UKOUG - Day 1.6

So having dashed out of Peter Scott's analytics presentation, I headed back to my hotel to drop my laptop off and find some food! At least when your conference is in Brum, you can find a chippy! There are some strange moments at these conferences, you know. As I walked back to the Blogger Meet-up, still in my suit, carrying a bag containing two small animals and munching my way through a bag of chips, who should I bump into but Graham Wood (big cheese architect bloke from Oracle - father of all those 10g Automatic features and a good guy) and his better half. They stopped me, I thought because it was good to see each other, but actually it was so that Graham could steal some of my chips! I thought about this later and, given how he polished off my lobster at the Miracle DBF, I wonder if he isn't stalking me in the knowledge there'll be some tasty pickings. Then again, it is a bag of chips I'm talking about!

In All Bar One, the Oak Table chaps were there early (no surprise there, then) and at 7, the various bloggers, User Group volunteers and staff turned up and the free bar was on! It definitely worked much better as a networking event with free beer and snacks than last year's sit-down meal because it was easier to mingle. Having said that, it was a struggle to get round everyone I wanted to talk to but it seemed that everyone had a great time. The food was universally acclaimed. Party Planners take note - having large plates of chips/fries as part of your buffet seems popular. I saw Anjo Kolk grab handfuls and realised we may have something in common, although I bet he was disappointed when he couldn't find globs of mayonaisse to smother them with.

On the Housemate front, I suspect Mark Rittman may have some interesting photos to post later. We'll see. They went down a storm when they were occassionally allowed out of the bag and possibly my favourite bit of the evening was Tim Hall almost begging me to justify myself so that he wouldn't just have to think I was weird. The more I explained what it was all about, the worse the expression on his face became. I think I can state quite confidently that he had now decided that I am just weird

Later it was a big crowd of us in the hotel bar again with much discussion of Thomas Presslie's bruise, Alex Gorbachev's opinion of The Simpsons - which I'll translate into 'he doesn't like it very much' and assorted Oracle nonsense. As Alex got drunker, the Guinness started flying and for once I wasn't last to go to bed, but I'd have to admit it wasn't early either.