I BOUGHT A GIANT, SEVEN-FOOT-TALL space rocket in a second-hand shop on Liverpool's Renshaw Street and tin plated it for the band's album release party. I put a light inside and I made some transparencies of portraits of Tommy, Jamie and Franny from the band and fixed them inside each of the rocket's three portholes to make them look like they were travelling in space. I also made signs for the different rooms in the club, including the Disco Dolly room, from which I hung about twenty tin catering cans which housed different coloured lights. I was really pleased with the way it looked and couldn't wait to see it on the night of the Tin Planet official launch.

I didn't miss living in London, but still enjoyed the opportunity of checking things out in the capital and this trip was no exception. I took a walk through Covent Garden to Leicester Square and Chinatown. From there, I caught a bus to Brixton to buy some sardine tins for sculpting purposes (a different exotic purchase from my previous trips to Brixton!) and whiled away an enjoyable evening with my sister Ros and her partner Ben.

Back home in Liverpool a few days later, I put on ITV to catch the design segment of This Morning to find I was watching myself. It was part of a series they were doing called ‘By Design’, and in the feature I'd been filmed collecting my source material from the back of Quiggins, then making a space car with a motor from a whisk at the back.

This edition of This Morning coincided with the release of Space's single ‘Avenging Angel’ (this was plugged at the end of the feature), so both Gut Records and Space got some extra coverage off the back of it, which was fine by me. Four million people had just tuned in to watch me making a space car from a tin can tea caddy and an egg whisk!

In March I spent the whole day on an animated TV advert for the album, arriving very early at a studio in Soho and working on creating the set for the Tin Planet cityscape. After an hour of looking through the Mitchell 35mm camera, I could see a cityscape I had made from silver cheese graters, bread tins, cans and kitchen utensils and it looked beautiful all lit up.