I bottled out of the e2 picnic fearing for my life!

Today was the planned meeting of e2 minds at a pub in central London - 4pm ETA at The Intrepid Fox on Wardour Street, Soho.

I was planning to go along with chums and fellow noders the gazelle and fryinglizard. The two of them were waxing lyrical about how much they wanted to go, mind you, this was at midnight last night after they had consumed copious amounts of daquiri, cocktails and beer.

Come this morning/afternoon they appeared to be uncontactable (I have since discovered the poor gazelle was moaning in a darkened room until 5pm with 'a bit of a head').

'Nevermind' I thought, and made the 20 minute subway ride to Leicester square on a gloriously sunny Saturday afternoon and cruised up to the Fox.

It was here that I began to lose the plot, "What will they think of me?", "how will I recognise anyone?" are just a couple of the thoughts racing through my mind as I entered the pub in question.

As I entered, dripping with sweat and shaking like a leaf, without the back-up of my friends and with no idea who to look out for I suddenly became all too aware of my surroundings. The pub was very dark, very goth/punk and very loud. Not that I have anything against such things in particular it's just that I already felt intimidated enough and didn't really feel too comfortable surrounded by gaggles of fierce looking punks eyeing me up as if to say' "What the FUCK are you doing in here?".

Now, forgive me for being an absolute chickenshit here but I didn't really feel that confident about approaching any of these guys and asking, "Excuse me, do you enjoy to node on the same geek website as me?".

I didn't think I would come out looking like the handsome lioncub who entered.

I'm embarrased to say that I simply turned tail and shot off down Wardour street in a daze of fear mixed with shame.

To all of you who turned up, I can only apologise for my actions and hope to meet you at a later date.

That's OK, _(sob) we didn't need you anyway _(sob)

Seriously, I know pretty much what you were going through. I wasn't sure I was going to go through with it until I phoned iain from the red phoneboxes on Wardour Street and met him outside at about 4:30.

I wavered between going and not going from 7am right up until actually saying hello to fondue, heyoka, iain and spiregrain (and gnarl who turned up a little later)

I'm very surprised at myself for turning up. Yay for me!

Although if you want to find the courage to join us at a later date, I wouldn't look at the pictures heyoka took of us...

Shudder :-)

In the grim future of hello kitty, there are only scary goth pubs.

Silly lioncub. I'm sorry you bottled out. We were easy to spot: we were the fabulous, charming, geeky, non scary ones. (I have pictures to prove it, too. honest.) The ones who weren't wearing deathmetal tshirts (though spiregrain was wearing a rather fetching overclocked shirt. When I arrived, things were still pretty quiet. The decibels were restrained, and the place was not heaving. That said, I still stood around, clutching my pint and looking gormlessly at people, trying to play spot-the-noder for a while and failing to notice Iain's handy-dandy everything2 sign.

You missed sushi and noodles and speculations about the body-painting perks of making the X-Men movie. You missed helpless giggling at cover versions of Britney Spears songs, and good people watching (there were some insanely awful fake tans amidst the goth pallor). You missed people writing obscene messages on postcards, and a fine outburst of Father Ted quotes. There was a lot of beer, loads of chatter, a huge amount of trivia, and a great deal of relief when the only real silences were caused by loud music and failed attempts at sign language.

And all the rumours about fondue and dizzy dancing the tango down the middle of Wardour Street while gnarl accused tourists of being soy-powered monkeys are, well, just figments of my over-soaked imagination.

Do say you'll come along when we get together again...

I then phoned heyoka on the mailing-list supplied number, described myself, and returned. The e2 table was the one with the expectant folks and the purpled haired noder.

We chatted about all things Everything, all things Everything2 and then about everything else.

We decamped to a quieter pub only after hearing an hilarious version of Hit me baby one more time by some kinda trash metal outfit. It was note perfect and word perfect, yet rather different. I even felt moved to add to the decor.

Then it was on to the next pub, the George (I think). Which was somewhat more normal.

Untill we got there.

It was here that gnarl's pilfered phone box decorations were convered to postcards.

Next stop: sushi. We were served at a little foot-high table. But that's OK, since the floor under it was resessed about 2 feet. Here I had my first taste of real (i.e. non-Sainsbury's) sushi, and any kind of ramen. It was tasty. I'm no stranger to a jalfraezi, but this stuff was hot. Not like curry, but like mustard. Good for the sinuses.

A real fun evening out.

Y'all come back now, y'hear? And bring a chilled monkey this time.

6/11/2000
News just in! I suspect some of the "postcard" are starting to hit home, stateside! At last! Here's an IRC transcript from the 3/11/2000
<spiregrain> e2: the rich tapestry of life.
<CowboyNeal> who sent postcards to nate and bones?
<spiregrain> What knod of postcards?
<CowboyNeal> porno ones
<spiregrain> Me!
<CowboyNeal> they ended up here
<spiregrain> well, gnarl and the london gang and me.
<CowboyNeal> and like nate and bones are not here
<spiregrain> yay!
<CowboyNeal> but we will see that they get em
<CowboyNeal> hehehehe
<spiregrain> Were they advertising "services"?
<discofever> (bet on dirty dirty jessicapierce)
<CowboyNeal> yup
<CowboyNeal> where has jp been lately anyhoo
<spiregrain> thems the ones then, I guess.