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men and two women about our age, dressed up to go dancing, not drunk but already having a good time. We took the tube north, yelling at each
other above the clatter of the train. Sitting opposite us was a bap-faced guy who stank of mayonnaise.
    Suddenly a middle-aged man a couple of seats down erupted in a fountain of sick. Then he just sat there while the tube hurtled on through the tunnel. Two stops later we got out. He continued
sitting their stoically, drenched and stinking.
    The party took some finding. After a quarter of an hour we were still walking through an area of abandoned factories, rubble-strewn yards and rusting metal lying in puddles. A little further on
there was a new-style post-industrial estate with small freshly-painted corrugated metal manufacturing units making hi-tech software for video games. A few moments later we were back in the
derelict landscape of empty factories with broken windows and black chimneys silhouetted against the blue-streaked night sky. It was difficult not to feel a loyal affection for these ugly
smoke-blackened buildings when faced with their modern counterparts, the clean, lightweight computerised factories.
    ‘Nostalgia,’ said Steranko. ‘That’s one thing we really know how to manufacture.’
    The party was being held in the grounds of an abandoned school, sealed off from the street by high sheets of corrugated iron. The only entrance was through the cab of a lorry which had been
driven up alongside a narrow gap in the fencing. Since there was only room for one person at a time to scramble through the cramped cab it served as a very effective turnstyle. A large crowd of
people pushed and shoved and spilled back on to the pavement.
    Inside there was pandemonium. Here and there the darkness was slashed by swirling lights so bright that it was difficult to see anything except the edges of buildings and the dark shape of a
gasometer that loomed huge and solid over the whole scene. As our eyes got used to the combination of dazzle and darkness it became possible to make out angular constructions of scaffolding and
industrial metal. Music was throbbing around but it was difficult to say from where. We passed through a gap between two buildings; through the steam-coated windows on each side you could see
figures packed together and writhing around in yellow light as thick as mustard. Music thumped on the window panes; faces, lit by a lash of red and then an explosion of orange, appeared at the
windows. There seemed to be no way in or out of the building. At the end of this narrow alley we stumbled down dark and slippery steps towards a courtyard enclosed by several buildings. Fires had
been started. Planks, bottles and branches were thrown on. Groups of people staggered around and shouted or looked down on the scene from the sloping roofs of the school. A guy with a shaved head
and a vodka bottle keeled over into the fire, sending up a great splash of sparks. His friends pulled him out and he lurched off again, smouldering. Someone leant over the bonfire and was sick.
    Carlton and I lost sight of Steranko. Around another corner we found the entrance to one of the buildings and tried to get in but there was a huge scrum at the door. A great crush of people were
trying to enter and as many were trying to leave. The more eagerly people tried to get out the more frenzied others became in their attempts to get in, like passengers on the
Titanic
rushing at a cruel mirror.
    ‘Watch the fucking dog!’ someone shouted. Carlton and I were in the middle, getting crushed from all sides. A foot from my face I saw the huge head of a dog, cradled against
someone’s chest, salivating and barking, frightened eyes shining red, tongue lolling. Someone screamed. Further on, in the swirling lights of the hall itself, it was just as crowded. The air
was scorching hot. There was no music, only amplified noise echoing and thumping as if it was trying to get free of the hall by