1995 - The Happy Flat - x, Djr

September: my PA assignment came to an end so I picked up a contract working for a major utility supplier. I worked in a team known as the Bureau, and involved talking to Jo Public quite a lot. This led to some pent up tension and frustration, and more often than not you got to talk to some pretty stupid people... so I did a little poster for some of the guys on the Bureau:

NO MORE MR NICE GUY

1995 - Ying Yang House - Matthias P

Matthias followed suit and chopped off all his hair, but instead of "going all the way" down to a #1 or something decent, he ended up with this really bad 80's hair-cut that just looked terrible.

1995 - Ying Yang House - Duggy

Duggy was Matthias' cat and was a cool little soul. He used to shimmy along the windowsill, outside the house, holding on by his front paws with his body hanging down like a strange pendulum as he edged closer and closer to the point where he could let go with one paw (leaving him hanging by just one) to reach up and tug the bottom of the ajar window to pull it open, and then haul himself up and through. Quite incredible to witness.

1995 - Ying Yang House

Matthias' place was full of bizarre objects. He'd made this lifesize skeleton himself, then hung it from the cieling and threaded flashing christmas lights through all the bones.

In the kitchen was a very cool NIN poster of Trent Reznor in concert - it was Matthias' pride and joy. One morning he came bounding up into the Happy Flat to challenge me about the damage to the poster. Eh? What? I went downstairs with him and inspected the damage - sure enough, part of the bottom left corner was...missing.

Over the next few days, more and more of the poster began to vanish. So Matthias camped out in his kitchen one night and found the culprit. His kitchen door was a shoddy bit of rain-swollen wood... with a large gap along the bottom edge. A slug had been coming in every night, climbing up the wall and munching on his favourite poster.

1995 - Ying Yang House - Matthias P

September: Matthias spent the summer evenings of 1995 working in a kebab shop down the road. It was a sweltering summer and Matthias has grim memories of standing in front of the kebab grill serving heavily-accented Bristolians who stumbled across the road from the Sandringham Pub every few minutes.

We had watched our way through all of Twin Peaks and were now hiring Star Trek - next Gen, and Voyager. I was still necking horlicks at the end of every night and falling asleep as I trudged upstairs.

1995 - Ying Yang House - Sky

September: One very good thing did come from Matthias working at the kebab shop. Sky is the precursor to a wonderful friendship... Sky was young, precocious and full of brio, but he saw something in the sardonic and yet spiritual Matthias that caused them to form a bond. Sky would come round some evenings and talk...a lot... usually talking AT us rather than with us. It took a while, but eventually he chilled his ego slightly and became more enjoyable company.

1995 - The Happy Flat - Djr

I died my hair turquoise; which took my bosses at the Bureua a little by surprise.

It's around now, as the temperatures started to drop and the dark nights came in earlier that I remember going to bed early... cosey on my double-matress that was snugly squeezed between two walls of the tiny room... a little lamp on the floor beside me, reading through George Orwell 1984 for the first time, and then Aldous Huxley - Brave New World. I was deeply inspire by both of these books.

1995 - Ying Yang House - Matthias P, Djr

October: Matthias never had much money at this point in his life, and most of any money he did have went up in smoke, feeding his nicotine habbit. The primary consequence of this was he and I almost never went out anywhere.

One night I died my hair orange, then Matthias and I went to a punk night down in Bristol city centre.

1995 - Happy Flat, Djr & Cafe Blue Crew

October: Simon and I were in town one day looking for a place to have coffee, we discovered a new cafe called Cafe Blue, in what was the old firestation. We were some of the first customers...behind the counter were several friendly souls with not much to keep them occupied. I started going there on a regular basis, supping coffee and making notes with pen and paper.

They all came back to the Happy Flat one night and I cooked them dinner. One of the girls, the one in the middle, was called Michelle... I called her Michelle Blue Nails because she tended to wear an electric blue polish... she became a fun party friend.

1995 - The Happy Flat - Djr, Helen Jenk1ns.

October: Lakota was still an awesome clubbing venue and I was going there every Saturday with a passion. I usually headed down there on my own, necking several large mugs of coffee and a couple of snickers bars before grabbing the #1 bus into town, walking through the bear-pit into Stokes Croft, and getting the pulse of excitement as I heard the sub-bass rumbling the air on my approach...and seeing the massive queues stretching from the door, along the wall and round the corner. These are the days of Tyrone, on the door, weaing a silver quilted puffer-jacket and shouting at people in the Queue with a megaphone.

One night I was on the dancefloor when the DJ mixed-in BIG LIFE by Inner City. I was taken back to 1988/89, shouted with joy and gave everyone around me a wide smile. That's when I met Kate, smiling back at me. Kate introduced me to her sister Helen.

Helen was the matriarchal head of the what I affectionately came to call "The Jenk1ns Corporation." A group of clubbers who revolved around Helen and Kate, with some awesome after-parties back at Helen's pad in Clifton.

Helen rapidly became an important and intimate friend, incredibly confident and a social engine.

It was around now that the sun-baked autumn was fading into my first winter in the Happy Flat; it was now that I discovered how unbelievably cold my place could get.

The first night Helen came round to the Happy Flat the power had gone... there were no lights, and I couldn't put life support on. So I grabbed a torch from downstairs and gave her a tour, both of us shivering and our breaths pluming in the narrow beam of light. It must have been like going to the set of a horror film, for her. This was the night we bailed back to her pad, big fire roaring and a rug on the floor.

1995 - Oli Condominium - Helen Jenk1ns, Steve

November: by getting to know Helen I got to party with the Jenk1ns Corporation. Francis, Oli and Steve were several of the key members of this ensemble.

1995 - Bristol - Djr, Jules Ms Scarlet

October: I think 1995 was the key year for SPANK and the current gang. This was a fetish halloween night.

1995 - The Ying Yang House - Matthias P

November: Matthias would spend some of his spare time making things out of femo or clay. It's around now that he started working on his Droidlock hat. He'd already created and sold a number of Umpsquamadic Peeks, slightly Cthulhoid looking creatures that he sometimes encountered in dreams. It wasn't until several years later that I learned he used fresh eggs as a basic "foundation" for the ellipsoid shapes of the creatures...he just covered them in clay, added some tentacles, let it dry, painted them and sold them. I thought, Christ, what happens to any of the poor buggers who've bought these things and who accidently break one...imagine what they'll find inside. *shudders*

1995 - Bristol - Mick T

November: nearly a year since I first met Mick (and Simon), a whole load of us headed to a off-road buggy track. The buggy's had huuuge engines that propelled you along at 80mph.

Mick managed to mess up a turn after coming out of a massive jump: we watched in horror as his buggy toppled over the edge of a ridge and tumbled again and again down a steep slope. He finally came to a halt amongst a row of bushes but he was stuck because the buggy was at risk of tumbling the rest of the way down; we ran over to help him but all I could do was take this photo. Luckily he was unharmed but for a few bruises and scratches....and a dented pride.

1995 - The Happy Flat - Nice Guy Tony

December: Two very important things in my life came out of my time working at the Bureau. One of them is this guy, Nice Guy Tony.

He was 18 and his mother was my boss; she introduced us, realising I was into these odd role-playing games as he was. Tony and I really hit off, instant friends, he was (and still is) a geuinely lovely bloke.

Tony was there at the Happy Flat at 2 A.M when we decided it would be cool to watch a video, except I didn't have a TV, or a video player, so Tony drove me to the nearby 24hr TESCO and I bought a TV and video player...fantastic.

1995 - The Happy Flat - Mick T

December: Mick finally finished working in the call centre where I'd met him the previous year; so I suggested he come work with me at the Bureau and that's just what he did.

1995 - The Happy Flat - Simon P

December: like with Mick T, I known Simon P for over a year now and the friendship had flourished and deepened into something I'd never known before. Simon P, Mick T, Matthias P, Nice Guy Tony... these were not childhood school chums who had lingered on into adult days... they represented everything that true friends should be.

1995 - The Happy Flat - Djr

December: give me your money.

It is around now that I got my first PC, through a colleague on the Bureau... it was a 486, and I loved it. Got laser-printer (a monstrous lump of machinery). Got a new stereo, a squat black thing with amaaaaazing speakers that created a breeze when you cranked up the bass. (Floppy Sounds: Downtime).

The front room of the Happy Flat was still blissfully spartan, just the big armchair, some books, and now the TV on a small wooden chair with the video beneath it. I recall one night sitting there alone, watching the end of some film with Harvey Kietel, with Bjork singing the end credits...and I felt a wave of incredible happiness and positivity. Life was REALLY good.

1995 - Bristol (at the Bureau) - Ian Blackburn

December: Ian was one of those highly energetic bundles of fun who just make you smile at work. He was a great laugh. Especially good sport at the elastic-rubber band fights that used to take place.

1995 - Newcastle - Dad, Djr

Christmas: I did the 9 hour National Express Coach ride home to Newcastle, via Digbeth in Birmingham (and for me, via the Tunnels and Starships RPG game store).

Dad met me at Newcastle and drove me home. I noticed he wasn't able to walk as fast as he used to.

1995 - Newcastle - Diane, Djr

Christmas: I knew Diane briefly during my stay in Newcastle.

1995 - Newcastle - Eve, Djr

Christmas: Eve was a regular compatriot on nights-out in Newcastle.

1995 - Newcastle - Paige L

It was one night whilst I was out with Eve and Yazmoxx that I got chatting with this tiny girl from Singapore. Enter Paige L into my life. She was living in student halls, near to the City Hall.

Paige was insane, in a good way. Take the explosive blast from a thousand sticks of dynamite, some crazy humour and a demonic sexual appetite and compress it all into a four-foot minx and you've got a close aproximation to an encounter with Paige L. She promised to come visit me in Bristol.

1995 - Bristol - Djr

December: it was a couple days before the end of the year and I was back from Newcastle. I felt on top of the world. I could never had even dreamed how much better things were going to get.

It was around now that I went clubbing at Lakota and "fell in love" with a woman I didn't meet. It was near the end of the night, and I had come walking into the main room from upstairs and just saw her, there on her own, on the dancefloor. She had long black extensions, a short black rubber skirt and black rubber top... and she was just dancing, lost in the music with a wistful smile on her lips...ignoring the gaggle of men around her...

... I was smitten, and I was speachless, shaken, powerless... I just watched her dance. My friend, Lena, came over and saw me, saw who I was gazing at and she laughed, nudged me and said "go on!".

The music stopped, the lights flared up, and people started leaving. A few minutes later I was outside, leaving with Lena, when I saw the woman again... leaving on her own... she stood a few moments by the side of the road... Lena nudged me again and said "Go on, go over and talk to her"

... I couldn't. And then a taxi pulled up, she climbed in, and she was gone.

Except... a couple days later... (now Jan 1996)... I leave work (Bureau) later than usual and find myself waiting for the bus to take me into town, where I normally picked up the #1 bus back to Brislington.

Getting onto the crowded bus I'm scanning for an empty seat when I find myself staring at the girl from the club. There's somebody behind me so I'm already walking... there's an empty seat beside the girl... she glances at me and smiles and shifts over a little bit as if making more room for me to sit down... I float into the seat beside her... and we start talking... and laughing... and joking, and it's like we already know each other. I tell her I saw her at Lakota a couple nights earlier and had really wanted to chat to her; she told me it was a good thing I didn't, as she was totally fkced off with blokes stopping her dancing every few minutes to "chat" to her.

The bus arrives in town, and it's my stop; she's staying on the bus which will take her to Clifton... there's a moment of hesitation... it's like, do I suggest I stay with her... and is she thinking the same thing? But instead I get up and say I'll look out for her at Lakota next time... she nods enthusiastically and says the same. I fail to even get her number. I get off the bus, and kick myself all the way home. In my diaries and day dreams, she becomes The Girl On The Bus.