2000 - The Happy Flat- Sonja, Djr, Ramona

January: Ramona came over to Bristol twice in 6 weeks. It was almost a relationship, but I'd made it clear that I wasn't interested in being tied down into any serious. Ramona accepted this.

I think maybe I was still licking my wounds from Michelle, or maybe it was something else... I don't know.

Ramona's visits to Bristol resulted in her meeting Sonja and Zed, and so came to share and become part of these great friendships.

2000 - Hacyon Hotel - Skye

Zed's brother, Skye, was getting married to his long term g/f Paula . His stag night involsved renting the penthouse suite at the Halcyon (same place Liam Gallagher and Patsy Kensit spent a few nights), and carrying in several crates of bubbly. Sadly, when we arrived, the hotel were unable to provide Skye with the Penthouse as 'another guest has it and does not want to leave'; Skye started giving the manager verbal, meanwhile I spied Jimmy Nail lurking! I smiled. Jimmy smiled. Skye ranted. Skye got another room (penthouse...ish!) on comp.

My brain got trashed this night.

2000 - Zed, Djr

Zed decided to shave my chest. I thought it would be a fun thing to do at the time. Zed spent 30 minutes shaving....then spent an hour plucking the hairs from my nipples. I screamed a lot, which she found hilarious. Why are women obsessed with plucking hairs from men's bodies!?!!

2000 - Newcastle - AKr

My sister had been approached by a girl in a nightclub with a line like, "Hi, I'm a film director, I saw you a few months ago and I've been trying to find you ever since... I want to make a film about you."

My sister said, "Try another line."

But the woman persisted and turned out to be telling the truth. A short 20 minute film, starring my sister.

2000 - Arnos Vale / Bristol - Ramona

2000 - Djr, Akr

My sister came down to Bristol, met Sonja and Zed for the first time.

Sidenote: two of my sister's friends are playing pool in a bar in San Francisco and they overhear a group of girls talking about this 'amazing film called Closer'... and then hear them talking about the lead 'AKR'. The two friends grinned at each other with the bizarreness of it.

2000 - Bristol - View from Baristas

At work things had gone from strength to strength, Carla had been and gone, Patrick H had come for a while, replaced by Mike Dbry. Videoconferencing was booming in the Agency.

Then my PSION got an upgrade. My new boss had wanted to buy me a laptop, and it was around this time that a guy from SONY told him about a new notebook-sized VAIO, which had the capability to run videoconferencing. Perfect!

So I ended up with one of the first six Sony Vaio's to enter the UK. When it arrived I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It was soooo cool. Not much bigger than a graphic novel, a silvery mat casing, amazing quality screen and a funky little camera concealed in the upper lid.

I started getting off the bus via the city centre again, and spending the early morning in Baristas...

It wasn't long into Mike working with me, that I had to arrange a massive conference for business services staff from over fifty sites. I settled on Birmingham as being a good central location, and then blew £30K on a venue and facilities for the two day event. Mike and I worked closely on setting everything up... and it went like a dream, although the first night was interesting. Business services staff rarely get to go anywhere with thier jobs, least of all a huge jolly with a hundred or so of their national colleagues. 99.9% of them were women. So the first night, Mike and I take a few of them out to explore Birmingham's club scene... this is the night the Director's PA started ironing my shirt at 3 o'clock in the morning and then advised me she had vodka and redbull back in her room. How could I refuse.

I should have done though. 6 hours later I was sitting near on a stage beside Mike, and my boss, with the sweaty shakes and freaking out at having to make speaches in front of so many people... and there's the Director's PA sitting on the front row fluttering her eyelids and crossing her legs with a very short skirt. Ah Jesus.

2000 - Castle of Tranquility - Sonja

It was around now that my friendship with Zed suddenly hit the rocks. I came round to Sonja to talk about it.

2000 - London - Ramona

Summer: Ramona made another visit to the UK and we grabbed a ride to London.

2000 - Jesmond / Newcastle - Dad

Summer: Ramona and I hired a car and drove to Newcastle. Dad was still able to walk around, but slowly, and he was starting to have trouble getting up from chairs. It was a slow grinding deterioration, but he still carried his fantastic sense of humour.

2000 - Jesmond / Newcastle - AKR

Summer: Ramona brought my sister twinkies, after I told her my sister was just as big a nut for Ghostbusters as I was, and that Twinkies would really rock her boat.

My sister was getting ready to move away from home, from Newcastle, to live in Glasgow and study Psychology.

2000 - The Happy Flat - x, Dominic M

Ramona left and I returned to my fun and games with SPANK. This was a private party this time, and I can remember it was at this point I was starting to feel a little bit fed up with it all.

2000 - Happy Flat - x

I'd got to the stage where I'd seen and done it all... people were turning into lumps of flesh. There was no feeling.

2000 - Outside Arnolfini - Vega$

Enjoying a fine Bristol summer and the best place to sip a pint.

2000 - The Happy Flat - Djr

After wearing the same style of freaky goggle-eyed glasses since 1991, I bought something more conservative. I'm 29 here.

I spent my 30th birthday alone in the flat. I wasn't a big fan of birthday parties... so I sat alone in a dark room, really thinking loads about everything... and at 2 minutes to midnight I totally freeeaked out... holy shit, my 20's were coming to an end. I'd been in Bristol for nearly 10 years.

2000 - Happy Flat - Oj, Djr

Jo and I had known each other two years now. Still keeping it casual although the friendship was certainly deepening. Combined with this was a growing bond with Kelvin W - who finally found out that Jo had been coming to Bristol for a lot longer than he suspected.

2000 - Happy Flat - Phil McVee, x

The party-meister himself made a surprise reappearance into my world, to say hello. He'd very much settled down now.

2000 - Prague

October: Ramona and I co-ordinated our flights to meet in Prague. She flew in from New York, I flew from London.

The place was called House of the Big Shoe, in Mala Strana, opposite the German embassy. Everyone had warned us about the rip-off taxi drivers, but climbing into the cab outside the terminal I was greeted by wicked tunes on his stereo. I asked him about the music and he became very excited that I liked this type of music, also. He didn't rip us off, he told us where the good clubs were and he was amazingly friendly.

Arriving at the hotel, Ramona and I found ourselves standing outside an anonymous looking building with a big medieval door and no sign for a hotel. We rang the buzzer and were welcomed into a little peice of heaven.

Jan, the owner, bowls you over with his intense eye contact, dazzling sense of humour and unwavering warmth as a human being. He also refuses to hang a guady sign proclaiming Hotel on the building, which is a 15th Century structure.

The room above cost us £15 a night, each.

2000 - Prague - Jan

October: The hotel had been in his family for generations, except during the Communist occupation. He was an excellent source of conversation every morning whilst we sipped strong black coffee and wolfed down fresh bread and cheese.

He also created a strong image in my mind of what the Czech Republic
went through during Communism, and made me even more happy to
know him because of his eternal optimism for the future.

2000 - Prague

October: There are statues everywhere. A lot of my time on the first couple of days was simply spent looking UP at everything.

2000 - Prague

October: Woman spearing man/horned satyr through neck.

Then a more subtle effect of the city began to wear away at my sensitivity.
The violence and suffering of the place. It is there, staring down at you from every statue and the pairs of gargantuan figures that hold aloft the lintel of many of the buildings doorways.

Ramona and I spent the days doing our own thing, and then met up in the evenings to swap notes. I had stumbled onto a cafe some distance from the main city, and it reminded me of something out of a Robert Ludlum spy thriller in the Cold War... or somewhere that would serve Victory Gin in Orwell's 1984. I was working on a raft of short stories.

One night, after a day spent writing and trudging through the maddeningly confusing tangle of lanes and streets, I felt totally depressed..

2000 - Saint Nicholas Cafe/ Prague - Ramona

October: It was my first night in this place and the hours got long. Drink flowed and conversations flickered back and forth between fun and serious issues of race, culture, war and The Holy Grail of Amerika. I still don't know if these guys could play the instruments, but the noise they made did sound good.

2000 - Saint Nicholas Cafe/ Prague - Ramona

October: Saint Nicholas Cafe is in Mala Strana district became my favourite place to spend an evening in Prague. Underground, rich earthy
colours, warm atmosphere, good music and single malt whiskey at
about 80pence a shot, wa-hey!

2000 - Saint Nicholas Cafe/ Prague - Ramona

October: This was the moment I met Vojislav (hope I spelled that right!) and his friends. Top man. He caught my attention with his exuberant smile and the mischevious glint in his eyes. I love it when you meet people and there is that easy bond, that feeling or common delight in just communicating.

Vojislav later invited Ramona and I to join his wife for dinner the next day. We took him up on his offer. Met Marketta and several more of thier friends. Lovely couple. Enjoyed Serbian plum brandy (spelled 'AVIATION FUEL') - Whohw!

I really enjoyed Prague - I loved the massive portions of meat - the cheap prices - the bloody medieval history that was almost tangible in the rainy atmosphere, and in the thousands of statues of men and women being stabbed, bludgeoned and impaled to death.

2000 - Louvre / Paris

October: Ramona and I caught a 15 hour train ride to Paris. The train cost about the same as a flight but we got to see some amazing countryside, and the slow ride was punctuated by some moments.

I hated Paris the second I arrived there. Not totally sure why. The jump in cost was staggering. I went from having a half-litre of delicous Czech beer for under a pound, to paying £3.50 for a bottle of Heinekin!

2000 - Paris - Ramona

October: Horror Hotel. Another downer was the jump from inexpensive luxury in Prague, to paying through the nose for this place....5th floor, with mould on the wall above the radiator, lights not working, shower not working, and what the hell IS that painting on the wall!!!! It did my head in! No wonder Ramona is screaming.

2000 - Paris - Ramona

October: Horror Hotel. The room was on the 5th floor, the only way to get to it was to take a rickety staircase that would have made Escher dizzy, or, to take this elevator that was litterally, I kid you not, as big as a cupboard. If you closed the door it was against your nose. Worse than that, after you dropped down below the 5th floor, you were in a cavernous open space inside this see-through cage. Fear is not the word.

The place was so grim it inspired the location for the short story Oracle. I wrote the entire plot matrix in two days in Paris. Very happy was I...

2000 - Paris - Papou Lounge

October: Ramona and I found this place through the Paris Rough Guide. It became my favourite haunt for the final couple nights. This is where I had my first blue-steak. Ramona and I drank the place dry of whisky over two nights. I remember popping in one rainy afternoon, meeting Kean and Sean who owned the place, grabbing a coffee and asking for a whisky to go with it... they looked at me and proclaimed, "You drank it all!"

2000 - Papou Lounge / Paris - Kean Gallagher

2000 - Papou Lounge / Paris - Sean Gallagher

2000 - Ashley Road / Bristol - Vega$

It's around now that Matthias and I got heavily in Fight Club and Matrix style conversations.

Back in Blighty I continued my love affair with my Sony Vaio. I'd abandoned Barristas for a new cafe in Bristol called OnCoffee.Net. A cyber cafe selling Barristas yummy coffee. I practically lived there. The laptop allowed me to work away from the office, and during my evenings I wrote stories or played on-line Quake Arena. This is where I met Jon Simpkin who later came to work for me at the Agency. Meanwhile, I get a phone call one day from a woman who introduces herself as "Amanda R from the BBC." A producer. Pulling together resources for a new 90 minute documentary by the film-maker Chris Terrill (Cruise Ship)... "We've seen your work on the Internet and wondered did I want to be part of the documentary?"

Yes.

The documentary was called Through The Eyes of The Young. I got involved around October 2000, and filming dragged on until May 2001 or so, finally broadcasting around August 2001.

2000

I saw the Ninth Gate, which subsequently became my all-time favourite film. I bought the soundtrack and it inspired me to write an incredible story called "Devils Spring". I can remember sitting in the small study at the front of the Happy Flat, the story flooding out with the music playing from the next room.

Matthias did a great job at designing a cover for it, partially ruined by getting my name wrong. Probably his subconscious getting its revenge on me for all the times I spelled his whole name wrong!

2000 - Ashley Road / Bristol

A shot of Matthias' pad. This is the poster that suffered at the munchies of the slug back in Brislington.

So now the poster is protected. Slug free. The only thing Mathias has to worry about now are the half-dead but still crawling frogs that Duggy the cat drags in from the garden.

2000 - Newcastle - Dad

Dad was no longer the man he used to be. He seemed lost. Without the car, he had become more-or-less housebound. Walking any great distance for him was difficult, and the roads around the house all involved steep slopes.

This animated gif is a collection of images I took whilst we sat one afternoon, waiting for mum to come back from somewhere.

2000 - Newcastle - Djr

The Vaio gave me freedom of being able to work from home, or anywhere else for that matter. I took a couple trips up to Newcastle when I went during the week, able to do the job through the day and spend time with Dad. I was writing a lot of angry stories around this time.

2000 - Bristol - Glen

October: I'd known Glen for four years now. He was starting to do well in media and television. We discovered the delicious seafood heaven of Belgo's.

2000 - The Happy Flat - Study

October: Back in 1995, this tiny room was my bedroom... until the dark days of 1997, then I turned it into my study. This is where I wrote Heist / Dante's Fool. That's the PC I was given by Andy C. There's a small oil painting Nic Dartnell did for me, of Raymond Fx. The sheets on the table are lists of Agency videoconference equipment and all the ISDN lines to run them.

2000 - London - Amanda R

October: A BBC recording suite. One of several I got to visit during the extended period of filming for the documentary I'd become involved in.

2000 - London - Chris Terill

October: the man behind the camera and the ideas for the documentary.

2000 - Ashley Road / Bristol - Vega$.

Halloween: Nowhere near as good as the previous year but still worth the effort- again, it would have been better if we had all 'gone somewhere' to show off our costumes and interact with Joe Public but Matthias was having none of it.

2000 - Ashley Road / Bristol - Djr.

Halloween: this mask was really freaky because it looked so much like a real face, but a very disturbing real-face.

2000 - Ashley Road / Bristol- Jameson.

Halloween: When I first saw his costume I literally fell on the floor laughing - that guitar actually protrudes right out without any visible support - he'd designed a clever harness that included a heavy duty kitchen tile strapped to his chest - very clever, very funny.

2000 - Ashley Road / Bristol- Silas, Dominic M

Halloween

2000 - Ashley Road / Bristol- Jameson, x, Vega$

Halloween: I can't recall what the girl was called. Matthias met her through work, I think, they had a thing for a few weeks / months but it ended this night.

2000 - Manhattan - Nice Guy Tony, Kelvin Sharky, Djr.

November: 3rd year in a row - this time Kelvin W and Nice Guy Tony came with me.

Thier first moment in the city. After we met up with Ramona we went for a drink.They were both buzzing. This is when Kelvin picked up his 'Sharky' tag. Memory: a room full of women and Kelvin sniffs out a lawyer.

Tony's not really that short.

Memory: fun on the conference table.

2000 - New Jersey - Nice Guy Tony and that sofa.

Let's re-visit that Sofa. This is NGT doing what he did best in NYC. The next best thing he did was watch cable TV, eat pringles and twinky's. The 3rd best thing he did was be rude. *grins* This is when Nice Guy Tony got his NCT tag.

2000 - Manhattan - Kelvin Sharky

November: this is the trip when Kelvin met a woman in a bar... or rather he saw a whole group of women in a bar, and just ploughed in there... like a shark diving into a school of succulent fish, and came out the other side snapping the number of an attractive attorney between his fingers.

Later in the trip, Kelvin had arranged to meet the attorney prior to he and I hitting Twilos, a club I was gagging to get into that night. So we got the van from New Jersey, dropped off at Port Authority, caught a tube down towards 10th Street, but were on totally the wrong avenue so then spent 30 minutes trudging across town to reach 9th Avenue. So...Kelvin, where abouts on 9th Avenue is she? Kelvin looks at me and says, with a wee frown, "Hmm, not sure... she just said 9th avenue."

I looked at Kelvin. I said, "Kelvin, 9th Avenue is somthing like 12 miles long, maybe more."

Kelvin tried to call her. No response.

Bugger me. So we trudged for another hour to find our way to the club.

2000 - Manhattan - Nice Guy Tony (aka NCT)

November: one morning I came out of Ramona's room to find Tony had already upped and left. We found him in Times Square, happy to be exploring the city on his own steam.

2000 - New Jersey - Kelvin Sharky, Nice Guy Tony, Djr.

I spent most of my time here solo, usually spending my daylight hours in Zidos writing. Memory: sitting in Zido's talking to a middle-aged lady who looked like a skinny version of Dustan Hoffman as Tootsie, she picked up on my British acccent and started a conversation, I was in a mischevious mood and joked about how amazing it was...that guy saving people's lives, wearing a blue leotard and red knickers on the outside. She looked at me in amazement..."Really? Wow, that's wonderful though, him saving lives n'all." I gave up on the humour.

Memory: going to Linda & Tracey's apartment, a short walk from Ramona's. 2 litres of vodka later, me, NGT and Sharky shamble outside into a rainstorm to catch a van to the City, via the Lincoln Tunnel. The rain gets harder. We walk 20 blocks to the club. There's a queue outside. No awning. The rain hammers down. We wait. A bouncer walks the line asking to see people's ID. I pull out my passport. Kelvin and Tony look at me, look at the bouncer. "We're English!" The bouncer tells them he doesn't care if they're from Mars, if they don't have ID they're not getting in. I laugh. Sorry lads but I'm going in. Soaked to the bone, they hunch thier shoulders, step out of the line and walk away. I turn to the girl behind me and tell her it's her fault. She demands to know what I mean... I say "the rain, it's your fault." She smiles. We chat. Her name in Una. She's a belly dancer. She says "wanna get out of the rain?" I nod. She pulls out a cell phone and talks to somebody. Five minutes later a black hum-vee jeep pulls up beside us and she nudges me towards it. Climb inside. Smell of perfume. Five air hostesses. Hello! Cool cruise around Manhattan streets. Find the Ajax club. Mad night inside. I get back to New Jersey 7am. Kelvin and Tony - they tried to find a strip joint and settled for a porn video store off Times Square.

2000 - Manhattan - Djr

The night Kelvin and I finally got into Twilos was just an amazing experience.

Timo Mass was doing a set. A huge glitterball above the dancefloor. Some strange dancing from the Americans.

My CyberDog T-shirt is glowing like a fluorescent light-bulb. I spot several others doing the same. Move in for a closer look. More Cyberdog. Dancing looks different too. Ohhhhhh. Uk people. Clubbers. Hello! Kelvin is there in the middle of them all with a huge smile on his face. Lovely. Timo Mass is God. The tunes are Heaven sent. Everyone is going crazy. 7am I walk out and there's still a queue of people lining up to go in. I walk back to Port Authority and catch a van to New Jersey. I climb on board, mad spikey bleach blonde hair, amber wraparounds, tight yellow cyberdog T-shirt with shiny blue shoulder patches, tight trousers... and the van is full of Hispanic workers. Forty pais of dark eyes staring at me. Not one word of english being exchanged. One seat is free. I sit down next to a Latino guy chatting quietly on a cell phone, he stops talking to turn his head and give me a long up and down look. Christ, I wish this van would get moving. He resumes talking, something like, "come on baby, let me come round and fcuk you up your ass." Long pause. "No?" Another pause. "Well fcuk you bitch." He hangs up. Glances at me again. Smiles. I kind of smile back and start studying my hands. He dials another number. Lots of low murmuring and talking, then, "Baby, it's only your ass. Come on, let me...."

It goes on. The Van is moving now. We hit the lincoln tunnel except... hold on, we're taking a totally different route. "Where's this thing going?" I'm asking. Nobody speaks English. Shit. I'm such the dumb-ass Brit tourist expecting everyone else to speak my language. Mr Assman has closed down his phone. He tells me there's been an accident in the tunnel, I don't need to worry, the van still goes to Weehawken, New Jersey. Ok. I relax a bit. He tells me he likes my hair. Uh-hu... you don't say. He tells me he wants to move to England and drive one of those fancy Italian cars, Rolls Royce, on the beach. I stare at him, smile, I don't correct him. He tells me he took a pill an hour ago and is just coming up. Ahhhh shit.

Finally I get off the bus where Mr Assman said was down the road from my normal stop. The van drives away but I don't recognise where I am. I walk into a shop and ask the Hispanic guy behind the counter where Weehawken is. He looks at me like I'm an alien then shouts this is Union City. What the Fek?

It's almost 9am before I get home.

2000 - Cheltenham - Oj

I got back from New York to find the PC Andy C gave me had died. Gutted. Jo came to see me the next day and took me shopping. Jo becomes my 3rd Angel. She buys me the 'Beast'... a nice big powerful PC.

I've started making the journey to Cheltenham to hang out with Jo. Nice Guy Tony and Kelvin also make this journey a few times; albiet Nice Guy Tony once went via READING!!!!

2000 - Agency Christmas Do - Sam P

December: things at work have changed significantly. My team has grown to include a new guy called Sam.

He rapidly becomes a mate outside of work, and a player of Game. He joins the regular group in Walker in the Wastes, as Jason Finn. For everyone, Rheinhold Blair becomes enemy number one.

2000 - Agency Christmas Do - Phil C

December: my boss since November 1998 when I left the mobile phone co-ordinator role and was giving videoconferencing. Top bloke.

2000 - Agency Christmas Do - Mike D

December: when Mike first started working for me he was great. Hard working and a good laugh to spend time with. But there was something a little dark in his heart...

2000 - Bristol - Abbie Bond Girl

December: I met Abbie running one of my regular videoconference training sessions. Memory: her first visit to Bristol, phone call from the car park of Burger King, me pulling on my gear and walking down to meet her.

Those first couple of days with her really lodged in my mind.

2000 - Happy Flat - Abbie Bond Girl

She works for an Agency enforcement team, working surveillance and sting operations. She had a house in Bedford which I used to visit, lovely little place. Memory: everyone sitting around a table from the morning onwards, working our own pursuits, me writing. Memory: her driving at night, at high speed, through medieval country roads, ancient trees sweeping past headbeams, Norman churches painted in moonlight.

I found her exciting, intelligent, so damn sexy... I found myself wanting to see more of her, and she began to occupy my mind.

2000 - Oslo (photo from)- Uncle Rune, Grandmother

Taken not long before my Norweigan grandmother died.

2000 - Newcastle - Akr, Mum / Akr, Djr

My little sis just completed her first term at university studying psychology. She scored 80%. The tutors sent her work away again to have it remarked for a second opinion. It came back... 80% Guess that makes her brainy...or something. *Smiles*

Christmas and home for 2 weeks. I love the fact that my job allows me to work from anywhere. Just pick up my laptop, plonk myself down in a cafe, dial into the Agency network, pick up and drop off work, sip my way through 1 litre of Americano's and buzz through the day.

Mum's Norweigan cooking. Fabulous.

I had just picked up a copy of Dreamweaver and Fireworks and spent all Christmas learning how to rebuild my web-site with them. Long days/nights sitting in my old bedroom, soft lights, window open to get some fresh air and alleviate the stiffling heat of the house. Dad downstairs, still able to get out of chair but only just.

Managed to get Dad into a wheelchair and push him up to Osbourne Avenue for a pint - he loved it.