Two in a row. That's how many Relay.FM Connected meet-up events I've attended in London, perhaps a leading record among Canadians. At both I've managed to have a very, very good time.

It's a real trip to be in a room with a people who are just like you in nearly every way. How many pubs around the world are filled with dorks jostling to pay with their watches. I had a quick chat with the bartender and they’d never seen anything quite like it.

I went with my good pal, Lorenzo and met a good variety of lovely people: all friendly, personable and, again, following the same vector of interests as I do. Where in most other situations you might have to talk about the weather, at the Connected meet-up you can wax lyrically about Apple rumours and digital technologies. (My apologies to the young man I spent most of the night speaking with, beer gets the best of me and I've never been good with names—just too many to remember.)

Anyways, I had a decent start to the evening but as the drinks piled up and the night wore on, I managed to make a fool of myself. Go figure.

The first time I met Myke and Federico, a year ago, I was cordial and generally out of sight, there's no way they'd have any recollection of me at all. The second time, with the power of drink swelling inside me, I was set to make a different impression.

I was shooting-the-shit when Federico (@viticci for mere mortals) sat down beside us. A normal person would have started with, "How are you?" However, no one has ever been able to accuse me of going with the flow, so my opening line—to a human being with whom I have nothing but admiration and respect—was, “Well, that's a bit racist of you, isn't it?”^[1]

[screechingTurntable] It wasn’t by the way, I just couldn’t help being cheeky.[/screechingTurntable]

Friendly and good spirited, Ferderico laughed it off and managed to enjoy what meagre company I could be afforded. (He’s an absolute legend.) Honestly, I was having too much fun and the poor people around me were helpless to save me from myself. Myke faired better, I think I was beginning to feel the pangs of shame by that point in the evening.

Overall, the Connected meet-up was a blast. I suppose it goes without saying, what happens at the Connected meet-up stays at the Connected meet-up… until you blog publicly about it 😂

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1. I know that on a good day I'm off-white, so racially ambiguous would be a fair assessment of my appearance. What I also know, very well in fact, is how uncomfortable the social construction of race is among all polite conversation. I find this a hilarious screw to twist. Normally, however, I wait until at least midway into a conversation to get cheeky. ↩︎