Arriving just before 4pm, I was warmly greeted with a we’ve-had-at-3-pints-you’re-too-sober tone by Hugo Rune and Spiregrain, who promptly bought me an Archers and Lemonade and settled into the "host with the most" mode by introducing me to "the" Iain and "the" Dizzy. Then the teasing of my imaginatively thought name begun.

Fondue arrived soon after to relieve me of being the youngster of the night. Tales of T-shirts and monkeys and unimaginative node names continued through the arrival of blowdart, Heyoka and gnarl.

dizzy and his I-Mac camera, Blowdart with his rather sneaky digital camera and Hugo Rune with his huge one kept everyone on their toes and the monkey in some rather rude positions until we were forced to move the Wetherspoons pub down the road at 5pm.

Settling into a booth and scaring away the surrounding people precipitated fun and games which included the arrival of SpinyNorm and girlotron, Jaffa Cakes and Archers, Aftershock and yet more rude positions for the monkey until I took it upon myself to adopt the poor dear. Then I was introduced to the whore cards phenomenon so we all spent about 30 minutes trying to write some witty lines and laughing at the pictures.

We then trooped off to find food at Pizza Hut where the monkey felt as drunk as we did as it wouldn’t stay upright or was it that we were so drunk we couldn’t put the monkey upright.

Roll on the next London meet. However I did come away wanting:-
Heyoka’s funky box
Hugo Rune’s camera
Spiregrain’s t-shirt
SpinyNorm’s fortitude (for wearing shorts in London in November)
Iain’s monkey