net.goth Gatherings
Welcome to the realm of
chaos and eternal night
These are a bunch of pictures taken at some of the uk.net.goth
gatherings over the past few years. There's an obvious London bias.
There's no thumbnails cos I just can't be bothered. They'd be too
small anyway. So there just a small description of the piccie with the
people named left to right.
I obviously can't have pix from every london net.goth meet, since
anytime more than two of us get together we end up calling it an
event. The events for which there are pictures are:
If you are in one of these pictures, and I didn't name you, tell me and
you'll be named!.
There is also a page of head shots of a bunch of
uk.net.goths.
There are other uk.net.goth gatherings not mentioned here which are
documented on other web sites:
You're probably familliar with the
story basics.
Well, there was just about no advertising for it in London. The only
way we Londoners found out about it was thru this random person from
Sheffield named Jane Stroke Alice posting to
alt.gothic.
We all independently thot, "Hmm, sounds like a good idea" until one
day Erika says, "why don't we actually
go"1. Many emails and a few long
distance phone calls later (thanks QMW for the
free phone calls!) and we're in a rented car bouncing up and
down the road to North Yorkshire. A Lovely time was had by all.
- A whole bunch of people in front of Whitby abbey at midnight:
Obsurity(?),
Pete,
Juliet,
Bob,
Sexbat, Ridley,
Cat(?).
There is also a big version.
- Bob and his cape on a windy place with
Erika and tourists nearby.
- That wacky bunch from Shefield near the abbey:
Adrian, Darren,
Jane, Key,
Tim, Claire,
Rick, and Becky.
There is
also a big version. (There is also a complement to this picture)
- Pete
at the abbey at midnight
- Pete
and Sexbat in the pub at Whitby
- Absolutely
everyone. I'll be damned if I can list them all.
- The following pictures are scanned directly off the
negative. B&W. It's hard to make out anything. View at
your own risk
- Twelve shots:
7 group shots, one town shot and 4 moor shots.
- Another impossible to make out anything shot. You probably
don't care about this one. It all pictures of me,
Bob.
The first 6 are me making dinner in my old flat.
The next six are of me on the moors near Whitby.
Nic &
Juliet are in one of those.
- Some more pictures of me
on the moors and making dinner. Nic,
Juliet, and
Sexbat appear in 3 of the pictures.
More pix exist from:
Jane Stroke Alice and
Lee
The first huge London net.goth meet. We expected
about 5 or 6, due to the low London turn out at Whitby. Eventually 15
people told us in advance that they'd show, some as far away as
York. Little did we (or the pub) expect the 30-someodd people to
eventually show. Nor did we expect Shawnee's
uncanny ability to actually remember everyone's name (2 years later,
she still can name the people who showed).
- In Highgate tube. Delayed train = Posing time!
- Nic upside-down on the tube.
- Erika's arm, Nic, Guy,
Juliet, Sexbat, and those people who wouldn't leave so we
could take their table
- Pete
- Pete and Shawnee
- ? , Sexbat, Antony, and Pete's nose
- More of those "scanned directly off the
negative" pictures. Again, they're B&W and it's hard to
make out anything. View at your own risk
- The first of the Halloween shots. This is on the
tube on the way there. In order:
Shawnee, Paul, Pete, and Shawnee's evil twin.
- More Halloween shots. 8
pictures of Erika's and my lovely pumpkin (I'm holding
it in 2 of them). One of Nic (again) upside down on
the tube. Three shots of people at Highgate tube (In
order)
- Pete, Bob, Nic, Paul(?), Shawnee
- Shawnee, Paul, Bob(?), Nic, Antony
- Bob, Paul, Nic
- Some Halloween shots.
4 taken on the tube. The rest at the Old Red
Lion. From left to right, top to bottom:
- Nic
- Pete
- Nic (upside down (again)), Pete's hair
- Shawnee and others
- Roy, maybe Matt, Shawnee's ear, Guy, Nic(?)
and others
- Shawnee, Paul
- Guy, Nic(?), Matt(?) Shawnee, Steve (?), etc
- Roy, Guy, ?, Nic, Christian, Shawnee, ?
- some people
- Roy,?, Guy, Nic, ?, ?, Shawnee, Abigail, Steve
(these people don't move much, do they)
- Roy,?, Guy, Nic, ?, Matt(?), Shawnee,
Abigail, Steve
- Antony, Pete, Paul
- Even more Halloween Most at
the ORL, but two are at the Slimelight.
- Erika's cousin
- Sexbat, ?
- Roy, Guy, Nic (as usual, they don't move).
Tiffany(?)
- A really good picture of Matt
- Shawnee with camera, Guy's rigth ear and eye,
others
- Roy, Guy, Nic, etc
- Nic(?), Roy, Matt, ?
- Guy, Nic, ?, Matt
- Erika's cousin + wife (aren't they cute?)
- Erika's cousin + wife
- Slimelight
- Slimelight
After 4 years, I finally got these developed. I barely remember the
event, but it consisted of a party at Nic
& Shawnee's place, followed by a trip
to Slime. The pix are from the party at
Nic's.
- Juliet and Shawnee posing on the futon.
- Candian alien Blackskull standing near Shawnee and Roy.
- Juliet, in pre-party mode, peeking out from behind a door.
- Nic looking rather pleased about something.
- Roy, looking somewhat blurry, examining some object offscreen.
- A heap of goths. Pete, Lisa ("I'm not a goth"), James, Dean, Sexbat, and Juliet.
- Another heap. On the sofa: Roy, Pete, Lisa, James, Dean, Sexbat's right arm. In front of the sofa are Nic and Shawnee in extra-cuddle mode and a wee bit of Juliet's face in the lower right
- The Coventry lot collage. Cat, James, Ridley, and Cath.
Once upon a time someone came up with the idea to do a net.goth
calendar. Each big city would send in a large, nicely done B&W
picture to go on a 13 month 1996 calendar. It was a lovely idea, but
it never actually happened. Anyway, in order to get the London net.goth
picture, we decided on a picnic, in which we get together and eat and
pose in a nature setting. I was designated photographer for the
calendar. So we all had a lovely time and many pictures were taken.
Alas, due to a bizzare chain of events which I won't describe
here2 the ones I took ended
up Nic's possession, and at the time of this writing,
most have still not been developed. The colour pictures were all taken by someone
else. I've just developed a few B&W photos which I've recently added.
- The tree picture: Nathalie, Tony,
JJ, Matt, Laurissa, Abigail, Steve, Guy, Nic, Richard,
Bob, John. There's also a bigger b&W
version.
- The weird sculpture picture:
Sexbat, Steve, Abigail, Guy, JJ, Nic, Shawnee,
Richard, Nathalie, John, Matt, Myrina, Laurissa, a
coat. There is also a bigger b&W
version.
- The log picture:
Tony, Guy, John, JJ,
Natahlie, Nic (in the cover of Closer
position), Shawnee, Steve, Abigail, Sexbat, Matt, Myrina,
Richard, Laurissa.
- In the daffodils:
Sexbat, ?, Matt, Laurissa, Abigail, Richard, JJ, John, Tony, Guy,
Nathalie.
- A fairly good photo of Laurissa.
- Guy looking rather pensive.
- Shawnee looking on at the random gnome we found (middle right). This was taken just moments before it was attacked by wild dogs6.
- People milling about. Richard, JJ, Guy, Sexbat, Nic, and Steve.
Beyond what you probably
already know, there's not too much of a story behind this one. We
had such a great time in 94 we all went back and dragged a whole bunch
more people with us this time.
-
Bob and Anu with Shawnee looking away discretely.
-
Bob, Anu, and Shawnee.
-
Bob, Coeur (and his duck Alan), and Tony.
-
Lee, Anu, and Nick.
-
Nick's back, Anu, and Cath, and Ridley.
-
Paul, Nic, Shawnee, and Bob (and someone's back). (note: gravity is pointing slightly to the right).
-
Abigail, Althea, Steve, and Bob.
- Roy in a grave.
-
The Cave: Rick, Becky, Sarah, Claire, Jane/Alice,
Bob, Marie, and Tim.
-
The Beach: Bob, Rick, Jane, Tim, and Becky .
-
?, ?, ?, Althea(?), ?, Carole, Matt(?), Bob, (?), and Roy
just down the street from the Elsinore..
-
Group picture: from left to right, top to bottom
- Bob in the flat he stayed in.
- Nia and Aaran (from Nottingham) in the Elsinore.
(if either of you is reading this, you can have a copy of the
original if you want).
- Bob next to baby Ben.
- Roy(big) and Katy (from Edinburgh),
Roy(little), Bob, and Carole.
- Absolutely no one I recognise. Taken from the stairs in
the big building on Saturday.
- Another group picture with
- A picture of the Abbey taken from the park.
- A picture of the Abbey taken from the water.
- A picture of the park and the Abbey (sense a trend?).
- Some interesting looking bird.
- Two goths on a cliff, I think one is Tim and the other
could be me.
- Me. On the beach.
- Me in an alley.
- The
net.goth
picture. Left to right, front to back:
First row (more or less):
Will, Sharron, Laurissa, Dishmop(?), Jo, Shawnee, Nic,
and Tony.
Second row: Rick, Matt, James (?), Cat, Sexbat(?),
Ridley(?), Bob, and Lee.
next row: Steve, Abigail, Trond, Obscurity, Guy, Juliet(?),
Jarvis, Jane/Alice.
The way back: Coeur (+ Alan the duck),
Cabbage, Paul
More pix exist from:
Dishmop,
Eblis,
the Whitby site, and
Steve, and
The Darkhours
Nic and Shawnee
decided to get married in a nice old gothic church in
southern Virginia. The first thing that may come to your mind is
far. Well, it was. Despite everyone's initial plans
to show up earlier, for some reason everyone was delayed and showed up
on the Thursday before. In summary:
- Sexbat, Juliet,
and Pete (-bat) came from London and
delayed thanks to their choice of
flying
the friendly skies. Approximate delay: 24 hours.
- Laurissa and Matt
came from Canada. After the first 40 or
so kilometres, the car went boom (story embellished to
sound more interesting) and they had to go back and get a
new one. Approximate delay: 24 hours.
- I (Bob) came from DC, where I was
visiting my family. I actually planned to arrive on Thursday. I was a
tad delayed cos I was busy looking for cheap CDs and
stuff. Approximate delay: 1 hour.
We all arrived and were (or at least I was) astounded at the loveliness
of Shawnee's parents' house. It's on a river
with a huge back yard with a hammock (!!!) and porch and everything!
So anyway, these pictures are mostly taken the day of the big arrival,
with everyone looking or feeling like hell due to spending
hour/days/weeks/whatever in transit. People are named left to right.
- Laurissa and Shawnee
standing on the porch.
- Nic and Shawnee
- the really bad picture of the happy couple.
standing in front of the not-unlike sunset over the river.
- Juliet
sitting on the porch with a river nonchalantly flowing
in the background3.
- Lemmings!
Bob, Kara,
Nic, Laurissa,
and Matt all sitting around
watching Nic play
Lemmings: Tribes, which he'd just bought
mere hours before4.
More pix exist from:
Sexbat,
Steve,
Matt, and
The Darkhours
By mid 1996, Felidae had somehow become
The Bloke Who Decides Picnics. For some reason or
another, he became a
master of organisation and came up with ideas for not one, but two
picnics over the course of the summer5.
The basics of this one were, a bunch of us met up at the Golder's
Green tube and wandered over to the park together. Once there we
argued over which tree and etc Felidae
was referring to in his
directions. When we finally found the place, the random foodstuffs
came out and we at and took pictures of each other for a while. Later
we buggered off to the zoo and watched some birds fart for a while
before descending en mass on Sexbat and Juliet's place.
- The big group picture,. Taken
seconds before Maya fell out of the tree.
Back row: Fox,
Anu, Maya.
Middle: Gothpat,
Hirez, Jarvis,
Nick, Carole,
Cleggy, Roy,
Guy, Keiran,
Juliet, Bob,
Nathalie, Alien.
Front: Felidae, ? ,
Mandrake, Steve,
Abigail
- Nathalie
eating while Alien poses.
- Mandrake
and Kieren being taken by surprise.
- People arriving.
Nick looks on as
Abigail and
Steve arrive, bringing bags of food.
Followed closely by Roy and
Carole.
- A candid group shot. The little yellow
things on everyone's shirts are post-it name tags.
Guy, Hirez,
Gothpat, Abigail,
Jarvis, Cleggy,
Roy, Steve,
Mr X, and
Nick.
- Another shot of people sitting
around, but this time, different people.
Clockwise from bottom left:
Mr X, Mandrake,
Fox, Maya,
John Kerr, ?,
Felidae,Roy,
Carole, Juliet,
Jarvis, and
Sexbat in the
centre of attention middle.
- Juliet
on the tube on the way back. No idea who the other people are.
More pix also can be found thanks to
Hirez.
Ok, I may as well say something about this now, as it's getting longer
and longer ago, and I've got work I'm trying to avoid.
By now everyone on the planet has heard of the Whitby Gothic Festival,
and most of them showed up (over 1000). As usual, I decided to come up
earlier than last year when not everyone had shown up yet. So I got
there on Wednesday (it officially starts on
Friday) and hundreds of black-clad holidaymakers were already
there. So much for the idea of a quiet holiday before everyone arrives.
Some random highlights:
- The imported US illness which everyone caught and took
months to finally kill off.
- Goths grooving to Big Band music at the Elsinore on
Wednesday night, before anyone thot we'd be there.
- The pub down the street from the Elsinore hanging cloves of
garlic outside. This was before a very drunk
Cleggy decided that raw garlic
was edible (despite centuries of
culinary data indicating otherwise).
- A momentarily discoordinated Aidan
managing to totally fail to handle the process of leaning over a rail.
Still, I heard the flip was quite graceful anyway.
- The only place with an internet connection thoroughly
failing to be able to post to
uk.people.gothic
- Not a single person the entire weekend noticing that the
wordfind in the commemorative magazine had a prize for the
1st to finish it. Needless to say, the 1st
(and only) to complete had to send
it in by post.
- 10,000 mile per hour winds (I do
exaggerate somewhat) on the clifftops on Saturday
night. Arguably worth it for the billowing cape and cloak effects,
but kinda annoying for those whose tents flew away to Scandinavia.
As usual, from left to right:
- People outside:
?,
Bruce,
Sarah,
Felidae,
Anna (from Norway),
Anu,
Sexbat, and ?
- The
Darkhours stall. with
Shawnee and Matt
trapped and waiting for someone to come along and buy stuff.
(Magazines and t-shirts are still availble)
- The obligatory person in a grave picture
This year it's Anu, and she fits perfectly.
- Fox and
Jodi chatting near the Elsinore.
- Mr X and
Kajia Blue
- Patricia the Mini. With
Lee, Jarvis,
and Nick hanging about.
- The upstairs room is cool
and bright.... Sarah,
Cleggy, Anu,
Bruce, and
Felidae pose after spending the
previous few hours tarting up in the top-floor room at their B&B.
- Me.
Bob in a cave.
- Alien and
Nathalie drinking in the street
in front of the Elsinore.
- The end. Top mums
Jo and Marie
sit knackered at the Elsinore on Monday thinking "Thank fuck
we live lived thru it."
More pictures from:
Rob,
Justicar,
Althea,
Gothpat,
Sexbat,
Jane/Alice,
Clair,
Giga,
Falcon,
Darrien,
Kev,
Brett, and
Fox.
No pictures here yet, but I did get my 1st roll back from
Boots a few days ago. Give me inspriation and
I will scan. In the meantime I'll bring them to a few pub til most
Londoners have seen them.
Pictures are available from:
Karl,
Kevin,
Gothpat,
Talia,
MilAmber, and
Kieren
I've not any yet. This is one of those placeholder thingies that I
never get around to changing.
Pictures can be found from:
Giolla Decair,
Rael,
Archaea,
Mystra Pete, and
Tal
Credits
Most of these pictures have been taken by either Me, Shawnee, Erika, Matt,
Anu, Roy, or some random other.
1
- Quotes and events simplified for didactic purposes only.
2
- And I won't elsewhere either, nyahh!
3
- That black hole was once Sexbat before he complained about how bad he
looked. If any embarrassing pictures of me manage to appear on his
site, the original comes back.
4
- This was taken on Sunday, so we were no longer as frazzled
5
- Actually he came up with ideas for 3 picnics, but organisation
abilities can only be stretched so far.
6
- Well, an overenthusiastic puppy, really, but on the scale in question
it may as well have been wild dogs.
