ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my editor, John Jarrold, and my agent, John Parker, both of whom have, I'm certain, received training in Jedi disciplines of patience. Om, guys! And to artist Steve Stone who makes sense out of my semibaked ideas.
To Dave Wingrove, whose steadfast encouragement and sheer talent is an endless source of inspiration.
To Michelle 'Cuddles' Drayton-Harold, whose wizard typing saved me a lot of time and stress (!), and to Ian Murray who provided the laptop at Easter. Yir a gent!
To Eric Brown, Bill King, Keith Brooke and Ian Mcdonald, whose friendship and kind words have meant such a lot over the years.
To my fellow colleagues at Vertex - there are so many of you that if I mention a few I'll offend the rest, so I'll just say hey, guys! - we're moving forward, right?
To those brave souls who helped out on this year's Mike Cobley House Move (10th Anniversary Tour) - Craig, Dave, Martin, Derek, Anne, Elsie, and Mr Salvation Army Guy!
To El Sloano and Tom, masterminds behind the Freedom Collective. To Graeme Fleming, Paisley's Prince of Prog, and to Ronnie and Katie, Ian Smith, headbangers Adrian and Spencer, and the BOC UK Online guys, Steve, Eric, Phil, Trevor, all the Andrews, Simon, and Paul fra' Yorkshire, as well as our Yankee brothers and sisters (hey there, LD, Zibe, Alma et al!)
To Michael Moore and Mark Thomas, who are saying what needs to be said.
And to the bands whose music has provided the soundtrack for months of toil - the inimitable Blue Oyster Cult, the very wonderful ARK, Pallas, Porcupine Tree, Parallel Or 90 Degrees, the awesome Nevermore, Symphony X, Mostly Autumn, Queensryche, Nightwish, RATM, Liszt, Mahler, Berlioz, Holst, Tomita, Prokofiev, Berg….and lots more.
And to all those who are wondering where the story can go from here - well, it ain't over till it's over!