Whitby Review, Hallowe'en 2006: For a Few Netgoths More

Do all philosophers have an 'S' in their names? No they don't, and those who don't are the most troublesome of all, as you, dear reader, shall shortly see. But there was more than philosophy on my mind as I got my stuff ready and co-ordinated my people on the morning of Wednesday the 25th of October 2006. Donald was attending the Whitby Gothic Weekend again, but had opted to spend lots of money on train tickets rather than endure being in the car with Erith. Stuart (Potatojunkie) said he would gladly put up the money himself rather than have to sit through their arguments again. He and I were ready pretty much on time, and were shortly joined by Jezebel, who had come in on the bus from Alloa to scaff a lift. This was made possible by the fact that Erith had borrowed his mum's car for the journey. An enormous hulking black SUV thing, it proved eminently practical for four people with a week's worth of luggage, but I felt slightly awkward riding in it all the same, especially as its influence encouraged Erith to be even meaner about other people. It was also unfortunate that I had to be lifted in and out of it, making me feel like a prisoner the moment the door was shut.

We only made one stop on the way down, in Penrith, where Stuart and I ate gorgeous crispy duck pancake rolls with hoi sin sauce. The weather was fine and the journey so far had been easy, but it grew less so as we turned westward, passing the site of the previous day's accident in which an Argos van driver had died; the tanks which had slammed into his vehicle stood beside the road like the sentinels of some approaching war. Thereafter there were new road works every fifteen miles or so, often slowing traffic almost to a halt. Erith scowled as less wary drivers overtook to try and avoid these delays, but recovered his temper when he later saw them suffering what Stuart described as 'karmic tractor retribution'. We played Feathers versus Fur as usual and feathers won a landslide victory with nineteen, only six dead mammals and seven unidentifiable meat smears being seen on the whole journey (though there was also a small pile of dead post on the motorway outside Penrith).

It was four o'clock when we reached Whitby, and raining hard. I was dropped outside the Elsinore, already soaked by the time I reached its doorway, where I huddled to peel on my coat. Collecting the cottage keys I passed a new goth shop with the unfortunate name of 'The Great Goth' and was sorely tempted by charity shops whose windows bulged with black things, but I figured it would be wise not to piss off my fltmates so early, so I went on to Time and Tide and opened the place up and made it comfortable. Once the unpacking started I got my laptop, Violet, up and running, so then there was music. Flash Gordon tunes went on at Stuart's request and he and Jez discussed how much they both want to be Brian Blessed.

Unfortunately there was nothing in the cottage with which to make tea. It seems no supplies at all are kept there for the weary traveller, probably because they'd be stolen by the rats in the walls. Stuart soon found the vodka and we swigged it neat as we unpacked. Erith shook his head and sighed pointedly. Jez took her bag off to the pub, where she hoped to seduce somebody and thereby find a place to spend the night - she just had to remember not to seduce Preacher, who was planning to do his Whitby the same way. Meanwhile, we went shopping for food. Donald collected the bag we'd brought down for him before going off to his cottage on the other side of town, which he was sharing with Dag, Kara, Kest and Dublin-based Germans Bernard and Klaus. We ate a delicious big lasagne which Erith's mum had cooked for us. During dinner I got a text message from Brian, Stuart's flatmate, informing us that the bathroom ceiling in their home, Novo Prospekt, had collapsed. I gave him the necessary phone numbers for getting it sorted out. Hopefully this would be the only distant emergency we'd have to deal with whilst on holiday. It was time to go to the pub.

Though it was only Wednesday, the Elsinore was already pretty full. I found a stool in an awkward place where I was facing people's backs, gradually manouvering into a better position as the night went on. There was no shortage of Murphy's to keep me happy. Fury was there, looking really good, more energetic now the strain of being a full time carer has been lifted from her. EdwardS and Siani were talking with Giolla and Arachne, and soon thereafter Adsevin, The Emperor Penguin and Kest arrived. Jez and Siani began arguing over who had the smallest nipples and putting their heads down one another's tops, whilst at the next table a jelly wrestling consortium was recruiting (I let it slide as they didn't have lime). Erith quickly got drunk and attempted to tart at four women at once, which Donald later pointed out could only be achieved if they were lined up just so, leaving Dag to work on the exact mathematical models.

Stuart and I were both very tired that night, so we left shortly before closing time and went straight to bed. Some of the others went on to a party where they drank a lot of absinthe and balanced cupcakes on Arachne's breasts. The next morning I was greeted by Jez, who had crashed on our couch before taking a refreshing morning walk around the harbour. She still appeared to be some distance from refreshed. Erith had rebuffed her advances since she reminded him too much of his little sisters, but had bought her a pint by way of compensation. When he came downstairs he did not look well at all, but he made himself comfortable in a chair and assured us he wasn't going to be sick. Then he threw up in his hands. After that it was holding onto the floor time for him all morning, shuddering under a coat and mumbling praise for Dean Martin. Stuart and I decided to go shopping without him.

Though the charity shops were full of stuff, our trip was not a very productive one. I got a soft black velvet skirt and wee black velvet top which will be useful for replacing old worn out clothes and pairing with more interesting stuff; I also obtained sixteen metres of thin pale pink ribbon for doing my hair. Stuart got a ruffled purple top which he immediately became very fond of. We visited The Great Goth and were impressed by their choice of designers though less so by their choice to stock pretty much everything in only black and red. Still, they seem like lovely people. Up at the top of the hill we found Stuart a beautiful long blue velvet dress, and then it was time to go home.

Later that afternoon I went out again, with Erith, and visited the bookshop on the other side of the harbour. The books I'd been reading at home had gone missing just before I left, so I had nothing to read and figured I'd pick up a couple of things I'd been meaning to get round to: Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker and Brett Easton Ellis' Lunar Park. I then discovered The Conquest of the Incas, a volume about which I had heard great things, and eagerly snapped it up, though it is enormous and weighs rather heavily against my completing the Fifty Book Challenge this year; the little book on Sumerian art which I subsequently discovered may balance it out. I then realised rather nervously that I'd already spent over a third of my holiday money. It was time to go home, with only a brief stop-off at the chocolate shop, to read until dinner time, when Erith cooked bangers and mash with a gorgeous caramelised onion compote. It was his birthday, but I knew better than to try to cook for him - he seems to get his greatest pleasure from being important in kitchens. He was also fortifying himself against futher alcohol poisoning, having decided that he'd already done plenty of celebrating and that now (at twenty six) he was old and could respectably take it easy.

Taking it easy might have been simple enough as it was impossible to get into the Elsinore that evening. The place was packed out. I could probably have managed it, since friends would have found a seat for me, but I would have been far too warm and consequently sleepy, and poor Stuart would have been unable to breathe (having become used to smoke-free pubs in Scotland it's now much harder to cope with them down south). The Little Angel looked to be much the same, so we went directly to the Resolution, which had been advertising some kind of gothic disco event. This proved to be upstairs, with the lift broken, so I was pretty sore when we reached it and could find nowhere to sit; I might have persevered but the others declined, protesting that it looked like a school disco. So we went downstairs, where two kind strangers gave us seats at their table in the lounge bar. This proved to be a much more pleasant location, with plenty of goths present but still room to move. I sent out text message directions and gradually our friends joined us there. Amongst them was David Gerard, who apologised "for the years 2000 to 2002". I must confess that I hadn't been terribly bothered about them myself, but nonetheless I appreciated that it was brave of him to do so. He also gave me good news about the future of usenet, which made me happy. If there were ever to have been a netgoth cabal, which, of course, there is not, it would (not) have (not) been in that bar that night. Fnord. At one point Erith determined that there was over a century of posting history within ten square feet. Siani and Stuart were drinking heavily, she guarding him when his kilt fell down (he wasn't quite drunk enough to start deliberately showing everyone his bum). Dag was there with a new haircut which really suits him, arguing with Donald and Aidan about whether or not Newton was better than Leibnitz and which one would win in a fight; and, to my utter surprise, Tetsab and Matthew King appeared, visiting for one night only in the aftermath of a wedding. Having talked to them online for years (well, argued mostly, in Matthew's case, though we've had some great games of scrabble too and he remains one of my favourite posters) I was delighted to get to meet them in person. Apparently they were expecting someone taller, but we still got along well. Meanwhile Donald, tired of Erith abusing the word 'science' all the time, warned him that science had been waiting for its revenge and was hiring everyone in Whitby to help it; apparently it paid two pence a time to hit Erith over the back of the head 'for science'. Dag wasn't sure this was a very good wage, but when asked how many times he could hit Erith in an hour he worked out that he could potentially earn two pounds a minute, not bad at all. Naturally Erith protested and I pointed out that it was his birthday, but then the clock struck midnight and his only defence melted away...

Somewhere around then I realised that Stuart had disappeared. Erith offered to search the toilets for me, but Dag had already found him. Apparently, on 'a scale of one to vomiting in the toilets', he was a four. I fetched my coat and walked him home, but at his insistence, after I was sure he'd expelled everything likely to emerge from his stomach in the immediate term, I returned to hang out with Aidan, who was slurring like a fuzzy thing but could still just about manage conversation. At two, however, the others went to a party and I conscientiously returned home, sleeping awkwardly at the very edge of the bed until Stuart recovered enough to be able to tolerate human contact.

In the morning, of course, Stuart was up bright and early, full of bounce, whereas I'd had about five hours' rough sleep and had a headache to boot. To make it up to me, he went out to Safeway and brought us back a whole roast chicken for breakfast. It helped a little. I still felt pretty awful as we walked to the Spa to turn our 'worthless' tickets (a term more apt, as it emerged, than we had thought) into plain pink wristbands. We then proceeded to the bazaar, where we discovered that Hay-way boots are closing down. Alas! Who will I get to make me cheap and comfortable thigh boots in fabrics of my own choosing now? Stuart was excited by their closing down sale, but sadly they had next to nothing in his size. I had the same experience with waist cinchers - one in candy apple red PVC, one in black and white stripes, both very cheap, both size large. Meh. In the end, all we bought was nail varnish. We said hello to various friends and then walked along to the Metropole and our favourite bring and buy stall. There I was delighted to find a skirt which I could wear with the little pink and white bodice I'd acquired shortly before leaving Glasgow. At only seven pounds, said skirt was enormous, incorporating yards and yards of white net and fine ivory satin, utterly impractical but impossible to resist. I also picked up a simple but charming black and pink velvet dress, new and less than half the usual price, so I was pretty happy with that. Stuart got a stunning grey-blue satin jacket, military cut and the perfect size for him. Whilst he finished shopping I, being more ruthless and thus quicker, sat in the hallway and examined some three dozen flyers - it was like the days of Nemesis all over again.

On Friday evening Kest came round for dinner and Erith cooked lemon haddock and small portions of roast duck with further enormous piles of potato. Stuart left early for the Spa so that he could start photographing the bands, whilst I had to make a sling out of gardening twine so that I could carry my skirt up there. It was fairly quiet when Erith and I arrived and we found seats at the back with a middle aged English couple who turned out to have been attending the event for almost as long as I have, so that there was fun to be had reminiscing. Gradually my people came to join us. I was delighted to see Edvamp, who is always one of the most fun people to hang out with, and I caught up with Donald, who was cheerful but a little sleepy owing to the huge quantities of good food which Bernard kept providing him with. He came in with me to watch The Vampire Beach Babes. I'd seen bits of the first two bands, which were pretty dull; this lot I felt sorry for, as they were plainly much more capable than an unfrindly sound set-up was allowing for. The best of their singers could hardly be heard over the instrumentation, and the bass was way too high, interfering with their carefully constructed melodic sound. They did well enough to convince me to pick up an album of theirs sometime, but it must have been odd for them to be rewarded with just a wee bit of polite clapping when they're used to screaming crowds. I meant to talk to Pete, who normally takes care of the sound, but he was nowhere to be found - overwhelmed, poor thing, trying to deal with the two television crews which had been dumped on him at the last minute. Still, when it came to The Damned, things were working perfectly, and that was what really mattered - they were the reason why I'd opted to buy a Spa ticket. They played a very different set from usual, getting the most popular stuff over with early and concentrating on sweeping melodic numbers rather than their usual storming stompiness. This revealed that, musically, they really do still have what it takes. Some of the songs had been subtly altered for less demanding vocals, but the new versions worked well, and I particularly liked the darker, much more bitter Eloise. It was also entertaining to see Captain Sensible (introduced as "our guest guitarist, the Predator") in the cyber hair he'd picked up from the bazaar earlier - the band were clearly enjoying being a part of things. I managed to stay on my feet for most of the set, and even if I couldn't dance very hard I enjoyed dancing with Stuart, who looked delicious in his purple velvet belly dancing costume. He was particularly enjoying his veil (up yours, Jack Straw!), treating it like a secret den which best friends were allowed to share from time to time.

After the bands finished I spent some more time in the outer part of the Spa, delighted at the chance to catch up with my good friend JV, who was in a very bouncy if not entirely sociable mood, distracted by a young woman half his age. I was also thrilled to see my friend Iona again after about seven years. She looked as lovely as ever, and probably just as dangerous, though calmer. A little later Jez wandered by and explained that she'd only just got in, missing the first bit of The Damned's set due to being stuck in a queue of people who were held back because the building was over capacity. I was confounded. Surely this couldn't have happened again? I'd heard a rumour that the police who'd been wandering round the building earlier (both of Whitby's available constabularly, whom one would think would have more important things to do on a Friday night) had been called by attendees due to a capacity issue, but I would have thought that, after the scandal with Queen Adrena, Jo would have been extra careful not to oversell. That was certainly the case, said Bob Rosenburg, but there had been "some tickets which were forgeries and some which had just been photocopied." When exactly this problem came to the attention of the organisers was not clear; nor was the source of it, a curious thing when one considers how close-knit the goth community is. A lot of people had gone mostly to see The Damned and I imagine that they are exceedingly pissed off about the whole thing. Ticket sales for the next event have been put on hold at the request of the police. Who knows how this will all pan out? It doesn't directly concern me anyway - though I did briefly entertain the idea of making Whitbies fast by attending only one day of each event and turning up late to get a compensation voucher on the other, I'm buggered if I'm spending forty quid on the Cruxshadows. Still, lots of people do enjoy the Spa, and it sucks for them.

After the Spa chucked out that night I joined a big posse of people looking for party action, but as my legs were starting to hurt a great deal from all the walking around I was slow, Stuart sticking with me as we tagged along behind. This meant we got a good laugh watching the posse ahead of us get stuck in dead ends, some people actually pressing on the walls as if seeking a Labyrinth-style secret way through.

Eventually we made our way to the Resolution, which, being a hotel, had stopped serving alcohol but wasn't particularly frantic about expelling its happy crowd. Everyone there was very drunk, snogging and hurling one another around and even licking pussy in public, as well as telling scandalous stories about those not in attendance. We hung out there for about an hour before it was decided that there would be a party in Donald's cottage. Unfortunately that was far too far away for me to walk and I hurt too much to want to get a taxi (knowing I couldn't guarantee getting one home later). Stuart, who was stressed and worn out from frustrating photography work, went anyway, and I went up to bed so as not to distract Erith from his seduction of Fury's little sister Pru, though it turned out that all they did was sit talking about philosophy for six hours anyway. I managed a couple of fitful hours' sleep before I was woken by Stuart, who couldn't exactly sneak in with so many jangly coins attached to his clothing. He told me that everyone had been exhausted by the walk to the cottage (which Edvamp later described as "two heart attacks past the train station"), so it had mostly been a sitting about talking kind of party, though he had snogged Siani, who had been extremely drunk and waving her hands in the air shouting about how everything was 'awesome'.

No-one seemed to be feeling quite so awesome the following morning, though for once I wasn't doing too badly. My problem was my left knee, which had become infected and wouldn't bend, making navigation of the cottage's narrow staircases somewhat hazardous. Once I got downstairs I plastered it with antibiotics and ate a good deal of other medication to manage the early symptoms of septicaemia (which thankfully got no worse). Stuart fetched me a roast pork burger with lots of crackling from The Greedy Pig. Once my pain killers had kicked in and I could walk a little, we set out for the leisure centre, which we'd failed to make on the previous day. There were lots more bazaar stalls there, and they were packed full of interesting stuff, though nothing quite matched what we were after. Stuart was rather taken with a genuine eighteenth century naval officer's uniform but admitted he'd only keep it in a box even if he owned it. I don't see the point of treating clothes that way. Anyway, we went on to the Metropole just in time for reductions on the second hand stall. I bought a brand new black PVC harness for a fiver, plus a small black bodice of the sort that's handy with all sorts of outfits, whilst he got suspender trousers which look spectacular on him even if they're too badly behaved to dance in, plus a couple of tops. As usual he made himself popular by donating carrier bags just in time for the end-of-day rush. He then did some photography work, preparing his Beginners' Guide to Whitby. We had vaguely arranged to meet up with some other photographer that afternoon - a guy who wanted to take studio pictures of us for a book he was creating, allegedly for Propaganda - but I was in too much pain and it had not been at all clear that we'd get paid, so we let that one go. Holidays are a rare thing for me and I'm not inclined to spend them doing anything resembling work.

On our way home that afternoon we met Siani, who was gradually recovering from the second worst hangover of her life (the worst having been generated by a previous evening in Whitby spent with Donald and several bottles of whisky). Apparently, "on a scale of one to shitfaced" she had spent the previous night "shitfaced". I was worn out myself, so happy enough to sit in the cottage and read about Incas until Donald and Kest came round to visit. They would have liked to update me on their party but were unfortunately unable to remember any of it (to be fair, Kest was quite respectably sleeping, smugly enjoying the permission Dag had given her to share a bed with his little sister); they referred me to Edvamp, the only sober person to have been there, before they went off to the pub. Stuart and I ate pasta and I helped him to dress up like Adam Ant before he ran off again to start photographing bands. I then had time to finish my own make-up and make my way along with Donald and Kara, the latter discussing her wedding plans and looking forward to the wedding show the following day in the Metropole. As before, we found seats fairly easily, this time closer to established groups of friends, and I settled down to drink whilst Donald wandered off to look at the bands. Though unimpressed by most of them, he really liked Katzenjammer Kabaret and bought their album. I would have liked to see them live, but aside from my leg problem I simply had too many people to talk to to get away from my table. I didn't go wandering until late in the night, when Jez had gone missing (non-problematically, as it turned out) and Aidan was worried about her. On my way back, I sliped on a wet patch of floor and went crashing down, landing on my right thigh. I might as well have landed on a bed of nails; all the spikes of calcium growing just beneath the skin slammed into the flesh. I was fortunate not to break anything, but the pain was almost overwhelming (at the time of writing this, seven days later, the wound is still bleeding). Fortunately Donald was on hand to see that I was lifted up properly without damaging anything further. Fuzzy Dave, who is smart about these things, helped; many other people kindly offered to, but without understanding how I'm damaged they'd probably have made things worse. Laudanum was quickly procured and I drank a good quantity of it, which did help the pain a little but, to my annoyance, gave me no buzz whatsoever, it was used up so fast. The acute pain lasted for about two hours thereafter as I continued to bleed into my flesh. I put away a good deal of rum, but to no avail. Not only was I sore, I was sober. Still, I wasn't going to feel any better at home or in hospital, so I stuck it out and did my best to enjoy the rest of the night.

I might have been considered better off than some. Poor Erith, who had spent the day visiting his littlest sister in York, arrived late at the Spa and was stuck in a queue for ages before he eventually managed to get in. Donld, however, was having a good evening, the more so when he was drawn across to the table beside him and presented with a series of questions about his height, weight, age, sexual availability and so forth. His answers apparently qualified him to be picked up by an eighteen year old friend of the people there, whom he snogged enthusiastically before they bounced away together. Around midnight Stuart and I headed down to the Resolution where we broke the news to Dag that his shared bedroom would be occupied that night, and offered him a place on our couch. He was very gentlemanly about it. The netgoths there were all crowded round a big table at one end of the bar, where we joined them for drinks. I took the opportunity to catch up with Morph and Adsevin, whom I'd hardly seen. Unfortunately I was so deeply engaged in conversation that I missed the sight of a certain female netgoth flashing her breasts. Having established the size of the bribe which had precipitated this, I flicked fifty pence down the table to land in a glass, at which point she was honour bound to do it again. Not that I saw much but, you know, that wasn't really the point.

Drinking in the Resolution carried on until around half past two, when Edvamp invited some of us back to his cottage for a party. We had to be very quiet there as Clare was upstairs sleeping; her boyfriend Gideon warned us that if we disturbed her she would come downstairs and "rip [our] inner gizzards out." It was unclear what she might do to our outer gizzards, but that was quite sufficient to cow us. We sat and talked the night away whilst Siani fetched pizza for everyone. I left after the fourth time Stuart had lifted his head up from my shoulder to insist he was wide awake, figuring it was wiser to drag him home then than, in my injured state, to have to carry him.

Stuart and I had looked forward to a long, lazy Sunday morning when we wouldn't have anything much to do, but as it was I'd had a really rough night because of the pain and he had a really rough morning because of the drink. It's a pirate's life for us, indeed. We eventually dragged ourselves downstairs and he popped out to procure a whole roast chicken for breakfast. Afterwards, somewhat restored, we went down to Java to drink milkshakes and check the internet, and I firmly resisted checking things at work or reading about films in the newspapers. We then walked down to the church bring and buy sale just back from the harbour, but it was just closing for the day and yielded no treasure this time. Stuart wanted a tight white T-shirt to wear to 'Eighties Night, for a costume he later abandoned, so we stopped off at a mainstream shop where I was delighted to find a wee lime green lace dress of just the sort I had recently been looking for. It was only a tenner, so I snapped it up and then hung around for a while discussing the fashion industry with the manager. Unfortunately, by the time we got to Safeway, though it was only half past four, it had closed. Stuart muttered darkly about the primitive condition of England. We sloped off home and tried to build dinner out of what scraps we could find whilst Erith, who was out wandering elsewhere, located emergency supplies of rum and toilet paper. I helped Stuart get ready in his silver-on-black snake-print jeans and black fishnet top, worrying that he'd disappoint his fans and I'd get blamed for it (as I have before); then he ran off out to 'Eighties Night and Erith and I read for a bit before going to the nearby Thai restaurant for a proper meal. I haven't had oyster sauce in ages (Donald hates the smell) so I really enjoyed it.

Later, in the Elsinore, we caught up with assorted friends and gradually made our way into the corner where Donald, Edvamp, Dag and Kest were sitting. Everyone was worried about Jen, who had become violently sick; Falcon didn't think she'd been drinking enough for it to happen so suddenly like that, and they were wondering about food poisoning. We hastily checked that they hadn't eaten in the same place as us. Helped outside, Jen collapsed in the street and looked frighteningly ill, so an ambulance was called and off she went to hospital, accompanied by Falcon and EdwardS. For those of us left behind there was nothing much to be done. Dag and Kest went off to 'Eighties Night and the rest of us sat around and drank, embarking - bizarrely, given the rarity of such things - on a long and constructive discussion of goth music. We all agreed that we'd like to see more variety at Whitby, and in particular more German bands and maybe something from Japan. Investigations shall be made and some kind of suggestions list drawn up. It's time the potential of this event was properly exploited.

Shortly before midnight, Erith, Donald and I headed down to Laughtons with chairs and drink. Donald went off to get a kebab and we set up camp, rather surprised to find several of our people outside there already. It turned out that they were looking after Siani, who had become excessively inebriated, thrown up on her arms and then passed out in a toilet stall for ages. She seemed to be recovering well. Aidan had heard from the hospital, where the good news was that Jen was recovering well, though no-one was sure what had happened to her and they were wondering if she had experienced an allergic reaction, had her drink spiked, or even both. She was due to be released later that night.

I was deep in conversation when Stuart emerged from Laughtons, naked except for his shoes and a pair of swimming trunks, remarkably unscathed given that he'd just been dancing to Nellie the Elephant. Apparently he'd looked at Preacher afterwards and Preacher had looked through him before slumping to the ground. I gave him an orchid and then held the irn bru whilst he clambered into his clothes. Saying our goodbyes where necessary, we walked along the road to Edvamp's cottage. Clare was awake this time and joined the gathering, and there was lots of drink left over from the previous night, all of which had to be consumed before they left the following morning. It was too warm there for anyone to feel terribly riotous (we couldn't open a window for fear of upsetting the neighbours) but nevertheless there was quite a bit of violence, with Kest getting turned upside down and Donald hitting Erith over the back of the head every time he said the word 'science' again. As Donald was fairly drunk, Erith found himself getting hit when other people said 'science' too; Dag and I experimented with words like 'scientific', 'prescience' and 'conscience'. When Donald's arm got tired and he said he couldn't be bothered anymore, Aidan gave him fifty pence to keep going.

Stuart and I left that party at about half past three, when we could no longer keep our eyes open. I had better sleep that night and woke up full of energy, wanting to do things, but Stuart was feeling rough and Erith was exhausted. This was particularly frustrating as I couldn't safely get down the hill on my own to visit the old part of town where I had wanted to shop and visit people. We did make it to the cottage agency, however, to book our cottage for next year - Haven cottage, which is even closer to the pub! - a mere twenty seven paces from the bar of the Elsinore, instead of eighty. We explained that Erith and I would be paying one deposit each to make things easier on our bank balances, and the agent smiled at Stuart and said she supposed he wouldn't be paying at all then; when it came to filling in his age, she suggested twelve. Afterwards he and I went for a walk and I bought him some stripey pirate gloves in The Great Goth, where I talked to the owner about industry things and Stuart explained how a website could help him. He'd only had the place for two weeks and was terribly naif about a lot of things (though aware of that, at least, which will help); I do hope he manages to keep it going as it has a lot of potential.

I spent that afternoon languishing in the cottage. Erith was busy running around town preparing for the fire. I read about the first time the Incas discovered horses were mortal and I ate amaretto truffles and co-codamol. In the evening, Stuart and I went down to South Beach to join the festivities.

Maybe it was just that there were events on elsewhere; maybe the message got through that wankers who want to take food without donating any and generally screw things up are not welcome; but at any rate, the fire gathering was much smaller (reduced to perhaps eighty people in total) and much more pleasant than in the recent past. A stranger gave me chips to eat as I sank into my seat and once again Thomas was running a free bar. Local neds tried to spoil things by throwing a firework at us as we listened to the opening speech, but as we'd all been expecting random explosions, given who was present, no-one much reacted (despite the fact it could have been deadly), except for those who turned round and flashed their cameras in the direction from which it had come. We didn't get any further trouble. Wherever our attackers were, they must have been glad they hadn't successfully picked a fight when they saw Giolla's display later that night - no-one in Whitby could have missed it - demonstrating that we were better armed than them by a factor of about one thousand five hundred to one. It was one of the best displays I've ever seen, truly breathtaking, despite a few scares caused by rockets which hadn't been properly prepared (not hir fault). People were so enthusiastic about it that their donations recouped almost all the cost. I met a young couple who had come to Whitby for the one night only just because one of them was really interested in fire and had heard that we had the best available. They had nowhere to stay and were planning, should they fail to scaff a couch or pull, to bury themselves in the sand and stay warm that way until morning.

After the fireworks came the maffball. The crowd was so thick for this that I, restricted to my seat, couldn't always make out who the players were, which was probably a good thing as I would have been nervous as Hell had I realised that Donald was involved. Fuzzy Dave left his stuff where I could look after it "while I get set on fire again". There was no proper container for preparing the maffballs (which are made from toilet rolls) so a carrier bag was filled with paraffin and they were simply dunked in that by hand; Fury made people nervous by doing some of this work whilst smoking a cigarette. Pru, a keen lacrosse player, proved excellent at using the maffball stick to launch them high into the air, and a good game was had by all.

Whilst on the beach I got the chance to catch up with my former flatmate Karl, who is now living in Whitby again but had missed most of the week's events due to a nasty 'flu-like virus. I learned that David Gerard had come down with the same thing, hence his absence, and that Red Countess was starting to suffer from it too. Fortunately those engaged in beach antics all seemed well and were fortifying themselves with barbecued food as well as getting plenty of exercise. They were already preparing the fire poi.

The maffball went on for a long time and, though the weather was fairly good at that stage, I started to suffer being stuck in my chair, my right leg in agony every time it cramped with the cold, so I gave in and decided to have an early night. Stuart took me up to the Duke of York, stepping carefully over the people having sex in the sand behind us, and there we had a drink and watched a curiously quaint traditional Yorkshire pub entertainer sing songs and do an odd wiggly little dance in front of a crowd which clearly consisted of his oldest and most cynical friends - all five of them. I persuaded Stuart that I'd be okay getting home and that he should return to the beach to enjoy himself for a few more hours. Siani, Aidan and Arachne joined me for a while, the latter needing to rant, and at closing time Aidan offered to follow me down the road with a sausage so I could get some food, but it turned out there were none available just then. I had my stick and made my way home easily enough, chatting to assorted people along the way and meeting my old friend Gotterdammerung whom I'd been hoping to have the chance to catch up with. We parted outside my alleyway just as the wind began to pick up.

The wind was fierce that night. Stuart came home at two, looking thoroughly sandblasted, regretting that he'd have to hoover his camera despite his considerable effort to keep it safe. Though he assured me that there was still plenty going on he was out like a light as soon as he hit the bed; I think he was probably better off coming back then than staying and passing out on the beach. Apparently lots of stuff got lost under the shifting sand, though for once Fuzzy Dave managed to hang on to his mobile phone. Some drunken idiot crashed into the bar and was lucky not to be cut to bits by all the glass there. Erith stayed at his post until eight in the morning, burying what remained.

We rose on Tuesday determined to do all the things we hadn't yet had time for. It was a fine, bright morning, so whilst I had my breakfast Stuart ran off around town taking photos, bringing pork sandwiches on the way back. Unfortunately, by the time we were ready to go to the arcades, it had begun to drizzle, and by the time we reached them a howling wind had swept in from the sea. Boats were hastening to safety in the harbour, though the water even there was as fierce as I've ever seen it. Injured as I was, I had difficulty staying upright. I could even feel the pressure of the wind against my stick. We managed to get as far along the seafront as our favourite arcade, where Stuart exhausted himself further playing Dance Stage Remix and then failed to beat his own high scores on Star Wars Trilogy Arcade. The manager kindly turned a blind eye to me stealing a seat from another game whilst he battened down the hatches, though it looked like he'd need sandbags to keep out the water which was flooding over the step and into the carpet. Gradually the street outside emptied of people. When we left only the endless queue for The Magpie remained. We gave up on trying to cross the harbour and instead made our way back up the hill by way of a wind tunnel alley, quite safe provided that we counted continually to anticipate gusts of wind and secured ourselves against the handrail when they happened. At the top we stumbled into a crowded Java where seats were found for us and we recovered with milkshakes. Brian had posted photographs of Novo Prospekt's bathroom on the web, so we could see that we weren't the only ones with problems - repairs there were yet to be done, awaiting a dry day.

The distance between Java and our cottage was a short one but difficult for Stuart, whose kilt really wasn't well suited to such weather - he was glad he'd pinned it discreetly. After we were home he got changed and bravely ventured out again to obtain Whitby Gazettes. We were impressed by these, with their unusually extensive and well-rounded coverage of events, though their photography was as bad as usual. At least they gave us something different to read as we sat about the house. I noted that it was beginning to feel like a caravanning holiday. We decided that, since I couldn't reach other people's places, we'd invite other people round to ours and hold a small belated birthday party for Erith (after all, parties actually on people's birthdays can only ever be so much of a surprise, can't they?). Stuart got tasty foods from Safeway whilst I cleared up. In the end there wasn't a whole lot of partying, as Erith was looking rather grey and unwell, but we enjoyed hanging out and having plenty of snacks to eat in the absence of dinner.

Besides being Tuesday it was, of course, Hallowe'en. I rather feel I'm too old for this costuming lark, which somehow missed my generation, but Stuart is always enthusiastic about it, and on this occasion he dressed as the Beast of Craggy Island, a terrifying creature which Father Ted fans may recall as being as big as four cats, with claws as big as cups and magnets on its tail so that if you're made of metal it can stick to you, with a retractable leg so it can spring up at you better, and instead of a mouth it has four arses. His cardboard costume proved remarkably resilient as we floundered through the wind to the Elsinore. Siani dressed as Emo Girl from Something Positive, frighteningly good at it, with fake blood all over her wrists; and Erith dressed as the military-industrial complex, apparently, though he looked much the same as usual. We had a small sheep with us which pretended to be frightened of Stuart, though it would have struggled to be frightened for real as he was plainly falling asleep and he ended up leaving whilst the night was still young.

It was a quiet kind of Hallowe'en, but a good one, being spent with many of my favourite people. I didn't stay till the very end myself, as lots of people were smoking and I started to have breathing difficulties, but I did get the chance to catch up a bit with Adsevin, Fury and others whom I'd hardly seen, and to participate in the arranging of visits around the country over the next few months. I left during a lull in the weather. Just as I got in, the wind started howling again, slamming against the windows, and I clambered round the cottage securing everything as best I could whilst Stuart dozed in the top floor bedroom murmuring happily about the Beast. When I'd finished I was starving hungry and set about finishing what I could find, including most of a jar of peppercorn mustard. Erith got back an hour or so later, clutching a small pizza which was too greasy to eat much of but which, through its box, proved lovely and warm to hug. He was soaked to the skin and confirmed reports that the water in the harbour was now up to the height of the bridge. We wondered if we might be seeing the start of another flood like that of 2000. Suddenly, leaving on the morrow didn't seem so bad.

The morning, as it turned out, was bright and clear. The harbour waters were still angry but had subsided quite a bit. Stuart and I got up early and packed our stuff; Jez came round to help tidy the cottage in return for her ride, and Donald came to visit on his way to the pub where he would be waiting for his train. Unfortunately Erith, whom we needed to pack the car (and then to do the driving), didn't emerge until late, so we were late leaving and I had to make grovelling apologies to the cottage agency and the cleaner. Stuart fluttered his eyelashes in the agency office, which seemed to help. The rain began to fall again then, and we clambered back inside Erith's ridiculous car and were on our way.

The journey back went fairly smoothly, albeit slowly; Erith shuddered at the first sight of a roadworks sign. Stuart and I were feeling fragile so we stopped at Scotch Corner for sausage rolls and science and proceeded to discuss Leonard Susskind's latest theories about quantum gravity as we crossed the hills to Penrith. Penrith, of course, is a bit of a black hole itself, and has all the worst features of provincial England; by four o'clock, when we arrived, practically nobody was serving lunch anymore. Eventually we located a pub called The White Horse where the food was not especially impressive but was very big, and the barman was friendly; the only problem was an awful record which had got stuck on repeat, playing the same four minutes of tuneless yammering over and over again. Erith informed me that this was The Fratellis, a band his mother likes, and that they are successful in the charts; I would have thought the only way they'd get pub gigs would be by shagging the owners, so God knows how much they must have been putting it about - they must look better than they sound, at any rate. Still, fortified by my cheese baked potato, I felt better during the last part of the journey, sitting in the back discussing film-making work with Jez, who turns out to have lots of useful skills. Approaching Glasgow we were phoned continually by Erith's parents who wanted to know where he was and apparently didn't understand that he couldn't answer whilst driving; as it was, they distracted him to the point where he missed our turning and we ended up in the dreaded Cambuslang, adding another twenty minutes to our journey and ensuring that we arrived home too late for the Rocky Horror we'd been planning to attend. Ach well. Since Jez was feeling down I advised her to stay in Glasgow for the night so we could go out and have an adventure with local pyromaniacs, winged serpents, rollerskating goths and so forth; but that, dear reader, is another story.

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