“For the Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’’ song we recorded Akon’s bridge while on the highway, traveling about 90 miles an hour. The studio is on the back of the bus, which is the most violent part and shakes the most, so you are swinging back and forth and have to find a way to stabilise yourself! Akon would sit in a chair a certain way and brace himself by holding onto the mic stand. I’d be holding onto the desk with one hand so I didn’t swing out of my chair and cutting vocals with the other. It took a fair amount of effort to finish that recording.”

“Akon’s vocal, for example, is very dynamic, but I try to keep it that way. I don’t like to see my compressor needle move very much unless he’s yelling or doing something that’s just very obnoxiously loud. When I am recording I like to capture that image as it is and then, later, if the mix calls for compression, I use it. But I think it is better to keep things how they were intended and performed and let the mix dictate how it’s supposed to sound.”

“It is what you call an inverted microscope. With normal microscopes the lens is face down and the optical tube is just a straight path above. So you’ve got the lens at the bottom looking down on the specimen, and 160mm above that you have the eyepiece. That has been standard, really, since Leeuwenhoek designed his microscope. The standard design also has a table, or stage, beneath the optical tube, but because ours is an upside-down microscope and all the optics are underneath, our stage is totally uncluttered and has very little above it.”

“So you might have a rubber seal that keeps the brake fluid out at room temperature, but when the temperature drops down to minus 20 it starts to harden and may not recover its form. You can have other materials that can handle the temperature change but just can’t cope with hydraulic fluid, so you run round and round in circles with these conflicting requirements, and eventually you discover that there is only one material in the world and only one process that can do all that, and you have to go with it. You just have no choices like you would with an ordinary product.”

But still that is not all, for there is the matter of the old boiler and radiators. Assuming their precious parts are not going to end up dumped in landfill sites, they will need to be recycled before the material are ready for action again. In this process they have to be transported, disassembled, sorted, cleaned, melted and so on, all of which involves yet more machines and produces quite a lot of waste, in terms of polluted water and chemicals (paints and grease has to be removed somehow) not mention the fuel usage of the equipment used to do that.

“We’ve got the perfect person,” she insisted.

Well, this sounded very promising. I wondered if it would be a woman with direct experience of eating disorders, or at the very least someone with an interest in mental illness. Maybe someone living close by so that we could get the writing process underway as soon as possible and hit the incredibly tight deadline. Or even someone like me, brought up in the outer suburbs of London and with an understanding of the common vernacular, humour and way of life in such a place.

“He’s an American, an expert in cults and he lives in Paris,” said the editor enthusiastically.

I was already deeply doubtful about the morals of exposing my parents and friends in a book, and felt that I could only go on if it was to be fair and honest. Faced with text that was full of exaggerations and untruths, I suddenly realised Tom had been right: by permitting lies to be part of the text, I was making a mockery of the truth of my story. The prize, rather than being rewarding and enjoyable, was turning into a nightmare.

I grew up in a sect that dictated everything that I did, right down to the exact nature of the clothes I wore and the people I associated with. Its rules were considered divine in origin and beyond question, and if I broke them I would be kicked out. This was the abnormal upbringing the publishers wanted to sensationalise. Yet I found myself in a situation in which the publishers and the television production team were presenting me with their own strict set of rules dictating who I could speak to about the book, how it should be written, what my written voice should sound like, how I should react when receiving my first copy and even the outcome of my story itself. When I challenged these rules, just like the Brethren would have done, the publishers and television producers closed ranks and effectively kicked me out of their circle, the one which they had been so desperate to welcome me into when they believed I would be compliant with their formula for success.

“As we were making the record, the Glider and Tremolo EPs came out and the band was getting bigger and bigger. Everyone was massively influenced by the previous record, so their reputations and their cool points were going up through the roof. You could feel that, but you also felt the pressure and expectation. When Loveless came out you couldn’t read a review that didn’t go on about how long it took to make. Everyone was saying, ‘Why did it take so long?’, but the important thing is the quality of the record.”

This issue’s cartoon is The Painter.

“The idea this time, on my part at least, was to place the work in a location that would incorporate the photographer’s associations and my ideas on how the object’s apparent meaning could be transformed by its location. I set up a meeting with the head of the city’s cathedral, who turned out to be a very ancient but affable chap, and got permission to install the sculpture in the cathedral cloister. Papers and agreements were signed, a date was set and I managed to enlist my friendly truck driver into helping out once again.”

“The key to my success in Speyer was using found materials. By using local objects I was able to make the work relevant to the city in which it was being exhibited. In a way, I was responding to the environment, and its always good to be able to do that.”

“This sculpture looks a little like a carriage. It has a book shelf at the back, an old leather suitcase on top and various fragments of houses. It is called Down to Earth, because although it stands on a fake marbled plinth, it still has one foot on the ground.”

“I found a window in a skip and thought it was a shame to waste it, so I created a wall fragment for it. It probably should have been made of brick!”

He would leave the hole and walk. Maybe he could escape? Perhaps he could leave and move far away, without friends or family? He didn’t deserve ever to see them again and certainly wouldn’t be able to look them in the eye if he did. He could just rot away amongst other horrible people and enjoy the depravity of the community. They would all deserve one another.