Nick and I went to an (er…) interesting networking event in Spitalfields on Friday night for entrepreneurs in the social digital space. If that term makes no sense to you, don’t worry, as most of the people there were making it up as they went along. We went for two reasons. Firstly, to chat to other like minded people about our idea and second, to enjoy a publicised free beer.
It got off to a poor start, as when we arrived half an hour after the event commenced, the music was too loud to talk to people inside, the free beer was gone and the Sol was £3 a bottle. Whoever was coining it in did not appear to be among the bulk of the people that we talked to, or who spoke from the rostrum in a series of short presentations (against an increasing groundswell of bar-room chatter). Whilst the general ideas presented were interesting, there tended to be a lack of thought given to the business model… as in, er, how does this make money?
Leaving after the presentations and a few bottles of (captive?) beer, we strolled past the cafe culture of Spitalfields until we realised what the time was. Twelve minutes to train o’clock. I remember some time ago Nick mentioning to me about running after a few beers before and I also remember reminding myself not to try it myself, but here we were, of a sudden, running down Bishopsgate like a couple of bag-snatchers.
What was quite surprising was that the beer made little difference to our progress and we ran effortlessly down Gracechurch Street, avoiding the myriad pedestrians, over London Bridge, in to the station and right up on to the platform. We even beat the arrival of the train by a minute or so. Probably not our fastest run, not our longest at just over a mile, but definitely the funniest!
We can run it faster.
next time I’ll pinch the bum of the nearest fit-looking lady with a boyfriend before we start. THEN we’ll see how you run!