Day Five

Friday 1st November 1991.

Up at 5.30am...Shit. Hysteria sets in in in a big fucking way.

Went on the air at five to eight in the morning without an off air time. God, my brains weren't working and the thing went on for hours. And hours. Speech after speech. Every time a speaker finished it was a scramble for the studio lights. Nidal and Tony droned on looking like ghosts. Everything just went on and on. With no break. Long shit.
The whole day was a haze on air. I wore my sunglasses for the first couple of hours, waiting for my eyes to come back from wherever they had spent the previous night. At some unspecified point somebody actually did give me a break. I ate some cold MacDonalds, slept it out and dived back in. Everybody was getting screwed up and weird by the afternoon. Got a fifteen quid meal on the house, sat down with Geoff, Lee, Omar and Raeff, but we couldn't eat so we just drank the wine.
A few hours later we found out that the meal wasn't on Marney but Graham had paid for it. What a fucking dude.

The bulletins started around 7pm, and by that point I really was beginning to lose it. Got to the bar and began to rant like a lunatic, including an unfortunate comment regarding the size of Jezelle's arse ('Nice girl...but she's got a gigantic ass'), while she was still in earshot. Geoff and Lee cracked up and dived under the table. I really did feel much the twat.

Finally made it to the last bulletin and everybody was going crazy. Made it through without a hitch and at the end Marney tells us we've got tomorrow off.

Back at the hotel we all go completely batshit at the bar, just after being told that due to MBC cash flow problems we'll all have to pay our own room bills. Oh Shit. Dom T's going to be fucked due to his unrestrained mini-bar hospitality.

We draw straws and it's Omar's room that gets the trash treatment. I believe this might be us 'letting off steam'. Shorts, shades and hats, total tourist shite that needs to be packed into the next 24 hours. Everybody's bananas by this point, smashed to pieces and doing ludicrous things on film that I think should be left to the reader's imagination. Jezelle actually complained about us to hotel reception.

Here comes the day off.....Shit Imminent indeed.