A week in London

I spent last week in London, the first time I’d been back since I moved to New York. A great week was had, a combination of work and pleasure.

• had some interviews and met up with some headhunters. I’m back in London permanently from January and this was setting up some things. No idea how it will pan out yet.
• had drinks with Suw where we chatted about life, work and all things weddingy.
• Had coffee with Jeremy, one of the panelists with me at SXSW, just connecting and chatting.
• Had coffee and yummy dimsum with Adam, where publishing was onthe agenda.
• randomly bumped into Rebecca and had coffee later, looking at the workshops she has been running. I also randomly bumped into Lloyd whilst going to meet Adam; the development of the Tuttle club looks interesting.
• Went to BarcampLondon3 and had a blast. I was staying with Ian Forrester for that part of the week and ended up having a unsettling scooter ride through London to get to and from the camp. I’ve only ever been on the back of a bike twice before, so not the most comfortable experience – enjoyable in hindsight but a the time I got rather worried for my knees! There were around 130 people at the camp, hosted by Google. Did not make too many of the talks as spent a lot of time just chatting with cool new people. Gave a talk on Games in Advertising and things to watch out for (using this year’s Court TV Save My Husband as an example). Had my first ride on a Segway. Indulged in the food and drink that was provided – definitely the best ‘work canteen’ food I’ve ever had. Watched multiple games of Werewolf. All in all, a superb weekend, thanks to Ian, Amy, the BBC and Google for putting it on.

I think I’m getting paid back for having a good time though. Suffered a a bad nose bleed and nearly managed to not pay for a drink as I was dealing with that instead of thinking of paying. The servers were not too sympathetic when I got back, even though I was dripping blood! They were far more interested in getting their money. Broke the screen on my phone – bad news as it is on load from Palm, so am going to have to pay for that. Have a horrible cold. And the toilet flooded all over the bathroom this morning so spent an hour cleaning that lot up. I think I need to just hibernate for the next few days