Sydney again, Mardi Gras this time. Me masquerading as the kind of party animal I'm so much not in real life. I've just been a Marching Boy for the first time and I'm on top of the world (and I'd like to point out I was 100% drug free in those days).

Simon (in the middle) always looks like an axe murderer in these pics, which is terribly unfair for such a great guy. Robert (right) is the one who talked me out of escorting, so he can do no wrong; nevertheless, this picture makes him look like a drooling imbecile. I seem to be fascinated by something off camera, but whatever it was it didn't survive the next few seconds, never mind the intervening years.

My outfit did, though. Somehow that flimsy confection of tinsel and bugle beads, which (believe it or not, hepcats) I'd painstakingly threaded together in my wintry London bedroom for hours and days and weeks before (whilst simultaneously studying for my MSc and trying to change the world), lasted the night and remains in my possession to this day. Chances of it ever being worn again: zero; zilch; nada; no fucking way.

Come to think of it, maybe I threw it out...
Posted by matt at August 25, 2003 05:39 AM