Thatcher has just gone and Arch goes out to party with his Moseley mates. There he meets the poetic Vee who he ends up spending the night with. Arch is used to getting by between dole cheques and smoking skunk, whereas for Vee life is more than this. Then Vee disappears and over the next year, Arch only has the occasional postcard from Bosnia, though she leaves a lasting impression on him as he rises her to her challenge to throw himself into the world and its possibilities. He gets involved with the techno festival scene and its vibrant underculture of doing your own thing, coming together, being creative, playing music and reclaiming the common land for travelling, partying and living. What follows are parties in disused properties and landmark road protests and other demonstrations including Twyford Down and anti-Criminal Justice Bill marches which I too was involved with, if very peripherally. Then Vee returns and becomes involved in the direct action and gets deep and meaningful with Arch. But what does she really make of the change in Arch? And what of her work in Bosnia? Why is she so enigmatic?The writing is rich with the slang and expressions of the time many of which have filtered into everyday parlance: chill out, keep it fluffy, ambient music etc.This is a vitally important and well-written book with plenty of wit, and just as relevant now with sinister developments in government, oppression of opposition, and suppression of news coverage or misrepresentation of news on a far wider scale. They thought they were changing the world, but the sinister grey men are back in power with knobs on.
