Letting The Snakes Crinkle Their Heads to Death [by Joe Wilson]
	North America, Winter 2002 [by David Westlake]
	Huddled Masses [by David Westlake]
	Joe's German Diary [by Joe Wilson] Sunday 2nd December 2001 London And this is how it happens. Sneaker Pimps are going on a short promotional development around Germany. We meet at our studio to find our new bus for the experience. I get on and recognize nobody. "Is this the Sneaker bus?" I ask. "It could be" replies the driver. It is terrible, decorated in a car crash fashion. It resembles a collision between a cheap Los Angels hotel and a "world of leather" sofa. It is pink, grey and baby puke yellow. This would probably suit Liam as he is not with us but with his newborn daughter, who I imagine is also producing garish coloured fluids. We have a replacement for Liam who is called Chris, who has managed somehow to train himself up to the dizzy heights of talent that are required to bang a ham fist onto a keyboard once or twice every thirty seconds. He is not the only new face, we have a different crew and this invariable requires a period of readjustment. The singer is ill and is protecting his voice. This means that all communication is held through the medium of the scribbled word. I cant help but enjoy the mischief of intentionally misreading his writing, but somehow through this barrier I do learn that horse chestnuts are different from the chestnuts you eat or the other way round. The bus drives off to Dover and to the crappy ferry that bobs around like an expectant bride waiting for her drunken bridegroom to return. I hate all boats. I think that you must be insane to become a sailor, to swan about while millions of poisonous gallons of sick blue soup swill beneath your eggshell thin hull. Any second the water will piece the metal and you will be drowning in a thousand years worth of other peoples piss. Having said that, this particular ferry was okay and the food was really nice. Monday 3rd December 01 Hamburg Wake on the bus outside a huge fun fair. There is also a giant sculpture of a bull outside the window. It is the same colour as the grey sky behind its horn. It is freezing. I quickly realise that I have bought insufficient clothing for this town. The sun visor hat was a pretty huge mistake for starters. It is no defence against the wind the blows down the Hamburg streets. We are to spend the day doing press. This opens with a photo session with a photographer who had been up for too long. He wraps myself, Chris and David in a duvet that matches the hotel curtains behind us. We become Cheshire cats, invisible except for hair and teeth. Next while Chris protects his voice and Chris (the Liam replacement, hereby referred to as Tate) manfully goes back to bed, we continue charming the pants off German journalists. We go to the venue, which seems good and more importantly possesses a giant Robert Louis Stephenson style top hat. Chris and me talk to German breakfast telly but they choose to edit my hilarious remarks and charming insights out of the broadcast. Gig was good and the bus rumbles onto Koln. Tuesday 4th December 01 Koln More hotel room press. Extremely good gig full of chuckles. Lots of messing about in hotel rooms like a proper band afterwards. Wednesday 5th December 01 Travel A day spent in transit as the bus will take one thousand hours to travel from Koln to Berlin. The bus is falling around our ears, a constant stream of shit, a constant channel of fluff, a constant buzz of diarrhoea. I am absolutely consumed with self-disgust. And contempt for everything. Still mustn¹t grumble. Thursday 6th December 01 Berlin I love Berlin. The gig is in an old East German border guard station. The dressing room is stuffed with sado masochistic paraphernalia and on a more domestic note, recently painted gas pipes. The combination of heady fumes and heady leather bonds makes an exotic recipe of musical gas. During the gig I nonchalantly lean on what I think is a solid dj booth, only to find it is a mobile disco that gently rolls into the crowd. I think nobody noticed. All is good, really.
	The Germ of Panic [by David Westlake]
	Clothes That Make You Cry [by Joe Wilson]
	Placebo Tour Diary [by Liam Howe]
	Shame [by David Westlake]
	Diary Abajo del Pueblos [by Joe Wilson]
	The Hum of Plastic [by Joe Wilson]
	What We Do [by David Westlake]