For the next year the band hauled their carcasses around the capital, again marshalled expertly by Sir John Titcombe, variously inhabiting the selfsame toilets which legend states are populated by record company trolls. In truth a delicate equilibrium was achieved, with anyone claiming to be from a record company conveniently stuck on a tube or trapped in their office by piles of demo tapes and therefore narrowly missing the 45 minutes of Stanley excellence served up. Becoming aware that this represented the norm rather than the exception for bands, the Stanleys stepped sideways and sharpened up their pub-squashing skills.

This was aided by their weekly residency at the Black Lion in Kilburn. Up for a challenge, the band had survived an assault by flying glass ashtrays and were resolved to win over the hostile regulars. This they did in a short time, and for a short while threatened to spearhead a cultural "Kilburn Renaissance" of local artists, musicians and nutters. This heroic Revolt into Style (or Oxfam Chic) was, in the opinion of all concerned, way too cool to have anything as dull as a manifesto, or career opportunities. But the audiences began to grow; the band began to sharpen noticeably; and the "lovely little band" in a "lovely pub" with a "lovely ceiling" (go there; it still has a lovely ceiling and you're less likely to get your face smashed in these days) gave some of their greatest performances under these tightened circumstances.

There were halfhearted auditions of various bass players, but the very able candidates were partly scared away by the general demeanour of unwashed undernourishment. Mostly they were scared away by the increasingly "native" Baz, whose Colonel Kurtz routine was by now clearing a deferential path up Cricklewood Broadway. in truth the fall-out felt by the now de-Burgessed Stanleys looked like taking a while to resolve; A break was had, after which the band revisted the tapes of an aborted rehearsal and checked out a new set of demos produced by Dan. Out of necessity Baz resurrected the wobbly lefthanded subsonics of the fledgling Stanleys and filled in the bass duties of old. from fumbling attempts to arrange the new songs to the declaration to go back to the studio. Time and money was against the band - and money. half life was intended as a last hurrah, a statement that the band was unbowed by the frustrations of the previous eighteen months. Ultimately, the