Twenty – Clapham Girls Book Club

I knew I had a busy day and I knew what time I was going to finish work, so I decided to plan ahead. I stood on the train to Charing Cross and looked at the Meetup app; the first event at seven o’clock in the evening was Clapham Girls Book club. There were two obvious problems: firstly, I hadn’t read the book that was going to be discussed, and secondly, I wasn’t a girl. Throwing caution to the wind, I registered and asked the organiser whether I could come along.  The was my first proper invocation of the 'inappropriate Meetup group' rule.

I received a reply a couple of hours later.  Tina, the group organiser, said that the group wasn’t open for men. I was disappointed, but not too surprised; after all, the title was very clear. I replied, explaining what I was doing and asked whether I could interview Tina instead. Fifteen minutes later, I had received further response: since her group was about books and I was pretending to be a writer (my words, not Tina's), she said I could come along.

I had never been to a book group and had no real idea what happened in them, other than knowing that were an opportunity to make friends, be exposed to new books, and, of course, to drink copious amounts wine.

The book that was to be discussed was ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ by American author John Green, who is known for his young adult fiction. The book was about two characters who had cancer, and was apparently narrated by a character called Hazel. The evening really didn’t sound like a bundle of laughs, but the rules dictated I had to go, and Tina was expecting me; I couldn’t let her down.

‘Do you want to come out with us for alcohol and food?’ asked my colleague.

I looked at the clock in the corner of my computer screen. It was ten minutes to six. She had endured a tough day dealing with timetables and student queries. Plus, there was another colleague who had just finished a tough day of interviewing who I knew would benefit by imbibing a couple of glasses of the red stuff. Two pairs of expectant eyes looked at me. I couldn’t decline, but I felt torn; I needed to get to book group yet at the same time I needed to catch up with all the office gossip.

In the restaurant, we settled down for wine and pizza, and when there was a lull in the conversation I told my two colleagues about Clapham Girls Book Club and my one hundred Meetup quest.

‘Have you even read the book?’ exclaimed Lou, astonished by my explanation.

‘No. I have no idea what it’s about, other than it’s by John somebody, and it’s about two young cancer patients, I think… It was written by… John… No, I can’t remember his surname. Can’t remember’.

‘I think I know the one you mean! My daughters have been raving about it! It’s been made into a film! It’s just come out… It sounds like a terrible book, but they’ve been saying it’s really good, it’s not sad; it’s uplifting!'

Lou told me everything that she knew about the book. Lou’s familiarity with the book had changed her view of how crazy I was (but only by a small amount).

‘What time does it start?’ Lou asked.

‘Seven o’clock’.

‘You need to go! You need to go now!’ Lou said, looking at her watch. ‘You’re going to be late!’

The journey was simple: a tube train from Camden Town to Clapham Common followed by a short bus ride. Clapham is a part of the city that remained confusing: I had no real clue about where the tube station was in relation to The Socialist Party of Great Britain (now a London landmark, but only in my own head) and Clapham Junction (Britain’s busiest railway station). The bus I needed to catch had the destination of ‘Clapham Junction’ emblazoned on its front. Every Meetup was helping me to learn how London was connected.

As I approached my destination, a gastropub called The Marchant, I become increasingly nervous. People were stood outside chatting and smoking cigarettes in the warm air. Inside, I approached a large imposing bar which offered a myriad of different beers. As I walked towards the bar, I unexpectedly saw a familiar face: it was Annie, who I vaguely knew from a comedy Meetup I go to.

‘Annie!’ I said loudly, relieved and surprised to see a familiar face. ‘What are you doing here? Are you here for the book group?’

‘Hello Chris! Yes, I am’

‘That’s great! I’m not supposed to be here… but Tina said I could come along. Is she here? I’ve got special dispensation’.

‘It had better be pretty good dispensation!’ Annie laughed. ‘A boy asked to come along once before, and she wouldn’t let him. He was kicked out.  Yeah, she’s here. We’re all at the back. Come. I’ll introduce you’.

I bought myself a drink a wandered over to the back of the pub. In the corner, sixteen women turned to look at me. Tina gave me a massive smile and gestured for me to take a seat. I quietly sat down, and the conversations that I had rudely interrupted quickly resumed. I felt a set of suspicious eyes upon me and started to wonder what Tina might have told to the others about by presence.

It took me a few moments to get a handle on the discussions: they discussed the two main characters, their relationships, their illnesses, that the sex scene had been clearly written by a man (‘it wasn’t fluffy, was it?!’ chuckled Annie), the incidental characters and how others related to their plight. The discussions were gracefully directed by Tina. When the discussions lulled, she asked further questions, drawing on several pages of notes which seemed to contain questions or prompts. I was impressed: it was expertly run.

I noticed glasses of wine on the table; the drinking and discussions were measured and controlled, it was friendly and thoughtful, and gradually moved into deeper topics: live, love and death.  From time to time, some of the women spoke about how they were touched by cancer: Annie spoke of a friend, another woman spoke of a friend’s father, and I remembered a student I once knew.  All this reflection made me realise that I needed to complete this ridiculous quest more than ever. I vowed that I should live, and live well, by finding all these different groups, that I should continue to be challenged, and continue to feel cautious and uncomfortable.

The women discussed questions that have, from time to time, preoccupied me (and perhaps preoccupy all of us): what it means to leave a mark, and what it means to be forgotten, and whether all that ‘making a mark’ business really matters in the big scheme of things.

A couple of months ago I read or heard a simple answer to the question of ‘what is it all about?’ (and I fear that I might write this more than once, since it keeps preoccupying me): that the only reason for life, is simply, to live. Being at this random event in Clapham, in some respects, was a simple expression of that elemental will.

During the discussions I was steadfastly quiet. This was their space; I didn’t want to intrude. All I could potentially contribute was opinions based on hearsay, which was a phenomenally lazy way to attend a book group. I enjoyed hearing the discussions and I knew that after the meeting I had to go and buy the book. I also knew I would appreciate the writing more having heard everyone’s opinions. Besides, I wanted to read it. I wanted to read about these two star crossed lovers who were challenged by illness and, ultimately, death.

‘So, what do we think about the end?’ asked Tina. I wondered whether I should close my ears, but I decided to keep them open. In some respects, I felt it didn’t really matter: it was now the reading of the book that mattered rather than how it ended.

When the final words about the book had been spoken and the discussions had been exhausted, Tina turned to me, and said, ‘so, what do you think?’ Fifteen pairs of eyes turned to look at me; it was the turn of the interloper to speak.

‘Erm… it’s been very interesting!’ I babbled inanely. ‘I’ve never been to a book club before. I had heard of them, so I had no real idea of what to expect. I’ve really enjoyed listening to all your discussions’. I told them that I was going to read ‘The Fault in Our Stars’, and said what I was thinking: that everyone’s discussions will add to both my understanding and appreciation of the book.

Within minutes, the group had dissolved, and the tables were empty. A couple of the regulars said goodbye to me, but there wasn’t really the opportunity to chat to people; perhaps the discussions had made everyone reflective, or perhaps I was the strange visitor who didn’t say much, or perhaps simply because it was getting late and people had homes to go to.   I had enjoyed coming along. No one person dominated the discussion; it was friendly and respectful. It was a good night out, but one that had been spectacularly weird.

I walked with Annie to the tube station and we chatted about the meeting for a while. I said that really liked the idea of the book group.

‘There’s a mixed group in Brixton that I go to, but this one is closer’ Annie said.

I made a mental note of this. Brixton wasn’t too far from where I lived. Her causal throw away comment gently pointed towards the different adventures and opportunities that London accidentally offers.

We said our goodbyes, and I dived into the Clapham South underground station to catch the Tube to London Bridge. As I made my journey home, I started to think about my week and how I might find the time to read ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ so I can read about Hazel and the other main character, Augustus. I easily resolved this short debate: there is always time for books.

Nineteen – Carpe Diem – Daytime in London

I emerged from the darkness of Camden Town underground station into glorious sunshine. It was eleven o’clock in the morning; I was bang on time. I was heading towards an event called: ‘historic walk: the lost Fleet part two’.

The Fleet is one of London’s hidden rivers. Today, there is little evidence of it having ever existed; it has been managed, tamed and built over. I was especially interested in this walk since it started, quite literally, around the corner from my office. I was prepared: I wore sensible shoes and had packed a bottle of water.

Through the crowds, I soon saw someone who I took to be our leader, a woman called Helen. Helen was an official council guide. We all handed her some money, were given a short health and safety briefing (‘there is some traffic, so be aware of what is around you’), and we were off.

Our first main stop was close to a pub called The Constitution, half way between Kings Cross and Camden. Helen pointed to an unobtrusive manhole cover. This, she said, was the river, which has its source in Hampstead Heath. We peered into the manhole grate; we heard a hiss saw flashes of light reflecting from water.

We continued towards Kings Cross and St Pancras station, passing by new buildings that were either residential flats or student accommodation. As we walked, I got talking to a Russian woman called Svetlana.  She was in her mid-thirties and worked as an accountant.  She told me that even though she had been in the city for over ten years and enjoyed Helen’s social walks because she always learnt something new about her new home.

We stopped on a corner as Helen climbed a small embankment. Behind us was a huge Victorian building.  Helen told us that it used to be a workhouse.

‘You really wouldn’t want to be there’, Helen said, describing nasty jobs, such as pulling ropes apart (picking oakum) and crushing bones. She told us that women and children were separated, and impressed upon us that the pace of work was relentless. The building was now a hospital, specialising in geriatric and mental health care. What was once just another building on my commute home had now acquired new significance.

A few minutes later we arrived at the grounds of St Pancras Old Church. Helen said that the grounds have been a site of Christian worship since the fourth century. At the back of the grounds, we could see brick walls that separated the grounds from the railway.

Apparently, ten thousand graves had to be excavated to make way for the train line that eventually found its way to St Pancras station. We stood by a tree, known as the Hardy Tree, named after Victorian novelist, Thomas Hardy. Hardy worked on the excavation of the grounds and placed discussed headstones around the trunk of the tree, creating a rough and unexpectedly beautiful monument to those whose death had been disrupted by the arrival of a new technology.

We were soon back onto the main road, passing through a road tunnel that ran underneath St Pancras railway station, following the path of the hidden river. Within minutes, a modest amount of grass had given way to acres of glass. I quickly realised where I was and its significance to London; we were walking though one of the cities ‘newest’ districts: we could see the building of what was to become the Francis Crick Institute.

Helen told me that it was originally to be called ‘the hexagon’, since the building represents a partnership between six different research groups (which can huddle together and share expertise and technology): Cancer research, three prestigious universities, the medical research council, and the Wellcome Trust. (I couldn’t help but realise that there must be an amazing story of how all these different institutions ‘got together’).

I saw the construction site for Google’s new UK headquarters. Close by, there was Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design. All these buildings constitute an amazing concentration of creativity, all served by three huge railway stations. Collectively, they show how London is changing and becoming something new, a place that is connected; you will soon be able to walk between the world of science, past a powerhouse of technology, to a prestigious centre of artistic education and endeavour all within a couple of minutes.

Our group meandered through the recently reopened King’s Cross station, where we marvelled at its graceful steel lattice roof, and then went outside to a square that was now unrecognisable. We crossed a road, assembling by yet another building site, further evidence of the area’s perpetual transformation.

Helen had a lot to tell us. We were told that the area was once known as Battle Bridge. The ‘bridge’ part referred to an ancient river crossing, and ‘battle’ bit referred to a battle between Boudica and the Romans, in AD 60 or AD 61. We were told stories of floggings, Boudica’s journey down Watling Street (now known as Kilburn High Road) and the mysteries that surround her remains. A popular modern myth is that she is buried beneath platforms nine and ten of King’s Cross station.

We walked up an incline and found ourselves at Percy Circus; a roundabout surrounded by expensive looking houses.  From the centre of the roundabout, we were told to look down towards the street. We could see the hill fall, and then rise again on the other side of a road. The road, we were told, was a valley where the Fleet used to flow; this was the hidden topography of the river that Helen had told us about.  Helen then pointed towards a blue plaque that had been placed on the side of one of the buildings.  It was a house where Lenin used to live.

We walked down a flight of steps, which inspired an Arnold Bennett novel called the Riceyman Steps, and returned to an invisible shore.  Our next stop was a royal mail sorting office, which used to be a prison. Helen had more stories for us. Flogging again featured, but this time she included a description of a giant ‘hamster wheel’ which prisoners were forced onto.

‘Punishment was all about pain; they were given very little food, so they all wasted away’ Helen said with relish.

We were then taken to a junction of a pub called ‘The Coach and Horses’ on a kink in the road where the river once meandered. ‘Even the police wouldn’t come down here. There was bear baiting, cock fighting, and a secret entrance to the river so robbers could escape; you wouldn’t want to come here. Priests would come here with bodyguards’.

Close by, we found the ‘well’ of Clerkenwell, which was only discovered during the construction of a new building, and walked past the Smithfield Market and to bottom of the Holborn viaduct.

‘This was the part of the Fleet that was navigable by sea. Back there, you’ve got the market, where cattle were slaughtered. Because the market is so close to the river all the entrails went into the river; it was an automatic waste disposal system. It was a disgusting place.’

Minutes later, we stopped again, and were told of yet another prison and further stories of rape and torture. I was finding all these dark nasty stories hard to take in.

‘You’ll see that the street rises and falls a bit? This is because of the Victorians. Underneath the road you’ve got all these arches that they built to control the flow of the river’.

We were getting to the end of the walk, and our penultimate stop was at a site of what used to be a tutor mansion house. It was now a solicitor’s office.  On my left I could see Blackfriars station, gleaming in the sunlight. As I glanced at it, it suddenly dawned on me that a big part of my journey to my office is over this hidden river; I had been following its path and I had never realised. I also realised that I wouldn’t look at my commute in the same way ever again; that Helen’s tour had now, suddenly, added immeasurable depth to my daily trip.

Our final stop was Blackfriars Bridge and the river Thames. We peered across a safety rail and saw a tiny outlet embedded into the bridge, a concrete pipe. There was a small trickle of water coming from the pipe. This, we were told, was the end of the river Fleet.

Eighteen – Free Meditation and Yoga

I pushed the door and went into the room and immediately saw a spectacular vaulted ceiling. I looked around; paintings adorned the walls. One painting was of King Edward; he was depicted as being severe and formal, his eyes looking downwards into the depth of the room. At the end of the room, there were arched stained-glass windows. I was in Ealing town hall.

I knew nothing about yoga other than it seems to involve some stretching and some people love it. In anticipation for whatever exercise I might be subjected to, I had dressed sensibly; tracksuit bottoms, training shoes, and a simple T-shirt. I even had the foresight to come with a bottle of water. I was ready to whatever unexpected activities the evening had in store for me.

At the front of the room, I saw a photograph of what I took to be our ‘yogi’. She was a severe looking woman of about sixty with big eyes and long hair. Next to her picture was a flickering candle. The room was also filled with a strong smell of incense. There was also a PowerPoint presentation. These things; the picture, the incense and the PowerPoint all reassured me that I was obviously in the right place.

My journey to Ealing had already been enlightening. At the train station, I sat down next to a man who was wearing a pink cat suit, a purple jacket and a green cowboy hat. We were both heading in the opposite direction of the commuters; the station was empty.

‘The work of a wife is never done, is it?’ he said loudly, smiling. ‘There’s cooking, cleaning – all those chores; it never ends!’

‘I know what you mean’, I replied, wondering where this conversation was going to go. ‘I’ve been busy hoovering today’

‘Ah, yes, hoovering…. You can’t escape hoovering, can you? Where are you going, may I ask? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to… I mean, it’s nice to chat, isn’t it? I mean, chatting helps you to get a connection with someone, don’t you think?’ He laughed.

‘I’m going to yoga in Ealing.’

Our train to Charing Cross station arrived. We sat together and continued to chat.

‘Ealing? That’s a long way!’ he exclaimed, laughing. He was right. I had a train ride and two tube trains ahead of me – it was touch and go as to whether I would get there in an hour. ‘I’ve often wondered about yoga. I’ve heard it’s good for your joints. I’ve got arthritis in one of my knees’, he rubbed his knee. ‘I’m going to a sex club. I’m a bit stressed at the moment; I don’t get there very often but I’ll be okay as soon as I get there. Everyone gets naked, you see. I’ll get more relaxed when I get naked.’

I was mildly lost for words. ‘Is that, erm, in Soho?’ I had no idea about how to make small talk about sex clubs.

‘Yes! Well, it’s close to Soho, not exactly in Soho. You get all kinds of people there, some porn stars go there – they can’t get enough of it! I used to go to this other place, which was like, an S&M place, where people get whipped, you know? They love it! It’s sooo strange.’

I was again lost for words.

His name was Ade and his parents were from Nigeria.  He lived in a couple of streets away from me.

‘Fuck! I’ve forgotten my Viagra!’ Ade suddenly exclaimed.   He frantically rummaged through his bag, just as the train approached its destination. ‘Honestly, my room is such a mess; I can’t find anything! I’m such a hoarder, you see’. Ade then took a slug from a whisky apple and beetroot juice cocktail he was carrying.

At the end of our short journey, Ade complemented my skin, and kissed my hand before power walking towards the ticket barriers, where he had to chat up the train barrier attendant to persuade them to let him through (since he didn’t have a ticket).

Three quarters of an hour later, I arrived at my destination.

The ‘introduction to yoga’ PowerPoint slide was brief. It had five points: an introduction to meditation, ‘self-realisation to achieve a spontaneous meditative state’, how to meditate at home, how to clear left and right channels, and finally, a foot soak with accompanying mantras’.

The evening was facilitated by a woman, who was clearly the lead yoga teacher, and a man called Nick, who drove the PowerPoint projector and made sure that the teacher’s microphone was working.

‘Kundalini is a being that we’re not aware of, it’s a mother force and its centre is at the bottom of the spine. The energy from the kundalini awakening can move through different energy centres, which are the chakras. When it is awakened, the energy that is released feels like a cool breeze.’

I looked around. There were around twenty people who were listening very intently. I also saw that a couple of windows were open.

‘Yoga is a spiritual journey that connects us to nature. We can learn how to harness the energy that is coming from around us, and within us. We’re able to judge everything on the vibrations that we harness, and through a free four week course we’re able to share our awakening with others. This helps us to be more aware of our chakras and you’ll be able to move energy around between different centres’

We were then told to take off our shoes, since our feet apparently contained some important chakras. Nick was then asked to play a video recording of the great yogi. The recording was a part of a course that was held in New York. The clip was proclaiming the advantages of her particular type of yoga.

‘You can be more creative, you become freer to do new things, and you can more readily pass your exams’. There were further claims. Learning the knowledge of the kundalini can apparently lead to joy. By being able to receive vibrations, you learn how to reduce quarrels with partners and family, and there is also the potential that this new knowledge, if shared, can lead to a new society. The claims were coming thick and fast: the techniques were said to help with cataracts, and that the yogi has saved the life of a dying woman.

During the video, we were encouraged to try some yoga meditation. We were told that we need to keep a couple of things in mind; we needed to forgive ourselves, not to feel guilty about anything, and forgive everyone – the idea is to be ‘at peace’. This, for me, was a massive ask. I certainly wasn’t in any mood to forgive my ex-wife. Even though I was seriously worried of the claims that surrounded the kundalini awakening, perhaps this was the point that I needed to take from this bizarre evening; that perhaps I ought to think about not being so grumpy about being ripped off.

The teaching continued. Apparently there are seven seats of chakras on the top of our head, and the centre of pure knowledge is in our lower abdomen. We were encouraged to move our hands and rub our head in a clockwise direction, and to ask the phrase, ‘mother, am I your spirit?’ This was followed by another phrase: ‘mother, I am my own master’. (We were then told that ‘divine is the ocean of bliss, knowledge and forgiveness’, none of which I understood in the slightest). Two further phrases: ‘mother, I’m not guilty at all’ (a phrase which I’m pretty sure I’ve used on more than one occasion), and ‘mother, I forgive everyone’.  We then put our head on our scalp, and said, ‘I cannot take your freedom from you’.

‘Who felt the cool breeze coming out of your head? Please raise your hands’.

I looked around and I was astonished to see that a third of the participants had raised their hands, but then I remembered the open windows.

The next bit of the session comprised of further PowerPoint slides that showed nonsense anatomical diagrams to explain the ‘link’ between the body and our chakras. This was followed by some talk about how you can begin to learn about how to balance out your left and right channels (which connect these different chakras together). A good way to sort out one of your right channel is to meditate whilst having a good old foot soak.

The foot soak was, I have to admit, the highlight of the evening. There were about fifteen bowls of water that another helper had prepared. When our teacher mentioned their availability, there was a mild scramble for the bowls.

‘Would you like one?’ an elderly lady asked.

Sadly, it was too late. They had all been taken by energetic meditators. The second helper went around everyone and added a tablespoon of cooking salt to each bowl, and dished out paper towels. Eventually, everyone settled down to do some meditation practice.

Our teacher offered us some guidance: ‘everyone, raise your left hand. Now put it on the right side of your stomach; that’s where your liver is’. Minutes earlier we were told that the function of the liver was to absorb heat (which fundamentally challenged my naïve understanding that it produced bile, purified the blood and generated enzymes).

After the excitement of the foot soak, we were given candles for a bit of ‘candle practice’. The ‘fire and light’ elements (which are certainly not ‘elements’, according to my high school chemistry classes) can be used to clear our left channel. We were also told that we can make things a whole lot worse for ourselves if we use the power of the candle on our right channel. Not doing things properly or neglecting the left channel could (allegedly) lead to serious mental health issues such as schizophrenia and depression. Of course, we couldn’t use a lit candle, due to health and safety concerns foisted upon us by Ealing Council. Instead, we were told to move it around our body and our head in a circular motion.

At the end of the session, Nick came over to me and asked: ‘how was it for you?’

‘It’s offered me a whole new dimension of enlightenment’, I replied.

Nick chuckled and nodded, and then went back to his PowerPoint projector.

The room emptied very quickly. Some people chatted, others milled around a table where they could buy a photograph of our yogi. As I started to walk towards the Ealing Broadway underground station, I caught up with a fellow classmate.

‘What did you make of all that?’ I asked. ‘Do you think you’ll come back?’

‘It all depends on my work; I’m very busy at the moment’. Within moments, my classmate had gone.

I felt disappointed by the whole evening. There was no stretching, just a bit of ‘unlit candle work’, and a small amount of ridiculous chanting. I had no idea what was going on and I was profoundly unconvinced that any of the ‘teachings’ could increase my powers of creativity and learning. In fact, my kundalini had steadfastly refused to rise, and I sensed that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my chakras.

Seventeen – The Four Hour Work Week

I couldn’t help but feel disappointed when I saw the title: twenty five killer tech tools for digital nomads and solopreneurs. I didn’t want to sit through another tedious lecture about technology but I had no choice; I had to go. And what were solopreneurs?  I had no idea. Looked at my phone to see where I needed to travel to: St Katharine’s dock.

I remember St Katharine’s dock from my early teens; I had memories from a day trip. My dad had heard about a new development in the city and wanted to check it out. All I remember of the day was that it was very long and that I was told, ‘this is where the yuppies live’, without having any idea what he was talking about.

The Meetup was held in a building called International House. My entrance was greeted with a smile from a group organiser who suggested that I should make myself a name badge. Apparently my name wasn’t on the guest list (because I had signed up to the group half an hour before arriving), but it was quickly added without any fuss.

‘Head down that corridor, go left, and feel free to get yourself something to drink’.

The corridor was busy; people were working. People sat in glass cubes, plugged into a laptops and telephones. Desks were filled with computers.  Posters of new tech companies adorned the walls.

The ‘drinks’ appeared to be a couple of jugs of tap water and some plastic cups.  Apparently, the small amount of beer that was available had been snaffled up. About fifty people were stood about, chatting. A chap called Dom introduced himself, and we got talking to another guy called Graham. Dom was the speaker for the night, and Graham described himself as a packaging entrepreneur. Tech, it seemed, wasn’t really Graham’s thing.

I chatted to two other people: Emma and Kim. I confessed to Emma that I had no real idea what the group was about, and she started to talk about income streams through product syndication and outsourcing. Emma, it turned out, was a company secretary.

Everyone was brought to attention and we were ushered into our seats for the talks. The first talk was essentially a sales pitch by a chap called Stephen. Stephen was a part of a development company that ran ‘programmes’ that gave delegates insights in how to create ‘health, wealth, love and relationships’. He also said that his organisation ran a number of ‘trading system training courses’ which could ‘help you escape the rat race’. Stephen said that everyone who came along to the Meetup could go to his ‘health, wealth and relationships’ lecture for free, and would be at the back of the room collecting names and email addresses after the talks.

It was then the turn of the main speaker. Dom described himself as a serial entrepreneur. He gave us an anecdote from his childhood where he scammed a woman who collected money from kids who paid to go on a bouncy castle. His second ‘business’ was selling goods to record shops.  He now had a number of different roles: he did a bit of financial advice, and trained people to use financial advice software. The rest of the time, he said, is spent learning about stuff. He claimed to work only for himself, and he could do this by using loads of technology.

After about fifteen minutes of listening the purpose of the Meetup finally became clear. The group was connected to a best-selling business book (that I had never heard of) called ‘The Four Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich’; a gloriously compelling title that immediately made me profoundly suspicious. Looking at the blurb, the book describes, ‘a whole new ball game’ and ‘roadmap’ which is also a ‘manifesto for the mobile lifestyle’. It’s a book that is said to help you change your life and enable you live your dreams, by ‘tearing apart conventional assumptions’. It was a book that enabled you to ‘live a millionaire lifestyle without being a millionaire’.

Dom had clearly bought into the dream. Technology, he argued, helps us to become so productive that we only have to work for four hours per week; we can take extended holidays and travel around the world as we ‘work’.  We can do this by ‘being smart’ with different apps; we can outsource some of our admin to off-shore phone answering companies, and we can ask for graphical design work and audio jingles to be created for five dollars. His underlying message was: ‘be second foolish, and hour wise’.

Some of Dom’s tips were, admittedly, useful. He spoke about how to use a phone very cheaply when travelling abroad, and how to create a blog. Also, if you needed someone to do some hard technical coding stuff quickly, there were ‘micro contract’ sites that allow you to advertise your problems.

After Dom’s session, there was an opportunity for members of the group to present a series of 'elevator pitches'. I heard pitches for life-coaching services, on-line multi-lingual secretarial support, a number of new start-up businesses, a recruitment consultant, and a software coder. Finally, Akash, our group leader stood up and said that the London group was now bigger than the group in New York, and that free pizza had arrived. Everyone clapped.

There was a significant part of me that was steadfastly cynical. The people in the group were great, and Dom’s talk was interesting; it was slick and polished. It contained some great tips about how to work smarter, but I couldn’t get away from the feeling that the book conveyed a mystical ‘work related’ ideology. I think my own cynicism comes from my own work ethic: I would be lost without it. If I worked only four hours a week I probably would go insane because I would end up watching way too much day time television.

I found time to have a quick chat with Akash. I really liked him. Akash sorted out the venue, found the sponsors, and booked the speakers; for the next event he had found a speaker who was going to do a talk about public relations. Akash told me that the office area where the event was hosted was something called a ‘co-working space’ where different people from different organisations come together and use the space to run projects and have meetings. He also told me that he worked for a company that was a ‘free stuff aggregator’; businesses put free stuff on the internet, and his company tells people about the ‘free stuff’ it had found. I soon realised that Akash worked a whole lot more than four 'hours per week; he had full-time nine to five job.

The journey home was a new experience. I walked across Tower Bridge and along the south bank to London Bridge. It was dusk and it was warm; my face was cooled by a gentle breeze. London was illuminated by millions of lights.

A newly married couple had photographs taken whilst standing precariously on a wall by the Thames to catch the best possible view of the London skyline. I walked past couples holding hands, and solo photographers with tripods who were trying to get the perfect picture of Tower Bridge.

Sixteen – London on Board

My work meeting finished early.  As soon as I said my goodbyes to everyone, it was time to roll the dice; I was excited. As I rode the elevator to the ground floor, I looked at the Meetup app calendar and saw that there were no events in the late afternoon.  Instead, the earliest event was at half past five and was called ‘Gaming at The Bishop’s Finger’ and was hosted by a Meetup group called ‘London on Board’, a group that played ‘adult board games’.

Being a former member of the geek community (in the sense that I used to watch Star Trek, played the occasional game of Dungeons and Dragons, and enjoy messing around with computers because I didn’t have any friends), you realise that there are many other parallel ‘geek universes’ out there. There are comic geeks, fantasy geeks, electronics geeks, and there are also board game geeks. As a teenager and student I pretty much avoided these other dimensions of geekdom. When I read the Meetup event description, I had a few key questions that I needed to answer: what were these ‘adult board games’, how do you play them, and what is there to get so excited about to make you want to create a whole community of people that meet with each other after a tough day at the office?

My phone offered me some instructions about how to get to a pub; I needed to catch a bus. My bus took me through the back streets of Islington, past the Angel underground station and towards the heart of the city. I got off by The Barbican and had a ten minute walk to the pub, which was situated on a square close to Smithfield Market. The area was quiet; the time for trading had long passed. Motorcyclists and cab drivers stood on a corner, chatting and drinking tea. With about an hour to kill before the start of London on Board, I ordered a drink and settled down with a book at a table that overlooked the square.

‘I’ve been with him for two years, so obviously he’s the one I’m going to marry…’ Two women were talking loudly. After gently eavesdropping for a few minutes I realised that they had both attended the same course and were having a crafty glass of wine before heading off to a restaurant.

‘I’ve been with my boyfriend for six months but, you know what, I find it impossible to be faithful!’

‘You know what, I’m exactly the same’.

I was finding it impossible to read; I had been subject to my ex’s infidelity and this conversation was starting to dredge up some uncomfortable memories.

A phone buzzed.

‘He’s texting me shit about the wedding. I’m going to ignore him.  I don’t have work stress but I do have him stress; I have relationship stress! He’s going to move in to my place, you know? He’s going to move from his parents; it’s best this way – I’ll get him away from them’.

I looked up from the page.  I had been re-reading the same sentence for the past five minutes.

‘I don’t want his family to raise my kids. I don’t want them to fill my kid’s head with rubbish, you know? His family totally does my head in…’

I took a sip from my drink and looked out at the taxi drivers who were having a chat. One driver was sitting in the back of another’s taxi. A motorcycle courier had finished his tea and was pulling on his helmet.

‘He earns, like, fifty grand doing software or something, and I earn thirty, so he needs to give me some money, you know what I mean? He could like, set up a standing order or something, to do a transfer every month – for the wedding, you know?’

I couldn’t stand any more. I looked at my watch; it was time to go inside.

The event took place in a function room on the first floor. I was the second person there. I introduced myself to Lloyd, who was our host for the night. Lloyd asked me about my interest in games.  I said that I didn’t have any particular interest, and told him about my one hundred Meetup quest.  He seemed genuinely interested; he asked me how many groups I had visited and which one I had found the most interesting.

Within half an hour, fifteen people had arrived, many of whom were carrying board games that I had never heard of. Lloyd set up a card game that had one hundred and four cards. He patiently explained all the rules which seemed to be profoundly complicated: ‘each card has got a number on it, and you’ve got to put the card down on the other cards that have a lower number than your card – and if there are six cards, you take them all and put them to one side, and then at the end of the game, you count up the number of bulls you have on your cards’.

‘Bulls?’

‘Yes. That card has five bulls, this other card has just one bull – the winner is the one of us who has the lowest number of bulls’.

None of this made any sense. I was starting to panic.

'The game is all about the bulls?'

Three people sitting around the table nodded in agreement.

We played, and Lloyd narrated every single step of the game so we could all jointly assimilate all the rules. It gradually started to make sense; I needed to get rid of as many bulls as I could early on in the game so that others were forced to pick them up and they would lose. It turned out to be fun!

With more people arriving, Lloyd set up a new, totally different game, which was all about building societies.

‘The winner is someone who builds three temples. The other way to win is to build two towers, or you could use all your huts; you win if you haven’t got any left. Basically, you put down these hexagons on each go, and when you’ve done that you can build some huts, but you can’t build on a volcano, but what you can do is put one hexagon volcano onto of another hexagon volcano, so that way you can build upwards, and only then can you build a tower…’

I had absolutely no idea what Lloyd was talking about.

A new visitor called Keith arrived and sat down at our table. He introduced himself and announced that his game of Zombie Fluxx was ‘a gift to the group’.

‘Anyone fancy a game of Warewolf?’ Keith asked.

‘Don’t worry… its easy; I’ll explain it’ he said, noticing my expression. There were four of us who were prepared to play.

‘The idea is that you’ve got to discover the Warewolf, okay? Each card is, like, a different character and they do different things. You take a card at the start, but this card might change, so you don’t know who you are. There’s a villager who wants to find the warewolf, and there’s the hunter who, like, kind of commits suicide. The hunter can accuse someone of being warewolf, and then shoots him, and that can finish the game, but then the hunter kills himself. Then there’s the see-er who can see what some of the other cards are. There’s the troublemaker who swaps cards with other players so they don’t know who they are. A thief does another swap. The insomniac can see what their own card is after everything has been moved around – and we’ve got six minutes between us to figure out who the warewolf is, and then we all take a vote’.

I started to panic again.

Keith was visiting London; he was on holiday from Los Angeles. Board games were apparently Keith’s ‘thing’. Before the game of Warewolf started, Keith said that he belonged to a similar group in LA, and regularly went to a huge gaming convention in San Diego. He clearly knew how to play Warewolf.

‘What kind of stuff do you do when you’re not gaming?’ I asked.

‘Erm… the best way to put it is that I catch bad guys over the internet’.

‘You’re a spy?’ I asked undiplomatically. ‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to; I would completely understand if you can’t’.

‘I’m kind of like a spy. I work for a big accounting firm in their security division and we do research into people to help to create cases’. Keith used to work for the US Military before moving into information technology; his current role seemed to cross the boundaries of both these areas.

Keith got out his smartphone. ‘The way the game works is that there’s an app that takes on the role of a moderator; this gives instructions at the start of the game’. Keith pressed play. Spoken instructions told different characters to shuffle different cards around, so everyone knew different bits about who was who.  In the six minutes of the game, everyone had to work together to pick out the bad guy, and the ‘warewolf’ makes stuff up to put everyone ‘off the trail’.

As the timer on Keith’s smartphone counted down, accusations unfolded and bedlam ensued. ‘I think you’re the warewolf!’ someone called Graham shouted. Despite being a mere villager, half of the participants thought I was the bad guy. It was fun, but confusing. I ‘got’ the idea of the game, and understood how its fast paced dynamics combined with the need to talk nonsense could make it quite compelling, especially after a couple of beers.

After a second game of Warewolf, I have to confess that I broke my ‘bitter end’ rule; a migraine that had gently started in the early afternoon had taken hold and I needed to get home. It was a shame; my initial fears of not being able to understand anything had rapidly dissipated: newbies were tolerated and everyone was patient. I could see how everyone was enjoying everyone’s company and the absurdity of the games; they were all wonderfully escapist.

As I waited for a bus to London Bridge, I asked myself a question, ‘would I like to go back to this group?’ The answer was a clear and unambiguous yes: this was a dimension of geekdom that I could happily embrace. ‘I could always come back’ I thought, ‘but only when I’ve done my one hundred’.

Fifteen – South London Social

It was February.  It was biting cold and pitch black. Squinting in moon light, I locked my front door and walked down a concrete staircase, feeling the outline of a handrail. I could hear the sound of waves crashing over the shore; pebbles hissed as water returned to the sea.

Twenty years ago I lived in a small seaside resort called Jaywick Sands due to a combination of laziness, incompetence and luck. At the time I was a postgraduate student at the University of Essex, and I had left sorting out accommodation until it was too late. Luckily, the accommodation service was able to help; they offered a flat that was twelve miles away from the university campus. Thankfully, I had a car and was a driver.  Somehow, I had fallen on my feet: I had had my own balcony and sea view - and I was a student!

Six friends from London visited me at my bachelor ‘apartment’; we were all going to a pub I had never been to before. We all stumbled in and were hit by humid warmth.  Within minutes, we soon realised that we had walked into the middle of a karaoke night. We were faced with a collective dilemma: should we head off to another pub, sit it out, or join in? We decided to join in.  I say, ‘we’ quite loosely, as what I really mean is that my so called ‘mates’ insisted on putting my name down for a range of songs, some of which I had never heard of before.

I sang the songs to the best of my ability and I was surprised by everyone’s reaction; my mates cheered me on as two elderly couples (who made up our entire audience) clapped appreciatively.  It was one of those nights when everything was perfect: it was a gloriously happy time, and I discovered that I was able to do something that I never thought I would ever do.

I felt a tingle of excitement when I realised that I had to go to another karaoke night. Although I had been through this bizarre exercise in positive public humiliation twice before, I had never regained the feeling of excitement or the accolades that I received in my debut performance.

The Meetup was held in a part of London called Tooting. All I know about Tooting was that it had a very silly name and it featured in a seventies TV comedy show called ‘Citizen Smith’.  After searching for the pub and looking at a map, I realised that the easiest way to go was by motor scooter.  I could clearly see the main arteries I had to follow: the south circular, and the road that went all the way to the south coast.  It was a pretty easy ride.

The night was run by a lovely woman called Sharon introduced me to all other members; all of whom were women.

‘Are you going to sing?’ Sarah, another group member, asked.

I had been given a pen and a ‘track slip’, and told to choose something from the ‘music folders’.

‘I’m not sure if I will… I’ve just come down to say hello, really’ I replied, suddenly becoming nervous.

There were thousands of songs to choose from, all neatly organised alphabetically according to artist. The karaoke DJ had his equipment set up at the front of the pub: there were two television screens, a mixing desk and two sets of lights that illuminated the floor and ceiling. The DJ put on a track and started to sing a Sinatra number to make sure everything was working.

Satisfied that everything was working, the DJ called for Sharon.  ‘Come on!’ Joanne, another member of the group shouted. ‘Let’s give her some support!’ gesturing that we should all follow her. We all made our way to the illuminated ‘dance area’ to give Sharon as much support as we could muster.

Sharon admirably belted out the first number of the evening.  Although it was a bit rough around the edges, she did a pretty solid job.  Her timing was good and she was roughly in tune, which was more than I could say for the next singer.

One by one, we all got up, in various states of inebriation and sang our hearts out.  I sang two karaoke standards: ‘I’m on the way to Amarillo’ by Tony Christie, and ‘Daydream Believer’ by the Monkees. As I took the microphone from the DJ, there was a small part of me that asked the question: ‘what on earth are you doing, man?!’, but then it suddenly didn’t matter anymore, because the track had started.

I then had two worries: the first that I really didn’t know the song well enough to do a good job (and be able to sensibly second-guess the lyrics as they appeared on the television screens), and secondly, that I might not be able to hit the high notes.

Both of these fears materialised.  I didn’t know the songs as well as I thought I did, and I couldn’t hit the first few high notes. To cover up my obvious inadequacies, I used bluster; I sang with gusto, improvised ridiculous hand gestures with the intention of trying to get ‘the audience’ to sing along, and stamped my feet at appropriate points during the chorus.  When my first track came to an end, everyone clapped and cheered.  I had prevailed, even though all the regular drinkers appeared to be thoroughly disinterested in the painful spectacle they had just witnessed.

As I walked towards the back of the room, basking in my unexpected success and my delusions, Rachel, a fellow group member and karaoke accomplice whispered, ‘you’re a dark horse, Chris; I wasn’t expecting that!’

Fourteen – Zero Defects

My train was half an hour late getting into London Euston.  Had it been on time, I would have had to go to London Tall People. The Tall People Meetup was a film screening; I don’t remember the exact detail.  There would have been a downside. There is nothing more infuriating than going to the cinema and being sat in front of a giant who blots out your view, ruining everything.

Instead, I went to Zero Defects, which was the first event at half past six.  It was located in an office building situated between Liverpool Street station and Bank.  I soon found the office and after pushing an entrance buzzer I was told to go to the second floor.  I discovered a room filled with people.  I quickly found a seat.

This event was mysterious. The description consisted of only two sentences.  The first was about ‘uniting around a cause’, and the second suggested that there going to be loads of other interesting events that would take place.  When I signed up to the Meetup group, there were some weird questions, such as, ‘what are your views on testing?’ Answer: ‘it’s important’. ‘What do you think about devops?’ Answer: ‘I don’t know this term, so I can’t form an opinion’.  All I knew was that it was a technical group about software.

I soon realised that this event was a bit different to the other technical Meetups: there was no free beer. Two banners were displayed at the front of the lecture area: one that related to a company that developed user interface components that be used in websites, and the name and logo of a consultancy company that I had never heard of.  

‘Is anybody looking for a job?’ our leader, Andy, asked.  Andy was an immaculately dressed middle aged gentleman who spoke with an Essex accent.   From what I gathered, Andy’s main job was working at the consultancy firm, but he also had a connection with an IT recruitment agency, hence his cheeky question.

There were two presentations.  The first one by a chap called Dan, who talked about his journey from an academic in the biological sciences to his current job as a software architect.  ‘I didn’t do computer science at university; I immersed myself in learning… I got to see a presentation at a conference about software which changed how I looked at everything’.  I was mildly baffled: why would you make that change?  Surely the biological sciences (of which I knew nothing about) could offer a rewarding and challenging career?

The second presentation was by Andy, who told us that he was also going to talk about software architecture.  He began by asking the audience what they knew about the concept of ‘zero defects’ before talking about Japanese manufacturing processes.  He mentioned the challenge of gathering requirements and spoke about different views of a software development process, and (for some reason) the organisational structure of advertising agencies.

Within the first five minutes of Andy's talk I realised I had to endure ‘Death by PowerPoint’.  Whilst I was sitting in that office, hearing about critical paths and project management, I had a flashback to my university days.  To appreciate Andy's lecture to its greatest extent I felt as if I should have been bleary eyed, have ringing ears and a mild hangover all from a heavy night at the students’ union.

Even though I had lost the will to live a number of times throughout the one hundred and twenty seven slides of the presentation, my interest in software and software development was occasionally piqued.  Creating software isn’t just about writing computer instructions in a weird computer language, it's about philosophy.  It’s about creating a representation of a problem (or set of problems) in a language that can be understood by both humans and machines.

As coloured boxes moved randomly on the presentation screen I asked myself a question: what are the ways in which the software development cultures differ?  The software development process that Andy was talking about was very different to what the people at Yammer were talking about. There was also something else that I detected: Dan talked about software as an ‘engineering discipline’ whereas Andy spoke of it in terms of being ‘a craft’.  

There were clear tensions and differences between the two speakers.  Developers and architects, it was argued, need to find time to practice and develop their craft; creating software can be a bit like painting.  On the other hand it could be a bit like engineering, where developers bolt together known components together according to a well defined schedule.

When the presentation ended, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief; I had been subjected to more PowerPoint slides that I could stomach: one hundred and ten more, to be precise. I hadn’t learnt too much; I realised I should have gone to London Tall People.  I felt tired, hungry and grumpy; I wanted to go home. I didn't chat to Dan and Andy as I should have done; my patience had been thoroughly exhausted.

I went downstairs and out into the cool evening air and soon became lost.  London was empty; this part of the city was deserted.  It felt unusual.  I walked in the rough direction of one of the sky scrapers I recognised; the Shard, figuring that I could find a way to catch a bus to London Bridge station.

Thirteen – Experience French

I can’t speak French.  I can quite honestly say that I didn’t learn anything during the three and a bit years that I studied French at school.  I remember my first ever class.  All students were ushered into a massive classroom where we were asked to copy words from a text book into our exercise book.  We were occasionally given lists of words to remember; there was no accompanying context, just a never ending stream of tests, all of which I failed.

The third year was the most entertaining.  I ended up in the ‘divvy group’ for three different subjects: English, French and (for a while) mathematics.  Everyone who was in my French class didn’t want to be there.  The class was used as ‘recovery time’; it sat between physical education (which I hated) and a very welcome break time where the students could eat crisps and kick a ball about in the playground.  Subsequently, all the kids were either tired, bored, or both.  A gang sat at the back of the class and practiced flirting and shouting; another kid acquired a skill of walking on desks.  When surrounded by chaos, noise and hormones, I did exactly what I did in the other French classes I been to: I copied words from a textbook to my notebook, not really understanding what I was copying.  We didn’t speak French.  We wrote French.

I re-read the description of the event for a second time (which was in English) and I was immediately worried; I needed to do something.  I was going to a French public speaking club; a club that was a part of an organisation called Toastmasters International.

I opened Google translate and typed in a few words of a simple introduction.  I looked at the French words that were generated.  I didn’t recognise any of them.  I also didn’t have a clue how to pronounce them either.  No matter; I printed my ‘speech’ out in huge idiot-proof text (thinking I could always show them my speech if it went wrong), put it in my top pocket, and left my office.

The meeting was held in a building called City Temple which was close to the Holborn viaduct, which is just south of Farringdon.  I opened the door and walked in.  It was a modest room.  Thirty chairs were set out in rows and a French flag was draped over a lectern.  Bunting (also French flags) was sellotaped to the wall; I was certainly in the right place.  People were talking, in French.  I stood at the front of the room for a few seconds, wondering how on earth to introduce myself.

I started to walk towards a group of people at the front who were chatting away.  ‘Hello!’ came a voice.  I turned around.  ‘It’s Chris, isn’t it?  Chris Douce?’  I had no idea who this was.  ‘It’s Lucy!  Julie’s friend! I recognise you from Facebook!’

I suddenly realised who Lucy was.  She was the daughter-in-law of one of my friends who I had visited in hospital a few weeks earlier.  We had become ‘Facebook friends’ when we had  both posted about our respective visits to see Julie, but we had never met in real life. Julie used to live in France, and I knew that she had a strong interest in the world of ‘public speaking groups’.  These facts together made Lucy’s presence in the group make sense (in contrast to my own presence, which, of course made absolutely no sense at all).

‘Chris!’  I turned around.  It was another friend of mine.  It was Helene, who I had met a few times at a comedy Meetup.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was floored by all these co-incidences.

‘I didn’t know you could speak French!’ Helene said, before giving me a huge hug.

‘I don’t!  I didn’t know that you could speak French either!’

After a bit of catching up, it was time for the evening to begin; I moved to sit down.   I noticed there was someone sitting at the back of the room who had a stop watch and a set of coloured lights to let the speakers know how much time they had left.  Introductions were carried out in English, primarily for the benefit of a Toastmasters divisional leader who was there to make sure that everything was running properly.  There was also a ridiculous agenda that had over twenty items.  It was all incredibly well organised.

The meeting was split into three parts.  The first bit was a set of pre-written speeches, which were called ‘manual speeches’ (all members had to try to complete something called the ‘competent communicators’ manual).  This was followed by a bunch of evaluations and some ‘impromptu speaking’; this was where speakers were given a topic and they had to ‘make stuff up’.

The first speaker was Laura.  I had absolutely no idea of what she was talking about, but she did show us some nice pictures.  She showed us a map of France, a picture of the statue of liberty and a picture of a croissant.  The second speech was by apparently about ‘democracy’.  Unlike the first speech, there were no pictures, but I started to listen to the cadence and tone of her language.  The third speech of the day was to be inspirational, motivational and appeal to a ‘higher purpose’.  It was given by an English woman called Emma.  Emma did a cracking job; she smiled, changed her speed of delivery, asked the audience questions, had exquisite body language, and spoke totally fluently.

As she spoke, a part of me fell in love with her.  Although I had absolutely no idea what she was going on about, but I was enchanted and fascinated by her ability to speak fluently in two languages.  How did she manage to achieve this?  What was her story?  What was her connection with France?  Every member of the audience was enchanted; you could hear nothing except her gentle yet expressive voice, communicating something that was obviously important but resolutely unfathomable.

Towards the end of the first half, all the guests were invited to say something.  My name was called out.  I walked to the front of the room (which is what the other guest had done), and reached into my shirt pocket for my Google translate script. I looked out at the crowd. I was suddenly petrified. I cleared my throat.

‘Hello, my name is Chris, I live in Lewisham, and I have come here by mistake.’

Everyone laughed.  I was suddenly very aware of sounding undeniably and distinctively British.  I looked out at the audience again.  I had a second sentence.  This was harder than the first.  All the words were alien to me.

‘I am visiting one hundred different Meetup groups and your group is number thirteen’

There was silence.  Thirty people looked at me with an expression that suggested utter bafflement.

‘Thank you for having me.’  I nodded, then went to sit down.  In retrospect, I should have said more.

I received some polite, muted applause.

The rest of the meeting went in a bit of a blur.  The interval comprised of some bread and cheese (French cheese, of course), followed by the impromptu speaking section.  There then a time keepers report, and then evaluations of the ‘table topics speakers’ which was by my friend Helene, who made everyone laugh by doing exaggerated impressions of everyone. The meeting ended with a final ‘general evaluation’ speech.

I stuck around for ten minutes or so.  I learnt that Emma was married, that my friend Julie was a lot better now that she had left hospital (and that she would welcome a visit at home), and Helene was between jobs.  I also managed to chat to the president of the club who had come directly to the meeting from her job in the city, where she worked as a management consultant.  I looked around.  The room was almost empty; almost everyone had gone home.  It was time for me to go home too.

Twelve – Women who Code

I thought I may need to apply the ‘inappropriate Meetup group’ rule, but then I saw the sentence: ‘guests and men are welcome too’.  That was all I needed; I was going.  After a short tube ride I emerged at Oxford Circus and gathered my bearings.  It was the middle of the evening rush hour and I was encircled by teaming and rushing crowds; it was a struggle to find my intended destination: a nearby pub.

There was a part of me that was disappointed; this was another technology Meetup; ‘coding’ is the process of writing or creating computer software.  Again, I wanted to do something different; something that was wacky or unusual.

I studied computer science as an undergraduate and out of a group of twenty men, there were four women, and this was apparently pretty normal.  A couple of months earlier I had visited a tech conference as a part of my 'day job’.  It was very clear that things hadn’t changed in twenty years.  In fact, the gender disparity seemed to be worse.  Out of an audience of around two hundred, you could count the number of women who were at the event on one hand.

I climbed a flight of stairs and found myself standing amongst a group of three women. They all looked at me; I had nowhere to hide.  After some brief introductions I learnt that the group I had stumbled into was apparently a part of a wider international movement and I was visiting the ‘London chapter’.  There were apparently thirty five other similar ‘women who code’ groups around the world, helping software developers and technical people to network with each other.  I was told that I could go to the bar and order anything I wanted; the sponsor had put a tab behind the bar: free beer!  After my glass had been charged with expensive Italian lager, it was time for a brief introduction and then a talk: the highlight of the night.

The talk was by a chap called Phil who owned his own consultancy firm. The title of his lecture was: ‘how to make code run really fast’.  He began by asking a couple of questions: ‘who here is a developer?’  Almost everyone put up their hand.  ‘Who here codes in Java, or knows of Java?’ About half of audience of about thirty put up their hand.

Phil worked in the financial sector where he helped to develop ‘high frequency trading systems’ written in a programming language called Java.  He told us about financial exchanges and encouraged us to conduct measurements of our code, telling us to think of things in terms of ‘speed percentiles’.  Memory, he said, is really important, since this can have a significant knock on effect when it comes to the ‘garbage collector’.  Phil mentioned profilers and described some code optimisations.  He then shared an old tech adage that small changes make big improvements.

It wasn’t too long before Phil moved onto the subject of microprocessor architectures.  I took a long sip of my free beer; I was starting to get restless.  Phil fired a wide range of technical concepts at us: memory caches, disk input output, multi-threaded software, the use multiple cores and the need to balance development time against trading time performance.

As Phil talked, I realised I had question that I really wanted to ask, but this then made me ask another question: ‘should I really behave in a way that could potentially affect the dynamics of the group?’  I had my ‘don’t be disruptive’ rule, but I realised it had fuzzy boundaries.  I felt that I ought to keep my trap shut.  After all, this wasn’t a Meetup that was aimed at me; I was a bloke, and blokes like me have an annoying habit of asking smartarse questions.

I enjoyed Phil’s talk.  Like the earlier Meetup, it took me back to the time when I used to be a developer, and I was pleased that I was able to roughly follow what he was talking about.

‘What are you doing here?’ asked Sarah, after the talk had ended.  It wasn’t a confrontation; she asked her question with a smile.  Sarah lived in Luton and worked in the government as a data analyst.  This was her first ever Meetup event.  I sensed that Sarah was someone who was pretty easy going.

‘Well… I have two reasons.  The first reason is one that is true and a second one that I’ve made up.  I’ll tell you the second reason.’  I told Sarah that I used to be a software developer, and that I’m acutely aware of the gender divide in IT.  ‘I also have a colleague who does research into the relationship between gender and IT, so I’ll be telling her about this event’.  Sarah forgot to ask me about the first reason.

‘I was wondering if you were some kind of letch…’ Sarah joked.  I assured her that I wasn’t (but then again, I don’t think letches are thoroughly aware of their own lecherous behaviour).

I caught up with Phil at the bar, and asked him about the question that I had been mulling over.  Phil was from Australia and studied both computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Melbourne.  He had worked in the financial sector for around five years.

‘I’ve heard of high frequency trading, but I don’t know what kind of things are traded…’ I said, fully prepared to express my ignorance.

‘It can be anything where speed gives you an advantage.  Two examples are, say, foreign exchange and equities, but there are others’.

Phil told me about the algorithmic trading that lies at the heart of high frequency trading.  A trader doesn’t have to a human; it can now be a computer program.  He described a couple of algorithms that are used: software can look at price movements and can make the assumption that a price will always fall back to an average (and will buy and sell shares accordingly); another strategy is where software tracks price movement momentum.  If the price movement slows, a computer might make a decision that a share price has reached its peak (and therefore sell, and make a profit).  He mentioned that some banks had their own exchanges too.  I asked Phil about this.

‘These are exchanges that are run by different companies where you can buy and sell the same thing.’

I asked an obvious question: ‘how do they make sure that they all have the same prices?’ I imagined a super high speed data connection between exchanges that keeps all the prices in sync.

‘Ah, well, they don’t.  There are discrepancies.  You buy something on one side, at one price, and sell on the other side at a different price.  The difference is your profit.  The faster you can do your trades, the bigger the profit, and the more you can take advantage of discrepancies between exchanges’.

I was puzzled.

‘IT systems used to be considered as a cost to the business, but things are different.  The IT systems actually are the business.’ Phil continued, oblivious to my confusion.

It was a nice event; everyone was friendly and no one seemed to mind that I wasn’t a woman.  I also really appreciated the free beer, pizza and chicken wings.  I had expected less talk about hard core tech issues, and more discussion about issues that surround IT, computing and gender; this simply didn’t happen.  I was also initially surprised why a man seemed to be doing most of the talking, but the reason for his appearance soon became clear: he was recruiting; he needed Java developers.

As I travelled home, I thought about what Phil had said and I remained confused.  If you make money through buying and selling on the discrepancies between prices, then where is the money coming from?  Have high frequency traders found a new way to magically create ‘new money’ by applying a clever technical wheeze?

I did some digging and found an answer.  I learnt that a high frequency trader gains money because someone else is likely to lose out; you prevent someone else from getting a fair price on a commodity.  You might gain a couple of pennies here and there, but if you do high frequency trading all day, every day, you can make a lot of money.

One further thought struck me just as I was walking home from the train station.  Phil’s work was all about understanding the technical minutiae of how to get machines to do things quicker to make your rich employer even richer.  I did a quick thought experiment: how would I feel if I had to do his job to do for a living?  I didn’t have to think for too long until I had an answer: I would probably hate it.

Eleven – Dance Walking London

Dance walking is a simple idea: gather a group of people together who each have their own MP3 player, give everyone a copy of the same mix track, and get everyone to push ‘play’ at the same time: then go dancing.  In the street.  Pretending that everything is a massive interactive nightclub. 

We met in a café in Camden Town, just around the corner from my office.  If you don’t know it, Camden is a magnet for tourists in the day time, and pleasure seeking party animals at night.  It’s a place where you can drink, go dancing, get a tattoo, buy weird clothing, and do loads of other things that I won’t go into.  I love the place, but it has taken me years to accept that I have ended up working in an area that some consider to be deeply fashionable.  A couple of weeks earlier a colleague said to me, ‘did you see that bloke on the street who was literally standing on his head?’  She had taken a photograph of him.  Sure enough, there was a bloke who was standing on his head, on the pavement, amidst loads of passers-by; it was his form of busking.  

I felt ridiculously ill prepared.  Rather than wearing spandex, shorts, trainers and a tight fitting vest or t-shirt, I was wearing a relatively smart office shirt and heavy motorcycle boots.  These were not the kind of shoes that you wore to go walking in, never mind dancing.  I had a very bad feeling about all this.  I wanted to go home.  I just wasn’t in the mood for this nonsense. I started to repeat a secret mantra of, ‘this dance walking Meetup is going to be okay… you’re going to look like a bloody fool, but then again, nobody will really care; this is Camden’.

‘Are you here as a part of the group?’

I turned around.  I met Amit who had travelled to Camden all the way from Hammersmith, West London, to participate in this insanity.

‘This place is amazing!  It’s almost as if it’s another country!  Are there any other places in London like this?’

I wracked my brains.  No.  There was no other place in London that was quite like Camden Town.

I then met Ellie.

‘You look familiar…’  Ellie said.

‘I do?’

‘Yes – are you a member of London Alternative Nightlife?’

‘No, I’ve not been to that one’.

‘How about Central London bisexuals?’

‘I’ve not been to that one either.’

It turned out that Ellie had seen me at a stand-up comedy Meetup a few months earlier.   

We were soon introduced to Simone, an outrageously bubbly German woman who turned out to be one of the co-organisers.  After about three quarters of an hour of chatting and general disorganisation, we left our meeting place to find a place on the street where we formed a rough circle.  It was then that I witnessed the miracle of enthusiasm and energy that was Emily.  Emily was an American who had a massive smile.  Unlike me, she was wearing sensible clothes: trainers, shorts and t-shirt.  This was her meetup, and this was her group, and she was the director of the dancers and the dance walk.  Andy volunteered to be the ‘lead’ since he knew the way from Camden to Primrose Hill, and Simone volunteered to go at the back.  I kept my hand steadfastly down.

‘Andy is going to lead, but if anyone wants to lead, if anyone want to take over and do what they feel seems right, then just go ahead and do it.  I’m making a video, and if anyone wants to take over this duty too, that is also okay…’

We were then asked to do some warm up exercises.

‘Rub your hands!  Feel that energy!  Feel that heat!  Now, raise your arms and move them out to one side as far as you can, until you stop seeing them – this is the boundaries of your space, your awareness space.  It’s important to be aware of what is going on, and who is around you.  Okay!  Stomp your feet!  Move your hips, move your arms…’  Emily’s warm-up made me feel profoundly uncomfortable for a number of reasons. The ‘circle’ and the use of some kind of method gave the ‘coming together’ a cultish tone, and this worried me.  Secondly, I also had the impending feeling that I was going to make a public spectacle of myself. 

‘Make a noise!’  There was some whooping and hollering.  As I gave an unenthusiastic flat ‘whoo', I had two thoughts: ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this sober’ and ‘it’ll all be over soon’.  After a communal countdown, we all pressed play on our personal audio devices and we were off.  

A lot of thought had clearly gone into the music mix.  It slowly music built up, increasing in tempo and volume until it reached an energetic peak.  Suddenly Andy was off, leaving what was (thankfully) quite a secluded spot and onto the busy Camden High Street.  It was only then that I fully appreciated the ridiculousness of the event.  We were sixteen people, all wearing headphones, all dancing, waving, stomping and whooping our way along the street to the same tunes.  To passers-by, we were whooping, clapping and dancing to the sound of traffic. 

The people we passed wore a range of different emotions, from a quite sensible, ‘what on earth are those idiots doing?’ to a smile which may have accompanied a thought of, ‘hey, that’s quite cool!’  Andy was an accomplished dancer.  Items in the street: bins, street lamps, signs, benches represented opportunities for physical improvisation.  Benches were jumped on; he pole danced around street signs.  He wore a smile that told everyone around him that he was having a fabulous time and that this kind of activity was entirely normal.

After half an hour, I asked myself some questions: ‘why isn’t this considered to be normal?  Why shouldn’t we dance more?  Why shouldn’t we use the free physical space in a way that is surrounding us in a fun way?’  Admittedly (and reluctantly) I started to enjoy the experience and people’s reactions.  Passers-by were offered head phones, and they started to dance too.  Most people smiled, and some took videos of us ‘throwing shapes’ at the entrance to Regent’s Park.  Nobody cared that I was wearing an office shirt and motorcycle boots; this just added to the colour of the whole event.

After an hour and twenty minutes, the dancing ended at the top of Primrose Hill.  It was a glorious day; the sun was out and we could see for miles.  Andy looked exhausted, but happy.  We didn’t chat much, since we didn’t really know what to say to each other, but we had all ‘dance walked’ for an hour and twenty minutes, burnt loads of calories and raised lots of smiles along the way.  I was both tired and thirsty, and relieved that I would never ever have to do this nonsense ever again. 

‘Before you go, we’ve got to get into a circle again… Everyone, hold hands’, demanded Emily.  I wasn’t going to able to sneak out.

‘Okay everyone! Can each of us make a noise to communicate how we’re feeling?’  One by one, we all made a funny noise.  I did my best to issue a vaguely enthusiastic whoop.

When we were all done, Emily said, ‘Thanks everyone!  Suggested donation is five pounds’.