Dublin 6.0: Report

From: Colm Buckley <colm@tuatha.org>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: Dublin 6.0 Meet Report
Date: 4 Aug 1998 17:40:43 +0100
Message-ID: <6q7dib$qer$1@dagda.tuatha.org>

Okay, this is an attempt at a report of the Events in the city of
Dublin, on or about the First of August, 1998.  Thanks to Bryan for the
guest list and quote file...

>From my point of view, the first thing to happen was a phone call from
mpk on Friday afternoon saying something along the lines of "Right, I'm
in Dublin" and, reliable as ever, he turned up at Claire's and my flat a
couple of minutes later.  After he was revived with a cup of strong
coffee, and divested of his enormous rucksack, mpk and I wandered over
to Busáras to meet Adrian, fresh off the bus from the airport.  He was
nowhere to be found, so we waited some more, wandered around a bit, and
generally fretted.  Eventually, it transpired that we had been waiting
on opposite sides of the bus station, but eventually we sorted it out
and headed off home...

Nothing terribly exciting happened on Friday night, except for the
rather marvellous "Chinest Ghost Story II" on Channel 4 in the middle of
the night; pyrotechnics, kung fu, love, hate, war, intruige and an
impossibly complicated and implausible plot - wonderful stuff.

On Saturday, we did the tourist thing, visiting the Guinness Brewery...
where I recieved several more phone calls, first from Elfin, then from
Gabe, trying to arrange transport from the airport for Esmi...  as I've
lived for most of my life in public-transport land, I couldn't really do
anything about it, and passed on the requests to the newly-formed
gestalt entity Bryan'n'Dónal, who I believe handled the problem with
expediency and redundancy.

Lunch in the Old Jameson Distillery was punctuated by a loud discussion
of "The Simpsons", which we later discovered had been overheard by
Xmorpheus, who was quietly correcting our misapprehensions to herself.
It would appear that she was taking the distillery tour with
RayfromtheStates at the same time as we were, which was a little spooky.

Anyway, we (Claire and I, Adrian and mpk) turned up at the Porter House
it about 8:30, to find the Madison Court Contingent (Bryan, Marina,
Dónal, Denise, Esmi, Gideon and Kevin) waiting for us.  Loud greetings
were hallooed.  Drink was purchased from the extremely obliging and
efficient waitress, and the meet began in earnest...

The Fine jar was set up (20p for gratuitous Monty Python references and
bad puns in general), and Agreement Was Reached that the proceeds would
go to our wonderful waitress...

More people arrived.  Ailbhe placed herself strategically in the middle
of the group, thereby to guarantee maximum effect on the maximum number
of smitten males as possible (<homer>Ailbhe... graaaaarrgh...</homer>).
Her pal Kathy did a nice line in fishnet-bestockinged legs, but only to
a select audience...

Food started to appear in prodigious quantities at around this point.
Bryan seemed to have ordered "food for 100" by mistake, but it was
greatly appreciated anyway (thanks, Dickie...)

Diane and Peter showed up after a decent interval; Peter bearing an old
Soviet MX-10 missile disguised as a cigar.  As is always the case,
things started to get a bit loud from this point, and I kind of lost
track of the comings and goings... Xmorpheus arrived, with BigMac and
RayfromtheStates, laughed at mpk and me for not recognising them in the
Distillery and correcting us on some Simpsons trivia, which mpk still
hotly disputes...  well, disputes anyway.  Gareth and Dave stationed
themselves right behind Ailbhe, rendering themselves effectively unable
to talk to anyone else unless special effort was made (damn, it's *hard*
to look *past* Ailbhe...)  Eoin was the only person to turn up on his
own; I hope we weren't too intimidating and that he had a good time -
sorry I didn't get to talk to him enough; hopefully next time...

Simon and Silja made a brief appearance - it was their first wedding
anniversary, so they were only dropping in on their way from dinner on
their way to Evening Entertainment of an Unspecified Nature.  Not being
one to let an occasion such as this go by unmarked, Bryan ordered a
couple of bottles of champagne, and a toast was drank to their
happiness.  Very pleasant.

The band wasn't the advertised and hoped-for "Too Fat To Be Famous" (who
played at Dublin 5.0 and are quite marvellous), but they did a quite
creditable set of covers.  Enough to keep us nice and lively, anyway.

Songs were sung-along with, SMS messages were sent, accusations of
geekery were made, and confessed to, Nokia 9000s were condemned as being
too big for a phone, and too crappy for a computer (Psion r00lz, d00d!),
people were flirted with, and a good time was had by all...  I'm fscked
if I can remember what we talked about, it's all just a happy haze, but
I'm pretty sure I drank quite a lot of whiskey (and some of Peter and
Diane's foul Belgian Trappist Ale - yecchh.  Oh yes, and some champagne.
And some of Ailbhe's brandy by mistake.  And who knows what else.)
Things continued in a generally jolly vein until 1:00 or thereabouts...

When people started pouring water down other people's trousers, and
setting fire to their hair (semi-accidentally, honest!), we figured it
was about time to break the party up, so people started to go their
separate ways.  A substantial group headed off to Madison Court, and I
rely on Bryan, Dónal, Gideon, Esmi and Marina to inform the world as to
the events in that august location.  For our part, Claire and I returned
to Temple Bar Square with mpk, Adrian, Ailbhe, Eoin and Gareth.  There
may even have been other people, but I was nicely pickled by that stage,
and can't remember.  We watched "The Simpsons".  We drank some whiskey.
Ailbhe fell asleep on my shoulder.  We drank some more whiskey.  By the
time we considered going to sleep, Ailbhe had decided that Ranelagh was
much to far away (about 2km) to walk, so she kipped on my floor, along
with Adrian and Gareth.  Only Eoin was brave enough to brave the night.
mpk had by this stage claimed the sofa as His Own Turf, yelling
"bastards, bastards, bastards, bastards!" at anyone who dared approach,
so a quiet night's sleep was had by all.

Sunday morning was Breakfast With Meat Loaf.  At 9:30.  After four
hours' sleep.  Ahem.  Claire wasn't impressed, but at least people woke
up quite willingly, and greeted the New Dawn with the traditional cries
of "coffee... coffee... must have coffee..." and "where the hell are my
socks".

I suppose that was the end of the meet proper, but all sorts of
interesting things continued to happen throughout the weekend, so I
might as well continue in my post as Faithful Scribe for a little
longer...

So, the Saga continues:

On Saturday, I had planned to bring mpk and Adrian on a little walk down
in Wicklow.  Ailbhe was still with us, so she came along as well.  We
met up with Katherine (who was the Dublin 5.0 meet), Gordon (not GtM -
another Gordon) and Meg (not the Magpie - another Meg), and we all drove
down to Glendalough.  The weather started off not-at-all promising, but
was quite pleasant by the time we got to our destination, having stopped
to Purchase a Picnic.

We took a nice leisurely walk up through the wooded hills of County
Wicklow, trying to restrain Katherine and mpk from haring off into the
distance at a Great Pace, and wondering why Gordon always seemed to
prefer the steepest slopes...  Flies.  Yes.

Lunch was consumed on the edge of a cliff with a spectacular view of the
upper lake, clustering around Ailbhe because the smoke from her
cigarettes kept the flies away...  (that's my excuse, and I'm sticking
to it...)

Then we decided to come back down.  By a different path.  Which wasn't a
path at all, but rather a steep, narrow incline, treacherously coated
with slippery red clay, slippery damp rocks and slippery wet grass.
Does anyone spot a pattern here?

I think the final score for falling-on-one's arse was:

   Colm : 3      mpk : 2         Adrian : 3     Gordon : 1
   Claire : 15   Katherine : 2   Ailbhe : 1     Meg : 0

Claire blames her shoes.

Adrian carried Ailbhe piggyback for the last bit.  Now, this was
interesting, because you know how, when one is carrying a backpack while
climbing on a warm day, one's back gets decidedly sweaty?  Well, Ailbhe
ended up in close proximity to said back for the best part of half an
hour...  We thought of ringing up some sleazy tabloid to enter her for
the Weekly Wet T-Shirt competition, but in the end Common Decency
prevailed.  Adrian looked happy, though.

Some more sight-seeing around Glendalough, and then we set off,
intrepidly arranging to meet up in a pub.  However, it was Not To Be,
because one of the two cars got a bit lost, and ended up going west
instead of north, so we eventually met up back in the Porter House, much
later.  Dinner in Eddie Rocket's (another Dublin meet tradition, much
delayed - thanks to Adrian for that), then back to my place for yet more
whiskey and "Mars Attacks".

Oh *dear*.  By the time "Mars Attacks" was over, it was *pouring* rain
outside, and Ailbhe didn't have an umbrella.  Gosh, well I guess she'll
just have to sleep on our floor again, beside Adrian.

mpk complains that he didn't get much sleep that night.  Ah well.

Monday morning was a less rushed affair - I took people to see Trinity
College and the Book of Kells, mpk and I went off to my office to do
some Real Work (the University of Nottingham now owes me for about six
minutes' work...), and then the foreign visitors made their several ways
to the airport.

All in all, a good meet.  We remained quorate for 41 hours, which wasn't
bad as these things go, and I for one had a *marvellous* time.  Thanks
to everyone who came along and made it a success, and best of luck to
everyone.  Here's looking forward to Dublin 7.0!

           Colm

Here's Bryan's quotefile again, for completeness:

Sick and indecent roomkeepers? - Esmi
Geek! - Marina
Who's logging?!? - Colm
'Adrian, stop whining'? That's like saying 'Adrian, stop breathing' - Marina
Geek! - Kevin
No accepting buns from clients - Adrian
Or lifts from strange men? - Donal
Or sweets from Simon Rooney - Claire
Behind you! - Colm (via SMS)
Geek! - Bryan (via SMS)
Oh my Lord, it's the Missing Link! - Claire (of Bryan)
I could stuff it in your face like a cheap boxing promoter - Peter
Speccy geek! - Mike
Oh no!  There's only one shift key! - Colm
My god! A Geek tragedy! - Xmorpheus
DNS Abuse Alert! - Colm
*AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!* - Mike
Well, you're just a pair of students - Xmorpheus (to Colm and Mike)
We're fucking not! - Colm and Mike (in unison)
I'll have a Shirley Bassey.  That's a Black Bush with ice - Colm
If you're looking for the American sexline, it's in speed-dial - Colm
Geek! - Donal
He's lighting his farts... - BigMac
I'm a bit of a robot that way - Mike
Ailbhe gets about 8/10 - Bryan
Mike doesn't love me at all - Claire
Sorry to interrupt - RayFromTheStates
How do you *do* it? - Donal (to Mike)
Of course i'll live forever.  I'm too cool to kill - Bryan
I have the hair for it, but not the hormones - Gareth
Bad Dog!  Put me down! - Marina
If the blades come out, *you* can explain to the pathologist - Peter
Adrian's refusing to play ball....as it were - Mike
Adrian's a fecking eejit - Bryan
Adrian needs guidance, apparently - Colm
Geek! - Eoin

-- 
Colm Buckley B.A. B.F. # Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
colm@tuatha.org | colm@lspace.org # +353 87 2469146 # whois cb3765
http://www.tuatha.org/~colm/ # finger colm@tuatha.org
Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.

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