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It was the No Such Thing As A Fish 10th birthday party tonight so Catie and me had a rare date night, going out for dinner first and then getting to the party unfashionably on time. But as it was a party full of nerds, everyone was unfashionably on time. Which makes for a much better party.
NSTAAF (as the cool kids call them) are relative newcomers to the podcast world. I was six and a half in podcast years by the time they even thought of joining in, but sure, let's celebrate them anyway!
What a great party it was. Even though we could have been watching another disappointing England performance and crying about them only managing to top their group (the shame), the cream of the podcasting world were there and it was notable how nice a group this made for. Showbiz parties are usually full of self-regarding, drugged up sex pests, but most of the people in this room were virgins who had never touched a drug in their life, mainly because podcasters are never offered sex or drugs.
It was nice to catch up with old friends and meet some people I only knew of through twitter or podcasts. Moose Allain was there, the fantastic artist, cartoonist and punster who I have only interacted with online. I was able to finally find out whether his name was a pun that I did not understand. I have spent more hours than I care to admit trying to work out if there is a joke in there somewhere. It's almost miscellaneous and it's almost Mussolini, it's almost misalign, but was I missing some pronunciation that would turn it into a delightful joke? Musalane, muscle-lane, moosy-ane (us?) I've tried them all. Was I missing something?
No, as it turns out. it's just his name.
Having sorted that out - Delighted to know, but slightly sad that the mystery was over - I talked to him and his partner Karen about their lives and their work (and my life and work too obvs) and we slightly mourned how Twitter had changed. We'd all got in early enough for it to be a big help with our work, but agreed that it's not so good for that any more.
The party was at Century, where I used to come quite a lot back in the noughties to play poker and get drunk after hours and be mistaken for Charley Boorman and it was weird to be back here and to vaguely remember drunken nights. Catie and I had some early dates here and she told me it was here that she first tried edamame beans, so I certainly changed her life. We'd had two portions of edamame beans at dinner tonight. It's become an addiction for her.
It was such a cool party and weirdly I didn't feel socially awkward or keen to get home or out of place. These lovely nerds are my people.
Yours too presumably, you massive geek.
