announce reminder, Tom's report my a.f.p. report my photos, Huw's quotefile Huw's photos Adrian
[F] London meets Sanity
Scroll down for the Quotefile, photos and other resources
Attenting, in no particular order:
Sanity, your humble organizer of the meet
Astrid, accompanying your humble organizer
Adrian Ogden, banging things loudly and enthousiastically (without hat!)
GuitarHuw, keeper of the Quotefile and not actually playing guitar
Ped, accompanying Huw and being at her first real meet apparently
Barry, distributor of flyers
Ladylark, being the small girl with curly dark hair
Kimmi, being innocent
Tom, the meet newbie who behaved so well we didn't go through the ritual bloody painfull stuff (which doesn't necesarily mean he won't get it at the Green Man, mwuhahahahaha <veg>)
Liz, adding some sexual innuendo and generally high-pitched laughter.
Beaneater, accompanying Liz, adding hair and scottishness
Hippo, adding a bit of pace to the meet during the walking bits
Rhys, adding to the welshness of the meet
Dell, crutching along with Rhys
Eric Jarvis, being the mosh pit
Nattie, adding a corset and laughter even more high-pitched than Liz
Ben, accompanying Nattie and paying for her as well
Ingvar, being the Afpurrer and doing other freaky things with his body. Not helping in the amount of hair.
It was a light and sunny afternoon in London, when I woke up in Regent's Park and decided to go to Angel Station. This was entirely because people were assuming I was organising a meet. I, of course, wasn't really. I was merely the one who said there should be a meet, as I was in London anyway. The actual organising merely consisted of listening to people who knew what they were doing and where they were going, and repeating this in a slightly louder voice.
Arriving at Angel Station a few minutes before the official Start Of The Meet, some afpers had already gathered - and they barely noticed me, even. This while I was waving my shiny afp badge around like a madman. But I'll assume my girlfriend Astrid was attracting all attention ;-) I said hello to the gathered bunch of afpers, who in return said hello to me. So this was all going pretty well. I even received a present from Hippo, which means that I will now have no more excuses to not understand rhyming slang :-)
As I still had some people on my list who should still arrive, we waited till 6pm at the station. Most notably missing were Rocky Frisco and Eric Jarvis. As Eric had pointed out the restaurant, we figured he'd be able to find the place on his own. Ladylark was going to join us later, Barry disappeared to do other stuff so the 15 of us set our for Chapel Market where the restaurant was supposed to be. We were guided by Ingvar, who Knew Where He Was Going, so as the organiser I said "follow him" and my duty was done for the moment.
The restaurant was an Indian vegetarian place which had some very
suitable posters for afpers (at this point I'd like to mention the
orgasmic cucumber, just for the sake of it). I'm sure there's a photo
of it somewhere made by an afper - I know what they're like. The
restaurant did a 3 pound all-you-can-eat, fairly spicy food but
nevertheless tasting good. The sudden appearance of 15 people did
scare them a bit, I think, but they managed to put us all pretty
close together. I don't know what they put in the food but it didn't
take long before it was realised a quote file was going to be
necesary. Because I didn't want to pull out my geektoy all the time,
Huw got together a pen and paper, and kept the Quotefile [1]. I think
people enjoyed themselves, as sounds were produced by some of the
afpers that are too high to be audible for the human ear...And by the
stroking of certain afpers (Kimmi lost a few purity points there...)
As dinner happened, an Eric Jarvis appeared, and joined us. He even gave me a book, of more than 700 pages even, so thanks in advance for the sleepless nights this will result in. Later on, Rhys and his girlfriend disappeared (people kept doing that throughout the meet - this must be a .uk thing, I think :-p). But soon there was a Ladylark, who got there through a marvelous demonstration of globalisation: she sent me an SMS (through .nl of course) asking Huw (who is Welsh) to call Barry. This did mean Huw had to take his phone apart to get his SIM card into Ped's phone (hmmm, must remember that for a horrible pick-up line: "Can I put my SIM into yours, baby *waggles eyebrows*?") because he had a flat battery. This all worked and soon a short girl with curly dark hair appeared and ate dinner.
Upon my suggestion to go towards the pub (well, I was the organizer. Officially), money was thrown towards me which was enough to pay and we were able to leave. The people Who Knew Where We Were Going (Ingvar and Eric, apparently) guided us towards the pub, which turned out to be somewhat more than a short walk from the restaurant. We were slowed down a bit because Liz couldn't walk as fast due to a chest infection - or so she said. When she was walking up front (so we could adjust more easily to her pace) the only thing people could see was a white blur followed by a blur of afpers trying to keep up. In the end, I think the fastest walkers where Liz and Hippo, and this makes one think, doesn't it? I suggest a Sporting Afpmeet so you can all get some excercise :-p
Arriving at the Hope & Anchor (after about half an hour of walking),
it was already pretty busy. Upstairs turned out to be a pool room and
no sign of live music. A short Toilet Meet took place before the meet
went back downstairs bit by bit where Adrian (with hat) and Barry
were found. The music was going to be in the basement, so this is
where everyone (eventually) went, after some drinks, talk, or lacing
up inna corset. Downstairs even more afpers had vanished (Liz,
Beaneater - where did you go?) and there was a supporting act
playing. Presumably supporting in the way that everything was going
to sound well after this - it's a pity I didn't get a photo of Huw's
facial expression (painfull yet amazed describes it best). The band
after that was even louder, but definitely better than the first. But
we were of course waiting in agony for X-Static. But this also meant
Adrian was still around at the meet and his hat could be tried on by
several people (which, I gathered from other meet photos, is some
kind of custom). Also, at this point, salty liquorice was handed out
with the promise that after the X-Static gig, there would be
stroopwafels. For some reason, some of the afpers didn't seem to like
this black summum of dutch edible culture. Odd.
Finally they climbed the stage, 2 guitarists, a bass guitarist and a
hatless drummer. They gave away a performance that was simply great.
I had already prepared myself with listening to some XTC songs, but
failed to recognize most anyway. Of course the gig contained both [2]
hits, "Senses working overtime" and "Making plans for Nigel". It was
nice to hear them without the oh so 80s sound of the original; it
showed how good these (and the other) songs are, because they sounded
very recent in a way. The members of X-Static must have been proud
and surprised that they even had a mosh pit [3], created by our very
own Eric Jarvis who, by the look of it, really liked the music and
was having a good time. The rest of the meet was staying more at the
back [4], enjoying the music. Unfortunately Astrid was rather tired
(we'd been walking all over London since Friday afternoon) so she sat
at the back a bit - but I can say that she was enjoying the gig as
much as everybody else. She didn't know any of the XTC songs, though,
not even the hits.
After the gig had finished, the Person In Charge Of The Equipment
decided that the sound produced up until that moment wasn't loud
enough and put on some really, really loud music. And it wasn't even
good music...We went outside, and most of the meeters left homewards
or hotelwards with last or near-last buses and trains - after
congratulating Adrian on the excellent performance. The die-hard
afpgroupies that stayed were Kimmi & Tom (who left soon after going
outside), Hippo, Eric, Ingvar, Astrid and me, later joined by Adrian
who had to dismantle and put away some stuff. To celebrate,
stroopwafels were handed out to the meet. They were pressed together
a bit during the flight and the gig, but the small confined space
that was the basement had caused them to warm up a little, which is
just right for stroopwafels [5]. For those wanting more information
on these: www.siroopwafel.nl/ is the url mentioned on the
packing. Ingvar chose this moment to show off some of the more freaky
things he can do with his body. The purring wasn't too bad (I'm still
practicing), but what this man can do with his fingers and thumbs
is....distressing.
All good things come to an end, and so did this meet. Eric kepton talking for a while with Adrian, while the rest of us walked back to catch the bus/train. Considering that I'm the organizer, Ingvar was the last person to leave the Meet [6] (missing his last train).
I hope it was worth the effort and the ear damage (why do those concerts always have to be so loud?), I hope everyone had as good a time as Astrid & I did. It was nice to see & hear some of the UK afpers, I'm glad that newbie Tom and SO's Ped and Astrid enjoyed themselves. The only thing that lacked at this meet was a decent marriage proposal, really.
Thanks again to all those visiting, *knuffels* for those that didn't get one Saturday and actually wanted one, and I'll hope to see you again sometime!
<cue Vera Lynn "We'll meet again">
Resources: announce reminder, Tom's report my a.f.p. report my photos, Huw's quotefile Huw's photos Adrian (last 4 in the Misc section).
[1] The Quote File, nicked from http://homepage.ntlworld.com/guitar_huw/SanityMeet/quotefile.txt
Sanity: "Shall we all put them on the table?"
Nattie: "Who's knowing who Biblically?"
Kimmi: "I'm notorious for getting away with anything!"
Ped: "They're HUGE!"
Huw: "They're exactly the same size they were in India"
Liz: (explaining having fun and getting drunk at the Con) "We enjoyed Mr Pratchett for an hour"
Ingvar: "The main reason for the cream is so the chocolate doesn't go hard"
Nattie: "Wait until I've got my corset on..."
Sanity: "You can feel it coming..."
Kimmi: (about Ingvar) "He needs poking!"
Nattie: "OK, 6:58 and Kimmi is broken"
Nattie: "Poking Ingvar is a group effort"
Sanity: "I'll try poking him later"
Nattie: "Let's have a big orgy in the hotel room"
Liz: "Shall I stand up and do it?"
Huw: "No, just do it now..."
Nattie: (trying to speak)
Sanity: "Go on, swallow..."
Liz: "But it swings so nicely!"
Eric: "If you smelt of chocolate, you'd have no trouble with women whatsoever"
Nattie: "I've never had it before" - Sanity: "I can't take that"
Nattie: "*DO NOT QUOTE ME ON THIS HUW* It was gorgeous and more than I can take..."
Tom: "There's another one going in"
Sanity: "You were going FapFapFap with your ice cream"
Huw: "Ingvar, we're going down now..."
[2] Apparently, they had more, but people only remember 2
[3] At least, that's the word we use in .nl for the bit before the
stage where people are bouncing and pouncing, and it's English, so
I'll assume you know what I'm talking about.
[4] Though it was such a small basement, that that was nearly the same
as at the front...
[5] But this is no time to geek the proper conditions for eating
stroopwafels ;-)
[6] Counting Astrid would be unfair