The h2g2 London Summer Meet 2006
Created | Updated Jul 13, 2006
- When; Saturday 8th July
- Where; Central London
- Why: Tradition, habit but mainly to meet old friends and make new ones!
It used to be tradition for H2G2 summer meets to be plagued by bad weather, then came the tradition of the summer meets being plagued by rock groups in Hyde Park! Of course this year the afternoon event wasn't a picnic in Hyde Park and so we had fantastic glorious hot sunny weather!
However despite the hot weather and stifling stuffy air in the trains and on the underground, around twenty researchers braved the summer heat and erratic UK transport system to make it to London for the highlight of the HooToo summer calender; the 2006 summer meet.
The afternoon activity was once again organised by The Mazin' MadFiddler, who seems to have set himself a challenge to organise a different afternoon event for each and every meet!
Over to The Mazin' MadFiddler to describe the afternoon activity;
The afternoon Meet was arranged as a visit to the Museum of London, close to the Old London Wall, about five minutes walk from St Paul's in Aldersgate.
The Meeting Time was 13:00 and the first two to arrive were The Mazin' MadFiddler (the organiser) and B'Elana Gradually the other attendees arrived, namely dragonqueen, Phil and
Metal Chicken. Crozboz and Azathoth then appeared, and it was decided to head inside. Bald Bloke joined us a little later.
The Museum follows the history of London from Pre-history up to the present day. Most of the attendees made their own way around the building, depending on their preferred period of history. The Museum is divided into many different categories, including;
- Law
- Society
- Transport
- And more...
There was an unexpected added bonus for the attendees in that there was a Satire exhibition on at the time which proved very popular and incorporated works by Gilray, Hogarth, Scarfe, Fluck and Law and Ian Hislop, amongst many others. A very good exhibition indeed.
Around 17:00 everyone headed for the Café for a cup of something, and to meet up, before heading into the City for something to eat1. After a bit of a trek B'Elana, dragonqueen, Azathoth and MMF went to Marks and Spencers for sandwiches while the rest headed for a hot meal (I believe ASK Pizzas). The sandwich brigade sat on the steps of St Paul's, in the sun, and ate their food, before taking a slow stroll to Ye Olde London, arriving around 19:00, where 2legs, Roymondo, Vicki Virago and her sister virtuouschuffed, Serephina and a couple of others had already set the ball rolling. From there, it is over to 2legs...
2legs arrived into Kings Cross at 14:45 meeting up with Roymondo. After a quick visit to the Kings Cross toilets (some of the more disgusting toilets of any of the central London train stations!) we set off to the Olde London by taxi and arrived at around 15:00.
Whilst waiting in the Olde London for others to begin arriving and listening to the moaning bar manager - 'I didn't expect you here this early2', we took it to be our civic duty to begin investigating the quality of the drinks on offer...
We didn't have long to wait! By a little after 16:00, Serephina and Ged arrived, at which point it was commented on that the arrival of new researchers seemed to coincide with 'normal people' leaving the pub! Not long after Vicki Virago and her sister virtuouschuffed arrived and then a plethora of researchers began appearing!
A few drinks later and suddenly we were beginning to grow in number! And by 19:00 just about everyone had turned up including those from the afternoon event, and the reverie began in earnest.
By around 20:00 2legs finally gave into the pestering and began delivering the quiz that had been written with the help of Serephina the day before. A few notes of discontent being raised by the number of questions which had '2legs' or 'nighthoover' as an answer were mixed with calls of disbelief when some researchers didn't know the answers to questions that were taken from edited guide entry's they had themselves written!
This meet was a little short on Italic attendance, but soon after the quiz had ended Jimster duly arrived with a bag of prizes for the winning quiz teams and badges that were distributed about to all.
H2G2 has always had a wide international membership, and that was reflected at the meet with intrepid researchers having travelled from as far as Germany, Canada, Sweden and the North of England to attend!
As the evening drew on new friendships were formed and old friendships renewed. The traditional toast to 'absent friends' was finally made once everyone recharged their glasses and before we knew it the evening seemed to be drawing to an impending close.
However, H2G2 researchers are well known for not having much of a concept of 'closing time', although finally the last few people did leave the pub and everyone began winding their various routes across London and to beyond.
However, for some the meet didn't end there and, indeed, the next day in the afternoon some intrepid researchers could still be found in pubs across London recovering from the night before and trying piece together the previous evening over yet more beer!
As a final note, anyone interested in finding out immediately when plans for new London meets are underway might want to add London Meet to their 'friends' list, as when planning is underway for a new meet a journal entry is posted here about the meet and also when details of the meet, such as date etc, are decided upon - this useraccount is only used for organising meets.
The Mazin' MadFiddler and 2legs
