One hundred – London Social Events

I couldn’t go to Outdooraholics because it was a whole weekend exploring the beaches, cliffs and castles of Wales. The Ecstatic Awakening group were running an event called the ‘wild chocolate club’ that was held in deepest Hertfordshire, outside of London. Apparently there was also a meal at Pat Wong’s house, but it was full, and I didn’t think I should turn up unannounced, because I didn’t know who Pat was.

This left one option: London Social Events. The event had the title: ‘Party at Roof Garden with welcome drink’. It was on Kensington High Street.

I signed up and idly scrolled down the list of Meetups. Something struck me: I noticed that a group called ‘I wanted to do that this weekend’ was advertising the same event. There was another group called ‘Mayfair after work’ that was advertising the night too. There were other groups: London Cougars and Toyboys, Girlfriends in London who love to dance, Meet new people and have fun in London.

There were even more: Singles and the city, Singles in London, Over 30s Singles looking for relationships, Bored in London, Duccio’s networking events for London young professionals, Dating in London (20s to 40s), Girlfriends in London meetup group, Single Friends in London, Girlfriends in London (20s to 30s), Girlfriends in London (30s to 40s), London’s social events (a different group to the one I had signed up to, but with an apostrophe), Single and ready to mingle, and Older women dating younger men.

Over seven hundred and fifty people had ‘registered’ for a single event.

I had a problem. The event description insisted on ‘smart dress, jackets preferred’, and I was dressed in my academic uniform: a reasonably smart shirt, my aging pair of Doc Marten boots, and a pair of scruffy jeans that I had bought from a budget store. Having been the recipient of ‘bouncer judgement’ before, I decided I needed to take action: I skived off work and went shopping in Camden. With brutal masculine efficiency, half an hour later, I was done: I was the proud owner of the most expensive pair of trousers I had ever owned.

I shut down my office computer; it was time to go. I was excited. This was going to be it; the grand finale.

The route looked pretty easy: two underground trains. One from Camden to Embankment, and another to High Street Kensington. As I sat on the crowded rush hour circle line train I asked myself some questions: ‘Am I going to feel sad? Am I going to miss all this? What am I going to do with myself?’ I had two other important questions that I couldn’t yet answer: ‘do I really know what I want to do with the rest of my life now that I’ve tried all these different things?’, and ‘has this changed me? If it has, then how?’

My train arrived at the station. I climbed the escalator, walked past a corridor of shops and stepped out onto new unfamiliar streets. It was August, and it was raining; it was a terrible evening for enjoying drinks on a roof garden, but it didn’t matter.

All that mattered was that I was there, that there was a roof garden to find. I walked one way down Kensington High Street and then the other, looking for street numbers. After ten minutes of looking, I resorted to my ever helpful phone. It told me that I needed to go down a side street.

I saw a sign, and then a long queue. I had found number ninety nine Kensington High Street. After joining the queue, I showed the bouncer a ticket I had bought from a website, and was ushered into a cavernous elevator. When the elevator doors opened, I found myself in an expensive looking lobby. I had arrived. There was one thing I needed to do: I needed to have a chat with the host of the group I had joined.

I looked around: the majority of the men were wearing smart jackets, and the women were in glamourous night dresses or smart business suits. This wasn’t the time to be a wallflower: I needed to mingle, and it was with this thought that realised that I had changed. I had no fear, or worries, or concerns. I had, instead, gained a sense of fun. I had shifted from being a mildly introverted computer scientist to a mild extrovert. I had changed to become someone whose sense of self was lighter, more interested, and more open.

It was claim my complimentary drink. There was only one choice: a cocktail that was a twist on a ‘Tom Collins’; a gin based cocktail.  I had never had one before. It seemed somehow fitting; my first Tom Collins on my last Meetup.

I remember the first person who I chatted to. She was called Natalie. She hadn’t come with a Meetup, but with a friend. Her friend was a member of ‘Bored in London’. Natalie worked in the health service, helping various trusts to restructure.

I continued to chat to people; a sad looking Russian woman, a bubbly Mexican woman, a chap who worked in Finance, and a quiet government barrister. I found myself in the way of a Welsh chap who seemed to be making fair progress chatting up a Romanian insurance worker, and then explored the Roof Garden with an Australian recruitment consultant called Lisa who came from Adelaide.

‘Isn’t it beautiful!’ Lisa gushed.

It was impressive. Exotic trees were planted in rows in the centre of the garden. We passed shrubs and benches, illuminated by different coloured lights.  There was a fishpond, a central bar area, and a restaurant. It was a degree of decadence that was unexpected. Due to the fine rain, we were soon back inside. Lisa disappeared, and I got chatting to two doctors: one was from Germany, and the other was from Slovakia. They were both on a training or exchange visit. The German doctor, called Sylvia, was a member of the London Social Events group, but didn’t know the organiser.

After ordering an eye wateringly expensive beer, and accidentally wandering into the middle of a group of people, I got lucky. I found a Meetup host.

‘Which group are you a member of?’ asked Anita. I told her the name of the group. ‘Just a moment…’ She walked towards someone and beckoned them to meet me.  It was a middle aged woman called Sarah: I had found my subject.

After telling Sarah about my quest, she told me a little about her group; or, more specifically, about her groups. Sarah ran twenty seven groups which contained twenty five thousand members.

‘Why… what motivated you to… set up all these groups?’

Her answer was simple: ‘I like meeting new people’.

After two hours of mingling and chatting, the character of the room had changed; a DJ started to play different music; the volume had increased to a level that made talking very difficult. There was another change: the Meetuper mingling space was gradually being usurped by new nightclubbers; groups of glamorously dressed young people were starting to arrive, up for a night of dancing.

I left an hour or so later, leaving just enough time to catch the last trains home. I was tired, but happy; happy that I had done what I had set out to do, but I was also touched by an anxiety that I hadn’t made any real earth shattering discoveries about what I wanted to do in life.

What I did know was that I like hiking, I like some types of yoga, and that I still have an interest in technology. I’ve also discovered that I like watching comedy shows and going to parties at law firms where there is lots of free drink. I also like Improv classes and some types of dancing. I’ve also discovered that I’m not too keen on spiritual stuff, and I’ll probably make do without having a life coach. I also have realised that I don’t need to spend an inordinate amount of money to go on a course about ‘having a conversation’. I’ve also learnt that life is too short for certain types of card game. Importantly, I’ve discovered that I really like to talk, and I didn’t really know that before.

As my circle line train made its way past Victoria Station towards Embankment, I thought about stuff I haven’t done. I haven’t been to the theatre, I haven’t played hockey, and I haven’t had to learn how to swim or had to go kayaking on the Thames. I also haven’t needed to learn how to play a guitar or a musical instrument, and I haven’t done any knitting, crafting or cake baking. I also haven’t been on an extended wine tour in France, or visited castles and beaches in Wales. I haven’t taken a motorcycle trip to Germany, or been to a meal in a Persian restaurant. I haven’t done any of these things. As my train arrived, my train of thought also came to an end. I had a conclusion: there’s no reason why I shouldn’t go and do any of these things. And there’s no reason why I shouldn’t go and play badminton again.

Ninety nine – London Movement for Well-being

Tourists were taking pictures, carrying bags, popping into gift shops, and a couple were snogging outrageously by the statue of Eros.

I couldn’t see anything that resembled my destination: a nightclub. I looked at the street signs, and found the difference between Piccadilly and Piccadilly Circus, then crossed a road to change perspective. I recognised the street which I followed to get to the freelancer drinks event, and suddenly caught a glimpse of my destination, ‘The Piccadilly Institute’. I crossed another road.  Two big burly bouncers were monitoring the entrance of the club.

After climbing two flights of stairs, I emerged into the club. I hadn’t been to a nightclub for well over a decade. There was a flash looking bar, and an illuminated dance floor. Thankfully, it wasn’t busy; I estimated around fifty people of varying ages, but most of them seemed to be in their thirties.

The event was described as a ‘night out and social for the mind body community’ that was suitable for ‘singles, whoever are ready to mingle’ and those who are involved in the ‘personal development and spiritual community’ or those who were ‘change-maker entrepreneurs’. The only box I ticked was the one marked ‘single’.

‘Hello everyone!’ it was our host, who had taken control of a microphone. Everyone started to clap and cheer. It was Kamal, the Meetup leader.

‘Thanks for coming everyone. There are a number of different groups coming together for the first time tonight, so I’m going to ask you to go and meet as many people as you can in five minutes; just go up over to them and shake their hands and tell them who you are. Okay! Go do it!’

I introduced myself to Kamal the moment he stepped down from the stage. Kamal was a life coach. He told me that he created his group so he could give something to others, to help people. We agreed to talk later, once the introductions were done.

‘Hello, I recognise you… Do you… Have you been to any tech events?’ said a chap called Ashley. I told him that I had been to quite a few. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember him. We spent a good few minutes going through different groups that we had been to.

‘Yes! That’s it! Women who code!’

‘The place that had a free bar, chicken wings and a talk about high frequency trading?’

‘Yes!’

We had worked it out. Apparently Ashley hadn’t realise it was a women only event until he got there; he was just interested in the talk. Ashley had worked in the IT division of large banks, but had hated it; he wanted to stay in technology, but didn’t want to work in the banking sector anymore; he wanted a life.

I found myself in the middle of three people. We asked each other how come we found ourselves at this event. I explained my quest.

‘What kind of things have you been on…?’

‘There’s been lots of tech events, some book clubs, three types of yoga and two cults.’

‘Cults? What kind of cults?’

‘There was a sex cult that apparently isn’t a sex cult, and a neuro-linguistic programming cult’.

I then had to explain what happened at the ‘orgasm and climax’ talk.

‘What about the other one?’ asked Ed.

‘The NLP one? That one was all about how to get rich using NLP. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a pyramid scheme of nonsense. To get rich you’ve got to learn how to run these courses so you can teach other people how to do NLP... Sorry, what do you guys do? You don’t have anything to do with NLP do you?’

‘I’m a NLP certified master practitioner’ chuckled a woman called Alexis.

Suddenly I recognised someone. It was Sam, facilitator of the ‘master your confidence’ event. He wandered over to me and gave me a big hug.

‘How you doing, matey!’ he asked, giving me one of his huge smiles. ‘Did you feel a wave of positivity after the event on Saturday?’ I said I did. ‘Has that positivity been challenged?’ I replied that I was still feeling good.

I found myself in the middle of a new group of people: a chap called Justin and someone called Sebastian. Justin was smartly dressed. ‘You know Sam?’ asked Justin.

‘Yeah, well, I met him on Saturday at one of his events’.

‘He’s great. I spoke to him on the phone last night. He really helps you to set things out’. Justin was currently working in construction, but wanted to make a career change. He wanted to become a life coach and was studying for a coaching certificate; I never realised there was such a thing. ‘There’s all these models, like the GROW model, but I like the parts that are more philosophical. It makes it harder, a lot harder, but I think it’s important to have a solid academic underpinning’.

After ordering a beer from the bar, I found myself amidst a group of three more people.

‘We’ve just been talking about soulmates. Do you believe in soulmates?’

‘I don’t know. I guess I used to. I’m not sure anymore. I think I’m too cynical’ I replied, ruminating about my failed marriage, forgetting Sam’s advice.

‘A soulmate is someone who knows you completely; someone who completes you’ Helen explained. Helen was a Certified Love Attraction Coach. She started to tell me about a famous ‘love guru’ from America who is going to be speaking at one of her events.

‘It’s going to be amazing! I didn’t think she would be able to come to my event, but she is! She’s going to be talking about ‘manifesting love’’.

‘Sorry, ‘manifesting love’? Is that a bit like… the… what’s it called… the law of attraction?’ I replied, remembering my visit to the Yoga studios in South Kensington. The idea was if you think that you’re going to find love, you are going to find love.

After chatting to a landscape gardener, a software developer from Goldman Sachs and someone who wrote a best-selling book about ‘confidence’, I noticed that the club was a lot emptier than it had been; people were deciding to go home. Loud techno dance music had started up and people had started to move onto the dance floor. I stepped onto the half empty dance floor, had a boogie, went to the bar and got chatting to a girl called Annie. Annie asked me for my email address and phone number, and asked me whether I wanted to go dancing in Camden. I gracefully declined Annie’s kind offer; I needed to get ‘to the bitter end’ of the Meetup.

Half an hour later, I said goodbye to Kamal, gave Sam another man hug, and started to pick my way home through the crowds.

On my way home I used my phone to have a quick look at Helen’s website. Sure enough, there was some information about the event she had been telling me about. There was also a short biography, a list of prices, and video podcast where she was interviewed by someone about her Love Coaching. That someone just happened to be her very good friend, Sam.

Ninety eight – London Urban Adpensioners

I left London Bridge station and power walked down Tooley Street, past the Hayes Galleria, and then onto a pathway next to the Thames. I needed to cross Tower Bridge and then find the entrance to The Tower Hotel to meet a chap called Charles who said he would be wearing a West Ham cap and a yellow National Geographic T-shirt.

‘You’re doing well for a pensioner!’

I turned around. It was Sarah, who was in her mid-sixties. As well as Sarah and Charles, I was introduced to Chris, Mary, Fiona and Tina. As we all chatted Charles took a register using a small notebook. Just as we were ready to set off, Charles wandered off to look for ‘stragglers’. He returned minutes later with a final group member, a Spanish girl who was in her late twenties. It was time to go.

I had walked sections of the Thames pathway before, but had never walked along the north side of the river: this was a new adventure; an opportunity to visit new places. We navigated our way through St Katharine Docks, onto a path, and then onto a series of roads, where we ambled past warehouses that had been converted into luxury apartments. After negotiating a route through a private car park I got chatting to Charles. I asked him about his group. It was only two months old.

‘I’ve moved back to London and I looked on the groups to see if there was anything I wanted to do, and the events didn’t really fit with my schedule. So, you can’t come to something, then let them come to you. I think this is the fifth event I’ve run’, he explained.

‘I used to live in South Africa for thirty five years, running various businesses; I ran a transport business for schools, and then I sold it – I thought it was time to come back. My house and daughters are out there. I’ve got a job as a personal carer, which is great; you’ve got your own accommodation paid for, but it can be tough’.

We chatted about different things we liked to do in our spare time. ‘I love comedy’ he said. ‘I’ve done a bit of stand up. When I was in Cape Town, I belonged to this theatre group and I did what you might call ‘an old persons rap’!’

We chatted about different groups, and I told him about what I was doing. ‘You must meet that lady… Marie? She runs a group.’

We stopped in front of a pub called the Prospect of Whitby. Charles wanted to show us something. He pointed towards a sign that had been put on the wall. It read: ‘London’s oldest riverside inn – built circa 1520 in the reign of Henry VIII’. What followed was a list of kings and queens, and the dates of when they reigned.

I got chatting to Marie. Marie’s group was a daytime social group for people over fifty. She had been a member of ‘Fifty, black and fabulous’, but the group had imploded due to differences of opinions and the lack of a charismatic leader. Marie had bag loads of charisma and infectious exuberance.

‘You’ve got to admire people like Charles who set up these groups, haven’t you? I mean, they get people together, and that’s an amazing thing isn’t it? They don’t have to do what they do, but they just go ahead and do it. He’s a great host, don’t you think? He’s making sure that everyone is okay; he’s talking to everyone, counting everyone, not leaving anyone behind. I think that’s amazing. It’s easy not to do anything; you can just stay at home, can’t you?’

I told Marie about my quest, and that I was nearly at the end.

‘And what have you learnt from doing it?’

I thought for a moment, and then I had an answer: ‘that people are kind, and generous, and accepting. I’ve always known this, but this has emphasised it. And it’s taught me about London, about different parts of the city. It’s taken me to areas that I have never been to before. It’s also taught me that I needn’t be worried about talking to a group of strangers; that people are people, and I’ve learnt that I love talking.’ I paused for a moment. I never used to love talking. I would never talk to strangers. Instead, I preferred to hide away and not say anything. ‘I’ve seen that there are many selfless people out there’.

‘Selfless…’ Marie repeated. ‘Yes. Selfless… That’s what it is’.

We stopped again at another pub, called The Grapes. Charles pointed at a blue plaque that had the date 1583. ‘These are great pubs along here…’ explained Charles, almost teasing us that we were not stopping until we got to Greenwich.

The walk took us past Canary Wharf, and then past countless apartments. As we walked, I wondered who lived in them, and what they did. I caught glimpses of ‘toddler paraphernalia’ on balconies; chairs and plastic sit on cars; a reflection that this was also a place for families.

We stopped for a photo opportunity. I could see The Shard, The Gherkin and the Walkie-Talkie. In the foreground, a London Clipper, the passenger catamaran, was making its way from Greenwich to London Bridge and beyond.

As we negotiated further car parks and pathways, I chatted with Fiona, who used to work in the oil industry. She wasn’t quite retired, working only two days a week. She lived in Clapham and had a roof terrace. It sounded idyllic; a place to sit out on and see the city, a place to also sit down with a glass of wine and read a detective novel.

Eventually we made it to an area called Island Gardens, and to the entrance of the Greenwich foot tunnel. When we had all gathered, we began to walk down a steep spiral staircase. When we got to the bottom, we could see the length of the tunnel reaching out before us, dipping in a slight incline as it buries its way underneath the river.

One of our group walked ahead, keen to get out of the claustrophobic space. In the distance, a busker played his guitar energetically, enjoying the echo of the extraordinary acoustics, and an occasional cyclist cycled past us, despite the obvious and constant ‘no cycling’ signs.  At the other end, I decided to climb the corkscrew steps, and quickly became dizzy.

With the walk over, and the sight of the Cutty Sark in front of us, we wandered over to a well-known brewery. We sat in the beer garden, drinking Pilsner, cider and wheat beer. We toasted the walk and Charles’s success at getting us all together.

Ninety seven – Master your confidence and fulfil your potential

I scootered to the British Museum, found a parking space, and continued on foot. I walked through the streets of Bloomsbury, and skirted the buildings of University College London and found myself outside a pub called the College Arms where other Meetupers were congregating. I chatted to some of the delegates: no one had been to this group before.

Fifteen minutes later, we made our way to a brightly lit basement. Our leader, Sam, had set out comfy looking chairs in neat rows. I looked around. I guessed there were around twenty five to thirty people; it was an impressive showing for a Saturday morning, especially when the sun was shining.

It was one of those days where you wanted to head off to a park, perhaps Regent’s Park, have a nice pub lunch followed by a pint of frothy ale and nonsense chats with friends.  Instead, I was going to an event that had the title, ‘rock solid inner confidence: full day workshop’. I was pretty confident that I wanted to be somewhere else.

Sam was in his very early thirties, was casually dressed, and was sporting a couple of days’ growth of designer stubble. He had very white teeth and a disconcerting habit of holding eye contact for an extraordinary amount of time. He was, it turned out, a life coach.

Sam began his introduction: ‘I love bringing the power that exists inside individuals. There’s limitless freedom in this room… It’s about clearing out what we have inside’. There was a suggestion that he had a mysterious personal story, but it was one that was never really explained. It was a story that had hints of past despair, of being in a bad place, and not wanting to live. It reminded me of the NLP event where our facilitator had also talked about being at her lowest ebb.

Our first activity was a round of introductions: ‘in groups of six or seven, just say your name and tell us why you’re here’.

Our small group was stifled by a common silence. To break the silence I said, ‘anyone going to go first?’ An inevitable response was: ‘why don’t you go first?’ I introduced myself: ‘My name is Chris, and I’m on this quest of visiting one hundred Meetups, and this event is number ninety seven’.

‘Get out of town!’ exclaimed a woman called Cheryl. ‘Ninety seven? So, what was the first one then?’ she said, challenging me. For a moment, I could barely remember; it felt like such a long time ago; so much had happened. I dredged through my memory and remembered was a walk around a park.

As well as Cheryl, I met Dave, who worked in IT, Lisa who worked in marketing, and Danielle who worked outside of London, and was currently between jobs. Dave and Lisa were both contracting: they wanted to get something out of the session to help them to find a permanent job. Cheryl just wanted to ‘get more confidence’.

Sam took over again. He told us that to be confident, we need to regularly seek to move outside of our comfort zone. He said that it was also about being vulnerable. I was happy to go with whatever he was going to suggest: I was happy to have my vulnerability explored and my bubble of comfort to be extended. I didn’t care. ‘It’s also about self-acceptance; loving every part of your being’ he proclaimed. ‘You are your own coach’.

It was time to learn about Sam’s ‘pillars of confidence’. The first pillar of confidence was, apparently, integrity. People who are externally referenced always look for validation from others. ‘We have a birth right of worthiness, but we get trapped into comparison’. He encouraged us to ask ourselves a question: ‘if you’re going to die in a year, would you change how you live?’ The point is: we should live that way right now.

Sam led a guided meditation activity. We were encouraged to find our ‘heart space’ and then to write our own ‘heart manifesto’ the moment the meditation came to an end. Mine was pretty simple: ‘to live, to explore and to love’.  We had to do something else: to think about our ‘authentic expressions’ and our ‘toxic goals’. A toxic goal is something that we do that doesn’t do us any good. I had answers to these too: an authentic expression is writing about this nonsense quest. My toxic activity was ruminating about my failed marriage.

Sam had something else for us: ‘if you could fast-forward to your deathbed, what advice would you give your future self?’

After a bit of writing, we had to share these answers with a group. My answer to the deathbed question was simple. I would share an expression that I had seen tattooed in simplified Chinese on Michael’s arm: ‘don’t waste time’.  Sam complemented this activity with another of his expressions: ‘the future is an illusion, the past is an illusion; we’ve only got to think about now’.

We were asked to consider another aspect of confidence: self-acceptance; accepting our flaws. It’s important to be compassionate to yourself, Sam argued, and accept that it’s okay to have these times where we feel lost, confused and vulnerable. The message was simple: ‘when you’re kinder to yourself, you’re kinder to others’. We then needed to consider whether we were honest with ourselves. The discussions briefly touched upon relationships: ‘you don’t need another person to heal you; you can do that yourself’.

The lunch break was interesting. I found myself in a Japanese themed fast food chain, sitting with a medical doctor called Mary, a carpet fitter called Neil from Oldham, and Lisa. We chatted about the event. Everyone liked it.  Neil had been to a couple of Sam’s events before and had recently made a decision to do more things and to explore more of London. He was friendly, confident and open minded: ‘coming to London from Oldham is really weird; it’s like having a sex change.’

It was time to consider vulnerability and fear. We were given a challenge; to do something that gives us a bit of fear every day. ‘When can you take the more challenging route over the easy route?’ Another thought was to set a challenge every month. Failure, it was argued, is just a word; and it’s something that we learn from. Here lies a paradox: successful people seek failure. Failure is all about being judged. Sam offered a solution: ‘I do weird stuff deliberately, because then I don’t fear the judgements’. He told a story about a German psychotherapist who encouraged his clients to put a banana on a lead and take it for a ‘walk’; ‘Let’s all get judged on purpose’ he said.

Other themes were trust, conviction and the importance of following our instincts. Sam explained that there are two sides to us: a conscious self and an unconscious self; a self that just reacts and responds. We went into pairs and were given two improvisation tasks: the sharing of imaginary gifts, and then a conversation through two adopted characters: a member of the royal family, and a drunk Frenchman. This led to an animated discussion about Princess Diana conspiracy theories.

The final part of the workshop was a little unexpected. I volunteered to ‘be vulnerable’. This involved doing a short talk about ‘picture frames’. This was followed by group dancing. The grand finale reminded me of the Biodanza climax: making extensive eye contact and giving everyone generous hugs. The twist was that we had to say something appreciative. I learnt that my talk about picture frames had gone down quite well.

It had been a fun event. Sam ran his group to advertise his life coach and personal development business, but it was a very gentle sell; he spoke only briefly of his retreats where everyone is encouraged to ‘peel back their layers’. It was interesting that his approach was so eclectic; drawing on meditation, Yoga, NLP and something called Authentic Happiness. He has also had Meetup events about how to attract your soul mate, how to manage stress, and how Improv can help with confidence and social skills. One final phrase stuck in my mind: ‘When you’re aware of your own aliveness, happiness just comes. Celebrate the little things’.

Ninety six – South West Strings Badminton

I hate sports for a simple reason: I carry too much sports-related emotional baggage.

When I was at school, two kids were always picked last for any team events. It was either me or the fat kid, and the fat kid was a whole lot better than me. Football, rugby, cricket; you name it, nobody wanted me on their team. What really puzzled me was that other kids seemed to really enjoy sport, whereas I just couldn’t see the point.

‘Why would you enjoy going out and chucking a ball about in a muddy field and risk getting injured?’ I used to ask myself.

To me, sport was a waste of time. I couldn’t throw, I couldn’t run very fast, I couldn’t hit a ball and I couldn’t catch. But, I could get a computer to do stuff, and that was something that sporty kids couldn’t do. The net result was that I became disengaged; I didn’t need sport in my life.

All these thoughts were circulating through my head as I rode towards Tooting Leisure Centre. I had been to Tooting a couple of times before, and most of them had been by accident. It was rush hour and the traffic was heavy. Cars were getting too close to me, and food delivery bikers seemed to have a death wish. Plus, it was raining. I carefully weaved my way through traffic, roughly following the route of the Northern Line. I eventually took a right just before Tooting Broadway tube station, and saw a sign for the leisure centre.

I didn’t want to play badminton. I wanted a night of television. My mood had darkened and I acquired a feeling of dread. I dreaded the sense of feeling like an idiot, and dreaded the undoubted enthusiasm of badminton fanatics.

‘I, erm, am here, with a group. A badminton group…’ The woman at reception looked at me. The silence between us suggested that she needed more information. ‘I think it’s booked under the name of Michael.’

‘Courts two and three. Just go through the double doors, turn right and you’ll find them there’.

I thanked the receptionist, took a deep breath, and set off. I found a group of people milling around. I asked the first person I came to whether this was the ‘Meetup’. It was. He was a German chap called Karl; Michael, it seemed, was stuck in traffic. After a quick change, I returned and chatted a bit more.

‘I… have never done this before. I don’t know how to play’.

‘No worries’, replied Karl. ‘I’ll teach you’.

He went to his bag and picked up a racket and gave it to me. Karl went onto explain the markings on the court, what is meant by ‘in’ and ‘out’, and demonstrated how to serve.

‘It’s all in your wrist, see?’ Karl demonstrated how to move the racket around, as if he was trying to do battle with a swarm of invisible flies.

‘Okay, we’ll just play for fun. We’ll just hit it, okay?’

Karl went to the other side of the net and served; a high shot, which gave me a bit of time to react, so I could position myself. I returned the shuttlecock, but the next one ended up on the floor. I tried again… we had a short rally, and then a longer one.

Hitting the shuttlecock wasn’t as difficult as I had expected it to be. I had expected my long-standing excuse, my extreme short-sightedness to work against me, but I was managing to return Karl’s shots. I don’t know what had happened since my school days. Had it been my occasional trips to the gym? Had my reactions suddenly perked up after lots of scooter riding?

We stopped. I noticed that the top of Karl’s t-shirt was all wet with sweat. I was panting, and starting to break out in a sweat too.

‘You’ve never played before? You’re really talented; it usually takes two or three lessons before you can return like that’.

I couldn’t believe he said that.

‘Here, take this. It’s lighter, see? Let’s play with this so you can feel the difference’. Karl gave me one of his expensive carbon fibre rackets to play with; an expression of trust. We continued to mess about. I could tell the difference. It was lighter, and easier to play with.

More people arrived. There was Tony, Ed, Gavin, and Dave. I joined a pretend doubles match with Gavin, Tony and Dave. Gavin offered me a bit of advice: ‘you’re putting your whole body into a shot; don’t. Badminton is most in your wrist…’ echoing Karl’s earlier point. Gavin’s advice made me realise why I was feeling so knackered and was sweating so much: I was running and jumping, whilst everyone else seemed to be barely moving.

Part way through another pretend match, our host Michael arrived.

‘What’s your name? Have you played much badminton, Chris?’

‘None… I think this is my first time ever.’ I then went onto explain why I had come to Michael’s group.

‘Why are you doing these… one hundred Meetups?’ he asked.

‘Midlife crisis, I guess’, I replied. Michael began to laugh.

‘I’ve had one too! Midlife crisis. Besides, you’re not old enough! How old are you? Look’. Michael showed me his arm. It had a tattoo. It was a series of Chinese characters.

‘What does it say?’

‘I’m from Vietnam, and my wife is from China. It’s a phrase, in simplified Chinese; in Cantonese. It says: don’t waste time. I used to drink and smoke, but now I play Badminton. It’s my life. Let’s play. We’ll talk later’.

Michael gave me some easy shots, and then quickly turned up the heat. One shot went one way, the other shot went the other. Michael started to chuckle.

‘You’ve got to run, Chris! Gets your blood moving!’ After he noticed that I was spending too much time picking up the shuttlecock from the floor, he went back to easier shots.

It was time for my first proper game. Michael and myself versus Tony and Tracey, the only woman in our group. Michael kept score. The game was a blizzard of running, hitting and jumping. There were long shots and close shots; shots where the shuttlecock would be flipped over the net. We won. Or, more specifically, Michael won.

Between games, I chatted to Michael a bit more, and gave him the fee for the night. Michael had been running ‘South West Strings’ for around two years. He runs event in different venues across South West London and had attracted over seven hundred members.

‘We sometimes have over thirty people coming to the events, like the one that we had on Sunday. We don’t just do badminton. Sometimes we go out for meals and see movies too. I hope you’ll come back!’ Michael was a perfect event host: friendly, encouraging and passionate. He was also pretty good at badminton.

After a well needed sit down, it was time for a final match. It was me and Ed versus Dave and my mentor, Karl. By this time in the night, I was sufficiently filled with adrenalin. The pretend matches had filled me with confidence that I could return the shuttlecock. I was also aware that my eyes were working well enough that I could see roughly what was going on. It started gently enough, then Ed started to rush around, thwacking the shuttlecock. I then started to pick up some of the low shots; we were starting to work as a team. We gained points, they gained points; we were evenly matched. Michael’s ‘I’ll get you running’ exercises had done the trick; I moved from the back of the court to the front, reacting to the game.

I had no idea which side won. It didn’t matter. We shook hands. It had been fun. Karl was covered in sweat, and Ed was panting. I needed a lie down and a drink of water. Karl and Michael said I had done pretty well. My feelings of dread and foreboding had been replaced with endorphins and elation. I wondered what had changed. Perhaps it was my willingness to get involved. Perhaps I had also managed to throw away quite a bit of my sporting baggage.

Ninety five – Asylum Fellowship

‘What is it?’ asked Mary.

After a pub lunch we decided to ‘do a random’ and apply the ‘half an hour’ rule since Archway was pretty central.

‘Badminton. South West London. Its miles away…’

‘I’m not going to badminton’ said Mary.

‘Okay.’ I replied, secretly relieved. ‘We’ll have to bank it. What’s the next one… Hold on. The Asylum Fellowship.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Don’t know; I’ll have a look. Ah… It’s a church. Do you have a relationship with Jesus?’

‘NO!’ replied Mary, laughing.

‘Neither do I! It looks like it’s close to Tottenham Court Road.’

‘That’s on my line; I can get there by Tube’ said Mary, immediately problem solving and implicitly suggesting that we’re going.

‘I think I know where it is. It’s the church that is close to an orange skyscraper.’

I knew the orange skyscraper. It was where I went to the Gay Mates male grooming event.

I wrote down the address on a scrap of paper and gave it to Mary. Mary set off towards the tube, and I set off on my scooter. One road pretty much took me all the way there. I picked my way through Kentish Town, and then onto Camden Town, negotiated a couple of junctions, and edged my way past Euston, and then into Bloomsbury. I parked up in a motorcycle bay that was on one of the roads that led to Covent Garden; it had taken no more than fifteen minutes.

I found St Giles in the Field easily, but all the entrances seemed to be locked. I walked towards the back and discovered a transparent plastic folder that was strung up on a door knob. In the folder was a note: ‘for the asylum fellowship please ring the doorbell’. I pushed the bell and moments later a tall friendly chap called Tony came to greet me. He ushered me inside.

The Meetup description didn’t say very much (other than it was free and there was a promise of snacks), but there was a link to a website. The site was a surprise: first thing I saw was a graphic of a six-sided star and an image of a skull which seemed to have a red cross behind it. In the background there were creepy looking winged creatures. Scrolling down the page, there was a photograph of eleven people, almost all of them dressed in black, sitting around a table. The surrounding space was decorated with a skeleton, two further cartoon-like skulls and a fake spider web.

I clicked on an ‘info’ link: ‘Asylum exists to bring the love and acceptance of Christ to people from the various underground subcultures in London’. I was worried: I don’t believe in Christ and I certainly didn’t belong to any sub-cultures.

I found myself in a large meeting room. On the walls I saw paintings of old white men, and names of people who had some kind of connection with the church. Crisps, mini-chocolate rolls and copies of the Bible sat on a huge table that was covered with a couple of table cloths that featured Celtic patterns.

‘Hi! I’m Sarah!’

Sarah was a young woman in her twenties. She wore a smart black dress, killer heels, beguiling eye make-up and a pair of cat ears.

‘Thanks for coming! How did you find us?’

I explained that I had heard about the group through Meetup. I said that I knew every little about the group.

Sarah explained a little more: Asylum was primarily about love and friendship; that there wasn’t any sermon or speeches. Instead, it was about meeting and discussing things in a way that would have happened at the time of Jesus.

‘The group is very open minded; everyone is welcome: people who have faith, people who don’t, and people who have different faiths to our own. All that we ask is that everyone respects the person who holds a view’.

My phone beeped. It was Mary. She had found the orange skyscraper but wasn’t too sure about where to go next. I rushed out to the street to find her. Five minutes later, I was introducing her to Tony and Sarah. For a few moments, she seemed to be overawed by the paintings, the names of dead people, the Celtic table cloths and Sarah’s cat ears.

‘So, are you spiritual?’ asked Sarah.

‘Erm…. No.’ I replied.

‘Then… why have you come here today?’ she gently challenged.

‘Erm, well… I was supposed to go to Badminton, but it was too far. It was in South West London. This was the next event on the Meetup calendar.’

Everyone turned to look at me. I explained that this was random event number ninety five of a nonsense Meetup challenge.

‘That’s awesome!’ said Ray, who was wearing what appeared to be a pair of Cuban heels. ‘I went to something called the Goth tour of London. It was brilliant! They showed us all these different places, like, sites of secret Gin halls. There was this other really interesting thing that happened really close to here: the London Beer flood, it’s called. A huge vat ruptured, causing the beer to go all down the street, killing loads of people.’

It was time for the ‘service’ to start. Mary moved to sit next to me. I was glad for her support; there were more Christians in the room than there were atheists.

After a short prayer, Sarah said to talk about a book called ‘The Road Less Travelled’ by M Scott Peck. Scott Peck was apparently a psychotherapist who had an interest in spiritual development.

Sarah read us a passage. It was about laziness. The point was that that it’s easy to be lazy; that it’s easy to just go to work and go home and not really think about ‘big issue stuff’. A key was that having a spiritual relationship with God isn’t something that is easy; it takes time to develop and nurture, and that we’re all at different stages of our spiritual ‘journey’.

‘Sometimes I think it’s easier if you don’t believe…’ said Pete, who was sitting to the left of Mary. My inner atheist inside me started to make a fuss. An internal battle commenced between the desire to ‘sit quiet’ and listen to what is said at the Meetup, and to become actively engaged. I couldn’t be disingenuous: I couldn’t pretend to love Jesus when I patently didn’t. My inner atheist won.

‘Actually… I don’t think it is easy if you don’t believe’ I said.

Everyone turned to look at me again; the room became quiet.

‘I have to confess that I’m atheist. Now, I understand that believing isn’t easy, and that it can be tough, that you can doubt – but it’s also quite a big thing to come to a conclusion that there isn’t anything else; it’s… difficult. In my life, there have been some times when I have thought of praying, but, actually, that’s a long time ago now… I just… We are the ones who need to take responsibility for what we do. We can’t leave it up to God.’ I paused for a moment, trying to gather my thoughts.

‘In some respects, I guess this randomness quest stuff that I’m on is a kind of weird spiritual journey all of its own; I’m seeing what is out there, and seeing what happens, so I do kind of understand, a bit, about where you’re coming from. One thing that I must say is that atheism isn’t a religion. It’s not that at all’.

A chap who had joined the meeting late chipped in. ‘If I thought there wasn’t anything else, I would want to throw myself under a train’.

Silence hung heavily in the air.

‘I’m really glad that you’ve said what you did’, said Tony, turning to me. ‘I’m in a very similar place to where you are. If there is a God, and I ever got to meet him, I would be very angry’. Again, there was silence. ‘I would be very angry with God’ he repeated.

This led to a discussion about the nature of ‘our Christian God’ and differences between Christianity and other faiths. It was a discussion that I didn’t entirely follow, especially when the new member of the group started to talk about ‘early Christian thought’ and Gnosticism.

‘There’s this place not too far from where I live that some spiritualists think is haunted.’ It was Jim, a chap in his mid-fifties. ‘They say that there’s all these different ghosts there, and they said they’ve seen them. I once spent the night there. I didn’t see anything. It makes you wonder whether they’re making it all up’.

The conversation moved to other topics, such as morality. My annoying inner atheist couldn’t resist chipping in again: ‘a really interesting challenge is figuring out our own morality’, I said, stumbling into a debate about moral absolutism.

Eventually, Sarah brought the focus of the discussion back to the purpose of the group. She said that different opinions are welcome. Where there are differences, they are to be explored ‘with love’ for others. I got her point: confrontation and vehement disagreement doesn’t do any good; it’s best to take time to listen. The group wasn’t about preaching, or even about persuasion. Its heart was liberal: it was one about acceptance.

Sarah gave myself and Mary some leaflets. Pete, who turned out to be spectacularly tall, gave me a big hug, which made me feel relieved that I hadn’t inadvertently caused any offense. I thanked Sarah and learnt that she was originally from California and had found ‘a home’ in the Asylum Fellowship, and was now a trustee.

The man who said that he would want to jump in front of a train ‘if there wasn’t anything else’ was called Matt. His words resonated in my mind for a day or so afterwards. Then, during a moment of peace a few days later, my inner atheist spoke to me.

My inner atheist said: ‘if there’s nothing else, we’ve a fundamental responsibility; to ourselves and those around us. We have a responsibility to live the best possible life we can because there is no heaven or hell; there is only now, and the remaining days that we have. Go do whatever you need to do. Seek happiness, and do your best not to hurt others in the process. Try your best to help others, since that will give you happiness too. Don’t put things off; go live life, and live it well.’

Ninety four – Aum Shanti Yoga

It was a Sunday morning. I couldn’t get to Haslemere station in time for another hike;it would take at least an hour from London Waterloo. Plus, I had another excuse: faint echoes of a hangover from a night of birthday celebrations were needling my brain. I joined the group with the intention of going another day, and looked absently towards my television to try to figure out how bad I felt.

I looked down at my phone again. Another yoga class. It was in a part of the city called Haringey; a part of London that I barely knew. Decision made. I was going and I had exactly an hour to get there. Ten minutes later, I was leather clad and booted up; I was going by scooter.

A few turns took me to Lewisham, and then onto New Cross and past the Amersham Arms comedy pub. Minutes later, I rode past Burgess Park, and into the streets of Southwark, which I remembered from the non-sponsored sponsored walk.

I crossed the river at Blackfriars, which reminded me of another walk; memories of being told about ships and prisons. I then sped towards Farringdon, passing Smithfield Market, the place where I had followed that strange man. Another memory from Farringdon was my visit to the ‘attractive man’ talk where I first heard about orgasmic meditation.

I took a right: riding through Clerkenwell, I remembered seeing the well, and being told about a courthouse. I then took a left to join the A1 and rode towards Angel station and Islington.

I knew where I was going; I aimed right, and found myself riding down a road I vaguely knew: Essex Road. Minutes later I arrived at Newington Green; a part of inner London that had a friendly and relaxed feel. I sped past Clissold Park; a park I had never visited and soon caught a glimpse of a familiar sight: the London Underground sign; a sign for Manor House station. This was another internal Meetup landmark: Finsbury Park.

I pressed on, passing a familiar pub I had once been to for a comedy night, and then into the unknown; new territory. A railway bridge reached out across the road, advertising my entry onto new territory with large bold letters: Harringay Green Lanes.

I climbed what is topographically known as the Haringey Ladder and looked around: there were restaurants, dentists, mobile phone shops, estate agents, banks and chicken shops; an entire town within a city. When the shops gave way to housing, I knew I was close to my destination. Suddenly, I saw where I needed to go. I pulled over, turned off the engine, and removed my helmet. I had arrived at the Turkish Cypriot Community Association.

‘Is this… the place for Yoga?’

‘Just go out, go right, there’s a door. It’s at the back’ replied the receptionist.

I stepped into a large cavernous room that was filled with fifteen people. Everyone seemed to be putting a mat on the floor. Although I had made it on time, I still needed to get changed. Thankfully I had the foresight to pack a pair of jogging bottoms just in case I needed them.

‘Are you Ally?’ I asked. I had found the Meetup organiser. ‘I’m, erm, I’ve come down for the Meetup. I’m just going to get changed. I don’t have a mat’.

By the time I had returned, everyone was lying on the floor. Ally had kindly set out a mat for me.

‘Concentrate on your breathing… Count up to six, breathing in…. and out’. I was panting and sweating because I had just rushed to get out of my motorcycle safety gear. ‘Breathe through your nose…’ I heard people breathing around me. I felt uncomfortable. Below me, I could hear the sound of an underground train. I chastised myself; I told myself to concentrate, to breathe.

It was time for movements. We got on our hands and knees and into the ‘downward dog’ posture. We shuffled, moved and stretched. I tried to follow Ally as best as I could, whilst also looking around at the other participants, who obviously had some idea about what was coming next. We were encouraged to contort our arms and bend our backs. All the time, Ally was giving a simple and clear commentary about what was needed. We were then back to downward-dogging and shuffling forward. Blood rushed to my head. I realised I was sweating profusely. It was my hangover; my body didn’t want to move. I just wanted to sit down at the back of the class and drink a bottle of water, but I couldn’t. That would be cheating.

It was time for balance postures. We all stood on one leg and placed our foot just below our knee. At the same time we reached forward with one of our arms and stretched. I wobbled and dived, unable to keep my balance. We changed legs. I looked around: everyone seemed to be balancing without lurching around. I was frustrated: what with all my scooter riding, I thought I had good balance. I suddenly realised that Ally was profoundly stretchy, along with a sixty year old woman who occupied the space in front of me. In comparison, I felt as stiff as a board.

After a short break we were back to the main postures and then tried to collectively put our elbows under our knees. The session ended where we started; with our breathing exercises. It had taken just over an hour.

This was the type of yoga I had always imagined: stretching, postures, and movement. Kundalini yoga in Ealing and laughter yoga in Teddington were very different. This was proper exercise.

I went to get changed back into my motorcycle gear and went to have chat with Ally, who spoke with a soft Australian accent.

Ally had set her group up over six months ago, and had attracted nearly two hundred members. I asked her about her interest in yoga, and she explained that it was a passion; that she recently returned from doing some training in India (she had been a couple of times), and would like to escape from the nine to five office existence by turning her passion into a business.

It was time to go. I ambled back to the scooter and checked my phone. I had a text message from Mary, who had just got out of bed.

‘Where are you?’ she asked.

‘I’m in Haringey, doing yoga. I’ve finished’.

‘That’s not too far from me.’

‘Fancy some lunch?’

I looked at the map on my phone. She was right: it wasn’t far, but the route was confusing. I decided to stick to the main roads, and ignore the directions the phone was giving me.

As I scootered past the Arsenal football stadium towards Archway, I had another Meetup memory: a visit to the Geekpub, where I had tried to play Hearthstone.

Ninety three – Playhubs game developer Meetup

I couldn’t believe it; there were free beers but I couldn’t drink any of them; I was on my scooter. I had parked just off Lincoln’s Inn Field, close to the London School of Economics and walked the short distance to Somerset House. I had ridden past Somerset House many times on my commute but knew next to nothing about it, other than it occasionally hosted music events and had an ice rink during the winter months.

The Meetup instructions were to visit the ‘New Wing’. Following signs, I discovered an expensive looking restaurant and a maze of corridors which eventually led to me to a small reception area. I steeled myself for the inevitable confrontation with a security guard.

‘I can’t see your name on the list’ said the guard grimly.

He was in his early thirties, wore a white shirt, a black blazer and a name tag. He clearly meant business. After a bit of discussion, he pushed a button and let me in; I was no longer worried by ‘security’: if you looked reasonably smart and said you were in the right place, it seemed to be the rule that they let you through.

I was going to a talk that had the title ‘Playhub: how other industries could inform F2P design’, and I had no idea what F2P was. I had never heard of a Playhub either. Was it a software development platform? Was it a video game that people used on their phones or tablets? Was it a business or a video game publisher?

I pushed a set of double doors and found a large room that was filled with computers that were sitting on tidy desks. Geeks were liberally scattered throughout the space, deep in concentration, staring into their video screens.

I recognised our host, Tim, from his Meetup photograph and went over to say hello. Tim guided me towards the back of the room where I saw a digital projector, stools, comfy chairs and, of course, a bucket of ice cold beers.

‘Hi! I’m Mandy’. Mandy offered me a hand and a friendly smile.

Mandy was the community manager and had been working at Playhub for just two days. Playhub turned out to be part co-working space and part ‘game accelerator’. If you were an indi-game developer, you could use the space to both work and network. I was curious: I wanted to know how it was funded, and how it was connected to other Tech groups I had been to. A quick internet search later offered some tentative answers: it was set up by an experienced private investor who had lots of experience of working in the videogames industry.

I chatted to some of the people who had appeared at the back of the room. There was Stuart, who had been working on a video game engine, Carl, who was some kind of games developer, and Jason, who was going to be our speaker.

‘Has anyone heard of a card game called Hearthstone?’ asked Jason, beginning his talk.

I tentatively put up my hand. Hearthstone was the online card game that I had started to play at the GeekPub event with Grace. Jason was working on new online card game that was a bit like Hearthstone but had different monsters; warriors, warlords, minions and elves. These were depicted by ornate and well-drawn cartoon graphics that would clearly appeal to teenagers.

Jason used to work for a games publisher in Japan. ‘Gamers in Japan come to a game with some idea about how much they want to pay’ he explained. ‘Rather than paying by credit card, gamers can pay through their internet provider. When you’ve reached your limit, you can’t pay any more’.

F2P, it turned out, was an abbreviation for ‘free to play’. Jason’s business model was to ‘sell’ players ‘virtual cards’, allowing them to create ‘stronger hands’ against competitors. This, it seemed, took inspiration from physical card games where creating the deck was as important as playing the game itself. I remembered the Netrunner Meetup, where I was introduced into a world of card game cults and confusion.

Jason talked us through various screens: a virtual shop where players could buy various cards, and a brief demonstration of a game with a ‘bot’. As he talked, he mentioned other weird sounding games, such as the Rage of Bahamut and the Legend of the Cryptids. One innovation of the game was the ability to create user generated tournaments, where users could club together to create a monetary prize.

As Jason talked, I thought about my own relationship with video games and the idea of there being different ‘game cultures’. I used to play games when I was in my twenties; I was enchanted by the advances in computer graphics, sound and gameplay, but it was a phase that I quickly grew out of. When I spend my days staring at a computer screen, the last thing I want to do in the evening is play a video game with a stranger over the internet.

It was time for questions. Someone asked about the money side of things: ‘if this is a free to play game, what percentage of people do you expect to actually pay?’ The answer: low; only a small percentage, anything between one and five percent of players. To break the silence that had descended in the room, I asked a question: ‘can you tell us something about the demographic that you’re aiming for? Have you a particular user in mind?’

‘Men. Between the age of twenty and forty, those who know about games like Hearthstone and Magic’ replied Jason. I pushed him a little more about the characteristics of the user, before asking my final question.

‘So, how does it work?’ My inner geek had taken over. I wanted to know about the tech magic that made these games possible. ‘You’ve got people playing card games with each other over the internet, do you use some software platform to make it all work?’

‘That’s a great question. There’s a number of platforms out there that developers can use. There’s platforms like Photon and Playfab. We use Playfab. I think there’s another one called Gamespark, which we looked at’.

‘I’m the CEO of Gamespark’, came a man’s voice from the back of the room. Everyone turned to look at him. ‘I’ll be really interested in hearing about how you chose your platform’.

After the question and answer I chatted to Mandy and a chap called Alex whilst Jason chatted to the CEO. Alex was hanging around because he was keen to ask questions about the ethical dimensions of the game. I looked around. There were around five or six people remaining. I guessed I had made it to ‘the bitter end’ of the Meetup.

It was time to go home, but not before I had nabbed a beer and had secreted it into my bag, moments after Mandy had approved its liberation with a nod. Ten minutes later, I was on my way home, scooting over Waterloo Bridge, passing Somerset House, catching a glimpse of the rooms I had just visited.

Ninety two – Live music and creative talks

I needed to go to the Park Plaza Hotel, which was on the south side of Westminster Bridge. The Meetup had a simple description: ‘Live music and happy hour! Buy one, get one free! Seven different acts’. Over twenty people had registered. I looked at my watch. I had just enough time to put on a smart shirt and jacket. I looked at my shoes. They were scuffed and needed a polish, but I didn’t have time. I needed to go.

Half an hour later, I arrived at the hotel. In the distance, I could see Big Ben bearing up from the north side of the river. I looked inside the entrance of the hotel and was confronted with anonymous glamour. After a ride on an immaculate escalator and a short walk across a vast expanse of marble, I found the Primo bar.

The bar was like any bar you would find in a four star hotel: spotlessly clean, comfortable and expensive. The only difference was the presence of a stage and the fact that my ears were being assaulted by an unforgivable noise that could be generously called ‘singing’. I steadied myself by sitting on a leather bar stool, ordered an eye wateringly expensive pint of Japanese beer which wasn’t really Japanese, and started to survey the landscape. My question was: ‘who belonged to the Meetup?’

At the end of the first act, I made my move. I leant over to a group of people who were sitting towards the front of the bar. ‘Belong to what?’ came the reply. ‘Oh, talk to Cath, she runs the night’. Cath turned out to be a Scouser in her early twenties.

‘Which group have you come with?’ She asked. Apparently there were two Meetups running at the same time and ‘not many people had turned up’; one group was for creative music lovers who were looking to go to free events, gallery tours and festivals. The other group was called ‘Learn with others: design, music and art’ which was about music events, design conferences and talks. I learnt that our Meetup host was a singer-songwriter and a former fashion design student.

‘There’s live music in this bar every day – can you believe that?’

Cath introduced me to Jen, a tall blonde woman who wore an expensive looking black dress. Her glamourous appearance made me feel relieved that I had gone to a tiny amount of effort.

Jen was a singer-songwriter, and a busker. She busked in London and Norwich, earning up to two hundred pounds a day.

‘I sometimes get ten or twenty pound notes – that’s not money to throw away is it? Circus performers who work in London, you know, can get up to a thousand pounds a day. Can you believe that? I don’t know what will happen when my benefits stop, though’.

We were joined by Donna, a singer-songwriter from Malta. Donna did the ‘tech’, which meant that she set the microphone levels.

A cool looking compere, who was wearing skinny jeans and sunglasses walked in front of the stage and said, ‘you’re such a great crowd, you guys are awesome!’ without a hint of irony.
It was then time for the third act: a singer-songwriter who had a good powerful voice.

‘Chris!’ I turned around. It was Cath. ‘These two people are from the Meetup!’ I was introduced to Dev and Malati. Apparently, it was Malati’s birthday and this was their second Meetup of the day. The first had been a French speakers’ group.

The next act was a cool looking elderly gentleman who had a deep gravelly voice that required a more experienced ear to appreciate. He performed a song, popularised by Roberta Flack that had an appropriate title: ‘killing me softly with his song’.

By the time I had started on my second pint of Japanese beer, the character of the performers had changed and the music had become somewhat more accessible. After a short interval, two young guys had started: one played the guitar, another the keyboard. Percussive rhythms were punched out from the body of a guitar; they sang familiar funky pop numbers in close harmony. A group of girls who were sitting close by had started to dance. By the end of their set, their efforts were rewarded with a minor cheer and a smattering of applause.

Cath introduced me to the performers. They turned out to be Italian and had been living in London the last few years.

‘We play around twice a week’ explained Alfredo, the keyboard player. ‘Last week we played at a bar in Heathrow airport’.

Before I could learn more about their story, it was time for another act: a singer-songwriter, who also played a guitar, but there was a twist: he crafted layered rhythms, bass tracks and rough harmonies using a digital loop machine: it was impressive stuff. I was taken in by his skill, how he began slowly, switched out loops, and came to an elegant finale for each song. It was simple, effective, listenable and catchy.

The final act was a jazz trio: a guitarist, a double bass player, and an American singer. They were accomplished and professional, but didn’t exude any sense of joy. There were short jazz solos by each of the musicians, and a final ‘thank you for listening’. It was past eleven at night and the bar was almost empty. The Italians had gone.

It was time to go. I finished my beer, stood up, and saw Cath walking towards the stage area, which was close to where I was sitting. ‘It’s great to have you here! Do come back!’ said Cath, giving me a quick goodbye hug.

It seemed that I had stumbled across fragments of a ‘scene’; one those many places where musicians go to get some ‘stage time’. Despite my grumpiness about some of the acts, and the fact that hardly anyone from Cath’s group turned up, it had been a good night.

When I rounded a corner to begin to retrace my walk across acres of marble, I bumped into Donna.

‘Let me give you my card’ said Donna, as we were saying goodbye. ‘It’s got a webpage that has got some information about my gigs on it’. I put Donna’s card in my wallet, found my way to reception and gently staggered into the cool London air. I had a train to catch.

Ninety one - 'After work' Sociable Freelancers

I looked around the Leicester Square station ticket hall.  It was packed; I was being jostled from every angle. I was starting to get anxious because of the sheer number of people surrounding me.  I emerged to the surface just around the corner from the Hippodrome. I looked at my map. My heart sank as I realised I needed to do battle with the city crowds: I needed to walk through the busiest part of Leicester Square to get to Piccadilly Circus. My destination was a pub called The Warwick.

The Warwick turned out to be less of a pub, and more of a fancy bar. Everything inside was gleaming, modern and clean. It’s expensive and trendy interior immediately made me feel uncomfortable. Plus, it was packed. Punters stood at the bar, awaiting their turn to be served with an after work Friday evening drink. After studying the geography of its interior, I decided to do a circuit, to see if I could see anyone. A minute later, I saw a sign on an empty table that read ‘Paul 5.00pm’ and a forlorn-looking chap who was nursing an empty glass.

‘Paul?’

‘Yes! Hello! Sit down!’

Paul was really pleased to see me. I was the first one there. ‘Thanks for coming! What’s your name?’ Paul had been at the table for around an hour and was thoroughly bored. He regaled me with stories about how he had to battle to keep the table from various random drinkers, insisting that ‘people’ would turn up any minute.

‘What do you want to drink? I’ll buy you a drink. I need to get myself one, but I don’t want to leave the table since it will get nabbed. Can you stay here?’ I puzzled over different choices of beer for a moment before settling on a local brew.

‘Excuse me, are you Paul?’ asked a voice. I turned around. It was someone called Jane, who was also a member of the group. Jane, who was already furnished with a libation, sat down. Jane was in her thirties and immaculately dressed. We started to chat about London, the busyness of the surrounding streets and whether this was ‘our first time’.

‘Hello! Welcome welcome! Thanks for coming!’ enthused Paul, returning with the drinks. ‘So, tell me, what do you guys do?’

I explained that I worked at a university, and Jane explained that she had recently set up her own internet business selling party goods.  Paul had a couple of different jobs: he was part time motivational speaker, and part-time human resources lawyer. Something struck me about Paul: he was an extrovert; a glowing beacon on energy. He flicked the conversations between both myself and Jane, deftly changing topics.

‘Can you tell I’ve had Botox?’ he asked, moments after we all got caught up into a discussion about how old we all were.

‘Botox?’ asked Jane, who appeared to be mildly dumbfounded.

‘Yes, just up here’ replied Paul, stroking his forehead. ‘It’s very subtle, isn’t it? Actually, it hasn’t had too much of an effect. I think it would make more of an impact if you were really wrinkled.’

A new member appeared: Sarah, who was carrying a glass of white wine. Sarah it seemed, was a teacher at a private school that offered specialist support for teenagers who had been excluded from mainstream schools.

‘So, you and him, you’re not freelancers?’ said Paul, pointing in my direction. ‘You both have proper jobs? You and you. Go on, GET OUT!  Leave the group, GO!’ Paul joked, poking his thumb towards the exit.

Two more people arrived. There was Simon, who was a freelance book keeper who was in his fifties, and Lisa, who was an actor and playwright. Lisa also ran courses to train corporate executives how to communicate. With each new person arriving, the configuration of the seating changed.

‘So, tell me more about what you do…’ asked Paul.

‘You could call me a computer scientist, I guess.’

‘I bet you’re a real brainbox, am I right? Do you do coding?  It’s all about coding these days isn’t it?  Can you code?’

I replied saying that I could do coding. ‘My job is half academic and half management, which means, I manage some tutors who teach computing.’  I thought I had better change the topic away from computers. ‘Your job must be pretty interesting, I mean, I’ve come round to the view that HR is pretty tough’.

‘It is! It can be very tough; it’s all about emotional intelligence and connection. It’s about understanding different perspectives. I see things from both sides, from the view of the businesses and from the view of the employee.  It is interesting... In my experience, technical people make terrible managers.’

We chatted about different groups. By then, I had exposed my quest, and Paul was enthusiastically telling everyone that I had been to an ‘orgasm group’. Everyone, it seemed, had heard about Ken’s Events. Jane told everyone about the ‘Fill my weekend’ group, the group where I had done some sketching at the National Portrait Gallery, and Lisa told us about a dating group that hosted an event in The Shard, London’s tallest sky scraper. The organiser, it seemed, had been refused entry because he was too scruffy.

‘So, are you in a relationship, or single?’ asked Paul, without any hint of discretion. ‘Hey! We’re all single! That’s great! Isn’t that great!’

Paul, however, wasn’t single. ‘My partner is an architect; he’s technical. Very technical’, taking another swig from his beer.

It struck me that there was some serious drinking going on.  Paul had nearly finished his third bottle of Budweiser, and the others had been making impressive progress through numerous glasses of wine.  I also realised that that it was Paul’s inaugural Meetup. He had set up the group after going to a similar group that was located in a town close to where he lived. After two months of prevaricating and procrastinating, and over ninety members signing up, he decided it was time to run his first event.

The aim of his group wasn’t to help with networking, but just to have some fun nights out, to give freelancers and home workers the opportunity to let off steam.  It sounded like a good idea. Paul was a perfect host.  He was extraverted, bubbly, charming, and self-deprecating.

Ninety - London Chinese Medicine Meetup

I arrived at my destination: a distinctive red-brick Victorian building; a church that had been converted into a nursery and West Hampstead Community Centre. My eye caught ornate brick work, lead-lined windows and a simple gable. I walked up a couple of steps towards a handmade sign that said ‘welcome’.

The door was locked. I pushed a button on an entry phone and the door immediately buzzed open. I climbed a series of staircases to what appeared to be a reception area where a couple of people were milling around. Cheerful music blared from a big attic room. I stepped towards the hall and peered through the window. A musical theatre class, populated by around six young girls, all aged between seven and ten, was coming to an end.

‘You can go and sit down in there’ gestured one of the people who were milling around in the corridor, suggesting I went to the community centre office. Two people sat at a round meeting table. I went to join them. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, I introduced myself. My two new friends were called Frances and Maya.

‘So, what’s your interest in Chinese medicine? Are you interested in more the herbal side, or are you interested in Acupressure?’ asked Frances.

I told Frances that I had no real interest in Chinese Medicine, but I was happy to find out more. The real truth, however, was that I was profoundly sceptical. I realised that my main reason for scepticism was due to ignorance and the fact that I’m a great believer in western medicine, controlled empiricism and the power of scientific method. I was also mindful that endangered species were being hunted to the brink of extinction all to feed a demand for products that find their way into Chinese medicine.

The event had the title: Chinese Medicine Film Screening and Talk - 'Iron Monkey'. After about ten minutes of chatting, the theatre school had finished and it was time to move into the main attic room. I said hello to our organiser, Alex, and went to sit down on a rickety chair that had been placed towards the front of the room.

I was expecting our organiser to be Chinese. Instead Alex was, like me, very British. I looked around: there were about ten people. I sat next to a woman called Jenna, and to my right there was a chap who used to live in Hong Kong and a British chap called Peter. Behind me sat a Frenchman called Fabrice.

‘Have you seen any Hong Kong films before?’ asked Stephen, who also used to live in Hong Kong. I told him that I hadn’t.

‘They’re very different to Hollywood movies’.

Alex handed out nuts and dried fruit in bowls, and made us a big pot of Chinese tea. After a short battle with technology, he turned on a ceiling mounted projector, pulled down a white screen and opened up a PowerPoint. It was time for a talk.

We were going to see a Kung-Fu movie. I had never seen a Kung-Fu movie before. Alex told us about the Qing dynasty and talked about competing western spheres of influence. This led to a brief diversion into the opium wars between China and the British Empire.

To add context to the film, Alex also talked about hair styles, religion, a Kung-Fu style called Hung Ga and a place called the Shaolin Temple. Apparently Iron Monkey, the main protagonist, was a folk hero called Wong Fei-hung. Wong Fei-hung was not only a Kung-Fu expert, but also a Chinese doctor. Alex explained that the connection between Kung-Fu and Chinese medicine is pretty obvious: you can easily get hurt when you practice Kung-Fu.

Alex explained that ‘Iron Monkey’ was one of many different popular films in which the Wong Fei-hung character featured. There connections to Chinese culture too, such as the tensions between north and south (and different dynasties), and to Chinese Triad gangs. Other than the obvious link to organised crime, we were told of a Triad narrative that relates to ‘up holding and protecting traditional values’. Everything, it seemed, was richly connected. Alex’s talk didn’t feel like an informal talk, but an impressive academic lecture. My overriding question was: how did he get to know all this stuff?

It was time for the film. Lights were turned off and English subtitles were turned on. I settled down with my tea, fruit and nuts, and started to watch the story unfold. In the day time our lead protagonist, Iron Monkey was a doctor. At night, he became Iron Monkey, super-hero warrior who took from rich corrupt government officials and gave money to the disadvantaged poor. It was a familiar story: it was a cross between Spiderman and Robin Hood.

Early on in the story, Iron Monkey bumped into a stranger who was very skilled in the art of Kung-Fu. The other character had a son, who was also learning the art of fighting. Very soon, there were spectacular fight scenes: two swords being used at the same time, an amazing sequence with a set of nunchucks, and a couple of sequences with a very big stick. The characters jumped and span in mid-air. They dived and wrecked buildings. Armies of government officials were laid to waste, leaving the ‘governor’ to express outrage and exert strict penalties on his populace.

There was other stuff going on: there were monks, illness, a case of mistaken identity, and a young attractive nurse who was clearly Iron Monkey’s love interest. Iron Monkey was in trouble when a government inspector arrived. This inspector was not only skilled at Kung-Fu, he also seemed to have magic sleeves. It took both Iron Monkey and new ‘Kung-Fu expert friend’ to defeat the inspector in a grand finale that was doused with fire and fast fighting.

Everyone fought: women fought with other women, the young son, who fought off a whole array of mean looking bad guys, also got a good drubbing. Iron Monkey got into trouble too, but thanks to Chinese medicine, he was able to quickly recover from the effects of ‘King Kong palm’. It was a fun, highly choreographed, tightly plotted watchable film. There was drama, comedy and, arguably, dance.

‘Anyone want to go out and eat?’ asked Alex, as he turned off the projector.

After stacking chairs, emptying bowls, and washing mugs, we made our way to West Hampstead. Our destination was a Vietnamese noodle bar. As we walked, I chatted to Alex. His group had around three hundred members.

‘I’ll be totally honest: the Meetup is connected to a business I want to set up. I qualified in Chinese medicine and wanted to create something and I realised that Meetup provided all the infrastructure I needed. I’m thinking of the group as a way to network and building a community with other Chinese medicine practitioners’.

I confessed to knowing nothing about Chinese medicine. Alex explained that there were a number of disciplines: acupressure (which uses the same points as acupuncture), herbal medicine, massage, exercise and nutrition. He was, apparently, qualified in acupressure.

When we got to the noodle bar and sat down, I was finally able to ask him the question that I was dying to ask: ‘how did you get into Chinese medicine?’

‘I used to live in Taiwan where I used to study Chinese. When I was there I supported myself by teaching English as a second language. I met a Chinese doctor who really inspired me. I got really interested, and I asked whether he could teach me. He said before he would teach me, I would have to learn the basics, so, when I returned to London, I studied Chinese Medicine at the University of Westminster. This was my second degree. I then went onto study a postgraduate course in Acupressure’.

As we ate, he talked about the history of traditional Chinese medicine, how it dates back thousands of years, and about how some key medical texts were discovered in a tomb. Alex also addressed something that was bugging me. The preparations that he dealt with were always herbal. ‘No practitioner’, he said, ‘would use materials from endangered species’ lowering his voice slightly to emphasise the point.

I liked really Alex. I enjoyed his company and I was impressed how he seemed to straddle two different cultures and how he shared his experiences with others. He did it in a warm friendly way with infectious confidence.

Eighty nine – London Chess Club

I ‘banked’ the London Chess Club some time ago for the simple reason that I couldn’t play chess. My plan was simple: download a bunch of tutorial apps for my tablet computer and watch a couple of YouTube videos.

The thing is: it never happened. I never managed to find the time; there was always something more important to do, like hoovering, cleaning the bathroom or watching nonsense on television. It was clear that I didn’t have the enthusiasm or determination to prepare: I just needed to go. I looked through the Meetup calendar, and chose the next available meeting.

I arrived at the Elephant and Castle Tube station and quickly got my bearings. I walked past the aging sixties shopping centre which was once a symbol of forward looking modernity and caught a glimpse of a modernist residential complex. A few streets away there was a lot of building activity; the area had changed since I had started my quest. New modern tower blocks, clad in brown coloured panels, were slowly growing from a temporary waste land. As I walked towards a road junction, I passed a church known as the Modern Tabernacle. Its neo-classical appearance was as striking as it was familiar.

In the distance, I could see my destination: a small shopping centre that was located beneath a brutalist residential block. I crossed a road, and walked inside, eagerly looking around for any hints of chess related activities. I saw two chess boards set up on a couple of tables towards the back of the centre. There were around five people; two of them engrossed in a game. I walked over to the group, said hello, smiled, and sat down.

On the morning of the Meetup, I bumped into a colleague on a train; we were both heading to our ‘head office’. I asked him whether he could play chess. It turned out he could, and he just happened to have a chess app on his phone.

‘Okay, I’ll take you through the different pieces. Those ones, called the pawns, can only go forward. Here’s the rooks, the ones in the corners; they can go horizontally and vertically. You see that one? That’s the bishop: he can go only in diagonals. That one is the knight. That’s the most curious one since it can move in an L-shape - you’ll see what I mean in a minute’ I roughly knew what the pieces were called, but I had never been exposed to such a direct explanation of how they moved. After telling me about the role of the king and the queen, my colleague confessed to being a former ‘chess geek’.

‘Okay, here’s a typical opening move – the pawn goes forward two steps, and then it’s the computer’s go. Ah, I see what it’s done. Now, I’m going to move this piece to here - and then it does this. You see?’ What followed was an utterly baffling narrative of a game. I didn’t follow a word of it. I was hoping that aspects of his enthusiastic narrative would suddenly become clear, but it didn’t: I was enveloped in a mist of confusion. Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at our destination and my fifteen minute chess lesson was done. I felt non-the-wiser. In fact, I felt worried.

‘Would you like a game?’ asked a young man who had moved to sit down opposite me.

‘Oh, I’m not very good…’ I said, instinctively and immediately explaining my chess ineptitude.

‘Neither am I. I’m very rusty. You’ll be probably be better than me’.

Aware that we had entered a game of mutual apologies about our collective competence, I played my trump card: ‘I, er, should say that I’ve never played a game’.

My first ever chess opponent was called Alessio. Alessio was an Italian from Sardinia. He was in his early twenties, and was a goth. He wasn’t one of these pretend goths who had a practical hair-cut, a pair of jeans, some Doc Marten boots and a t-shirt advertising a band you’ve never heard of; Alessio was a proper goth. He was the type of goth that had long black hair, black clothing, and wore a surprising amount of eye liner.

‘Do you know how to set the board up? Can you talk me through the moves that they make?’ I asked, suddenly becoming distracted by how nice his eyes were. Alessio agreed. He set up the board, and showed me how the pieces moved. There was something satisfying with the physical action of moving the knight and the king between different squares. After ten minutes of messing around, it was time for my first ever game.

I picked up my white pawn and moved it two steps forward, replicating a move that I had seen on my colleague’s mobile phone a few hours earlier. Alessio stared at the board for a couple of seconds before he moved one of his pawns. I had no idea about the significance of this move, so I moved another pawn. Gradually, the game opened up. Alessio explained to me about the power of different pieces, the rules when one piece can ‘eat’ another piece, and how you need to move your king if you are placed ‘in check’.

As we played, I learnt a bit more about Alessio. He had been in London for a year, and this was his first time at the chess Meetup group. He lived not too far away in Peckham, and was trying to move into the ‘social care’ sector. He had studied in Italy, and was trying to ‘find his feet’ in London.

I started to get a feeling for the game. I looked at the board and began to see different moves; I could see their effect and their consequences. I gathered echoes of understanding about what it meant to play defensively; I could see the role of the pawns, and I was introduced to the idea of a deliberate sacrifice. I began to see the attraction of Chess.

In my ignorance, I kept making terrible moves. Alessio was kind enough to highlight my terrible mistakes, occasionally asking me whether I really wanted to move my queen to a certain square. I insisted that my ‘bad moves’ should stand, since it was the only way that I would learn. Suddenly, he had my king in check. I moved it about into any old square, my eyes rapidly searching the unfamiliar board, wondering what to do, whilst trying to remember the various rules about the different pieces, searching ahead for different knock-on effects.

I realised that I didn’t have a chess history; I didn’t have knowledge of earlier games to draw upon. I was, in effect, shooting in the dark, my force was blundering about, taking pieces whenever it could. My knight moved randomly around the board and I copied Alessio’s bishop movements, trying to remember what piece did what. The only strategy I was applying was one of survival.

‘You’ve won’.

‘What?’

‘You’ve won! Look. Here’s my king. I can’t move anywhere. You’ve blocked me in. It’s checkmate. You’ve won’.

I was pretty sure that Alessio let me win. Or, alternatively, I had blundered my way across the board and had inadvertently stumbled across a lucky configuration of pieces. I was pleased. I was also relieved that my first game was over.

Ten minutes later, Alessio decided to head off home. I shook his hand and thanked him for the game. It had been good fun; he had been a great teacher. When he had gone, I turned my attention to the other members of the group.

Everyone else was Colombian. A chap called Josh, who was wearing a high visibility jacket, was playing a game with Alberto. I tried to concentrate, to try to understand the board, but by the time I began to understand the relationships between some of the pieces a new move was made, changing the configuration of the board. Josh and Alberto chatted in Spanish. As they talked, I watched their body language and tried to figure out who was winning. I got up and walked to the café bar, which was being intermittently serviced by a range of different workers. It seemed to serve a combination of breakfasts, some South American specialities, and beers. I opted for a Colombian beer.

By the time I returned from the bar, Alberto had won. Josh asked me whether I wanted a game. I agreed. I set up the board, putting some of the pieces in different places, and made the first moves. Josh was an aggressive player; his big hitting pieces started to move forward. I had no idea how to respond to the threat. I made a move. Josh smiled and shook his head.

‘If you move there the king will be in check’ Josh said. He pointed towards the board, illustrating my clearly ridiculous move. He was right. He suggested that I moved my bishop so I could respond to his attack. I thought it was a very good idea, so I accepted his suggestion.

In a period of about ten minutes Josh had attacked my bishop, knight and queen.

‘You’re in trouble, man’ said Josh, smiling at his success and my incompetence. I could do nothing other than to move my king about, putting off its inevitable capture for as long as I could.  My king was surrounded. The game was over. It had been a brutal match. I reached over and shook his hand.

‘Come on Friday. There is a tournament.’

‘A tournament? It’s every Friday?’

‘Yes, every Friday. Tomorrow. Come and play!’

I finished my beer and looked around. The other game was coming to an end. Josh walked towards the back of the shopping centre towards a bicycle that had been parked up against a wall. He put his helmet on, zipped up his high visibility clothing, chatted to some of his friends, and then wheeled it out of the shopping centre. It was time to go home. I picked up my bag and put on my baseball cap.

‘Come back any time’ said the Colombian manager, as I walked past the counter where I had bought my beer. ‘Thank you!’ I replied. Moments later, I was on the street, walking past the Modern Tabernacle and a street preacher who was shouting about the love of Jesus. I rounded a corner to a bus stop that I guessed would take me to Lewisham.