Eighty eight – London Piano Events

My destination was West Dulwich. I was going to the ‘Grand Passion Pianos Adult Amateur Pianists' Competition’. I had never been to a piano competition before.

I imagined a dusty weather worn community centre; a neglected building that was crying out for a lick of paint. Inside, there would be a children’s art exhibit that had was at least three years old; I would see extraordinarily poor colouring, cut-out pictures of Jesus and a weird drawing of a car. In the hall, there would be rows of uncomfortable orange plastic seats, empty except for four people, and an unloved solitary badly tuned upright piano.

In this imagined scene, I would be greeted by an elderly woman who would charge me two pounds, and encourage me to buy a scone and a mug of milky tea.

‘What’s your name? Do you want to play?’ she would ask. I would smile and shake my head, and explain that I couldn’t play the piano. Her brow would furrow, and I would take my cup of tea and scone to the second row, and sit down. Myself and the four other people would then listen to an elderly gentleman called George try to play a tune from the musical ‘Cats’.

My phone told me that I needed to go to Kentish Town, catch a train to Tulse Hill and then walk for ten minutes to my destination: a church. As soon as I left Tulse Hill train station, I recognised where I was: I was walking along the route I took to hear about socialism and Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. I turned around: Tulse Hill station was hidden down a side street; this would explain why I hadn’t seen it before.

The church was a surprise. It appeared to be a modern structure: it presented curving columns of stone. Behind the columns was a reception area, which also curved towards the rear of the building, moving towards an older structure. It was constructed from traditional brick, and modern glass and steel. It was unlike any community church I had ever seen.

I gingerly pushed the door open and stepped into the reception area. A chap, who I later found out was called Naz, came to greet me. Rather than hearing dumbed down show tunes, I was hearing the exquisite harmonies of Liszt. Rapid notes echoed around the reception area. To my left, I saw a table. On the side were some pens and the Pianist magazine.

I paced around the reception hall, charmed by the music, and caught sight of another visitor; a young man, in his early twenties. He was sitting on a black chair, peering through a pane of glass, looking out at the performance area. I noticed that he was wearing a smart white shirt, black shoes, and a pair of black trousers. I suddenly realised he was a competitor: he was moving his fingers but not in time to the music; he was practising, working through his music without a piano.

When the Liszt piece ended Naz led me into the church. I sat down next to the Meetup organiser, Fran, who was running the competition. Silence descended. The next competitor, Alan, was called. Alan walked to the front of the church, adjusted his seat, and sat down in front of a huge black grand piano. Fran gave me a programme. It told me that he was going to play three pieces: one by D Scarlatti, another by Liszt and a final piece by Debussy. He played the pieces with unfathomable precision, leaving rapid notes resonating in the air of the church.

‘Alan has got this in the bag; he’s won’ I thought.

At the end of the piece, Alan returned to his seat. I glanced towards him, wanting to learn something more about the man behind the playing. He was in his mid-forties, and was wearing a smart black shirt and trousers. He had an expression that suggested that he was at peace with himself, suggesting that he felt he had done well.

Next up was Michael. If you were to imagine what an expert pianist would look like, Michael would be it. Impeccably dressed, impressive hair, and wearing some bold round plastic spectacles. Michael played Beethoven, Liszt and an impossibly complicated piece by Rachmaninov. To my untrained ear, I couldn’t tell the difference between the two performers: they were both brilliant.

Claudia, one of the two women in the competition, also chose Liszt (who was rapidly becoming a ‘piano competition favourite’), and an interesting piece by Australian composer Percy Grainger. Next up was Marcus, the pianist who was playing an invisible piano in the reception area; he was itching to get going, and had to be gently verbally restrained by Fran.

Marcus played a combination of Scarlatti and Beethoven. I had changed my mind: I was now convinced that he was the winner. The final performer was called Sepi, a young woman who was wearing an elegant blue dress. She played Chopin (who I can listen to endlessly), Scriabin (who I had never heard of), and Ravel.

Before the judging began in earnest, there was a short introduction by a sponsor of the event: a widow of a former Professor of Piano from the Trinity College of Music. It was time for time for the judging. Fran called upon the services of a famous concert pianist who confidently walked to the front. He offered some general comments: he commended the quality of all the performances and the choices of the pieces.

‘Some of you picked up on this; it’s important to take account of the acoustics of the space where you’re performing. This space has great acoustics and is perfect for this kind of event. It’s very different to, say a smaller room’. I had no idea what he was talking about. ‘In a room like this you should use half the amount of pedal that you usually need to. One thing you need to remember is that the pedal doesn’t hide anything; it just makes any mistake worse’. Michael, who was sitting quite close by smiled and nodded at this reflection.

‘For those who were reciting pieces, do take the time to go over the scores afterwards. Even though you might think you’ve remembered everything, there are always things that you might forget; it’s important to pay close attention to the annotation on scores, so you can see how Beethoven, for example, intended a piece to be played’.

After congratulating all performers for a second time, it was time for the judgement. Claudia came third. Michael got a prestigious second place, and David (‘without a doubt’) was the champion.  David was first up in the competition and I had, unfortunately, missed his performance. The programme, however, told me that he played an impressive combination of Chopin, Debussy and Rachmaninov. Everyone gave David a round of applause, and he collected a huge trophy, which he was delighted to receive. Michael seemed to be pleased with his second place. Marcus (who I believed would win), appeared to be relatively composed.

Over a period of ten minutes, the church hall gradually emptied. I edged over towards the judging table to chat with Fran and Lorraine. I asked them about their group.

‘We took it over from someone else; a pianist who created a group to run events where they would perform to an audience. Our group now has a different focus: we run different kind of events for people who are interested in getting together and playing’ explained Lorraine.

London Piano Events was a relatively small group, attracting over two hundred ‘pianists and piano fans’. Fran, who plays the harpsichord, told me that he had been playing for over thirty years, and was now a teacher. The group page had the title ‘networking for pianists’.  Two events seemed to be happening per month. These ranged from other performances, through to keyboard workshops for piano teachers.

I didn’t know what to say to the pianists other than the banal phrase: ‘that was great!’ As I found my way to the street, I caught up with Claudia and congratulated her on her performance; she seemed to be genuinely overwhelmed by the whole experience.

It was time to go home. As I walked towards a nearby bus stop I also felt that I had also been overwhelmed; by the quality and authenticity of the competition. I also couldn’t believe I had heard all those astonishing performances and hadn’t paid a penny.

Eighty seven – Executives and Entrepreneurs Making Better Decisions

I needed to head east, towards Farringdon, and then onto the Old Smithfield Market. I remembered my walk along the route of the River Fleet and became faintly aware that I was tracing the topography of its invisible valley. The streets surrounding Farringdon were busy; the pub where I went to the ‘an attractive man’ Meetup was packed. I passed the spacious Farringdon station, and after following a slight upward incline, I saw the old market place.

Ten minutes later, I had found my destination: a small meeting room that contained a square table. There were three people. The organiser of the group, Andrea, was clutching a set of marker pens. Andrea’s event had the title: ‘Increase sales by understanding your customers' buying decisions’. The event was about the psychology of buying, the criteria and priorities that can affect consumer choice, how to adjust your marketing to increase sales, and how to resist impulse purchases by being aware of the advertising strategies that businesses use.

‘So, why are you here?’ asked Andrea, beginning the introductions. This was the perfect opportunity to offer an explanation. ‘This is number eighty seven? Out of, what did you say, one hundred?’  Andrea started to laugh. After a bit more explanation, I then went onto say that I had once studied aspects of psychology as a student and was willing to participate in all the discussions and activities.

The other two members of the group were called Amy, who worked ‘in digital sales’ for a financial company, and Terri, who worked in a bank.

Andrea began by asking us about our buying habits: the extent to which we purchased goods on-line versus in stores. We all shared opinions, stories and anecdotes: that online retailer Amazon allegedly changed its prices depending on the customer and where they lived. Apparently we’re more likely to spend more money if prices are given without a pound or dollar sign. Banks, apparently, advertise more home improvement loans during Easter.

We started to talk about wine. If you go to a supermarket and you hear French music, you’re more likely to buy French wine. Also, shops encourage you to spend more money by placing expensive bottles of wine next to ludicrously expensive bottles, to make the expensive bottles look cheap. We also ranted about the fact that supermarkets always move things around and pretend that they’re selling things on ‘special offer’ when in reality, it’s all one big marketing scam.

A man walked into our meeting room.

‘Is this the… seminar?’ he asked. Andrea said it was. ‘What time did it start?’ There was then a short confusing interchange about whether he was half an hour late, or whether there was just half an hour to go. He squeezed past Terri and sat down.

The man, who was in his mid-forties, was skinny and scruffily dressed. His grey striped shirt was creased; its collar sticking out. I looked at his receding wild hair, and noticed that he was sweating profusely. He had a dour yet ambiguous expression: his eyes conveyed a hint of nervousness. I looked at his hands, which were sat on our shared desk. When he moved them to his face, I noticed a slight tremor. There was no hint of friendliness or engagement. Our new visitor didn’t look anyone in the eye, and nor did he introduce himself when our conversation arrived at a natural lull. In that small room, we had all become strangers. The atmosphere had moved from being jolly and friendly to one that was serious and business like.

Andrea moved to a new page on her flip chart, which contained a list of ‘cognitive biases’, or habits of thought that marketeers exploit. We were introduced to the bandwagon effect (where we copy other people), confirmation bias (where we look for information to confirm that we’ve made the right decision), and the endowment effect (if you already have something, you’re loath to give it up). Andrea then went onto explain the concepts of framing (the importance of a setting, or environment), anchoring (an initial figure becomes important during a negotiation), and the availability heuristic (the fact that we use what information is available to us).

Andrea was a great facilitator: we all chatted about these terms, offering examples to each other to develop our understanding. She drew on each of our contributions, and steered a path between different terms, definitions and examples. Everyone contributed, except for the man, who nervously looked around the room.

At the end of the class, I had an opportunity to chat with Andrea. Her group was about a year old, and had approximately four hundred members. Her events run, roughly, every month or so. Her main job was as a trainer. I suddenly understood the purpose of her group: it was an opportunity for her to try out new ideas, activities and concepts. In return, she could also have chats and discussions with people who were interested in the same issues. This was an example of what could be called the sharing economy: Meetup members have the opportunity to learn through a free seminar, and Andrea has an opportunity to explore and develop her ideas. It was a great idea. Everyone wins.

It was time to go. Amy and Terri had stood up.

‘I can send you these references by email, if you want’ said Andrea, turning to the group.
‘You have my email address?’ asked the man.

‘No. If you write your email address down here, I’ll then send the references to you’.

‘If you don’t have my email address then there’s no point’ replied the man, curtly. Silence hung heavily in the room for a few moments. I broke the tension by asking Andrea where the bathroom was, and we all made our way onto the corridor.

Minutes later, I was back on Poultry Avenue, peering into my phone, asking it a question about how to get home. Suddenly I heard a clear determined voice: ‘let’s go!’ I looked up. Amy and Terri had rushed past me. It had been Amy’s voice. I glanced in the direction of where they were heading. It struck me that they were just not walking: they were marching. I then saw the man. My instincts told me that the whole situation was wrong, very wrong: he seemed to be following them.

‘I don’t think you should follow them’, I called out to the man. He turned his head towards me for an instant, and then ignored me, setting off in the direction of the women. I put my phone away. My instinct said that I should follow him, to see what he would do, to keep an eye on him. My instinct said that I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing.

The women turned left at the end of the street, and the man did too. They crossed a road, and he did too. He turned around. He looked straight at me, pausing for a moment, before continuing. Seconds later, I sensed that the situation was changing: the two women were clearly walking a lot faster than the man was. He got suddenly got caught up in a crowd of people outside a pub, which created even more distance between them. His gait slowed. He wasn’t following them anymore. I stopped walking.

Eighty six – The Post-Apocalyptic Book Club

‘Is this the Meetup?’ I asked, moments after fighting with a set of curtains to enter a part of the pub that was set aside for a private party.

‘The Deviant Robot Meetup, yes’ replied a man in his mid-twenties, who was holding a piece of paper that contained a list of names.

‘Is this the book club?’

‘No, this isn’t a book club. We mostly play card games’.

The Deviant Robot Meetup turned out to be a group for geeks. I later found out that it was described as a group for anyone ‘interested in video games, movies, comic books and general geek culture’. This was my kind of group and these were my kind of people! I had never realised that a ‘geek culture’ and video games group existed.

Unfortunately I wasn’t there to talk about video games or comics, or play some weird card game; I was there for a book club to discuss a book I had never read. I explained that I was looking for a different group, thanked the nice man for his time, and went off to explore the pub.

I soon noticed a sign towards a second function room. I climbed a flight of stairs and entered a room. Fourteen people stopped talking and immediately looked at me.

‘Is this the, erm, book club?’ I asked hesitantly, suprised that it looked like there were two Meetups happening at the same pub at the same time.

‘Yes! Welcome. We’re just about to start. What’s your name? My name is Leila.’ Leila was an attractive woman in her mid to late twenties who had died red hair. She wore smart black plastic rimmed glasses, which made her look somewhat studious. Her outfit conveyed an essence of friendly authority.

‘I’ll let you into a secret…’ I whispered, loudly enough so everyone in the room could clearly hear me. ‘I’ve not read the book. Is that okay?’ Leila chuckled.

The book was called The Running Man, by Richard Bachman, who is also known as horror writer Stephen King. I’ve read a number of Stephen King novels: I enjoyed his first book, Carrie, liked the one called Misery where the lead writer was tortured by a crazed fan, but thought The Tommyknockers and Christine were both nonsense.

‘Yeah, that’s fine’ replied Leila, ‘just think of it as being a bit like the film’.

I wandered over to a free seat that was at the other end of a huge table, without confessing that I hadn’t seen the film either.

Leila opened up the discussions.

‘I really loved it!’ proclaimed the first reader. It quickly turned out that this was a view that was thoroughly at odds with everyone else. Other readers had an opportunity to share their perspectives; I quickly learnt that the lead character was thoroughly unlikeable and particularly stupid. There was also talk about the ridiculousness of his intestines flailing around outside of his body. At one point he was apparently disguised as a catholic priest.

Having read the Wikipedia synopsis of the book, I made a meagre contribution, saying that I had heard that the book was written over a period of ‘a week’; other members of the group confirmed this, reducing the writing time to an improbable ‘three days’.

It was soon time for the first drinks break. I chatted to Catherine, who was sitting on my left. She had been a member of the group for two to three years and was a regular, and had come to the group straight after work. Alan was sitting on my right. Alan lived in the area and so didn’t have time to read on a regular commute. ‘I decided to read more. The thing is, I need a deadline, as otherwise I’ll just start a book, read about a third of the way through, and then start another book. A week before this meeting I read and read and read!’

After burgers were ordered, and pints were pulled, we all reconvened to continue our chatter. The conversations meandered around the lead character, the secondary characters, and the differences between the book and the film. The overall premise was pretty simple: the main character competes in a game show where he has to escape ‘hunters’; the longer he stays alive, the more money he wins to support his wife who has turned to prostitution, and to buy drugs for his ill daughter.

In the book, everyone dies. The film, however, has a happy ending; our lead protagonist survives. ‘It’s ridiculous, but it’s a good sort of ridiculous.’ said one reader. ‘It had exploding head bracelets!’ A consensus was quick to emerge: the film was clearly a lot better.

‘I was thinking about how to improve the book’ added another reader after a period of general discussion. ‘If you made one part better, it would show up the rest of the book as being terrible’.

After the second break it was time to ‘score’ the book out of ten.

‘I enjoyed it… but as a romp, and I don’t usually like romps’ said Phil, who was sitting at the front of the room. ‘It’s not one of his best’ came one view followed by the opinion that ‘it’s a pretty bland dystopia’. ‘He can’t write women to save his life!’ was another damning perspective. My favourite comment was one that considered several aspects: ‘it has poor description, poor characterisation, and it’s one of those books that inspires other people to do better things’. The combined score was a mediocre five and a half out of ten.

Unexpectedly, the conversation moved to an entirely different topic. Five members of the group shared stories about their visit to the ‘bee talk’ at Conway Hall, attracted by the idea of a talk about a ‘bee-induced global apocalypse‘.

‘I was there too!’ I exclaimed.

The members turned to look at me, wearing expressions of bemusement.

The meeting closed with a set of announcements. There were some free books that members could get a copy of, and there were some writers who were going to come down and give some talks.  The group wasn’t just a book club; it was a group interested in science fiction, literary events and the death of humanity. It also struck me that it was a group about philosophy, beer and fun.

At the end of the Meetup I chatted with Leila for a couple of minutes. She had started the group six years ago after discovering that a couple of her friends were reading a book called The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a book that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She set up the group ‘as a bit of joke’ but soon discovered that it became popular, attracting over one thousand members.

I later read that ‘post-apocalyptic literature’ was a well-established branch of science fiction. As a teen, I had been into this stuff, but I had never realised there was a label that had been attached to it. I had devoured the dystopias of Orwell and Huxley, and had been terrified by the science fiction of Wyndham, and had discovered intriguing futures that were depicted in cyberpunk novels. Through Leila’s group, I inadvertently discovered that a fleeting and slightly weird interest was alive and well.

Eighty five – Pottery and Ceramics

I said goodbye to Mary at Waterloo station; I was going to the next event on my own. From Waterloo, I caught a bus to New Cross; I was heading to a place called Burgess Park. The moment I got off the bus, I knew where I was. I was on a part of my regular scooter commute from Lewisham to Camden. I crossed the ever busy Old Kent Road, and quickly found a footpath, and discovered a delightful wide, green open space.

I’ve heard it said that London has more parks and green spaces than any other city of its kind. I have no idea whether this is true or not, but I’ve come to appreciate these green havens; these spaces away from the constant chug of taxi engines and whine of buses. Each park seems to have its own character. The park that is close to my house is small and compact; it feels quiet and homely. Primrose Hill, where I went ‘dance walking’ is rich, spectacular and busy. Richmond Park, with its deer, criss-crossing footpaths and hidden formal gardens is a rural idyll, filled with visitors energetically getting away from the city for a few moments of escapism. Burgess Park is different: it is a new park, and it has its own vibe.

I walked past a big lake. A group of men had set up a small camp of three small tents. Bicycles and expensive fishing rods sat on the shore; two of the men were drinking beer. A sign said that fishing was permitted; a surprising anomaly: I was used to signs forbidding activities rather than permitting them. Ducks and geese paddled on the shore, and a bird that I took to be a heron was standing on a man-made platform in the middle of the lake.

I stopped to take a photograph of a blue plaque that was attached to a fence: ‘the lake was built in 1982, featuring the world’s largest plastic sheet lining, 12 million gallons of water, 11 thousand fish and sailing dinghies for school children’. The plaque advertised a heritage trail and an organisation called ‘Friends of Burgess Park’.

In the distance, I saw a large group of people. Wondering what was going on, I walked towards the group and discovered that that the local authority had erected rows of permanent barbeques. The air was thick with the rich smell of charcoal and seared meat. I heard laughter; young children and teenagers with their families. I envied them; it looked fun.

After a few minutes of walking, I found myself at an old looking building that seemed to be some kind of conference centre. I later discovered that I had stumbled into an area called Chumleigh Gardens, and the building used to belong to an organisation called The Female Friendly Society. I wandered around the gardens, trying to find someone who might be a potter, but I didn’t have any luck.

I followed a path to what I thought was the furthest extent of the park, and walked onto the adjacent street. I found an impressive building that used to be a public baths, which had been converted into a boxing club, which was apparently one of the oldest in the country. A couple of questions rushed into my head: could I do boxing? What would it be like? Was I too old?

I went back to the park and found a passage under the road, and another plaque. This time, the plaque described something called the Surrey Canal. I walked through the passage to the other side and decided to turn back: I couldn’t see anything that hinted at art or pottery.

On my way back through the park, I found a map. After studying the index for a few minutes, I soon realised where I had to go. After a short diversion to look at an impressive BMX track, I walked towards an adventure playground, which took me close to Chumleigh Gardens. In the distance I could see some low-rise buildings. This was my destination: I had found ‘Art in the Park’

‘Are you Chris?’ asked Nam, as I walked through the main entrance of a rustic looking building. I found myself in a large room. Two potter’s wheels were in front of me. I could see a small area to the back of the building and a large table that could be used for meeting, discussions or workshop activities. There were shelves which stored paints, art supplies, and ceramic figures painted with bright colours.

Nam was the organiser of the Meetup and is one of the artists in residence at Art in the Park. His event was described as a ‘drop in ceramic classes’, and five people had signed up. I was the only one there. We chatted for a couple of minutes about how it would work, and what I would do. It turned out that I would have an opportunity to make a pot on a real potter’s wheel; something that I had never done before. Nam started the class by demonstrating.

‘You throw the clay in the centre like this, and then you use the heel of your hand to centre it, using your other hand for leverage, like this’. Nam added water. Within minutes he had tamed a mass of spinning clay. I drove the wheel. Nam gave me instructions to increase or lower the speed. ‘With these two fingers, you make a hole in the centre’. The mass changed its shape. ‘You can then start to move the clay with fingers from both hands, changing the pressure from both sides, to raise the height of the pot’. Gradually, a perfect cylinder emerged. Minutes later, he was done. He picked up a wire, and cut it in two, to highlight its structure: a firm base with more clay towards the bottom of the cylinder to give it strength.

Nam had studied ceramic design at Central Saint Martins and been the artist in residence for a couple of weeks. In exchange for free studio space, he had to run workshops, classes and outreach events for the local community.

‘Okay, it’s your go.’ Nam threw another piece of clay on the wheel, and I had a go to centre it. Nam helped. I made a hole in the middle, and expanded the clay outwards. Nam gave me direction about how to raise the sides of my pot, gently telling me when the clay was getting a bit too thin; I remembered his demonstration piece, where the base was thicker than the top. He was a great teacher; it didn’t break, it didn’t wobble, but it was nerve wracking. As I was working, Nam’s gran was in the kitchen, cooking. Nam offered me five gyoza dumplings for a pound.

I asked Nam more about his work as an artist. He told me that he regularly worked with other artists, and had recently held an exhibition where he had made ceramic replicas of a popular children’s toy. His main income was through commissioned pieces.

It was back to work: I decided that my cylinder was, perhaps unimaginatively, going to be a mug. I tried to roll a clay sausage between my hands, but it ended up being all lumpy. Nam had a back-up, so we used his. I tried to attach it to the delicate cylinder, but wasn’t making a good job of it. Nam finished it. I messed about with it, trying to smooth other some of the bumps and cracks, not really knowing what I was doing. He told me that it would be fired later that week, and I could come back and paint it if I wanted to. I was definitely going to come back. I wanted to use the mug. I wanted it to be a tangible souvenir of my quest.

It had been fun. It was new, different, and unexpected. It had been an afternoon of discovery. I had discovered a community project, an artistic discipline that I had never really thought about before, and a part of London I had never visited. After leaving Nam’s studio, I walked past an adventure playground, and traced my steps back, passing the fishermen who were drinking beer by the lake.

The Friends of Burgess Park website told me about its transformation from industrial landscape into a much needed space for leisure and relaxation. The development of the area first began with an area called Addington Square and construction of a shipping canal that ran to Rotherhithe. Availability of cheap transport led to the construction of factories, housing and pubs. I read of a factory that made gramophones and radios, a factory that made lemonade and ginger beer, and even a store for Norwegian ice.

During the First World War, the area was bombed by a Zeppelin that had been blown off course, whilst on its way to industrial Sheffield. A zeppelin had also dropped bombs on Camberwell, a story that I had heard on my CoolTan walk. More bombs fell during the Second World War; I saw a photograph of a shattered street; a tenement block made inhabitable. Changes in transportation led to changes in the area. Factories closed and the disused canal was drained. A once grand cinema, attacked by bombs and fire, was demolished. Due to the absence of workers, the once busy pubs were closed.

Following the Abercrombie Plan, a plan to rebuild London following the Second World War, local authorities started to buy parts of the area with the intention of creating a new post-industrial park. The park is named after Jessie Burgess, Camberwell’s first woman mayor, and was officially opened in 1982. When I was walking around, looking across the lake, dodging cyclists, and thinking of my time in the art studio, I knew nothing of this history. As far as I was concerned, Burgess Park had always been a park.

I found my way back to the Old Kent Road, and crossed to the other side. Cars, buses, and motorbikes whizzed past; I had returned to a familiar, busy, different urban environment. Gone was the rich tantalising smell of barbeque. Instead, it was replaced by the acrid odour of diesel fumes. A bus to Lewisham arrived. I got on the bus, climbed to the top deck, sat down, and thought about pottery and the park.

Eighty four – The Sounds of English

‘It’s another English class!’ I exclaimed.

‘What? What is it?’ asked Mary.

We were standing in the middle of Argyle Street, just around the corner from Oxford Circus station. I had opened the Meetup app the moment we had decided we were ready to ‘do a random’. I looked again at the Meetup description. The event had the title: ‘Two short vowels and the long vowels OO and AW’.

‘We can’t do this…’

I wasn’t happy. I started to wonder this group might fall under the ‘inappropriate Meetup rule’. I glanced at the next event on the calendar; some technical or IT event; eighty people had registered. Only six people had registered for ‘OO and AW’.

‘You’ve gotta do it.  That’s the rule. That’s your rule’, challenged Mary. She was right. We needed to do this event, if only to demonstrate that I’m a man of integrity.

‘Look! There’s a mobile number! I’m going to give him a ring’.

I called the number. It was answered by Tim, the group organiser. I then launched into an unrehearsed explanation of why I wanted to attend his Sounds of English group, even though I’m thoroughly English.

‘That’s fine. You can both come’, said Tim, much to my relief. I gave a thumbs up to Mary, who looked excited. ‘Sorry, I don’t quite understand all that… Could you tell me why you want to come along again?’ asked Tim.

Two minutes later, we were on our way, heading in the wrong direction. Oxford Street was rammed. It was uncomfortably teeming with people; every single space of the pavement was occupied by shoppers who should know better than to head ‘to the west end’ on a Saturday afternoon.

‘Wait! It’s that way!’

Mary thought for a moment, and then agreed: we needed to go back to where we came from. Oxford Circus ranks number three on my list of confusing and bewildering underground stations; Bank easily takes the top spot, followed by Leicester Square. It took us five minutes to find our way to the Bakerloo line. When we arrived at Waterloo station I knew the way to go: a quick walk up a flight of stairs, and then a right hand turn to the entrance, passing the area where I proposed to Grace. I looked at a sign: we needed to go to the Blue Bar, which was on the fourth floor.

‘There’s a lift!’ said Mary. I couldn’t see it, so I followed Mary until I recognised the shape of a glass elevator. I glanced at my watch. I mentally willed the lift to travel to the ground floor. After waiting for what seemed to be an eternity, we got in, and were deposited on the right floor. I looked around. I saw a chap in the corner of the room, surrounded by a circle of chairs. I assumed this was Tim. Several of his students were milling around, having just arrived. We had found the Meetup with seconds to spare.

‘You do realise that this event is for non-native speakers only?’ said Tim. Mary blinked. ‘Yeah, that’s fine; I’m just, erm, here to learn. I’m happy to join in with whatever you’ve got planned’.

Mary pulled me to one side. ‘Non-native speakers only?’ She looked at me with an expression that said, ‘this is absolutely bonkers, have we really got to go through with this?’ I shrugged. We were here. The rules had taken us to this class; we were going to go through with it.

‘This is going to be hilarious!’ she suddenly exclaimed, bursting out into laughter.

We made a circle. There were around seven of us; a student from Korea, two Russians, a student from Scandinavia, South America and a couple of Eastern Europeans. There wasn’t time to chat; we went straight into the lesson.

The first exercise was all about breathing. We drew a breath, and then counted from one to eight, and then to 10, and then to 14. We moved onto saying the days of the week, all in a single breath. Then we did the months of the year. And then we had to say the months of the year followed by the days of the week, all in a single breath. Tim smiled at us as we all became collectively hypoxic.

It was time to move onto humming. We started with an M sound, moved onto an N sound, and then finally onto a V sound. It was at this point that I wondered whether we had inadvertently stumbled across some kind of weird yogic meditation exercise.

Finally, it was time to have a go at words. Tim gave us some sheets of paper. In unison, we all read: ‘Beat Bit, Deed Did, Heed Hid, Feeling Felling’.

It was time for us all to try to say a sentence. It was my go. I said the phrase: ‘The vicar’s kitten bit the bishop’.

‘Do it again.’

‘The vicar’s kitten bit the bishop’

‘That’s better.’

We then chanted ‘Lippity Lippity Lippity Lee, Dippity Dippity Dippity Dee, Tippity Tippity Tippity Tee’ in unison. Occasionally Tim stopped to listen to how some of his students were doing. It was fun, but after four pages of exercises, an impossible tongue twister, some work on the ‘EE’ sound, Mary turned to me and said, ‘what time it is?’ It was at that point I was wondering exactly the same thing; I was getting tired. The consonant pronunciation exercise, where we had to say ‘LBDP’ and ‘TPRB’, had been tough. After an hour of various exercises, corrections and repetitions, we arrived at the end of the class.

One student turned to me and asked me the inevitable question: ‘if you’re English, why are you doing this?’ I gave her an explanation; I told her about randomness, and said that this was my second English lesson. I asked her whether she had met Andy, the guy who ran the London English Conversation Group. She had been to his class too.

When everyone had gone, Mary and I chatted to Tim. Tim was an actor and his group had been going for around a year. His classes drew upon the experience that he had gained from acting and voice training courses. To make things clearer for his students, he organised the classes into different levels. Mary and I had accidentally stumbled into his ‘second level’ more advanced class.

I had never stopped to imagine what voice coaches did or how their classes might have worked. In some respects, Tim’s class was a revelation; I understood what he was trying to do. ‘It’s all about using and developing those voice muscles’, explained Tim. As he described this, I understood ‘muscle’ in a more metaphorical sense than a physical one. All I knew was that he created an opportunity to uncover, develop and practice new ways of articulation. I asked Tim about his acting, but I sensed that he was coy. Rather than telling us about films, or plays or shows, Mary and Tim chatted about acting schools for a few minutes, before he started to return the chairs to where they belonged.

We caught the elevator to the ground floor, and went to the bar. We both tired. We both needed a drink.

Eighty three – London Wine, Dining and Travel Meetup

‘So, what kind of wine do you like?’ asked Sarah, just after I had started drinking my second glass.

We were sat at a spectacular dinner table. It was the kind of dinner table that made me feel uncomfortable. It was the type of dinner table that had too many knives, forks and plates. It was the kind of dinner table that instilled a mild panic in me when I realised I couldn’t remember which plate I needed to use for the bread: was it the one on my left, or the one on my right?

‘Erm, I would probably say the wines that are the second cheapest in the supermarket’ I replied after a moment of deliberation. There was no point trying to make things up or use what little knowledge I had about wine, since I didn’t know anything.

‘Actually, I think I’m not too far behind you on that one!’ Sarah laughed. ‘Are there any particular wines that you’re a fan of?’ It was at that point I decided to come clean. I said that I was more of a beer man, and that I had come to the group, more or less, by accident.

‘So, what kind of beers do you like?’ replied Sarah, struggling to get a conversation going. It was at that point I realised that I didn’t know too much about beers either, other than I liked a nice pint of fancy German wheat beer, but wasn’t too keen on the overly hopped beer that hipsters like. I then dug deep and said that I enjoyed a good glass of ‘porter’ from time to time.

I was starting to feel a bit out of my depth. When it came to conversation about food and drink, I knew that I was going to be rubbish at it. There wasn’t the need to comment on the quality of the spices used in the ‘chicken night’ dishes from the Wetherspoons in Brockley; the conversation about food began and ended with the reflection that it was all ‘very cheap’. I was also painfully aware that I had accidentally signed up for what was going to be the most expensive meal I had ever had in my life.

I had found the restaurant easily: a direct train to Cannon Street, and then a walk up Leadenhall Street. Caravaggio’s, a Sicilian restaurant, was located in the heart of the City. As I walked, I was aware of the richness of the architecture of the district: I soon found Lloyds of London, and remembered my trip to the ‘Holiday Meetup’, and walked past the Leadenhall building.

This part of the city seemed to be less like London, and more like Manhattan; it was bold, flashy, and made up of steel and acres of glass. To kill time, I had wandered around Swiss Re Tower, which was colloquially named The Gherkin. This was the famous London skyline viewed from a whole different perspective. Rather than looking at it from a distance, I craned my head skywards, and took some photographs. I looked around to the surrounding streets, and realised that they had become eerily quiet. Even the busy city pubs seemed to be relatively empty. Everyone, it seemed, had decided to go home, apart from a single soul glanced through an office window; someone who was invisibly tethered to a computer.

A third glass of wine arrived, along with the restaurant’s sommelier, Laura, who introduced us to Eurizone Bianco 1614 Carricante. Laura explained that the wine takes its name from an Eruption of Mount Etna in 1614, which lasted for ten years. Made from a combination of Carricante and Riesling, we were told, ominously, that we should expect an ‘explosion’. Sarah reached for the glass and started to take long, noisy extravagant sniffs.

Our starter was octopus. I hate octopus. I had once tried it before in a Portuguese restaurant in Vauxhall, and my overriding memory was one of confusion; I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to eat anything that resembled fishy chewing gum. Our starter comprised of finely sliced octopus, some prawns, pea shoots and pieces of mango. I tried the octopus, which, this time, reminded me a bit of sliced chicken. I then tried the wine, which had been especially chosen to match with the starter. Although there wasn’t any pyrotechnics, even my kebab attuned and chili dampened palate detected what could be described as a ‘long, surprisingly sharp, yet gentle’ finish, a sensation that was at odds with what was suggested by the bouquet.

I soon realised I was sat at a great table. Although there were about sixty people at the event, our organiser, Christos, had booked only three tables. As we ate, we talked about beards, the state of the railway network, challenges of living with housemates, and Croydon. By the end of the octopus course and my third glass of wine, I had calmed down and started to enjoy the event.

The second course was a risotto with purple aubergine and salted ricotta. The third course, a roasted filet of suckling pig served with a cheeky red. Our sommelier gave us tasting notes which mentioned an aroma of black cherry, strawberry, chestnut honey and prickly pear.

As we ate, we shared stories about our jobs; the challenge of being an employee in the rail industry, the trials and tribulations of being an accountant, and what it was like to work in the insurance industry. There was only one person on our table who was quiet: a young woman who worked at a care home for the elderly.

The final course was a ricotta cake with almond and lemon. It was served with a sweet dessert wine that had ‘explosive aromas of exotic fruits, jasmine and candied citrus fruits; complex but easy to enjoy’. It was with this dessert, and the wine, that I could finally see (or, more specifically, taste) why you might want to go to these type of events.

My own philosophy of food had always been one of simplicity: I eat to live, rather than live to eat. It wasn’t just the food that offered me a suggestion about the hidden delights of gastronomy; it was the sommelier, the fancy table, and the easy conversation. Fine dining was a world away from my own day to day living of simple food, quickly eaten in front of the telly, before returning to an all-encompassing environment of email messages, problems and queries. I could see how food could be, and was, escapism.

By ten o’clock, everyone on our table had decided to head off home; it was work the following morning. I joined Christos’s table. I asked him about his group.

Christos’s group currently had around fifteen hundred members, and it had been running for seven years. He wasn’t the founder. Instead, he took it over when the original group leader had decided to do something different. He started to become interested in wine whilst he was working ‘just over the road’ in Lloyds of London, taking a wine course, which led to a wine certificate, which he told me was a formal industry qualification. His main job is running wine tours, and running wine events. He had taken members of the group to France, and as far afield as South Africa. Knowing the origins of the wine, he argued, adds something to your experience when you drink it.

It was late when I left the restaurant, drunk. I decided to walk the first part of my journey home; past Monument station and then cross London Bridge. The air had changed; it had become blustery, and had acquired a chill. Halfway across London Bridge, I looked across the Thames and saw Tower Bridge covered in distant, sparkling lights. I took a photograph, another memento of my night out. It was one of those moments, when you feel that you had a place in the world; the feeling that you’re in the right place at the right time. I suddenly realised what the feeling was. I was feeling happy.

Eighty two – Conway Hall Ethical Society

My destination was Conway Hall, Red Lion Square gardens, a two minute walk from Holborn underground station. Light rain was predicted. I peered out of my window, looked at my watch and then decided: I would risk it; I would go by scooter.

Conway Hall was a quaint looking building that nestled between a sleek modern office block, a low rise block of flats that was built in the sixties, and a Victorian mansion. The neatly tended Red Lion Square gardens sat opposite and contained a coffee shop, London Plane trees and an abundance of benches for visitors and office workers to sit and eat their lunchtime sandwiches.

The Ethical Society was running a talk that had a dramatic title: ‘the decline of the honey bee and the end of human kind?’ I soon found the seminar room, but not before trying to gate crash a ticketed secular sermon by an organisation called the ‘School of Life’. I later discovered that the sermon was entitled ‘On inspiring brilliance’ and was to be given by a conductor and was going to be was all about leadership. I peered past the ticket bouncers, and caught a glimpse of the room where the sermon would be given; it had the appearance of a grand church hall.

After helping myself to a free cup of tea, I found a seat in our seminar room and started chatting to Andy. Andy was a member of the Meetup group and also told me that he recently had joined the Ethical Society.  He was a student: ‘I studied business and IT, but I want to move into acting; I think that is more where my skills are’. Like me, Andy didn’t have anything other than a mild curiosity about bees.

Our speaker, Luke, was a bearded man in his early fifties. He started his talk by giving us an apocryphal quote that is often attributed to Einstein, that ‘if the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live’. Luke then reeled off a list of food products that are dependent upon honey bee pollination. His point was simple: bees are important.

Luke assaulted us with bee facts: there are thirty thousand different species and they have been around for about thirty million years. Hives are put on the back of trucks in North America and are driven around to chase the different seasons of different crops. We were treated to photographs of different hives: African hives, North American hives, hives in clay pots which were smashed to get at the honey, and hives in the form of wicker baskets.

He told us about bee behaviour. Bees are clean: if a bee dies, worker bees immediately drag its corpse out of the hive. When bees swarm, scout bees look for a new home and then report back to their colony. Queens can lay anything between two and three thousand eggs a day, and they are all looked after by other bees, who spend their first two to three weeks in the hive. It can also be a tough existence: queen bees fight to the death; they’re the only kind of bee that can sting and sting again. Male bees have a rougher time. They either die straight after having sex, or they’re kicked out of the hive at the end of the season, left to die cold and hungry.

Luke was an urban beekeeper. As he talked, he shared pictures of his various colonies. There was a hive on the top of Conway Hall, on the top of the London School of Fashion, and even in the gardens of Kensington Palace. During a long question and answer session, he addressed the subject of bee diseases, which led onto a discussion about pesticides, and what the ‘man in the street’ might do to help. Interestingly, but perhaps unexpectedly, different bee keepers have different opinions: some call for the banning of pesticides such as neonicotinoids, whereas others believe that a ban would cause older and arguably more toxic pesticides to continue to be used. Another interesting point was that city bees seem to cope remarkably well with city pollution, which apparently has little impact on the purity of the honey they produce.

It turned out that our speaker wasn’t predicting the death of the bee, or the collapse of human kind. Rather than a story of death and catastrophe, it was a talk that was filled with anecdotes and pointers towards on-going bee-related debates. It was a talk that refuted scaremongering media stories.

At the end of the talk the meeting chair, who was called Tim, told us that the next lecture would have the title: ‘cults and brainwashing: the hidden and not so hidden epidemic’.

After an extended question and answer session, where our speaker was asked about his favourite type of honey, whether a swarm had a monetary value, and what type of bee there was on the roof of the hall (apparently they were ‘ethical bees’), I had a brief chat with Tim about the society.

Tim told me that the society used to be known as the South Place Ethical society, and had been in existence, in one form or another since the 1790s. The registration form I picked up in the reception hall later told me that it was an educational charity that organises courses and lectures relating to ‘the dissemination of ethical principles based on humanism; and the cultivation of a rational and humane way of life’. Tim told me that it was the last remaining ethical society still existing in Britain. I later read that elements of wider aspects of its movement had been absorbed into the British Humanist Association.

I stepped into the street. It was raining heavily. My phone told me that it would clear up in an hour’s time, so I went back into Conway Hall to find Tim. Apparently, there were a bunch of ethical people who were heading off to the pub.

Eighty one – Womb Wisdom Keepers

I was in Ealing. I negotiated a path through quiet suburban tree-lined streets to my destination: a huge imposing Victorian house. I pushed a door bell. I was visiting Orianne, the woman behind Womb Wisdom Keepers.

I had originally asked whether I could come along to one of her events and was offered a polite but firm ‘no’. After registering for one of her yoga Meetups (which was cancelled due to a lack of registrations), I contacted Orianne directly, and explained my quest. She agreed to meet.

The door opened. I was greeted with a beautiful smile and was beckoned inside. After being offered a cup of tea, we went into a fine garden to chat.

Orianne had moved from London from Belgium and had recently started her ‘mind, body and spirit’ business. Her Womb Wisdom group was all about connecting with our inner selves, and having a space to work through different kinds of issues, whilst at the same time connecting with and to our femininity.

Orianne also ran sessions about ‘slow leadership’. Slow leadership, as far as I understood it, was about how organisations can learn how to adopt a more feminine perspective, and develop a more supportive and nurturing environment. This led us to chat about the ever present role of competition in business, and the fact that corporations always strive to ‘get bigger’. A simpler aim is to create a sustainable business for the business owner and essential employees without the distraction or desire for perpetual expansion.

Her work on slow leadership is was linked her work on Family Constellations. I hadn’t heard of this before, but I understood it to be a form of therapy that explores our unconscious connections to issues that affected our ancestors.  For a few minutes, we chatted about Epigenetics, which is about how the environment causes certain genes in a genetic structure to be turned on or off. The argument being that an incident that occurred to one of our ancestors can have a lasting effect in our own life.

Orianne also spoke about the two types of Yoga her group advertises: Anukalana yoga and Tantsu Circles. From what I gathered, Anukalana yoga was all about breathing and movement. Orianne demonstrated a few postures. It looked fun; I could see that it could be relaxing. Tantsu was different. It was described as a ‘bodywork practice’ where one person supports another, creating cradling postures. I had told my friend Mary about Tantsu, and tried to encourage her to come along to one of the Meetups that Orianne advertised, but Mary wasn’t having any of it.

We also chatted about Neurolinguistic Programming; Orianne turned out to be a practitioner. ‘I’ve been to an event about NLP. It was… a bit unexpected. It was all about how to become rich’, I said, recounting my experience of the cult of Caitlin Tindle. Orianne laughed and then went onto describe her understanding of NLP which sounded a whole lot simpler than the one I had been exposed to: through visualisation and making explicit goals, you can uncover new ways of approaching problems and figuring things out.

As well as being a NLP practitioner, she was also a Kinesiologist. I had never heard of Kinesiology before, but I now understand there are two definitions. The first definition being the scientific study of human kinetics (or movement); the second definition is that it is a chiropractic technique that draws upon eastern medicine.

Towards the end of our chat, Orianne gave me a beautifully designed flyer about Ecstatic Awakening Dance, adorned with pictures of butterflies and information about residential retreats. I asked Orianne whether she had heard of something called Biodanza, and recounted my story of being involved in a group hug with over thirty people.

‘It’s very different to Biodanza; there is no touching of other people’ replied Orianne. She explained that Ecstatic Dance wasn’t at all like Biodanza: that it was a ‘solo practice’ where you connect to your body, be wild and release endorphins.

I really enjoyed meeting Orianne, but in terms of a Meetup experience, I couldn’t help but feel that something was missing. There’s a huge difference between being told about something and experiencing it for yourself. Orianne’s events were, of course, very experiential; you need to experience them, you needed to participate, and share, and carry out the movement and breathing exercises.

I left wanting to experience the different types of yoga for the simple reason that I still didn’t quite ‘get’ what yoga was all about. I was, however, very welcome to come back and give Anukalana yoga a try.

Eighty – London Gentle Walks

I crossed the road and walked towards Jacksons Lane Theatre; a gothic church that was just up the road from Highbury underground station. I found myself in an open plan reception hall that had about thirty seats; almost all of them occupied. A woman wearing a badge that was made using a sticker and felt tip pen offered me a reassuring smile; I had found Trish, our Meetup host.

I sat next to a middle aged man who was reading a newspaper and immediately noticed that some of the walkers were curiously overdressed; walkers were wearing impressive hiking boots and carrying trendy ‘easy to hold’ bottles of juice. One member was even carrying an energy drink. I surveyed the mass of thirty or so bodies and guessed that the average age must have been at least fifty two.

At one o’clock, it was time to go; we found our way out of the theatre, and on to the street.

‘I think I’ve seen you before…’ said Stewart, a tall man in his sixties, who was wearing a smart shirt. ‘Do you go to any other groups?’ he asked. I told him that I had been to quite a few.

‘You been to the shyness group? Yes, that’s it! The shyness group! The Banker and Barrowboy!’ exclaimed Stewart, relieved that the mystery had been solved. ‘I think there’s another fella who came to that one too! He’s down there, at the front’.

We walked up a steep hill, towards what I assumed was the centre of Highgate. This was a part of the city that I didn’t know. I had only ever been to Highgate once before, on a date, where I have vague memories of a pub and a substantial amount of anxiety. My memory was of a time without much of an understanding of place. As I walked I made connections, linking my biography to geography.

‘It’s good to get out, isn’t it?’ said Stewart. Stewart had been telling me about his double hip replacement. He used to run, but he had to give that up after the operation. ‘They got you out of bed the next day, which is the last thing you want! You just want to sleep!’

As we walked along a parade of shops, I chatted to some of the walkers who were behind me.

‘I saw you earlier! In Brockley! Chicken night!’

I suddenly remembered. It was Paola who had been sitting at the other end of the chicken night table. She was walking with her friend, Francesca, who was from Spain (but had lived in London since she was about eight years old).

Highgate has a reputation for being posh, and it looked it. We walked past artisan butchers, exclusive green grocers, and numerous estate agencies advertising properties with eye watering prices. To my untrained eye, the architecture seemed to be mostly Georgian, mixed with some Victorian, followed by eighties pastiche. In the distance, I caught a glimpse of a fifties low-rise tower block. After a few minutes of walking, we crossed a road and found ourselves in a glorious park.

‘I think we’ve met before, haven’t we?’ I said to a woman who was walking in front of me, surprised by how many people I seem to know. Her puzzled expression confirmed to me that I was right: we had met before. ‘You work at Google, right?’ I ventured. ‘We had dinner together when we were at that conference?’

It had been around two years since I had last spoken to Lauren. We had met at a day long training event for university researchers. Although Lauren hadn’t been at the daytime event, we had got chatting during the conference dinner.

‘Did you know there was an event at your office that was all about male grooming?’

‘In my office? On the ninth floor?’ I nodded. ‘I work on the ninth floor. How come I didn’t hear about this?’

Waterlow Park was gorgeous. We stopped at an artificial lake and watched the ducks, which energetically swam towards us, clearly expecting something in return. It was a time to ‘refuel’, since we had done at least a mile of walking. Walkers reached for their energy drinks and I reached for the banana that I had carefully packed.

‘Excuse me, are you Svetlana?’ I asked a fellow walker who I faintly recognised. It wasn’t that my memory for names was awesome; it was more that I overheard Svetlana introducing herself to another one of the walkers.

‘Oh, I thought it was you! I’ve not seen you for ages!’ Svetlana gave me a brilliant smile. ‘How are you! What was that name of that walk we went on?’ I remembered Svetlana from the river Fleet walk, where we were told about robbers, work houses, prisons and ships. Svetlana was still an accountant and had since become a regular at the gentle walks group.

‘I recently went on a walking tour of Peckham’ Svetlana told me. I could understand that people who knew Peckham would want to become tourists, but I couldn’t understand why tourists would want to get to know Peckham. ‘It was very interesting. Have you heard of The Peckham Experiment?’ I shook my head. ‘There were a group of doctors who set up a project in the twenties and thirties. They created a centre that had a swimming pool, a gym and a theatre. It was a bit like a leisure centre. The doctors studied the people who used the centre to understand how healthy the people were. It was closed in the fifties because it didn’t fit into the plans of the National Health Service. These days everyone talks about how important exercise is to be healthy. It was like a pioneering centre, you know?’

After the walk, I did a bit of searching about The Peckham Experiment. Not only were participants given annual health checks (or ‘overhauls’ as I think they were called), but the family unit and its social setting was considered to play an important role in influencing individual health. Another aspect to the experiment was the importance of good nutrition; the ‘experiment’ also had its own organic farm.

After leaving Waterlow Park, we found ourselves climbing another hill, much steeper than the first. We passed an expensive housing complex, adorned with mock Tutor wooden beams, Victorian chimney stacks and modern double glazing. From both sides of the road, trees started to form a protective canopy. This was different London; rural London; a fragment of unexpected countryside within the steel, brick and concrete metropolis. Towards the back of the group was an elderly couple who were making gradual but determined progress up the hill. Stewart was in front of me, wobbling gently on his new hips.

After ten or so minutes, we stopped for a break. I saw the entrance to Highgate Cemetery; another landmark of London that I had never been to before but had always heard about.

‘If you look inside, you can see a building. Do you see that? Karl Marx’s grave is just behind it’ explained Trish, checking to make sure that everyone was okay. As I strained to see, I remembered my visit to the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

We were led to a nearby pub. It was busy. Our group scattered, colonising different tables. I was sandwiched between a group of friends on one side, and a new family on the other, who were struggling to manage a child that wasn’t quite a toddler.

‘Is this group a part of your quest?’

‘Erm, yes!’ I replied, surprised by the question. The question came from Adrian, who was the second member of the London Shyness Group, the chap who had the stutter. I told him that I had done around ten since I had last met him.

‘I would have expected you to have done more than that!’ he cheekily replied.

Stewart sat down next to me. We chatted for a while, mostly about jobs and computers. I suggested that perhaps it wasn’t a good idea for him to continue to put his laptop in his freezer if it got really hot, even for a short time.

Trish guided us through a maze of suburban streets and towards an entrance to Highgate woods, another unexpected rural idyll, and another of the city’s secrets. We padded through an open space that doubled up as a cricket pitch, and onto an undulating path that was covered by a canopy of trees.

I chatted to Lauren, and then to Alice, who was a scientist from Sweden and was just about to start a job working in the Civil Service. We spoke about walks, London, the importance of ‘getting away’ from looking at a screen all day. Everyone who I spoke to had heard of Ken’s events. ‘They’re just too big’ said Lauren. ‘I prefer this group’.

We found ourselves on another suburban street populated by spacious semi-detached houses that were built in the thirties. I wondered who lived on this expensive street, wondering about their stories of achievement or inheritance. A right turn took us onto a footpath, and into another green space, a sign announcing Cherry Tree wood.

Minutes later, we were done. We had reached our destination: East Finchley underground station. As we walked to a nearby pub, I caught up with Trish. I had heard that she had taken over the group after the original organiser had moved out of London.

‘I only do Saturdays’ Trish explained. ‘I do it because I enjoy getting out. I originally wanted to lose weight and get fit, you see.’ Trish led the walks because she enjoyed doing them, and thought that others might enjoy them to. Her Meetup events were simple acts of selfless sharing. She didn’t give talks or share interesting anecdotes about the local area. It was all about the walk, and chatting those who decided to come along.

Seventy nine – Forest Hill, Sydenham and Crystal Palace social

I started my journey at London Euston. It was rush hour. I gradually eased my way into a river of humanity, catching a current of bodies that were swirling towards the underground. My destination was an area of London called Brockley. To get there, I needed to change at London Bridge station. When I arrived at this second station, it was terrifyingly busy. Commuters waited whilst others disembarked, standing, patiently eyeballing smartly dressed strangers. This was London on the go; this was the city in full swing.

I stepped into the air conditioned carriage and found a seat. I peered into my phone to figure out where I was going. It was two stops. The event was being hosted in a pub that I had never been to before. I was going to a pub called The Barge; I wondered whether it was a ‘spit and sawdust’ pub, or something a whole lot fancier.

I stepped off the train and asked someone for directions. I was told that the pub was just at the back of some hoarding that protected a building site. The hoarding was daubed with the phrase ‘fuck gentrification’.

The Barge was a Wetherspoon’s pub. It was busy. I wandered slowly around the bar, trying to look for Meetup clues; looking for a group of people what were very different to each other, for someone who would be constantly fiddling with a mobile phone, checking for Meetup messages. It was on the second circuit that I noticed someone who had noticed my search.

‘Is this, erm, the Meetup?’ I asked. It was. Relieved, I sat down at a free chair, introduced myself to Sally, who had just arrived, Jason, who was sitting opposite, someone called Andy, and our organiser, Vanessa.  After ordering a pint and some chicken (it was ‘chicken night’), I started to learn more about the group.

The  Forest Hill, Sydenham and Crystal Palace social Meetup had been running just under a year and had a healthy membership of nearly five hundred ‘socialites’ (as they called themselves). Nearly twenty different events were scheduled: there was a curry night, a night out at the cinema and a lecture about the history and development of an area called Penge. I was impressed that there had been over one hundred events. The most unusual event that was advertised was a ‘Penge Tourist Board’ social.

Sally shared internet dating stories, and Lisa, who was sitting next to Jason, told us about his work as an officer at a local housing association. Andy, who was sitting almost opposite, was wearing an Indian coat, which had been bought from a shop on Tooting Broadway. Vanessa, our host, was a gregarious South London ‘gal’ in her mid to late Forties. She spoke with a warm South London accent; evidence that she was, perhaps, the only native Londoner in the group.

‘You gotta go to Hither Green Cemetery’ suggested Vanessa. ‘There’s five thousand parakeets living there! Can you believe that? You know, the green ones that are flying around. You’ve seen them, ain’t you? They started to count them one at a time years ago, then in two’s, then in tens, and now they count them in groups of twenty five! Can you believe that!’

I had seen them. Not long after moving into my house, I was looking out of my bedroom window that overlooks a small local park, and caught a glimpse of green feathers flashing before my eyes. Everyone I speak to who lives in my area seemed to know about the South London parakeets.

‘Go there at dusk! They make a right racket! They screech! They’re okay if they’re, like, roostin in the trees; they just chitter like a budgie, you know?’

Not only was Vanessa knowledgeable about birds, she also seemed to know about bats. She was going on a ‘bat walk’ which was a part of the ‘Penge Festival’. The ‘bat walkers’ would venture out at dusk and listen out for bats using special ‘bat listeners’. I remembered accidentally attending talk a few years ago about a ‘bat census’ that was run by an ecology professor.

It’s not easy to do a bat survey, so the professor’s idea was to recruit members of the public to help out. The inner geek in me decided that a ‘bat walk’ sounded like a fun and interesting night out.

Vanessa had other interests too. She was a keen cyclist, and had recently taken over an allotment not too far from where she lived. She showed us ‘before and after’ pictures using her tablet computer.

I gradually found my way around the table to chat to every member; I spoke with a secondary school maths teacher who was originally from India, a social worker, a woman called Paola and a former project manager who worked in a charity.  We were joined by a couple who were enthusiastically welcomed: Steve, who was from Newcastle, and Angelo, who was originally from Spain. Angelo looked pretty tired; he had just finished teaching a language class.

I had become immune to difference being a constant; it’s almost something that I had taken for granted or accepted as a given. The Forest Hill, Sydenham and Crystal Palace social Meetup made me aware of it again; of the uniqueness of a Meetup group. Everyone was different; ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or political perspective. Technology had become the catalyst to get people talking to each other.

Everyone was at ease and the group talked in a way that I couldn’t immediately understand. I later realised what it was: they had a shared history; they had met each other many times before and were developing their own language, memories and vocabulary of stories.

The first to head home was Sally, who had to deal with a needy chief executive the following morning. Jason quickly followed, and then it was Vanessa’s turn. She retrieved her bicycle from the beer garden, donned her helmet and hugged everyone goodbye.

I told my friend David, who lives in Brockley, that I had visited one of his local pubs. ‘Ah… The Barge. The Barge is a bell weather for gentrification in the area. When it re-opened as a Wetherspoon’s it was loads better than it was before. It got a bit rough for a time, but these days it’s usually filled with yuppies on a Friday and a Saturday night. One of my fondest memories is watching the Cricket on the TV, and drinking a pint of some weird banana flavoured beer’.