Nottingham 2.0: Report

From: mpk@library.lspace.org (Mike Knell)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: [F] AFP Nottingham-2.0 report
Date: 7 Jul 1997 19:33:38 +0100
Message-ID: <5prcq2$uha$1@library.lspace.org>

NOTTINGHAM-2.0 - REPORT
-----------------------

Here are the notes from Nottingham-2.0. Unfortunately, my memory of the
evening itself is rather hazy (nice stuff, that Amazon..)..

Attendees
---------

Sentient: (at least some of the time)
Glenn Andrews
Lottie "Loriba" Barber
Maurice Barnes
Andy Brown
Bugsy
"Muppet Rob" Collier
Suzi & Gid Holyoake
Mike Knell
Stuart Moore (lurker)
Darrell "B&T" Ottery

Stuffed:
Boris the Badger
And the Duck (?)
And the other Duck
Mr. "I have no first name" Fox
Harry the Hedgehog
Darryl the Penguin

Apologies to anyone I've missed (or filed under the wrong category)

Myself, B&T and the Muppet appeared (after amusing "going-wrong-way-around-
Birmingham" moment, or so I'm told) just after the Official Food Start Time
of 1800, to find many people already there, having somehow detected each
other as afpers without (as far as I know) ever having met before. 
Frankly frightening. Pints were, naturally, purchased, and we were soon
joined by messrs. Brown and Andrews, who both approached the table, looked
embarrassed, and asked "er, are you by any chance anything to do with 
alt.fan.pratchett?". Upon being informed that yes, indeed, we were, they
stopped looking embarrassed, having had their suspicions confirmed. Loriba
soon joined the party, and it was time to eat...

Next came the food -- some people had the squiddy thing, which upon 
arrival turned out to be disconcertingly black, but which was pronounced
yummy anyway. Since I don't generally eat anything more intelligent than
myself, I avoided the squid and had the Lincolnshire Sausage - there
was great debate as to what "champ" was. For those who are interested, it's
sort of potato and leeks and things mixed up together - rather like 
bubble and squeak which someone has forgotten to fry. 

Having eaten our fill (and reassured the chef that, indeed, it was 
excellent), we decided to retire to the garden as it was such a nice
evening, and found some tables in the marquee which was inexplicably 
erected out there. The family with small children who were at the next
door table when we arrived inexplicably moved after the first few
minutes..

Over the next few hours, much alcohol was drunk. Since people were
driving and this is a family newsgroup, lots of non-alcoholic beverages
were also consumed, not limited to cups of tea (including looks of pure
hatred from the bar staff when ordering "two cups of coffee and a cup of 
tea" ten minutes before closing time), coffee, diet coke, soda and black,
and stuff which looked like ginger beer (it *did*! it *did*!) but turned
out to be pineapple joice and lemonade, IIRC. 

The real ale fanatics present pronounced the Amazon, the Hemlock and the
04 to be excellent. Indeed, I pronounced the Amazon to be excellent many
times over the course of the evening...

Sample bar order: (read out from Psion, to scornful reaction from adjacent
bar users and bar stuff. Hey, it could have been worse - we could have
handed them a printout, or faxed the order to the pub..)
04x1
Amazon
Black/soda pint
diet coke
malibu/coke vod/orange x2 (note: no malibu available at victoria)
coffee x 2
tea

Chocolatey things were eaten in great quantities, not limited to coffee
beans a-plenty, and loriba's intriguing chocolate covered "not cherries"
grapes. 

Hmm. Many other things happened, and were discussed, including the
compulsory techie discussions about "no, you don't change a bulb in a
light, you change a lamp in a lantern" and such issues. Old computers.
Other things.
I forget. 
Um.

After the meet, those who were crashing on my floor repaired back to my
house, which for some reason was complete with (a) pavement pizza in
the side passage (eew!), (b) two young ladies hanging around outside
talking loudly (as they did until 3am - the neighbours have just taken
our landlady's phone number to complain, though why they won't just
complain to us so we can say "look, they were outside.." I do not
understand), (c) another young lady having been rather ill asleep in 
my housemate's bed, with my housemate asleep on the sofa downstairs,
and (d) general weirdness. [1]

After watching a couple of episodes of The Young Ones on video, most
people had fallen asleep (I dunno, no stamina) so we called it a night,
and most people were able to drop off after the two people talking loudly
outside finally went away at about 3am...

QUOTES
------

"Have you ever looked at any of those teen sex websites?" -- Gid (quoted
drastically out of context, to be fair)

"I'm a Welshman. I know my faggots." -- Gid

"I had him and Kendall at once, for three days... " -- Bugsy

"I've drunk with Ken Clarke, and outside of six whiskies he's anyone's."
 -- Gid (again?)

"We are all originals." -- Anon.

"You have to twiddle knobs." -- me, apparently (who typed that into my psion?)

"This is one perverse fox." -- Anon.

Mike

[1] Funnily enough, that night I *finally* decided that I have to move
    sometime and stop procrastinating. Anyone with a 1bd flt, des. res
    in qt. ngbhd, 1bd 1rec 1bth to let in Beeston, do give me a yell..
    *grin*

-- 
   Mike Knell -- a Wholesale Alternative to Good, Safe Murder. ((c) jldomini)
  Mr. Tony Blair! You are a thirsty gonk!  ---  http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~mpk/

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