While chatting to some friends about alcohol and drinking, I told them what surprises most people - that I didn't drink that much while studying in London at all. I only really started drinking six months after I started work (there're not that many vices you can indulge in here to relieve stress) and I can even tell you the exact date(s) I began drinking so heavily.

It was either 16th September 2004 at the Forbidden City soft launch (free flow of champagne, didn't eat dinner) or 18th September 2004 at James Lavelle's wicked set at Zouk.

As I wasn't sure about the exact date of the FC soft launch, I went through my blog archives to see if I could confirm when it was. To my immense surprise, it turns out that I blogged about neither of these events, maybe due to the hangovers I was suffering during that week, or more likely, the amount of stress I was under due to work and my guy situation then (which was why I was drinking in the first place).

So here it is - the long overdue review of James Lavelle's set last year at Zouk... and also the occasion of my second Flaming Lamborghini ever (the first being at Judge Jules' set at Centro in November 2003). Thank goodness for my habit of e-mailing reviews to friends.

Lavelle opened the night with my favourite Unkle track, In A State (Sasha remix). I was incredibly happy when I heard it and was generally all over the place because he was playing the kind of music I really needed to hear at that point in time, including Smashing Pumpkins - 1979 (unknown remix), Nancy Sinatra - Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) and U2 - Where The Streets Have No Name (during the first encore). The entire set ended at 5.30 am.

If you're wondering why Lavelle's set at Zouk marked such an important milestone, it's because it was the first time I went clubbing with my colleagues (as two others were similarly working in the office that Saturday night) and the very next week was the first time I drank enough to not remember what happened. And after that, I ended up drinking and clubbing (mostly at Zouk) every single weekend until the end of November.