Just as I, too, found myself tilting my head in the direction of editors who occasionally commissioned me. As someone memorably noted, freelancers (whether they be journalists, novelists, playwrights, film makers or folks who think up jingles) live off the slack of the metropolitan economy. Which meant that Michael - as someone who could commission work, help pay a few of your bills, and inch your public profile a little forward - received a considerable number of nods. Copywriters and commercials directors would nod towards ad agency bosses Actors towards producers Writers towards editors. It also afforded you a perch from which to see everyone engage in a reflex action which could best be described as the "Groucho glance" - a fast, upward craning of the neck whenever a club member marched through the door, followed by an immediate downward glance if the individual wasn't notable, or wasn't someone you should be making eye-contact with."Quite a crowd," I said, ordering a drink."The usual suspects," Michael replied, returning the nod of a glitzy war correspondent who was often referred to as "I, Bosnia" behind her back.The "acknowledging nod" was another commonplace Groucho reflex. Especially as midnight approached."Gang's all here," Michael said, as I joined him at the bar a few months back. He was balanced on a stool, sipping the first martini of the evening, staring out at the throng scattered around the main lounge.

The bar was actually the best vantage point to observe the after-work action unfold. And every time I met Michael there, usually once every eight weeks or so, I found myself thinking: the Groucho isn't merely a club; it's a form of validation.But I also knew that, if you rode the evening out, staying on way after the early evening schmooze hour, the going could get a little weird, a little morose. Walking into its main lounge was often like entering one of those importance-of-being-fabulous stories which Vanity Fair always runs, and which reads like a name-dropper's notebook Very everybody who's anybody Very sweet smell of success. That, verily, you belonged.After all, the Groucho is also a serious arena of commerce where deals are hammered out, professional alliances forged, ideas marketed.

Membership implied that you counted for something in the metropolitan pecking order; that you dwelled amidst the great-and-the-good of the literary and entertainment worlds. Almost, in fact, a need.Indeed, for Michael - and for so many other members of that small internecine village called Media London - the Groucho wasn't simply a Soho hangout; it was an outer office where the literary and tele/visual worlds converged to do business, to network, to trade rumours and scandal. But, during our six years of friendship, what often fascinated me most about Michael (something that none of the postmortem editorials and think-pieces touched upon) was the way in which the Groucho had become something of a non-stop habit for him. And Michael also delighted in the Groucho Club - not simply because it was undoubtedly the best arena for media gossip in London, but also because it was a stage upon which he could act out his persona as an expatriate Falstaff: a corpulent, larger-than-life Chicago showman with enormous appetites and a penchant for mischief. Of course, when he died in late August (of an accidental drug overdose), innumerable column inches were spent dissecting his "life in the fast lane", and his self-destructive underside. As editor of GQ ("the men's magazine with an IQ" to quote his catchphrase), it was an intrinsic component of his work. He was right, for 7pm was the hour when the bar of the Groucho Club was packed And when the schmooze factor was at its apex Michael VerMeulen loved the buzz, the schmooze.

"No," she laughs, "that's made from two broom handles I found sticking out of a skip one day, I promise.". We'd always arrange to meet around seven "Best time to ride the buzz," Michael would always say. "My mother saves them up and sends them to me." In her workroom, there is a canopy made of muslin, draped over two gold poles to hang over a bed Th e materials for it were shop-bought, surely. "It's actually the inside of cigarette packets," Pillman smiles. The frames for the lampshades (pictured above) are made of chicken wire swathed in floaty chiffon in muted shades or translucent muslin. The legs of a tiny footstool, made from bits of skip wood, a re apparently decorated with gold paint.

It took quite a fewof u s to lift it into the car but I was determined to take it home." Pillman, a decorative furniture designer, has turned this uninspiring reject into a fine-looking wardrobe, adding doors made out of discarded wood panels inlaid with fabric and chickenwire found in skips, with a piece of driftwood for a handle. I found a large packing case about four-foot tall near Shepherd's Bush market a few months ago. Ne esham also makes greetings cards and boxes which open up to reveal a small doll repainted and dressed, with a message in beads or lentils. Jeanette Marie Pillman "There's lots of building work going on in west London at the moment," says Jeanette Marie Pillman, "and I keep finding stuff to use. Discarded bicycle helmets provided the base, which he built up with driftwood and plywood and bits of old fabric twisted and stuck on to chicken-wire frames. He is currently making three hat stands consisting of ornate crowns made of wood, wire, red velvet scraps and fake fur.