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Meanwhile Stuart had had a very eventful January. His father is a friend of Van Morrison's and this ensured that he obtained backstage passes for Van's New York gigs.
As well as Van he met Bob Dylan and Jack Nicholson. Then, on the second night, Tom Jones and Van decided they wanted to stay up and jam through till the morning. Morrison's piano player declined to take part, however, so Van asked Stuart to step into the breach. So it was that on Jan 14th Stuart played piano while Van and Tom Jones had a sing song. An amazing experience.
On February 1st our actual 10 year anniversary rolled around. For all of us, but especially Liam, Saul and myself (the 3 original members) it seemed an amazing milestone to have reached. The 5 London based members had planned a meal out to celebrate, but I had come down with a horrible flu bug and so we had to postpone that too.
Meanwhile, we had decided to try and gig a little more often, by doing a few acoustic gigs (which require less preparation) in the months between electric gigs.
At the end of January, on the basis of our Saturday reputation at The Hope and Anchor, we managed to get booked into their Wednesday acoustic night for April 4th, without even sending a demo, even though it was a different promoter. We arranged it so we would be on the same show as Scott Ringle, the American who had played alongside us at the 98 Monkees convention, so that we could meet up with him again.
Meanwhile Ravi had made it clear he would like to move rehearsal rooms. Therefore, as it appeared very important to Ravi, we agreed to move, and he and Liam managed to find a rehearsal studio that met his requirements, Moat studios in Stockwell.
Meanwhile the Dublin Castle gig was fast approaching. As well As Maren flying in from the US, fan club president Mystic Green and her friend Nats were also trekking across the country to be there. We'd brought a lot of new material into the set and were ready for a great gig.
The day itself, however, was to turn into a semi-farce. All seemed well upon arrival. We were middle of the bill, as usual, with the first band on comprising 3 kids of about 16. The landlord of the Dublin Castle, is a mad, deaf eldery man, and I had had to put our usual BPP arrangement in writing to him twice, before he had finally agreed to us using the voucher system for free tickets and drinks to BPPers. 
When the first bands fans arrived they were clearly all underage, at which point the landlord announced to Stuart and I "Is this what your voucher scheme is all about, because I'm having none of it". We replied assuring him they weren't our fans, yet he continued as if he hadn't heard us "I'll call the police and get the lot of them thrown out" We reponded that that would be fine, as they were nothing to do with us, and again he ignored what we'd said, telling us we had to get rid of them. After a third reply through clenched teeth seemed to have finally persuaded him he let matters drop.
The next problem was when he announce that he'd closed the pub as the main bar was full. People could only enter when someone left. Never mind that the backbar, where you paid to watch bands was relatively empty, that didn't matter. Thus it was that we found at least 5 of our fans had missed part or all of our set, due to having to queue for ages before they could enter the front bar in order to get through to the back bar. Then, shortly before we were due to go on, (so shortly that I was getting changed) I noticed him in animated conversation with Nicole, the BPPer with the credit card for covering the drinks vouchers. Finally, as I was getting on stage, he came running over and said: "We have to talk now", I pointed out that I was about to on stage, and that Nicole was the person to chat to, but he replied "I want to talk to a man about this!" He dragged me into a corridor, and said he didn't take credit cards, so we'd have to pay cash for the drinks at the end of the night, I explained that he had agreed to a credit card payment and it was all in writing, but he said it didn't matter as he wasn't able to accept a credit card. I suggested he invoice the company to which he responded: "I'll invoice the company later as long as they pay cash at the end of tonight!!!!!!!". 
The band was waiting onstage, so I just told him to forget the drinks vouchers, and ran to the stage. I was sooooo angry, and I had to announce that BPPers couldn't use their vouchers, which I felt bad about. I knew I was so keyed up, we'd either play really well or really badly, and luckily it was the former. We mixed some 'Mountain Therapy' material in with several new songs and got a great reception. We played every song well, except 'Longevity' which felt rushed. We dedicated 'Maren' to our US fan Maren, who seemed delighted, and Stu got great acclaim from playing bass AND keyboards in 'My Mind Is On Sale'. Somehow we had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
The full setlist was : Toxic Stamp Glue, Longevity, My Mind Is On Sale, B-Grade Underwear, Maren, Chiswick High Rd, Nazi Dog, Noriega, Pismel, Fat Nora.
Thanks to Mystic and Maren for taking the photos on this page, all of which are from March 3rd's Dublin Castle Gig.
To see our performance of Nazi Dog click Here