I arrived back from London very tired, and my head has not yet had time to settle. My thoughts are still not in anything like a  sensible state, and to be honest, neither is the rest of me! The last 10 hours I spent in the capitol were pretty awful, though this had nothing to do with the conference, or any one at it. Merely some unpleasant stuff that happened to me at the hotel where I was staying.

Without going into any detail, there were a series of highly charged moments, that culminated in an extremely frazzled mid-day version of me, being made to feel like a common criminal!  It resolved itself, with a series of apologies from the hotel duty manager, and the promise of a thorough investigation into certain 'employee irregularities'. But these were a long time coming, and by the time they arrived, I was already sitting in Kings Cross checking my transport options out of the city! I was planning to do more in Londinium, but the attitude I bumped into last night and early today, made me re-evaluate those plans, and precipitated an earlier exit from the city than I had anticipated.

Fortunately, I met a really cool old couple from Newcastle on the train back. They'd been married 25 years, and had been in London visiting their son and his girlfriend. We chatted in depth for a few good miles, and their kindness and humor did much to restore my flagging spirits. The old girl was in a wheelchair, and had been that way all her life. She met her husband when she was interned in a hospital/care-home and he  had worked there as a gardener. Apparently it caused a bit of a stir when they decided to get married! But love is love, and you can't legislate it away. They were good ''salt of the earth" folk though, and meeting them cheered me up considerably.

The conference itself was pretty damn cool, and once I've had time to rearrange the mental furniture, I'll be putting together a podcast.  I scored a few good interviews, and had an exciting and informative day. There was a lot of energy in the room, and from what I saw the future for independent UK media is a pretty bright one. What I will say now, is that it was brilliant to see the UK scene stepping up to the plate in such a forthright mannner, and there was a really eclectic and eccentric (!) mix of folks there.

I really enjoyed the live show from Richard Vobes, and was very impressed with the presentations from Mark Hunter of the excellent Tartan Podcast, and Milverton Wallace. In general all the speakers contributed interesting ideas, and Neil Dixon did a good job of keeping everything moving along with a few doses of carefully applied good humor.

I'll have quite a bit more to say about all of this, but for now you can check out the folllowing links for photos and information;

Photos: Flickr blog
Britcaster: Forum





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