• 
  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 U236774, who seems to have set himself a challenge to organise a different afternoon event for each and every meet!

Over to U236774 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 U236774 (the organiser) and U230913 Gradually the other attendees arrived, namely U224233, U55494 and
U97477. U96736 and U206500 then appeared, and it was decided to head inside. U55660 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 eat. (message to self… Everything closes at 17:00) After a bit of a trek, U230913, U224233, U206500 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 U169793, U1330481, U205101 and her
sister U987983, U191719 and a couple of others had already set the
ball rolling. From there, it is over
to U169793
...

U169793 arrived into Kings Cross at 14:45 meeting up with U1330481.
After a quick visit to the Kings Cross toilets (some of the
more disgusting toilets of any of the central London train
stations!) 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 listing to the moaning bar manager ('I didn't expect you
here this early') ¹, 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, U191719 and U212802 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 and U205101 and her sister U987983 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 U169793 finally gave into the pestering and began
delivering the quiz that had been written with the help of U191719
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 U292 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 side note, U1330481 seems to have lost his MP3 player, if
anyone knows what might have happened to it please let us
know!

As a final note, anyone interested in finding out immediatley when plans for new London meets are underway might want to add U1243703
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 apon, and this useraccount is only used for organising meets.