The reason I ended up living in Thailand was that I was offered the job of founding editor of Bangkok’s first international-style city listings magazine by the City Media Ltd publisher John Twigg. That was on 21 March 1994. By 1 August 1994 our first issue was released, with a thousand listings about a city where information had been so hard to source that most residents were shocked that there was so much going on in the city. The Rolling Stone writer Jerry Hopkins wrote that he had never seen a magazine launch so fully formed.

I was Managing Editor and later Editorial Director until leaving in 2002. Metro then had several editors, including Howard Richardson, before ceasing publication in 2006. Its back issues form a unique social record of that formational period, at the height of Bangkok’s creative democratic era.

Metro published many scoops on topics that hadn’t been covered elsewhere, such as the underground rave music scene and the Indie arts movement. We had many columns including Thailand’s first LGBT events column in any language. Music columnists included Gene Kasidit and DJ Bee (Paul Hampshire) who both later formed the band Futon. Art columnists included the prominent figures Josef Ng, Steven Pettifor and Thanom Chapakdee. Among our interviews were the bands Radiohead, Shed Seven and Blur, the sports stars Tiger Woods, Paradorn Srichaphan and Tamarine Tanasugarn. Through my connection with Channel 4 Film, Metro created Thailand’s first British Film Festival, staged with the British Council. Mtro held the High Five food awards for several years and hosted themed annual parties that were major social events.