London Blogger Meetup - Havana

Eee, I arrived a little bit late at this month's London Blogger's Meetup. I'd been at The Lamb on Conduit Street catching up with MJ Hibbett's Totally Acoustic gig. I had to skip the headline act, Gavin Osbirn, but Hibbett was on fine form, performing some of his older songs for a change, and the other support act Winston Echo, was really nice, pretending to be all amateur and gentle. There are photies and stuff over on the songkick page here.

Anyhoo, the London Blogger's Meetup, a small monthly meeting of people who blog in London, was out in the east this month, in the Chamucos Bar, downstairs in Green and Red. When I wandered in, the place was pretty full, it was dark, and there was a Judith giving a talk about Search Engine Optimisation, interesting stuff, I shall steal some of the tips and techniques and abuse them to ill-effect later.

There followed a briefer talk by a chap called The Timinator, who was leaving these shores for the sunny climes of Sydney, it was a little poignant, although I'm not sure I've spoken to the chap before, and previously linked to his blog thinking he was someone else.

The evening was sponsored by Havana Cultura

It’s a global art initiative from Havana Club rum to introduce the world to the fabulous culture in Havana. As part of the campaign they are running a Twitter based competition - the ‘Havana Twitter Treasure Hunt’. Using clues posted on Twitter, followers will virtually explore the city of Havana on www.havana-cultura.com to find the answers to enter a competition. The first prize..? two tickets to Gilles Peterson’s exclusive Havana Cultura album launch party in Paris on 26th November. Nice!

Free drinks all round, mojitos, which were like rummy and minty and icy. Good stuff.

Anyhoo, I through off my shackles of shyness and tried talking to people, and answering the question "what do you do?" with "I make sandwiches" and "what do you blog about?" with "politics and spreadsheets." Last month I answered with "politics and graphs" but due to a speech impediment it sounded more like "politics and giraffes", which was a little too surreal, I won't be making that mistake again.

As is my want for these blogposts here's a few lists.

Firstly people/bloggers I spoke to:-

• Edward - from MovieMoron
• Godwyns - the poet
• Chris Qwghlm - off of the internet
• Serena - from zath.co.uk
• Daphne - from Havana Cultura
• Peter Marshall - from My London Diary
• Marcus Gilroy-Ware - the Online Journalism lecturer
• Andy Marketing Blagger
• Kai
• Some chap who was an investment banker but I didn't catch his name
• Mary from France 24

Next people/bloggers who I nodded recognition to (reciprocation not required)

• Caroline - from Caroline's Miscellany
• Krista
• The Timinator
• Judith - from SEO chicks
• Lolly
• The chap with a philosophy video blog
• Lewis
• Reyes
• RachelC
  
• ooh, that girl who was at the CozyTweetup thing the other night

On the other hand, they didn't talk to me either, so it could be that they were shy, or ignoring me on purpose. Bah.

Here's a graph showing how the number of people I've spoken to or nodded recognition at has progressed since I started going to these meetups:-

I think it went well.

UPDATE
Another list:- People who according to teh internets were there, but I wouldn't be able to spot them in ID parade, even though I only spoke to them a month or so ago, my bad:-

• GuitarChurchy - the seldom seen kid
• Garius - from LondonReconnections
• Laura Scott - from PopJunkie
• TikiChris - from TikiChris