I've just spent an inordinate amount of time trying to work out where and when it was, and what console it was promoting.
I think it might have been at The Townhouse, which at the time was the Place To Be - and there are some very white buildings opposite. I had it firmly in my head that it was a northern launch for an iteration of the Playstation, but I'm becoming less sure.
I’m sure it was PS2 - it was out already in Japan I think but still not available in the UK. Pretty sure we had Tekken (or some kind of fighting game anyway) on the wall and some demo setup on a regular telly with Gran Turismo 2.
but I could be making this up. 2000 would be around the time I was getting sent up to Leeds to work quite often so I definitely had a few evenings free to do this sort of nonsense. It fits.
I have a lingering sense that it wasn't the First Meat Of All, though I'd love it to have been. It was early, certainly my first: but had any of teh possie meated before that? Maybe in that London?
I have never made it to a meat. Of course, I'm not an original member being an insurgent from the PC Pro forum. There were quite a few who straggled over, but I can't remember many names now. Seems that I'm member number 66 on this incarnation of teh.
the first I can remember was in a pub called The Spice Of Life, on Shaftesbury Avenue... I sometimes pass it now and remember. The place was not particularly good but the time was very fun. If I'm not mistaken, englishpaul was the main man for setting it up. Rendle showed up and got told off for playing the piano.
There's also the legendary one in the Founder's Arms on the side of the Thames, where WingnutKJ had a rather infamous nap in the toilets, me and Mynci more or less carried him all the way back to our pad in Shepherd's Bush after the landlord took exception to the original sleeping location.
And now I work about a 2 minute walk from the pub where we ended up moving all London-meats to in the interest of paying something less of a ripoff price on the beer. They've redecorated it since then, I'm not sure they'd welcome us as quickly.
Trying to think how many forumites ended up crashing at our place over the years, it must be quite a few but you're probably similarly high-scoring I bet. I also ended up crossing the streams with the State forum at some point which confuses my recollection.
There's also the legendary one in the Founder's Arms on the side of the Thames, where WingnutKJ had a rather infamous nap in the toilets, me and Mynci more or less carried him all the way back to our pad in Shepherd's Bush after the landlord took exception to the original sleeping location.
Happy days - I remember it well.
(I don't remember it well. I barely remember it at all. I can remember having a late night the night before, an early start, not much food, but having a lovely time sitting in the afternoon sunshine admiring St Paul's Cathederal and drinking beers, including a very nice honey beer...
...and maybe I remember stealing some of Isa's chips...
...and I can sort of remember it being dark and me being on the bridge...
...and I can remember waking up with what is still OFFICIALLY the worst hangover I've ever had, in Chateau Milko...
...and sod's law, on the way home, I bumped into someone I knew from school who was doing fantastically well for himself as an accountant for one of the big boys, who I suspect might have thought I was now homeless.)
Genuinely impressed after all these years you can still confidently pin point that as your worst ever hangover. You must have had so many since. What stands out that makes it win that crown?
I think it was the combination of the unexpectedness of it, the inevitability of it, the whole business of waking up in an unknown location in an unfamiliar city with people I knew only to a certain degree, the fact that I felt like I was just a queasy green colour, and the struggle to figure out what had happened and what would fix it all. My mouth was totally dry, and for whatever reason, London's delicious water did not seem to help it.
Most of my memorably bad hangovers are the ones where I'm only aware I've taken it too far when my full awareness suddenly returns to me from utter oblivion, and I just think "ohhhhh boy..." like the start of a rubbish Quantum Leap episode.
The other notables:
Toga party in a hostel in Rome, chatting up a nice girl until 5 in the morning, unaware that the bloke who was being so generous with the vodka was her boyfriend until he eventually told me to get the hint, but vaguely aware the two Irish lads were turning a bit nasty towards me. Woke up late afternoon with my mate extremely pissed off he couldn't leave me to go exploring in case I died or something.
Office Christmas party in a luxury Scottish country house hotel, chatting up a nice girl from another company, unaware that the bloke who seemed to be getting offended by my jokes about Germans, accountants and German accountants was - you've guessed it - the German accountant boyfriend of the nice girl. Thinking it must be about 11pm, I decided to move to whiskies, only to discover that they were shutting the bar because it was 3am. Back to someone's room for room service sandwiches and as much of my emergency hipflask whisky I could manage it, which was all of it. Woke up feeling terrible, and discovered my new nickname was "Black teeth Kenny" because I'd drunk so much red wine my teeth were black.
Lanzarote, a couple of years back. Final night. Nice meal to end a lovely holiday with my girlfriend. Got chatting to a couple on another table (not, I should add, chatting her up unaware of her boyfriend). The waiter started giving us free shots. Woke up back at the Villa, sprawled diagonally across the bed, girlfriend asleep in a huff on a pool lounger. She'd had to walk me up and down the promenade for an hour before I was sober enough a taxi would take me, and even then I was barely ambulatory. Not the most pleasant flight home.
My worst hangover, and I don't remember any other details such as where or when, I slowly became aware that I was alive, I was some sort of living... thing, and I didn't know what kind.
Then there was the time I was with my older brother and his friends, serious drinkers, and we were driving back from an aborted camping trip on the beach at Cape Cod national park, after we were rousted by park rangers who came up on us by boat, shone a big fucking light on us and yelled at us with a bullhorn to get the fuck out. As we were speeding the 6 or 8 hours turnpike drive home in a dilapidated converrtible with the top down, me riding shotgun, I vomited copiously over the side, which sprayed back on my brother, and his friends. This song came on the radio...