Gathering 15, Pre-Chrimble Drinkies

OK, it's definitely not the Head of Steam providing the magic, so that leaves
either the imminent arrival of Christmas, or the arrival of Andy 4 and Oliver
to the group, that's responsible for the new-found sense of fun in this
Gathering...  Because unlike G14, we didn't budge an inch from the Tap & Spile,
yet we had as much fun as last time, if not perhaps slightly more.

1845, I wander through the door to find Andy 3 already parked at one of the
window tables...  Dedicated Gatherers, this is what we like to see :-)  After
it's recent redecoration, the Tap & Spile now has the bright and clean
appearance of a pub that hasn't seen much action.  Even the wooden floor is
well polished and squeaky underfoot.  And what's this... a new range of beers.
Gone is the Murphys, replaced by Guinness.  And look, Caffreys as well...  
could this signal a return to the epic Guinness-Caffreys wars of Gatherings
old?  Well, no.  But only because the Caffreys was off.  Perhaps the barstaff
knew we were coming ;-)

Getting into the seven o'clock region, The Janet, The Keith and The Andy 4
felt it necessary to arrive.  Andy 3 was introduced to Andy 4 for the first
time, which ended up being a lot less confusing than it could have been.
And just as we'd all got settled down and started to talk about stuff, none
of which (aside from a short "what's 422 going to be about then?" Q & A
session) had anything to do with B5, Ian, Oliver and Anna arrived.  Ian,
demonstrating his leadership qualities once again, commandeered a table
off someone who we assume had left the pub, although he had left his paper
and a half-finished pint still on the table.  More on these later...

...oh what the hell, more on one of these now.  The paper turned out the be
the Telegraph, which, as we discovered, brings out a rather interesting
reaction from Janet.  A sort of "oi, get that away from me!" sort of reaction.
Do we take it that you aren't a great fan of this particular piece of media
machine output?

Getting briefly back onto the topic of B5, whilst most of us expressed some
sadness over the loss of Marcus, the hearts of stone in the group thought his
passing merited little more than a shrug of the shoulders, and a "oh well"
type comment.  Some people have NO feelings!

Come eight o'clock and Nick arrived to bring us up to our total for the
evening, a quite nicely formed nine of us.  Not quite the all-time record,
but that was set under quite special circumstances (i.e. we were cheating
a bit ;-).  Still, a nice number with which to close out the 1997 Gathering
Season, and a good basis on which to build the 1998 one.

But enough wibbling about the future, back to the present.  Or, as it's
now Friday morning as I write this, the past...

Damn, lost my place in the notes.  Hang on a bit... mmmhmmm laalaa dipsy...
eff off, Teletubbies... Nick arrived... ah yes, got it...

So, Nick arrived, and promptly made it a hat-trick of Gatherers who'd asked
the question "is this anyone's pint?" as he came to sit down.  The Decoy
Pint works its magic once more!  (The DP being the second of the "more on
these later..." items mentioned earlier).


Although the Tap & Spile still hadn't regained its ability to  provoke
large quantities of wierdness in the world outside, it did manage a brief
spike in the silliness reading when a plain-clothes Santa walked by...


Things were getting more unsensible inside the pub, as someone who's
name begins with A decided to start flipping beermats, only for someone
else who's name also begins with A to show them how it was really done.
This led to an initally furtive, and eventually quite blatant, scouring
of the pub for spare beermats, which resulted in a pile in excess of 40...
Inbetween the actual record setting attempts, discussion centred on the
science of beermat flipping, which is a far more complex subject than it
first appears, and really deserves to be taught at University.  It seems
that there's a definite correlation between the shape of the table edge,
the shape and mass distribution of the beermats, the size of the
hand of whoever it is doing the flipping, and the probability of success.

As Anna pointed out: "Short fingers but big palms, that's what you need."
No idea if she was actually on about the physics of beermat flipping at
this point, but we'll give her the benefit of the doubt ;-)

Given that the mats in question were oval (non-ideal) and the table had a
concave beaded edge (also non-ideal), a serious attempt on the group
record was not really on, but the A's had a damn good try nonetheless.
Such was the entertainment value from the event, that even the barstaff
started to take an interest.  And setting the hearts of certain group
members fluttering, the allegedly cute barman (who's name we now know to
be Colin) wandered over and attempted to beat the group.  Two dismal
failures left us thinking we were safe, but with a mighty expenditure of
concentrative effort, he succeeded at the third go with 39 mats...


Well, having left one or two of the group in a collective sulk, and one
or two others in a collective high, Colin then wandered back to attend
to customers, leaving us to entertain ourselves once more.  This we
managed to do, more or less, aided by the procurement of some bags of
nuts (a Gathering isn't a Gathering without nuts...), and the resulting
nut-based comment from one of the group.  This time, it came from Andy 4,
who entertained us with: "How come she likes his nuts but not mine?"
Ah yes, only two meetings under his belt, but he's already passed both the
Basic and Advanced Gatherers exams.

So, the remaining time passed, as time does, and as the group started
to break up and go its separate ways, it seems a good point to call an
end to this summary of the evenings events.


My thanks to every Gatherer past and present who's attended a 1997 event,
things wouldn't have been the same without y'all.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!


Chris

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