Has, then, the road to success been as smooth as it appears, and have the merry foursome achieved what they set out to do all those years ago as young pretend designers?

“I think we’ve realized our ideals”, he grinned, “and we’ve stuck out our necks to do so and been slagged off for it. The door policy was always a talking point, but that was
never a fashion statement, it was something we had to do to ensure that people could come to the club wearing whatever they wanted without being harassed. Similarly, we
were labeled a handbag club, which is ridiculous, just because we have a very dressy crowd. We broke Tony de Vit, we had Sasha as Chuff Chuff resident, the American
DJs call us for gigs instead of the other way around, so it’s pathetic that we were pigeon-holed as cheesy when we’ve always used only the best DJs. The only major ambition
I’d still like to realise is for us to own our own venue. The clubs here in the UK just aren’t up to scratch: if you compare them with venues in Ibiza, and the attention to detail you
have there, they’re all just boxes with sound systems in them. What we want to do is club just couldn’t be adapted for what we want. We want to create something completely n
ew, a club where different rooms have different feels, different personalities. The Church, of course, is a great club, and I actually really enjoy working with the management there,
but if we don’t end up owning our own venue I’ll be extremely disappointed”.

So there you have it. However, what with all these plans for venues and such, plus the massive expansion the Miss Moneypenny’s has undergone since the early days, isn’t there, I wondered, a danger that they’re setting themselves up to become just another corporate super club?

“The whole basis of what we do is, and always will be, the club every Saturday and three Chuff Chuffs per year. Wherever we are, be it in someone else’s club or our own
venue, we will never have a capacity of more than 1,000 people, which keeps us small enough that we don’t go down that corporate route. Obviously, there have been
spin-offs because of our success, but our basis principles have never been compromised. On the album, for example, I sincerely believe that we’re filling a gap in the market. The
whole concept of the compilation has been bastardised by the majors: the only decent club albums are the Ministry’s, the others have all just jumped on the bandwagon. I think we
have a right to get our point across musically, though, as we’ve been involved since the inception of the whole scene and it’s only right that we keep our foot in the door. Clubs
are where house music is played and where it came from in the first place, so they have every right to try to shape its future. For us, the album was by no means about money:
we had full creative control, and we wanted to get a message across, which I feel we’ve done”.

The album represents an interesting, refreshing departure from the usual, run-of-the-mill club compilation: this is no hurriedly thrown-together collection of a few hits mixed with
whatever fillers the majors were willing to throw in at bargain basement rates. Rather, the track listing realizes perfectly the musical vision about which Jim is so passionate,
stepping back from the admittedly attractive easy option of big, banging tunes in favour of the funky, soulful sound the club is being steered closer towards every week.

Compiled and mixed by Jim himself and long-time collaborator Graeme Park, the double CD offers welcome break from the frenetic pace of so much of the “bangin’ ‘ouse, mate”
with which we are bombarded these days, focusing on melody and feeling rather than merely a fierce kick drum. As such, it is much more a genuine work of music than a traditional
club compilation, featuring as it does two DJ sets which are genuinely representative of both the DJs in question and the club whose banner sits so proudly atop the incredibly
decorated (and stupendously decorative) breasts of Melinda Messenger on the album cover, which itself has sparked controversy and will, doubtless, lead to yet more mutterings
that the club’s all about semi-naked girls. Is Miss Moneypenny’s, then, too glamorous? No, because while there most definitely is a gorgeous, topless woman on the front of the CD
case, that’s only the cover: just like the club itself, inside it’s all about the music.

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