guy called Darren who sometimes ran the door. Eventually, Luke had to shut it down because he was starting to get complaints from the neighbours. But us party people, like I say, mostly on benefits, always found things to do and places to go. It beat working, that's for sure. As the title of a Sicknote song said, "Death before employment!"

Well, I'm 47 now, and overall it's not been a bad life so far. Certainly had its ups and downs. I'm fortunate to have a wonderful family, who are supportive of most things I do. I'm always been nagged to stop smoking, and perhaps cut down or give up on the poker. I have occasionally stopped the poker for a short while, but then again, at the start of 2020, I had a nice win of $2500 in a $25 spin-and-go. I had thought to spend some of this on buying a test pressing that was being auctioned by my new favourite band, Amyl and the Sniffers. Amyl and the Sniffers are Australian (and superb live) and they were auctioning things off to raise money for the Australian firefighters. I put in a bid on Ebay and was the highest bidder (around £700) until someone snatched it off me in the last second. I think I will always regret not putting in a higher maximum bid as I'm sure this item will become worth quite a bit in years to come if Amyl and the Sniffers become really big, as they certainly deserve to. In the end, like a fool, I lost most of the $2500 just playing more poker, with just one treat of a Chinese for everyone at Vortex!

In 2020, we had the Euros to look forward to, there was the special Spike Island gig featuring a Stone Roses tribute bands, and other tributes. I was looking forward to various festivals – Blue Lagoon, in Wales, had been great fun the year before, and I would love to have gone to that again.

But of course, instead, all of a sudden the world stopped. Having been a poker player, where I've made plenty of bluffs and seen plenty of bluffs, having been out with someone who I could never be sure was telling me the truth on a daily basis (and yet who I still love and adore), having had enough consultations with psychiatrists, I think I've learned to smell bullshit when it's about. And for me, this current situation is a total load of bullshit. Possibly the biggest con trick in the history of humanity. It's Jesus v the Pharisees. Possibly not quite the right comparison, but I'm pretty sure Jesus, if he was alive today, would be appalled at what is going on. Maybe I'm wrong, and people keep saying I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure in time, people will agree with what I'm saying about how we're being lied to. I can't even be bothered to write about the reasons for me thinking this, things I've read, my experience, etc. Just sick of talking about it. But I do believe God would not be happy with what is going on.

I suppose it's quite amazing that I went from being a strict atheist throughout my childhood to being someone who began to believe in God from about the age of nineteen. My dad was actually the son of a church minister, but while he was in University, I think he'd basically decided that there was just not enough proof. I imagine this must have upset his mum and dad quite a bit – both his brothers and their families are still regular church-goers – but I suppose they must have decided it was his choice. My gran on my mum's side was also a Christian, but my mum also did not really believe in God, although she does do yoga, and I think has some spiritual feelings. I guess a lot of people gave up belief in God in the 60s.

In philosophy essays I wrote in school, they were all from the point of view of being an atheist, but it was strange, when I went to University, when we were covering similar subjects to those we'd covered while I'd been doing A Levels, I found I had to now write from the point of view of being a believer.

Aside from my personal experiences, believing God has spoken to me, etc. I do also side with the design theory of God. I think when you look around, particularly if you live in a city for example, and just about everything you see has been designed and made, that it seems then far more likely that nature, and we as human beings, have also been designed.

I am certainly no church-goer. I don't necessarily feel the need to sing God's praises, and besides, I don't really subscribe to one particular faith, although I have found both Jesus and the Bible comforting, particularly when I've been unwell. In some ways, I've often thought that it's about time there was a new religion, one that's more up-to-date, takes into account things like the Internet for example. Or maybe one based around the Stone Roses lol.

I've made a lot of mistakes, done a lot of bad things, gone astray plenty of times, but there've been good things too. I'm quite proud of what I did with Square magazine, proud of the book of course. I feel very fortunate to have met and gone out with Christina, who is a truly amazing woman. I have friends for life such as Stu and Paul, maybe even Naz now. I suppose I regret that I haven't started a family of my own, but then again, I'm not sure if I'd really be up to the responsibility of bringing up kids. I'm not even sure if I've been that much good of an uncle, although I do love all of my nephews and my neice of course – it's great to see them growing up, and achieving good things.

Of all the visions I once had (believed was given), most of the bigger ones didn't come true obviously. A few smaller things did happen, almost like I'd been told they would. But it did seem as if these things weren't supposed to happen, as if they were things I could strive for, but not realize. I gave up imagining I was going to play for Cardiff City as in the vision, I think I was going to play alongside Earnie at Ninian Park, and he of course no longer plays for Cardiff, and we've switched to the new stadium (along with Archie's grandson, Robbie, I did get to actually play at Ninian Park though as they held a 5-a-side tournament at the end of the last season there which we played in)! I was once convinced I was going to win the lottery, but I never buy lottery tickets any more. I suppose there's the weird thing to do with the nurse Steve. There's only one other vision which I suppose could conceivably still happen. I think it was kind of the last one I was shown. It was a bit way out there. But well, I suppose we will see.

