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’.

Seventy eight – Gay Mates

I didn’t want to go the ‘Gay Style and Grooming Fair’. I wasn't bothered by the ‘gay’ bit; I had seen quite a few gay and lesbian events on Meetup and I knew there would be a day when I would have to go to one of them. The bit that did bother me was the bit about ‘male grooming’.

I’m the kind of man that thinks that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a good old bar of soap and a dab of deodorant. Everything other than that, in my eyes, is a money making conspiracy.

Men need soap; what they don’t need is astringent toners, apricot skin scrubs and moisturisers. One ex-wife and one very lovely and well intentioned ex-girlfriend have done their best to encourage me to moisturise regularly. After a week or so of constant reminders, they would give up, leaving the moisturiser to languish in the bathroom cabinet. Eventually, the unused moisturiser would then be chucked in the bin when it passed its sell by date. The joyless cycle of pointless capitalism would begin again when I would then be given yet another bottle of the stuff for Christmas.

Unlike other events, this was one that didn’t have a designated host: the grooming fair was advertised as a part of a group of ‘gay friendly’ events that were held across London. The Meetup event forum, however, was quite busy: there was a sharing of phone numbers and thoughts about where ‘the group’ might meet.

I arrived at Google’s London offices. Google was, apparently, one of the sponsors.

‘Are you here for the…’ asked a chap who had an expensive looking haircut, brown mottled plastic glasses, and a grey cardigan.

‘Yes, I am.’ He asked me for my name. Surprisingly, I was on the list.

‘Just go through the security doors. Ninth floor’.

I stepped into the exhibition area, twenty minutes late; my timing scuppered by train delays. I looked around. There was a big stall where you could pick up complimentary copies of gay lifestyle magazines. On two of the walls there was a huge picture of a half-naked ginger gentleman, who had been clearly spending way too much time in the gym. There was a stall that seemed to be selling underwear packaged in opulent looking boxes. Suddenly, I noticed that there were some people carrying either bottles of beer, or glasses of wine. In the distance, I saw a mass of people milling around what I discovered to be an oasis of free booze. I stepped through the crowds and helped myself to a bottle of Becks and then thought what to do; there were well over one hundred people at the event.

I reached for my phone, found a telephone number of a Meetupper and pressed the dial button.

‘Hello? Hello…’

It was difficult to hear anything over the background noise. A few steps in front of me I saw a chap who had taken out his phone at the same moment I started to make my call. I went over to him.

‘Sorry…’ he said grumpily. ‘I’m on the phone. I’ll be with you in a minute’. I showed him my phone, smiled, and hung up.

I had just telephoned Marty, a Geordie. Marty introduced me to two other members of the Meetup: Carlos and Huan. This was the first time that Marty had been to this group, but he had been to quite a few others. Carlos said that he was just about to go. Seeing my drink, Carlos smiled and said: ‘if you’re having a drink, then I’m going to have one too’, then negotiated the crowds to visit the booze oasis.

Huan turned out to be a doctoral student at a medical school, where he had been carrying out research into physiology. He was at the stage of writing up his thesis.

‘So, you’re a doctor doctor? A medical doctor and a research doctor?’ Huan nodded. I was impressed. Marty, on the other hand, was still finding his feet in London, having moved to the city around eight months ago. He had been doing all kinds of different jobs: retail, security guard work, admin; anything he could turn his hand to. He told me that he had aspirations to work in IT. Carlos did ‘admin’ in a hospital, a job that he hated.

We chatted for around ten or fifteen minutes. Everyone in the Meetup seemed to be thoroughly underwhelmed by the whole event, whereas I was starting to enjoy being there; chatting to people who I would never have ordinarily chatted to. Carlos finished his drink and then decided to head off home. Huan followed, leaving myself and Marty to do one circuit of all the stalls.

‘Do you know Aloe Vera?’ asked a nice lady called Deirdre who was standing behind a moisturiser stall.

‘Not personally, no’ I replied.

Deirdre asked me whether I wanted to enter a competition to win some products. I said that I did. Deirdre then moisturised my hands, which made it very difficult to keep a solid hold of my beer.

Being someone who is somewhat folically challenged, I skipped past the stall that had a vast array of hair care products, and ended up chatting to another woman who wanted to sell me a combined blood and urine test.

‘Its preventative medicine’, she explained. ‘We test for all these different conditions, so you know what you’re dealing with’. I thanked her for her time and told her that being a certain age, I had recently received a free blood test from the National Health Service. When she heard this she refused to give me a free tube of toothpaste.

After stepping past a pungent smelling cosmetics stall, I found myself again at the booze oasis, where I grabbed a second bottle of Becks.

‘You found anything interesting?’ asked a chap who was sporting a spectacular beard and was revealing a disconcerting amount of chest hair.

Like Marty, Andre was also relatively new to London, having moved to the city from Portugal about a year and a half ago. He worked as a freelance piano teacher, but had also studied composition and would like to try to find more solid work. We chatted about digital music, specifically, music that could be created by dynamically manipulating software. Musicians (or programmers) would create loops and rhythms in front of an audience; software as performance. It was something that I had heard about, but had never witnessed a software ‘music’ performance.  Andre was very charming; he was an attentive listener, and at the end of our brief chat, he asked me for my card.

I slipped past a stall that was advertising cosmetic dentistry, and moved onto a clothing stall that seemed to be selling nothing but shorts. There was a sign advertising a free ‘colour consultation’. Being perfectly happy with my staid blue, black and beige wardrobe, I went to the next stall which sold a combination of underwear and moisturisers at astonishingly cheeky prices.

‘The big question is how often you shave’ said a woman to a crowd of men who were peering at a laptop. The laptop presented an image of different cartoon men with varying degrees of stubble. I saw a nicely boxed shaving set which, I understood, could be sent to you in the post.

I caught up with Marty, who was carrying a number of bags. He clearly had a skill at getting free samples.

‘I think I’m going to go in a bit’, I said, realising that there wasn’t anything else to do, other than drink beer and to have a free colour consultation.

‘Yeah, me too’ said Marty. ‘I’ll come with you’.

It had been fun. I had drunk two free beers, my hands had been moisturised, and I had been given a bag of low calorie popcorn.

Seventy seven – London Salsa and Ceroc Friends

It was seven o’clock. I was at Kings Cross station. I had just deposited my parents on a train to Lincoln, their home city. I looked at my phone. My eyes boggled: the next group was entitled ‘Womb wisdom keepers’ and had the tag line ‘supporting your feminine nature’. Their event helped participants to access their ‘unique body intelligence’ so they could ‘enjoy being a woman’. If there was ever a Meetup where I needed to apply the inappropriate Meetup rule then this was the one. I decided to ‘bank’ ‘womb wisdom keepers’ and ask the organiser if I could come along the next time they had a meeting.

The next Meetup was called ‘The London Wine, Dining and Travel Meetup’ and was a ‘Rioja Reserva Masterclass’. I saw that you had to register and pay well in advance. Plus, there was a substantial waiting list of seventeen people.

The third group was advertising an event called ‘Let’s Ceroc’. It had a short and sweet summary: ‘Come and join us in Kensington. No experience necessary - this is an easier dance for beginners than salsa (well, in my opinion anyway!) There's no footwork for a start. No partner necessary either. They rotate round so everyone dances with everyone else.’ I had no idea what Ceroc was other than it was, clearly, some kind of dancing.

I wondered for a moment: did I need a sparkly spandex outfit? Would I be able to get away with an office shirt, a pair of jeans and some scruffy shoes that could vaguely pass as trainers? There was no question to answer; I was going to Baden Powell House, South Kensington.

‘Hello… are you a part of the group?’ I asked woman in her forties, who was loitering around the entrance of what turned out to be an upmarket looking scout hostel and conference centre. Baden Powell house had been named in honour of the founder of the scouting movement. I had distant memories of visiting the building decades ago with an ex-girlfriend who needed to buy a set of woggles.

I introduced myself to Kerri who, like me, had never been to the ‘Salsa and Ceroc friends’ group before. We were soon joined by our organiser, Angela, who was also in her mid-forties. I confessed to Angela that I had never been before.

‘It’s great fun! You’ll love it. It is harder for the men, though; you’ve got to do the leading’ she said, before starting to laugh. Within ten minutes, we had been joined by six other people, most of whom knew what Ceroc was.

‘What happens is that they will split us into groups; those who have been here before, and those who are new, and they will go through everything step by step. Don’t look so worried! You’ll be fine!’

Angela had recently moved to London from Nottingham. She started the group because she wanted to go to some dance nights, but felt that it was more fun to go with other people than to go alone.

With everyone assembled, we went inside.

‘Are you new?’

I was directed to a stand where I gave over some money in exchange for an application form and a ‘membership card’.  With my dues paid, I tentatively stepped out into a darkened room, which turned out to be an expansive dance hall.

Pop music blared out from a substantial set of speakers and I saw two people dancing alone on a massive stage. As people were piling in through the entrance, I acquired a feeling of profound dread. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to go home.

Five minutes later, an annoyingly cheerful male dance trainer, who wore a tight fitting top and a microphone headset walked onto the stage. I hated him. He was young, tall, toned and had all his hair. He asked the men to create three long lines, and it became immediately clear that women substantially outnumbered the men. My feeling of dread deepened: this would mean that I would have to do more dancing.

‘We’re going to do some steps, really slowly, and when we’ve mastered these, we’re going to do some more. Don’t worry if you’re new, we’re going to go through everything time and time again. Men, just follow what I’m doing on stage; make sure that you’re standing on the right side of the line.’ I turned to look toward the stage. I was standing on the wrong side.

‘Okay, with your partner in front of you, move you left foot back, so you feel the balls of your feet. You with me? Follow me. And then move your right foot back. That’s it; that’s the basic step.’ We repeated moving two feet for a few seconds. It was more difficult than it sounded. 'Now, ladies, move five men along’. My dance partner suddenly disappeared. Four women flashed before my eyes, before I was confronted with my new partner.

‘Now, gentlemen, what you’ve got to do is signify to the lady that you are offering her your hand. Ladies, you’re going to take the gentleman’s hand. Gentlemen, just let the lady perch onto your hand, don’t hold onto it, because she’s going to let go of it very soon’. This seemed to me to be a very confusing instruction, but I went along with it. We did more stepping about. I offered my hands to ladies, and ladies perched onto it.

‘The next thing we’re going to do is a turn. Using your hand, you push the lady away, and she’ll take this as a direction, and the lady will turn, like this, and then when the turn is done, you’ve then got to turn yourself.’ I found it difficult to look at the stage, do my steps, offer a perch and turn all at the same time.

‘You’ll then find that you’ve swapped sides, then there’s another turn, and then that means that we’re ready to do the hip-rub, where you will push the lady away and it will become a slingshot, and this will end in another turn, and the lady will end up facing where we started. Okay! Let’s give that a go: step, step, hand, push, turn, turn, shoulder, rub, slingshot, turn, step!’ I had no idea what was going on. I wanted to punch the dance instructor.

‘Don’t worry! You’ll get the hang of it!’ said my new partner, who was a tall blonde woman who was also in her forties. ‘Look, we can go through it slowly; I’m a taxi dancer’. A taxi dancer turned out to be someone who was paid by the dance company to help beginners, those people who hadn't been for a while, or the profoundly incompetent. During our session there were two ‘taxi dancers’: one woman, one man. I felt lucky; I had inadvertently discovered a taxi dancer who was having ‘a night off’.  After being reminded of the step bit, the turn and the hip-rub, I was released from the control of the taxi dancer and was confronted with a dour German woman who had an over inflated expectation of my ability to lead.

‘How you doing?’ It was Angela, the Meetup leader, who was perching on the hands of a man who was standing next to me.

‘I hate it. I want to go home’ I replied flatly. Angela began to laugh. Moments later, she was told to ‘move along’, to find another partner.

After twenty minute of complete confusion that was loosely set to music, it was time to split into two groups. The novices, who had completed fewer than eight sessions, had to go down stairs, whilst the ‘intermediates or experts’ were allowed to dance the night away in the main hall.

We were ushered into a room where we were taken through all the steps again by the pair of taxi dancers. The male taxi, mid forties, demonstrated the steps with a help from a female taxi, mid sixties.

‘When you get familiar with the step, hand, push and turn, followed by the man doing the half turn, you can then perhaps move onto the shoulder and hip movement. Ladies, when you do the turn, it’s good to wipe the sweat off your hand by running it over the back of the gentleman, since this tells your man where you are, and when you’re back together, you can do something like this!’ The taxi dancers gyrated at the front of the room. I had no idea what they were doing.

‘Hold on!’ I complained. ‘Go slower!’ I could no longer contain my sense of frustration and physical ineptitude. Fellow ‘dancers’ laughed at my mild protest.

‘You’ll get used to it! It’ll become second nature’ replied the male taxi, who had acquired an air of profound smugness.

We gave it a go and I discovered that I had forgotten everything. I had even forgotten the bit where you moved your left foot and then your right foot backwards. I couldn’t make sense of anything the taxi man was saying or demonstrating. It was as if my sense of discomfort had hijacked my ability to connect my brain to my body.

After half an hour, we returned to the main hall where we were confronted with a mass of moving, jiving bodies. I edged my way to the corner of the room, where I found a seat. Just as I had sat down, I was asked to dance by the German woman. I gracefully accepted, but within seconds, I realised I had made a mistake. Even though neither of us had any idea what was going on, my partner made it known that I was failing as a man: my moves were being criticised. I was confused, there was no connection between myself and my dance partner, and within two minutes, neither myself nor my masculinity could take any more; I went to ‘get a drink of water’ and found a place to sulk. My partner looked at me with an expression of disappointed contempt.

I watched the dancing. I was impressed. One woman, who was in her mid forties was being thrown on the floor and then was scooped up by a man, who was also in his mid forties; it was a move that was practised by a number of other couples. I didn’t recognise any of the moves between the ‘scooping’ and ‘throwing’ actions; clearly there was an extensive vocabulary of moves that extended beyond the simple hip-rub and the left-right foot reverse.

After a brief dalliance with the sixty year old taxi dancer, I got chatting with Angela. She was easy to talk to; we talked about groups, work, relationship difficulties, drinking, and the challenges of living in London. After one final dance with Angela, in which I had abandoned any hope of remembering any Ceroc move, it was time to go home. It was a quarter to eleven.

‘Which way to the Natural History Museum?’ I asked Angela when we were on the street. She pointed towards a street that I didn’t recognise. I crossed the road, suddenly figured out where I was, and then started to walk towards South Kensington tube station.

Seventy six – Bounce Back Club

The app suggested that the next Meetup was in a town called Rochester. I paused for a moment, wondering whether this broke the London centric rule, but then realised that there were some implicit and interesting connections with my new home; Rochester was once the home of Charles Dickens, London’s most famous chronicler.

I pushed a button and pulled up a map. The meeting place was at a pub on the high street. I faced a dilemma: I could either go by train, or by motorbike. After a few moments of looking at different travel options I opted for the bike, and after five minutes of prevaricating over my choice of trousers, I hauled the weatherproof cover from the definitive symbol of my mid-life crisis.

Rochester was a relatively short half an hour ride away, along Watling Street, an ancient Roman road that led into the beginning of the Kent countryside and onto the port of Dover. I picked my way through London’s South Circular road and onto one of its intersections and cheekily weaved my way onto the dual carriage way.

A couple of hours earlier it had been raining. Spray from the dual carriage way hit my denim biker’s trousers, causing me to curse my choice of biking apparel, but progress was good, and twenty minutes later, I took a right turn towards the Rochester Cathedral car park. Five minutes later, I had found my destination: The Eagle Tavern.

The group had a subtitle: ‘singles who want to have fun again!’ The event description was entirely baffling: ‘sweeps and chimney boys festival!’ I had never been to a festival about chimney boys before, but I was willing to join the celebrations, whatever they might entail.

The Bounce Back Club seemed to be going strong with over six hundred members, and had hosted an astonishing eight hundred and sixty events since its inception three years earlier. A later glance at the group calendar showed that over two hundred events were scheduled.

‘Are you here for the Meetup?’ I asked two women were chatting outside the pub. I introduced myself to Mary and Elsa, who fired a few questions towards me about where I had travelled from. Mary and Elsa were both in their late forties to early fifties and obviously knew each other well. We were soon joined by Gary, our event host. Gary was also in his fifties and had what I took to be a faint scouse accent. I asked about the group.

‘Well, basically, we’re a bunch of alcoholics’ chuckled Elsa, before going on to say that it was a social group. ‘You can easily get into a habit of staying in; it’s better to get out and have some fun. Look; the pub has opened. I want a pint of cider’. Elsa led the charge inside. It had just turned eleven in the morning.

‘The group was set up by Tracey.’ Elsa continued when she was fully armed with her pint.  ‘She’s not coming today; she’s at another event. I think she set it up so she could get a boyfriend.’

For the next fifteen minutes, I chatted to Mary. Or, more specifically, we swapped stories about the trauma of heart break. I told her about my treacherous ex-wife, and Mary told me that she had left her long-term partner for another man. Eighteen months later this other man had left, leaving her to try to piece together what remained of her life. She told her story with eyes which gave away a level of sadness that her words didn’t directly echo. Five years on, Mary was still putting a brave face on everything, trying to put one foot in front of the other; trying to live her life as best as she could.

With Elsa’s pint gone, it was time to explore the festival.  I really like Rochester high street. It seemed to be a mixture of Victorian and Georgian architecture, hosting a mixture of charity shops, pubs and local businesses.  It had a cosy feel to it; it radiated age and history. After leaving the pub we were confronted with our first sight: a troupe of ten Morris dancers had blacked-up to look like chimney sweeps. Many of the dancers wore a head dress and carried big sticks; all of them wore sunglasses. Two drummers thumped out a regular rhythm, accompanied by an accordion player. Dancers yelped and hopped, whacking their sticks in time to the music. Bells attached to their costume rattled, accompanying their every step.

‘They’re nutters!’ said Gary, who was smiling, clearly enjoying the spectacle, along with a large appreciative crowd. When the stick whacking had finished, they were rewarded with a gentle round of applause. The ‘blacked up stick dancers’, as I call them, then made space for another troupe, who were dressed in a blue and white costume. Rather than having sticks, they carried handkerchiefs. It all looked jolly good fun, but I have never seen the attraction of Morris dancing. I had no idea what was going on, or why they are doing what they’re doing, or where the dances come from, or what they’re dancing to; Morris dancing is a significant and confused blind spot in my understanding of British culture.

Elsa had managed to find a leaflet about the festival, which although informative, left me none the wiser: ‘Medway’s annual Sweeps Festival recreates the joy and laughter enjoyed by chimney sweeps at their traditional holiday. It was the one time of the year that the sweeps could leave the soot behind and have some fun. Local businessman Gordon Newton, a keen historian, revived the festival in 1981. Rochester’s Sweeps Festival is in its 35th year and is the largest May Day celebration of its kind in the country’.

We made our way through the crowds, peering in various shop windows, before finding our way to a funfair situated in the grounds of Rochester Castle. We eyed up a carousel and the stalls where you could give money in exchange for not winning a cuddly toy. Our collective middle age cynicism protected us from the obligatory ghost train which would have undoubtedly been terrible.

After a bit of chatter we found our way down an alley that was filled with a wide variety of different stalls. Gary tasted some chilli sauces, Elsa tried some ciders and Mary bought some artisan bread. I caught up with Elsa again at a cocktail stall, where she opted for a cheeky gin and tonic.

After munching our way through organic sausages and French crepes, we found ourselves back at the high street, where I finally managed to have a chat with Gary. Gary worked in the recycling business; he connected together businesses that wanted raw materials (such as plastics), to businesses that needed to dispose of waste materials (such as old double glazing frames). He told me that there is hardly any landfill space remaining in Britain, and there is good business to be had shipping rubbish to Scandinavia.

Our amble down the high street consisted of ogling yet another set of Morris dancers, listening to a blues band, and finally ending up at a local Wetherspoons pub. Inside Elsa ordered another glass of refreshing cider. After a quarter of an hour of random chatter, Gary said that he had to head off to do some shopping.

After saying our goodbyes, I negotiated an obstacle course of dogs, small children, chimney sweeps and morris dancers to return to my motorbike. After donning my crash helmet, gloves and zipping my self up to protect myself from the elements, I left the car park, and then the Roman city of Rochester.

Seventy five - London Entrepreneur Fintech Club

I wanted to go to a different event. I wanted to go to a part of London I had never been to before, like Dagenham, Romford, or Penge. Instead, my phone told me that I needed to go to a technology event hosted in New Zealand House, a short walk from Charing Cross station.

When I got to New Zealand House I smiled at the security guard at reception and saidI was here for ‘the event’. Without meeting my eyes, he made a lazy hand gesture towards his right, where I saw another bored chap sitting at a desk laden with pens, wrist bands and sticky labels.  After donning a wrist band and writing my own name badge, I was allowed to travel, unaccompanied, to the first floor.

The moment the lift door opened, I heard the buzz of voices.

‘Hello, my name is Andrea. What brings you to this event?’ Andrea was a smartly dressed woman in her mid-twenties; she was keen to network. I had inadvertently joined a queue for pizza. People around me were holding beers.

‘Hi, er, I’m Chris.’ I replied, offering my hand. ‘I’m just here for the free beer and pizza’ I said, before going on to explain that I had been to a quite a few entrepreneur and networking Meetups, and I was interested in ‘cloud applications’.

‘Ah! What you want to do is have a chat with that guy over there in the corner; he’s sponsoring the event. He’ll be able to tell you a lot about what is going on’.

Whilst balancing a pizza in one hand, and carrying a beer in the other, I nudged myself through the crowds to chat to ‘the cloud guy’, who was deep in conversation with someone called Lisa who was a head of products and networking at a global telecommunications company. Detecting a lull in the conversation, I made my move.

‘I like your T-shirts!’ I said, gesturing towards a shirt which had a prominent image of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. Not only was I happy about free beer and pizza, I also had my eye on free clothing too. Louis asked for my size, and he offered me a shirt that was, unexpectedly, advertising a financial technology company.

‘We’re taking a ‘revolutionary’ angle’, explained Louis. I later understood the angle: his business offered financial data feeds, competing against well-established financial companies; the kinds of companies that offer exceptionally nice sandwiches when you go to Python programming events. Whilst the business might well be disruptive and revolutionary in some senses, I couldn’t help think that Che may well have been turning in his grave about the possibility of his image being used to advertise tools that enable capitalist wizards to make lots of money.

Carrying my new T-shirt, I found a seat. It was time for the introduction. We were thanked for coming; there were to be around five speakers. Our first speaker spoke about the importance of designing user experiences and designing ‘businesses’. As soon as I heard the phrases ‘closing the loop’, ‘entire customer lifecycle’ and ‘minimal viable product’ I started to switch off and began to study the intricacies of the air conditioning ducting that was screwed to the ceiling.

The next talk was from the kind gentleman who had given me a T-shirt. His talk was, thankfully, more engaging. He spoke about programming interfaces and the different ways you could transfer data between computers. He then went on to talk about equities, funds, forex, bonds, futures, options and metals. When he got to derivatives, I came to realise that the air conditioning would have probably been retrofitted after the building had been constructed.

The third speaker, who was called Tony, was a smartly dressed man in his fifties who had an impressive head of hair and very expensive teeth. He ingratiated himself to the audience by telling us a story about how he became very rich, before asking us a question which woke us all up: ‘what is the national debt of America?’

‘The national debt of America is over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for every citizen in America. What does this tell us about money? Can anyone say? Do you think that America will ever say ‘no’ to lowering the national debt ceiling? I’ll tell you what this says about money.’ Tony paused for a moment, to allow us to take in the enormity of what he was saying. ‘Money does not exist.’ He paused for a second time and looked around at the one hundred or so people who were at the event.

‘Does anyone know what debt is? Debt is money that you owe that you are able to pay back. What do you do if you can’t pay it back? The answer is: you make it up. If money doesn’t exist, then where does it leave us? The answer is: we play the game’.

Tony moved towards the audience, as if presenting a further confession. ‘Who here wants to raise some money? How much do you want to raise?’ A member of the audience ventured a figure of two million. ‘Wrong. Do you know why this is wrong? Anyone?’ He looked around, seeking answers.

Everyone was as confused as I was. ‘Because no matter what you ask for, you always need more’.

‘Okay, can all the women who are here go sit over there? Come on! We haven’t got much time!’ All the women who were sat in the right of the meeting space started to move to the left. ‘Men, you go over there. Quick! Right; look around you, and make small teams, of up to three or four people. I’m going to give you a task.’ I looked around. I could see four fellow men, one of whom I had briefly ‘networked’ with, which meant that I had shaken his hand. I guessed this was our ‘team’.

‘In your groups, you’re going to be asked to design a product; an enhanced version of an existing product, okay? Here it is. It’s a familiar product. Women: I want you to design a ‘better’ man. You got that? What should they do or what should they look like. Men: I want you to design a ‘better’ woman. You’ve got three minutes, and I’ll be asking three groups to report back. Go!’

I turned around and looked at my co-conspirators. We blinked at each other.

‘I, erm, think that it would be good if women didn’t need as many shoes’ I said, making the first sexist contribution, recalling having to play ‘snake’ on an ancient mobile phone whilst enduring the torture of having to visit endless shoe shops to look at shoes that were, to all intents and purposes, identical to each other. It was agreed; our ‘ideal new woman’ shouldn’t have a shoe fetish. ‘And, not to have any male height preferences’, I ventured, bitterly recalling numerous internet dating failures.

‘An increased appetite for risk’ was another suggestion, which led to a discussion about what was meant by ‘risk’. A further suggestion was that it would be great if women could be paid even more than men, since men could then stay at home. Arguably, this was less of a feature, more of a societal desire.

‘TIME UP! Okay, so what have we got? This team! How would you improve women?’ asked Tony.

‘They should be durable and long lasting, be very agreeable (or have good user experience), be cheap to run, be keen on sex, come with an instruction manual, be more predictable and have some kind of translation feature so you knew what they were talking about’

‘Okay, and the women? How would you improve men?’

The executive from the global telecommunications company was the spokeswoman. ‘We think that their intelligence should be augmented by some kind of chip that we put in their heads, which helps them to better remember the important things that we tell them. Another key point is that it’s important to have, let me put it this way, a bodily reconfiguration. Their lower regions, if you get what I’m saying; location should be changed…’. Lisa gave up on the pretence of gentle euphemism.

‘What I mean is men should think with their brains and not with their cocks.’ This direct conclusion elicited a cheer and a round of applause from all the women in the room.

‘I think I’ve just about had my time!’ announced Tony, regaining control of the room. ‘The point of this exercise is: team work. Teamwork is important’. Like everyone else in the room, I had no idea what this had to do with the exploration of sexism that we had just completed. ‘But before I go, I’ll leave you with this: even though money doesn’t exist, each of you exist; go out there and find what you really want to do and do it well’.

The next speaker, Tim, was a bit more reserved and a whole lot more understandable. He spoke about his new business that continually scanned the internet to keep an eye out for anything that might be a threat to his corporate clients. As he was talking, I remembered my trip to the NetRunner card game night. Tim’s business was all about security; it was about protecting the ‘agendas’ of corporations.

The final speaker, Nina, worked for a business accelerator. She began by asking the audience how many people were working at a start-up or thinking about starting one. I looked around: half the audience raised their hands. I learnt something: I learnt that you can get office space, a little bit of money, and access to some highly connected people in exchange for equity. The catch was that access to an accelerator was competitive. At the end of her talk, everyone clapped, the control of the meeting was returned to the ‘host’ who thanked us for coming. He also told us to give a round of applause for Mo, the group organiser. The group had been running for around four months and had attracted over four hundred people.

On my way to the exit, I caught up with Mo. Like quite a few other people in the group, Mo was in her mid to late twenties. I asked her about her group.

‘This is the second one. I’ve had experience running events in other industries, such as the creative industries, like, film. I’ve worked in this area for a couple of years now so I thought I might try to set up an event to get different people together. My plan for the group? We’re going to put on another one in a month; we need to have a think about sponsors and where we’re going to hold it’.

Seventy four – London Screenwriters’ Festival

I gently knocked on the door and went in.

‘Come in! Sit down!’ smiled the actress. I guessed this was our Meetup organiser, Vicki. I was at the MET Film School, situated in the grounds of Ealing Film Studios. Minutes earlier, I had managed to talk my way through security even though I wasn’t technically registered.

I find a seat towards the back of the room and grabbed a booklet from an adjacent chair. It contained excerpts from screenplays; the Meetup was all about getting your screenplay read by professional actors.

I listened to the screenplay that was being read out and tried to follow it in the booklet but became immediately lost; there didn’t seem to be any connection between the words that were being said and the text on the page. After the scene had finished, there was a discussion between Vicki, the actors, and a young chap called Aiden, who seemed to be representing the director’s perspective. Suddenly, I understood: every scene was subjected to two readings. The first reading was the submitted script, in its entirety, and the second reading was all about suggested changes and cuts.

‘Actors work with whatever there is on the page, and what they really love is bringing themselves to the page. Do you know what I mean? It’s… Less is more. It’s a chance to bring our soul into it’ explained Vicki, after discussing one particular cut.

‘Do think about making a short. If you want to get into film, a short is a really great way to see your words come alive.’

‘A short is a stepping stone, it’s your ultimate business card. You could make a short with the amount of money that you’ve got in your wallet. Crowdfunding. You can think about Crowdfunding a short too; there’s different ways, but it doesn’t have to cost’ added Aiden.

‘It’s the best way to learn too’ added Seb, a smart bespectacled actor who had slicked back hair.

It was time to move onto the next scene. It was a scene in a hospital. A teenager had developed the supernatural power of telekinesis (or, the ability to move stuff around with the power of thought), but there was a negative side effect: it was difficult to control. The precocious teen had landed in hospital with two broken limbs and a fractured skull whilst trying to fly a table that she was sitting on. Things were not looking good for our teenager: the doctors were worried.

The edits were all about cutting clichés: ‘always assume that the audience are a lot more intelligent than you are’ suggested Vicki. ‘Sometimes you don’t even have to write; all you have to do is to leave sufficient space so the actors can do their job. When the lines stop, we don’t stop feeling it…’

The next scene was from a short; a family psychodrama where a cousin was inadvertently implicated in a brutal crime. The actors gave it their all. There was drama, heightened emotion and expressions of frustration. The focus of the edits centred upon trying to speed up the pace of the drama; an essential ingredient for a short.

Vicki started to talk about characters: ‘you want to sleep with them, run away from them, run away with them, have a drink with them – you should have an immediate response to a character’ enthused Vicki. ‘When we take on a role, we feel what they’re feeling. If we don’t do that, then it’s just acting’.

Vicki invited Aiden and the actors to share their opinions. I felt for the screenwriters. It was great that they had the opportunity to see their work performed and be offered some really useful pointers about how to tighten their writing, but some of the criticisms were presented as damning opinions.

Photographs were taken, and we were encouraged to give a round of applause for the actors, writers and audience. It had been thought provoking and fun.

After the event, I milled about for a bit, and eventually got to chat with Vicki. Vicki was a full time professional actor (‘as much as one can be’, she added). Her event was connected to the London Screenwriters’ festival, which had its roots in Manchester. As a part of the festival, she used Meetup to advertise a combination of social and educational events (of which this was the first ‘education’ one). The festival seemed to be a conference where budding script writers could attend workshops and talks, network with people who are already working in the industry, and learn how to pitch. In some respects, I had stumbled into an event that was, in effect, great marketing.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon in a nearby pub. I was surprised to hear that a few people had travelled some considerable distance to come along to the event; from Cambridgeshire and from East Anglia. Everyone described themselves as writers, except for the writer of the telekinesis script, who was called Ben, who worked in IT.

‘Let’s do some pointless networking!’ suggested Paula, writer of the psychodrama. After a number of business cards had been exchanged, Paula, Ben and four others decided it was time to go home.

The remaining two were Kate, the writer of the first script which I didn’t really understand, and Simon, who was an actor, director and illustrator. They were both in deep conversation. Sensing that Kate was very obviously smitten with Simon, I decided that it was time for me to go.

Seventy three – World Music Meetup

My phone beeped.

‘Dude?’ It was my friend Louise, a postgraduate student who was studying Speech and Language Therapy at one of London’s most prestigious universities.

‘Want to go chill by the Thames in the nice weather?’

‘Where?’ I was sitting on a bus that was heading towards Canada Water.

‘By the London Eye’

‘It’ll be rammed with annoying tourists from Liverpool’, I replied (Louise was from Liverpool). ‘Come to Shoreditch. A place called the RichMix, Bethnal Green Road, up the road from the station.’

‘Who you going with?’

‘I’ll be there with Billy Nomates’

After a few more messages I persuaded Louise to come along to random event number seventy three.

Things could have been very different had I eaten my a bit more quickly; I would have had to go to a ‘technology and wine’ event which was something about an internet start-up company. Had I been fifteen minutes slower, I would have to go to the ‘twenty to thirty book club’, where I would have to sit through a couple of hours of tedious talk about a book I hadn’t read. As it happened, I had to go and see the Trans-Siberian March Band. The Meetup advertised ‘awesome Balkan gypsy music; blasting brass, kick ass clarinets and a rhythm section to die for’.

I remembered Shoreditch High Street Overground station from the street art Meetup. As soon as I crossed a road, I suddenly realised I knew something about the venue that I was heading towards: there had been a news item about RichMix earlier that very day.

RichMix is described as a hub for artists, containing spaces for ‘creative businesses’, three cinemas and a range of different performance spaces. It was founded in 2003 from a former leather factory using some money that was offered by the local council. The arts venue was featured in London news because of a particularly thorny dispute; the council stated that the money was a loan, whereas the venue said that the money was a grant. A representative from the venue said that they didn’t have eight hundred thousand pounds and couldn’t pay it back, implying that if they wanted the money, it would have to close. Lawyers were now involved. It sounded messy.

I walked into reception and was directed to a cavernous performance area, walking past a man who was trying to carry an impossibly large brass instrument. After buying a cheap can of beer for an impossibly expensive price, I sat down on a stool and started to fiddle with my phone, checking for messages from the organiser and from Louise, who I feared might get lost.

‘Hello!’

I turned around. It was Mia, who I had met at the James Brown tribute night! Mia had been travelling for the last couple of months, and had only just returned to London. After chatting for a couple of minutes, I saw a group of people colonise a table at the back of the room. I wandered over, holding my can of beer, and asked if anyone knew anything about the ‘group’. My question was followed by a hug, handshakes and introductions.

Our host was Emma. I was struck by an over-abundance of curly hair, a fetching chequered red dress and serious looking steel-rimmed glasses. Mia and I were introduced to Jimmy, a tall British man in his mid-forties, a chap called Seth, and a young Croatian woman called Alica.

‘So, do you know much about Balkan music?’ asked Jimmy.

‘Balkan music? No, nothing at all. I do like this band called Beirut, who are American. Do you know them?’ I was acutely aware that my musical knowledge was astonishingly limited and that my question sounded weird. All I knew was the leader of Beirut had been inspired by Balkan gypsy music when he went travelling around Eastern Europe.

Twenty minutes later, our table had filled up with more people. There was a Japanese woman called Mai, and a woman from Yorkshire who was called Annette. A crowd had also started to gather in the performance space; it was starting to get busy.

I received a message from Louise: ‘Got held up chatting to neighbour. I’m trying to find my way out of Liverpool Street station’

‘Good luck with that one! See you soon!’ I replied, wondering whether she would make it.
A stream of musicians started to file in through the entrance door and walked onto the stage. Hall lights were turned off and spot lights were turned on. A background was projected, which read, ‘The Hackney Colliery Band’.  People started to move towards the stage as the musicians started to get themselves organised.

‘I’ve always wanted to see them!’ said Jimmy, who was clearly excited. ‘I’ve wanted to go and see them for years. I can’t believe it!’

The booming sound of percussion rhythmically resonated throughout the room, quickly and aggressively. A trumpet, trombone and saxophone cried out in unison. At the back of the band, I saw a man wearing a huge brass tuba. The sounds, the noise, and then the music enveloped and encompassed us. I then noticed the extent of the band: two trumpeters, two trombonists, two saxophonists, and two drummers (but only one tuba player). The audience cheered; people stood and watched, others, infected by the tenor of the blues, soul and jazz tinged tones started to dance.

‘We didn’t know we were going to be on tonight!’ shouted the band leader, who was also the lead trumpeter. ‘It’s great to be here tonight at this venue, supporting the Trans-Siberian March Band!’

We were taken through their funk infused repertoire. Different performers wove together musical textures, each player given free reign to add their own embellishments upon a performance that was, to my naïve non-musical ear, fun, energy filled, and delightful.

My phone rang. It had been in my back pocket, on vibrate. It was Louise. I quickly found my way to the street. She was lost.

‘It’s on Bethnal Green Road’, I explained. ‘Can you see the train station? How about the Sainsbury’s?’

Ten minute later, Louise had found her way to the gig, and looked mildly bewildered at having navigated the badlands of Liverpool Street and Shoreditch. The moment she saw the band, Louise’s eyes widened. The band started to play a new tune. My jaw dropped. It was a cover of a Nirvana number. Guitar riffs were played by trumpet and trombone; a bass guitar rhythm by a tuba. It worked. Beautifully. Grunge gave way to a high energy Prodigy techno cover, and then to rapturous applause. The audience loved them, and I did too.

Earlier that evening, I found out a bit more about the group and the organiser. Emma had joined the group a couple of years ago and was one of a small group of organisers. ‘I really like going to gigs’ she explained. ‘Over the last couple of years, I’ve been to over two hundred in London; I love it. Music is my ‘thing’, I guess; I really want to work in that area but, well, you know, it’s tough... There’s so much free stuff going on in London, so I decided to start to host events’.

The group was eight years old and was going strong. It had hosted over four hundred events, and had well over two thousand members. Seth was also an organiser, but he also had another group. ‘It’s not like this one’ he laughed. ‘It’s about chocolate; chocolate tasting’ he explained. His group was about eating, learning and baking.

After a short interval, where Louise and I caught up with each other, it was time for the second band. ‘Look! There they are!’ I nudged Louise who turned around. The musicians were wearing garish comical costumes. There were two clarinettists, a trombonist, a tuba player, a saxophonist, percussionist, something that resembled a guitar, and a trumpet. Two of the musicians appeared to be close to pensionable age.

The moment they played the first note, the crowd cheered. I had never been to a gig quite like it. There is one word that can be used to describe their whole performance, and that word is: joyous. The charismatic band leader, who I later discovered was called Isabella, commanded both the band and the crowd, whilst belting out phenomenally fast jazzy riffs with her clarinet. The energy of each song provoked the audience into dance; there were high kicks, horse impersonations and punk pogoing. T-shirts were grabbed, and circles of dancing were formed. I turned around to see the Meetup people, and Louise. Louise was wearing a huge smile and was trying to film the spectacle on her mobile phone.

By the time Louise and I left, the London air had cooled. The streets were quiet, but we still had Balkan music ringing in our ears; we were dazed. Walking out of the RichMix and onto the street was like leaving a fantastical parallel world of musical connectedness to the practical world of the street, where we needed to figure out how to find our way home.

We gave each other a hug before going our separate ways; I went to Shoreditch Overground, whereas Louise went in the direction of Liverpool Street. As I travelled on the train home, which was filled with the late night voices of revellers, I realised that an indelible mark had been made. I realised that I needed to get out more; I definitely needed to have more fun.

Seventy two – Richmond Scenic Cycling

My lungs were burning, my legs were aching and there were tears in my eyes. I was cycling up Richmond Hill on my way to Richmond Park. Richmond, one of London’s most desirable areas, is over ten miles from where I live. I needed to catch two trains and then cycle for fifteen minutes from the train station. Twelve of those fifteen minutes were up hill, and it had been over a year since I’d ridden a bike.

Gasping for air, I pulled onto a path and got off my bike and surveyed the landscape. It was a glorious day. Below me I could see the river Thames meandering its way from Hampton, through Richmond, and onto Kew, Chiswick and Fulham. It was a scene that had been painted by Turner; a discovery I had made when I paid a visit to an art gallery in Manchester when I was a student. It was also a scene that was a part of my personal history. I could see a tow path; a path that I used to follow when out on a school ‘cross country’ run.

After catching my breath, I got on my bike again, cycled up the final incline and into the park. Minutes later, I was at my destination: Pembroke Lodge. I saw three middle aged women looking expectantly at me. I had found the ‘over 50’s cycling group’.

The organiser was called Kay. The other two members were called Elaine and Mary. Ominously, they all had impressive looking road bikes and were wearing substantial amounts of luminous Lycra. I, on the other hand, was there on a folding bike and was wearing a light cotton jacket and jogging bottoms. I felt ill equipped.

We waited for ten minutes until another member, Alan, arrived. After a bit of chatter, we were off. Kay led the way, followed by Elaine and then Mary. My cheeky little folding bike and tired legs were no match for Kay and her road bike, who tore down the road at an outrageous pace.

I have since read that Richmond Park is London’s second largest park, and it is roughly three times the size of New York’s Central Park. Our first stop was Sheen Gate, a couple of miles from Richmond Gate.

‘How is the pace? Is it okay? I just wanted us to get on our way’ asked Kay.

‘It’s… fine…’ I lied, panting and coughing.

Our final destination was Battersea Park. Battersea is a part of the city that is starting to change. It felt as if I had always know about the area, perhaps due to its iconic art deco disused power station and its famous ‘home’ for cats and dogs. For as long as I can remember, there has been perpetual talk about plans to redevelop the area, which have continually ended in failure. The most recent plans comprising of housing, offices and shops, have gained traction, leading to stories of people camping overnight to try to buy flats that hadn’t even been built; a further reflection of London’s challenging housing market.

We cycled through an area called Barnes, where I felt an echo of a distant memory from when I was aged fourteen. Although I didn’t remember the area, I felt that the quiet, almost suburban tone of the neighbourhood was faintly familiar. We cycled past an urban wetland nature reserve, and then found the River Thames. The pace had slowed; it became more civilised. Streets had given way to paths that were shared with pedestrians. We passed Putney Bridge and rode gently through Wandsworth Park. We chatted as we rode, sometimes stopping to negotiate paths and obstacles.

Elaine, who was from Atlanta, came to Kay’s group every week. She had followed her husband to London; he had a long term contract to set up some new businesses.  Mary was a retired teacher who enjoyed cycling (and preferred cycling with others rather than cycling alone), and Alan, who talked incessantly throughout the entire morning, mostly about politics and immigration, was unemployed.

Kay told me a little about her group. She set it up because she enjoyed going cycling, but she was put off by the other hard-core road racing groups that she had seen on Meetup; she had been looking for something that was a bit more informal. Her group was only eight months old and there were two hundred members, and she starting to look for co-organisers to lead more rides.

‘That’s not the Hammersmith Bridge, is it?’ I said, oblivious to the fact that Hammersmith was in the opposite direction.

‘No, that’s the Albert Bridge. I think this is my favourite bridge in the whole of London’ replied Mary. ‘The towers are a lot narrower than Hammersmith’.

Moments later, we were in Battersea Park, trying to avoid children, dogs and roller-skaters, and soon arrived at our final destination: a café and ice cream parlour that was situated opposite a boating lake.

We parked our bikes, ordered drinks, and chatted about the weather, cockroaches, New York, Dorset, teenagers and sandwiches. After an ice cream (to boost my rapidly collapsing blood-sugar level) it was time to head back the way we came. Elaine cycled onwards to Chelsea, Mary was heading home to Barnes, and I followed Alan who directed me to Putney train station.

When I got home, I had received a message from Kay through Meetup. She thanked me for coming along, and said that I would be very welcome to come on any other rides. It had been so much fun, I might well do just that.

Seventy one – London Shyness Social Group

I was sitting on the top deck of a double-decker bus that was winding its way through Rotherhithe towards Canada Water. My phone vibrated. I had a message: ‘yo what u up to, want to catch up?’ It was my friend Mary who had accompanied me to the Amersham Arms Meetup.  I sent a reply: ‘I’m going to the London shyness group, London Bridge. Dead easy to find: Banker and Barrowboy. I’ll be there just after three’.

Seven minutes later, Mary sent another message: ‘On northern line, marvellous. I’m coming!’

I was a bit worried about going to the shyness group. It’s not that I didn’t want to go; it was more that I’m not particularly shy. There was a time when I used to be; nights out in the pub used to be an ordeal; they were evenings where I would hardly speak, choosing to listen to banter rather than actively participate. Plus, my friend Mary isn’t shy at all. You might even go as far as describing her as a glorious extrovert. Mary loves to talk.

Half an hour later, I was standing outside the Banker and Barrowboy, on the south side of London Bridge. I had been there twice before, and my main overriding memory was that it was incredibly noisy.

‘Is this the Meetup?’ I said to one of many people who were suspiciously loitering outside the pub.

‘Yes! It is! Welcome. My name is Dorota. What is your name?’ Dorota held out her hand. I was then introduced to four or five people in rapid succession, and then to the temporary host of the night, Tim, who greeted me enthusiastically.  I learnt that Tim was hosting for the first couple of hours since the main organiser, Zoe, had a diary clash.

I chatted to Tim for a few minutes before we went into the pub; I needed to ask him something.

‘Tim, I’ve got a friend coming down. The thing is, she’s an extrovert. Is that okay?’ Tim smiled, laughed and said it was fine; friends were always welcome. I asked him what drew him to this particular group. ‘I used to suffer from social anxiety really bad at one point, but I don’t as much these days; it’s just a nice group of people. Everyone is really friendly and accepting’. It also turned out that Tim played guitar in a band, and was a lead singer too.

Inside, the pub was as I remembered it: it had an incredibly high ceiling, a large bar, and a mezzanine floor. Our voices echoed from every hard surface, making it difficult to follow conversations. A note on a menu explained that it was once the headquarters for the National Westminster Bank before it moved to the building where the Health Informatics Meetup had been held. I ordered a beer then found my way to a table that was rapidly being colonised by shy people.

I said hello to the chap who was sitting opposite me, shaking his hand.  ‘Hello. I have this introduction for people I’ve not met before. It takes around 20 seconds; it’s easier that way. My name is Fari. I’m from South London, and my parents are from Iran. My father had a taxi business there before he moved to London which was a long time ago. He also had an interest in rock music, which I’m interested in too; seventies and eighties music. I come to this group quite a lot. I’m originally from South London but I now live in East London’.

On my left was Nicola from France, who hadn’t been to the group before. Sitting next to Nicola was Rob. Rob was studying for a doctorate in Education and Philosophy and was also a part time supply teacher for both primary and secondary schools.

‘Chris!’ yelled Mary. Mary put her vodka lime and lemonade on the table, gave me a quick hug, pulled up a chair and sat down. Mary was elegantly dressed; I wondered whether she had dressed up for the occasion. After a quick hello and a catch up, Mary dived into conversations with the shy people who were sitting at our table.

As we chatted my eye caught a glimpse of a small group of people who had sat down at a table not too far from ours. Tim went over and chatted to them for a bit, presumably trying to put them at ease, but after about three quarters of an hour, they had left, along with about three other visitors.

‘Hello! I’m Zoe, what’s your name?’ The group’s leader had arrived. Zoe was wearing a glamorous black and red dress, and bright red lipstick. I introduced myself and asked her a little bit about the group. Apparently, it wasn’t ‘her’ group, as such, but she ran events within the group. Like Tim, she used to have social anxiety (but didn’t have it so much these days).

Mary and I went to grab a bite to eat, and when we returned, everyone seemed to be sitting at different tables. Shyness filtering had taken place: the not so shy people sat on one set of tables, whereas the painfully shy sat on a different table, not saying much to each other.

Three new people had arrived: Simon, Gerry and Adrian.

‘Let’s take a selfie! Let’s take a selfie!’ suggested Mary. It took two attempts to take a stupid picture of ourselves. ‘I’m gonna tag us in it, but first I’ve got to Instagram it!’ I chatted to Adrian whilst Mary fiddled with Instagram filters, trying to give our pic a vintage feel.

‘So, why have you chosen to come to this group?’ I asked, struggling to make myself heard over the terrible acoustics.

‘That’s, erm, a good question’, he replied, almost appearing embarrassed. ‘It’s a nice group, and it’s good to get out and meet people. I have a stammer, and I’ve found that going to groups like this really helps because you get to talk to lots of different people’.

Adrian’s answer struck me with its honesty. I could also relate, perfectly, to what he was saying. Although I’m calling this quest my ‘mid-life crisis’, for the last ten or so Meetup events, I have questioned whether I was actually making any progress in figuring out what I want to do for the rest of my life. I’ve figured out that I’m still interested in technology and vaguely enjoy visiting weird cults, but other than that, I hadn’t arrived at any life changing conclusions. In some respects, I realised that I was completing this quest for exactly the same reason as Adrian: I have a stutter too.

The reality was that my stutter had turned me into a ‘practical introvert’, which meant that I would choose not to communicate with others simply because it would be easier not to, even though my soul would be crying out to make a connection, to tell a joke, or to share an anecdote.

What these Meetups were telling me is that I’m far from the introvert I always thought I was. Instead, I’m more like my friend Mary, my glorious extrovert friend. The problem was that now I’m starting to ‘out’ myself as someone who is more outgoing, I have less of an inclination to stay inside and read books or meddle with computer software which, arguably, might not be great for my full time career as a technology geek.

I had started to realise that my speech dysfluency, or my neural tic that makes me say stuff in a different way, had inadvertently placed me in the middle of one of the most exciting, fast moving and dynamic disciplines in the world. As a teenager I thought that if I got a job ‘with computers’, I wouldn’t have to speak to many people. The irony is that because technology is so intangible, you need to communicate all the time. Plus, I also really like people.

The bell for last orders rang out. Mary and I drained our glasses, said goodbye to people, and found our way to the street.

It had been fun, but slightly weird; the shy people didn’t scome across as being very shy. In fact, most of them had been pretty chatty. Visiting the group had made me think. It made me think about belonging, and difference, and what other groups I would end up visiting on my journey, and how many groups I needed to visit until I arrived at a destination of awareness and self-knowledge. With a mere thirty more groups to go, perhaps I wouldn’t find a destination. Perhaps at the end all there would be is even more groups, more people, and more difference.

Seventy – Surrey under 40s Ramblers

I sent a text: ‘I’m under the clock, next to the information office’.

I was meeting Hayley at London Waterloo station. Hayley was an internet date. During our first date (which took place a day after the Vegan Meetup) Hayley told me that she was ‘in training’ for a hiking holiday. On a whim, I invited her to the next Surrey Under 40s Ramblers event (which I could now go to, since my foot-on-laptop-power-supply injury had healed), and to my surprise, she accepted. In fact, I wasn’t sure whether she accepted because the ‘date’ was a hike (and she had planned to go on a hike anyway), or whether it was the prospect of my sparkling conversation.

After a fifty minute train journey we found ourselves in a village called Great Bookham. I was thoroughly kitted out: I had a hat, gloves, two rounds of sandwiches, two chocolate bars, a bottle of water, a spare pair of socks, a waterproof jacket, special hiking trousers, stout hiking boots and a packet of plasters just in case I got a blister. We found a group of approximately twenty people, all wearing sensible hiking clothing, standing in the train station car park. After ten minutes of waiting around for someone who didn’t turn up, we set off.

The day was overcast, and rain was forecast, but we didn’t mind. I had a similar feeling to the one I had when I went on the mystery hike: I was pleased for the opportunity to get out of the city, to see some green fields, and to see an environment that wasn’t always busy with buildings.

After chatting all the way from London Waterloo to Bookham, Hayley and I started to chat with different members of the group. This is another aspect to hiking that I enjoy; the opportunity to have conversations with strangers. When I meet people on the street in London, conversations are invariably about how to get somewhere; conversations that often seem to be little more than exchanges of information.

Sally was a physics teacher who worked at a private school in Guildford. For fifteen minutes, we shared stories about students, and empathised with each other about the perpetual academic tyranny that is continual assessment and marking.

I decided to ask Sally a question. ‘I remember different types of energy from my GCSE physics classes: there is chemical, electrical, potential and kinetic… have I missed any?’

‘There’s sound and light.’

‘Ah yes, of course. There isn’t any “thought” energy is there?’ I asked, remembering The Law of Attraction Meetup.

Sally laughed. ‘No! There isn’t any “thought” energy!’

We found ourselves at a small brook. By the time we had navigated our way around it, the configuration of the walk had changed. Sally was deep in conversation with someone else and I found myself walking next to Lottie. Lottie had studied English and now had a job supporting the local judiciary. She had been on a number of these walks and was a member of the Ramblers Association, the organisation that ran the walk.

After following some single track paths, we all found ourselves in a clearing, where we regrouped for a few minutes. I asked a couple of people about the organiser and was introduced to Dan, who was a tall man in his late thirties, who had wild overgrown hair and steel rimmed glasses. I introduced myself, shook his hand, confessed to being over forty, and told him why I was there. Dan didn’t seem to mind. He just said: ‘I’m glad you could make it along today’.

We found our way to a pub, where we ordered teas, coffees, soft drinks and beer. After the break, Hayley and I walked with each other for the remainder of the day. Hayley had asked me about the groups I had been on since I had last seen her. I told her about the film networking and the weirdness of my visit to South Kensington.

‘How does this one compare with all the other things you’ve been going on?’ asked Hayley.

‘This one has been really nice. I’ve enjoyed it. All of them have been fun or interesting in different ways’ I replied, before launching into the story about how I came to visit the Orgasmic Meditation group.

‘Well… This one is a whole lot more sensible’, I concluded, suddenly realising that a third date was now probably unlikely.

Sixty Nine – London to Hollywood

I stepped off the train and started to walk across Charing Cross station. The station was familiar; everything was in the right place: the escalator, the signs to Trafalgar Square, the supermarket and the location of the chocolate company that I had bought Grace’s heart from. London was becoming my home.

London to Hollywood was a networking group for actors, screenwriters and anyone else who might be interested in the film industry. The group was new, and had attracted over four hundred members, and ninety people had signed up to come along for the group’s inaugural meeting in the bar area of a Soho cinema. I wasn’t worried that I wasn’t an actor or screenwriter; I was just up for having a good night out. Something in me had changed: I had lost my sense of fear, but I still held onto a feeling of gentle excitement.

I walked down Charing Cross Road and turned left onto Shaftesbury Avenue, passing the bright lights of the Palace Theatre. A few days earlier, whilst on the way to the Psychology Book Club, a tourist had asked me how to get to Shaftesbury Avenue. At the time, I had to reach for my phone and prod at a digital map for a couple of minutes to find an answer. After this event, I would instinctively know where it was.

Moments later, I recognised my destination: the Curzon cinema. I pushed the double doors and walked down the stairs and immediately found myself amidst a group of people who were wearing hand-made name stickers. I was at the right place.

‘Hello! Are you Dee?’ I asked a woman who was standing by a table that was covered in papers, leaflets and tellingly, pens and stickers.

‘You can either write your real name on the sticker, or you can write the name of an actor or movie star that you would like to be’. To keep things simple, I decided to write my own name.
Seconds later, I was chatting to a chap called Steve, who turned out to be a creative director at a company that produced TV game shows. We were joined by another chap who turned out to be a part time actor, and we chatted about ‘TV show syndication’.

I needed a beer, so I politely exited the conversation and made my way to the bar, where I was duly ignored by a grumpy barmaid, only to be further saddened to discover that they only sold expensive continental lager. After purchasing an outrageously expensive pint of Peroni, I made my way back to the group, where I started chatting to ‘Ed’.

Ed was an aspiring script writer and director, and he was looking to try to break into the industry. I really liked Ed. He wasn’t loud and brash; he was thoughtful. It was his first ever Meetup. He was being brave; he was trying to reach out and connect with others. He hadn’t done any theatre directing (but this is something that he would think about), and he hadn’t heard about the short film Meetup either (but he would check it out). After a few minutes, he pitched his film to me. It sounded great. It was about a family in Sri Lanka; it featured the mania of an urban cityscape and had the backdrop of rural tranquillity, but a tranquillity that was touched by mystery and the recent civil war. I told Ed that he might be able to find people who could help him, nudging him across the room towards a group of people we hadn’t spoken to before.

‘I hate networking; I’m not nice to people, I just insult them’, said someone called Alex. Alex was in his late twenties, unshaven, wearing a cheap looking shirt, and claimed to be an actor. I didn’t know what to say, or how to respond. He was clearly bitter and angry about something.

‘Have you managed to get any work using that approach?’I asked.

Before becoming an actor, Alex had tried his hand at stand-up comedy and confessed to earning only ten pounds over a period of twelve months. Towards the end of our conversation, he called me a dick.

After sharing some banter with an Estonian actress, I chatted to a professional movie producer called Andy. Like Alex, Andy was in his late twenties. Andy didn’t like actors. Andy liked finance. He liked the challenge of setting up a business, getting a deal done, and seeing it through. He said that he had worked on a film that cost ten million pounds.

‘Do you go to these networking events a lot?’ I asked.

‘Yes, I do. The high level ones can be really stressful, where you’ve got a room of professionals and you’ve got to pitch what you do and your project to many different people quickly. This event is really quite a low level one. What’s your role in the film industry?’ I told him that I didn’t really have a connection.

‘Which do you prefer? The high level networking or the low level networking?’

‘I prefer the mid-level networking’. I sensed he was becoming tired of my questions and wanted to be left alone.

‘Well, since I’m not in the film industry, I shouldn’t waste any of your time; there’s all these people here to chat to’. I wished him well with his projects, and we shook hands.

It was time for another beer; only a small one this time, since I had to be up early the following morning. I found myself standing next to a tall man (who was also in his twenties), who spoke with a slight American accent. Joe was studying for a masters degree in public health but had a vague interest in script writing. He had come along to the event to see what it was all about.

‘I recognise you…’ Joe said. ‘I’m not sure where from, though. Have I seen you at another event?’

‘Yeah, I, er, go to quite a few.’ Joe certainly wasn’t at the Psychology book group, and had he been at the vegan event, I certainly would have recognised him.

‘Did you go to the Furtherfield Commons event? Tech empowerment…’

‘I recently went to an event in Finsbury Park… about digital stuff; data security. Were you there too?’

‘Yes! That’s it! That’s where I’ve seen you: I never forget a face, man!’

I vaguely remembered that he had bailed out at lunchtime, just before the second workshop, which explained how come I didn’t recognise him straight away. We chatted about the event before chatting about London and the challenge of finding your way around. Moments later we were joined by two other people: a short film director (who was incidentally very tall), and a budding sound engineer. Suddenly, I heard a familiar voice. I turned around.

‘Sophie! What on earth are you doing here?!’ I exclaimed.

‘Chris!’ Sophie yelled, as surprised to see me as I was to see her. We gave each other a generous hug. People turned to look at us both. Sophie was a colleague from work. She was a part time history tutor. Sophie explained that she had once had a role in a film and was interested in documentary film making. I said that I was there on false pretences and was just enjoying an expensive continental beer.

‘Do you know where Gerrard Street is?’ asked Sophie, peering into her phone.

I said that I wasn’t sure, but I knew that it was close by. Moments later, Sophie was gone. She had left to check out another Meetup.

There were eight people remaining. I had chatted to Estonian, Polish, Greek, Spanish, Indian-American and English people. The organiser had left about an hour earlier; it was nearly ten o’clock. It was time to go home.

Sixty Eight – Law of Attraction Workshop

I was in South Kensington. When I left the tube station, I saw a busy upmarket fast food chain, a respectable coffee shop and a Lamborghini show room. South Kensington isn’t a part of London I know very well, or understand; I only tend to visit this part of the city to visit one of the three museums which are all situated next to each other. In fact, I tend to avoid South Kensington.

I was slightly excited about going to this Meetup. I first thought that the ‘law of attraction’ was going to be some kind of workshop that would help me (or anyone else, for that matter), to become irrepressibly charismatic.  The description of the event, however, totally baffled me. There were references to teachings that were described as life-changing and transformational and I was willing to be transformed.

A short walk down the Brompton Road took me to the entrance to a cul-de-sac that was, in effect, a set of stratospherically expensive ‘mews’ cottages. As if to confirm my thoughts of how expensive the neighbourhood was I walked past a classic car show room that seemed to only sell Aston Martins and classic Ferraris. A minute more of ambling led me to the door of what looked to me like a yoga studio.

‘Hello. I’m here for the Law of Attraction… event’. I said to a mystical looking young man who sat at the reception area.

‘That’ll be ten pounds please’.

I gave him my hard earned money, and I was told that I should remove my shoes, even if I wanted to use the bathroom. I was a bit grumpy about this (knowing what gentlemen’s lavatories are generally like), but I thought it would be best to go along with whatever he suggested. When I returned I found a seat on a bench next to three women who were waiting to join the same event.

Ten minutes later we were gently ushered into a relatively small room which contained candles, cushions and a CD player. Trisha, our teacher, set out folding chairs in a rough circle and gave everyone a card (which we were allowed to read). My card had a painting of a round headed cartoon man who had his eyes closed.

When everyone was assembled, it was time to meditate. Trisha pressed play on her CD player, starting some gentle lilting electronic music, and ‘guided us through the practice’. I never know what to do during meditation, but Trisha encouraged us to either focus on our breathing, or to listen to the music.  I briefly opened one eye and peered around the room. I saw Trisha looking at everyone, as if she was making sure that everyone was meditating correctly. I closed my eyes again and concentrated. I started to contemplate one fact, which was, ‘have I just paid ten pounds to meditate in a room filled with strangers?’

‘We’re now going to read our cards, and introduce ourselves’ Trisha spoke, after what seemed to be an inordinately long time. She turned to the woman on her left. She said her name, read her card and told everyone how she related to the card, and how it connected to her journey. I listened as everyone talked, but I didn’t understand anything that was being said. The only thing that I did learn was that there were four people who had come to the event through the Meetup advert.

It was my turn. I was worried. I had to hit a balance between giving sufficient detail to effectively disclose, whilst at the same time not saying too much to make everyone think I was crazy.

‘My name is Chris, and my card is about breathing’. I read out my card.  The front of the card had the phrase ‘as I breathe deeply, I feel myself thrive’. I turned the card over and read what was written: ‘thriving is as natural as breathing itself; by relaxing often, and breathing deeply – your natural thriving is enhanced’.

 ‘I have to confess that I don’t know anything about the Law of Attraction; I’m totally new. I came here because this was the first event at eight o’clock on the meetup calendar’. I paused. I heard an intake of breath. I needed to say something else. ‘And my thoughts on the card…? Well, breathing. It’s important, isn’t it? We need to do it to thrive. I think it’s very sound advice’.

After the introductions were complete, Trisha handed out an activity form. It had the title ‘The Appreciation Process’. We had to write down fifty different things that we appreciate. Surprisingly, I didn’t find it too difficult. I discovered I appreciated Manchester, orange juice and pasta, along with WiFi, trousers and instant coffee. Having completed the fifty, Abi, the woman who was sitting on my left, turned over her form and started to write even more. Maybe she was trying to get to one hundred.

Thankfully, we didn’t share our appreciations. Instead, the group talked about how ‘the law of attraction was helping them’.  Abi told us a story about how she was into music, and thought of an old friend from her school days. Apparently she bumped into him a couple of weeks ago and discovered that he now worked in a record company! Everyone erupted; there was agreement that this was ‘the law of attraction’ working. This was something that was called ‘a manifest’; a positive thought that led to something real. You think something and you ‘manifest’ your dreams.

One of the two other men in the group started to speak. ‘Talking of music, I’ve always liked musician Paul Weller, and one day Paul Weller walked into the gym where I was working. It’s such a coincidence!’ This was followed with a short story of how he moved from the countryside to London, where unexpected things were happening to him because ‘he was that kind of guy that things happened to’.

Another story was from a woman called Helen who was sitting a couple of seats away. Helen was in her mid-twenties, had long auburn hair and wore no nonsense red lipstick. ‘Me and my boyfriend decided to move in together and we needed to find a flat in London, but I told him, ‘it’ll be okay, the law of attraction will help us; we’ve just got to keep thinking those positive thoughts, and everything will be okay’. Of course my boyfriend thinks that the law of attraction doesn’t make sense, and I’m crazy, but I just tell him, ‘wait and see!’ And, then, what happened, was that we found a really great flat that was less than the going market rate!’ Everyone in the room gasped. ‘The woman who was renting out the flat was going abroad at short notice, and she wanted to find some tenants quickly’.

There were two more stories before it was time to move onto ‘the universe list’ activity. The form that we were given had two columns: things that I will do today, and things I would like the universe to do.

I asked a practical question: ‘has it got to be today, or can it be tomorrow? The reason that I ask is that there isn’t much left of today…’ Trisha said that it was okay if we completed the form if we were thinking of ‘tomorrow’. Reassured, I wrote, ‘eat breakfast’ and ‘go to work’ in the left hand column. I also asked the universe to do my shopping, and bring me a beautiful intellectual even tempered girlfriend who wasn’t into wacky spiritual stuff.

By the time everyone had completed their universe list (which we could take away), our hour session was up. Before we made our way back to the reception area, I asked a question to another member: ‘I’ve heard people talking about ‘the secret’. What is that? Several people have mentioned it.’ The Secret, it seemed, was a documentary. If I was interested in all this stuff, I needed to watch it.

I made a note of something that Trisha said. She told us that ‘everything we desire already exists’. Apparently, all we’ve got to do is adjust our thought patterns to make our dreams become a reality. The essence of ‘the law’ seemed to be if you think positive things you’re going to attract positive things, and if you think negative stuff you’re going to attract negative stuff.

It was dark by the time I left the Yoga Studio, and I was glad to leave. I didn’t like the meditation and the soothing music, I didn’t like the candles, and I didn’t like the idea that people could magic their dreams into existence just by thinking about them.

What I did like was the idea that we should generally try to keep seeing the positive side in everything. Plus, I was sure that my beautiful intellectual non-spiritual girlfriend did exist somewhere. The trick is that I need to keep thinking about her, so she is magically given to me by the universe.

Sixty Seven – London Vegan Meetup

I didn’t want to go out. I wanted to go home and have a ‘normal’ evening which involved making something simple to eat, putting the washing on, and watching some nonsense on the telly. I was starting to get tired of newness, discovery and exploration, but I also wanted to complete the quest. I reassured myself that I only had a third more to go, and that I was on the home straight. I suddenly had another thought: I wondered whether I was becoming more comfortable and accustomed to the idea of the ‘random night out’? It certainly was getting easier, but there was no denying that I needed a break.

I shut down my office computer and reached for my phone. I opened the app, scrolled down, found a group and joined the London Vegan group. I was then confronted with a challenging question: ‘what is my favourite food?’

I put my head in my hands.

My favourite food is chicken. I love its difference, richness and flexibility. I love that you can have the rich textured dryness of a roasted breast, accompanied with the crispy skin from a leg and wing. I love that you can use so many different herbs and spices, and that you can make a simple yet amazing soup by adding pasta, some simple root vegetables and a dash of soy sauce.

I didn’t want to go to the London Vegan Meetup.

I caught a tube train to King’s Cross and then another to Russell Square. After five minutes of walking, I discovered a passage between some modern terraces. The passage led me to a dark walkway that zig-zagged its way to a room that seemed to be a cross between a nursery and an old people’s home. Inside, people were chatting: the kitchen was serving food by a catering company who seemed to be some kind of sponsor. Visitors were giving their names; people had apparently pre-ordered some ‘tasty vegan food’.

‘Hello! My name is Chris…’ I was chatting to Dave, who was in his fifties. Dave seemed surprised that someone was speaking to him. ‘Hello Dave, erm, I’m new here, do you know who the organiser is?’

‘The organiser of the lecture, or the group?’

From the Meetup description I learnt that there was going to be a lecture by the founder of the Vegan Lifestyle Society. After a few minutes of chatting, Dave gestured towards a chap called Jeff who was giving out stickers whilst holding a collection tin. The tin, it turned out, was to cover the costs of the room rental.

I wandered over to Jeff, who was tied up in conversation, and gave him my subs before finding a seat. A women on my left, eating what I took to be a vegan lasagne, was chatting to other members about hiking. I glanced over to my right and saw a number of other people who were patiently waiting for the lecture to start. This struck me as a little unusual: I was used to seeing members enthusiastically chatting, laughing and networking. Towards the back of the room a chap had set out a stall that was displaying a whole series of vegan products and a wide variety of leaflets.

I felt reluctant to chat, mainly because I knew nothing about veganism. I made a conscious decision to ‘hang back’ and observe, to see what happens. I didn’t want to make an idiot of myself; I was worried that the exposure of my own ‘food choices’ might raise more than a few eyebrows, and I might be forcefully escorted out of the nursery.

After ten minutes of people watching, the event organiser encouraged everyone to take their seats. We were offered a welcome and a short explanation: I learnt that the meeting was a joint meeting between the London Vegan Meetup and the London Vegan group (which had been founded approximately thirty years ago). We were then collectively regaled with a series of announcements: we learnt about social events, a big event in Brighton called VegFest, links and connections between other organisations, and were told of cookery classes, which included a class about eastern inspired ‘root free plant based cuisine’. Finally, it was time for our speaker, Kim. Kim pushed a few buttons on her computer and showed her introductory PowerPoint slide. It was a photograph of one of her chickens.

Kim had a story to tell us: it was a story of how she changed from being a non-vegan to a vegan. It was a story of realisation, and she said that her presentation was usually presented to ‘non-vegans’. Kim began by saying that she had a traditional upbringing, that she ate meat as a child, kept pets, wore leather shoes, and baked cakes and biscuits with butter and cream. Her story was punctuated by a number of turning points; she adopted some rescue hens, stopped eating meat and had to confront some health worries. The biggest problem, she said, wasn’t so much about food, it was more to do with other people’s attitudes, particularly those of friends and family.

Kim was a brilliant speaker. Her society was all about promoting ‘full lifestyle veganism’. At the start of her speech she was cautious about using the word ‘convert’, but by the end of her talk she clearly said that she was ‘in it to convert people’. Her speech, however, wasn’t preachy; it was measured and controlled. She was rewarded with a resounding round of applause.

The discussion that followed was interesting. One subject was how to go about raising the subject of veganism to non-vegans, and attitudes surrounding the term ‘vegan’. An example was given: a shower gel that was described as ‘vegan’, but having the term on the front of the product led to a measurable drop in sales; the point was made that ‘vegan’ simply means ‘plant-based’. Another related discussion was that references to animal rights also can be a turn-off to some non-vegans.

The discussion moved onto the Vitamin B12 issue, which everyone (apart from myself) seemed to know about. Vegans, it seems, need to be mindful about taking sufficient amounts of this vitamin. I later discovered that The Vegan Society website (which is an entirely different society to the one that Kim spoke about) published an ‘open letter’ from a number of health professionals offering the following advice: ‘if for any reason you choose not to use fortified foods or supplements you should recognise that you are carrying out a dangerous experiment’.

I hold the view that if you eat sensibly, then you shouldn’t need to use any food supplements. Does the fact that you need to consume supplements suggest that the vegan diet is remiss in any way? The Vegan Society doesn’t believe so. It states that B12 supplements come from the same source as everything else: micro-organisms. Their point is that it’s possible to eat a healthy diet without exploiting animals.

In addition to the ethical and health perspective, there’s also the environmental perspective. Another perspective that wasn’t mentioned is the amount of labour (and labour conditions) of people who work in the meat production industry. Food is, of course, a political and philosophical issue, and coming to this group emphasised a bunch of different debates that I don’t regularly pay much attention to. My own philosophy is one that is pretty simple: I eat to live, rather than living to eat. I do enjoy a good meal but since I live alone I don’t get much pleasure from cooking. When I do cook (which is pretty regularly), my meals tend to be pretty simple; I try to eat healthily and I don’t tend to eat a huge amount of meat. In essence, I don’t worry too much about what I eat, and I certainly don’t think too much about the politics of food.

The vegans that I met that night were not food crack pots or cranks as some aspects of the media like to portray them. They were thoughtful, interested and respectful. Towards the end of the night, I went to find both the organiser of the London Vegan Group, and the organiser of the Meetup to come clean as to why I was there.

‘Kay, I’ve got something to confess…’ I said to the woman who ran the Meetup group.

‘What’s that? You’re not a meat eater are you?!’ she challenged, starting to laugh.

‘Yes, I am… and also this is number sixty seven out of one hundred randomly chosen Meetup groups’.

‘Sixty seven?’

It turned out that Kay ran another vegan group that was based in Brixton, South London. I was invited.

Sixty Six – The London Psychology Book Club

A left turn, just off Regent Street, took me to an urban cul-de-sac that was packed with restaurants. I had never been there before. My destination turned out to be a cool looking vegetarian place that sold expensive organic beer. I found the book group sitting at a large table that had been reserved for ten people, but only two had turned up: Cathy, the organiser, and Mike.

Despite having over five hundred members, the group had become moribund; there had been only one meeting during the previous year, which had been all about ‘slow sex and orgasmic meditation’. Cathy was going to try to re-launch the group.

‘I couldn’t help but noticed that you joined today. What attracted you to the group?’ asked Cathy. I started to explain that their event was the first one that was held at seven o’clock in the evening before sharing a quick outline of my quest.

‘Okay, but do you have any interest in psychology?’

‘I do!’ I explained that I had studied a bit of cognitive psychology at university.

Cathy, it turned out, was taking a module in Government and Politics at the London School of Economics, and Mike worked in IT as a civil servant.

‘I write computer software that goes through lots of different data sources. I help to create evidence that could be used to convict people’ explained Mike.

I wanted to ask him more about the kinds of work that he did, but I was mindful that we were there to talk about psychology, not IT or data privacy.

It turned out that Mike had been to quite a few meetings of the Psychology Book Club: ‘I like to think when I stopped going that was when the group disbanded, but there’s probably other reasons…’

‘So, what kinds of psychology books do you like? I mean, there’s a huge spectrum, ranging from pop-psychology on one hand through to really academic texts…’

‘One book I really liked was “The Psychology of Romantic Love”’. It turned out that Mike was also a fan of ‘Falling in Love: Why we choose the lovers we choose’. Cathy appeared to be genuinely interested. ‘Apparently, one of the big factors when it comes to falling in love is proximity’ explained Mike. I was starting to cringe at what was clearly a particularly cheesy chat up line.

‘One book that I found was really interesting was “Why Women Have Sex”’, continued Mike. ‘It was really interesting! Apparently there are loads of different reasons, and some of them are, like, really dark. Men, on the other hand, only have two reasons’.

‘Two reasons?’ I asked. ‘What’s the second one?’

I took a sip of my organic lager. What was annoying me was that Mike was clearly good at his ‘chat up patter’. Mike was also younger, Mike had all his hair, and Mike was (arguably) quite a lot more handsome than I was. I soon got a measure of the dynamics of the conversation: whenever I added to the conversation, Mike offered a story that was ‘one better’ than mine. I didn’t mind, though; I was just an observer who was passing through; Mike could talk as much as he wanted to. I was happy to listen.

Cathy was interested in social psychology. She told us about a book called ‘The Family Crucible: the intense experience of family therapy’; she spoke about how relationships between partners can have a profound effect on a relationship between parents and their children. She explained that patterns of behaviour can repeat themselves between generations. I had heard about family therapy, but I had no idea how it would work, or even the circumstances in which it might be applied.

An hour and a half into the Meetup, we were joined by a new member: Lucy. Lucy worked as a translator, but was considering taking a postgraduate degree: she wanted to become a counsellor. Cathy knew something about counselling: before becoming a counsellor you have to undergo a period of counselling so you’re able to gain an insight into the process (and to learn more about yourself). Lucy was reading a book called ‘The Happiness Trap’.

The conversation moved between the psychology of cats and the theory that having a cold shower every morning is good for you (because every day you’re going to be ‘out of your comfort zone’) to the idea that explicitly ‘choosing’ to be happy is bound to make you become profoundly miserable. Electric cars were discussed, along with a story that a French woman once married the Eiffel Tower.

Lucy turned the conversation around to the business of the night: choosing a book to read. She asked us all for suggestions. Even though I wasn’t going to be returning to the group, I was asked for a suggestion. I suggested one of my favourite books by a neurologist called Oliver Sacks. I’m particularly fond of two of his books: ‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat’ and ‘An Anthropologist on Mars’. Predictably Mike suggested a popular psychology book about love and romance, but since the reforming of the group was Cathy’s initiative, Cathy would have the privilege.

She opted for a book called ‘What Do Women want: exploring the myth of dependency’ by Eichenbaum and Orbach. Cathy explained the premise of the book, but due to the effects of a second glass of beer, I didn’t take in much about what she told us, other than it was about the effects of important relationships and trying to reframe the notion of dependency.

After the book had been chosen, Lucy decided to call it a night and Mike said it was getting late. I put on my jacket, picked up my bag, and said goodbye to everyone.

I walked up the stairs, left the restaurant and found my way back to Regent Street. The whole evening had been unexpectedly eclectically enjoyable, despite Mike’s testosterone. I thought about the group as I picked my way through the crowds milling around Oxford Circus. Could a book group about any book about psychology (including fiction) work?

The answer was: if there is someone like Cathy leading it, then yes, it probably would.