There would be wailing and gnashing of teeth. The (possibly) very last h2g2 London Meet was set for Saturday 14th May 2011. And the weather forecasters were predicting rain.

It wasn't like that at all. h2g2 is in a state of transition at the moment, as it leaves the BBC and goes who knows where. We're still up in the air as to whether anybody has been found to buy the site, but the h2g2 Consortium, led by Dr and Mrs Zen, are prepared to take it on if no one else is found, and it looks as if the Guide and Community will continue for some years to come.

So the London Meet was full of hope rather than sadness. About twenty-five Researchers attended, and we were determined to enjoy ourselves, to celebrate our friendship and to look to the future. The rain held off too.

Coming from Dublin as I do, I have to get up early in the morning to get a cheap flight to London. I could swan into the airport at 11am and pay €150 for the privilege, but for the €20 flight, I have to be there at 7:30. (There was an even cheaper one at 6am, but that would be ridiculous). So my alarm clock went off at 5:00, I was on the plane at 7:30, and in London's Heathrow airport by 9. I'd no luggage to collect, so it was straight through the airport.

You have to be a good walker to go through Heathrow. It's a good 30 minutes walk from getting off the plane to getting on the underground, and I walk fast. I had an Oyster card with money on it, so I didn't have to worry about paying on the underground - just wave it over the yellow spot at each of the barriers. I was pleased to find that the one hour journey into Central London from Heathrow costs only £2.70. Soon I was sitting on a tube train watching the world go by. The first stretches of the line from Heathrow are over ground and you can see the suburbs of the great city stretching as far as the eye can see. Soon, the train plunges into the depths. After about an hour I arrived at King's Cross where it was a short stroll to my hotel.

I picked this hotel because I knew Bel was staying there, and I hoped that a few other researchers would tag along, but by the time they went to book, it was full. Part of the reason appears to be that it is a big, cheap hotel near St Pancras Station, which is the terminus of the railway from mainland Europe. The place was full of groups of students and school children speaking foreign languages, all obviously just off the train.

It was now 10:30, and they wouldn't let me check in until 12. There was nowhere to leave my rather heavy backpack. So I had the choice of heading off to the Meet, bringing my backpack with me everywhere, or waiting until 12. I chose the latter. I strolled back to King's Cross and investigated St Pancras Station, which is right next to it. This is one of the most impressive railway buildings in the country, and has been recently refurbished - it has a vast vaulted glass roof, making a huge enclosed space. Douglas Adams used it as the settting for Valhalla in his book The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul. There are two levels - on the upper level are the platforms, while down below are all sorts of fancy shops selling the best of British goods: books, haute couture, food and other stuff. I found a very nice salad shop called Chop'd which did a mean Chicken and Avocado Salad, and settled down to an early lunch.

After checking into my room at 12 and changing the heavy backpack for a smaller, lighter bag, I headed towards Trafalgar Square where the meet was to begin, stopping along the way to examine a few second-hand bookshops in Charing Cross road.

The sun was shining as I arrived at Trafalgar Square. The square was full of people - there were Morris dancers, and a group of Chinese people promoting Falun Gong. At the bottom of the steps in front of the National Gallery stands the 2012 Olympics Countdown Clock, where many people stop to get their photo taken, and it was here that we had agreed to meet.

Already waiting when I arrived were Bald Bloke and h5ringer. Soon other people started to arrive, and I was delighted to make the acquaintance of Researchers hati, hapi, minichessemouse, paulh, TRiG, Icy North, and Awix, none of whom I had met before. Also present were Researchers I had met at previous meets, some of them many times: Bel, Dragonqueen, MMF, Mrs Zen, Solnushka, Superfrenchie, Z also known as Dr Zen, and Agapanthus.

paulh is from Boston and had flown over specially for the Meet. He was somewhat jet-lagged as a result, since his internal clock was five hours out of sync with the rest of us. As the day went on he began to feel the effects more, but still had a great time. Solnushka was 39 weeks pregnant, so she hadn't been sure she'd be able to attend. I was particularly happy to meet minichessemouse and TRiG. I've spoken to them both quite a bit online and we've been to the same places but at different times, so our paths keep crossing. It's ironic that I had to travel to London to meet TRiG, who is from Ireland.

MMF had organised a walking tour of Trafalgar Square and the Strand. He has difficulty walking and uses a stick, so the pace was slow enough that nobody was left behind. We wandered around the square taking in the sights. I couldn't always hear what MMF said about the particular buildings and monuments, but I remember seeing the plaque set into the ground which marks the official centre of London, the point where all measurements are taken from. This is at the junctions of Whitehall, the Strand, and the Mall, and is where the original Charing Cross stood. We also saw Nelson's Column, went under the Admiralty Arch, and saw Canada House. Here we picked up a few stragglers - gandalfstwin who had arrived late at the square, and some friends of Mrs Zen. Unfortunately, Icy North had to leave, so I didn't get much of a chance to chat with him.

MMF had done Trojan work researching the various sights, but if I've any criticism, it's that we spent too much time wandering around the square. Two hours after the tour started, we were still in Trafalgar Square, so we decided to go into the National Gallery and get some coffee. Here Mrs Zen outlined to me the Consortium's plans for taking h2g2 from the BBC, if their bid is successful. To help with this, she had published a book of a selection of 42 great Entries from the Guide - some Edited, some Underguide works, and also some good conversations - such as the one where Frenchbean kept us informed of the events in Christchurch, New Zealand following the earthquake there. Mrs Zen hopes to use this book to explain to people what h2g2 is about, as most people look blankly when you describe the site. It was wonderful to see many of my favourite entries in book form.

After coffee, we finally left the square and headed along the street known as the Strand. This goes east towards St Paul's Cathedral and the financial centre of London (known as 'The City'). We didn't get as far as either of those, but along the way we saw the replica Charing Cross positioned outside Charing Cross station; Zimbabwe House, with its defaced nude statues (a piece of vandalism done many years ago when Londoners didn't think nudes should be on display); the churches of St Mary-le-Strand and St Clement Danes; the fountains of Somerset House; and the Temple Bar, a monument set in the middle of the street to mark the divide between the City of Westminster and the City of London.

As we progressed, we lost a few people who wandered off. We met up with them later. Eventually, the tour group reached the former offices of the Daily Telegraph, Fleet Street, with its unusual clock. It was now 5:30, so we thought we'd better finish the tour. Along the way, we'd looked at many interesting pubs, but had shown remarkable restraint in not going into any of them. Now the vibes were becoming too strong, and it was time to head to a special pub, to meet the rest of our h2g2 friends.

Along the way, we took a short detour to see the house of Dr Johnson, the writer of a famous early 'Guide', the Dictionary of the English Language. Soon we reached the hallowed halls of the Shakespeare's Head pub on Kingsway.

It's traditional at London Meets to arrive at the Shakespeare's Head to find 2Legs and Roymondo propping up the bar and already several pints down. This time, we were surprised to find that they had only just arrived. Roymondo was accompanied by his friend Andrea, who is not an h2g2 Researcher. We searched the pub for table 42, but it was not available. Then we found two large tables at the back, each capable of taking about 10 people; there were already a couple of people there but they graciously moved when they saw that we needed the space for a large group.

We now sat down to the serious business of the evening - food and drink. The pub serves a range of different meals; you pay at the bar and give your table number. I had a passable helping of Moroccan meatballs with rice, and Bel treated me to a beer.

Now other people started to arrive:

• The new slimline Beatrice looked amazing - she's lost a huge amount of weight since I last saw her in October, and is positively petite. She was sporting the new 'Rusty Sign' T-shirt with the image of the 'Elvis leaving the building'.
• Everybody's friend lil and her husband Pete brought the inflatable kangaroo which represents Aussie Researcher Ivan at many Meets. I used my choral singing breath control to inflate him. There was an inflatable duck-billed platypus which also represented Ivan at the other table. In addition, lil had h2g2 T-shirts and bookmarks to give out to anybody who wanted them.
• A friend of MMF's called Petra arrived and found that the 'internet weirdos' she'd been told about were actually real people, and quite nice ones at that.
• kelli had been unable to come to the afternoon tour because she has small children who would have been bored by the walk. She's looking well.
• Amy Pawloski the Paper Lady appeared in paper form, as a drawing done by minichessemouse. This is a long tradition - I remember Amy being there in paper form at the first h2g2 Meet I was at in 2002.
• Pirate Alexander LeGray had missed the group in Trafalgar Square so he had gone on his own tour, then come to the pub. Someone pointed him out to me in the distance, but by the time I went looking for him to talk, he had gone. Sorry, LeGray.
• purplejenny is a researcher who's been on the site almost forever, having joined in October, 1999. Despite this, I hadn't come across her before. She lived up to her name, being dressed from head to toe in purple.

There was plenty of time for people to mix, move around and chat. Initially I was in the enviable position of being squeezed between Bel and minichessemouse, but with the disadvantage that I had to wriggle past 2Legs to get out of my seat to reach the bar. Then people started moving around and I joined in lots of conversations with different people. Everybody has a tale to tell and we talked about anything and everything.

Mrs Zen had organised a quiz which was tricky enough, involving such topics as the works of Douglas Adams, what's in Peer Review at the moment and who has which Researcher number. Despite cogging shamelessly from those around me, I didn't carry off the top prize - this was won by h5ringer, and was a copy of Mrs Zen's book. I'm sure he was delighted that the book featured two of his own Entries.

London Transport starts closing down around midnight, so at about 11:45 the meet came to an orderly conclusion. It wasn't the tearful occasion I had expected - we were all fired up with enthusiasm and drive for the future. This was not the last meet - whatever happens, we'll meet again, although I'm not too sure of the location or date..

Bel and I headed back to our hotel without incident, accompanied for most of the trip by purplejenny.

Sunday morning saw Researchers Gnomon, Bel, TRiG and Superfrenchie meeting at about 10:15 at the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace Road. This is a special gallery showing a selection of art works belonging to Her Majesty, the Queen. Rather than the art being on display in the palace where only a few people will ever see it, it is presented to the public, although at £9 a head admission, Her Majesty is making a pretty penny in the process. There are about four rooms in the gallery, and the paintings change from year to year, so virtually everything was different from the last time I'd been there. The exhibition concentrated this time on Dutch landscapes. There were other striking works of art, including a golden 'shield of Achilles', and a strange digital clock in the shape of a statue of the goddess Diana, with the numbers written on her eyeballs. I particularly liked the portrait of a large shaggy dog commissioned by one of the former monarchs.

After the Queen's Gallery, we had a quick cup of coffee in a small coffee shop, then Bel had to leave to catch her flight home to Germany.

TRiG, Superfrenchie and I decided the best thing to do next was to go to Greenwich, where there's a pleasant park, a hill with an observatory and some good science exhibitions. The journey to Greenwich was long and convoluted because various lines on the underground were closed for maintenance, but it does involve the driverless London Docklands Railway which is always fun. We passed Canary Wharf, with the tallest building in the UK (beloved of Doctor Who fans as it was the London headquarters of Torchwood in one of the episodes). The walk through Greenwich Park to the observatory was very pleasant, but the admission price into the observatory was a bit steep (£10 per person if I remember correctly). For this we would have got to stand astride the 0° meridian line, and to see the Harrison Clock exhibition (the ones from Dava Sobel's Longitude). Instead we went around the back of the observatory where the line is marked out in a place where you don't have to pay. After a couple of photos, we went to the new Astronomy Centre, where there were lots of interactive exhibits and admission is free.

We found a very nice pub, with tables in a courtyard out the back, and had some good old British pub food - a veggie burger, a meaty burger and some deep-fried haloumi cheese.

Time moves on; although TRiG and Superfrenchie were staying in London for another day, I had to go. We all trooped back to the underground, where I started my journey home. At Green Park, I said goodbye to the others, who I believe were going to wander around Westminster. After a long and uneventful journey, I was home by 12:10am.

All in all, this was a wonderful meet. There were plenty of people, we enjoyed each other's company, and we came away determined not to let the spirit of this site and of Douglas Adams die.

You can see my photos of the event at this flickr page.

The h2g2 Meets Archive

Gnomon

23.05.11 Front Page

Back Issue Page