1997

Records I bought included: Kristen Hersh "Strings", OK Computer, Broadcast, Dots and Loops
Number One hits in the UK: Tori Amos - Professional Widow (dance remix), White Town - Your Woman, Blur - Beetlebum, LL Cool J - Ain't Nobody, U2 - Discotheque, No Doubt - Don't Speak, Spice Girls - Mama/Who Do You Think You Are, Chemical Brothers - Block Rockin' Beats, R Kelly - I Believe I Can Fly, Michael Jackson - Blood on the Dancefloor, Gary Barlow - Love won't wait, Olive - You're Not Alone, Eternal - I Wanna Be The Only One, Hanson - MMMBop, Puff Daddy - I'll Be Missing You, Oasis - D'You Know What I Mean?, Will Smith - Men in Black, The Verve - The Drugs Don't Work, Elton John - Candle In The Wind (Diana version), Spice Girls - Spice Up Your Life, Aqua - Barbie Girl, Various Artists - Perfect Day, Teletubbies - Say eh-oh, Spice Girls - Too Much

1/1/97: Louise handed in notice to leave 1BH, Jon already had! Foul taste in my mouth due to antibiotics & Losec
10/1/97: Bought Seagate HD to use as slave. MEGA hassles with PC memory, processor upgrade, Zip drive, SCSI card, CD-ROM and scanner over the next 6 weeks...
13/1/97: Start work for Psion. PsiMail Internet, Protea Word & Record Help files & manual.
Psion an ting
13/1/97: 7.30am, I'm going out at about 9.30 to start work for Psion. Ha. This could be a perfect dream job, or it could be something else, I have absolutely no idea what to expect.
14/1/97: Proof-reading the next S3c manual. A few problems!
Now home after day 2, all seems to be going well - with a few minor glitches. First, I think I'm getting a cold. Second, the PCs we've been given are slow and old and run Windows 3.11 (but we're getting Pentiums with 95 soon), and third, my monitor is so bad I have to work in 800x600 in order to be able to read it! Ah well, teething troubles I guess.
9.05 pm, I have a headache and feel pretty grim. Fuck. I've done the washing up, but tomorrow we're going on a 2-day advanced WinWord course and I need to be OK for that...
15/1/97: ...although it doesn't seem very advanced to me, I'm afraid. A bit more info on macros and revision marking will be useful, but the rest of the stuff I think I already know at least as well as I'd be likely to be able to learn in 2 days! So, with a bit of luck it'll be a doddle.
Course as I expected and I have been able to show the instructor (Helen) a couple of things she didn't know so that makes me feel OK!

17/1/97: Louise offered job @ Haringey Mind
17/1/97: Louise got the job! Fabbo, clever girl! Meanwhile I have cold and sniffles, and my tongue looks like a bloody herb garden with all the fungus and shit that's growing on it.
18/1/97: Reinstalling Windows 95 again to see if I can get the new HDD working... Bloody better work! It has so far, now all I've got to do is reinstall everything else...
And then Atapi caused the problem on IDE channel 2.. I am now in the front room feeling irritated because Maggie's banging on the bloody window, and I've got a gig to do but I don't feel very well, and fuck bloody bugger everything. Why am I in a grump? Is it fungus on tongue? Gutache possibly returning? I don't know.
At gig, still a bit grumpy but what the hell, here I am. Long, sustained notes are a problem, the voice wobbles and has no power.
19/1/97: Up West (Sunday) to Computer Exchange for new CD-ROM, SCSI card, more RAM and possibly even a Zip drive and/or a processor upgrade. Spend spend spend again...
And what an abortive run that proved to be! Now nothing works, I can't even boot up or get into the fucking BIOS. Bugger.
20/1/97: Week 2, day 6 at Psion, testing PsiMail Internet and setting up a PsionWorld account. E-mail at work, yet!!! But in the meantime, my home bloody PC is well and truly fucked. I've done all that I can to try and fix it, I'm going to take it up to Carrera tomorrow to get the damn thing sorted good. I hope!
21/1/97: To work via Carrera in a minicab driven by a chain-smoking Cypriot who has already nearly killed a cyclist. Oh good. Stuck now on 7 Sisters Road approaching Finsbury Park. I don't know how much it's going to cost to get it up and running again, but if it's going to be in the hundreds (as it might be, if the video card has to be replaced) then I may as well get the CPU upgraded at the same time and be done with it.
Home again, after a team meeting where Terry set out the plans for the next few months. It's gonna be work all the way from here on in! Still, I've got a new Pentium machine to work with, and that's nice.
22/1/97: PC ready probably Saturday, a pity that it won't be sooner but there we are. I'm going ahead with the upgrade as well, since it's there. Spent some time with HP's and US Robotics' rival machines, they (like the Casio) have a long way to go before they can even touch the S3c. Sadly, I suspect that so has Protea...
23/1/97: Thursday. Knees a bit weak, right elbow twinges & index finger tender from using mouse, otherwise OK. Indigestion definitely back with me though (so far) not as omnipresent & predictable as before antibiotic course. Tongue slowly returning to normal, going to sleep most nights with lozenge slowly dissolving in mouth.
25/1/97: PC worked fast, but not exactly fine. I started from scratch and reinstalled everything, but had much trouble with video card.
Tense, angry and frustrated now, 12.50 pm. The bloody modem doesn't work and somehow I've still only got 16MB RAM. Fuck. I feel like making a big fuss and demanding that somebody comes over to fix it on-site. I've spent nearly 2 hours on the phone today to Carrera trying all kinds of things (changing IRQs, jumpers, you name it) to fix something that wasn't even fucking broken before took it in there! Oh, God, now I'm in a state...
Gig quite good though (half time now, sold 2 tapes), feelin' OK. Yeah, a good night. Quite loud but no cut-outs decibel meter & no broken strings.
28/1/97: OMWH after a rather panicky day when I felt I'd never get the hang of writing a glossary of terms used in the new Protea Word app.
30/1/97: We went out to Greenford today, it was a bit of a disappointment although I didn't really know what to expect. We saw around the assembly lines, and saw Sienas, Series 3c's, etc, being assembled. I wanted to get myself a free SSD but couldn't, obviously.
31/1/97: Friday, last day of Jan. end of 3rd week at Psion. Word glossary finished, I think, hopefully getting stuck in to Record today. That's quite a small app so I might even be able to finish it, as well!
Later on, after talks with Carrera - there (apparently) is nothing wrong with the PC, the modem was badly seated (! I took it out & put it somewhere else and it still didn't work!) and the RAM isn't compatible with my motherboard. Fucking hell, now I'm all panicky about going in to Computer Exchange & causing a stink...
Didn't need to. Saw a bloke called Andrew who sorted the whole thing out (4x8B SIMMS) and gave me £6 credit and the option to exchange for 2x16 in the next week. That'll go some way towards paying for this cab I'm at the moment....

1/2/97: Fairport 30th anniversary @ Festival Hall. A bit panicky at work, though!
8/2/97: Mame, mum, L, Annette & Steve, Will & Jess to Earls Court gig. Long-term Losec for stomach acid. Angry with Carrera & Mastercare.
8/2/97: Spent most of yesterday proof-reading Vel's manual for PsiMail, I can't help thinking that the whole thing could have done with a bit more thought. The app, I mean - the manual is as good as it could be given the limitations and drawbacks of PsiMail. And I fear that we'll be in a similar boat with Protea unless B5 is considerable more bug-free than B4 was! Rushing stuff out to keep up with the competition when it really isn't ready yet...
13/2/97: First draft of Protea Word help finished yesterday, going to be built in to ROM this morning to see how it looks, maybe Limes tomorrow?
14/2/97: Testing (ie playing with) PsiMail candidate release - still shoddy & embarrassing. BIG marketing mistake to put it out now, BIG mistake to claim it runs on a 512k machine.

21/2/97: Art @ Wyndhams theatre
27/2/97: Gig in Earls Court, which is better than Southend which is where we were supposed to be! But the punters want Mursheen Durkin, The Moonshiner... O god... Brighton tomorrow!

28/2/97: Louise leaves Bedford Hill, we went to Brighton for the w/e, wet & windy. S3c fucked again.
28/2/97: Brighton today! Louise leaves Bedford Hill today! Oh frabjous day calloo callay! And I think I'm kind of on top of my work at the moment - Terry guided me though a special job yesterday, then had me install postscript printers, today I've got to install them on the other PCs.
1/3/97: In Brighton, back from a windy walk. Had a nice dinner last night, salmon pasta for L and kleftiko for me, then a long sleep. Went in to town today, had a Mexican which was nice, then by bus to Saltdean which was shit and windy and wet but we had a fun walk down along the prom prom prom where the waves crash crash wet rain wind no tiddly om pom pom at all.
2/3/97: No fast trains back this pm, all diverted via Littlehampton and leaving here at 20 past and 53 past. Bloody hell. AND my fucking S3c is fucked - every time I leave it off for any length of time it locks up when I turn it on again, only displaying a portion of the startup screen and not accepting any keystrokes. I have to take the batteries out and start again. Shit - but at least I haven't (yet) lost any info!
So: ten past 6, train pretty full but we've got window seats. Bloke next to me has v stinky breath! Now at Horsham, next stop 3 Bridges. Legs tired due to another long walk along the coast but didn't get to Shoreham - but I've been there, anyway.

3/97: Data lost (s3c crash) but feeling rough & anxious re work. L writing essay much of time on PC.
11/3/97: L started at Mind job
21/3/97: Took Protea home for weekend
30/3/97: Went to Cornwall, cycling & sauna, Hale-Bopp comet, more Losec so tum OK!
1/4/97: Spent this morning cycling down to Cot valley & up to Kenidjack. Now in Penzance, waiting for a bus back to St Just so we can go for a swim & sauna at the golf club which used to be Nanpean farm.
2/4/97: Going to St Ives today to see the Tate & the Barbara Hepworth museum. The Tate has a whole room of Karl's paintings - 6 of them, to be precise - and one of them is of Dankoff on the beach at the Cape.
7.00pm now, we're meeting Dave & Ben in the Star at 8.30.
3/4/97: Which turned into quite a long evening, we left at about 12.15 I think. 1.00pm today & we're up, probably cycling back to Cot valley for a start. We didn't go to the golf club on Tuesday night, instead we cycled up to Carn Gloose & Cot valley was full of mist! Spooky!
Just been up to Botallack and Kenidjack on the bikes, now having a cup of tea and a fag before we go off for a swim & a sauna at the golf club. Gah!
4/4/97: Swim, sauna & jacuzzi very nice, then saw Nigel & Tina at the bar & Nigel convinced us to eat there. A mistake. The fish (lemon sole) were huge but undercooked, bland and full of roe. I actually complained - unlike me! - but not much anyone could do about it. Never mind.
Just back from the Star, 12.30pm, having heard Ben & co singing - nice. Usual non-committal Hello from Rob which probably meant more than it seemed! Big steak for dinner - yum - and we're off home tomorrow :-(
5/4/97: Went for a last bike ride up to Carn Gloose, dropped off the bikes, had a huge bacon & egg breakfast, packed, now 11.50 having a fag & ready to catch the 12.30 bus into Penzance for the 1.35 train home via Plymouth. Sadly shit fuck I've got to do a bloody gig tonight...
6/4/97: Malcolm met us at the station, nice surprise, to say that the gig was cancelled! Great relief! He'd hurt his back and couldn't play, so we had a night in watching Michael Moore.
10/4/97: Mame has passed her consultant's exam (hooray!) and once again Protea deadlines have slipped. It's hard to motivate myself to do very much at the moment, with everything we do being changed almost as soon as we do it...

10/4/97: Mame finally passed consultant exam. Protea "deadlines" slipping...
12/4/97: Laura Nyro died.
12/4/97: Laura Nyro has died, that's very sad, but I thought she looked unwell when we saw her in 1995.
17/4/97: Bought personal CD player. HDK & PageMaker at work.
21/4/97: A&L being floated, me £1200 bonus.
26/4/97: Visited Roger & Joyce in Brum.
1/5/97: Election - Tony Blair & Labour got in.
6/5/97: Bloody HDK is a fucking dog... takes ages to figure out how to do things, then doesn't do them right and crashes as often as not.
I think I'm kinda doing as well as I can, PsiWin-wise, although it's difficult to know. Targets change and move... I was quite upset and a bit panicky yesterday over this Nautilus Help and manual, which I still worry about not being able to finish on time. Sam is ploughing on and achieving lots whereas I'm still struggling and working with very unstable or unpredictable software in HDK and the Agenda Synchronizer.. Adam should be coming up to help me today, though, and maybe I'll hack away at the Protea manual for a while.

7/5/97: Abusive emails from HDK user group.
9/5/97: Martin Carthy in Crouch End.
10/5/97: Saw remastered Star Wars
12/5/97: Got locked out of flat with freaking Tillie
12/5/97: Did a fair bit of work yesterday with HDK - finally figured out how to do indexing - and then we managed to get ourselves locked out yesterday while putting the rubbish out; Tillie was with us and totally freaked. I ended up having to go through next door and over the garden fence - good job the back door was open, or we'd have been totally fucked!
I had quite a decent day at work, actually. Finally got the synchroniser to work and made some comments about a few dodgy dialogs, then wrote a fair chunk of the Help for it.

13/5/97: John Green left Psion, Nautilus drags on...
15/5/97: Nautilus (PsiWin 2) ain't gonna be ready, is it?
OMWH and fed up. Nautilus continues to drag on, there is simply no way that the Help is going to anything like finished in time, let alone comprehensive. The synchroniser, particularly, seems to be causing problems for them down in the basement. I don't know if it's me or the bloody software but I feel like I'm doing nothing of any use. PsiWin crashes and changes, UI-Wise, and I must try to keep up with it - but it's so disheartening to write something and then have it change without warning.

26/5/97: Saw "Shine"
1/6/97: Claudia & William's christening
3/6/97: I spent most of yesterday trying to get the whole manual into Adobe Acrobat format, and failing due to one single line which the distiller hated. I don't understand why, but I left at 7.15 anyway. And now I'm trying to get a TOC and index into Pagemaker so that I can export it as a .PDF file and load it into Acrobat reader...
Another long-ish day, 9.20-6.55 with 10 minutes for lunch. Sometimes I even believe we'll get this bugger done in time! Anyway, it's got to be done by Monday so that'll be the end of it.
5/6/97: Thursday, tonight is supposed to be the deadline for the first release of PsiWin. That means that any Help or manual we want to be included in the first release has to be ready by the end of today. So it might be a very long day - which is one reason why I'm not rushing to get in early. Having deadlines to meet, and important things/ to design & write, using software that doesn't work or crashes or is constantly changing or is unfinished at best, while simyultaneouydslyt (what an excellent word!) having to learn the tools - HDK, Pagemaker, Acrobat, whatever. I've never used Pagemaker before, and suddenly I've got to generate TOCs and indexes - when any change to the Help will mean a change to the manual and then a change to the index references.
6/6/97: Leaving work 9.25 pm, having stayed to try out the new release of Nautilus and the Help links. Nfg. Still, at least it saves Sam from having to go in to work over the weekend!
9/6/97: Going in to work today to put finishing touches to v.1 of Help & manual which will be pressed tomorrow(?). Help still doesn't work properly (esp. Synchronizer), don't know quite what we can do about that - ?.

10/6/97: Mum's 70th birthday do chez nous. Nautilus (and synchronizer) drags on...
11/6/97: Absolutely shuggered today, arrived at work at 2pm. PsiWin 2 CD-ROM has gone to be pressed, so we can take it a bit easy for a couple of days. There's a Protea launch party next Monday, I don't really feel like going but I guess I will.
12/6/97: Eigg gets its independence today, I dare say Caroline will be over there partying like mad. Good for them. I worked a massive 4½ hour day yesterday and I've no plans to do more than 8 today, though I don't feel too bad and the weather is a lot less stiflingly clammy and sweaty.

16/6/97: Protea (Series 5) launch party. Kidney stone agony in mornings.
18/6/97: Protea launched to public at PC Expo in New York on Monday, we got a nice email from Daniel D yesterday congratulating us on getting PsiWin out and done. A pity it ain't that good (yet)!

21&22/6/97: IOW for my bday, rainy but fun. Trying to get my 6 month self-assessment done.
26/6/97: Started "genericising" the Protea manual today - and then discovered that Help links didn't work on a PC which wasn't connected to our R: drive. Jeez... reviewing the Protea project tomorrow morning, so we should be able to say a few things.
28/6/97: Maggie to vet with nasty bites, me "genericising", playing XWing v Tie, soon Road Rash, wondering if Psion is right for me...

1/7/97: I wonder whether this job is just too much of a change for me? I have to say I'm finding it tedious, monotonous and dull, and I have no interest whatever in the actual task I'm doing (genericising at the moment). And it was difficult to be enthusiastic or interested in Protea (which I thought was inferior to S3) or Nautilus (which didn't work and was an embarrassing mess, screwing up any PC that installed it). The Psion backlash starts from within???
Nokia signed a 5-year contract with Psion last Friday, that should mean relative job security if I decide to stay.

2/7/97: Hong Kong back to China, Tim Henman in Wimbledon, me food poisoning from grim chicken sandwich. Off work 2½ days.
3/7/97: Robert Mitchum and James Stewart dead :-(
5/7/97: Carmen at ENO, Jean to stay 10 days. She upset Sarah (?), meanwhile do we want Tillie's friend to live with us?
6/7/97: "Carmen, I must go on a whore pin" sang Don Jose and it wasn't until the third time I heard it that I figured out what he was saying (he must go on hoping). Production a bit lacklustre, neither lead had any real charisma although both sang adequately. Don Jose far too old, Toreador looked ludicrously old & fat in his outfit although ok in mufti, I don't know if all operas are as unconvincing as that, I've got nothing to measure it against, but maybe I've missed the point. Oh, and her death scene was pathetic. No wonder only lukewarm applause at the end (of the run, as well!). Got home to be treated to fucking awful noise from next door's party. Awful talentless shit. Rap? Jungle? Fuck knows - and fuck cares. Awful.

9/7/97: Spoke to PH on phone, first time for nearly 2 years!
12/7/97: L in Oxford for conference.
15/7/97: L's 41st, bowling with Jean then pizza. Radio, Anais Anais.
22/7/97: Tuesday, up fairly bright for a shower pre-work. Got stuck in to reformatting bloody PsiWin Help yesterday, might be an odious task but one which I reckon I can do quite easily. Also had to zip up various things for Terry - one of those "I forgot to mention" e-mails that she left as a little present.
25/7/97: Trainspotting video.
27/7/97: Bought rucksack, boots... TJ on 2 week holiday so relax but work still hassle (HDK doc conversion)
27/7/97: Mal asked about my future plans, saying he was thinking of losing one gig, and I said I'd been wondering how long to continue doing the Saturday night for... I dunno. The money's nice, but I don't like having to play every Saturday evening - maybe a midweek would be nicer? But that's not what's being offered (not yet, anyway). So: Shall I pack it in at the end of the summer???
28/7/97: Or shall I pack in Psion? One, the other, neither, both... Nina Coltart is dead, I'm sorry about that. Stroppy, opinionated woman!

5/8/97: Nautilus launch party
10/8/97: Off to bonnie Scotland for a fortnight - Eigg, Ullapool, Edinburgh - had a really fantastic time and Caroline Read was a wonderful host. Probably the best holiday I've ever had (OK Caroline???)
10/8/97: Leave London Euston 9.10 pm. On the overnight sleeper, first class, to Fort William. Had a chicken Korma and 2 new malt whiskies - Lagavulin and Dalwhinnie - neither really to my palate (!). I've just noticed that this is journal part 60, which means that I've been doing this almost daily for five years. Amazing! Next month will the 5th anniversary of buying my first series 3 machine. It's a pity it took me so long to start keeping a journal, I'd like to have some record of what went through my head during my 20s...
14/8/97: Eigg, Thursday evening, L cooking and me in the armchair outside the caravan. A wind is getting up now, but it's been a glorious day. We walked up towards the North end of the island this morning until the track disappeared, then back for bacon and eggs before down to the beach this afternoon. The sea was lovely and warm with nice waves to fool about in, then we had a game of boules. L and I lost to Caro and John, sadly!
Yesterday we walked along the coast until we got almost stranded by the tide and had to climb up the cliff to escape the sea. Saw a dead sheep which had fallen off onto the rocks below... It rained much of yesterday afternoon so we did some Grauniad crossword before Caro arrived and we had a couple of wee drams before a stroll along the beach in the bright yellow sunset.
When we arrived here on Tuesday we were met by John in the small boat that ferries people to and from the pier and the ferry, then walked across the island to the beach. It's a glorious place and a beautiful site for the caravan, on a hill overlooking the beach and surrounded by granite hills. That evening we went for a meal with Caro, her friend Charlotte, and about 8 children who then went off for a late night swim. What an amazing place!
15/8/97: 10.45 ferry to Mallaig, just miss ferry to Skye so catch 1.45 Mallaig - Armadale. Fucking long, heavy rain last night - but not too much wind with it. The caravan was largely waterproof except for L's corner of the bed, but I had to get up and shut various assorted windows during the night. Today it seems to have subsided and clear weather is appearing on the horizon, my only query is whether the ferry left Mallaig on time at 6.00 this morning - if not, it won't be here at 10.45 to take us back.
This really is a lovely place, but for the moment I think I (only just?) prefer Cape Cornwall - I do like to be able to buy a pint of milk, or whatever, when I fancy one. And the thing here is that unless you bring it with you, you can't get it. No ice cream after a walk, no popping out to the pub for a quick one, dried or evaporated milk in tea... I like my little "luxuries".
Sheep baa-ing outside the loo window as I write... We returned from Caro's on Tuesday to find the field full of cows (they'd been on the beach earlier!), then went to bed. Woke at 8 am and the field was full of sheep, made a cup of tea & went back to bed, woke again 10.30 and the field was full of horses! Freaky...
16/8/97: 8.15, sitting in "The Ceilidh Place" in Ullapool. It rained last night, but not so heavily as to wake us up. Today we're in a new room, larger and with an en suite shower and loo, but still overlooking the harbour. It was very overcast earlier, but we had some breakfast, took a walk along the front, saw some seals, bought a paper, came back and had a rest and now (11.40) it's brightening up.
Later on, a 4 hour cruise out to the Summer Isles - seals, etc. - then went to see Anam (a band) last night at the Ceilidh Place. Today the weather is fab but I feel too lazy to do very much.

26/8/97: Back at work and really down & tense. Genericising 4 Delaware
31/8/97: Lady Diana dead!!! C-A about work
31/8/97: Fuck me, Diana is dead. I don't really know what else to say.
1/9/97: Diana's death haunts me in certain subtle ways, I'm not sure how. As the Guardian says, it is both monumental and yet, finally, will have only the most minimal effect on ordinary people's lives.
5/9/97: Whereas last night was fine, as was today. Diana's funeral is tomorrow, poor sow, I probably won't watch it on telly - though whether I'll be able to avoid it is a different matter. And the crowds while we're going to the gig might be appalling...

6/9/97: Diana's funeral
7/9/97: We watched the funeral on telly yesterday, then went down town at about 3 to see the extraordinary amount of flowers outside the Abbey and Buck Palace and in the Mall. It was really very moving. The gig last night was ok though a bit quieter than usual. This is all very curt and condensed, isn't it?

13/9/97: Went to meet L in Crouch End. Thai dinner then me grumpy (?). Last gig in Earls Court!
18/9/97: Moved desk to sit by the window
19/9/97: Gareth Richards - arse - left. Gig in the Vic
20/9/97: Unofficial Guild building opening
22/9/97: Work is so tedious at the moment, doing a fucking generic glossary for EPOC Connect... I didn't imagine it was going to be like this! I suppose my new desk by the window should cheer me up a bit, although Vel is moving upstairs this week (going to work for Psion Computers) so she won't be around.

27/9/97: Went to visit L's mother, stayed in Sandgate Hotel
29/9/97: The return of the Harding
3/10/97: ISB at Bloomsbury - didn't go :-(
9/10/97: To Cheltenham (printer) with MEgg
15/10/97: Lavender (Liffey) & PsiWin 2.1
17/10/97: A bit of a kak day, sadly, I may have wasted the past 3 days work. I hated Office 97 when I installed it, and I hate it more now. It's fucked up all my HDK stuff - specifically the new, improved PsiWin Help. Bollocks to it. So today I'll have to re-set up all the Word stuff that I had, and make another new HDK template. Work otherwise not too bad at the moment, getting slowly stuck in to Lavender and PsiWin interim release, then Poppy (PsiWin 2.1) - or is it Marlin? What's Poppy, then? I get confused with all these code words...

18/10/97: Bought CD cabinet. Earls Court gigs finished.
19/10/97: Gig last night not too bad, although it looked terrible when we arrived. Big room, small stage, bunch of drunk paddy lads, few older men at the bar "Jayzus, I tried some of that wine stuff the other night - did you ever try wine, Pat? Jayzus, the head on me the next morning..." and the whole thing lit by a single fluorescent strip over the bar. Still, wasn't too bad in the end, as I say. Out in Heston (near Heathrow).

29/10/97: To dinner with Will, Jess, Roger & Joyce...
30/10/97: Went to see the new (as-yet unopened) British Library
31/10/97: Colossal work load (it feels). Meet Rob, comment on PsiWin, check UI, rewrite interim release thing again, do Liffey manual... I think I'll go on long term sick(!). Really can't see things improving now, I think (having been there 10 months, a year in Jan) that this is what it's going to be like. I'm not consumed by "I don't know how to do it" any more, but it's been replaced by "I don't want to do it" and "I'm fed up with this". So: seriously jobsearch in Jan?

8/11/97: Estate agents to value flat, then fireworks Ally Pally & W&J, then funfair. Terry off all week (moving)
24/11/97: 3 days off sick with bad tum, reinstalled W95, then dead ear for a week
2/12/97: Ears syringed. Lavender manual.
16/12/97: User docs lunch at odd pizza place
16/12/97: Out to lunch - pizza - today with the UI docs crew & Vel.
Or not with Vel, as it happened. Lunch was nice although not brilliant - I was a bit disappointed & bemused at the pizza joint Terry had chosen for us, not very big pizzas and a very odd menu. Rather "posh & classy" but for someone who claims to love pizzas it wasn't very authentic - English breakfast pizza with sausage and black pudding, turkey pizza (of course, it being Christmas), smoked salmon pizza... might all be very nice, but not exactly what I'd expected. And not an olive or an anchovy anywhere to be seen!

19/12/97: Psion SW party in St James club
23/12/97: To Cardiff for Xmas - piles!!! Star Wars vids, Crumb book, Talisker
31/12/97: To the zoo, then new year at Banners