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after the bash

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  Back in the late summer of '98 my mate Duncan comes up to me in unusually good spirits. The phrase 'don't get a Dunc on!' hadn't even been struck at that point. Anyway, he comes up to me with ,"Do you want to buy into a little bit of woodland me and Gary are getting?". Sounds top, thinks I.

  "It'll be somewhere quiet we can get away from it all.", says a fairly believable Duncan. After all him and Gary had lived in buses on Treffullock Moor, just over the fields, and there was a deal with a groovy asian landowner that looked upfront and cheap.

  This is all mid August, we go down look at the wood and everyone falls in love with their bit. Loads of, "Do you know what sort of tree that is? ... MY TREE, ha ha ha." Mad empire building hippies, slip sliding about in ill fitting jackboots in the rain in our swamp. Lots of talk of log cabins, straw bale houses etc., which with hindsight was a good choice of floating materials.

  Anyway, a few weeks pass by and I disappear off to the Cornish beach festival over bank holiday weekend. Jumping down the cliff face from the golf course a damn near death experience, getting chucked out and sneaking back in again a couple of times. I reckoned we could throw a massive party for the eclipse. When I get back to visit the Manchester lads, we've grown another member to the Syndicate, Paul, a top and resourceful dude. This makes for four of us. The idea of throwing a party is viewed with sceptisism and my other idea for a paintballing is appauded as the way out of our respective gutters.

2: Ooh lets have a party

  Christmas comes and the goose is anything but fat. I've quit me job. Gary's first job since he was a paper boy has laid him off. Duncan's getting loads of stress from the sick about his MS. And Pauls suffering from a maleria bout.

  Someone at this point gets a calculator out and finds a magic figure that solves everyones problems. I don't like the idea very much, I DO remember saying that no-one ever makes money out of throwing a fezzie. Why don't we just throw a small free party for us and our mates? Gary sees his shiny new four by four being snatched from his dreams and gets all girly about it. Duncan starts freaking out. The phone became an object of dread, it would be Dunc and he'd have a major 'Dunc' on.

  A week after Paul pays for my modem, Duncan's screaming down the phone about "Where's MY WEBSITE?". You can see that sad effort at (HERE), bear in mind this is what I managed to do after a week on the web. Duncans screaming about "unprofessional" behaviour concerning the website. We spend money we haven't got printing tickets so Gary can large it up round the pubs (non were sold after this).

  One particularily bad Friday night in February, not a week after I'd kicked my furniture round the house after Dunc had another Dunc on. Dunc gives me the,"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" line. At which point I kiss the ground, and tell him where he can stuff his money making scheme.

  Didn't talk to the Syndicate (mo' money inc.) till the end of April. Everyones hugging each other like drama students when I say that I'll help, but I don't want any of the profits. Cool and Groovy.

  Me and Bekki spend a week on the land hugging trees etc. for my thirtieth birthday. The sun was scorching and we had a wicked time, all campfires and sunrises. But the main camping ground was still dead swampy. Me and Bek get all eco-friendly and go back to Manchester with,"Don't do it, or if you do, only have a little free party". This is when Duncan gives the immortal line,"It's too late to back out now." That and Gary in the background going,"four wheel drive, four wheel drive, gotta have a four wheel drive." Paul's like,"My cousin Jonjo's sorting out all the tunes, he does Havok all the time."

  Between my birthday and the eclipse, me and Bek get out and about giving out flyers and stuff. Trips to Avebury and Glastonbury for the fezzie went to prove that there are only 500 real people in he world at any one time.