Writing 2 ½ hours before ’95. As last year, lets recap on the year’s events:
January: Can’t remember.
February: Can’t find journal.
March: Got CD-ROM
April: PDA really started off well
May: Programs on AMOS got better
June: Read “AMD”
July: Got Psion, Bogle died
August: Went to Dartmoor again
September: Became a Teenager
October: “PDA Circular” in Publication
November: First saw “X-Files”
December: Just read back for details
Now 1 ½ hours to midnight, but a day later.

So, another year of adolescent banality at an end. The most interesting thing about this precis is that I completely forgot any mention of the "Alien" films, which as those who lived through the events here recorded (however differently they (mis)remember it) will attest, is no reflection of reality. Can't promise anything particularly enlightening for 1995, but check back here in 2006 and you might learn some things you never knew about people. Ooh.

Friday 30th December 1994

Boo! Hoo! Still getting over the trauma of Ripley (Ellen)’s death! But she returns in “the Female War” which I finished reading today.

Thursday 29th December 1994

Went to town and bought new TV with teletext and “ALIEN 3” for me. After a facehugger starts a fire on the Sulaco, Ripley crashes down onto a male prison planet. Hicks and Newt are dead & Bishop is scrap. The facehugger lays in a dog which gives birth to a new alien. The prisoners are killed driving it into the lead whilst Ripley discovers a queen within her. 1 prisoner survives as the Company men arrive to take the queen. Morse, the prisoner helps Ripley by moving her platform above the molten lead. Amid cries from the Human Bishop, Ripley drops into the heat. As she does, the queen bursts out. In her final moments, Ripley holds her new baby to her chest…

In the special edition of “Alien 3”, as restored for DVD per David Fincher’s wishes (though he refused to take part personally in recutting the film), the alien comes out of an ox, and Ripley drops into the lead before the queen bursts from her chest. There’s also a whole new sequence in the middle where the prisoners manage to trap the alien briefly. It is a real improvement on the theatrical release. I later wrote this story about what happened to Morse after “Alien 3”.

Wednesday 28th December 1994

That computer ribbon is wound on and completely wasted. It is therefore tat and I don’t want it. It can only be used once and therefore I would be lucky to get a dot of print out of it!

Scott round.

Tuesday 27th December 1994

Maybe I’ll become a Palaeontologist. My favourite dinosaur is a Deinonychus which is a coclurosaur in the Carnosaur gender. It is vicious!

Hang on, he watches "Jurassic Park" one day, then wants to become a palaeontologist the next; any connection? The last time (and the first time) I'd wanted to become a palaeontologist was after I saw the film at the cinema in 1993. I got a big book on dinosaurs, but couldn't pronounce any of the dinosaur names, so went off the idea.

Monday 26th December 1994

Watched “Jurassic Park”. Millionaire John Hammond invites Palaeontologists Dr Alan Grant and Dr Ellie Sattler to join his grandchildren and Dr Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park. When a hurricane strikes the power and electric fences shutdown freeing the T-Rex and Dhilophosaurus.

Also “Kindergarten Cop” and “The Addams Family”.

Sunday 25th December 1994

In my stocking there were pencils, batteries and food. I got “Jurassic Park”, AMOS PD CD, Carbon Printer ribbon, ruler for tech drawing, penknife, food, disk holder, £10 and chocolates.

Saturday 24th December 1994

I have this gut feeling that the video is “Jurassic Park”. Did you spot the stylish J yesterday? Unfortunately I can’t repeat it! J J J J J J J J J J [J].

Friday 23rd December 1994

Only 2 days till Christmas. I should get a tenner from Grandma, a CD-ROM from Mum and Dad and either “Jurassic Park” or “Alien 3” from Camilla.

Thursday 22nd December 1994

Andrew round to view the office.

Wednesday 21st December 1994

Need to send off Competition entry!

“PC Mail” have breached copyright by including screenshots in the new 20p edition. And they are giving away a GameBoy!

Tuesday 20th December 1994

Don’t ask me to repeat the question but it was something to do with “Staying another day”. You had to name the associated pop group. In this case it is East 17.

If I remember correctly, East 17 were the Christmas number one that year with "Stay Another Day".

Monday 19th December 1994

Question: What does RAM stand for? Answer: Random Access Memory.

“PDA Circular” is now available.

Sunday 18th December 1994

A new competition has started on CBBC to win a new PC with fax, modem and the latest MS-DOS 6.1. Todays question was: Who wrote Sherlock Holmes? Answer: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Saturday 17th December 1994

Went to London and worked on the new Microsoft Packard Bells there. I used wordprocessors before playing a game called “Rodent Revenge”. You are a mouse whom, with the aid of some moveable bricks have to trap and squash some cats.

Watched “A Nightmare On Elm Street” and videoed “the X-files”. Before going to bed at 12:46 I watched it. When an English man explodes into flame, his family run away to America with the gardener, Cecil Lively. Mulder, who is afraid of flames works out that Cecil Lively can set people alight with heat and petrol. Mulder and Scully save the family’s children as the hotel burns and Cecil Lively himself explodes into flame…

Friday 16th December 1994

I have rearranged the library into a small PDA office.

A special edition of “the X-Files” in on tomorrow called “FIRE!” at 11pm. Also, “A Nightmare On Elm Street” is on at the same time.

Thursday 15th December 1994

Scott & Andrew are squabbling over who should design the covers, as being brought in, in the January issue. Andrew forgot “ATOR” again. Shock! Horror! We end on Wednesday next week, not Tuesday.

I watched “The X-files”. When Scully’s father dies, she investigates a kidnapping that all result to a serial killer who claims he physic. Mulder is shot, the kidnapee’s are rescued and the killer is executed in the gas chamber.

"Beyond The Sea" remains one of my favourite episodes of "The X-Files". It was the first to subvert the relationship, where Scully is the believer, and Mulder isn't. Indeed, he's barely in it, spending most of the episode in a hospital bed. It's a really intense episode for one that's basically two people talking in a room. It works especially well because the guest villain (Death Row inmate Luther Lee Boggs, played brilliantly by Brad Dourif) is rounded. He's not pure monster, and there's a redemptive quality to him when he lets Scully talk to her father, and gives her a warning that saves her life, even when she's failed to stop him being executed. I even felt a mite sorry for him when he's gassed at the end.

Wednesday 14th December 1994

I finished the free disks that can be found on the front cover of the “PDAC”. It contains “Bally” and “MirrorWars” so far and should get “ATOR”. In the issue is a Commodore gone bust report, “Sim City” review and “AMOS Pro” advert. Printed and edited by me, it should be available Monday or Tuesday next week.

40/50 or 80% for Maths test.

Tuesday 13th December 1994

Shock! Horror! Gary and Noddy kissed on “Byker Grove”!

Hard test in Maths!

Monday 12th December 1994

Boring.

Sunday 11th December 1994

2 weeks till Christmas and my toe keeps bleeding, thus I won’t be doing games or PE this week.

Saturday 10th December 1994

Went to Scott’s after Christmas shopping. I bought chocolates, and books for myself. As I am reading Scott’s “Funland” by Richard Laymon I bought “All hallows even” also by RL. I also bought “Aliens: The Female War” by Steve & Stephani Perry. Ripley returns when the aliens take over earth.

And turned out to be an android. Three years after this, I found Steve Perry’s e-mail address online and ‘interviewed’ him for my first website (which was dedicated to the “Alien” franchise). You can read that interview here.

Friday 9th December 1994

The video has been fixed so I watched “The Abyss”. Aliens help oil-workers stop a nuclear bomb miles down from the surface. It was okay but sometimes silly.

The theatrical edit has a very sentimental happy-happy-joy-joy ending in which underwater aliens save Bud (Ed Harris). And that’s it. The vastly superior director’s cut ending you can see on DVD has two major new sequences which change the tone completely: the aliens attempt to destroy Earth with giant tidal waves. They’ve been watching mankind for centuries, and show Bud images of everything from World War One to the Holocaust to Vietnam. The nuclear bomb is the last straw, now mankind is encroaching on the aliens’ habitat. Bud’s one-way-trip down the abyss to stop the bomb from detonating all for the love of a woman convinces them to give mankind another chance. So still sentimental, but the prior bitterness neutralises the sugar.

Thursday 8th December 1994

Had to go and finish my art project today at lunch.

Wednesday 7th December 1994

Matthew Osborne told me the name of the person we saw smoking ... and the U-file investigators are on the case.

Tuesday 6th December 1994

More investigation is going in towards the Body case.

Monday 5th December 1994

Next “PDA Circular” is underway and Andrew is photocopying this weekend. The only opposition we know of is the rubbish “PC Mail”.

Sunday 4th December 1994

I watched “Predator” last night. Arnie is like a male Ripley fighting an alien on earth. Busted my toe.

The Balls videoed “Abyss” for me.

By busted I don’t mean break, though I did wonder if I’d fractured it for a while. The pain was so intense the endorphins put me to sleep. It happened when I came running down the stairs and when I reached the bottom step, instead of landing flat on the sole of my foot, by big toe was caught underneath. The root of the toenail was torn right out of the cuticle. It didn’t stop bleeding for a couple of days. Miraculously enough, I didn’t lose the nail, and a new one grew beneath, but it’s never properly healed, even ten years later. Well, at least I got off Games until after Christmas.

Saturday 3rd December 1994

Camilla was supposed to take me to see “Alien 3” today. At this rate it’ll be on television first!

"Alien 3" was actually the first "Alien" film I saw all the way through. I was watching Sam Neill and Nicole Kidman in "Dead Calm" on BBC 1 whilst I was still at St Mary's when my sister came in and said she just wanted to put a video on to tape the other side. I loftily permitted her to switchover briefly to sort out the tape - and it was "Aliens". The marines were just entering the alien hive for the first time (so already an hour in). Within seconds I knew I wanted to watch that video with my sister the day after. And I did. Then we got "Alien 3" out of the video shop a few days later when the old people weren't around to ban me from watching it. But that was eighteen months before this.

Friday 2nd December 1994

Away again.

Had a look at “Amiga User International” coverdisk and still can’t complete “Pub Darts”!

Thursday 1st December 1994

Haven’t started Advent Calendar as I’m ill.

Watched “The X-files”. Today Mulder and Scully investigate two murders and find out about a breeding plan, EVE. Whilst protecting 2 girls they catch all the ADAMS & EVES until only 2 are left. When the FBI Agent’s drinks are spiked they realise that the 2 girls are the missing EVEs 9 & 10. In the end another EVE, unnumbered appears.

Wednesday 30th November 1994

Scott came round and we completed and recompleted my “Total Carnage” Amiga demo. You must shoot and kill all baddies and rescue pesky news reporters.

“Kindergarten Cop” and “the Addams Family” are on this Christmas in about 25 days.

Tuesday 29th November 1994

Apparently a) We have tomorrow off, b) “The Abyss” is on this Sunday.

“The Abyss” is really an underwater version of “Aliens”. “X-files” meets “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”. It stars Maid Marion in “Robin Hood”, Mary Manstrantonio. Or something similar.

Monday 28th November 1994

I need to get an advent calendar with chocolates quick!

I watched “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey” last night. Bill & Ted are killed by future robot copies and have a battle with Death to become alive again to save the babes.

Body skipped Geography & English but wasn’t ill according to Mr Tkaciw. Marc Tobit has joined the investigation.

Sunday 27th November 1994

Had a walk with Jean Maccullum in Canewdon. She joined us for lunch aswell. Do you like my new J’s and B’s. The J is in my signature and the B is taken from the B in German that sounds like double s. An example that springs to mind is ‘heiBt’ as in Ich heiBe which means my name is.

Saturday 26th November 1994

Less than a month till Christmas. As I didn’t have space yesterday I’ll tell now of what me and Mulder saw whilst walking home. We saw people from our school, about 15, smoking! ... This isn’t really U-files work but we’re still investigating it. U stands for Unexplained by the way.

Friday 25th November 1994

Scott keeps calling me Scully so I am calling him Mulder.

I started a new educational program on the Amiga AMOS. It is the first in a long time. I also edited Workbench so it is more personalised. Andrew has given me “Amiga Format” 31 and I bought the latest one.

I think Scott got the better end of that deal.

Thursday 24th November 1994

In “the X-Files” Mulder is caught taking pictures of a top secret operation he suspects is a UFO. Scully believes him when a hippy is abducted by a blue light beam.

Wednesday 23rd November 1994

Scott doesn’t believe Body smokes. Both are idiots! Well, Scott sometimes. I have shown my UFO pictures to him and we have started an investigation towards it.

As with the big webs in Danbury, this was all in my imagination. Eager to find SOMETHING strange in my altogether rather normal little world, I went through my entire photo collection looking for stuff out of the ordinary. Every fuzzy blotch on the print became an alien spacecraft, regardless of whether it was actually caused by dust on the lens or not.

Tuesday 22nd November 1994

“PDA Circular” just needs photocopying for next issue.

German with Mr Hume & Mr Pethen, Mr Bellingham (Billy) five minutes late for French and Art with John Arnold in Nimbus. Went briefly to Mr Clark’s “ROE” meeting aswell. I am Rowland Mower.

Played game with Matthew Osborne. On starship invent events and tackle problems. I was medic today, should be science officer sometime soon.

The first time we played Ozzy's Quest, for those who remember it. Or rather, the first time I played it. I remember others raving about it. This was the version where we just sat down and talked it through. This was followed by the version where it was for all intents and purposes a game of It, with a little roleplay element to it. And then we went back to sitting down with pieces of paper a few years later.

Monday 21st November 1994

Exactly 1 month till the beginning of the Christmas holidays.

The Measles jab was on today’s agenda. A few people like me and Andrew didn’t have it. Body, Smoker and Drug addict said it was ‘pathetic’. Needles is probably his middle name. Everybody had blood on their arms and Scott suffered from side effects, his arm went cold. We have started an “X-files” thing. We investigate strange things, the big webs in Danbury are in the case. I am like Fox Mulder, he is like Dana Scully.

See how quickly "The X-Files" became the number one influence on me? It was just a matter of weeks. As for the big webs in Danbury, they were just big webs. In Danbury. Though after the episode "Darkness Falls", which involved swarms of mutant killer bugs from the dawn of time, they took on a whole new level of monstrosity.

Sunday 20th November 1994

“Quantum Leap” the Reruns are on. Did I mention I’ve been offered a part in “the Roses of Eyam”? Why they are in the same paragraph we’ll never know.

“The Roses Of Eyam” is a play about the Derbyshire village of Eyam. In 1665 there was a plague outbreak, so to prevent the contagion spreading to other villages, the village shut its borders for an entire year. I loved it. It was like an epic historical disaster movie and even though I had no lines and died halfway in, I read the entire script from front to back several times. And I still have it. I have very fond memories of the time spent backstage between the group scenes I was in, but more about that in a few months time.

Saturday 19th November 1994

I want a GameBoy for Christmas as they are £29.99 from Toys ‘R’ Us with “Kirby’s Dreamland” game.

Today Camilla and Keith were supposed to take me to watch a video at their house but Scott came round and smashed a light so we ended up playing a good game of “Sim City”.

Friday 18th November 1994

I watched “the X files” last night. It is about Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, FBI agents investigating UFOs and ghosts. Last night, the story was based on the sabotaging of a spacecraft by alien ghosts. David Duchovny is Mulder.

Mr Tuck

I don’t know why I didn’t finish this entry. Mr Tuck used to live two houses down and gave me a big bag of pick ‘n’ mix every month. He was the only person who had the patience to look after Mrs Nash, the person who lived in the house between his and ours. She lived to over 100 but was quite dotty by the end of it. In the end he went into a home himself and died. The people who live in his house now are, not to put a finer point on it, cocksuckers.

Thursday 17th November 1994

Chris is still away with a bad leg so I phoned him to tell him of the football at lunch tomorrow. Somehow, I don’t think we’ll be seing Chris tomorrow. PE Test.

Wednesday 16th November 1994

James Ryan has given me designs and Andrew programming ideas for his new game, “Dungeons”. A demo will be on the coverdisk of the Christmas “PDA Circular”.

Tuesday 15th November 1994

Psion advertising magazine came in post. Good.

Andrew began distributing “PDA Circular” and boy is it popular. Many people have lined up for the next issue. We’ve sold out of it although we haven’t written it yet!

Monday 14th November 1994

Now Chris is away. Mr Brooking said my introduction was the best and Chris’ centenary bit the worst. He cut large chunks out of it.

Answer: I’d bet £1000000000 as he did forget them. Tomorrow or else!

Sunday 13th November 1994

5 weeks till Christmas! I want a Gameboy as they are only £29.99 with “Kirby’s Dreamland”. I’ll put the idea to Camilla.

Saturday 12th November 1994

Andrew is at his grandparents today so he should be able to photocopy the “PDA Circular”. Question: How much do you want to bet Andrew forgets it this Monday? £10? £30?

Friday 11th November 1994

Marc was away so we had to rewrite his piece for the letter. I have the job of printing it out this weekend.

The project was called Project ASIA, which stood for A School In Afghanistan. Seeing as this was shortly before the Taliban seized power, I suspect it was a complete waste of time.

Thursday 10th November 1994

John Body only been suspended.

School is building a school in Afghanistan for £5000. They want publicity so Chris, Marc, Andrew and I volunteered to write the letter to “Blue Peter”. We might get to go on the show!

“X-Files”, A computer takes over a tower block. 1st time I’ve seen it, quite good!

Actually, now that I think about it, I might have seen it the previous week. Though this is my entry for 10th November, I actually squeezed in the line about "The X-Files" at a later date, quite simply because this episode, "Ghost In The Machine" didn't make that great an impression on me. A week later, however, I saw "Ice", which remains my favourite episode to this day - yet as you will see from my 17th November entry, the episode I describe then is not "Ice", but the episode that followed it, "Space".

Wednesday 9th November 1994

John Body has been expelled! He wasn’t in today’s lessons and has been accused of starting a fire on a bus by holding a cigarette lighter to an aerosol can. He stole my idea for a flamethrower!

Tuesday 8th November 1994

Continuing with my story.

Nicholas Pratt copied my “Aliens Continual” story but I know he’ll have to delete it when it takes up too much memory and battery power. Jemma Dobson died in “Byker Grove” from Electric shock.

Monday 7th November 1994

Started writing “Dr Who and the Cybermen” continuing off where “Dr Who and the Daleks” left off in ancient Italy. The Doctor examines a fallen soldier only to find out it is a killer robot with a ghastly mission.

Sunday 6th November 1994

Watched 1965 version of “Dr Who & The Daleks”, the film. It starred Peter Cushing as Dr Who, Roy Castle as Ian.

Saturday 5th November 1994

Fireworks have been going off all day!

Camilla & Keith came round and played Trivial Pursuit. I programmed the Electron to play a very high note at a key press. It annoyed everyone. This mark came from when my new pen didn’t work and I was testing it. You know, when you scribble on the page?

Friday 4th November 1994

Doctors! (He was found not guilty but I still have to change soon.)

Thursday 3rd November 1994

I’ve been sick!

Not physically, mind you. At least, I don't think so.

Wednesday 2nd November 1994

Will I need a new journal before christmas???

I had a splitting headache so I didn’t get much pleasure from the half day or the drama.

Tuesday 1st November 1994

Scott and I doing weather station. “PDA Circular” coming on well but not photocopied.

No Mr Bellingham for French and tomorrow is a half day for prospective year 7s next year. As last year, I’m doing the drama part.

The PDA Circular (shortened from PDA News Circular, as thought up on 17th October) lasted for perhaps two and a half issues. The first one was just a double-sided one-sheet, A4 size, and it was free, so plenty of people wanted it. The second issue was twice as big and had a free cover-disk containing public domain games, but cost 20p (I think). That wasn't quite so popular. The idea fizzled out sometime after that.

Monday 31st October 1994

Not only Hallow’een but the one year anniversary of River Phoenix’s death ...

Sunday 30th October 1994

Finished homework and watched TV.

Saturday 29th October 1994

Keith and Camilla came round here today and played Monopoly. Afterwards, Keith took out his plastic eye and showed me the socket.

Friday 28th October 1994

Andrew actually 13 today.

Only a hundred pages in “Alien 3” left to read. I am writing the continuing saga when Ripley’s grandson, Ripley confronts the aliens.

Went to see Keith’s and Camilla’s flat. She gave me a big hairy boglin, art things and a locked metal cashbox.

In the uncut version of "Aliens", it's established that Ripley had a daughter who has grown old and died in the 57 years she's been floating in space. It's also established that this daughter, Amanda, had no children. I made it that she had an illegimate son, who then comes to investigate when his long-lost grandma reappears, only to arrive after she's gone and died (again).

Thursday 27th October 1994

Andrew’s birthday do. Marc Tobit wanted Andrew to send me home half way through a game because I told him he couldn’t play “Atmosfear”. But Andrew showed him the rules and he gave me a scowl.

Wednesday 26th October 1994

This is the first entry in a long time to be written on the specified date.

Programmed talking birthday message and “Happy Birthday” song for Andrew tomorrow.

Tuesday 25th October 1994

Went to the town for Andrew’s card and bought “Lord of the Sword” for the Sega. Whilst in Sainsburys I saw my old teacher, Mr Dresner and a Sega review of “Mortal Kombat 2” on the Master System.

Raul Julia dead.

Monday 24th October 1994

Taking Andrew home I saw a ten year old give a lighted cigarette to a 6 year old. DISPICABLE!!! If they like smoke and fire so much then maybe they would enjoy a blast from my nearly finished flamethrower. I hope the boy, Hazel ... & especially ... Body die a horrible death. Not that I’d wish that on anyone, though.

This is the entry I was talking about in the response to my 11th October entry. As for my nearly finished flamethrower, I can't remember quite what that was. It wasn't even started, let alone finished. I planned several. The last one worked on the principle of a blowpipe. It was going to be in a movie we were going to make (though more about that in four years' time).

Sunday 23rd October 1994

Invited Andrew round for tomorrow.

Dr Shah in court after being arrested for attacking girls. It was on the radio and in the paper on Friday.

Two teenage girls went to see him together, one of them told the police he touched her up, and then the other corroborated it. Sound suspicious to you? I hope they were both done for wasting police time and making false allegations. And I hope Doctor Shah sued them both for defamation of character and slander. People like that are scum. By crying wolf they detract attention from the real dodgy doctors.

Saturday 22nd October 1994

First official day of holiday!

Friday 21st October 1994

As he is away on Friday, Andrew has invited me for Thursday next week. Bad idea inviting Marc Tobit.

Thursday 20th October 1994

Finally finished writing up after the holiday!

Wednesday 19th October 1994

Apart from today being boring, Raul Julia (“Addams Family 1 & 2”) has had a stroke. He played Gomez.

Tuesday 18th October 1994

FRENCH!!! Instead of missing Art for the firedrill we should of missed FREN*CH.

Monday 17th October 1994

Got “The Seany Mail” from Sean Dogget. So that’s their secret! It was free but will be 20p next issue. As have been planned, “The PDA News Circular” shall be available in November, I’m Editor.

My mum’s friend, Giles threw himself in front of a train last week.

I just can't get over the casual way I report that. It's like a Hemingway or Bret Easton Ellis sentence. I met the guy a couple of times. I always thought throwing yourself in front of a train a highly selfish way to commit suicide. If you want to die, that's your prerogative, but don't ruin someone else's life doing it. The dad of a kid I went to junior school with was a train driver until it happened to him. I don't think he ever worked again. He certainly never drove a train again.

Sunday 16th October 1994

Did homework & had bath before watched more TV.

Saturday 15th October 1994

Watched TV. “Lethal Weapon” star Mel Gibson & Robert Downey Jnr starred in “Air America”.

Friday 14th October 1994

Simon is a nasty piece of work and still has my “Gremlins” book.

Ian Smith, Sean Dogget and David Stevens have a secret magazine in production.

Thursday 13th October 1994

Simon quit FBS and Asc so it’s back to PDA for me.

There was a designer’s meeting today and Rotheram & Headland are heading for being fired.

I brought in a disposable camera I had for Simon to take the photo on the bus. I tried to foist it on him during PE but he refused. I was very annoyed initially, but I never would have done it myself either.

Wednesday 12th October 1994

It’s time to draw out the party poppers and decorations! The best ever possible chance to get back at John Body! Simon Levitas saw him smoking and will be photographing him on the bus.

All part of Federated Bureau of Spies and Operation Anti Smoking Campaign.

John Body never did anything to me. I guess I just didn't like him because he smoked.

Tuesday 11th October 1994

I have been doing “Aliens” drawings for weeks so Oliver Duprey must think they’re good after being shown them.

As I predicted Hazel ... has started smoking. I saw her on the way home from school. All I can say is that she deserves to die a horrible death if she has the habit.

Given previous experience with people finding this site (such as the UEA tutor who found disparaging comments I made about his course), I've edited out the name of the girl from down my road, on the off chance that maybe just perhaps I don't want someone Googling for her to end up here. I used to be friends with her younger brother until he sided with her in a snowball fight against me. As for what nice things I hoped for her future, you ain't seen nothing yet, though there is a quite funny variation on this one coming up shortly.

Monday 10th October 1994

I haven’t missed as much as previously thought.

Ha! Ha! Everybody got a class detention today because of talking last week in English. That is everybody except me and fellow absentee, Chris. Operation Nodetention was a success as we found Mrs Dawkins in time.

Chris also writing journal.

Sunday 9th October 1994

I finally completed “Theme Park” although my overall standard was bad. Not surprising with all the fires about.

Chris was meeting Toby Anstis and Andy Peters at the Big Bash in Birmingham so I left a message on his new answerphone.

Not being rude but I found ‘Crap’ on the Amstrad word checker.

Saturday 8th October 1994

One month since my birthday, 11 months till my next. Sigourney Weaver (“Alien”, “Aliens”, “Alien 3” and “Working Girl”) is today 45. Officially an old wrinkley.

Keith let me keep previously mentioned games.

Friday 7th October 1994

Back on Monday.

Thursday 6th October 1994

Slight improvement.

Wednesday 5th October 1994

Even worse.

Tuesday 4th October 1994

No better.

Monday 3rd October 1994

Doctor was today’s destination.

Sunday 2nd October 1994

Deteriating. Lay in bed watching TV until bed time with nothing to eat.

Saturday 1st October 1994

Got slightly worse today due to running around yesterday.

Went to the town and bought “Sonic 2” for £12.99 at Future Zone Games Centre.

Friday 30th September 1994

Andrew round. We played “Theme Park” where you have to build and manage your own park for 3 years. I’ve managed 2.5 years so far.

Thursday 29th September 1994

Not well so I nearly finished reading “Aliens” with a few pages left.

Did PDA work on Psion but no “Sonic” on the Sega. I am borrowing “Wonder Boy”, “Black Belt”, “Transbot”, “Thunder Blade” and “Space Harrier” from Keith. Apart from “Transbot” which doesn’t work they’re okay.

Wednesday 28th September 1994

Marc Tobit is borrowing “Gremlins” after Simon Levitas.

In games we kind of restarted Order Rodentia for rodent owners.

Order Rodentia was something Simon and I started in the first year after he met my mice, Bartholomew and Angus, and then invested in two gerbils, Boomerang and Frisby [sic], which Glenn Dobbs and I would later theorise died of ebola (but more about that next year). A frequent point of contention was whether Andrew should be let into our exclusive club on the basis that his chinchilla, Billy (named after Billy Whizz, but apparently in all innocence as to its other meaning), wasn't suitably rodent-y enough.

Tuesday 27th September 1994

Andrew’s back but hadn’t finished “Johnny & the Dead”.

Now Marc wants to borrow “Gremlins” as “Gremlins 2” was on last night. I missed the last half.

Monday 26th September 1994

Shock! Horror! Marc Tobit has overtaken me in reading “Aliens”. Not surprising as I am reading Andrew’s (He’s ill with a cold) copy of “Only You Can Save Mankind” by Terry Pratchett.

"Only You Can Save Mankind" is one of the books I was referring to in the Friday 23rd entry.

Sunday 25th September 1994

If I go on holiday next year I must remind myself to bring the journal as I still haven’t written this up.

Saturday 24th September 1994

Watched TV.

Apparently “Knightrider” is coming back something 2000. David Hasslehoff is leaving “Baywatch” for it.

Friday 23rd September 1994

We made nicknames for the group and I drew personalities’ drawings in History. I am Licorice whilst Chris is Woody and Andrew, Fun-Less.

The nicknames didn't last longer than a single lesson. They were 'inspired' by the Johnny Maxwell books by Terry Pratchett. The four main characters in them were called Johnny, Wobbler, Bigmac and Yo-less (hence Andrew ending up as Fun-Less; needless to say he didn't come up with this himself).

Thursday 22nd September 1994

Before playing “Sonic” I found out I have Friday off next week.

Wednesday 21st September 1994

Started playing 12 Bar Blues on keyboards in Music and Mr Bellingham is ill, hopefully with rabies.

Tuesday 20th September 1994

Passe Compose test for today and tomorrow in French. Change tenses and auxiliary verbs in sentences. Got 8 in todays.

After school I went down town and bought a Sega Master System at Argos. Too lazy now, playing “Sonic the Hedgehog”.

I didn't get 8 in that French test. I can't have done. I didn't know any French. We had to hand our tests to the person next to us to mark, and there's a chance he was amending my answers to be correct on the provision I do the same for him. Either that or he was just plain away and I was marking my own.

Monday 19th September 1994

After shortening entries to 2 items:

I got 8/10 or C+ for the science test on cells.

In “Aliens” the marine group is entering the xenomorph nest…

Sunday 18th September 1994

Wonky line, don’t you agree.

Saturday 17th September 1994

“Gladiators” is back on Carlton for another series. My mum doesn’t like muscley people.

Missed “Skippy The Bush Kangaroo” in the morning aswell.

"Skippy The Bush Kangaroo" was another Australian kids TV show. It was even less like "Lassie" than "Kelly", because Skippy was a kangaroo who went and rescued kids that had fallen down a well, not a dog. I can still remember the theme tune.

Friday 16th September 1994

Gasp! Mr Rogers (science) is preparing a Science Test on cells for Monday.

Plans for PDA anniversary are coming in from Rotherham and Headland, designers.

Mr Rogers is responsible for the end of my love affair with science. I knew that when I started this diary in December 1993, what I was going to do was write, but Mr Hume was such a good science teacher in the first year that he maintained my interest. Mr Rogers, he of the Shredded Wheat-style moustache and protruding teeth, put me off the subject. Mr Dr Short who we had in the third year killed any interest I still had in it stone dead.

Thursday 15th September 1994

Had to wear a green sleeveless vest in PE today. It was for the first time and I hated the naked feeling.

Wednesday 14th September 1994

At last someone else is getting a Psion apart from Nicholas Pratt. I am beginning tutor sessions with Graham Stoneman.

His friend, my enemy James Sampson wants to read “Aliens”. I haven’t finished it.

Tuesday 13th September 1994

Supposedly unlucky day but I got offers for borrowing “Aliens” by Marc Tobit and Oliver Duprey.

Monday 12th September 1994

Not our first but still a geography lesson with old Mr Chalkley today. He’s okay.

I watched “Edward Scissorhands” with Johnny Depp as the man with scissor-hands.

Afterwards I watched the first in new series of “2.4 Children”.

Mr Chalkley was another of those teachers they'd dragged out of retirement to fill vacancies. He was a hopeless disciplinarian. That is, he liked to think we were all scared of his strictness, and he liked nothing better to tell people to see him after class, but he never punished them. He once caught me using my Psion under the desk whilst he was teaching, confiscated it, told me to see him after class, which I did... and he just gave it back and let me go.

Sunday 11th September 1994

Continued to help with transporting plants.

I used COMP (Psion) to do a PDA order form and if I buy a printer lead with my money I’ll print it out.

In the evening I watched “Summer Rental” with the late John Candy.

Saturday 10th September 1994

Not much for a weekend.

I watched TV. Completed some lego models. Petted old Bartholomew and helped transport the house plants to the house from greenhouse.

Friday 9th September 1994

Boring!

Thursday 8th September 1994

My Birthday! First, the Alien queen figure from Camilla and a backup battery and 128k disk for the Psion.

Answer: a £5 note!

After Pizza Hut I played “Aliens” at home. One person hides and the others seek in darkness.

It wasn't really "Aliens". It was just hide and seek. It's like how in the first year we renamed It (or Tag) "Doctor Who" because we introduced a roleplay element: those who were It were Daleks et al, those who were being chased were either Doctors or companions.

Wednesday 7th September 1994

Birthday Eve! So Andrew gave me clues to 4 small presents. I guessed 3 were sweets.

Question: What do I have which has 34 numbers on.

Nearly finished technology project (progect).

Tuesday 6th September 1994

Going in at 10am we missed French. Simon missed school as he was at the Jewish new year.

Mr Tzaciw is prounounced Tchax-su.

2 days and I invited the group to Pizza Hut.

We had German. Ich Bin Jonathan - I am Jonathan.

And group 2 maths.

Actually it was pronounced T-catch-u. He was Polish. His first name was supposedly Roman, but might have been Roger. I suspect the former.

Monday 5th September 1994

Last day of the holiday and I still haven’t written this up.

Only 3 days but they’ll be the longest ever.

Sunday 4th September 1994

14 disks were one present from Camilla and Keith. The other, an “Aliens” figure, she won’t let me have early.

Have I lost my “Aliens” video? I can’tO sem to find it.

Saturday 3rd September 1994

Five days!

I watched “Terminator 2 - Judgement day”. Arnie helps young computer hacker Edward Furlong and mother Linda Hamilton to kill dangerous T-1000 droid.

Everybody watched it, it would seem. We had an RE lesson a few days later in which we had to draw a picture of how we envisaged the future would look. Everyone drew apocalyptic wastelands and heavily armed robots.

Friday 2nd September 1994

On the way home I collected some fruit on a layby. These included blackberries and Slows.

Shock! Horror! A radio broadcast the death of “Record Breaker”’s Roy Castle. He died after a long lung cancer battle.

Thursday 1st September 1994

7 days!

No “Pugwall” or “Kelly” on this last day in Devon, possibly ever. One reason I collected in my Haytor letterbox.

Today I planned a Cat Rescue centre if I win the “Your Cat” camcorder.

"Kelly" was a kids show from Australia (they always made the best kids TV; who could forget "The Girl From Tomorrow"? What? Everybody but me? Philistines!) It was about a dog who was always finding kids that had fallen down the well. It was nothing like Lassie. Oh, no. Kelly was a German Shepherd.

Wednesday 31st August 1994

Only 8 days till my birthday and the IRA declare a permanent ceasefire.

I finally got to see some llamas at Trago Mills whilst buying a shark book.

Tuesday 30th August 1994

Too cold for dinghy sailing so we went to Exeter for a guided tour with a lady like my year 0 teacher, Mrs Lewis and a swim at Riverside.

Monday 29th August 1994

Found Joker’s Box on Laughter Tor. Instead of a stamp you leave a joke. I did one about giraffe snot.

Tomorrow I might be sailing my dinghy on the River Dart.

No llamas at Princetown - Postbridge!!

Q: What's yellow and hangs from trees?
A: Giraffe snot (presumably you're meant to think bananas).

Sunday 28th August 1994

I at last finished “Alien” and started “Aliens”.

As a change of plan, we are going home on Friday for some reason.

Went to Meltor and collected Mum’s letterbox.

We went home early because my mother had something against hotels, catered accommodation or anything quite so frivolous or sinful as RELAXATION. Therefore we always went to self-catering houses that didn't have dishwashers or washing machines, and therefore had even more housework to do than at home. And she'd had enough. Consequently this was the last holiday I ever had, as of writing ten years to the day. For years I was told that this was because it almost bankrupted us, plus a load of bollocks about how there's a recession and nobody can afford holidays anymore. Whilst everyone else was flying to Florida. By the time I found out that this was all lies, circa late 1997, we really didn't have the money to go anywhere anymore.

Saturday 27th August 1994

Oh! 1 week left and 2 gone. Bought 2 mensa-like puzzle books and spinning executive toy at Bovey Tracey boot sale.

Finished “Johnny and the dead”. Now to read the first part, “Only you can save mankind”.

I later borrowed Andrew's copy of "Only You Can Save Mankind" and was thrilled to find it a comedy homage to "Aliens", complete with a girl who called herself Sigourney. I read it over and over, much to his chagrin, and wouldn't give it back for months.

Friday 26th August 1994

Horrible line. Picked up a donkey video for Nicholas at the Donkey Sanctuary, Sidmouth after a look round.

I must send my postcards!

Thursday 25th August 1994

Continuing “Alien” and Kane (Cain) is about to die on page 137.

I thought I saw 2 white figures in the garden but mum said the were garden distorted in the wind.

Halwell, Saddle and Pilltor today. Our 1st letterbox, Waterbox was still there. Also, a stop at Normans.

I didn't see a damn thing in the garden. I made it up to wind up my mother. I meant her to believe they were ghosts, but I would have been just as happy if she believed they were kidnappers coming to seize her precious son.

Wednesday 24th August 1994

I am now reading “Alien”, “Johnny & the Dead”, “Lord of the Rings 1”, “The Hobbit” and “If only they could talk”.

“Trekkers” and “Lost Worlds” are barely past the one page mark.

I never finished "Lord Of The Rings", "The Hobbit" or "If Only They Could Talk". I remember being introduced to Terry Pratchett's "Johnny And The Dead" during a quiet reading session in exam week in the first year, and trying hard not to laugh at a joke where someone misunderstands the difference between tortoises and tortillas.

Tuesday 23rd August 1994

The only hot day so far and we went to Exeter. First I popped down-town and nabbed my self a copy of the “Alien” omnibus (“Alien”, “Aliens”, “Alien 3”).

I intended to go swimming at the Pyramids which had been the Plaza and was now Riverside. I had new trunks for this.

Plus an opportunity to win a video Camcorder in “Your Cat” magazine.

Monday 22nd August 1994

Trying to outbuy Scott with books I intended to go on a specific shopping Spree.

First I bought “Johnny and the Dead” by Terry Pratchett in Bovey Tracey. In Chaford I bought 2nd hand, “Dr Who Annuall 1986” and “King Solomon’s Mines”.

Sunday 21st August 1994

Via a photography magazine I may win upto £300,000 through “Which?” magazine. I saw a Lustleigh house at £132,000 and planned my dream home with Llama house.

The plan of my dream house is still in my copy of “Fellowship Of The Ring”, being used as a bookmark along with the book’s receipt. I don’t know whether this was the start of my llama obsession or just a natural progression, but the llama field takes up a third of the plan. There’s also a swimming pool with a dinghy in.

Saturday 20th August 1994

Question: What is a mansion?

There was a Terrace house in the paper like a palace with four poster beds.

I have made a plan of my room with new adjustments such as having marbles in plant-pots.

Friday 19th August 1994

What a horrible line!

Today I continued with the story plots and had a nearly unsuccessful letterbox hunt on Great Staple Tor. I found 3.

Thursday 18th August 1994

After buying a tracksuit at Trago Mills and “Lord of the Rings 1” at Dartington I settled down to 2 new stories. “Trekkers” being about a letterboxing group in life and “Lost Worlds” as a fantasy war set in Ragmaroff.

This copy of “The Fellowship Of The Rings” still has the receipt from Tridias at the Cider Press Centre, Dartington - which was where we always went on rainy days, it was like a shopping mall for the more culturally inclined: bookshops, candle shops, glass shops, crystal shops. All handmade stuff, rather pricey, where buskers played classical music on harps outside. Tridias was a toy shop with a difference: offering lots of arts and crafts, handmade toys and unique nick-nacks beside the big-name brands. The receipt is between pages 42 and 43, four pages into “A Long-expected Party” - which is as far as I got into that dreadfully written brick.

Wednesday 17th August 1994

Had my first Snooker game in the basement at Rosemount, the house we’re staying in.

Tuesday 16th August 1994

Shock! Horror! The television ITV channel here is Westcountry and there is no “James Bond Jnr” as there is at home.

Meltor 1st to look unsuccessfully for the map. 2 good things, I saw an adder and found a letterbox along Dr Blackell’s drive after my fourth visit. Also today I went to Chinkwell tor, Houndtor & Greator Rocks.

I was easily shocked, apparently. "James Bond Jnr" was much maligned, probably justifiably, given that it made Bond Jnr an American nephew of the English Bond. It also took certain liberties with the baddies, which included Doctor No, Odd Job and Jaws, but not Blofeld. I loved the theme tune.

Monday 15th August 1994

Meltor - I met new letterboxers and introduced them to the hobby.

Mum’s own box was still there and also more new ones.

Ofcourse I was blamed when the map was lost when I was going to the toilet in the gorse.

From now on Diary is going to be called Journal and I shall not necserally notify you on finishing a book.

Sunday 14th August 1994

To Haytor quarries and to check my letterbox.

A letterbox is a tub with a book and rubber stamp hidden under a rock. When you find it you take the stamp and sign the book.

Letterboxing is a peculiarly eccentric and very English countryside pasttime, nominally restricted to Dartmoor in Devon, though there are/were letterboxes in Yorkshire too. You could go out into the Devonshire countryside, and if you looked closely enough, you would find a nook under a large slab of granite that has been concealed with smaller, fist-sized rocks. Move these rocks out of the way, and beneath it would be a hidden ice cream tub or old ammo case, and inside would be a rubber stamp. You take an imprint of the rubber stamp, then leave a message in the notebook. Once you have one hundred imprints, you could join the 100 Club. Anybody could collect them, and anybody could put out their own letterbox, such as I did here. I don’t know if this kind of thing still goes on. Even when we were still doing it, there were some disgruntled locals who felt this was hurting the environment - they would hunt down these letterboxes, steal the stamp and leave the rest of the contents strewn across the countryside as a warning to others.

Saturday 13th 1994

Before leaving I bought an Amiga magazine, The One. It contained “Valhalla” reviews and “Kid Chaos” demos.

LATER Shock! Horror! I forgot my diary and writing this from a substitute.

Friday 12th August 1994

If today was any more frantic I’d mistake it for London rush hour!

We head our last shop at Sainsbury’s and bought “AMD - Wilderness years”. I have started reading it. Adrian Mole is now 23 and hates Pandora.

Before the day was out Bartholomew and cage went to Nicholas Curtis’. He showed me the victorian well they are excavating and his outhouse which he locked me in.

The Curtises were hunt saboteurs, disrupting fox hunts and rescuing cubs. They had a special licence from the council to keep animals on their land, and had several pens in the backyard of their terraced house for their foxes. They also owned a large stretch of land behind the houses in their road where they kept goats and ducks. Going round to his house was like visiting a city farm. He was the first choice to look after my mouse Bartholomew, and pointed out that the cotton wool we used for his bedding was probably what killed Angus and Skippy - mice eat it and it gets stuck in their lungs.

Thursday 11th August 1994

Saw “Adrian Mole: Wilderness Years” in Sainsburys. Should be getting it tomorrow. As per usual everybody is getting cross because moi and the cats are in the way.

Wednesday 10th August 1994

Less than a month till my birthday and everybody is frantically packing with 2 days before we go.

Tuesday 9th August 1994

Fun, with a capital F. Talking, arguing, shouting, laughing, reading, showing, commenting, playing, going home. Don’t forget computing somewhere in there.

Monday 8th August 1994

Judgement day. No. Not “T2”, but the day of decision whether I am going to Andrew’s tomorrow. The phone rings, picked up, listened to, put down. I going to Andrew’s, the ever faithful COMP at my side. COMP is Computer Organisor Maths Processor, my Psion in other words.

I'm not sure where I got COMP from. It may have been from a spy movie I watched, which I think starred Ted Danson as some sort of computer hacker-cum-secret agent, and he had a handheld computer that could talk.

Sunday 7th August 1994

Today is as boring as the rest, I don’t want to bore you in enlightening you.

Saturday 6th August 1994

I am disgusted that most shops have signs saying: Back to School. When we’ve only just started the holidays for crying out loud.

Friday 5th August 1994

Because my mum and dad are doing Charity work in London I should be going to Andrew’s on Tuesday next. Today:- Nothing much.

Thursday 4th August 1994

What a terrible mistake I made. The CDPD disk and our programs actually total about 3210. Back to work, 1. Andrew’s thing 2. Mine, 3. Etc, etc.

Don't know what I meant here.

Wednesday 3rd August 1994

I am in the middle of programming the new PDAmiga catalogue. We have around 700 titles to catalogue plus a special magazine. In September PDAmiga will hit the big time.

By 700, I was counting the first 660 disks of Fred Fish, the obsessive collector of public domain software for the Amiga. There were several programs on each disk, and he had several thousand different disks by the death of the Amiga. By this time, however, he could fit most of them on a handful of CD-ROMs.

Tuesday 2nd August 1994

Nothing much today. Andrew came round. He is planning to buy “AMOS Professional”.

Monday 1st August 1994

Hairdressers en route (that’s French) to the town.

First stop was WHSmiths and a beardless Carl changed my Psion back-up battery and sold me a Mains Adaptor.

Second stop was the new Argos Superstore to collect the new massive catalogue. A good selection of “Aliens” items.

Sunday 31st July 1994

Camilla and Keith came to see Big Boy and Modl.

“Big Boy” remained Domingo’s nickname until his death in 2002. It was never to be used in public, needless to say.

Saturday 30th July 1994

Simon’s birthday today. It’s hard to believe he was only 11 upto today.

“Aliens” was okay. A bit long and dead scary. This time a whole colony and marine team are wiped out. Only Ripley, the heroine, Hicks, the marine, Newt, the colonist and Bishop, the Android survive. There wasn’t as much blood and Ripley always seemed to have the upper hand.

Despite being just “okay”, I reckon I watched it another twenty times before the summer holiday was up. And given how obsessive I became over the next few years, I expect I reneged on my criticisms of “Aliens” here, to the extent where it became my favourite of the three (then four). I'd already seen half of "Aliens" before, plus all of "Alien 3", but it was at this point my fanaticism took off.

Friday 29th July 1994

First dentist before going to Andrew’s.

We used his Digital Computer to do PDA Order Forms before settling to a good game of Planet X with his brothers and a set of Walkie Talkies.

“Aliens” tomorrow.

Thursday 28th July 1994

Home again today only to hear total disaster declared on then nine o’clock news! Every pupil in every school throughout this country will be pressured into having measles vaccinations! It’s too late! Nothing can stop it! We need a miracle! Never fear, Jonathan Bond’s here! But even he is frightened of needles! Ooh er missus!

Which I didn’t have. I’d had an allergic reaction to a measles jab in the past.

Wednesday 27th July 1994

I didn’t know it but I am writing this at grandma’s. What I mean is that I didn’t know I was coming to Grandma’s today. I found out at the last minute and here I am. I got a Spectrum Emulator and “Batman” game at the shop with a new computer magazine. Apparently the Batman has to collect pieces of his Batmobile to rescue Robin.

I remember why I wrote “the” Batman (not that it explains why I actually did). We did French using a textbook called “Avantage”, and one of the French listening exercises in it was about pets. The soundbites were always unintentionally amusing and one I never forgot was a boy saying he called his cat “Le Batman”. Well, I always thought it was funny.

Tuesday 26th July 1994

Last day of school and there was a long boring assembly after lunch.

Andrew and I sat near Nicholas Pratt and we exchanged items via the Psion’s and a disk. He even had the cheek to phone up later to ask if he could put his name as the author of my very long, strenuous story:- “The Planet X chronicles”, “The Hellite Squadron”.

Which started off, if I recall, some grand space opera in the vein of “Star Trek” and “Star Wars”, but having just seen “Alien”, and with “Aliens” coming up this week, suddenly took a turn for the violent and gory.

Monday 25th July 1994

Five months till Christmas Day!

I am now reading the “Three Investigators”, “The Flaming Footprints”.

Sunday 24th July 1994

Had a giant meal before a short walk. Tonight I burnt my arms under a lamp in the dining room. I have invented an Incinerator gun that shoots fire. I know it sounds futuristic but I don’t care. Did Science Project, phew!

Yes, I invented a flamethrower the day after seeing “Alien” for the first time. You do the math, as they say across the Pond.

Saturday 23rd July 1994

“Alien” was good. Sigourney Weaver strutted her stuff as aliens jumped out allover the shop killing the six other crew members. Only her and the cat (ofcourse) survive. “Aliens” next week.

And thus began my infatuation with the “Alien” films. I still have this screening of the film on tape. It was at 9.25pm on ITV, and was part of the Leading Ladies film season, sponsored by Lil-Lets (the sanitary protection, though I didn’t know what that was at the time).

Friday 22nd July 1994

2 more days and they shouldn’t have more than 2 lessons.

I forgot to tell you then but I had a small accident on Wednesday. As I was walking past the form huts a window swung open and smashed on my head. I then had Miss Chilvers and Mr Mohan fussing about me and it was Andrew who rescued me by saying my dad was outside.

“Alien” tomorrow.

Actually, I remember quite clearly that was an outright lie. It didn't swing open. The bar was locked down. I just wasn't looking where I was going. But think about my logic in claiming otherwise. Two irate maths teachers come round the corner, thinking I've smashed a window. Which I did. But if I told them that, I would have got into trouble right on the eve of the summer holidays. So instead I tell them the window swung open, and got my embattled accomplice to back me up. And all of a sudden, two irate maths teachers become all concerned that I might have hurt myself, and that the school might be liable for damages. See what terrible lessons that school taught me about honesty?

Thursday 21st July 1994

3 more days at SHSB!

Today I cashed in the money and bought my Psion series 3 with 256K of RAM. Can’t stop now, programming to do!

That Psion lasted three years, by the end of which it had been dropped on the floor numerous times by several people, the lid was broken and the screen just flickered black. Yet I still have it. I have fond memories of sending messages back and forth with it in maths lessons in year ten. It's a piece of junk, but I just can't get rid of it. My second Psion, a series 5, which I got after the first broke down, continues to work to this day, and indeed I wrote two essays on it in the second year after my laptop broke down.

Wednesday 20th July 1994

The cheque! Well cheque thing anyway! It came today but we can’t cash it in till tomorrow.

Tuesday 19th July 1994

If that blasted money/cash thing doesn’t come from the bank soon I think I’ll sue!

Two changes today, Moet is now called Modl (Moo-del) and now she loves me. She had to be dragged away crying from my bed. She was to have her dinner but Domingo had his eyes on it.

Monday 18th July 1994

No difference in Moet but Domingo acts as if this had been his house for years!

Mr Clark gave us all lollies for doing well in the play. I should think so too. We did buy him some chocolates and a bottle of bubbly. I might also forgive that nasty year 9 who spelt my surname Egers!

Ha! Ha! I know I shouldn’t laugh but the second half of the class all recieved Homework Reports including Andrew, Scott and Chris! Ha! They didn’t hand in their maths.

I remember Miss Chilvers spent half the lesson going round the class interrogating people as to why they didn’t hand it in. When she got to me, I claimed I had handed it to somebody in her form and later they gave it back to me. It might even have been true. I can’t remember anymore. To be a totally convincing liar, it helps if you believe it yourself. Ruthless, yes, but the others just told her they’d forgot. What were they expecting? To be rewarded for their honesty?

Sunday 17th July 1994

Bromley today with nothing, home again with 2 ... Both are Siamese Torty points with tabby markings. Domingo, named after Placido of the same name is a male, very active. Moet (it’s French) looks like a pure tabby but is always hiding under the rocking chair or behind the washing machine.

Saturday 16th July 1994

We didn’t go to Bromley today but Camilla and Keith came. A new selection of disks changed hands but they want me to give some to Andrew. No chance! He already gets some free disks from his dad.

Friday 15th July 1994

Junior Showcase and “Back 2 Skool”! I had this gut feeling that everything wasn’t going to be alright on the night. Simon just said I was being pessimistic. Actually, the only mishap was when the pyrotechnic explosive only blew up once, not thrice. Mr Clark congratulated us all for such a splendid performance.

"Back 2 Skool" was the end-of-year production by Act One Drama Club and was mostly improvised. It was your standard tale of a schoolboy's first day of school and all the nasty stereotypical students he meets. My first role was as a boff (and I got to crack a totally unfunny joke: "Seven?! Seven is the IQ of an antelope!"). I was also meant to be a bully, play-fighting to the sounds of "Baggy Trousers" by Madness, but I stayed in the wings. Can't recall why. Was also a student in a class taught by a teacher who turned out to be a robot, who exploded (hence the pyrotechnics). We also did a "Terminator"-style 'dance drama' in which I was a giant killer robot. There might have been pyrotechnics then too.

Thursday 14th July 1994

Only 6 days approxiamately till I get my Psion. I am going to write a poem about Cat.

We rehearsed the “Back 2 Skool” again but I had forgotten my costume. Mr Clark wasn’t too happy when only Chris and Scott remembered.

News of a new cat. We are going to see 2 on Saturday with our box and hopefully by this time in a week I shall have 2 new ... Dad’s birthday.

Wednesday 13th July 1994

Grandma came back with dad from Hampshire. Rehearsed School Play. Chris back. Cat dead.

The seemingly cold way of reporting the death of Bossy the Cat was yet another thing lifted directly from Adrian Mole, for he reports the death of his dog just as clinically. Don't worry; the whole era of my being inspired by Adrian Mole comes to a crashing end with the imminent viewing of "Alien".

Tuesday 12th July 1994

Was Chris back today? The answer is No because the illness has not ceased. Cat Ill still.

Monday 11th July 1994

Both “Alien” & “Aliens” are on within 14 days and I will have my Psion series 3. Chris was absent. With the availability of cigarettes to him from his parents and his current attitude I am getting a bit worried.

I don’t know where this ridiculous theory came from.

Sunday 10th July 1994

Being an undiscovered genius I worked on my theories about my friends. Andrew will continue to increase his IQ and finally leave well alone of Chris. Chris will probably be encouraged to smoke by Scott and he already swears. Simon will stay in the middle, a bit confused in deciding who to be friends with. I will be the best though.

The best what, I have no idea. The whole “undiscovered genius” was lifted directly from Adrian Mole. He thought he was an “undiscovered intellectual”, but I didn’t know what an intellectual was. As for my theories, I don’t think Mr Harsent is as close to Mr Wilkins as he used to be, and I gather Mr Reynolds did indeed start smoking. Mere coincidence rather than accuracy on my part if so.

Saturday 9th July 1994

Andrew came round today and if we weren’t frolicking in the garden then we on my CD-ROM. With over 660mb on each CD it is quite good. I think Andrew is jealous.

I got the new “Amiga Format” and could run an AGA game on my non-AGA machine. The graphics were distorted but football games aren’t up my alley anyway.

And when I say “frolic”, I by no means actually mean “frolic”. I sincerely hope that was just another word I picked up from Adrian Mole that I did not understand.

Friday 8th July 1994

Lent Marc Tobit AMD and pestered Nicholas C Pratt to sell his computer to me. If he refuses next time I’ll tell him where to go.

Thursday 7th July 1994

Finished AMD. Cat okay for the while. It cost a bomb for special food and Liver/Kidney medecine.

Had last PE lesson till next term. All we did was running relay races, boring!

Wednesday 6th July 1994

Cat seriously ill. Everyone dead worried. Many thoughts of the outcome emerge. RIP Cat?

Tuesday 5th July 1994

Boring! Pensive and skirmish are serving me ill well so I won’t burst my mind by cramming in more vocabulary.

Monday 4th July 1994

Having seperated my room into a bed room and library I set to turn the garden into a tennis court. This will be my dream house.

Sunday 3rd July 1994

After catalogueing my books in my bedroom library I found out that I had 204 excluding magazines, etc.

Todays word is ‘ideograph’ which meens a picture, symbol or figure etc which represents something without naming it.

Saturday 2nd July 1994

I am now reading “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Today I found cliché which means familiar. A school and a waste dump, I hear a cliché in the air. Ha! Ha! Ha! I practised putting scornful looks on peoples pensive faces.

My mother found out that I was reading AMD.

I stopped reading “The Hobbit” a few days later and I’ve never gone back to it. Like “Lord Of The Rings”, I found it unreadable. So a film should be good.

Friday 1st July 1994

Only 25 or so days until the summer holidays! And within that time I shall have a Psion. Today’s word is pensive which means thoughtful with sadness or depression. Don’t know how I could use it though.

Thursday 30th June 1994

Again following AMD I am attempting to learn a new word everyday and using it. This will increase my vocabulary and make it better for me to come a poet. I opened the dictionary at ‘skirmish’. This means fighting irregulary or in small groups. Definitely the kids down my road are skirmish because they are always fighting in small groups.

The mouse is still as mad as ever and I’m convinced my mother dislikes him although she ‘ahh’s at him in the cage.

Notice how I start calling my mum “mother” - just like Adrian Mole. And notice I completely misunderstand the usage of the words I find - just like Adrian Mole.

Wednesday 29th June 1994

Only 21 days till I get my Psion.

Maybe I should take a leaf from Scott’s book and read every book in the house and beyond.

I looked up ‘wanton’ because it is repeated in AMD alot. It meens, simply, dumb, stupid or thick. I also found ‘libido’ which is craving for sex.

Not to be nasty or anything but Scott’s mind is nothing but Crap. Now he is trying to make Ibis Creations illegal. Worse Luck if he does.

“Worse luck” is a phrase Adrian Mole used a lot. I can’t remember what Ibis Creations was. We went through a lot of companies in the first year, it seems. I think I only wrote that sentence so I could swear - like Adrian Mole.

Tuesday 28th June 1994

Had my sister’s friend, Alison Grant teaching me maths today. The cheek of a close family friend giving you homework, even though it was only 5 questions.

Read more of the Adrian Mole diaries and got some ideas. As this is my secret that will help me to remember things when I write my famous life story I can contain more of what I want. …

Smuggling that Adrian Mole diary everywhere is rather tiring. Now, if anyone sees it I couldn’t give a damn.

This was the first proper entry in my second diary. As for the risque part, I decided to edit it out. Let’s just say that it was something I would never put in an autobiography but that I was quite proud of it at the time.

Monday 27th June 1994

I read a little “Diary Of Adrian Mole” … “Diary Of Adrian Mole” is very interesting although he is supposed to be a year older than me.

As this is the last entry in this diary I shan’t make it short and sweet but long and possibly boring. Remember to tune in as a fine another book and start it off. Let’s recall the past. Angus, … Skippy, School(!), memories, fights, friends…

Oh stop being so soppy! Anthea Turner left the “Blue Peter” Team today and idiotic Stuart Miles from GMTV joined up! Well, toodaloo, then, see you in about 3 minutes when I dig out a new diary, maybe…

This was the last entry in my first proper diary. I actually had a dozen pages left, but tore them all out because, inspired by Adrian Mole, I wanted to write what I considered more risque entries, so found another notebook. It was a ring-bound notepad with Bart Simpson on the front cover.

Sunday 26th June 1994

I went to the fete with my mum and met with Simon who I had visited yesterday. Andrew was there also and Scott piled high with books. I bought 4 new books:- “ET”, “The Hobbit”, “Vet In Harness” and “Getting Started On Your BBC Micro”. How come Scott always gets one above me?

I haven’t read any of them. I tried reading “The Hobbit” once but gave up after a few chapters. Same with “Lord Of The Rings”. Impenetrable prose. It’d never get published now.

Saturday 25th June 1994

“Young Sherlock Holmes” was good. It takes time to discover that the headmaster, Rathe is behind the Ramitab murders. Spelt backwards, Ehtar kills a whole family to avenge his parent’s death. School fete tomorrow.

It bore no resemblance to the Conan Doyle stories. In one particular scene, the teenage Watson is hit by a hallucinogenic dart and is attacked by cream cakes. No really.

Friday 24th June 1994

The walk was a disaster. With people dropping out half way with hay-fever and Everybody except me, Scott and Simon getting tired. Nicholas, Chris and Robin Jackson all had swollen eyes but Chris had never had it before. In the evening I watched “Home Improvement” starring the man in “The Poseidon Adventure”. “Young Sherlock Holmes”, the film is on BBC2 tomorrow.

I remember the walk quite well. We started at Stambridge Mill on the River Crouch and took the long route to Paglesham. I recently wrote this story set in the area. I still have the photos from this trip, including one of Marc Tobit mid-sneeze. Everyone looks so young. It was a very hot day and I remember promising Simon we would see a snake, and we did. Even if it was dead.

Thursday 23rd June 1994

After recieving a receipt thing for the withdrawal I await the right to get the money and the Psion. “Commander” is gong on fine although you can’t program on it yet. Let me correct that 2000 line program to 5000. This was the last day of school this week as tomorrow is the 5mile Geography field walk. Yippee!

Wednesday 22nd June 1994

I finally borrowed the Psion series 3a and have just finished a currency changer. You enter pounds, the exchange rate and it tells you the amount of dollars.

Tuesday 21st June 1994

I was supposed to borrow Nicholas’ computer again today but he was absent. Mr Bellingham ‘The Pain in the neck’ is still being, well a pain. He made someone come back after school to do lot’s of work just because he had broken his arm. Mad?

Monday 20th June 1994

Instead of the previous £100 to be withdrawn I applied for £150 that could be replaced by bike money. If it takes any longer than a month then Simon may get his Psion first.

I was sincere about replacing the money I took out, but the simple fact is I didn't have anything worth any money to sell. I think my rusty old bike was second hand to begin with.

Sunday 19th June 1994

I finished the maths homework on Algebra and watched television. In the evening I did a little AMOS programming and a game of “SimCity” before the last ever “That’s Life”. I think I might write to the BBC1 controller, Alan Yentob and complain. It is far by time the BBC cleaned up it’s act.

Saturday 18th June 1994

Having nothing to do I started on “Commander Pro”. Unlike plain “Commander” you can write programs instead of just type in commands. There’s a BASIC version on the Nimbus as well. With 300 lines it only has 2 commands. I see a 2000 line program on the horizon. Today I visited Silica and picked up some new catalogues. While I was there I was tempted and bought the “SimCity” CD-ROM for the Amiga at a broken discount of £7.50. A good buy!

Friday 17th June 1994

My mum came home today and it is defenite that I’m getting a Psion. Like usual they were thinking of reasons why I shouldn’t buy one such as they’re very expensive to replace. The final agreement was that I’d take £100 from my bank account and use the bike money along with extras. It may even result in me getting a Series 3a instead of just 3.

Thursday 16th June 1994

Drama club and the “Back 2 Skool” play on schedule today. It was only a dress rehearsal but people were allowed to watch. Surprise surprise! Nicholas C Pratt was in the front row. My “Commander” programming language on AMOS is going quite well with at least 35 commands!

Wednesday 15th June 1994

Nicholas thought my “Bounce” was a real wow and he decided to keep it and compile it. It seems that I will be buying my own Psion. Tomorrow my dad will be advertising my Camera Gear, Monitor and Bike in the local newspaper and, if sold should reach about £100. If I don’t need the money I shall sell my present Organiser to Andrew for £5, £20 for any other bidders! Oh and Chris has declared that Oscar was his.

I never sold the bike or the organiser either. I never had the patience to save for anything. Either I had to have it immediately, or I lost interest. Now I’m quite the opposite, and dilly-dally over whether to buy anything for ages. Probably for the best.

Tuesday 14th June 1994

Maths in the Nimbus Computer room on schedule today. Scott has realised that we’re making money and he isn’t so said that he’ll use all of his power to ruin PD Amiga. And he said he wasn’t jealous!?! He finally gave in though and returned his disk. Today that wonderful Nicholas C Pratt let me borrow his computer and manual to convince my dad into buying me one. He let me look at and add to his files so I created “Bounce”, a program that a ball bounces around the screen followed by my credits. More programming now! Toodlepip!

I copied “Bounce” out of his programming manual. I remember typing it in whilst watching (well, half-watching) my first episode of “Quantum Leap”, which was on BBC2 at 9pm. I only started watching it because I liked the theme music (same reason I started watching “Friends” a year later).

Monday 13th June 1994

The worst Monday of the year like the Friday? Good thing about tomorrow is that in Maths I will be on the computers with Andrew. I have just had the idea for a program like “Niall” which will probably be called something like “AnswerBack”. An hour or so later it is finished, programmed, drawn, compiled and edited. Andrew will receive a copy of it tomorrow with my new catalogue.

Basically, everything you typed in it assigned to a number, then a random number generator picked a number, and whichever response had been allocated to that number, the program would respond with. Amusing at best.

Sunday 12th June 1994

I met my sister’s boyfriend Keith yesterday and watched “A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master”. Freddie Kruegar kills even more children. After watching “Pugwall’s Summer” I descended the stairs. Pulled open the sock drawer, took some pants, fed Bartholomew and peeped at Skippy… The body lay very dead. He was cold and hard. He had died and today I buried him with Angus. I am fed up with this and won’t get any more mice after Bartholomew.

Pugwall was an Australian kids show about these young teens in a band. The main character was called Peter Unwin George Wall, hence P.U.G. Wall. I still remember some of the songs they did - Busted would have been envious.

Saturday 11th June 1994

Finishing the Catalogue Disk with flashing, scrolling credits I went onto write a hardware tester and a Doctor program telling you what to do. That was until I found that I had accidently wiped “AMOS Compiler”! In “Doctor Amiga” you enter details about yourself and it tells you what’s wrong. There are 4 endings. You are perfectly well! You are ill! You’re depressed! and You are a Hypochrondriact.

Laughable. Question: Do you have a sore throat? Conclusion: You are ill! I thought it was wonderful; something along the lines of those self-diagnosis books you get from the Reader’s Digest.

Friday 10th June 1994

Nicholas can’t keep away but we don’t mind. Today he gave us a free disk box and disks. Must be rich. We said to accept payment but he only took a catalogue disk in return. He gave us “AMOS 3D” and “Niall”, a teaching game and his own “Mycin 4.0” or something. In “Mycin” it tells you your life history and future. In “Niall” you have to make sentences and the computer will reply using only your sentences broken up and mixed. Mine is like a pupil now. Maybe I’ll become a teacher when I grow up. Everybody got paid 20p today and I lost my stocks list.

Thursday 9th June 1994

More programming and selling. By what Nicholas boasts unknowingly to us we feels as if we were lifelong friends. Simon is pleased with “DTM Pro” and I am still waiting for my locker key although I obtained my previously kept PE kit. It also seems Mum isn’t returning on Monday but probably Thursday.

Wednesday 8th June 1994

3 months till my birthday! I sold Simon “DTM Pro” for £1 and Nicholas Pratt bought “DTCAV” for £1. Oh, I love his portable computer. It is a Psion series 3a with Programming language. As I am selling my camera gear and old computer Monitor along with bits of pocket money, pennies behind the bed, leftover child benefit and pension I could by a series 3 for £149 from Silica. That includes programming language!

To this day I usually misspell “buy” as “by”. I never did sell any camera gear, or the old computer monitor (which was actually a black and white television). Though I did buy a Psion Series 3 a few months later.

Tuesday 7th June 1994

Does never anything happen? Mr Bellingbum was doing French Orals today so we had Mr Coles and Mrs Short. Scott complains that he has no friends, but the way he treats them is no surprise. It looks like we have many prospective buyers, Simon is definitely buying and probably Nicholas Pratt.

I could have learnt a lot from Scott. Indirectly. Nicholas Pratt will come to be an important figure for the next month, but then he started irritating us and we used to run away and hide from him.

Monday 6th June 1994

D-Day! Not much today either. Ate sweets, watched TV. Night!

Sunday 5th June 1994

The Airshow and D-Day are probably the only things that were heard today. I can’t really be bothered to write anymore except that I watched “Clockwise”. A time obsessed headmaster is elected chairman of the headmaster thing and happens to be late to the meeting. For nearly the first time in his life.

Saturday 4th June 1994

No use wasting time with mourning so I kept busy today with: Reading my new “Doctor Who” book, “Day Of The Daleks”, Continuing to write my “Curse Of The Daleks”, I found out that Target weren’t making “Who” books any more and the new ones were done by Virgin. These aren’t as good as the originals. I collected my shoes from Garston’s and swapped some £’s and my pocket money for another fiver.

“Day Of The Daleks” had a great plot: the third Doctor is called in to investigate when a rich politician claims he keeps seeing ghosts. They turn out to be time travellers from a future Earth that was taken over by the Daleks after a Third World War… started by the rich politician some time in the future. Apparently, the TV version of this story wasn’t much cop.

Friday 3rd June 1994

More fun with the Dalek and I’ve made a TARDIS for it. Making sure I have at least £5.00 in my pocket at any one time I have decided to get more shelving in my room for some new stuff. Andrew came today and it took very little time to write an “Etch-a-Sketch” Program that makes noises when you touch the edges. It’s only 30 lines but is pretty good. In the evening I watched “Red Dwarf” and “Home Improvement” before finishing the “Etch” icon and starting my new game, “Treasure Hunt” with Annika Rice!

Thursday 2nd June 1994

Oh yesterday I bought some new paints and found a shop that sells "Dr Who" memorablia. As it is the 50th Anniversary of D-Day on Monday I'll have to put up with missing "Mcgee & Me" yet again. Today I went to the town with Scott. First we looked for books in the library before I showed him the shop I had seen yesterday. We went in but Scott had no money so I bought a Dalek model and a "Dr Who" book while he brooded over 20p I had lent him. After a quick look in Estuary and Software Plus(+) for "AMOS Pro" we had a drink and went into the library again to buy maybe books before a walk home through Churchill Gardens!

I jokingly named the Dalek David, which nobody ever forgot (or certainly won't now). I gather, alas, that Churchill Gardens is now plagued by chavs from the local college who descend on it for some covert potsmoking. I loved the place as a kid. It was like an Indiana Jones set, complete with overgrown jungle-esque foliage, a real waterfall and a lagoon-like pond with fish.

Wednesday 1st June 1994

First day of the month! In my dream of becoming a millionaire I realised that interest alone doesn't create millions and by the time I get a million pounds from £2000 + interest I will have to keep spending it on food etc ... Tomorrow Scott will be coming.

Tuesday 31st May 1994

Last day of the month! Today, with my £15 in cash and £2000 or so in the bank I decided to become a millionaire. Somehow! I have a few ideas and continued with my blockbuster novel: "Curse Of The Daleks". Another is to sell shares in PD Amiga and get much money from it. When I have over £1,000,000 I will buy presents for the family but not waste it on houses or cars but on luxuries, presents and things I think are good. These would include sponsering International projects, schools and charities. None will go direct to beggars but to helpful refuge centres. It's going to be hard work but fun!

Ah, bless. I decided to become a millionaire. One can mock the sweetness of it all, but compared to some of the stuff I would come out with once I left the naive stage and became all bitter and twisted, it's actually less embarrassing.

Monday 30th May 1994

Bank Holiday and I went to Andrew's from 2pm to 8.30pm. In that time we went on a really long walk, did some programming and had a grand national and I was a horse with his brothers. At the moment Andrew is programming "Edi-Disk". A good Disk Editor including a copy facility. Pity "Mcgee & Me" wasn't on today. I even missed "The Spy Who Loved Me", James Bond when the set video messed up.

It's not often you get to write the sentence: "I was a horse". I have no recollection of this "grand national", so I can only surmise I have suppressed the memories of being ridden by one of the Harsents. No offence.

Sunday 29th May 1994

Misty's Deathday. Boohoo! It wasn't that bad and I regained interest in "Curse Of The Daleks". Still on their way to the Brigadier's UNIT HQ, south East, the Doctor is briefly explaining the science involved in everything and a history of time thrown in for good measure. Only 16 A4 paper sheets so far though! "Private Benjamin" in the evening.

I have since found out that "Curse Of The Daleks" was the name of a "Doctor Who" stage play in the 1970s. Typical. Someone always thinks up the best titles first.

Saturday 28th May 1994

Timothy Hill's birthday. It is also the eve of my favourite cat's deathday. Tomorrow Misty the Siamese will have been dead 3 years. My sister came and I put off watching "Mcgee & Me" due to showing her my new programming language. It is simply called "Programming Tutor" but has the same amount of commands as the whole AMOS art section, not much!

Tim was somebody I went both to junior school and church with. His brother Simon did work experience in a vet and brought two abandoned kittens home. I remember quipping that it was a good job he hadn't worked in a zoo. That's the first time I recall making somebody other than myself laugh, but the joke was repeated ad nauseum for years to come by other, lesser wits than I.

Friday 27th May 1994

As everyday this week I watched "Mcgee & Me". Think I'd be sick of it wouldn't you? Today I designed fonts and new cartoon characters for my Oscar series, although Oscar himself is the best and I'm still improving him. I worked out like the toothbrushes that you can tell moods by how they write and: &, + or and! When they do a symbol they are hurrying and when not, they aren't! Confused? I am! Today my mum returned from America with presents and things. I had a wonderful T-Shirt which is better than I first thought and some coins. My dad got a "Home Improvement" T-Shirt and my sister a mug. We are awaiting the postcards.

Thursday 26th May 1994

I finally got the "Amiga Format" June issue with "InterSpread", "Demo Maniac" and "Dream Web" on the 3 coverdisks. While watching "Blue Peter" they had a new competition to win a minibus for your school, a tent for you and your poster made up. It has to have a quick and catchy slogan in colourful grounds. My slogan is 'Clips in Coaches' and I should at least get a badge for the effort I made with the art.

I never won a Blue Peter badge. Seeing as you could get one for just writing a letter, I feel deprived. Sometime in the second or third year I actually co-wrote a letter with several others on behalf of the school to tell the programme about the school's project to build a school in Afghanistan. None of us got badges for that, either. Nor even a reply, if I recall correctly.

Wednesday 25th May 1994

I knew from yesterday that I would be absent today. Continuing the sag of watching "McGee & Me" continuously, I did some more art in my sketchpad. I drew some animals, hairstyles and a face. And I even fitted in watching "Hart Beat" and font designing! On "Hart Beat" Tony and Gabrielle were doing stuff to do with green. Gabrielle did a 3D frog while I tried drawing one, it was a mess so I started again from a underneath view. Andrew phoned in the evening and due to a headache that day, I only got about 9 out of 35 on the listening French test.

The French listening exam involved listening to a tape, then answering questions on what you heard. And if I got 9/35 then I must have made some lucky guesses, because I could no more decipher aural French than speak or write it.

Tuesday 24th May 1994

The June "Amiga Format" comes out today but it seems unlikely I’ll get it today. I drew some more Oscar drawings and painted them with my water colour set. Then tore pages here and there to make a professional artist sketch pad. Maybe I’ll become an artist or cartoonist when I grow up. To get the idea of cartoon people I watched "McGee & Me" 7 times. Oh, and I didn’t get "Amiga Format".

Seven times! It was only twenty minutes long, mind you, so that was only two hours spent watching the same thing. And a few months from this date I would get into the habit of watching "Aliens" twice a day for a month. Obsessive personality? Moi?

Monday 23rd May 1994

This time in the first month I wrote this: I watched "Baby, The Lost Legend". It is about the last ever dinosaur family and explorers trying to stop it being killed. You may have Noticed that I didn't record it here though! Today I went to the Doctor’s briefly in the morning and then waited for "Mcgee & Me". This is about a 12 year old cartoonist who draws a character who comes to life. Today, Nick (The cartoonist) discovers a rival in the school and has to overcome his jealousy. To see what cartooning is like, I drew a character called Oscar that I invented, it’s pretty good!

Sunday 22nd May 1994

As my condition deterioates my dad became obsessed with telling me where my mum was. ¼ of the way! ½ of the way! Nearly there. The good thing about her going to America is that she promised to buy me a present, something American!

Saturday 21st May 1994

This time last month was mum’s birthday. Tomorrow she is going to Philadelphia, US of A! This is because of a conference including her charity. Today I watched the cartoons on the morning television & read my new "Amiga Format" computer magazine.

Friday 20th May 1994

The day we were going to destroy the Wraithe of Joseph Hitchcock was ruined. I am terribly ill in bed. No, don’t say ‘Again?’ or anything. I’m tired so goodnight.

Yes, it was so annoying when I actually was ill. So inconvenient.

Thursday 19th May 1994

The day we thought we had defeated It. By letting It get into our minds and taking It past the old school boundaries It is subjected to, along with Andrew, destroyed it. No, in fact part still survived in Simon who wasn’t present so, at the end of lunch, we sighed.

Yes! It was in Simon! And he never did open his mind in front of the painting and take it past the old school boundaries! That means he’s still evil! Actually, we later learnt the school wasn’t even on that site to begin with, and moved there around the time of World War Two, I believe. So it wouldn’t be haunted by the first headmaster...

Wednesday 18th May 1994

Ooh, what happened today? Not much! Continuing the Investigation, Scott opened his mind in front of the painting of the first headmaster. He saw red shapes containing a fuzzy shape. Things were getting worse, even Simon & I realised that. The It was feeding on evil and it was about to free itself.

Actually, it wasn’t even the first headmaster’s painting. It was just one that looked suitably evil for us to imagine as a villain. As for opening minds in front of paintings, this simply entailed closing your eyes in front of it.

Tuesday 17th May 1994

Vampire Investigation Bureau was changed to Supernatural Investigation Bureau. This was mainly because Scott reckoned there was a vampire in the school. He thinks that there is a painting posessed by an evil spirit from the beginning of the school. Me? I just think he’s been playing too much of the game: "Haunting"!

Of course, I hardly discouraged him. I was always up for being in some secret society or other that saw things nobody else could. Usually because they weren’t really there. I recently wrote a coming-of-age story (link) about kids who make things up and then convince themselves they’re real because it’s a lot more fun to go on believing in magic than it is to grow up and accept how boring the world really is.

Monday 16th May 1994

In Drama Scott allowed Simon into our Vampire thing ... I still haven’t got this month’s "Amiga Format" while Simon & Andrew have. I was just wondering when I first mentioned PD Amiga. 1 month ago, 2 months ago?

Sunday 15th May 1994

Tomorrow isn’t going to be too bad taking into account there is no exams, but then, is school ever good. I discovered that toothbrushes describe moods. I have 2 and use the Red whenever I’m happy, satisfied, pleased etc. And the Orange when I’m not quite with it, fed up, cross, tired, dissapointed or fussy about colours! I wrote the on disk manual for "DTM". It covered about 8 pages and explained everything from printing text to Saving pictures. The good thing is that it can handle IFF’s from any art package and can change my colours to suit them.

Saturday 14th May 1994

Nearly the 15th actually. Andrew came round today and I have finished "Desk Top Manager Professional". With Andrew we checked each others programs and worked on improving "DTM Pro". Now it is easier to use and with more functions. All the icons are changed to suit me and you can’t draw all over the tool box on the IFF Editor. With a Docs drawer I intend on writing a manual Tomorrow.

Friday 13th May 1994

Unluckiest day of the year and Vampires reign supreme. ... I finished "Dracula" and Jonathan Harker had cut of the vampire’s head. After the CD-ROM went hawar I found out that a vampire was an undead corpse who become living beings by sucking blood, yum! Did you know that today the most accidents happen?? Oo-Er-Missus! As CBBC person Andi Peters used to say. Oh yes, Labour MP, John Smith died yesterday, Whoever he was!

Actually, I think he was leader of the Labour Party. Seeing as it’s only three years before their first landslide victory, I imagine his successor would be Tony Blair.

Thursday 12th May 1994

In "Dracula", Jonathan Harker has just finished dealing with the vampire and escaped... but hurt. The fiend wants to move to London and does so, much to the dismay of Lucy who is then bitten and dies. Tomorrow I should be finished.

Wednesday 11th May 1994

Yet another project has been started by Scott and I ... I am now reading "Dracula" by Bram Stoker.

Tuesday 10th May 1994

With RE then French Oral exams, today was pretty hectic! Luckily we had a revision period or free period after Lunch. Today I started and finished my copy of "Work Bench 4.4". It contains on the main disk, everything and more from "WB", which is also Mr Bellingham’s initials, version 1.3 & 2.04.

Monday 9th May 1994

I never thought I’d say this but exams were quite fun today! We had Maths, Geography and Technology. Andrew, Simon and I have decided to postpone PD Amiga & SWG due to exams. Chris is now realising that "3 Investigator" books aren’t too bad and has nearly finished his first.

The Three Investigators were Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews. They lived in Rocky Beach, outside Los Angeles. Jupiter was an orphan who lived with his Aunt Mathilda and an uncle whose name escapes me right now. They owned a junkyard, hidden in which was an old trailer that was Jupiter’s base. In the first book, Jupe offers their services as investigators to Alfred Hitchcock himself, on the basis of finding him a real haunted house for a movie. I loved those books. They made me want to be a detective, own a junkyard, and live in California. Hell, they even made me want to be fat like Jupiter Jones!

Sunday 8th May 1994

In a solemn mood I write this after searching the pond. We have no alternative to declare the death of Jaws due to him being missing... But the snails have laid eggs!

Some bloody cat probably had him for dinner! Unlike when he went missing before (really he was just hiding in the pond weed), this time I all but drained the snail pool to look for him. Nothing.

Saturday 7th May 1994

With just four months and a day till my birthday I greeted Simon as he came round. Today we did some paperwork for SWG and even made the Snail pool which is now stocked with snails and Jaws.

This pool was made much the same way as the other two I already had: a bin liner in the ground (which was also lined with newspaper to protect the bin bag from sharp stones) filled with water.

Friday 6th May 1994

With a Geography and History test today life was hectic but I still kept recieving demands about "WB4.4". One thing was puzzling us though: how many disks would be used. Work should start on "Workbench 4.4" in the not so far future.

Thursday 5th May 1994

7 days till Camilla’s birthday and she’s left today. Bad luck as she comes back on Sunday. As the Summer Exams near we ponder over PD Amiga, Southend Wildlife Garden and all the bother next week. Maybe we should postpone some things for a short while. I am planning, now that "Where’s Wally?" is having a break, to create a super "Workbench", Andrew will like it as it has Notepad and Say on it. Those are his favourites which he doesn’t have. "Workbench 4.4" is a compilation of the others.

Wednesday 4th May 1994

Two days after the summer holidays is the official opening day and all the keeper’s parents will get free admission. We decided on that in Art. I finished the guide for Southend Wildlife Garden with logo, address, information and map. Andrew hopes that he can get many photocopies by next week. I’m going to enjoy wearing a name badge!

See? I still have that leaflet. It took me ages, and it shows. The map was basically of my back garden, and had the strict instruction that all visitors must stick to the garden path (all thirty foot long that it was). I also highlighted on it where you might see foxes and slow worms, both of which have been seen in my garden.

Tuesday 3rd May 1994

Simon and Andrew thought my zoo was a great idea as I have mice, Simon had just got 2 gerbils and Andrew has a Chinchilla. We all like animals and would like the responsibility of being Zoo keepers. I would be Chairman and Reptile keeper, Simon:- Boardmember and Reptile keeper and Andrew, well, extra bits. We decided it would be in my back garden but only open in the summer season. Appropriately enough "The Lowdown" tonight on BBC at 5.10pm was about a zoo board of directors which were all children.

Yes, we really did plan to open a zoo with two mice, two gerbils, a chinchilla and a stickleback! As with all my ideas for companies, I always liked to have a title. The churning of bureaucracy was a guilty pleasure of mine.

Monday 2nd May 1994

I was cross when I woke up today because I had missed my last late night for a while, well, a week. In 10 days it will be my sister’s birthday and while she treats this place like a hotel, we ponder over ideas for her present.

Sunday 1st May 1994

I have full intention of releasing Jaws but have just had a fantastic idea. With a 100s I could be able to start up my own mini zoo with reptiles, fish and birds! I’ll put it to Simon on Tuesday. At the moment I watched television and did a little revision for the exams next week.

Jaws was my stickleback. He was caught from a park pond by Jonathan Adams, with whom I went to St Mary’s, who kept him in a large sweet jar and gave him to me. A fine act of generosity, that. I kept him in a very small pond made out of a metal tray and a bin liner, where he survived for over a year.

Saturday 30th April 1994

Last day of the month and I captured Jaws on the basis he’d been attacked and he is now in my bedroom. SeaLab was an idea of my old friend Jonathan Adams and now I’ve started it up with temperature tests and a tank containing Jaws.

We came up with that after Southend SeaLife Centre opened in 1993. I was the first member of the public into that place, by the way. There weren’t any fish in it then, though. Hell, they hadn’t even finished building the place.

Friday 29th April 1994

Oh stuff shortened entries! Andrew came today and brought his game “Lemmingland” which has a lot to be desired, I’m not saying that I’m a better programmer, but “LL” took 250 lines to do 3 things. “Where’s Wally?” on the other hand took 100 lines to do umpteenth things. “WW” is my game by the way where you click on Wally’s picture.

Which, as per usual, was never completed. It was cribbed from the popular series of books (and TV cartoon series) in which you have to locate the eponymous Wally in a large themed picture.

Thursday 28th April 1994

A month to my old friend, Timothy Hill’s birthday. Being forgetful I didn’t enter that Grant Rylands brought a cigarette lighter in yesterday. So starts the great Rylands mystery!

What mystery was that, then? My thought processes followed the line that seeing as it was illegal for under 16s to buy cigarettes, therefore anybody my age with them must be a criminal.

Wednesday 27th April 1994

For once Technology was fun. Finishing our scale 3D models of the Desk Tidy we are making. Maths was a breeze again and I found out that not only was my fish, Jaws still in the pond but the Science project is due in tommorow.

I actually finished the desk tidy, one of the few technology projects I ever completed, and still have it. It basically consisted of a base, a plastic pot for paperclips, etc. and a tube to hold pens. Jaws was a stickleback given to me by a junior school friend, by the way.

Tuesday 26th April 1994

Getting through French was easy and Maths was okay. In English we started reading “The Sword In The Stone”. As I have this book at home I can safely say that it’s boring.

And this past semester I have had to read the third book in T.H. White’s saga, “The Ill-made Knight” (about Lancelot) for my Arthurian Tradition class. I also wrote an essay about the saga as a whole.

Monday 25th April 1994

The last Monday before exams and I fixed the CD-ROM and added parts to my Science project on time due in on Wednesday.

Sunday 24th April 1994

Starting from tomorrow I will shorten entries and not go into great detail unless necessary. So for possibly the last time… Although mourning school tomorrow I still brought myself to arrange for Andrew to come round on Friday, Chris’ birthday. Unfortunately Andrew can’t make it to the party on Saturday so Simon will take his place.

And I wasn’t invited to it. Nor was I invited in Year Eight. So in Year Nine I invited everyone to mine… except Mr Wilkins. And then he invited me to his. I (much) later learnt that manipulating people might get you what you want in the short term (if you can pull it off) but in the long term, will only alienate them, because they’ll start to think you’re only friends with them for what you can get out of them. When Chris invited me to his eighteenth in 2000 I said no. Last year I wrote that I only regret the things I haven’t done, but that’s only half accurate.

Saturday 23rd April 1994

The good thing about the following week is that we have Friday off and Bank Holiday Monday following it. The bad thing is that the Summer Examinations start in two weeks.

Friday 22nd April 1994

Dominic is an official swear word as he is pestering my sister with the nurses home key as she takes her major exams! “Poltergeist” was okay but not as scary as the time I 1st watched it and spoiled my whole Christmas due to fright. When the Freeling house is built on an ancient burial ground the youngest child born in the house is taken. But by spirits who want her to take them to heaven. Trouble lies ahead. It should do as there are 2 other sequels and “Poltergeist 2: The Other Side” is on next Friday.

And thus the Dominic interlude comes to an end. My sister’s first boyfriend, he had some serious issues. I was the last to get browned off with him, even when he called my best friend in junior school “a poof”, and I’m sorry to say he was always able to buy back my approval with gifts. “Poltergeist” did indeed ruin one Christmas, when I rediscovered my fear of the dark. Thank you, Spielberg.

Thursday 21st April 1994

Mum’s birthday! I bought her, although I didn’t realise it, a neck chain to be attached to glasses so they can’t fall off. The second reason PD Amiga is laying off the business side at the moment is that we are having strife arranging some items. Logo, catalouge, advertisments, prices, competition from nearby PD Soft and numerous other aspects including Chris being selfish.

PD Soft were only ever any competition because they were a proper company. We were never any competition to them. As for not realising what I’d bought my mum, that means I didn’t buy it, I just gave my dad money to do it for me.

Wednesday 20th April 1994

Tomorrow is my mum’s birthday and everything is ready. As Andrew nears the stage when he has completed every type of program we can think of:- Art, music, DTP, we ponder over our next move. The Standard Recorder with weekend TV came today and to my amazement I found the film “Poltergeist” is on in 2 days.

Tuesday 19th April 1994

Oh that pesky CD-ROM keeps playing me up! Now the Hutchinson’s Encyclopedia CD isn’t loading properly. PD Amiga is going fine, although sales are at minimum level. We think that this rest from business at the moment is a good idea as it allows us freedom of using AMOS and producing programs at the rate of 1 per week and 52 per year. After completing “Sketch! Professional” I am stuck for ideas.

Oh, so I did finish it, then. As for PDA sales, our bestselling item in the three odd years we mucked around with it, was a blank floppy disk. Our best customer was a certain Paul Thorogood, who bought three of them. Oh, yes, I still have the accounts.

Monday 18th April 1994

School was okay except that we didn’t have Mr Gerald Usher for Music but a substitute. As we near the summer exams, all the teachers are getting restless.

Sunday 17th April 1994

I’m fed up with writing the same thing about mourning and working on the computer so I’ll write about a visit from Jean, a family friend who played Monopoly with me and my dad and lost, it wasn’t fair that he won though.

Monopoly was always the board game of choice when people came round because my mum thought it promoted greed and materialism, so refused to play. I don’t know why she bought it for me, really.

Saturday 16th April 1994

As my mum’s birthday nears I started to think what to get her: smellies, or something else that I haven’t got her before. Today, as usual I worked and played on the computer.

Back then, I made a point of making an entry every day, even when I forgot one day and filled it in the next. So there were plenty of days when I noted trivial things. From now on I’m not going to comment on these.

Friday 15th April 1994

Well, that’s one week finished I suppose, and in two more it will be the summer exams. 10 subjects to study and then answer questions on, Sounds pointless to me. They can’t exactly chuck you out of school for not being good at Art, can they?

You wouldn’t think. I just remember head of year Mr Wood telling us that if we didn’t do well in our exams, we’d be told to leave. Several times. I remember thinking about feigning a nervous breakdown around exam time. That attitude just isn’t healthy, and that school just fostered it. Honestly, some of the people who worked there should never have been allowed near enough children to tell them such lies.

Thursday 14th April 1994

Oh plans for “Sketch! Pro” keep rolling in. Demands for 60 colours, delete function and print outs are on the increase and I’ve hardly started it. Mrs Archer, our English Teacher told us about next Tuesday when we will have Mrs Dawkins for the rest of the year except for Wednesdays.

They were less demands, more nitpicking jibes at what I’d left out. Actually, I don’t think I ever got round to programming “Sketch! Pro”. As with all my programs, once Andrew had whipped up a better version, I lost interest.

Wednesday 13th April 1994

For Technology I knew we had Mr Pittard so he will pester me into wasting my lunch hour at a club trying to finish it! And it is that pesky Fuse Tester, the latest in horror items. Yes, “Sketch! Professional” is going ahead and by this time next week should be on the way to Andrew, PD Amiga’s official Compiler and Desk Top Creator. Simon insists on us all having titles: As he is rubbish at programming he’ll test the programs and asess them with Chris. Andrew will work on Desk Top Publishers and Spreadsheets and a manager with me. I’ll be the art department, AMOS PD section and Chairperson.

I think I missed the week where we were actually taught what a fuse was, because I never understood what the point was. Or perhaps I was just becoming a cynic already. The best part of this project, I remember, was superheating a sheet of plastic and then vacuum forming it to create a case for the tester. Actually, I think I got so far behind I never got as far as that. But soldering the circuit was fun.

Tuesday 12th April 1994

Should I start “Sketch! Professional”? That is the question arousing everyone at PD Amiga. Andrew’s attempting “Desk Top Creator Professional” for our new “Desk Top Creator” series. A fight arose today when Scott demanded to be let in PD Amiga and change the name to PD Sega Megadrive! Honestly!

No, that wasn’t the question “arousing” (?!) everyone at PDA, nor did a fight arise when Scott Reynolds wanted in, nor did he want to rename it PDSM. I even used to lie to myself, it would seem. This is the first actual mention of PD Amiga, incidentally, our wannabe PD library that ended up making more money from selling floppy disks, and was later abbreviated to PDA because Amiga is/was copyright.

Monday 11th April 1994

I started and finished “Sketch!” tonight. A simple art program written on AMOS with four functions: Freehand, Straight line, Load and Save. There is also some extra items such as delete and I have mastered them all.

The irony is that in later versions of this program, I even used existing arts packages on the Amiga to design the user interface.

Sunday 10th April 1994

Tomorrow can’t be too bad, Music should be okay and French a breeze. Today! Well, I worked on the CD-ROM and discovered a virus when the Hutchinson’s Encyclopedia went corrupt. In the long run I’ll try to work out where the virus originated. Viruses usually circulate through tampered programs or faulty coverdisks. Nor mine or Andrew’s coverdisks or programs have been exchanged recently so that’s wrong. My AMOS items won’t work on his and Simon’s machines and his on mine. AMOS is a coverdisk and program that has been tampered with by… Simon Levitas!

I didn’t know what a virus was back then, it just seemed like a useful culprit to blame whenever something went wrong – which was frequently with those Amigas. It’s impossible for a CD-ROM to catch a virus, for example.

Saturday 9th April 1994

Oh why do I write such nonsense on these pages about mourning? With only a day left whose got time to mourn! I watched “Live And Kicking”, well some of it as I helped my mum weed my small garden plot while my dad was in London.

I only ever wanted a garden so I could have a pond. And we never got a proper one, on the basis that young children drown in them. I was twelve at this point.

Friday 8th April 1994

Mourn is the only thing I can do now. I went swimming but the new goggles didn’t fit and at least 1/4 of the pool went into them! So what if that’s an exageration? If that is the spelling for it! I worked with my CD-ROM and wondered what I could do for a new program. In my notebook I listed some ideas for programs and inventions.

And this was the day Kurt Cobain’s body was found by an electrician. It was announced in the evening, British time, but it passed me by completely. Still living in my own little world at this stage, remember. The funny thing is that I still note plenty of other celebrity deaths, even when I don’t know why they are either.

Thursday 7th April 1994

Yes, we finished “Desk Top Creator – Artist’s version” and compiled it just as Andrew had to leave. He had an extended visit till 5pm but with different ways of picture making and 40 or so colours, it beats any other Public Domain art package. I liked it so much that I think I might do “Ami-Art”, on the same basis.

It was hardly “Paintshop Pro”, but that was beside the point. It was about creating something from scratch that appeared to do exactly the same thing as this software you could buy in the shop (even if it was a completely unnecessary effort).

Wednesday 6th April 1994

I am writing this entry in various parts of the evening in secret due to Andrew sleeping over here. Today we started and finished “Ami-Music”, A program that allows you to play notes of a keyboard by pressing a key on the computer keyboard. We intend to start, complete and compile “Desk Top Art thingabob” tommorow as I had done with my printer Utilities, “Ami-Print”.

That “Ami-Music” was about as good as my programming got. All keys are assigned numerical codes, and it was simply a case of creating a repeating loop that awaited a key press, and then made a beep according to the key’s number. I remember at one stage we tried to work out what key corresponded to what note by playing them on my piano, which was in a completely different room.

Tuesday 5th April 1994

After approximately 10 hours working at CDPD I’m now at the 2/3 stage. I found out what Fred Fish was, a man who put whole bunches of Public Domain on one disk or CD in my case. I watched “The Finder” on Channel 4. A boy desperately wants a computer and enters a TV and searches for lost items in a chance of winning his dream prize for his effort, or at least if he finds them. This was part 2 and part 3 is tomorrow when Andrew is sleeping round from 4pm to 4pm Thursday.

This was the day that Kurt Cobain shot himself, though his body wasn’t found until a few days later. I wouldn’t have paid it much due, anyhow. Unlike most people I don’t remember the first time I heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, I just knew I knew the song from somewhere when I heard it in “Moulin Rouge”.

Monday 4th April 1994

Why does Andrew always have to be out when I phone to ask him round. As I’m behind schedule and writing this on Tuesday I’ve forgotten what happened today. Well I worked on the CD-ROM, listing all the good programs and games to show Andrew if he sleeps round soon. In fact, I’m only upto 449 file on CDPD and I’m already planning to buy a new CD at a dear £19.95.

Once again, I suspected it was all part of a conspiracy and that actually he was in, but telling whoever answered the phone to tell me he was out.

Sunday 3rd April 1994

Easter day! After wondering why today is called Easter and not day of Resurrection, I scoffed a few chunks of chocolate and ate breakfast. A packet of Crème Eggs and Roses egg from mum and dad with a buttons egg from my Aunty Wyn and two chocolate bars from the Balls next door, Mrs Ball who is in hospital.

This might have been when she lost a thumb after falling on the pavement. Some people would have been straight down their solicitor’s before going to casualty, but yesteryear’s working class were always more honourable, salt-of-the-earth types.

Saturday 2nd April 1994

The first in a million copies of “Bally” was put on a new floppy disk in a stylish new box for 10. I say new because I went to the computer store, Silica Systems and Argos to buy the items. I watched the film “Mosquito Coast”. An eccentric inventor (Harrison Ford) drags his Family from suburban life to squalor in South American Jungles.

This film reinvigorated my interest in becoming an inventor for a short while. I remember the giant refrigeration unit Harrison Ford’s character invented in the film was based around ammonia, and I tried to recreate the experiment in a test tube.

Friday 1st April 1994

April Fools day! Today I went shopping in the town and a man collapsed and an ambulance had to collect him before he died. I always miss disasters or accidents and this was at least a past time for me, but maybe not for him. I was thinking, are you or are you not an… April Fool! What really happened today was that I worked on the computer and watched “Supergirl”.

I had a macabre sense of humour back then. In fact, I still do. This year my sole April Fool’s gag was to tell Jenna that my new housemate has a prosthetic leg after he stepped on a landmine whilst on a gap year expedition to Angola.

Thursday 31st March 1994

Andrew came round today with his disks and listened and watched patiently as I flicked through the CDPD disk with animations. One good thing is that we found a game called “Bally 3” which was quite fun. You have to make boxes on the screen by joining up lines. Simple? It’s not when four other dots are after you and if they hit an unjoined line or you, you lose a life! I intend on copying this game for friends with Amigas!

That game proved to be very addictive. Both my dad and Andrew’s mum couldn’t be dragged away from it.

Wednesday 30th March 1994

Andrew was going to come round today to look at the CD-ROM but I ended up, firstly, going on a long walk in Hockley and secondly, ending up in Silica after a lead for the A500+ was too small. One thing for sure is that he will be coming tommorow after a long hassle concerning phones, his was off the hook for apparently an hour and a half. Yet another few hours or so, I’m still not even 1/4 through CDPD.

The conspiracy theorist in me suspected that he deliberately left the phone off the hook when he was expecting me to call.

Tuesday 29th March 1994

This had to be the best day in my life. So we all say it sometimes, who cares? The long awaited chance to buy a CDTV came today when I popped into Silica and bought the CD-ROM A570. In fact, the two CDs supplied with it are a bargain for £99. Pity CDPD is so big, I only got through a 1/6 of it in 3 or 4 hours!

How quaint. Remember what I said about being a sheltered, oblivious child? Well, it ain’t over yet. Though I wasn’t pampered. I paid for that CD-ROM myself. These were days when such things were rarities.

Monday 28th March 1994

Ouch! My head, on another SSS practice mission in the park I was running and wading in the smelly river. Where’s the pain in that? Nowhere except when you run into those greasy poles and get a bruise on top of a bruise, and all Scott could do was wish he had a video camcorder!

And there endeth the tale of the Southend Secret Service. I think there was one more secret society in me, though that was just me and Simon Levitas plotting to take photos of people smoking on a bus.

Sunday 27th March 1994

The clocks changed again today so I missed all my favourite early morning cartoons with my misleading watch. With all the bother of tiredness and the like, I’ll goto sleep now.

From the days when I got up before 10am...

Saturday 26th March 1994

Andrew’s house, well, it’s the next best thing to heaven, which happens to be my own room, classed at school as an Aladdin’s Cave! That silly “World Conquest” is so stupidly dumb that I think a four year old Amiga Whizz (ME!) could do better. Always boasting that he’s on the Amiga, Andrew has hardly done anything since I last saw his programs? Whatever has he been doing all this time? In his room we found some previously unknown presence of books and games, lego scattered everywhere and only a foot to move in, sounds delightful!

I actually called myself a stupid, dumb four-year-old in this entry. I loved going to people’s houses and sticking my nose in all their stuff (perhaps why I stopped being invited). All the better when it was a room full to the ceiling with junk, like Andrew’s was.

Friday 25th March 1994

After a freak illness in the early morning I finally found my way to school without breakfast. I got 7 out of 10 in French, not too bad I suppose! It’s over! School is now an official swear-word for 2 weeks during Easter and I am going to Andrew’s tommorow.

Freak illness being one that doesn’t actually exist. This time I couldn’t even will myself to be convincingly ill. I definitely remember trying to fake it, though.

Thursday 24th March 1994

Today was okay I suppose, PE was boring as usual and some bossy sixth former said I didn’t know a thing about computers when we did computing instead of Personal Development. The cheek of some people! Just because he knows how to set up a printer to a computer he thinks he knows everything. While I was doing some BASIC programming to amuse the less-than-with-it pupils in the class he came along all humpy. Demanded to know what I was doing before resetting the system, Huh!

I remember his name (John Arnold) and I remember his face (smug, bespectacled, with funny up-curling lips). He was a legend in his own lunchtime, as they say. I’d like to see him spend a week living life out on the street. I don’t think he would survive. (Yes, I just quoted Good Charlotte. Sue me.)

Wednesday 23rd March 1994

The maths test was quite easy and hockey in the afternoon was fun although we lost. On the Amiga this evening I was inundated with things to do, copy disks, edit pictures, test programs, word process and various other things. One thing I would like to know before I goto sleep at 22:07. Are my sentences too long?

Did I mention that our house, Troy, always lost at every sport?

Tuesday 22nd March 1994

Good old Miss Chilvers, the maths teacher postponed the maths test till tomorrow. Today, after the incident when Mr Bellingham accused me of playing truant the other week he set us 1 homework, to learn every French verb such as habiter. ... After that dreaded word I watched “Mike And Angelo”; Today the Duo get cut into three pieces and the body of Angelo and head of Mark are chasing his body. When visitors come, all hell is let loose with a mad chase.

Mr Bellingham didn’t strictly accuse me of being truant, he just noted from his register how often I seem to miss his classes. By the time I told my dad in the car on the way home, however, the moustachioed French teacher had dragged me to the front of the class and made me hold up a sign saying, “I skip school!” Well, almost.

Monday 21st March 1994

Geography project was given in after Science, completed. After break our class missed History and French to play Hockey against another house. My team lost four to them and nothing to us. After School I watched “Talespin”, the characters from “The Jungle Book” plus more are now living in a troublesome town, Cape Suzet or something like that. A new series of “Where’s Wally?” was great. Given a time limit you must find Wally and pals before the cartoon continues.

Our house lost at virtually every sport going. Also, I remember a lot of people lost marks on the Geography project on their local environment because they spelt it “enviroment”. I think I did too, actually.

Sunday 20th March 1994

Most of today was taken up by finishing off my Local Environment Project for Geography. Consisting of Piecharts showing things about my road, I’m sure it’ll be classed as good. As I video all “Doctor Who” and have done since the beginning of the diary I videoed part of “Pyramid Of Mars”. I say part because I missed the first five minutes while searching for the tape!

And thereafter stopped videoing them. They stopped repeating them after that, anyway. They showed a few more stories in 1998 to coincide with the 35th anniversary, but showed nothing for the 40th last year.

Saturday 19th March 1994

I watched part of the Saturday morning program: “Live And Kicking”. In it they had Inventor Bob Symes giving 5 tips on how to become a Successful inventor. I videoed it and am going to enter the competition later. I might be an Inventor when I grow up, I’ve already started work on a mug that alarms when it’s full.

Once again, if it didn’t work on the same principle as my door alarm, it didn’t work.

Friday 18th March 1994

“Red Dwarf” was on as we rejoiced that the weekend was here again. The slob Lister, a hologram Rimmer and a creature evolved from a cat Cat find a time porthole and along with the computer, Holly, in a watch they travel to their past and meet their future selves arguing with their past selves.

I started watching “Red Dwarf” in junior school, when it was far from suitable. Watching repeats in subsequent years showed how much went over my head.

Thursday 17th March 1994

PE wasn’t all that bad actually, bearing in mind that next week is the last before the holidays. Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun! The answer is a definite NO!! After Easter there will be a whole week of exams which will cover ten of our lessons, nearly all of them except Information Technology and Drama.

Two subjects I would have been delighted to have exams on (relative to the likes of Maths and French, that is). IT was just English on a computer, anyway.

Wednesday 16th March 1994

Well today there wasn’t anything really to Notify on except, don’t you think my handwriting is improving? Science was fine: Shooting a gun 150metres from us and measuring the time it took for us to hear it which was about 0.41 seconds. With an average we worked out the speed of sound, 300 metres per second. In art we started painting a man and animal picture. PE tomorrow! URGH!

The gun was, of course, just a starting pistol. However, the teacher we had for Science that year, Mr Hume, was quite well-known for his love of making poisonous gases (such as chlorine) in a see-through fume-extractor cupboard.

Tuesday 15th March 1994

I Guessed it! We’ll be having a maths test this time next week, or not as the case may be! As next week is our house activities week we will miss most lessons while doing sports and other things. One of these lessons may be Maths!

Either that, or I was already planning to be ill again. Can’t recall.

Monday 14th March 1994

Back to school as usual and I didn’t have to pay the fine for my overdue library book which would of cost about 25p. My local Geography Project is going on fine. Before next week you must make maps and diagrams with explanations and notes on your local environment.

As with most of my Geography projects, this one revolved around me drawing conclusions from a load of statistics I faked in the first place, always with enough to suggest a definite pattern, but with a few anomalies to give me plenty to account for in my summing up.

Sunday 13th March 1994

Mothers Day and we went to Pizza Hut. With a thin, chewy pizza with Mozarella cheese on top in my stomach I went through the day. Finishing off last week’s homework and watching “Doctor Who”. In “The Pyramid Of Mars”, Sutekh is holding the Doctor and Sarah in Captivity. It is now decided that when the piano is sold I shall a fair share off the money to use on the computer. Now, shall I buy a Scanner and “AMOS Professional” or a fast Modem?

We never did sell the piano. My sister has it now. They’ve just released that particular “Doctor Who” story on DVD, but I wasn’t too impressed by it, even if it does get voted best story ever far too frequently.

Saturday 12th March 1994

Andrew around and he showed me all his own programs for AMiga Operating System or AMOS, Most of them weren’t finished and my word processor on my Desk Top Publisher program worked whilst his didn’t. Mine printed but his did not on my 9 pin dot Matrix. His god game like my “Settlement” is totally rubbish, all you do is send an agent into Russia and take it over, might be good with more than just a map and text: World Conquest.

I meant his game was totally rubbish, but not having done clause construction in English yet, I seem to have written that his game was rubbish, like mine. And quite possibly it was, though mine only ever consisted of a dodgy animation.

Friday 11th March 1994

The first sign that told me I was not attending school today was that when I woke up the bell was about to go and I didn’t want any breakfast. The day progressed and I seemed better ... Tommorow Andrew should be coming to help with the Amiga.

Actually, I remember this one. I was awake before the bell rang, just hoping if I didn’t make it known I could get another day off. And it worked.

Thursday 10th March 1994

I am keeping a notebook with my ideas on stories, programs for the Amiga and everything I can think of! Away again today but getting a bit better all the time. I should be back for Monday at the least or maybe tommorow!

Ah, yes, the infamous Megapad, so named after Andrew’s own notebook. Except I was jealous, because his had more pages, so I got a second notebook and sellotaped it to the back to make one.

Wednesday 9th March 1994

I seem to have a stomach problem on top of an infection, on top an eating disorder. And the Doctor put that down to two words when we visited him again this afternoon. I don’t punctuate entries as well as I should because of space. If I kept putting indents like this I’ll end up getting a new diary every couple of weeks.

Actually, I doubt I had any of them, though if I’m still off after a week, I imagine I had sufficiently convinced myself that I did. Doctor Shah should have got a commission from the pharmaceuticals companies for the amount of antibiotics he shifted down my neck. Later in my conspiracy theorist phase I suspected they were placebos.

Tuesday 8th March 1994

Away from School again and my dad went to Silica Systems Computer shop to get me a game. On top of my list was “Sim City” and at the bottom, “Mcdonald’s Land”. In fact, I didn’t get either and am satisfied with “Zool 2” instead. Not only was the game good but the contents of the box was a surprise too. A lolipop, poster, manual, stickers, postcard, survey and disk adverts along with it.

Well enough to eat lollipops and play computer games, though. “McDonald’s Land” must have been the most shameless piece of corporate advertising ever. You played as Ronald McDonald, the clown. I played a demo of the game. I can’t remember what you had to do. Find the subliminal messages, perhaps: “Buy Big Macs!”

Monday 7th March 1994

A bad habit I’m getting into whilst writing this diary is forgetting to write an entry each day. In fact, I have just finished yesterday’s entry! Sick! I was basically up all night being ill. “The Settlements” is still in early stages with little gameplay at the moment.

Actually, I don’t remember ever being up all night ill, let alone in the last decade. Note how without irony I report that, despite this, I was fit enough to muck around on the computer.

Sunday 6th March 1994

Today my organiser kept reminding me with alarms that it was Mothering Sunday, which it is not. Today was Michelangelo Day, when a worldwide computer virus is set off. Luckily, when I tried the Amstrad it still worked. My AMOS Computer Game is going on fine. “The Settlements” is a god game, that meens you have control over movements and land in 1066, the time of the Norman Conquest of Britain.

The Amstrad was a PcW9512+, I believe. It didn’t even have a mouse, let alone MS-DOS, let alone a modem, so the likelihood of it being infected with a virus was nil. Still, I knew far less than I thought I did about computers.

Saturday 5th March 1994

I watched the early morning television programs intently, Wondering if I’ll be ill again on Monday. If I wasn’t, I’d like to be on Tuesday and Wednesday. “Inspector Morse” was good in the evening although I was half asleep when it finished. John Thaw plays the chief inspector in the mind boggling series.

Yes, I was actually spending time thinking about what days to plan to be ill for. Reading all this now, I’m quite shocked myself just how much time I took off. Subsequent years got better. I didn’t have a single day off in year ten.

Friday 4th March 1994

Am I prone to illness? Well, to my luck I’m ill today with possibly flu. It did give me time to think with a new computer magazine with info on starting a PD Library though. A PD Library is a company which copies and distributes programs written by the Public. I have already done a snazzy poster on “Deluxe Paint III”!

How surprising, eh? I failed a maths test, had to repeat it, but I was ill. I failed nearly every maths test I took until the GCSE mock exam but never repeated a single one.

Thursday 3rd March 1994

Public Domain, oh Public Domain! With the amount of programs I’ve got on the go at the moment I could start up my own library! Come to think of it, that doesn’t sound too bad an idea. Everyone was dreading English today, including me. That was because we got our Direct Speech essay’s back. Sure, I’ve been writing all my short life but I ridiculously thought I had the losest mark. While handing the essay’s out, Mrs Archer whose Irish, pointed out to everyone what they had to redo, everyone except me. My one was just placed on the desk. I tiptoed over and looked at the unmarked paper. At the end was a mark: 9&9. Accuracy and Content! That was the highest mark I have ever had.

Well, it was certainly better than the 3&3 I got for my very first piece. Up until that point English had been my best subject. And after this point, it was again. As for public domain libraries, the acronym PDA will be a major feature for the next few years, sometimes to the extent where this diary will seem like merely a log for it.

Wednesday 2nd March 1994

Simon Brown had to open his big mouth about the few in the class having to repeat the Maths test. Everybody who got lower than 50% has to do it again on Friday, or maybe not. On with “World Geography”, my latest Amiga Public Domain Program. It took me all evening to do a map of the Americas with details on population, but at least it will be better than Andrew’s hurried version on his namby-pamby world conquest game. If you use your men wisely you finally get a red-coloured map and some congratulation sign. Boring? To add to the descriptions of todays events, I got a mild electric shock from the television connected to the computer!!!

Static electricity was a recurring problem with that particular television set, which I only this year have had to replace. You’ll notice in this post how I was already conceiving to be ill again rather than repeat a test.

Tuesday 1st March 1994

“Mike And Angelo” was okay I suppose. As I am tired I won’t go into details but I’ll say that Angelo helps a friend but nearly kills his flat mate who at this rate, will be flat soon. French out of the way means rejoicing. I took my dad’s magnet to school and caused a stir. The powerful object got clamped to the table in maths and Simon Brown and I had trouble removing it! But I still intend on taking it again tomorrow!

What a woeful pun about flatness that was. I think I stole it from “The Goonies”. The magnet in question was an industrial magnet, part of some machine. My dad ‘sequestered’ it from work (amongst other, less interesting things).

Monday 28th February 1994

“Harry’s Mad” was strangely rubbish. Maybe I’m growing out of the children’s programs! In the evening, after discovering that I am bookless of unread books I ventured into the spare room. Among Chalet School books and 1973 annuals I finally found the condensed two line and picture version of “The Jungle Book”. It even have a good night’s read, for ten minutes!

The spare room was my sister’s old room, these days my mother’s de facto office. I had had designs on it ever since my sister moved out in 1991/2, initially for the same purposes (that was at the height of the MMM period – see 26/02/94).

Sunday 27th February 1994

After watching “Live And Let Die” videoed yesterday with the first ten minutes missing I completed the homework and tried to rig up something, a gadget maybe, for the SSS. Firstly a magnetic pen with a strong force or an aerial pen for picking up signals from a distance. I don’t have too much hope for either of them!

As with all my gadgets, if it didn’t revolve around the principle of my hand-shaped door bell (or seat alarm), it didn’t work.

Saturday 26th February 1994

Wouldn’t believe that 2 months ago today was Christmas day! On a secret mission practice, Scott and I went to Priory Park. We went under bridges with low ceilings and over thing plastic poles across rivers with a foot of water beneath. Luckily only Scott got wet before we had a contest on who could get the highest on the swings.

Actually, two months before was the day after Christmas. I must have been involved in at least seven or eight secret societies at some point. This would certainly seem the sweetest, given that contest. The most successful was the MMM, which stood for Mystic, Mysterious and Mind-boggling. Again based on the “Three Investigator” books, it was banned at my junior school for being a gang.

Friday 25th February 1994

Games was as boring as usual with indoor hockey. Scott and I, with our love of mystery started a second attempt at The Mystery Team but this time much better. Southend Secret Service, SSS, is more of a secret agent service than sleuths. Anyway, tommorow Scott will be coming round.

We actually got cards printed in the library for The Mystery Team, but they were found by James Ryan, much to his amusement. We claimed it was part of Drama Club. SSS wasn’t quite as successful, though I remember Chris Wilkins telling me if we ever wanted to start The Mystery Team up again, he’d be interested (after he read his first “Three Investigator” book, May 1994).

Thursday 24th February 1994

The Royal Mail Story competition is due in either today or tomorrow. You write a story on the specified subject and the winner receives a lot of money. I didn’t enter this year as I lost last year. Computing In IT was good and I am well under way with a Disk Editor and Database program for the Amiga.

Ah, yes, my first rejection letter. Actually, no, it was the second. I sent an eight page novel ripping off “Indiana Jones” and the “Three Investigator” books to a publisher when I was about eight or nine, I think. The adventures of Tom and Paul – I wrote an entire series of them; some even got past ten pages.

Wednesday 23rd February 1994

Art was more painting with watercolour this week. You are a bug crawling over a log, the same as last week, no the week before! More programming with AMOS after revising for the English test tomorrow on Direct Speech. I have finished “USER FRIENDLY v.1.0” with a differ in Programs and Games and am considering “USER FRIENDLY v.2.0”, even better!

As far as I can remember, “USER FRIENDLY” was just a more difficult method of doing stuff it was far easier to do without it. But I programmed it, so that was the appeal.

Tuesday 22nd February 1994

Not much to report on Today. A new series of the comedy “Mike And Angelo” started today. Angelo the alien meets Mike and they are instant friends. Altogether today’s episode was totally utter rubbish with a laugh escaping now and then. Also today was the school open evening and all my teachers gave me good marks. Phew!

“Mike And Angelo” was like “Mork And Mindy” for kids. I hated it after they changed the kid who played Mike (so presumably this was after the cast change). The new one looked like one of the Children of the Corn. He had a hideous American accent, which might actually have been real. I can still hear the theme tune in my head.

Monday 21st February 1994

There was to be a detention in music for someone but as it was the first day of half term Mr Usher whose first name is Gerald let us off. At home I watched “Harry’s Mad”. It is about the adventures of Harry and his parrot Madison. Today Harry challenged a snooker ace and won!

Aha, now I remember what it was called! Last semester I had to write a screenplay for my Screenwriting class, and I wrote it about a guy and his talking parrot, and somebody mentioned this TV show, but couldn’t remember its name.

Sunday 20th February 1994

Sunday this week was as boring and mournful about the next school day as any other. I notice that at the moment I am switching pens quite a lot. This is due to the shortage in them leaving me with only two hidden under the clutters of programming papers.

That last sentence gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside when I wrote it, as if being surrounded by bits of paper with AMOS code on somehow made me a proper computer programmer. Why I so desired it I can no longer fathom.

Saturday 19th February 1994

I left later than Andrew so he would walk the greater distance! While here till 9.10pm I showed him my programs and other bits and bobs on the computer which happened to be better than his. In the evening I missed James Bond 007 in “Thunderball” through lack of videotape. We kept putting off Andrew’s departure by phoning his mum and asking if he could stay longer, she obliged and he didn’t leave till 9.10pm so I nearly missed “That’s Life” on BBC1 with the snakes.

I’d seen “Thunderball” before. I’ve seen it since. It’s the terrible one that ends up with some confusing scuba diving fight scene where you can’t tell the difference between Bond and the baddies. And still they remade it...

Friday 18th February 1994

This time two months ago I went to Doris Kempe’s house. Enough of that! Mourning the dread of going to school on Monday I arranged for Andrew to come tommorow but he’d have to walk 2km from his house down the Arterial Road, I decided to meet him half way, but with a trick up my sleeve!

By "decided", I actually mean "arranged". With him.

Thursday 17th February 1994

Having sent off my fabulous Amiga computer program: “Date Line” with the 100s of dates included, I went round to Andrew’s house. He Copied his “Utility 1.0” disk with his music and pictures along with a demo of my “Date Line” without the title picture. After an argument about who broke his brother’s watch we finally got down to business and I saw his “Disk Editor” which could write onto disks or even delete them!

I was always getting accused of breaking watches. I was accused of breaking one in Miss Heckingbottom’s (yes, that was really her name) class in 1988/9. I didn’t break that one either.

Wednesday 16th February 1994

We came home today meaning I had to go to the toilet at Cowfolk car park. Okay you may say? This loo is a cabin with a weird bowl thing on the floor, you relieve yourself then open the sliding door. But if you do it casually the floor rises and the cabin is thoroughly washed. No letters for me at home just a lot of newspapers.

These are actually pretty common these days, but this was the first time and place I ever saw one. And the last time I used one. Still, better than your average festival loo.

Tuesday 15th February 1994

I had a restless night in the sleeping bag on the airbed. But I am now entering items from yesterday that I forgot. I got my first ever “Doctor Who” magazine containing comic strips, stories and features. Also, my 2nd Cousin Louisa visited with my aunt Jill. For today, well, I played Eye Spy with my parents in their bed, although we all share a large room.

Getting that magazine pretty much killed off my liking for “Doctor Who”. At that time, the franchise existed solely in the form of third-party books, which I’d never read, but the magazine had become a forum for its fans. Some of the plots involved the Doctor taking hard drugs and others were so pretentiously avant garde they didn’t even have the Doctor in them. It wasn’t the direction I thought “Doctor Who” should go.

Monday 14th February 1994

Valentines day and snow on the ground. After having a delicious lunch of roast grill: Beef, lamb, pork, potatoes, yum! my dad got shut outside the block of flats because he didn’t ring the bell so we didn’t hear him. Though he said it was because my mum hadn’t received a Valentines gift from him!

Though I doubt that was the case, because they never gave each other Valentines gifts anyway. We reckoned he forgot the right flat number.

Sunday 13th February 1994

Gran’s flat in Gosport, Hampshire was the destination of today’s travels. One thing I can’t understand about adults is that they are always tired after journeys whether they are driving or not. Anyway, we settled in, had dinner before it started to snow!

These days I’m always falling asleep before the end of a long car journey, let alone after arriving. Though I still don’t understand why.

Saturday 12th February 1994

CharityBase, London was my only destination today. Boo! One good thing was that I received the previously held electronic organiser. It had fully functioning alarm and clock, 3 telephone directories, Calculator and Schedule in the contents. Good Eh? I’m sure it will aid me well.

Though by the end of the day stuck in the office I’d already exhausted all of its functions. What I really wanted was a Psion all along, but they cost £100 more than this organiser.

Friday 11th February 1994

What a bore Games is! We had to do Hockey in the freezing cold and I felt like an Ice warrior from “Doctor Who”! And to add to that, hockey isn’t that interesting. Bad luck! I have to wait till tommorow till I get my electronic organiser when my parents are in a meeting at CharityBase, London.

This is the second month running I was dragged off to CharityBase, though it didn’t seem that regular a thing back then. As it was in Lambeth, near to the Imperial War Museum, a day spent stuck in the office usually ended with a trip there.

Thursday 10th February 1994

PE test and I scored a wonderful 7 out of 30! Mr Moreton said I had to do it again though as I had been away. Luckily there will be no French tommorow like there was on Monday. I have £15 in my piggy bank and that is going towards my electronic organiser my dad will get tommorow.

Totally without irony, I was satisfied with my score in the PE test (knowing even then it was a pointless subject), even though it was exactly the same as Robert O'Connell's in the maths test, at which I scoffed at the day before.

Wednesday 9th February 1994

Eek! 13 out of 30 for the maths test. Not bad considering Robert O’Connell’s measly 7. 13 is 43.333% recurring by the way. We did painting in art with water colour and she, as in Ms McMahon said mine was superb. Not letting on that I had done some at home before!

I’ll definitely be ill again soon...

Tuesday 8th February 1994

Exactly 7 months till my birthday and the maths test was hard. Although only a single A4 sheet the questions were boy hard. Tomorrow the results may be in and some people will have to re-sit the test. Judgement day awaits.

My use of the expression “boy hard” has already been drawn attention to. What I meant was along the lines of: “boy, that was hard”.

Monday 7th February 1994

Will this week seem long or not? As I was away last week when the class did percentages in maths last Monday, I spoke to Miss Chilvers about it and she said she would remember that when marking tommorow’s test paper.

Maths test coming up? I’ll be ill again soon...

Sunday 6th February 1994

The final “Doctor Who: The Green Death” and the maggots that have survived the Brigadier’s air attacks have turned into giant locusts and are attacking the Doctor. Luckily he swoops in with his car and kills the beast with mutated fungus!

It was better than it sounds. Those six part stories were always more involving than the four parters, which lasted only a little longer than 90 minutes in total.

Saturday 5th February 1994

Only 1 week left till half term. The good news is that the French teacher, Mr Bellingham is away all week but the bad is that we have a maths test on Tuesday.

Mr Bellingham was the worst thing about the first year. We had him for two hours on Tuesday and Friday, and another 35 minutes at another point I can't quite remember. Somebody said during the first class with him that they knew some French, and from thereon in he assumed we all did. Still, I look back on the hours wasted with him fondly in comparison to those spent with Mr Sutherland a couple of years later.

Friday 4th February 1994

I went to get the Amiga game “Zool 2” today after school but the amount of Stock owned by Estuary is appalling. I went to Nimbus Network. This is the school computer club which anybody can attend if they have a pass number: 7432 is mine! I wrote a bit of my Dalek story, some BBC BASIC and drew on the graphics program.

Estuary was a terrible computer shop in what is now the Victoria Plaza. It managed to go bust before the e-commerce boom started, let alone when the bottom fell out of it.

Thursday 3rd February 1994

Bartholomew is puzzled in the lack of Angus. Andrew was ill today so he missed Technology which he thinks he is the bee’s knees about. I missed PE because of my recent illness and that accounts for Games tomorrow leaving French to not look forward to tommorow.

Actually, if mice like to eat cotton wool, and that killed both Angus and Skippy, that doesn’t explain how Bartholomew outlived them both by a considerable amount. Hmm...

Wednesday 2nd February 1994

The actual Death of Angus-Nosferatu was a result in me nearly missing school. He had been a great mouse and pet. When I came back from school I decided I would either stuff him or mount his skeleton (URGH!) or maybe just bury him. My dad promised me that I could get another from Wilton Bird and exotic pet center.

We later learnt that the probable cause for Angus snuffing it (and my subsequent mouse, Skippy) was that we put cotton wool in the cage for bedding. Whilst this is what they said in all the old mice books we had, it actually transpires that mice like to eat the stuff, apparently.

Tuesday 1st February 1994

Ill again but back to tommorow. I had stomach pains in the evening but they seem to have ceased. I worried about what I had missed and whether I would have to do the homework. The answer will become known tommorow.

Or, in other words, I was trying to get myself another few days of school.

Monday 31st January 1994

My dad went to Argos and got me a Ripley figure. She was a lieutenant in the “Alien” films. I meant to get an Alien figure as well but they were out of stock. As I was ill I stayed in bed most of the day until my sister left.

I was still only a casual “Alien” fan at this point. Though I naturally still have that one somewhere. Not a patch on later releases.

Sunday 30th January 1994

I watched television and added to my coat-hanger aerial.

For which read: I bent it more out of shape. It was one of those old-style metal hangers, which could be warped. I clearly had exciting weekends when I was 12.

Saturday 29th January 1994

I went to Scott’s house and played on his Sega Megadrive Games System. He was absolutely obsessed with a rented game called “Haunting”. You play PolterGuy the Poltergeist and the aim of the game is to rid the Mansion levels of the Vito family. “Arachnophobia” was great! I was allowed to watch it downstairs till ten but by then I was watching it upstairs with a coat-hanger aerial I had made!

Oh, yes, I was too sick to go to school, but I was well enough to go round a friend’s. No doubt I will have a ‘relapse’ before the end of the weekend.

Friday 28th January 1994

Not at school today either. My Room has been turned upside down as to let John Tull, a plumber/neighbour take out space wasting sink but to much ado, he never came. I turned down a recent school skiing trip offer to Canada because, although quite cheap at £800, I’m not at all interested in hurtling down a hill with pokers to steady you and pieces of fencing to ride on. “Arachnophobia”, the movie about killer spiders is on tommorow!

In the end, I didn’t go on a single holiday organised by my high school. After bad experiences at Bradwell Sailing Centre (distance from nuclear power plant – half a mile) in the final year at junior school, I was wary of them.

Thursday 27th January 1994

Ill yet again! I’m writing this at approximately 11 o’clock at night. I finished copying out the “Date Line” program after a strenuous effort. My own storage facility disk “USER FRIENDLY” has pictures, maps, documents and animations. It is still in its early stages but I shall make it better. Andrew and I have decided to draw a disk full of pictures of the ever popular characters, the Lemmings and I have planned Sherlock Holemming, Private Eye!

You’ll notice I wasn’t so ill that I couldn’t spend an entire day on the computer. As for “strenuous effort”, I didn’t know the meaning of the word(s)! “USER FRIENDLY” was meant to be my attempt at Windows for the Amiga, but basically it was just the existing boot-up software (Workbench) with redesigned icons.

Wednesday 26th January 1994

Ill again but back tomorrow probably. I think the earthquake dating program is a bit basic now I have it sussed so I’ve changed it to events: “Date Line”. Having to copy an entire list of events and writing them into the program is the bad bit about it. If I do become a Computer programmer when older it’ll be just like this. Then again I might be a Naturalist. Collecting animals, studying them, breeding them before release. I read a few passages from Gerald Durrell’s “Amateur Naturalist” with my Dad, staring in awe at the splendid pictures.

How twee(!) Incidentally, the basis of that “Date Line” program was that you typed in a year and it printed on screen everything that happened in that year. Except they appeared in the order I’d typed them in, not chronologically. I think there were about 200 events in it by the time I got bored. 200 events over several thousand years...

Tuesday 25th January 1994

Oh what a pity, I’m away ill from School. HOORAY! I have to say that being deaf in one ear and having to go the Doctors is bad but anything is better than French and Mathematics. Especially with Monsieur Bellingham’s spelling test. Being a clever ole soul as I am I started on a new program: “Earthquake”. You type in a date and it lists all ‘quakes within that year. My dad told me stories of when he was young and caught creatures to study before releasing them.

That “Earthquake” program evolved into one of the most pointless endeavours I’ve ever embarked on. As with most things I did at that age. I think I truly was ill on this occasion, though maybe only for today...

Monday 24th January 1994

My music teacher was foolish to select Robert O’Connell as a group chooser. He chooses who is in whose group and he has decided to do it in alphabetical order. I found out how to make “Easy AMOS” make a gunshot, bell and explosion by typing in certain keywords. Miss Chilvers, whose first name is Amanda, our Maths teacher was away with flu and so were five others in the class, all were absent.

I hated it when we got told which groups to go in. I never saw the point. Kids always work better when they’re with people they know and like. I think this frequently applied tactic was part of the school’s way of introducing you to as many people as possible, like when they forced everyone to join the choir in the first term, whether they could sing or not. The only way out of that was a parental letter.

Sunday 23rd January 1994

Further programming with “Easy AMOS” and I am getting the idea and have already started “Immortal” after Andrew stole my idea for “Treasure Island”. In my game there is only one way to go and that is a dangerous path. The rest I haven’t decided. “Doctor Who: The Green Death”: the maggots are above ground and attacking Jo Grant. In the evening I watched “Vice Versa” about the adventures of a father and son who swap bodies.

“The Green Death” was about radioactive maggots (made of papier mached condoms, I remember reading in the Radio Times) attacking miners beneath a nuclear power plant. It was a classy story. I hope they release it on DVD.

Saturday 22nd January 1994

Weekends fly past usually and today is no exception. I watched television till nine then went to Andrew’s house at ten till two thirty. While I was there I watched some of his Doctor Who video, “Curse Of Peladon”. We played a really scary Amiga game, “Space Hulk”. You travel through a spaceship exterminating aliens and just when you least expect it something grabs you and the screen goes red. URGH! We exchanged disks and copied another as my Dad arrived and took me home.

“Space Hulk” was my first experience of first person shooters, and was very much inspired by the “Alien” films, of which I was only a casual fan at this point. It truly did scare me, so much so that, after playing it in the dark one night and being freaked out, I formatted the disk and had to get it copied again when it all seemed very silly in the light of day. (I still formatted it again, though.)

Friday 21st January 1994

After Games and French were out of the way I could relax. Another squabble and I’m ending up at Andrew’s tommorow. After cleaning the microscope off I still seem to have a mess all over the objective lens and eyepiece. It is rather annoying because I can’t figure out what’s the matter with it. Mastering Graphics on the computer I first drew a black and white sign for my door saying “Jonathan Eyers’ Room” then another B&W Microscope diagram. Only a few weeks and half term will be upon us!

I still have that sign somewhere (mainly because I never throw anything away; I still have papers over a decade old in my desk). It only got replaced when I printed out another with my first PC, August 1997, which remains there to this day.

Thursday 20th January 1994

We did Technology again, making a plastic box for our fuse tester through vacuum forming. Yet again Scott and Andrew are squabbling and I don’t know who’s in the wrong. It has been decided that I will be going to Scott’s this weekend, but there is always tommorow. I … found a way of getting rid of unwanted guests. Phenolphthalein, a laxative.

Which came in a chemistry set I had got the term before. As with all but one or two of my high school technology projects, I never finished my fuse tester.

Wednesday 19th January 1994

Today at school was okay I suppose. Technology is getting on well and I got B– (Good) for my Cave Art project. The Maths homework was a bit tough but I escaped not doing it. Just as something to write: I renewed my school library book “Doctor Who: Enlightenment”. My Tutankhamun book arrived in the post and I arranged my bedroom into a lab including Test tubes, Chemical cabinet, Miniature library, Computer and equipment, Microscope, slides. What else can you think of? Well I can think of many but that is not the point!

More pre-teen quaintness there. I don’t know what I meant by escaped not doing the Maths homework. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m “ill” again in the next few days. The Cave Art project was dire, rustled up on the last day of the Christmas holidays during an ITV screening of “Dr No”.

Tuesday 18th January 1994

Exactly 7.8 (nearly) months till my birthday! Every day is a day closer to Christmas as well! “Easy AMOS” was good. I could program in BASIC computer language but it wouldn’t except LET and FOR, for some reason! I am, after writing on time and space relative to each other, going to attempt the greatest of all time. Why are we here?

I was a pretentious little oik. Or perhaps just a dreamer. I was afflicted with head-in-clouds syndrome for much of my early adolescence.

Monday 17th January 1994

Scott, although looking rather dumb in his specs and neat uniform is quite clever. He even remembered to bring a magazine so that I could complete the Dizzy game at home. Today Andrew and I decided to copy a two disk program for each other. I would copy “Shoot Em Up Construction Kit” (SEUCK) and he would copy “Easy AMOS”.

And so begins the great AMOS saga. The first and last programming language I learnt to any degree, and still I couldn’t program anything worthwhile without stealing code from everyone else. "Dizzy" was a series of games in which you play a walking egg. It was actually much better than it sounds.

Sunday 16th January 1994

Being a Sunday I went to Earls Hall Baptist Church, or did I? As a sneak I pretended not to wake till 9.45am, too late to go to church. Instead I finished the homework, watched television and went to bed!

As you can see, I was destined to become a hardened criminal by the time I was 13. Actually, I started pulling this trick a lot, until it ceased to matter to my mother whether I went to her fascist rally with her or not.

Saturday 15th January 1994

Thank Goodness for weekends. If I had heard another squabble between Scott and Andrew I would of screamed. Scott came round and I didn’t hear a peep from Andrew. On my Amiga we played “Magicland World Dizzy”. You play an egg on a strategic quest. After one attempt we postponed my mouse being the first living thing to cross dimensions.

And so ended the GDH project. It wasn’t until we had the beastly Mr Rogers for Science at the beginning of Year Eight that I realised I was always more interested in the idea of travelling to other worlds than I was in covalent bonding. A vocation in creative writing rather than science beckoned. Incidentally, Angus the mouse did a couple of circuits in a car made out of Lego Technic – but didn’t cross the time barrier.

Friday 14th January 1994

Okay so I missed Games but hated French, who cares? Today SHSB, Tommorow the World! Scott is able to come round on Saturday but what a piece of strife I got involved in today. Andrew’s mum complained to our head of year, Mr Wood that Scott had stolen something from him. Being mentioned as both of their best friends I was called upon to help them make up. Easy, I said. Or so I thought!

I still don’t know what was going on then. I have a vague idea it arose because Andrew and Scott had some sort of rota about whose parents picked them up and one of them had reneged on it. Actually, I don’t know the real reason why I was summoned, but Mr Wood interrogated me as if I had been bullying Scott, so I don’t know what he had been saying...

Thursday 13th January 1994

So far the Great Dimension Hopper (GDH) is going fine. I collected together my electronic apparatus and started to put it together. Apart from a mishap when Scott did a leg drop on me in PE everything is dandy.

I love that last sentence. If I wrote it now, it would be tongue in cheek, but back then I was entirely serious. I think.

Wednesday 12th January 1994

Scott, being talkative as he is, asked Mr Hume in Science if time travel or jumping Dimensions was possible. Mr Hume said it was possible if you were an anti-matter, whatever that means! During break Scott and I were up in the library researching the subject when we got an idea! We would meet at a weekend with Simon Levitas maybe and … create the Great Dimension Hopper! The story and plans began during art.

From a young age, due to too much exposure to “Doctor Who”, I dreamt of inventing time travel. I remember conscripting friends at junior school into a similar project a few years before. The suspension dots are not intended to generate any degree of excitement, it’s just where I’ve edited something particularly embarrassing.

Tuesday 11th January 1994

The bad thing about Tuesdays is that the lessons are all double ones: English, French, Maths then Science (to look forward to). I got the Extras disk from Andrew only to find he had written a bug accidentally. Part 2 of “George’s Marvellous Medicine”: George explores the farm, putting in all nasty things he can find to blow off his vile grandma’s head! Scott and I have created a limited edition Doctor Who game! Everybody are good characters: Doctors or companions. One person has a glove and if they are a Dalek, when they throw it at someone they become the baddie. At last I have finished “William 18 – Sweet William”, a month since I begun it exactly!

We created 101 variations on It (or Tag). I must say, though, that the addition of a projectile (i.e. the glove) made it a more balanced affair than the usual slowest-person-is-always-it game. Despite this, it wasn't invented for the benefit of Marc Tobit. Many a dinner hour swept by thanks to such innocuous fun. Ah, now this is the kind of nostalgia I started this section for...

Monday 10th January 1994

I renamed Bartholomew mouse: Bartholomew Malin Luigi Ricardo Madison Mouse. Ricardo from “Neighbours”, Madison from “Harry’s Mad”, Luigi from “Super Mario Bros”, Malin from “Explorers” and Bart from the hospital my sister works at. Having Workbench 3 copied on Thursday I gave Andrew the Disk so he could copy The Extras programs. “Jackanory”, which I don’t usually watch, started “George’s Marvellous Medicine” by Roald Dahl. Mr Clive Pegler, my RE teacher liked my scroll. Over Christmas we had to make an old looking Christmas scroll with the birth of Christ story. The Jewish boys e.g. Simon could do the Hannukah story and something about Torahs(?).

Malin wasn’t actually the name of the mouse in “Explorers”, it was Heinlein, after the bloke who wrote “Starship Troopers”, presumably. Clive Pegler used to be a minister at the church I used to go to until he left under a cloud (though I gather he went back years later). His daughter Heidi was my Sunday school teacher, though she went on to become a regular fixture on BBC religious programming, like “Songs Of Praise”.

Sunday 9th January 1994

Today I went to Chris’ house and discovered he was Gerry Anderson mad. That’s the man who created “Thunderbirds”. He had models everywhere! Before I went his sister Anna and his dad joined us for a “Game Of Life”. When I rushed home I recorded over “Eerie Indiana” with “Honey I Shrunk The Kids” with Rick Moranis (“Ghostbusters”).

I remember we had roast chicken for dinner, which I’d also had for lunch, and I worried for days afterwards that I’d offended his mother by telling her so. I ate it all, regardless, though I was lying when I told her it was my favourite.

Saturday 8th January 1994

Andrew ended up not having me round and his brother not appendicitis. I had to go to CharityBase in London where my Mum and Dad work. Today they were in a meeting while I planned out “MegaByte”. This is my Amiga Association magazine which is free to our customers. We can copy games and programs for people for a low price and it looks like we’re going to be a hit! At only 4 pages and me, Chris, Andrew and Simon working on it comes out quite late, monthly.

They worked voluntarily for Depression Alliance, though it might not have changed its name from Depressives Associated at that point. Amiga Association was the first guise of what later became known as PDA.

Friday 7th January 1994

Games and French went quickly and I had fun in Information Technology. I think this is a bit short for an entry but nothing exciting really happened today. Oh yeah, Andrew’s brother fell violently ill and when I rang up his mum was waiting for the Doctor and then maybe an ambulance if he had appendicitis, if that’s how you spell it!

I actually thought it was a ruse because Andrew didn’t want me to come round. I have a vague recollection that one time his brother actually did have appendicitis.

Thursday 6th January 1994

PE wasn’t all that bad. I worked with David Stevens practising a series of rolls and falls. Even better was Technology. My class group soldered the resistor to the Vero-board. Later this evening I copied a database for Simon on the computer. While drawing a diagram on the instruction sheet I found my pencil was blunt and no sharpener in range. This gave me the idea for an electric pencil sharpener so I dug out an old motor and batteries and as I started to connect the wires I had to go to bed and write this!

Simon being Simon Levitas, who I met again for the first time since leaving school this summer. You can visit his site here.

Wednesday 5th January 1994

First day back at school and it was okay. As far as school goes. In Technology we are doing electronics and are making a fuse tester, tommorow we should be starting it. To learn what the function of this gadget was I followed a quick circuit diagram and made one at home with an LED and a resistor. The probes and the battery and the rest are all cleverly concealed in a box. Eek! PE Tommorow!

As with most Technology projects, I never finished them. If you missed more than one lesson (and I was ‘ill’ a lot, as you can see) you could never catch up unless you went in at lunchtimes.

Tuesday 4th January 1994

Last day of the holidays and my mum took me to see the “Addams Family Values”. An axe murderer marries the weird Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd) and tries to kill him. I bought a new computer magazine, “Gremlins” Novel and a Doctor Who Video. Peter Davison plays the Doctor in “Resurrection Of The Daleks”. Him, Tegan and Turlough find a time corridor and find Daleks waiting for them at the end. It cost £10.99 and was well worth it!

That was the last time I went to the cinema with my mum. I think she’s only been once since, to see “Billy Elliot”. That “Doctor Who” story remains one of my favourites.

Monday 3rd January 1994

Only two days more holidays and I have nearly finished the homework. The concluding part of “A Dark Adapted Eye” was great! The reason Vera killed Eden was simply detected. In fact, they basically told you! As Eden grew up she became a snob and said Vera’s baby was hers. Vera pursued the kidnappers to Eden’s house and stabbed her sister, only to be hanged.

I remember being quite disappointed that after sitting through three hours of it, they didn't even have a graphic hanging scene. Hey, I was 12.

Sunday 2nd January 1994

We went on a walk down on the seafront but this time my sister, Camilla came as well. I predicted we would have rain because there was low cloud on the horizon. Guess what! It rained heavily! In the evening I watched “A Dark Adapted Eye” by Ruth Rendell. Faith goes and stays with her two aunts, Vera and Eden. Both have dark secrets. Vera was responsible for losing a child and leaving a woman to die. In the future, Vera stabs Eden many times. It is not a whodunnit but whydunnit. It is concluded tommorow.

I remember Vera (played by Celia Imrie, I believe) reminded me of my art teacher, Ms McMahon.

Saturday 1st January 1994

This is when I should of started the diary really. ... I started this entry at 12.05, that’s five minutes into 1994. In the afternoon me, my mum and dad walked over Two Tree Island. The noise of the model aircraft overhead was horrific!

Two Tree Island actually had a small forest on it. It’s where local kids go to smoke pot, I gather. We did see two with an air rifle on one visit there. Ooh.