House of Jam

(The short version)

It's a house in which live Pooka, Shadow, Lemming, Carrot, Wishkah and Toaster. Cain, Olly, Fish and Spinal have also lived there. Elin, Genie, Afrodite and Silk have stayed over a lot. The house belongs to none of them but its atmosphere is made up of all of them.

(The long version)

The House of Jam was named in October 1997 (though probably built 7 years previously), and is famous for the controversy surrounding its very own newsgroup, as well as the fact that every person who has ever lived there has been a Redbrick member.

(The House)

It's quite a nice house - fairly large, cheaply furnished and situated in the Glasneviner part of Finglas (#2 Fairways Park) - which can comfortably accomodate 6, usually accomodates 7 and has been known to be a home for up to 9 people at a time (not counting assorted pets, girlfriends, relatives and visiting friends). In fact, it's such a nice house that originally it wasn't on the standard accomodation list at all - it was on the extra-special list given to postgrads and other dignitaries.

(The First Ones)

Luckily for the current denizens of Jam, one of the original residents was a postgrad. Kevin Miney (later kevminey on redbrick), was studying marketing and for no sane reason, had joined with Shadow, Fish, Carrot and Toaster in house hunting. Since the house held 7 (or rather her rent did), two more i Brickies were found - Cain ("Are you sure this is a good idea?" "No, look he's nice in real life") and Olly ("Olly who?" "Dunno..he just posts to the sports board").

(Rooms)

The first night was spent sitting on the landing, singing Cum By Ya and being generally happy that such a nice house had been found. Rooms had been allocated on a first come first served basis - Toaster got the wonderful big single bedroom with lots of floor space and wall space and cupboard space; Fish and Shadow shared the master bedroom with en suite stuff and cable and phone connectors and a nice view of the street; Kevin and Cain took one of the smaller pokier single bedrooms each, and Carrot and Olly shared the downstairs double bedroom which was really a converted dining room. The other rooms were/are a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom, a hotpress, an under-the-stairs WC and the mysterious "Snow White's Room" which contains a bed, a vacuum cleaner, and a lot of stuff there wasn't room for in other places.

(Boring Technical Bit)

Months passed. Thing happened (which I'll try to keep in order). Kevin discovered that he didn't actually like the people with whom he was living (and who can blame him? : ) ), and moved out, to be replaced by John (Spinal). Olly moved into the room that had been Kevin's. Toaster and Carrot got together and Carrot unofficially moved to a different room too. Over summer 1998, Wishkah moved into the room shared with Spinal. Silk stayed on the couch (but he was paying rent then so he was technically a resident). Olly moved out at the end of the summer to share a house with Silk (who may not have seen it yet) which was closer to the college, and Wishkah moved in officially, taking Olly's room. Around this time, Elin started staying over too :) Cain moved out to go to Res, and Lemming moved into his room. Lemming and Genie started doing stuff, so she began staying over as well. Fish moved out around Christmas 1998, and Pooka moved in, prompting a room-shuffle where Shadow and Lemming swapped rooms and Carrot technically shared with Lemming, leaving Spinal and Pooka (and often Afrodite too) in the downstairs bedroom. In June 1999, Spinal moved out. Since it was the start of the summer, for the first time there was nobody ready to move in, so at the time of writing there are six residents, and Pooka gets his own room.

(redbrick.house.of.jam)

The House of Jam briefly had its own newsgroup, where interesting discussions of a Jammy nature were to be carried out. Sadly this was deemed by a number of people to be irrelevant and uninteresting, and since these people couldn't work out how to unsubscribe from it, the board was dropped.

(On the Naming of Jam)

The house was not always called Jam. Originally it was just "Number Two" or "Home". However, this changed when some of the residents realised how much they wanted a pet. Forbidden by the lease (an eight page document outlawing prams, parties, structural alterations, flags, nails and screws, executions, sublettings and many many other things) to keep pets, someone inspired an invisible imaginary puppy into existence. A name was called for. Two were suggested simultaneously (by Carrot and Toaster I believe, but the details are a bit fuzzy). One of the suggestions was probably "Jeremy". The other may have been "Ham". Neither was deemed suitable, but the combination - "Jam" - seemed perfect. It was obvious (to someone) that the puppy must be pink. The House with Jam in it became the House of Jam. Since its creation it has sparked a newsgroup, a mud area, some parties, 2 movies and a set of commorative plates.

--Toaster

Origionally from the Encyclopedia