Neil plays in a group in Newcastle called Dust: Their most popular song is a preposterous affair he has written called “Can you hear the dawn break?”. They are heavily influenced by The Incredible String Band. “We were convinced we would become terribly famous. It was a very kind of stoned seventies but we used to think it was absolutely brilliant at the time”.
The Boys learn of the death of Princess Diana under very different circumstances. Neil is at home when he turns on the radio and hears the news, while Chris finds out mid-route to Ibiza for vacation.
Chris and Neil visit the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.
The issue of The New Yorker bearing this date on its cover includes in its ‘Critic’s Notebook’ section a brief but glowing article by Sasha Frere-Jones promoting the Pet Shop Boys’ upcoming dates at the city’s Hammerstein Ballroom. The writer describes them as an ‘utterly brilliant dance-music duo… [who] are part of a great tradition of slipping intense emotions into an envelope of wit that runs straight from Oscar Wilde to Noel Coward to the Boys.’
‘Love Is a Bourgeois Construct’ is released as a single via digital bundle in Germany and several other countries in continental Europe. (It will be released in the U.K. the following day and several days later in the U.S.)
The Pet Shop Boys perform at the Bingley (U.K.) Music Live Festival.