Forty six – Sports Analytics Innovation

I squinted at the PowerPoint and read the phrase ‘whole body cryotherapy’. Our presenter, Jim, was a tall man in his mid-twenties who worked as a sports scientist for one of London’s Premier League football clubs. I didn’t know anything about sports science and I have a considerable dislike of football, especially Premier League football. I wasn’t too unhappy, though. I was sipping a fancy Spanish beer and I had spied three platters of mixed sandwiches.

A total of forty people had signed up, but only fourteen people had bothered to show. It soon turned out that Jim was the only speaker; two other speakers had cancelled; it wasn't going well.  The event was run by a chap called Stephen who also ran a series of ‘sports data’ conferences. I guessed that his free events were an opportunity to network and to try to drum up a bit of interest for his more exclusive events.

Jim’s talk had a number of different threads. One thread was all about using different tools to try to reduce footballer post-match recovery time: footballers were asked to wear gadgets that would send measured electrical shocks through their legs at regular intervals. Other players were asked to wear ‘activity watches’ which logged how much jumping up and down they were doing. I could see from one of the graphs that one player had obviously been out ‘on the town’ somewhere.

What struck me about Jim’s talk was the emphasis on science.  His talk was packed with data and graphs. There were challenging phrases such as ‘neuromuscular properties’ and the ‘removal of metabolites’ which were apparently measured through blood tests. This was where sport, technology and medicine all combined. Athletes (or, players, as I call them) were described as ‘psychosociophysiological entities’ which intimates that sports scientists need to consider the bigger picture: the attitudes of the individual players and also (pretty obviously) how they interact with each other as a team. Every dimension of football was up for analysis and study. Although I continued to view football as something that was both boring and pointless, I was beginning to see that the challenge of maximising team performance was a complex and challenging problem. I had never thought of soccer in this way before. As Jim talked, my perspective was beginning to shift; I was starting to get interested.

Jim moved onto the intriguing subject of ‘whole body cryotherapy’. Cryotherapy is where footballers are asked to stand in a stupidly cold chamber for a couple of minutes, which apparently does something ‘positive’ to the body. An earlier version of this is to dunk the players into ice baths.

We were shown pictures of a ‘recovery menu’ and the design of a ‘player recovery space’. Whilst seeing these pictures, it struck me that sports science was interestingly interdisciplinary. You’ve got psychology, physics, biology, chemistry (in the form of nutrition), electronics, computing and even design and architecture.

Jim’s talk came to an end. Everyone clapped and wandered over to the area where the beers and the sandwiches were sitting.

I got chatting to a triathlete who confessed to be obsessed with measuring his performance, and a middle aged chap who used to do some consulting work for a premiership club. I learnt that Arsenal football club had bought out some kind of data capture and analysis company. I also learnt that there was a market for ‘post match’ data, not just for the media (to impress views with stats about how much running a player does), but also to help with the discovery of new players.

When it comes to sport, data is everywhere: it’s used before, during and after a match. Geeks, it seems, can now play a role in the success of a team.  I also learnt that some teams would prefer not to share some of their sports science secrets. I saw the tension: science is all about sharing whereas sport is all about winning.

After drinking my third beer and eating yet another prawn and mayonnaise sandwich, it was time to go.

‘Do come again to our next event in January!’ said Stephen. ‘We’ll have more speakers on…’

As I left I wondered what other sports the group might focus on. Did they study tennis? How about rugby? It was then I realised I should have, again, taken the time to ask more questions.

Forty five – Orgasmic Meditation

I plotted the route. I needed to catch a Victoria line train heading south from Highbury and Islington. As I sat on the tube, I studied the map and started to worry. The event had the title: ‘Why Orgasm is better than Climax’. I read and re-read the description and I couldn’t understand a word of it. There were words like ‘practice’ and ‘visceral’. There was also a reference to ‘orgasm’ being a state of being that you could access entirely at will. I was entirely mystified, and I was going to Pimlico. There was also something slightly weird about the address: it was a private apartment.

It took me a few minutes to get my bearings after I arriving at Pimlico station. Following the map on my phone, I found myself amidst a series of extraordinarily expensive looking Georgian terraces and then on a road that revealed art-deco thirties flats. When I reached a junction, I realised where I was: I recognised a government ministry, the Home Office. My destination was an imposing block of flats that was immediately opposite.

There was a concierge service. A flat that has a concierge service always suggests an abundance of money, and I was in a part of London that was stratospherically expensive. I could see the concierge chatting to another man in the reception area. I knocked on the door. The door buzzed open.

‘Who are you here to see?’

I gave him the number of the flat.

‘Do you have their name?’

‘Hold on…’ I fumbled with my phone. I pushed a couple of buttons, opening up the Meetup app.

‘I’m here to see Danielle’.

‘Do you have a full name?’

‘No’

‘Do you have her phone number?’

I told him that all I had was the name and the apartment number.

‘Take a seat. ‘

I did what he said.

The leather chair I sat in looked and smelt very expensive. The other chap in was talking into his mobile phone.

‘I know what he’s here for’ said the man on the phone, breaking off to speak to the concierge, nodding in my direction.

Eventually the concierge let us both go to the third floor. The man on the phone took the lead. We stepped into the elevator.  When we were both inside, I said hello. He was called Nick.

‘I’m here to see Danielle’ I said to Nick, sheepishly. Apparently Nick was going to a different apartment than I was, but was here for ‘a similar reason’.

‘I’m here for the next level. It’s interesting, isn’t it? I mean, it’s all about pushing boundaries and getting outside of your comfort zone’. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

‘Well, I’m, erm, here to find out more about what it’s all about’.

‘You don’t know?’ Nick began to chuckle.

‘I have no idea. I saw it advertised and I decided to come along’

‘Well…’ Nick laughed, ‘you’ll certainly find out tonight!’

When the lift arrived at our floor we were met by a woman called Lydia. Lydia let Nick into an apartment, where he immediately asked where the bathroom was. I was then taken to the living room of a different apartment.

Four guys and one woman sat on a beige corner sofa. Another woman called Sophie sat on a chair in the middle of the room, facing the men. Sophie was in her mid-twenties, wore bright red lipstick, mascara, a loose black top, dark tights, and an exceptionally short skirt. All the guys looked as uncomfortable as I felt. We were, after all, going to be talking about orgasmic meditation. Unfortunately I had missed about fifteen minutes of her talk due to the concierge hiatus.

‘Do you have any questions?’ asked Sophie; she didn’t seem to realise that I didn’t know enough to formulate any.

‘No, not yet. I’ll just listen, for now. I might have some questions in a bit’.

Sophie talked very generally about the benefits that orgasmic meditation can bring. From what she was saying, it seemed to be able to connect to every dimension of your being.

‘What do you want?’ She asked the first man on the sofa.

He replied that he wanted to become more ‘connected’, whatever that meant. Sophie moved to the next chap who spoke in terms of wanting ‘happiness’. Sophie nodded sagely. They spoke about happiness for a bit, what it meant, and that it can lie in many different things and in many different places at the same time. Sophie toyed with the man, accusing him of being a player.

‘How about you?’ It was my turn.

‘Everyone has given really great answers… I really liked what has been said about connectedness and what, erm, he has said about happiness. I guess what I really want is contentment, and that comes from helping people’. I was proud of my answer. ‘I think helping people is a really noble thing to do. It connects with something inside of us’. I looked across the room. The first man had an expression on his face that suggested bafflement.

‘Helping people. Contentment… That’s, yeah… Is that achievable, though? When you’ve found one level of contentment don’t you feel that you’ve got to go searching all over again, that we’re always moving, always seeking new things, right?’ It was my turn to be played with.

‘Yes, I think you’re right. It’s like with money, isn’t it?’ I had no idea what I was saying. ‘If you buy a house, you want a bigger house, don’t you? It’s what happens. Contentment begins with the letter C and so does Capitalism. Is that a coincidence? Who knows!’ Everyone was laughing.

‘I think I know exactly the kind of man you are’ said Sophie, lowering her voice.

‘You do…? Could you tell me? Because I don’t know…’

‘You’re the kind of man who looks for things in the dark places of the internet, am I right?’ I was lost for words. ‘You’re going to write a review of me, aren’t you?’

Sophie returned to her presentation. She spoke about how the practice can help you to find ‘flow’, and that orgasm had many positive health benefits, especially to your ‘limbic system’.

Sophie turned to me and said, ‘you’ve missed my wonderful description of orgasm, haven’t you?’ I smiled politely and shrugged, not really knowing what to say. I was true: I did come a bit late.

After a few minutes of confusing mystical talk, she introduced Jennifer, who was quietly sitting on the sofa. Jennifer was more modestly dressed. She told us all about how the practice had changed her life. She spoke about orgasm being a continual state rather than simply being an ending state.

Jennifer handed back to Sophie, who told us about their courses, which lasted for an entire day. Orgasmic meditation, it turned out, was a ‘paired practice’ which you undertake with a significant other (and if you were single they could offer advice about how to find a partner). The practice, it turned out, concentrated on the female orgasm.

Sophie told us that the course included a fuller description of the philosophy and a ‘live demonstration’ of ‘paired practice’, which included a lesson about ‘stroking technique’. I blinked. Sophie then told us the price of the course and said they were taking bookings for the month of December.

‘So, what I was thinking is that we could all have a chat so you can ask any questions that you might have. I’ll put some music on, and we can just chill for a bit, okay?’

It was the end of the talk. I decided it was ‘the bitter end’; it was time to go. I looked across at the other guys. They were all chatting. The first guy seemed very interested.

As I was pulling on my jacket, Jennifer walked over to me.

‘How did you find that?’

‘It was, yes, erm, interesting’. I was still thoroughly baffled by all the quasi-mystical talk.

‘I’ll send you a text so you have my phone number, so if you have any questions you can speak to me. What’s your number?’ I gulped, then gave Jennifer my number. Jennifer then gave me a flyer about the course. I thanked her, said goodbye to Sophie and shook the hands of all the guys and left the apartment.

When I got to the street, I searched for a nearby bus stop. Within minutes I was on my way to Trafalgar Square. When I was on the train from Charing Cross I fished out the flyer from my bag to look at it properly. ‘It’s like yoga for your orgasm’ read one sentence. ‘Spend the day with two certified instructors’ and learn about the ‘four laws of orgasm’ read another. I remained perplexed. I couldn’t help but feel that I had accidentally been introduced to an unusual sex cult. This said, I later understood they didn’t call it ‘sex’; they called it ‘practice’.

On the following day, I received a message from Sophie. She asked me whether I had enjoyed the event. I said that I had, and I thanked her for her time. Her reply: ‘do come again’.

Forty four – Entrepreneurs with Chronic Illness

Romeo’s gluten free bakery was in Islington. The thing is, I love gluten; it’s one of my favourite food groups. I didn’t want to go to a gluten free bakery. A cake without gluten is like air without oxygen: suffocatingly pointless. Plus, I didn’t really want to go to Islington.

My phone told me to catch a bus from Holborn. It also told me that half an hour later I would be deposited, pretty much, outside the bakery. My phone had become an invaluable Meetup tool. Over the weeks, it had become my guide and companion: it always knew where to go. I, on the other hand, was often confused and lost, relying on familiar trails and memories of earlier Meetups.

The event had a subtitle of ‘share stories, create goals and get practical tips’. It was a group for people who called themselves ‘spoonies’; people who have chronic conditions. I had heard the term before; I have a friend who calls herself a spoonie.  The term comes from writer and blogger Christine Miserandino who runs a website called ‘but you don’t look sick’.

The metaphor is a simple and compelling one. If you’re fit and active, you might be given loads of ‘spoons’ in the morning. Spoons, as I understand it, represent energy. If you have a chronic condition, you might be only given a limited number of spoons; day to day activities use up your ‘spoons’. Some days you might wake up having lots of spoons, whereas on other days, you might only have a few.

The Meetup sounded like an interesting idea, and I was intrigued by what discussions might take place. I read that some spoonies need flexibility, but employers need you to be at your desk; you really can’t say to a prospective employer, ‘I don’t know how well I’ll be tomorrow’. An implicit theme behind the Meetup was the question about how technology might be able to help.

I stepped into Romeo’s café. It was empty except for three people; one solitary person at the back, and two people sitting at a table by a wall. The instructions were to look out for people ‘at the side’. I had found them.

The spooniepreneurs, as they called themselves, were a pair of North American women called Sally and Hayley, both in their early twenties. I introduced myself, thanked them for having me along and quickly disclosed that I didn’t have any medical conditions and that I wasn’t an entrepreneur. Despite my profound gastronomic reservations about the palatability of gluten free cake, I accepted Sally’s recommendation and ordered a slice of carrot cake.

‘How many of these events have you run?’ I asked.

‘This is the second. There were hardly any people on the first one. Although people joined, I think the problem is, you know, people find it difficult to come along; that’s how things are. We’re thinking of moving it online, to webcasts, you know? That way more people might be able to participate.’ I could see the issue: it’s going to be tough for people with chronic conditions to get to a face to face event.

Hayley worked as a part time copywriter and yoga teacher. Sally, on the other hand, was new to the country. She had traveled from America via Canada and Switzerland, and was trying to find work, having previously worked in ‘university administration’.

‘Hello! Is this the Meetup?’ A young man called Mike arrived at the table. Mike was a Meetup rookie. He had discovered it a week earlier and this was his third event.

‘What kind of things have you been to?’ asked Hayley.

‘I’ve just come from a business networking event. They spoke about how to do networking, like, how to go up to people and stuff. It was very interesting. I enjoyed it. Before then I went to a yoga event around London Bridge. That was very interesting. We all sat down and meditated. It felt good, like, my mind was totally empty? It was a good feeling’.

I told them about the yoga event that I had been to, sharing what I knew about candles, foot soaks and seven different chakras.

‘That’s not the kind of yoga that I do. Is that kundalini yoga?’ asked Hayley, interested.

‘Yes! It is! That’s what it was!’

‘They didn’t talk about any of that in the group I went to’ said Mike. Although I wasn’t learning about business or chronic conditions, I was learning about different types of yoga.

It turned out that Mike was twenty one and had dropped out of university after choosing the wrong course. After three years of bar work that he hated, he was trying to figure out what he wanted to do. He was keen to share his philosophy of life with us: he wanted his life to be all about helping people. Hayley and Sally nodded. Mike was a charmer. He had a gentle confidence that I admired.

After three quarters of an hour, the conversations gradually came to a halt. We had talked about the Linux computer operating system, Geneva, African words, motorbikes, my one hundred Meetup quest, carrot cake, mindfulness meditation and improvisation acting classes. Hayley went to pay a cake bill, and I shook Mike’s hand. It had been fun.

It was still early. I turned my attention to my phone. I looked at the time, and then started to look at the next ‘time chunk’ in the future.

‘What are you going to next?’ asked Sally.

I showed Sally my phone.

‘Oh! Good luck with that one!’ she laughed.

Forty three – Monthly Agile Evening Group

I applied the half hour rule: the NetRunner Meetup came up again. I knew what to do: I chose the ‘you can’t go to the same group more than once’ rule and looked at the next event: I was going to another technology Meetup.

I couldn’t help but feel that I needed to stop going to events straight after work; I felt that I needed to go to events that were either ridiculously early in the morning, or impossibly late in the evening. I wanted my randomness quest to become even more random but I felt that focussing on different times on the Meetup calendar would be cheating. I wasn’t happy; I was starting to feel anxious. Tech Meetups were pretty interesting, but I wanted to go to groups that were weirder.

Another thought was that maybe I needed to endure all the tech Meetup groups before I could get to the weird stuff, but I didn’t really know how many tech groups there were. The only way to find out was to continue.

I looked down at the pavement and tried to visualise where Moorgate was in relation to Holborn. I knew that Moorgate was close to The Barbican, and was pretty much up the road from Bank, but I had no real memory of what was in between.

I peered into my phone. It told me that it would take me half an hour. I plotted a route using now familiar landmarks: Chancery Lane, Farringdon Road, and Smithfield Market, where the ‘London on Board’ Meetup was held. As I walked, new connections and links revealed themselves to me: I found a Russian Restaurant, a Cross Rail building site, and an underpass that went underneath the Barbican Centre.

By the time I arrived at an office on Finsbury Pavement it had started to rain. I walked into a clinical reception area saw a list of Meetup delegates sitting on a desk. Noticing that someone had already added their name to the end of the list, I followed suit. When I was done, the receptionist told me to head up to the third floor.

I found myself in an area that was called ‘the business lounge’. A large flatscreen TV displayed rolling news. There was nothing around me that told me anything about the nature of the business: there were no trade magazines, posters or pictures. Some visitors who were wearing name stickers arrived.

‘You can come through now’.

We were ushered into a large presentation room. Leather and steel chairs were set out in rows.

‘We’ve got tea and coffee here, and some water, and there’s some rolls and wraps too. For the next one, we’re going to have drink, but for this one it’s only tea’.

I found myself standing next to an incredibly tall man called Goran who worked for the company that was hosting the event. I introduced myself.

‘Your face looks familiar… I think I’ve seen you somewhere…’

‘Do you go to any other Tech meetups?’ I asked. Goran didn’t. ‘It might be that I look like a famous comedian’ I suggested, repeating a joke that I’ve heard too many times.

‘You’re a comedian?’

‘No, I’m not a comedian. I, erm, work at a university. I’m work with computers. Computer education.’ I wasn’t quite ready to tell Goran the complete truth, especially since I had just arrived and was already making good progress at eating all his sandwiches.

‘Hello, I’m Lucy’. A hand was offered. I put my sandwich down and introduced myself. ‘I work in UCAS’ said Lucy. ‘What do you do?’ UCAS was the university admissions organisation. We had something to talk about. We were soon joined by Eugene who was from the Ukraine. He had been in London for two weeks and had been working in Google’s London offices. The business that he worked for did ‘software outsourcing’ and Eugene had just dropped by to see what he could learn from this event (and, like me, eat some free sandwiches).

Fifteen minutes later, the room had filled up and it was time for the opening talk: ‘Evolution of team’s remit: above and beyond’. There were two speakers: Andrew and Goran. Andrew introduced himself as a ‘scrum master, Kanban practitioner and a certified collaboration architect’. He also told us that he liked cars, and showed us a picture of an expensive looking low slung sports car which he said he owned. Goran, on the other hand, showed us a picture of his dented city runabout.

The purpose of the talk soon became clear. Goran and Andrew worked for a company that offered consultancy services to businesses that needed to develop software systems. The business focussed on one particular aspect: agile software development and project management. Since software is intangible, it’s notoriously difficult to manage. The only way to understand what is going on in a software project is to continually talk it, and make aspects of a software development as visible and clear as possible.

‘Agile techniques’ are all about creating a development process where there is continual discussion, short meetings, sharing information and involving customers to ensure that developers don’t go building the wrong thing.

Andrew and Goran’s talk was about a very particular aspect of agile: how to create display boards (or, ‘information radiators’ as they are sometimes called). A board, we were told, represents a two week ‘sprint’, or a concentrated period of software development. Each board was populated with post-in notes, which represented tasks. Tasks move from one side of the board to another as software is written, tested and then deployed to a system. Andrew and Goran were proposing a new set of information boards that were a combination of the Scrum and Kanban agile methods.

‘Who here is an agile coach?’ Goran asked.

A good number of people put up their hands. I had never heard the term before but it was an idea that made sense. An agile coach was a facilitator; someone who guides the developers and the development process.

The talk with packed with brilliantly baffling phrases. I heard the phrase ‘replenishment cadence’. We were asked whether we had ever ‘puppetized’ anything. One question from the floor was, ‘did changing the board change the daily standups?’ We heard about ‘story points’ and ‘minimum marketable releases’ (which was different from ‘minimum viable products’). Tasks were presented in ‘swim lanes’, and there were some gatekeepers who were called the ‘three amigos’ who wore different stakeholder hats. I also learnt that there was a product called Jira, but I was left wondering what ‘the size of an epic’ was. The language that was being used wasn’t so much about software, it was more about people.

After the talk, I chatted to two delegates; one was an agile coach, the other was a project manager. They talked about methods and process, and the challenge of talking about the ‘mind stuff’ of software to senior management.

I had another chat with Goran before I left: I discovered that the Meetup was very new, and that I had been to their second ever event.

It had stopped raining by the time I left the building. I looked around to find my bearings and saw the underground sign in the distance; London’s beacon of travel. I crossed the road and started to walk towards Moorgate station, realising that I had learnt something.

Forty two – London Netrunners

I climbed a flight of stairs and then turned right onto the Millennium footbridge; my legs were complaining: they were gently but persistently reminding me about the hike I had been on two days earlier.

It was dark, and the bridge was busy. On the northern side of the bridge I could see St Paul’s Cathedral. On the southern side, I could see the Tate Gallery, Shakespeare’s Globe and some restaurants. I was starting to feel hungry. I stopped approximately half way to take in the view. I saw Blackfriars’ station. In the distance Tower Bridge and The Shard were gracefully illuminated. I looked towards The Shard; that was roughly where I was heading.

The description of the event was the shortest I have ever seen, a mere two sentences: ‘there is usually a lot of empty tables, come and join us! Have just increased the max size since this is getting popular.’

The event was to be held in a coffee shop opposite a replica of a galleon called The Golden Hind. It was easy to find; I knew where I was going. I walked past the Globe Theatre, past the restaurants, through some wide tunnels, and then picked my way through narrow roads that were overlooked by former warehouses that had long since been converted into luxury apartments.

When I saw the title, ‘Android NetRunner’, I thought the event might have something to do with mobile telephone software. I was wrong; very wrong. It was a card game Meetup, and NetRunner was the name of the game. I looked around. Players sat opposite each other. Tables were covered in sets of unusual looking cards. Tokens were involved.

‘Do you fancy a game?’ a friendly voice enquired. I turned around.

‘I’m, erm… I don’t know anything about NetRunner. I’m totally new to this, but I’m willing to learn’ I replied. My new friend, Tom, acquired an expression of gentle bewilderment.

‘The deck I’ve got isn’t a great deck for beginners… But, we can… I’ll talk you through what happens. Do you know Magic? It’s a bit like magic.’ I shook my head. ‘Ah, okay…’ Tom was obviously puzzling about how to explain the game to me. ‘Basically, one player is a corporation and there’s another player that is trying to attack the corporation and steal its secrets’. Tom explained that each player had their own set of cards which they customise; players, it seemed, become attached to their cards.

When Tom mentioned ‘servers’ the game started to make a bit of sense. I decided to chance my arm and throw Tom my tentative understanding of what on earth he was talking about. ‘So, is it like, what’s that Science Fiction author called…’

‘William Gibson…’

‘Yes, what was that book he wrote?’ I asked, struggling to remember.

‘Neuromancer’.

‘So, it’s like that, right?’

Tom nodded. I had read Neuromancer when I was in my teens, mainly because it was a cool and geeky thing to do. I found it a tough read; I found his writing dense and pretty impenetrable, and I barely managed to get the gist of what he was writing about. The emergence of a new ‘cyberpunk science fiction scene’ was fun and exciting, and spoke to my inner geek. I had largely forgotten about Neuromancer and Gibson, who popularised the term ‘cyberspace’. My copy of Neuromancer sat on the bottom of a bookshelf in my spare room, untouched for years, its pages yellowing with time.

‘So, what you’ve got are these piles of cards. Here’s your corporation headquarters, and you’ve got some money. Here’s your R&D deck, and over here you can have servers where you can have agendas. The runner, or ‘hacker’, can come over and steal your agendas, but you don’t want that to happen since the aim of the game is to collect seven agenda items, or to kill the runner. What you do is protect your piles by using ice.’

I was starting to get very confused.

‘So, is ice like, a firewall or something?’ I asked, throwing a technical computing term at Tom, to see if it would stick.

‘Yes, it could be, if you like… I’m not technical, so to me, it could be anything.’

The more ice (or layers of security) you have, the harder it is for a runner to get your secrets. To make things happen, you need money to do things.

‘A corporation gets three goes per turn, and a runner gets four goes’. I was a bit confused by this asymmetry, but I didn’t ask why. At this point, I was thoroughly overloaded with detail.

Another player called Justin joined us. Justin was in his twenties, whereas Tom was quite a bit older; Tom was philosophy graduate who was now a train driver. They both decided to have a demo game for my benefit. Cards were shuffled, counters were moved around, and Justin assumed the role of the corporation. Justin started to rapidly take me through the game and the moves that he was making, but I soon got totally lost. As Justin got into the game, he became silent, his attention invested intently on the cards.

‘Fancy a game?’

I looked up. Someone new had arrived. I introduced myself and then confessed to being mildly baffled, which the new visitor accepted as a challenge. I left Justin and Tom’s game and went to join Kev at a new table. I told Kev what I knew about the game, which elicited a sagely nod. I sensed I was doing well.

‘So, when you get a card, you can rez it, which means that it’s running on a server’. You put your cards next to your headquarters card, and then turn it the right side up, to show that it is ‘running’: we were talking about imaginary computers doing imaginary things. Trying to make things real, I tried to imagine that we were talking about a multi-national corporation that had an insurance business (or ‘agenda’) which is powered by a huge data centre. Making it slightly more real made it slightly more exciting. Having your own cards meant you were either your own corporation, or you were your own ‘master hacker’ or anti-establishment rebel; I was beginning to see its appeal.

‘So, what do you do when you’re not playing this game?’ I asked Kev.

‘I…, erm, manage servers in a big corporation’ Kev replied.

Justin came over to see what was going on; his game had finished. We decided to collectively have another ‘demo’ game, with Justin being the ‘game narrator’ for a second time. Kev was the runner, and I was a corporation. I set down some ‘ice’ cards, and after a few goes, I found an agenda card. Justin helped me to get rid of some useless repeated cards, before Kev went in for an attack. Kev paid some money and got into my R&D operation, and managed to get a sneaky look at the next thing I might play (which was, as it turned out, pretty useless).

As I gathered more cards, Justin realised something: he knew how to win the game. He rezzed a resource card to accumulate more money, and then played two identical cards in quick succession to wipe out the runner’s hand: he had inflicted ‘meat damage’. Trying to make sense of everything, I imagined this was the equivalent of ‘sending the boys round’ to beat the hacker up.

The timing of Justin’s victory was perfect: the coffee shop was closing. Games finished, everyone packed up their cards, and we walked through the boisterous streets of Borough.

We ended up at a pub called The Sheaf, which was, in effect, a basement that had white washed walls and large expansive tables. It was the perfect place to play. As I bought Kev a pint to thank him for his very clear and helpful descriptions, new players arrived, unpacked cards, and settled down in pairs. Some players had specialist ‘vanity credits’. I saw another player with what could be described as a ‘play mat’ where they set out their corporations or runner cards.

The more I hung around, the more interesting it became. I discovered that Kev had set up a NetRunner podcast a couple of months ago, and mentioned that there were some really useful video tutorials on the internet. He then told me about NetRunner tournaments.

As I went to sit down, I noticed there were two huge fully occupied tables. There were approximately seven games happening at the same time. I asked Kev who ran the Meetup, but he didn’t really know; it didn’t really matter. There wasn’t any sense of hierarchy; everyone was there to have fun, to have a laugh, to mess around with cards. One thing that struck me was that every single player was male. I wondered whether this was because of the nature of the card game, whether it was the particularly strong cyberpunk metaphor that the game adopted, or the distinctly masculine imagery that appeared on many of the cards.

With a beer in hand, I sat in on another game, this time between Steve and Marco. Steve was clearly the more expert player, but the game didn’t go well for him. Steve, who was playing the runner, was easily defeated by Marco’s powerful corporation. Marco had installed several layers of ‘ice’ in preparation for Steve’s persistent attacks.

An hour or so later, it was time to go, although the majority of the games were still continuing. Kev had told me that everyone would be playing until the pub closed at eleven.

I climbed a couple of steps and returned to the street. I looked upwards to see where The Shard was: a site for real corporations. I found The Shard, and then started to walk towards it, beginning my short journey home.

Forty one – 500 Miles

The London Bridge station concourse was deserted except for a woman in her late twenties. Anke, our meeting host, was sitting on a bench, eating her breakfast. Had I got out of bed at a slightly earlier things would have been very different: I would have had to go to the Gay Man’s Rowing Club (I cannot swim, or row, and I’m not gay), or a hardcore cycling club which promised a ‘loop through South East London’. Instead, I was going to a hiking group.

Over the next fifteen minutes four ‘500 milers’ arrived. I knew one of the fellow walkers: a woman called Lynne who I had met at a ‘Tour of Bermondsey’s Breweries’ that was organised by a neighbour more than a year ago. The other walkers were Julie, Güler, and Isabel. When it was exactly half past nine, Anke walked us to a platform which revealed our destination: we were going to Kent.

After changing trains, we arrived at Leigh, where we were joined by two more people: a Korean chap called Kim and a Dutch guy called Andre, who had both travelled from Surrey. After some brief introductions, we set off at an outrageously fast pace.

Within ten minutes, I had settled into the walk and started to enjoy myself. Although there wasn’t any sun, it was warm.  As I walked, I suddenly realised that I hadn’t left London for at least three months; I sensed that the air was cleaner and I smelt that fresh dampness that accompanies the days of early autumn; I was glad to be there.

I looked around and wondered who lived in the large detached houses that we passed and dreamt of what it would be like to live in the countryside. I dreamt about having a huge garden that would take minutes to cross, mused about the dangers of chopping wood, and the challenges of keeping chickens. London, I realised, was starting to consume me; I had missed this kind of adventure, and I was surprised was that it had taken no more than an hour’s travel to discover a whole new environment and be confronted with a new way of living.

We found ourselves traversing the border of what turned out to be a grand stately home in a village called Chiddingstone. Occasionally Anke would stop, glance at her map, make sure that everyone was following her, and then carry on. When it came to trail navigation, she had two tools: an ordinance survey map that was packed in a neat transparent folder and a compass, nothing more.

I chatted to Lynne and Julie; we talked about hikes, groups and jobs. Lynne worked as a software developer. She wrote and maintained financial software systems and hated it; she was stuck in a rut, not really knowing what she wanted to do, trapped by the perpetual challenge of having to service an expensive London mortgage. Julie, on the other hand, seemed to be more content: she was a former features writer for a women’s magazine and made her living as a recruitment consultant.

‘Is everyone okay? How is the pace? Faster, slower?’ Anke asked, stopping for an instant, making sure that we were all okay. Everyone was happy. The pace was fine, but I was starting to realise that my legs were starting to acquire an unusual burning sensation and my right foot was starting to become grumpy about my cheap hiking boots.

The walk was surprising in the sense that the terrain was always changing. It was never difficult; there were hills that appeared to be gentle, but they always caused me to feel out of breath. We walked through muddy fields, over styles and onto ancient footpaths.  I saw a road sign: our final destination was the town of Tunbridge Wells where we could apparently catch a train back to London Bridge. The sign said six miles. We were roughly half way there.

We stopped for lunch next to the River Medway, a river which eventually winds its way towards Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham before it ends at the North Sea. Everyone had been sensible and had brought food. Chocolate digestive biscuits were shared. Güler and Isabel sat together, chatting. There turned out to be three cliques: myself, Julie and Lynne were one, Güler and Isabel were another, and the two lads, Jan and Kim kept each other company. Jan was one of the surprises of the Meetup; he had met his future wife on one of Anke’s walks, and Anke was, of course, invited to the wedding; I overhead talk about plans, meals and parties.

After lunch, I walked with Jan for a bit. Jan worked as an interior designer for a company that remodels flats and houses for clients who have preposterous amounts of money.

‘Where are the clients from?’ I asked.

‘Many of them are from the Middle East. We have clients from Qatar… I’m currently working with a woman who is from China’. He worked on properties that ranged from small studio flats, through to huge luxury apartments.  His clients would buy them for an extortionate amount of money, have them renovated, than then sell them on, or rent them out to rich students. Jan was a direct connection to the ridiculous world of the London property market.

It was around this point that I started to get tired. I had gone from being enthusiastic about the countryside, to starting to get annoyed at there being ‘yet another hill that wasn’t really a hill’ to climb; my lower legs started to complain with increasing volume. Apparently Julie knew of a good pub in Tunbridge Wells; the thought of this distant oasis kept me going. I also thought that my city life had made me lazy and unfit: this ‘walk’ was absolutely nothing like ‘Ken’s walk’ which was, in comparison, a leisurely stroll.

As I struggled up yet another infernal hill and into the distinctly respectable town of Tunbridge Wells, I found the time to have a chat with Anke. Anke was originally from the Netherlands had been leading hikes for three years and had run her Meetup group for about a year and a half. Her group had in excess of four hundred members and she aimed to run a hike every two weeks. One week she would go on her own to make sure that she knew the route, and the following week she would take her group. She also helped out at a scout group, had a full time job in the financial services industry, and did Kung Fu.

We found our oasis: a pub a short walk away from the Tunbridge Wells railway station. We sat outside to chat, so Julie could enjoy a crafty cigarette. The solid seat and local ale were welcome treats after a long trudge through mud, fields, and leaves. Anke, Jan, Kim, Güler and Isabel left early, leaving myself and Julie, who was enjoying her second glass of wine.

‘We’ll catch you up!’ Julie said to Anke and the others.

We missed our train.

Julie drank a third glass of wine in another pub that was even closer to the train station.

We continued to chat when we were finally on our train; we talked about Australia, relationships, and London.

Forty – London Palestinian Rights Group

‘I’m here for the lecture’, I said.

‘Which one?’

‘The one in the Khalili lecture theatre’.

The receptionist gestured that I should sign a visitor book. After signing, I was given a SOAS visitor sticker which I stuck on my lapel.  I walked over to the bored looking security guard who stood outside the automatic gates. Seeing by sticker, he pressed a button and waved me through. I was in.

SOAS, or the School of African and Oriental Studies, is one of those institutions that I feel as if I have always known but never really had a sense of where it was or what it was all about. I was surprised to find it nestling in a corner of Russell Square, a part of London that I regularly travel through to get to my office.

I had walked from Charing Cross, passing the ever busy Holborn underground station, and had picked my way through a sequence of Georgian terraces, most of which were now expensive hotels. Arriving at the square, I caught a glimpse of the brutalist architecture of the Institute of Education and saw ‘SOAS’ emblazoned in big letters on the side of a striking modern building.

The lecture I was going to listen to was entitled ‘The European Union and Occupied Palestinian Territories: state-building without a state’.

I was worried; I was out of my comfort zone. I had no problem dealing with technology Meetups and lectures: I could use my knowledge to figure out roughly what was going on. Political science, on the other hand, was something very different: I felt that I lacked the training, knowledge and history. I felt that I didn’t know how to talk to others about it. All I knew about the Palestinian and Israeli conflict what was I picked up from the media. I didn’t know anyone who was directly touched by the conflict other than an open mic comic I had once met. I felt profoundly ignorant.

I followed signs to the lecture theatre and discovered an area where visitors were queuing for cups of tea and coffee. I asked the tea vendor, who was obviously connected with the lecture, whether he knew Natalie, and whether he could point me in the direction of the ‘Meetup people’. He shook his head slowly. He couldn’t help. I thanked him, had a look around to see if there were any people that looked as if they might be connected with the group, but all I could see were a group of students who obviously had SOAS security passes. I asked a few more people.

‘Meetup?’ they asked. I was struggling. No one had heard of the group. Feeling uncomfortable and defeated, I decided to head into the lecture theatre and take a seat. I looked at the first slide of a PowerPoint presentation: I was obviously in the right place.

I wondered whether the presenter would have an agenda or an angle. I wondered what connection he had with Palestine or the EU. The speaker, it turned out, had recently completed his doctorate and had published a book that was all about how EU policies can influence ‘state building’. The timing of the lecture was impeccable; a week earlier the UK government had voted to recognise Palestine as a state.

I looked around. The lecture theatre was almost full to capacity; I estimated around one hundred and fifty people. Our speaker, Dimitris, began his speech. He introduced himself as a former visiting lecturer from Kingston University and was someone who worked for the ‘institute of postgraduate studies’ at an institution called the College of Europe.

After five PowerPoint slides, my eyes started to glaze over. It was tough going: slides were packed with tables that contained loads of text. We were given a question: how can the EU help to build states? A table neatly summarised different approaches: diplomacy, the provision and development of security, administration of a jurisdiction, and economic approaches.

After reeling from the shock of the amount of information that was being thrown at me, I started to recover: the talk started to become interesting. Dimitris presented a brief history of the EU’s engagements with Palestine: the EU ran civilian missions and supported education programmes. By way of balance, we were also shown a list of EU policies, directives and frameworks that were connected to Israel. I suddenly understood: this was all thoroughly academic; there were no stories about those who have to live through the realities of the conflict. We were instead given cold hard facts about laws and directives.

Our speaker pressed on, telling us about different missions, leading us to a set of concluding slides which highlighted ‘high politics’ and diplomacy.

There was a polite question and answer session which had an atmosphere that was lightly tinged with emotion. One questioner suggested that the policies were abstract, but our speaker disagreed. Another member of the audience referred to the Palestinian economy and a recent World Bank report, and suggested that Israel was deliberately scuppering projects. Other questions were more direct, such as ‘do you think that the funding of the Palestinian authority is preventing an Intifada?’ and ‘do you ever envisage that the European Union will exert sanctions against Israel?’ The speaker handled them deftly and with authority: ‘Europe speaks with different voices; there will be no sanctions since Germany will never agree to it’.

It was the end of the talk. Everyone clapped and started to file out of the lecture theatre. A few people went to speak to the lecturer. I made my way to the lobby area and looked around one last time. I saw a group of smartly dressed people who all had visitor stickers like mine; they all seemed to know each other and were deep in conversation.

‘Excuse me…’, I nudged myself into the corner of the group, whilst wearing a friendly smile. ‘Are you all a part of the Meetup?’ I interrupted.

‘No, sorry…’, came back the reply.

I thanked them for their time, and looked around again. The lecture theatre was nearly empty, and people were leaving the lobby area. I had tried to find the Meetup people, but I had failed.

The moment I left the SOAS building and made my way onto the London streets, I started to become angry with myself: I should have spoken to more people.  This Meetup told me something: it told me something about my ignorance. My ignorance was talking to me, telling me that I should have stayed longer; it was encouraging me to be bolder.

As I started towards Goodge Street underground station I felt a delicate mixture of frustration and sadness. My frustration came from my ignorance and my sadness came from a realisation that I had been confronted by academic echoes of an intractable problem that suggested unimaginable challenges that I knew very little about.

Thirty nine – London Political Activism

I sat down on a bench and peered into my phone and found the next event: a march about low pay. We were to meet by Temple underground station but an ominous message said that the organiser was ‘on holiday’, which meant that we were pretty much on our own. I hadn’t thought of a rule about how to handle this situation, so I invented a new one: the ‘unhosted event rule’. The new rule was: if the Meetup selection rules suggests a Meetup that is not hosted by anyone, you still have to go to find out what it is all about.

I looked through the list of people who had signed up and I recognised Tina, who I had met at the London Country Blues and Folk Meetup. I sent Tina a quick message to tell her that I was going to be at the ‘Britain needs a pay rise’ march, hoping we might bump into each other.

When I arrived at Temple, I found myself in the middle of a huge event. Stalls advertised flyers, badges and newspapers. Activists carried placards that said, ‘No Cuts’ and ‘No to Austerity’. I was asked by a Socialist Worker activist whether I wanted to sign a ‘minimum wage’ petition.

‘Would you like a sticker?’ I turned my head and was greeted by a friendly smile. A ‘homes not Trident’ sticker was presented to me on an outstretched index finger. I decided that I needed to join in, so I took the sticker and put it on my jacket: it was a simple action that implied that I was now officially a part of the protest. I chatted to one of the three sticker-meisters, who turned out to be a retired university lecturer called Natalie.

‘Are you here with your union?’ asked Natalie.

I explained that I was with another group, but I didn’t really know who they were, but confirmed that I was a member of a union.

‘Perhaps you could try to find them. What union are you with?’ I explained that I was a member of the university lecturers union.

‘I’m sure they’ll be here’.

On my way to the protest area I was gently accosted by an activist called Holly who was selling a newspaper called ‘The Socialist’. We chatted for a bit about union membership and I learnt that the government had issued a successful legal challenge against the union that I belonged to. I also learnt about a coalition of different trade unions that were trying to repeal anti-union legislation, and that there was also a proposed trade treaty between the EU and US that would give ‘big business’ the upper hand and erode aspects of the public sector. I found all this very interesting, but slightly overwhelming. We wished each other a good protest.

I continued to scan the faces of people who were leaving the Tube, but there was still no sign of Tina. As I was looking around, another activist gave me a welcoming smile. I went over to have a chat to a nice lady in her early sixties who was representing ‘workers fight’, which I later discovered was connected to the Internationalist Communist Union. She asked me what I did for a job. I told her I worked at a university.

‘What’s your subject, or discipline?’

‘Computing’. She appeared visibly disappointed. ‘Do you know much about the left movements in this country?’

‘Well, I’ve been to a meeting of the Socialist Party of Great Britain…’

‘Ah, yes, the SPGB. They have more of Marxist tradition, which is different to our movement, which is more Trotskyist.’ Sensing my general confusion, I was given a pamphlet that described a dispute that was going on at a Ford engine plant.

I glanced at my watch. It was now becoming clear that it was very unlikely that I would be able to find my Meetup friend Tina, so I decided to find out whether my union had showed up.

The march was beginning to assemble. I saw a red flag with the hammer and sickle emblazoned upon it. My eye caught sight of a group of policemen and women. I then noticed a group of protesters who were wearing black, covering their faces with scarves; I guessed they belonged to some kind of anarchist movement.

Moments later, I found my university lecturers union, which was suitably situated between the anarchists and the communists. It seemed my union was pretty organised: they had several banners, their own placards, and loads of helium balloons.

I wandered over to a group of union members to say hello; they turned out to be from the Institute of Education, but they didn’t really want to chat. I spoke with one of the union officials who had heard of a campaign that I had been involved with, but he was distracted: he was too involved in the running of the event, so I left him to do whatever organising he needed to do.

Gradually, I settled into a place in the march where I felt comfortable. I was ready. I had a packed lunch, a bottle of water, and a copy of The Socialist. I was to offer silent solidarity, but I was sure that I would chat to fellow members when we got going.

‘Sarah! What are you doing here?!’ I recognised a colleague. Sarah worked in the same office that I did and had been doing a lot of work to support members who had been made redundant; she had been doing a great job organising and running meetings. My own contribution had been meagre. I hadn’t been doing much other than listening during meetings and making the occasional comment here and there; I felt that I needed to learn more about the culture of the union and the dynamic between the members and ‘the employer’ before figuring out what I might be able to help.

‘You been on many of these?’ Sarah asked. I replied that it was my third ever protest. The first one was to protest against the invasion of Iraq. The last one was about the closure of an accident and emergency department of a local hospital.

‘I love it that the roads are all closed; you can look at all the buildings in a whole new way’ said Sarah.

Our march began. It snaked its way along the Victoria Embankment, down The Strand and past Trafalgar Square. It then made its way down Pall Mall, onto Piccadilly, passing Green Park and then finally Hyde Park. Parts of Piccadilly seemed entirely new to me: it was an adventure I was enjoying; it was a walk I had never done before. Sarah took advantage of the moment, looking skyward towards the tops of buildings whilst I puzzled over how the different streets connected together.

‘Keep left! Hard left please! Hard left!’ an organiser shouted as the march started to narrow. I turned to Sarah: ‘I’m not sure whether that’s a political direction or a physical direction...’

A branch of HSBC bank had been daubed with ‘pay your tax’ stickers, a couple of protesters carried drums that looked like the drums I had seen in a basement in Islington. In front of us was a family; a child was being pushed in a pushchair. Police community support officers wandered between us in blue tabards. Observers from a civil rights movement looked on, carrying clipboards. Gradually, the different groups started to merge with each other. We were still followed by the communists but the anarchists, however, were nowhere to be seen.

‘Chris!’ I turned around.

‘How are you doing, mate!’ It was a friend of mine called Gary who performed on the open mic comedy circuit. He had stopped off for a swift pint and was trying to find his way back to the actors’ union. He was with two other comics, both of whom seemed drunk. He told me he was with ‘Johnny Glasgow’ and Johnny had an awesome placard that read: ‘comics against the Tory cu*ts’.  I introduced Gary to Sarah, but then minutes later he was gone; we had lost each other in the vast crowds.

As the protest march entered Hyde Park, Sarah decided to call it a day; she had a long journey to get home. We gave each other a hug and wished each other a great weekend. After she had gone I pressed onto the end of the park, where I knew there would be a stage and speeches.

Thousands of people stood and sat. Massive television screens showed the faces of those who were making speeches about the challenges faced by those who work on low pay; the impossible dream of buying their own home, the possibility that the National Health Service might be ripped apart and ‘for profit’ businesses taking over, the outrage that there is such a huge disparity between those who run corporations and those who carry out essential jobs within them. Points were made about the importance of working together, with our unions, to ensure that our rights were not eroded by corporations and greedy executives who just want to take advantage of us; protest is a necessity, as is solidarity.

As I listened to the speeches, I wandered about, looking for Gary. I found the Equity sign, but I couldn’t see anyone I recognised. I then looked around for the banner of my own union, but I couldn’t see it anywhere. It had been packed up and put away. Overhead, dark clouds started to gather, but it didn’t rain; they were just threatening, but the wind had picked up. From a distance away from the main stage, I looked out across Hyde Park for one last time. People were starting to go home.

Thirty eight – Health Technology Forum

I needed to get to an office that was just around the corner from the Bank of England. I avoided Bank underground station; instead I caught a Northern Line train to Moorgate and decided to walk. I negotiated my way past a huge Crossrail building site, London’s next underground line, and crossed London Wall: a road that roughly follows the path of a boundary wall built by the Romans.

I turned left onto Lothbury and soon found my destination. I pushed a heavy door and found myself in a huge space that was flooded with light. I looked around; this was clearly a building of significance. Neo-classical columns rose up from the ground, meeting a ceiling that was decorated with ornate plaster work. Stunned, I gingerly walked to the reception desk to ask about a law firm that I had never heard of before.

‘Name?’

‘I joined really late. I’m not going to be on the list, but I can show you some evidence that I’ve registered’. I opened my phone, found the Meetup list and gave it to the security guard. I had played this game before. I knew what to do.

‘Do you know Charles?’ The guard had recognised the name of the organiser from the list.

‘I don’t know Charles. I’ve never met him before. I’ve come to the, erm, event. I only recently registered’.

‘Name?’

The guard gave me a pen. I wrote my name on a piece of paper and was told to go to the third floor. I had made it; I had managed to successfully negotiate my way through security without too much drama.

When I made it to the third floor I was greeted by an immaculately dressed receptionist who directed me to a meeting room and told me to help myself to tea or coffee. Given the posh surroundings, I decided to treat myself to a complimentary cup of Earl Grey.

‘Hello, my name is Hasan. What aspect of healthcare are you interested in?’ The event was about healthcare apps. Hasan wasn’t messing about. He wanted to network, and to network quickly.

‘I’m, erm, more of a technologist. I’m interested in how technology can be applied to solve problems and, erm, make things better’. That set Hasan off. He explained that he worked for a business that manufactured Bluetooth enabled medical devices. He mentioned various parameters such as pulse rate, blood pressure and blood sugar before giving me his business card. Bluetooth allowed these measurements to be delivered to your mobile phone.

‘And, what do you do?’

‘I work at a university’.

Hasan’s eyes changed. He went from being animated and enthusiastic about his business to presenting a physical demeanour that essentially said, ‘you’re dead to me; there’s no real point in talking to you anymore, how do I escape from this dead end conversation without coming across as very rude?’ I recognised that he had a much more important job to do than I did; I helped his escape by saying that I hoped he enjoyed the event.

I found myself at a table with a lawyer, a hedge fund manager, a GP and a chap called Ray who said that he used to practice law. The more events that I go to, the more empowered that I was starting to feel. Since all these events were publically advertised, I felt there should be no reason for excuses: I told everyone what my real job was, and then told them about my randomness quest. The truth was that I was vaguely interested in what was going to happen in this event. There was also a random link between this event and the Club Soda event that I had attended a day earlier: Club Soda was, in essence, using technology to try to improve the health of those who had alcohol problems; everything was connected.

We were ushered into a large presentation room. Three incredibly expensive looking chandeliers hung from a very high ceiling. I sat down next to someone who described herself as a ‘telemedicine consultant’.

The first speaker, who was from the law firm that was hosting the event, gave us a very brief introduction. The building that we were occupying used to be the headquarters of the National Westminster bank. It was built in 1860, and the rooms that we were sitting in used to be the director’s dining room. The law firm that now occupied a part of the building specialised in health and technology law, hence the connection to the Health Technology Forum: running a Meetup, it seemed, was a great (and a simple) way to make contact with prospective clients.

There were two other speakers: a professor called Jeremy from the University of Leeds, and a junior doctor called Tom who had a connection with the University of Warwick. Jeremy gave a broad overview of the subject. He described how technology could be used in different aspects of medicine: there could be decision support tools, management tools, online consultations, apps that offered reminders and tools that allowed you to access test results.

An interesting point was made: face to face interactions with doctors are expensive. For certain types of medical interventions, digital interactions can be cheap and have the potential to offer fast results. There are, of course important issues to consider: not everyone has access to technology, and there are concerns about the quality and safety of some apps; a competent coder can create an app but not every coder is medically trained.

In some ways, Jeremy’s presentation set the scene for Tom’s talk which was about trying to provide answers. Since app quality is really important, what could be done to ensure that they work properly? One point was about awareness and education. A related question was: where do we get advice from? Which organisations should we trust? The answer to was that it depends on what an app does.

Jeremy raised what I took to be important points: technology is moving a whole lot more quickly than the regulatory authorities; there’s also a tension between those in the technology sphere who wish to innovate, and the regulators who wish to make sure that tools and interventions are used prudently and appropriately.

During the question and answer session, Tom used an interesting turn of phrase. He said that ‘apps’ have the potential to be prescribed to patients in the same way that drugs are. The similarity is that apps have the potential to effect change (or to influence) those that consume them. The difference is that drugs have to undergo endless sets of testing procedures to assess their effectiveness whereas anyone can create an app and release it quite cheaply.

At the end of the talk we returned to the ‘smaller dining room’. The tea and coffee had been replaced with beer and wine. I found myself standing by a table next to the Meetup organiser, Charles. He was tall and slim, and around sixty years old. He had a loud voice that commanded authority. I asked him whether he was either a lawyer or a doctor.

‘Neither! I used to work in finance, but I’ve moved to IT’ replied Charles, with a booming voice.

Running the Meetup group seemed to be one of many things that he did. He spoke of lobbying medical organisations about the importance of technology. He was a member of other health and technology organisations. I learnt that there was another London group that was similar to his, but due to the regular programme of events he was advertising, his newer group was a whole lot more successful, attracting substantially more members.

I thought of Charles's role: he was a mover and shaker. He had found a niche. I saw that he was using technology to get people together. For a fleeting moment, I wondered whether I could be, or wanted to be a mover and a shaker. I also wondered what I might want to move and shake, but this was a question I couldn't answer.

As I drank my second beer, I chatted to a computer scientist who had accidentally become a geneticist, two lawyers and a doctor. We didn’t chat very much about healthcare or technology. Instead, we talked about travel, the challenges of living in London and, invariably, property prices.

After the doctor had left, I looked around the room; the majority of the members had gone home, and the supply of beers had been exhausted. Charles had also warned us that we all needed to be out of the building by nine in the evening.  I looked at my watch. It was time to go.

‘I’m sorry that we didn’t have time to have a chat, but maybe see you at the next event? My name is Steve. I work at UCL’. I shook Steve's hand.

I introduced myself and asked a quick follow up question: ‘which department do you work in?’

‘Psychology’.

‘Just a quick question: have you heard of an organisation called Club Soda?’

‘Club Soda! I know the founder, Laura. Do you know her? She’s a formidable woman, isn’t she?’

Thirty seven – Club Soda Drinks

The description didn’t say very much other than that the event was to be held in a pub that sold good tea and coffee, and there was going to be some ‘exciting news’. I clicked on the ‘join and RSVP’ button but before the registration was confirmed I was confronted with a bunch of questions, and one of them was, ‘what is your favourite soft drink?’

The Roebuck is tucked away in a side street in Oval, which is just south of Kennington and Vauxhall. Oval is, of course, famous for being the home of the Surrey County Cricket Club. Despite being thoroughly English, cricket is a sport that I find utterly confusing. I once went to a match where Sussex was playing Yorkshire. I had to ask the friend who invited me who was winning (I was allegedly ‘supporting’ Sussex), and he replied: ‘I have no idea…’  To some, a visit to the hallowed ground of Oval might have inspired high levels of emotion and brought a lump to one’s throat, but to me, it was just another unexplored part of the city.

I took off my baseball cap and unzipped my raincoat, and very quickly found the group: seven people were sitting at a long a table at the end of the pub. There was a perspex sign that clearly indicated I was in the right place. The group’s founder, Laura, gave me a very warm welcome.

‘Why don’t you get a drink, and then we’ll go through the introductions properly’.

‘Okay, I’ll just go and get a pint of my usual’, I replied.

‘And what is a ‘pint of your usual’?’ Laura challenged, her voice taking on a deeper more ominous tone.

‘Lime and soda’.

Moments after joining the invisible queue at the bar, Laura had caught up with me and asked me how much I knew about Club Soda. I replied that all I knew was that it was about not drinking.

‘The concept of Club Soda is very different from, say, the twelve step programme in alcoholics anonymous, where you go to meetings in draughty church halls’ Laura explained; I wondered what I was getting myself into. ‘The idea is that it's like a friendly social club; a place where you can meet people who are trying to do something similar. So, do you have any drinking goals that you would like to work on? Would you like to stop drinking, drink less, or just maintain a level of current drinking?’

‘I would like to maintain my current level of drinking.’

It was at that point I decided to come clean: I told Laura about my quest and what I was doing. After a moment of bafflement, she seemed to accept my explanation with a smile. When I returned to the group with my lime and soda, Laura formally introduced me as someone who was ‘going to different Meetups’.

‘I once did a sponsored swim where I went to every single local authority swimming pool in the London area’. Everyone turned to Laura. ‘I went to a total of one hundred and six swimming pools’.

‘What? One hundred and six swimming pools? How long did that take?’ I exclaimed.

‘Six weeks’ replied Laura. It was my turn to be confused. ‘For some of the pools, I just swam from one end of the pool to another. I did ten in a day once’.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

‘I wore my swimming costume under my normal clothes. I would drive to a pool, get out of the car, go do a swim, get in the car and then drive to another pool.  There was this one time when the pool was closed for a class for a school, but I persuaded them to let me just do a length.’

Even though Laura’s swimming quest sounded entirely crazy, I could see why it would be something she would do. Laura had worked in local government for over a decade, gained an MBE for her services to the community, and had worked as a full time politician for a couple of years. She might describe herself as a campaigner and an activist.

Club Soda could be described as a social enterprise. One of the objectives of the Meetup was to show other members how the prototype website was coming along: it was a social enterprise enabled by technology.

Laura opened her MacBook and talked us through what she had been working on. Users could set drinking goals, use different on-line discussion forums, talk about objectives and learn about non-drinking social events. Through Club Soda, members can gain access to services, such as professional advisors who may be able to offer help and support. There was talk about nutritionists, doctors, and life coaches. It was a space to share experiences, stories and tips, to help people to move towards a non-drinking world. It had big ambitions: although it was just a website, and the website was a way to access different services; the idea was to create a movement.

‘We’ve worked with University College London on parts of the design of the system. Here’s a questionnaire that we’ve developed that assesses your drinking habits’.

‘Can I have a go?’

Laura gave me her laptop. There were three or four pages of questions about how much I drink, whether people had expressed concerns about my drinking, and whether I forgot where I was after drinking too much. I answered all the questions as honestly as I could but I found myself wanting to click a button that said, ‘yes, this has happened but quite some time ago; I’m a lot more sensible these days, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t going to happen again’.

I gained a good score from the questionnaire: it appeared I was a relatively sensible drinker.

‘Have you thought of how you might use apps?’ I asked.

‘That’s the first thing that people think about when it comes to tech, and there are loads of apps out there about drinking. What we might do is recommend some apps for users, and in the future we might create our own app that could then feed into the site’.

I pictured a tool where users could share drinking status updates, but then dismissed the idea as a non-starter: I suddenly imagined loads of people posting selfie pictures, smiling stupidly, whilst holding glasses of orange juice, with a tag line: ‘having a great time!’

Laura mentioned an Australian initiative called ‘Hello Sunday Morning’ that had the subheading of, ‘changing your relationship with alcohol: one Sunday at a time’, which was, in some sense, an antipodean competitor to Club Soda. HSM, as it is known, is also a website, but one that is packed with positive images of people doing amazing things and making the best of their lives. It’s a powerfully simple argument: hangovers hurt, you lose days, you feel guilty, and you lose money and gain weight.  If you don’t drink, you don’t have to endure these traumas.

There was one question that I really needed to ask, which was: how will it be sustainable? Or, put another way, how would it be funded? The answer was simple: it would work on a subscription basis; the members of the community would pay every month.

After the demo had finished and Laura told everyone about her plans. We chatted about how the culture of drinking had changed over the last twenty years and the challenge of going to nightclubs and boozy dinner parties if you’re sober. The tenor of the discussions had changed: we were in a group of non-drinkers talking about the times that they used to drink: ‘If it was ten o’clock in the morning and my in-laws were coming round, I would think: it’s margarita time’, ‘I would have one glass of wine and feel a bit down the next day, so I would have another glass of wine the next day, and that would make me feel slightly worse, and so it would continue…’ The group talked about genetics, family history and how easy it was to get hold of booze.

Everyone continued to chat until around ten o’clock. I said goodbye to everyone and thanked Laura for letting me come along. I wished her well with her project. If anyone could make it work, I felt that she could. She had a fiery sense of determination, loads of energy and was powerfully articulate. I hope it worked out. It was a great thing to be doing.

It was raining when I left. For the first time in the year I sensed the musty smell of damp leaves. As I walked towards Oval tube station, I passed a pretty Victorian terrace with immaculately kept front gardens. On my right, there was a housing estate that was probably built in the seventies. A large residential tower block of around fourteen stories punctuated the local area. In the distance, towards Vauxhall Bridge, I could see a glass and steel skyscraper that was illuminated by bright lights: I was surrounded by different ages of London.

I decided against the tube to London Bridge and opted for a bus route that I had never taken before. When the bus arrived, it was three quarters full. I found a seat on the top deck and settled down to enjoy the ride. I knew where we were for the first fifteen minutes of the journey: the bus went past the Maudsley Hospital before making its way to Denmark Hill and onto East Dulwich, another part of the city that I had never been to. My eyes were glued to the window as the bus rolled through, taking in new sights, and catching glimpses of new streets.

Thirty six – CoolTan Arts

I stood outside the Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, South London. I was surrounded by people wearing matching bright orange tabards.  I was going on a sponsored walk. The only problem was that I didn’t have any sponsors.

Tall banners advertised the work of CoolTan Arts, a mental health charity that I had never heard of. The starting point of the walk was pertinent; the Maudsley is one of London’s largest psychiatric hospitals. It’s a famous institution; it’s a place where psychiatrists and mental health professionals go to get trained.

After completing a substantial health and safety questionnaire, I moved along the registration queue and paid a fee. I felt slightly guilty. I was, in effect, a gate crasher to an event that turned out to be an annual fundraiser.

I looked around: everyone seemed to know each other. People were chatting in small groups, sharing greetings, stories and jokes. I wandered over to the event photographer to find out more about what I was getting myself into. The photographer was called Ana and was from Madrid. She had moved to London to take a course in photography and had volunteered to take photos for the event. We didn’t chat for long; she had a job to do, and new people were arriving and things were starting to happen.

The chief executive of the charity, who was also the custodian of a megaphone, assembled everyone on the steps of the hospital for a photo opportunity. The mayor of the local area, who had joined us for the start of the event, gave an appreciative speech. This was followed by another speech by a taxi driver who had another life as an artist. The taxi driver’s speech had a particular tone: it acknowledged the challenges that people with mental health difficulties face; it was personal, it was political, and it was tinged with a touch of anger. Government policy, he said, was affecting both the charity and those who need its services. After his points had been made, the organiser dragged the taxi driver away; it was time for the walk.

The event was described as a fun guided walk through ‘little known parts of Southwark’ ending by the South Bank; it had a broad theme of ‘innovation and transformation’ and was said to focus on how the First World War affected society. According to the event description ‘absolutely everyone’ was welcome to participate.

I was struck by the odd name of the charity. I wondered whether ‘Cooltan’ might have been either a name of a key member, or perhaps a significant artist that I had never heard of. The real explanation was a little less exotic: CoolTan, it turned out, was in fact, a sun tan lotion. The charity adopted the name of the old CoolTan factory, which later became its art studios.

The charity is situated in a part of London called Walworth, close to the Elephant and Castle. It offers a range of different workshops designed for people who have experienced mental health difficulties. These range from creative writing workshops through to sessions about self-advocacy; sessions that empower participants so they’re more able to fight for what they need.

Our first stop on the walk was to the Institute of Psychiatry, which was quite literally, just around the corner from the hospital. I faintly recognised some of the streets: I had been here before, over fifteen years ago. They needed a computer technician in the neuroimaging centre who was able to manage the huge datasets that were produced from brain scanners. I didn’t get the job but I wasn’t too surprised: I had only a few months of experience of using the type of computers that the researchers were using.

We were given a short lecture about a psychiatrist called William Rivers, who is noted for his work with First World War soldiers who were suffering from ‘shell shock’. I understand that he was notable for his use of a talking therapy. It was difficult to hear the short lecture, but we were shown some old photographs that had been laminated, to protect against the elements.

On our way to our next destination, Camberwell Green, I got chatting with another walker: Anita. She asked me the inevitable question of what connection I had with the charity. I came clean: I told Anita that I had randomly chosen to come to the walk, and I had made a decision a couple of hours earlier.

‘You didn’t strike me as someone who is wacky, but you do now!’ said Anita, processing my confession.

The truth was that I was enjoying myself. I told Anita something about my day job, that I was a co-chair of a university group that runs equality and diversity events. A couple of months earlier a colleague made a passing suggestion that perhaps we might do something about mental health. This idea was accepted, and the group created a ‘participatory exhibit’. There were display boards, a shared lunch, and a talk by a mental health advisor.

As we walked through one of South London’s parks, Anita told me about how the area had changed, that there were some new tennis courts that could be used by kids from local families.

‘Over there is Camberwell, and over there is New Cross’, Anita said. I looked in both directions. Every event was exposing me to new places, helping me to forge new links and memories.

When we left the park, the tone of the walk changed. Some members of the group chained two ‘ghost bikes’ to nearby railings. These bikes, which were painted in bright colours, signify the life, and death, of a cyclist. Someone who had a connection with the charity, a film maker, had died at a benign looking junction. We milled around the side of the road for some minutes, before moving onwards.

Our next stop was at St. Peter’s Church, Walworth; a striking building. We were directed into what appeared to be the crypt which had been converted into a cozy café. We sat, chatted, and warmed ourselves with soup. I chatted with Faye who was a full time student at a local university. When we were suitably refreshed, we moved out to the court yard to hear a further talk: we were told stories about German zeppelins dropping bombs on Camberwell and the difficulties faced by conscientious objectors.

As I was taking a photograph of the church, one of the group leaders walked towards me. ‘The architect was John Soane’, he said. ‘He’s the same guy who designed the Bank of England and the Dulwich Picture Gallery’. I later realised that Soane had been buried at the family tomb that was located in St Pancras Churchyard; another site where we had lingered during the River Fleet Meetup.

We crossed the Walworth Road and walked through a series of back streets which told us that we were now walking through the London Borough of Southwark. We passed a series of urban allotments, and entered into another park that formed the centre of a Georgian square. The park was immaculately maintained and was wonderfully quiet. It was away from the main streets that carried traffic to and from the middle of the city. The leaves of mature trees were changing colour. I remember well-ordered flower bed; roses that had seen the summer. We stopped walking. It was time for another talk.

The talk comprised of a brief introduction followed by a series of poetry readings. Following the theme of the walk, the poems were by First World War poets: Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. Sassoon had been apparently treated by William Rivers. The poem by Owen was called ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ which I remembered from secondary school. I hadn’t heard it for decades.

We left the cosy square and soon found a series of tennis courts and another park. I quickly realised where we were: just around the corner from the Imperial War Museum. We stood on an area that was close to a pair of huge guns that guarded the entrance of the museum; macabre sculptures that, to me, represented industry and death. It was the time for the final lecture of the day. I was getting tired and I wasn’t taking much in, but I recognised it as a good speech. We were told about the horrors of disfigurement, and development of reconstructive surgery. We were shown photographs and told stories about a soldier who was evicted from his lodgings due to his appearance.

As we walked to our final destination, I chatted with the walk journalist, Frankie. I had seen her scribbling in a notepad. Frankie had the job of writing an article for the charity newsletter. I told her that I would send her my own notes of the event after the event. I enjoyed chatting to Frankie; she was currently studying a course to teach English as a second language. I told her about the ‘conversational English’ meetup that I had been to.

The final part of the event was a surprise. We took a footpath that went underneath Waterloo train station. It was dark. I smelt paint. The walls were covered with colourful street art. Small groups of people were congregating, creating new paintings; this was obviously an area where it was okay to create street art. We were led into a railway arch that was called ‘The Vault’, which was part art shop (selling paintings and sculpture), and part nightclub. It had become a spartan impromptu café for our group. We sat, drank tea, ate cake and took even more photographs. I managed to have a very brief chat with the leader of the charity, just to say hello, but she was very busy; I didn’t want to be a distraction.

After a cup of tea and a chocolate brownie, it was time to go home. I emerged from the darkness of The Vault, blinking, and walked towards Waterloo East train station for my short train ride home.

Thirty five – London Business Analytics

The event had the title ‘exploring exotic patterns in data’; it was a lecture by a retired academic from the University of Dundee. I was getting a bit fed up of going to technology events that I knew nothing about, but I had to go: rules were rules.

I looked at the map: it was close to Liverpool Street station. I walked up an escalator and onto the concourse. It was rush hour; commuters were fighting their way home towards Essex and the surrounding areas. The familiar atmosphere was one of frantic determination; the day’s work was done.

When I finally made it to the street, it was twilight and it had started to rain. Buses rammed the streets and cyclists squeezed passed waiting taxis. I looked around, and recognised a walkway from the street photography Meetup.

Two minutes later, I was where I needed to be. After a further minute of hanging about in the reception area, I was told to go to the second floor and soon saw where I needed to go: a conference room at the end of a corridor that was overflowing witbh people. Luckily enough, I was just in time to avail myself of a bottle of free beer; the sign of a good event. I introduced myself to a chap called Gary, who worked as an IT contractor, then settled down for the lecture.

Our speaker for the night was Professor Mark Whitehorn, gave a very clear introduction about what he intended to talk about: the Monte Carlo Simulation or method (which I had heard about), a programming language called ‘R’ (which I had never heard of before), and Benford’s law (which was also unfamiliar to me).

Professor Whitehorn introduced the Monte Carlo method with a modest dose of history. The technique was invented by Stanislaw Ulam who worked at the Los Alamos Laboratory, New Mexico, where the first nuclear weapons were designed. Legend has it that when he was ill, Ulam played the card game Patience. ~As he played, he wondered about the probability of certain cards coming up.

There are two ways to figure this out: you could either do some calculations, or you could just go ahead and play the game and see what happens. If you play the game you can use the inherent randomness of the cards (providing that you shuffle them properly) to understand the behaviour of your system. The Monte Carlo method got its name because playing these simulations is a bit like playing a game at a casino. Of course, you don’t really play cards or go to a casino: you write a computer program and get the computer to do all your experiments for you.

Professor Whitehorn introduced us to another idea: the idea of a random walk. A random walk was when you start off at a location, and then choose to go in any direction, a step at a time. You might take one step north, one step south, or you might go east or west. A random walk might take you many steps away from your original location, or you might end up back at the same location. We were asked a question: how might we find out, on average, how far we are from the original location if we take a certain number of steps? The answer was: we can create a Monte Carlo simulation and use the ‘R’ programming language.

I was thinking about my own random walk. I had randomly chosen to attend a lecture that was about randomness. Would I end up in the same place that I started? How far would I ‘move’ from the person I was at the start of this quest? Does each Meetup nudge me in a different direction?

Professor Whitehorn has written a computer program in 'R’ to depict a random walk. The first screen showed a walk of ten steps. It then had one hundred steps. It then had one thousand steps. In an instant, a new picture of one hundred thousand steps was presented: this new walk seemed to look like the coast of a continent; it appeared organic. Each walk was different. Each ended in a different place. Some graphical walks appeared almost circular, going nowhere. Other walks extended from one side of the screen to the other.

But why would you write a computer program that simulates walking to try to solve an artificial problem? All these ideas were connected to a paper by Einstein that was about understanding Brownian motion; the way that particles move through a substance. When we’re talking about particles, it was argued, we can forget about random walks in a two dimensional sense, but we can think about it in terms of three dimensions; they can walk up and down, as well as side to side.

In an instant, computing, physics, and randomness were all combined. Professor Whitehorn ran his computer program to simulate a random walk of one hundred steps a total of fifty thousand times. The answer was that the walker ended up, on average, a total of 8.86 steps away from the initial starting point.

His talk took a slight diversion away from the theoretical and onto the practical: he spoke about generating data from a Monte Carlo simulation and using modern database tools to analyse huge data sets.

The final part of his talk returned to the topic of randomness, introducing Benford’s Law. ‘Close your eyes.’ Our lecturer was now turning into a magician. ‘Imagine an infinitely long street; any street. Choose any house on that street. Do you have a house in mind?’ There was silence. Data scientists were a tough crowd. ‘Take the first number from the number of the house that you’ve chosen. Okay, who has chosen the number nine…?’ One person put their hand up. The process continued until a graph of all the numbers had been plotted. This was, apparently, a Benford distribution.

The Benford distribution is a distribution of numbers that can be derived from different sources of real-life data. It is apparently really useful for accounting and fraud detection: if there’s non-random weird stuff going on in a set of numbers, the results don’t adhere to Benford’s Law. What this told me was that if I decided to cheat and just go on events that I wanted to go on rather than choosing events at random, then I’ll be found out.

Time was up and the packed room was stiflingly hot. After answering a few questions, everyone gave Professor Whitehorn a big clap. We all staggered out into a kitchen area for some fresh air.

‘Hello!’ I recognised someone, a friend of mine; a friend who knew about my quest.

‘Chris! What are you doing here!’ I told Anna that this was step number thirty five in a random walk of one hundred steps. I met Anna at the comedy night I went to after the Write Together Meetup. I didn’t know that Anna was a member of this group, or that she was a data scientist. I then recognised a guy who was called Riccardo, who was doing the rounds of different technology Meetup groups.

I tried to find time to chat to Professor Whitehorn, but he was too busy answering questions. Instead, I managed to chat with the organiser for a while. The group had only been set up six or seven months ago, and had around one thousand members: an impressive number. There was a talk every month, and the next one was on the subject of ‘data analysis teams’; a talk that was less about technology and more about people.

When it got to eight o’clock, we were all turfed out onto the street. Security had to lock up the building. I never got to chat with Professor Whitehorn, but Anna and I travelled together to London Bridge. As we travelled she told me that she was planning to go out drinking with the Greek Friends Meetup.

‘Have you been to that one?’ Anna asked.

‘Not yet!’

Thirty four – An Attractive Man

The Attractive Man Meetup had a subtitle of ‘being socially magnetic’. The group seemed to be about ‘self-development and dating’; I was intrigued. I had recently been on number of dates and all of them had been thoroughly depressing. After a bad date I tend to ask myself a set of standard questions. The first question, unfortunately, usually went: ‘why did I start talking about my marriage?’

I am, however, usually pragmatic (and thick skinned) enough to realise that my romantic failures might have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with me: I just might not be tall enough, or my glasses might not look right, or the way that I drink my lime and soda with a straw might be not be sufficiently sophisticated.

I scrolled down the list of past events. They had titles like, ‘discover how to attract beautiful women’, ‘how to have everything you want in life’ and how to ‘design a lifestyle with abundance and become a leader’. There was a speaker who had published a book entitled, ‘the noble art of seducing women’. This was clearly the group that I had been searching for.

The journey was straightforward. I caught a tube from Camden Town, changed at Kings Cross, and caught a circle line train to Farringdon. I had to find a pub called The Castle. As soon as I emerged from the Tube, I peered at the sides of buildings, awkwardly looking upwards for street signs. After a few moments of becoming overwhelmed by new shops, buildings and bustling commuters, I reached for my phone, opened a map, fiddled around with my GPS setting and figured that I needed to walk around two hundred yards. Technology had made me lazy. I was conscious that I wasn’t taking in too much of my surroundings: I was just ‘going to a place’ rather than taking the time to look around and discover more about the areas that I was accidentally going to.

I stepped into The Castle. It was busy, noisy and crowded. It was one of those pubs where office workers would go after a long day at a desk: it was a place to unwind; it was a place you would really enjoy visiting if you were in the right mood. The contrast between the sounds on the street and the noise of the chatter and banter in the bar was unsettling. I looked around: I found the bar, the toilets, and a small sign at the back of the pub to say that a function room had been reserved. I walked upstairs.

‘Is this the Meetup?’

‘Hey! How are you doing?’ A very tall man with a huge smile offered his hand.

‘Yes, this is it. It starts at seven thirty’.

The event had been advertised to start at seven o’clock and I was on time; I was mildly grumpy, but I tried to hide it. I went back downstairs and order a pint. I killed time by sitting on a stool, deleting as many office emails as I could through my smartphone and did some people watching. I sat opposite a middle aged couple who were clearly out on a date. Towards the back of the room there were some Japanese people. A woman in a glamourous blue dress took pictures of the visitors. I assumed it was some kind of social event that was connected to an extended business meeting.

By the time I returned to the room, almost all the chairs were taken, except for the two front rows. A black backdrop had been erected, and two large powerful lamps were shining onto what was an impromptu stage. I introduced myself to a chap called Nico who was clearly on his own. We asked each other if we’ve been to this group before: this was Nico’s first visit and I told Nico that this was my first time. I told him about my quest; I was becoming bolder.

‘What other things have you been to?’

I told Nico that I was part way through an improv course that I had chosen by accident. I told him that it was crazy, but fun. I told him that the teacher described it as ‘like Christianity, but better’.

‘Who runs that course?’

I told him the name of the facilitator.

‘I’ve taken that course’. Even though we had never met before, it turned out that we had some friends in common. We were both amazed by this serendipitous discovery.

The very tall guy with the huge smile walked to the front of the ‘stage’, introduced himself as Ben, and thanked us all for coming along. He explained that the group was originally only about dating (and that he was a dating coach), but the remit had expanded to other aspects of self-development. He then introduced the speaker for the night: a smartly dressed chap called Martin who was in his early thirties.

Martin started by telling us that he was really an introvert, that he had been trapped in a cycle of going to work and going home, going to work and going home. He told us that he was unsatisfied with his life; that there was something that was missing. It was a great way to get us all engaged; I realised that the majority of the people in this group were there because they were unhappy about something or other. I was one of them.

He spoke about setting goals, connecting with people and shared strategies about how to start conversations with strangers. One of his ideas was really simple: that practice was important. Practice means that you lose your fear of things that you find challenging, that life is all about getting outside of your comfort zone. Martin said that it’s okay to feel anxious about stuff: ‘if you’re not anxious, that means you’re a sociopath’. Martin’s biggest tip was also one of the simplest: smile at people. He had clearly read and devoured the classic, ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, which also offers the same obvious timeless advice.

It was a masterful speech. He asked us questions; he made self-deprecating jokes, and congratulated us for coming along, for we were all starting a ‘journey’ of change and self-improvement. It was simple and clear talk but it wasn’t patronising. He had read the room well, and gave us an impressive performance in exchange for our time. As he was ending he told us that he would be briefly talking about the ‘conversation courses’ that he runs.

‘Put your hand up if you would be interested in hearing more.’ Almost everyone put up their hands. We were told that his course distils a decade of ‘psychodynamic research’ into an intense period of three days. If anyone was interested, they should go to the corner of the room, where he would give everyone a few more details. Martin’s talk ended: everyone clapped. The event organiser stepped forward and thanked everyone for coming, asked for another round of applause for Martin, and suggested that we all have drinks downstairs.

‘You interested?’ I asked Nico. Nico wore a wry smile. We both decided to go downstairs.

After ten minutes of chatting, we realised that hardly any people had left the room. Martin, it seemed, was still holding court; he had charmed just about everyone. We returned to the meeting room. I overheard Martin saying: ‘Its fourteen hundred pounds if you sign up through this group, but if you leave it a bit later, this price increases to two thousand’.

Nico sat down on a sofa and I got chatting to a fella called Simon who was new to London. Simon was soon sharing his philosophy about happiness with me: ‘happiness is something that you work on. It’s something that I connect with self-development; becoming the best that you can be, both mentally and physically. When you’re working on that, you find happiness’. Simon’s words made me realise that there were aspects of the group that had cultish overtones; there would always be something you needed to work on before you become a paragon of perfect manliness.

I wandered towards the back of the room. Martin was in the middle of an in depth conversation with a small group of guys: I wanted to say hello to him. I joined two people who were having an unexpected conversation about ‘orgasmic meditation’.

‘As a meditation, it’s a paired practice; you do it with your partner. The aim isn’t orgasm, but connection: you both get to the same place, to the same zone of meditation and arousal. Me and my girlfriend went on a course…’

‘There are courses on this?’ I asked, joining the conversation, perhaps a little too abruptly.

They both asked me who I was and what I did for a living. I told them that I worked in the technology bit of a university. The recipient of the orgasmic meditation lecture said that he had just finished a master’s degree in law, and was interested in doing some teaching: he was keen to network.

The conversation quickly returned to orgasmic meditation. I couldn’t help but feel that guy who was talking about it was implicitly bragging that he had a girlfriend, and the majority of the guys attending this group probably didn’t.

I looked around the room; it was starting to become quiet. It was time for me to go. I said my goodbyes. As I left, I heard the words: ‘what’s your name and email address; I can send you some information about my course…’