2004 - Happy Flat - Zed

New Years Eve: After such an amazing Christmas, it was a double delight to have an equally fab New Years Eve. Sometimes NYE's can leave you feeling depressed, isolated, lost or alone. But this year was a wonderful reunion of good friends. Met Gurps this night, a new and close friend of Sonja and Zed - he's only 18/19 but very aware, funny and has a delightful cheeky streak.

2004 - Ms Fluffy

January: my final regular club night in Bristol had come to an end, Creation was closed down after a riot during New Year. Slinky was no more.

2004 - Wales

January: Jules birthday. Same isolated cottage we came to 2 years ago. In fact, last time I came here Jo and I were only friends - that was the night massive floods hit Wales, when Jo had to try and ford a burst river in her Yarris (the car lights died, the car started to drag and float off the flooded road, but amazingly the engine kept going and we got out of there and to the cottage).

This time there was heavy rain and a thunderstorm seemed to be trapped in the valley, thunder followed flashes of lightening in rapid succession. Very appropriate considering we were playing a murder mystery. Murder At Sharky Point. I'd written it for my sister and for Kelvin, a sort of combined birthday present. What started as a simple idea became a 110 page monster. This weekend was it's first test play. Went down very well. Couple of tweeks needed but the game, and the night itself was great fun.

Memory: waking up Saturday morning, staying behind as everyone else drove down to Hay-on-Wye, sitting on the low coffee table in front of the roaring log fire, supping coffee as the rain lashed the deep bay windows, reading through notes on corporate culture for Iron Man Project (planned novel).

2004 - Wales - Becky Blue Eyes, x, Oj

January: Becky sitting down. Steve's partner doing the blurry head thing. Oj washing up. Each morning had a deliciously lazy routine; people would wander down went they wanted to, make coffee, or tea, fry up some food, build a sandwich, read papers, books or write them.

2004 - Wales

January: It's not the Tongariro Crossing. There's no active volcanos next to you. But, it was a fun walk in the rain and we managed to get some height above the surrounding valleys.

2004 - coming back from Wales - Oj, Djr

January: I love this picture. Almost as if somebody had heard my nostalgic thoughts for Tongariro, the sun came out after the rain and brought this golden angelic light that was just the same as when I stood watching the sun setting over the roof of the world in Skotel, Whakkappa Village.

2004 - London - Blayze

January: Blayze works for a film-distribution company in London. I went to see Lost In Translation and was gutted when I found the soundtrack soldout; I was chuffed when she sent it to me from her stockpile of promos. The soundtrack subsequently became a soundtrack for some great memories (Game - Kelvin and Oj on a cold weekend).

I caught up with her in reality in Cafe Nero in Covent Gardens, (Millbank Tower re-install/2nd time I got to stay at cyber-palace hotel next door)

2004 - Weston Super Mare - Ms Fluffy

January: the end of Creation probably couldn't have come at a better time for Ms Fluffy, as she revealed she was rapidly heading towards burn out. So she was knocking everything on the head and going into retreat mode...

2004 - Bristol - Sara, Djr, Maxine

January: another end of an era. Sara is about to emigrate to Canada. I feel like I'm losing such a cool friend.

2004 - Bristol - Sara, Maxine

January

2004 - Bristol - Glen Comradski

February: Glen and I get in touch every few months in order to grab some sushi at Budokan.

2004 - Bristol - Jo Steel Monkey

February: through the Watershed crowd, and the interconnected nature of Bristol I start spending time with a small crowd...it's a bit boozey with fairly weak connections, but, out of the medley, I get to meet Jo who stands out from the crowd.

2004 - Reading - Natalia, Kelvin Sharky

February: it was Kelvin's birthday so Jo and I made the trip to Reading. Kelvin was living with his long-term g/f, a Spanish Catholic called Natalia. There was already a bit of friction between her and I ever since Kelvin tried introducing her to Game...

...Kelvin had turned up with Natalia at the Happy Flat, one Saturday morning and Natalia had assumed that Game lasted about 2 hours.

... 14 hours later, everyone is still sitting cramped but jacked up on adrenaline in the lounge of my flat, everyone except Natalia who is looking like she's chewing on a thistle.

Kelvin's birthday bash was a lot of fun, but when it came time to go to bed... Jo and I were okay to sleep on duvets on the floor... with a mega hangover already sweeping toward me, I discovered to my horror that the floors were heated.

The heat radiated up through the duvet, magnified... it was unbearable. I went around their kitchen flicking switches on the wall, trying to shut the unbearable heat off... but no good.

A few days later, they discover their freezer has defrosted because some idiot (me) had turned off the switch. So any slim chance that had existed of Natalia and I ever liking each other were now buried...forever.

2004 - Feb - View from the Happy Flat

Late Feb and the snow comes down big style. Lovely. Shame England falls apart because its infrastructure is so under-funded nobody can cope with a couple centimetres. God knows what'll happen when the power starts to run out and England becomes like Siberia because of Global Climate change.

Living in the Happy Flat is nicer than ever since Jo moved in. Not just her company and the routine we have built around ourselves. When Jo moved in she spent 2 weeks decorating the place. Suddenly it's a home.

2004 - CentreSpaceGallery / Bristol

March: Far right of picture - man with an interesting face - fire juggler. This was the night Pete arranged a poetry reading. Pete was jaw-dropping when he stood up on stage, grabbed the audience by thier throats just with a glance and made them pay attention, unfortunately Girl, Boy and Mohawk did not feel like being quiet ... this is the night of Karim and the Poetry Reading Bash.

Memory: the hair grabbing, the punch that smacks Karim's head off a wall. Me pulling girl off Karim. She's screaming...punching, kicking. Karim on the ground Mohawk kicking him. Dark times.

2004 - Bristol - Vega$

March: Matthias has settled into the swing of life in the Agency. He starts to experiment with photography in his spare time; he also meets a woman on-line, a voice-artist based in Bath. Tanya.

For me, life at the Agency was a mixed bag... the pilot Virtual Communications project had been a success and we'd scored the funding from senior managers to write a full-blown business case for a major rollout across the entire Agency. However, the IT division, to which my team belonged, was going through a restructuring programme... this mainly affected the larger more generic teams, like helpdesk, which was going to be moving to a 1st line, 2nd line and 3rd support structure. My team and I were a sort of specialised unit, bolted onto the edge of the IT division... but I was still being asked to write a CV, submit preferred choices for new job roles...

...roles which had nothing to do with videoconferencing or virtual communications?! I asked for clarification but I was assured that it was simply a formality that everyone in the IT division was being asked to go through.

2004 - Bristol - Oj

Budokan: It was a night at Budokan with Kelvin and the recently returned Jules Ms Scarlett. The relationship is solid. I am madly in love with Jo and adore everything about living with her. It's frustrating that we seem to have missed the boat in the property market. Prices in Bristol have rocketed and I doubt we can even afford to jump onto the bottom rung of the ladder. Luckily the Happy Flat is a delightful (and cheap) location to save money and wait for the right opportunity. But recently, I've started to feel like Bristol is not where I want to live anymore. The City has been good to me but I'm finding cities full stop more and more intolerable. Give me countryside. Give me an ocean view. And get me away from the mundane droves of humanity who define thier lives through how cool thier phone/ringtone is.

2004 - Joe Cubas Cafe / Bristol - David M

One half of those Crazy Frenchmen I met back in '96. I've not seen David for a couple of years. He's totally changed since the days I knew him then. Meeting him through chance this day, he was cold, distant, almost rude.

2004 - Bristol - Mr Kobiyashi, James Mad Biologist

Around Dec '03, I start visiting the Watershed like old days. One night in Dec I met up with James Mad Biologist to catch up and float some ideas I've been researching for the new novel (Gene Twister drug - human genome - immunology - retroviruses and recombinant dna). He's been working on the story idea I gave him (Particle Storm) to convert it into a treatment for his contacts in LA. He went through some of the concepts he wanted to expand - impressive.

Meanwhile, there's a guy sharing our table, wondering if we were both a couple of mad scientists. Nope. Only one mad scientist. We got chatting, his name's Karim, and he's a film maker/director. He's just spent 7 years putting together a project and he's living in Bristol to escape/get distance and perspective from it - currently getting mashed in a punk band and delivering flowers. A character.

I left him and James to the heavy drinking that was bound to develop. Got a phone call/text message from both of them next day. 4AM they both found themselves on a private boat/club moored in Bristol harbourside, James, ever the extrovert, dancing cheek to cheek with a Hells Angel, before being removed by security.

Karim's words to me about the incident were: "I've realised that Jim Morrison didn't die, he's pretending to be a Canadian called James."

Karim is fast becoming a friend above the usual casual and frequent encounters I have. He's a diamond talent with writing and has helped to sharpen the focus of my own work considerably. Very good and wide ranging conversations. However my alcohol intake has rocketted since our regular get togethers, especially the whole Watershed Monday Crowd thing.

2004 - Arnos Vale Cemetary / Bristol

I'd not been back here since 2000. It's been cleaned up and cleared up a lot since then. Found a lot of new pathways and an eerie new walk that took me right up to the derelict caretaker house at the top. This grave actually disturbed me because of the mad way the tree root has wrapped itself around the headstone, again and again, as if it was choking the life out of the stone...

2004 - Bristol - Gregg, Jenny The Park

March: Play Night @ The Level.

Jenny The Park makes a trip across from London. I get to meet Tom again, now called Uncle Tom, for looking after us very well, and Magdelena the French girl who turned into a fab nutter (spy girl on the staircase). Since Creation/Slinky got closed down I've not felt inspired to go clubbing anywhere in Bristol but this night was a good one. Very bouncy upstairs and some old classics downstairs. Nice chill out and 20 cups of tea back at Uncle Toms. Next day was me sleeping on duvets on floor, taking it easy, watching Lawrence of Arabia.

2004 - Bristol - Jenny The Park, Magdelena

March: Play Night @ The Level.

2004 - Bristol - Djr, Magdelena

March: Play Night @ The Level.

2004 - Happy Flat - Oj