#NotatMWC 2012

So this time last night, I was standing, mildly tipsy in All Bar One, New Oxford Street, London, it was the annual Anti – MWC (Mobile World Congress) meet up – #NotatMWC – hosted by James ‘Whatleydude’ Whatley and Dan ‘Paddington Bear Stare’ Lane. This (I believe) was the second #NotatMWC, set up for those Mobile Geeks and Industry types that weren’t at MWC in Barcelona. I’ll be honest, unless someone PAYS me to, I’ll never be at a MWC, as much as I love my mobile phone tech, I realistically could never afford to go out there for pleasure, so meeting mobile geeks just 40 minutes from home suits me fine.

I had been in two minds about attending, as we’ve discussed before, I dislike meeting new people (although have found it to be okay recently), but seeing as I don’t really go out all that much, AND it would be the first time in nearly a year to see the tiny, quick talking legend that is Abul, I really HAD to go. Abul disappeared off the radar ages ago, some thought he was travelling, some thought he was in prison. I told people he’d been enlisted by a terrorist cell. He hadn’t, he’d been playing an online game for months. (Yes really!) Also be nice to see that fat idiot Barney before he buggers off oop North to become Dr Craggs or something.

I invited my wing-man and long suffering best mate Chris along for the night, he knows nothing of mobile phones, but is very good with people, and fun to be around. We arrived nearly an hour after the start, and there were already a handful of familiar faces around, there was some jovial piss taking, back slapping, hearty laughter and beer flowing. My trademark social awkwardness slowly drifted away. The thing is with meeting lots of online people, is that you do actually know them quite well, from Tweets, etc, but you don’t ‘know’ them. Most of the room was filled with faces I knew, and could probably name, but I’d never said a word to them in my life, on the whole, that didn’t actually change. I like my small circles. Actually, massive kudos to the lovely Jeb Brilliant, someone again, who I’ve spoken to over social media for YEARS was there. thing is he lives in the States, flew over to Barcelona for MWC and then came to London for #NotatMWC. That’s pretty fucking epic.

The clock struck 10pm and Whatleydude arrived, fresh from a meeting in Paris. I hadn’t seen James since Christmas 2010, so it was lovely to have a quick catch up. Whatley is one of those human beings you could punch in the face for being so happy, clever and charming – he’s just too likeable though, the cunt. I’d also arranged to finally meet the lovely Charlotte, someone I’d been talking to over Twitter for years now, but again had never spoken with. She arrived a little later in the evening with the shiny headed campness machine, Gary. Someone I’d not even known existed in the world until last night, actually he was quite awesome.

The beer flowed, and the tone of the conversation dropped, the insults became harsher but it was a good laugh, although by this point the geeks were thinning out, I’ve learnt that on the whole geeks don’t do late nights. They’ll scurry off nice and early, which is a shame because I was more in the frame of mind to be more approachable, never mind.

We were ushered to the downstairs area as they wanted to close the upstairs, with the time marching on everyone seemed to drink up and head off into the night. So with some hugs and handshakes passed around liberally, Chris, Abul and I headed back to Liverpool Street. Whilst we were on the Tube I showed them my new game ‘Sing What You See’ – you do exactly that. So I sang about what was going on around us on the Tube.

‘The lady over there is sleeping, her head is falling down, the man down the carriage is looking quite angry, there’s a copy of the Metro on the ground…’

Chris tried (and failed), and Abul just looked bewildered (and giggled like a little bitch). I did see a few of the passengers smile at my song, so that was nice (although they probably thought I was mentally ill). We arrived at Liverpool Street without being stabbed, said goodbye to Abul and hopped on the train home. The train was very quiet, everyone seemed to be asleep, I did toy with ‘Sing What You See – Lullaby Edition’, but thought best to leave it for today. The train arrived home at 1am, and we came out of the station, breifly attracted by the bright lights of ‘The Cave’ (Chelmsford’s only Strip Bar). The Cave shuts at 2am. I must admit to being tempted, we resisted, I think we both wanted to call it a night. So we said our goodbye and I decided to walk home.

The journey home.. tis very quiet.

It was nice wandering back home in the small hours, it’s so quiet.. I got home not far off 2am and slinked into bed.. it was a fucking amazing evening, thank you to you all that made me smile.

(I’ll put links to everyone’s Twitter accounts and grammar check in the morning – I can be arsed right now!)