Just wrap your legs round these velvet rims

Back in 1990, around easter time, I had a really bizarre experience.

I was 15 and approaching my GCSEs. I went to a city in southern Germany called Heilbronn as part of the town exchange. I was one of the oldest as all the others were around 13 or 14 and I was one of only two blokes to go - the other 18 were girls.

The families who looked after us were great but the lads we all stayed with really took us under their wing. They figured we'd feel a bit left out so they put on their own entertainment. We'd be up til about 4am drinking all kinds of eastern european alcohol and playing poker, it was the first time I felt as if I was truly alive.

One particular night we'd been to a club and we all crashed back at one of the guys' houses, in his basement which was huge. There he cracked open the Chekoslovakian absinthe. The first time I'd ever tried it. This wasn't yer normal watered-down rubbish, this stuff was powerful enough to fuel the Luftwaffen. Green fairies?? Don't be daft, I WAS a green fairy when I was on that stuff. At 2am we had the bright idea of wandering down to central Heilbronn to see what larfs we could get up to.

We ended up being taken to this 'art erotique' club. I had no idea what to expect and to be honest, I was too bazooka'd out of my tree to care.

The best way to describe it was like a typical arty-farty art-house. Big open room, dark lighting, various odd sculptures dotted about the place. Here were a dozen well-lubricated and hallucinating 15 year old entering this establishment but something wasn't right and we couldn't work out what it was - ah yes, that was it. All the people (or to be more precise, all the women) were naked.

Slowly it dawned on us that the statues were not statues. They were women, offering to show us around the erotique paintings and sculptures.

Let me make this clear - this was not in any way seedy or filthy. It was definately art. But we were hormonally-charged 15 year olds so we failed to appreciate the cultural side of it but the women were so strict in their approach than none of us dared (or at least, as much absinthe-filled teenagers could) touch or look at any off-limits body parts. We didn't letch or leer - we were too shocked so we just pretended to admire the 'artwork'.

As we were being shown around, the background music was Enigma (they had a number one 17 years ago with "Sadeness Part one". We left about half an out later wondering what had just happened to us.

By this time it was starting to get light in the early-morning of Heilbronn. We all staggard home and had an intellectual discussion about the artistic merits of German culture whilst sipping cognac and puffing on expensive Cuban cigars.

Actually that bit didn't happen at all. We DID stagger home, projectile vomited all over some cars and slept in some bushes til 3pm.

I'm not proud of what happened, in fact it was pretty reckless and dangerous, but it happened.