slycat | LondonFur Meet 25/10/08 Report!

Gosh, it's been a long time since I did one of these! It was my first time at the new venue which was rather nice, a heck of a lot better than the old place which isn't hard to be honest. The only real problem with the venue was the prices; for example, I managed to pay almost £5 for one bottle of Weißbier. When I first got to the meet around 1pm, it was already packed with people, however I knew literally a handful of the people there. Just showed how out of touch I was with the community I suppose.

Back in my day (great, now I sound like an old timer too!), I knew everyone by name but this time round I just ended up clinging to those I did know. There was one participant who was more old skool than myself already there, being

scruff which was pretty cools as I can't have seen him in around 6 years. To be fair, I didn't really go any length to talk with the people I didn't know. I had my conbadge on so I figured if people wanted to talk to me, they'd say hello. As time went on, some more familiar faces turned up, in the form of Camrath, Glis, Bhavfox, Hawx, Kiroo, Miyabi, Kittiah, Sphelx, Nutsy, Tryst and others which made my time there more enjoyable. Glis had his laptop with him with some ancient photos I had forgotten about from when meets often ended up at his place, some rather embarrassing photos there :P.

After 5pm, the majority of people disappeared to attend the after party Rapido was organising. As I didn't really feel like attending, I went with Bhav, Andy, Glis and Alena to a Japanese restaurant in Chinatown. It was a restaurant I had been to before but it was all too evident they were under new management as they gave an exceptionally poor service where we were waiting far too long for the main meals to arrive, and when they did, they arrived 2 at a time rather than all at once like you'd expect when you order together. This meant that by the time last meals got served, the first meals had already been eaten. They offered free drinks and knocked the starters off the bill which partly made up for the length of time we had to wait for service but I don't think any of us will be attending there again.

After the meal, we all split up in our separate ways, with Andy and I walking down to Waterloo to get the train home. On the way there, Andy suggested checking out what was on at the IMAX. It turned out that they were showing Eagle Eye, one of the films I had wanted to go and see. The film was due to start in a matter of minutes so we snapped up some tickets and watched the flick. Without giving too much away, it was quite an enjoyable film about the power of surveillance and automation, much like Enemy of the State did before it. It had some unfeasible ideas like the microphone of your mobile can be used to listen to you even if your phone is off, but looking past those kinda flaws, the film was entertaining and action packed.

In summary, it was a fun day out which would have otherwise been rather dull. Was good to see people I hadn't seen in ages too. I certainly think I'll be going again now the venue isn't a shit-hole but as we're closing in on Christmas, London becomes more and more a place I'd rather not visit, and I've got FC in Jan. I may make a meet in January, but I doubt I'll go to any more this year.