Sunday 4 July 2010

Gappy goes to London (Cybermummy 2010)

The evening before Cybermummy I took a train for the first time in years to London Paddington. I approached the ticket office at my journeys starting point like an eager puppy, my huge bag swinging heavily against my legs as I heaved it off my shoulder. "I want to go to London" I said breathlessly to the man selling tickets from behind the glass partition. He was wearing what can only be described as an expression of monumental boredom, although I did also - I'm sure - see a slight look of alarm pass quickly over his face as he considered this shining eyed, slightly over excited woman in front of him. As he handed me my ticket however, accompanied by a gentle explanation as to how it also allowed me to travel on the tube, his features quickly settled back into their obviously familiar arrangement of weary indifference. He had, it seemed, come to the reassuring decision that I was merely a harmless imbecile as opposed to an unhinged, dirty great bag carrying, maximum security escapee.

I got to Paddington, took the tube to Waterloo - hot air blasting up in my face from the tunnels like a hairdryer - and from there made my way on foot down to the South Bank. The atmosphere was like a carnival. The evening sun was still shining, the enormous ferris wheel that is the London Eye loomed excitingly up ahead and there were happy, relaxed looking people outside all the cafes and pubs celebrating the end of the working week. I walked across the road towards the little food market where an old friend of mine has a stall selling fairly traded olive oil and spices. All the smells mingled into one delicious warm spicy bready aroma as I tried to count how many different languages I could hear being spoken. Somewhere in the distance a small brass band was playing some New Orleans style jazz music and it all just seemed to me in that moment to be as perfect a city scene as one could ever hope for. I hung about the market for a while then helped my friend to pack up her stall. As the sun began to dim we made our way slowly back to the to the small flat that she shares with her Palestinian husband and baby son.

The next morning I was awake before the baby. Butterflies flitting in my stomach, I showered, dressed and made a cup of tea. My friend got up bleary eyed to see me off and I hugged her tightly goodbye before heading out in the morning sun to the tube station and hopping on the eastward bound Piccadilly line to Earls Court. A short walk from there to the Ibis Hotel and that was it. No going back, no running for the hills. Cybermummy had officially begun.

It was all very much in stark contrast to the slightly bohemian, international feel of the South Bank the night before. Every credit to the women who had obviously worked incredibly hard to bring it all together - it was without doubt extremely well organised. It looked smart and professional, everything happened when it was supposed to, the food was good and the time-table was clear. The freebies were plentiful and the PR's and company representatives were out in force. It was..... slick.

I however am not slick and if I'm honest the blatant commercialism bothered me. I don't have a view on what anyone else chooses to do on their own blog - it is their space and their business and we are all free to take from blogging what we will - but I personally don't like having people try to sell me shit, and I'm not interested in being used to sell shit for other people either. There are obviously many cynical company big-wigs out there who feel that mummy bloggers are a prime market for milking - there was even a babies bottle in our swag bags - and for me that side of things just left a slightly off taste in the mouth.

I have also never been required to 'network' before. Turns out I'm shit at it. I met some lovely lovely people but they were mostly people with whom I had made a virtual connection anyway and so already felt some affinity with. My poor blue 'business' cards were left sadly redundant as I discovered that I couldn't quite bring myself to press them onto people I had had no contact whatsoever with other than a two minute schmooze over a cupcake. I think in Twitter speak that that could possibly be referred to as a #putyourselfouttherefail. Ah well. I was clearly never destined to be an internet rock star anyway.

No. The highlight of the day by far in my opinion was listening to blog posts being read out by the authors themselves. There is something incredibly moving about hearing a blogger read their own post in their own way, using their own emphasis, their own meaningful pauses, and their own real emotion. Even posts that I had read before in their published form and so recognised straight away came strangely alive for me when I heard them spoken out loud by the women who had written them. It gave a real glimpse into the wealth of talent that is out there in the blogosphere and it was at this part in the proceedings more than any other that I felt a genuine kinship with my fellow women bloggers. Real womens lives and real womens experiences were laid bare with such beauty and raw honesty and I was struck by the strength of my response. We have so much more in common than we often think.

What else? Well.. I also discovered that I am a veritable platinum mine of information when it comes to the all important subject of the lyrics of pop songs released from the nineteen eighties onwards. My fellow pub quizzers were gasping in what I imagined was, ahem... sheer admiration at my recognition of the poetic talents of the likes of JLS, Luther Vandross and Kylie. Um... I also won a prize. Oh, and there is now a picture of my (clothed) arse on Tara Cains blog for anyone who's interested.

Bang go the last vestiges of my anonymity ;-)

18 comments:

  1. Was great to meet you on Saturday.....I'm not very good at networking either and only managed to get rid of some of my cards after quite a few glasses of wine!
    I must admit I didn't mind all the freebies, in fact I liked it. I'm a sucker for anything free but it didn't make me feel I owed the sponsors anything.
    The blog posts were amazing weren't they. I feel a lump in my throat everytime I think of them. x

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  2. Wish I'd found you on Saturday - I too am not made for networking and really had to give myself a kick up the arse to speak to lots of new people.

    I agree that the reading of the blog posts was the best best bit of the day. All the freebies and commercialism in the world can't eclipse a piece of genuine writing that moves a crowd of women to tears.

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  3. The one thing that keeps coming up over and over is the blog posts read out by the bloggers, it must have been amazing:) Commercialism aside I hope you had a brilliant day:) Jen

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  4. Oh Gappy it was so great to meet you - and you rocked at the pop lyrics. I came home with lots of my little deer cards too. I thought about scattering them like a trail of crumbs in Hansel & Gretel - but then decided that was littering.

    Meeting the real people behind the blogs was what it was all about for me.

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  5. I am totally worried about the #networkingfail I will be at blogher. I'm not sure why I'm even bringing business cards.

    Glad you still had fun!

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  6. I am so sad that i didn't get to go and meet everyone, it sounds like it was a lovely day. i really wish I'd heard those blog posts being read out.

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  7. It sounds like a great event - despite the product placement! I feel quite jealous... but then if invited to a similar event I'd probably bottle out being something of a home bird.

    P.S. Which arse is yours?

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  8. That takes nerve and gumption to go to a get together like that in my opinion. I can't tell which one you are but the pictures look like all attendees were having a good time meeting each other in person.

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  9. I was definitely a #networkingfail since I completely forgot to take business cards with me! I definitely agree that the keynote speech was the best part, I laughed and cried in equal measure.

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  10. Massive thanks for enjoying and knowing the answers to the quiz -- quite a relief that someone did! xx

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  11. P.S. with apologies - I've tagged you for a meme. See my blog for details!

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  12. I'm so glad you came over to say hello, I just wish we could have chatted for longer. I left half my goodies for the housekeeper at the hotel, I did eat the milk bottles that were in the milk bottle though. x

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  13. Yeah not a massive networker either and most of my cards came home with me. It felt kind of fake handing them out to anyone but people I already "knew" from the virtual world. I had a massive wobbly the next day about what it all meant! Perhaps we just over think? It was great to see you again and spend a bit more time together. I would love to be able to extract a few real friendships from this community and hopefully cybermummy was the beginning of that. Smaller meet ups are the way forward! Hx

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  14. It was so lovely to meet you - and you were just how I expected, right down to the jeans and boots. So jealous of the boots. Almost all my cards came home with me, wasted hour writing them all out. Always next year though! Good luck with job interview. x

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  15. So lovely to meet you - you bowled me over with your knowledge of JLS ;)
    I think most of it has already been said - I too came back with tonnes of business cards (and then promptly decided to change my domain when I got back, rendering them virtually useless!).

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  16. Sorry to hear that you felt a bit out of place there. I must say I was quite jealous hearing everyone talking about it but in some ways I don't know if I would have been brave enough to go so well done you for having the confidence to go. If I was there you would have been on my list of people that I wanted to meet x

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  17. I'm gutted I missed the pop lyrics bit! It was so lovely to meet you. The crowdsourced keynote was the highlight of my day too x

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  18. Ah man dont think I had a chance to meet you did I?! Great blog post! You describe london so well! xxx

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