Places Like That

So, this mailing list was created at the end of April 1999. On Friday 30 April, 1999 I invited everyone to meet us in the Fitzroy Tavern for drinks. Lots of us had been having lousy weeks so I thought it would cheer people up.

That evening i popped home to change and just as I was about to leave I got a phone call from Julia up in Manchester asking if I was alright. Turns out some nutter had let off a nail bomb in Soho, at the Admiral Duncan pub. I remember that when I finally got to the Tavern, everyone was either a bit hyper (with nerves because we were only a few streets away from where it happened) or else completely unaware of the situation until they actually got to the pub.

Looking through the mailing list backlog, I'd forgotten that we'd ended up going clubbing - a big gang of us went to Popstarz and then spent hours queueing to get in because of heightened security. Paully didn't show up because he'd been out with workmates and by the time he'd got home the world had gone into panic aboutg a possible second bomb. I got back home to find answerphone messages from everyone - except my mum.

The next morning, I called my Mum to let her know I was okay. 'I thought you would be,' she said. 'You don't go to places like that.' 'What, Soho?' I replied, explaining that I worked just round the corner from there and often used that exact route to meet my mates at the Retro near Charing Cross.

'Places like that,' eh? Not so much a question as an instruction.

Back to the Mailing List. Russell T Davies was there then, although he left a week or so later being unable to cope with the volume of distractions. But his comments about the bombing were fun, starting off with 'Bastards, bastards, bastards' and then describing how the Village in Manchester was businer than ever because everyone treated the situation with a 'fuck you, you're not spoiling our fun' attitude. It shows that people were considering the bombings to be the work of an organisation, as opposed to one man.