Friends and other animals

Friends and other animals

Other pages have links to their friends' pages. I have a page which tells you who I would link to if I had enough friends, or if enough of them had websites. But hey, it's the thought that counts. So here are a few of my friends, notably those with websites you can access, in case you're interested. And before anyone gets precious, they're in no particular order, just the way it happened...

Struan is probably the friend I have known for longest (but not my oldest friend, that honour goes to someone else). He's almost everything you could want a friend to be - interesting, intelligent, funny, loyal... His only fault is that he lives in London rather than Brighton, so we don't see one another as often as I would ideally like any more.

Kim and I are always right, and we should rule the world. The best way of summing Kim up is to use the line of a former mutual acquaintance: "I'm not sure I'd say that Kim is benign". No, but then who the hell wants benign? She's... magnificent, I think we agreed on.

Spencer is one of life's good guys, and there are too few of them about. OK, he has appalling taste in music (Boyzone and W*stl*fe spring to mind), but he's a genuinely nice, friendly, happy person. And he's in the process of redesigning his site, so it's a space to be watched... Go to website

Matt supports Portsmouth, for his sins (and boy must he have done something bad in a past life), but he can talk sense for any length of time about most sports, which makes him a sound lad in my book. He and his flatmate Ian also have a fab website which you really ought to visit. Go to website

Rob doesn't have a website, and I don't have a photo of him, but he's a cool guy who it's a privilege to know, and I think he deserves to be one of the friends listed, even if he does support Man United. You can't have everything...

Steve (and wife Jen and son Jamie) live in Northampton, which is far too far away. I met Steve when he was at University, and we now talk for hours and hours about football, especially when we're both watching a game on television. I was chuffed beyond belief when Steve asked me to be best man at his wedding, as well as being scared witless, but it seemed to go off OK and they're still talking to me, so... It was a great day, and they're lovely people who it's always a pleasure to see. Oh yeah, and Steve's the guy who's supposed to be writing the film reviews - I hope nobody was holding their breath?

Kate used to be my boss, once upon a time, when I ran the bar in Reading. She now has a lovely husband Cyril, a wonderful little daughter Emma, and a fab son Matthew. I don't see them as often as I'd ideally like, mostly because of the distance, but it's always good to catch up... and bitch about how bad things used to be! And I should add that Kate was a wonderful boss to work for, who let me get on with things in my own way and supported me marvellously well, and made the job bearable when it otherwise appeared impossible. Which is no bad thing!

Dan is a nice guy who I met when we went horse-racing, and we've stayed in touch pretty well since then. He does things with computers, and more than that I have never understood, but he's a clever guy. He has a nice website too... Go to website

Anna is... just Anna, really, one of the loveliest people in the world. She still makes me laugh as much now as when we first met, back at University, even if we are often laughing about the same things, the same jokes... Time spent with Anna is always a joy, and never wasted. .. and how many people can any of us say that about?

Judith was the third member of the perfect triumvirate, and she is always good for a laugh because she can talk Eddie Izzard for hours, too. Judith's fault is that she is too nice and too concerned about other people at the detriment of her own happiness, but it's not a bad fault to have. Moo!

Jason is a genuinely nice guy who the world seems to have decided to pick on recently. Well it should back off and let him be kind and generous, as he is, and stop being so cynical. He's creative too, and his website is dedicated to poetry from all sorts of people... even me, from my salad days (bonus points to people apart from Struan who can complete the line!). Go to website

Other friends - oh yeah, there are loads of them, honest. Many of them I know only electronically, and many others could easily have been mentioned above except it would have got really boring for me to write and you to read... besides, in the absence of websites, or at very least photos, it'd be pretty meaningless to you. However, if there's anyone out there who knows me who'd like to be added, please let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Written by Jon Renyard
Last updated 1 January 2000