Dear everyone,

This will be the last newsletter - this year. I was going to do two (one in October and one in December) but as I will be so busy with the UK tour next month, I decided to do one in November instead.

The group are currently nearing the end of their second European tour this busy year. They started in Scandinavia about a week after they got back from the USA, and they only have a couple of days off at the end before they start over here in Newcastle on December 3rd. Hope we will see a lot of you at the shows - if you'd see me, come and introduce yourselves (my photo is in the tour programme, so you should hopefully be able to recognise me). I know that some of you who joined the mailing list after all tickets sold out won't be able to be there, but please be assured that this is not the group's last-ever tour (there seems to be a rumour going round that they are stopping touring).

Since I last wrote, the Straits have had a No. l LP for 9 weeks in the USA, and also a No. l single there with Money For Nothing, so it seems that at last they have really cracked America. The follow-up single there is Walk Of Life which has just come out and entered the charts at No. 40. The shows there went very well indeed and I know that a few of you went to the States to see them - hope you enjoyed yourselves. I went to the West Coast shows, and had a great time, starting off in LA and then going on to Santa Barbara and San Francisco. It wasn't much of a rest, as I was out all day with my boyfriend showing him round (he'd never been there before) and then very late nights at the gigs and eating out etc., but well worth it! Unfortunately I didn't manage to get to the New York shows - it was very busy here at the time, and Jean from the office wanted to go as she originally comes from there, so she went instead. I'm not going to be able to spare the time to go to any of the European shows either, except the last couple of dates in Paris at the end of the month. Then it's back to the UK, and I don't yet know which shows I'm going to, but I will probably be in Manchester on December 7th (at the Manchester United game in the afternoon and the gig in the evening) and obviously at all the London shows.

You may have seen a clip of the band playing Brothers In Arms on The Tube a couple of weeks back. Don't worry if you missed it as it will be on again. The Tube have at last got themselves together and told me that the Dire Straits In Israel footage will be screened on December 6th, and the Dire Straits At Wembley footage will be screened on December 27th. So - blank tapes at the ready! I hope neither of the dates is changed yet again and that there isn't a strike this time... You will have seen that the new single Brothers In Arms is in the charts and doing surprisingly well seeing as most Straits fans already have it on the LP. If you caught the video on Whistle Test let me know what you thought of it.

Some of you have been asking about sales figures on the LP: Well it has now done better than any of the group's previous LPs, with world-wide sales of over 8 million (3 million in the USA alone). I notice from my information sheets that it has even sold a few copies in Bogota, where I didn't even know it was released - you learn something new every day!!! Gold and platinum discs have been arriving at the office from all round the world, and in the next newsletter (end of January) I will be running a competition to win one. I haven't thought of what questions to ask yet, but they will be fairly simple. Hopefully by that time I will also have some new photos done. I would have liked to let everyone on the mailing list have autographed photos in time for Xmas, but as I am sure you understand, when the group are touring so heavily, the thought of having to sign several thousand photos in their spare time wasn't very appealing! Instead, they all signed one bit of paper and I have made a copy for everyone - hope you like it.

As you will see below, we are doing a Christmas draw. I have a pair of tickets to see the group in Deeside on December 11th, a pair of tickets to see them in London on December 21st, and a pair of tickets to see them in Edinburgh on December 29th. I hope to be able to include backstage passes as well, so the winners can meet the group, but I'll have to check with them first to make sure it's OK. I'm sure it will be... If you're not lucky in the draw, at least you'll have the chance of winning the disc next year, and there will also be some prizes for the runners-up in the competition (I haven't thought of what they'll be yet though).

Anyway, that's about it for now. Thanks for your support throughout the year, Early best wishes for Christmas from me, everyone else at Damage and all the band!