Our session at the Jaflong went down rather well.  Eight people turned up on what can best be described as not the warmest or the friendliest night of the year.

The choice of food quickly cheered everyone up and things got off to a good start.  I arrived just after 8 to find
 Owen from  Manchester and Damion Yates from the BBC were sitting at a table looking at menus and wondering where the rest of us were.   We had a good chat for   about twenty minutes while we pulled some more tables together.  Paul Sims eventually arrived from the pub along the road and I poured him some wine.  First cue to pass around the BeOS 4.5 CDs (I thought) ?  So I did.  Eventually Graham Spearing and Craig Andrews turned up and we got into ordering some food.  Much jolly chat was taking place and we then witnessed the much expected arrival of Andy and Roma Simmonds.  Andy works in the Engineering Department at Sheffield Hallam University.   Nice fella :-)    I did a quick round of introductions to explain to everyone who was who and we quickly found that we could get on with each other really well.

  So,  we got into an extended session of IT chat with much Indian food and music being pushed around the table with plenty of wine to wash it down.  The nan bread  and the popadoms were excellent and the mail courses that followed were mostly ok except for the lamb that Owen ordered.  That's Owen on the left hand side.  He's from Manlug.  He had to saw away at his food for quite some time  After a good hour or so we got round to the after dinner conversation.  And what was it about ?  Yes !!  You've guessed it :-)  Linux and computers.  One of the rare treats was when Damion got his Nokia 9110 internet gadget out and we all had a look at it.  He showed us how to contact his dialup Linux box and then he demonstrated that he could also start the KDE on his machine at home in London without moving to far from my plate full of chicken mehti.  We were all very impressed.
 

Finally at 10.30 we had to admit that we had enjoyed ourselves and paid the bill (sorry, we can't tell how much it was).  Paul Sims had to go home with his wife and Owen had to go back to Manchester but the rest of us went of to the Ale House just along the road at Crookes.  I handed out more Linux CDs and some more BeOS CDs.  More of this at the next meeting :-)  

It was a really good night out and we very much hope that we can continue with this next year.  Would be nice wouldn't it :))
 
 

Damion Yates from the BBC                                Craig and Andy Simmonds