It was hot. Really hot.

Air conditioning is still a luxury in London. When you’re lucky enough to be in its presence on a hot day, it’s also not done too well. The air conditioning units over here seem to operate on a very simple boolean On/Off system. You get to choose “Off” or “Skinny Dipping on a Siberian Winter Night.” I’ve only encountered temperatures in the extreme here. There’s no warm. Just hot and freezing.

I hadn’t anticipated this when I chose the “Ask” pizza parlor on Baker street for the dinner. “Ask” is one of the places in London that hasn’t opted for this new-fangled air conditioning stuff. It wouldn’t have been such a problem since the dinner was in the evening after the sun had stopped its assault on the pale milk of English skin, but the gigantic pizza oven worked against us and it never cooled down in there. By the end of the evening my shirt was damp and my skivvies were soaked with sweat.

However…

However…

A good time was had by all.

The London nerd dinner reminded me of all the reasons I love this town. We sat down at 6:30 and didn’t leave until nearly 10:30. Conversation never lulled. I was still severely jet-lagged and had a hard time keeping up, but even so it was wonderful. We talked about .NET, Java, Apple, Dr. Who, and whether “bastard” sounds cooler with an English or American accent.

Ian Smith even arrived bearing gifts of Dr. Who paraphernalia.

A reader named Toby took some photos and tossed ‘em into a flickr site. (There were more people taking photos – can the Rodawgg get copies? I want all photographic data of this event :)

After dinner we went to a pub where I drank sparkling water and tried not to feel short.

Overall, I felt very welcome, and if I lived here, I’d make this a regular event. Good people. Too damned hot, but a lot of fun.

Thanks for coming :)