Bad minds were hanging around in their droves on the lower astrals, waiting for their chance to bushwhack the unwary traveller. Waiting for their chance to joyride some poor mug who has wandered unknowingly into their terrain and left their vehicle unattended. Never do this. Never do this my friend. Never leave your vehicle unattended. Can’t you just feel those bad old minds out there, clamouring for a free ride? There’s no good in them at all, you know. Not the slightest trace nor vestige of goodness. Those bad, bad old minds. Thinking nothing but bad bad thoughts, the lowest possible thoughts. Can’t you feel those bad old minds thinking their bad, bad thoughts? They are the lowest of the low; they have no redeeming features, no redeeming features at all.

I can hear them out there. Not so much hear them as feel them – I can feel their thoughts, I can feel their constant clamouring. Their loathsome unholy clamouring. There’s a dreadful intimacy to it, a dreadful familiarity. It’s almost as if they are my friends, my confidants. I feel like I’ve known them forever; I feel like they are me – that’s how familiar they are to me! Aah the friends, the friends. The good old friends. The good old boys. The good old bad minds, oozing like open sores with wickedness and malice. Don’t you know them so well? Don’t you, don’t you, don’t you?

‘Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,’ I burst out, full of religious dread. I wanted to harm myself so as to show my repentance, I wanted to stick thumbtacks into my flesh. I had taken my eye off the ball and now the bad old minds were running the show. They were in the driving seat. They were having a field day, they were having a party. They were partying as if there was no tomorrow! They always party as if there was no tomorrow – that’s what they do. That’s all they are able to do! Although come to think of it that’s not strictly true – there is one other thing they can do and that is to hang around forever in a dormant state waiting to party as if there was no tomorrow. They’re good at that, too. And actually there’s one more thing that they can do as well, a third thing – they can clamour and clamour and clamour and clamour and clamour in that unholy way of theirs when they get the scent of fresh meat…

Then I was back in Chancery Lane with my mates Terry and Alan and Fag-ash and Smiling Michael, drinking endless cans of Tenants Extra and passing around a bottle of Temgesic. Having the crack. Passing the pipe around. Smoking Lebanese hash and rollies. Listening to some sounds. Taking it easy. Shooting the shit. Getting wasted. We were partying like there was no tomorrow. We were having a good time. We were always having a good time – apart for the times when we weren’t.