Scottish Researchers Meet-Up 21 July 2001
Created | Updated Apr 10, 2003
Saturday July 21st 2001 was an historic day for the Scottish researchers. Just under a year from the first Scottish researchers meet-up, the fourth official meet-up1 had the added bonus of two of the italics joining the researchers, some of whom are ACE's, Subs and Gurus, in Glasgow. The intention had been to meet up at a pub at Glasgow Central before heading off to the Glasgow Science Park. However Mark Moxon and Peta's plane was delayed for an hour, and Demon Drawer and Fashion Cat were whizzing all over Scotland looking at houses and sorting out mortgages before heading the along the M8 from Edinburgh to join the hoard at Bonaparte's. By the time everyone had arrived and settled there was little point in actually heading off.
Unfortunately one stalwart of Scottish Meets, Babel-17 was unable to attend but he was made to feel loved, missed or left out by receiving SMS messages from everyone's phone almost simultaneously. Dr. and Mrs. Vibenstein were both present and all the researchers took a great delight in finally meeting the other half of this happy couple after all this time. For any doubters out there, she does actually exist and she showed us that she really is a teacher at one point by knowing from a head count that we weren't all there. The Doctor "I'm not a real Doctor" and his Missus took pride of place in the reconvened corner with DD and FC.
As is traditional at a Scottish meet up, great delight is taken in noting the first researcher to spill an alcoholic beverage. On this occasion the honour fell to Spiny who somehow managed to prevent his Guinness from being spilt on his camera, unfortunately the table wasn't so lucky. A few minutes later however one of the barmaids managed to empty Lost in Scotland's bottle of Smirnoff Ice all over herself at the table as she tried to wipe it off a bit, and then accidentally nicked Wumbeevil's lighter. Lost was very happy when he was awarded with a full new bottle for his efforts.
The Scottish researcher's were, however, determined to show our Editor and Community Editor a little bit more of Scotland than just the inside of a train station pub. So Mrs. Vibenstein suggested a particular pub with a beer list. Mark's eye's lit up immediately and so off we all trotted. The location of this pub was in Mount Florida but sadly, for Mark and Peta, there was to be no repeat of soft-top convertible's and frolicking in the beach from their previous 'Florida Meet-Up' experiences. However, true enough, the Clockwork Beer Co. had a beer list, as well as a wine list, a whiskey list and various meads on offer. Scottish researchers have a knack of finding pubs with long bars full of draft taps of different varieties, much as you imagine h2g2 pubs to appear. So a happy time was spent there trying different varieties of beers.
Ardzil went AWOL at some point in the evening, nobody quite knowing his whereabouts... hopefully he didn't attempt a base jump from the balcony. Jamie kept up his tradition of not being very stable towards the early evening. Wumbeevil no doubt has yet another series of photographs of Scottish researchers enjoying their alcohol, if not playing scrabble, riding escalators, etc. Babel made his presence felt by calling DD just as he was heading into work poor sausage. And everyone raised a glass to the memory of Douglas, as this was the first time we had all got together since that fateful day. DD, FC and Spiny parted the compnay at around 10pm making excuses about it being a long day.
The bar staff of the Clockwork Beer Co. deserve special mention. They misunderstood Jamie's request for a Smirnoff Ice, and instead gave him a Smirnoff WITH ice, and couldn't let FC take a bottle of the Strawberry Wine she really liked away with her despite offering to pay for 6 glasses of the stuff.
At 10:30 the remaining group of people (Mark, Peta, Jamie, EV, Mrs V and LiS) went back into the city to check out a groovy pub that Peta knew of, just off Hope Street but, once they arrived there, they decided to skip it and retired to Ha! Ha! for one final beer. EV and Mrs V left shortly after to catch the last train back to Falkirk and at 11.30pm the bar staff kindly asked us to finish our drinks and leave the premises as they were closing up. So everyone parted and promised each other that they would meet again and all that other stuff that you tell people when everyone agrees that the night has come to an end.
After a hard day drinking copious amounts of alcohol we all departed our separate ways trusting that the italics found their hotel ok.
Attendees
Mark Moxon
Peta
Ardzil
Demon Drawer
Dr. E Vibenstien
Fashion Cat
Jamie
Lost In Scotland aka LiS (As he hasn't yet got around to asking Peta how to access his old account)
Mrs Vibenstien
Spiny
Wumbeevil
Attendee by telephone and SMS
Babel-17
