Whilst I still have a few fragments of memories from this event last month, I want to get them down.

This was my first barcamp and, although I’d looked it up, I didn’t really know what to expect.  Nevertheless, at Jon‘s recommendation, I opted to spend my birthday there.  I’m glad I did.

Hosted at eBay headquarters in Richmond, it was an ideal habitat for web monkeys.  The resulting openess and energy was palpable. It stoked my latent geek no end.

Nobody was concerned about popularising blogging, spreading social media or seeking local relevance.    These were all geeks revelling in their element where tagging via blogs, Flickr and Twitter, were a given.  The ‘digital divide’ could naff right off.

Talks were all organised by participants sticking post-its to a grid on the wall.  Alongside ‘XUL School’, ‘App testing with Selenium’ and ‘Accessible javascript’ there were bizarre yet informed talks on  ‘The Ancient Art of Stabbing People’ and ‘Tentacle sex’.

It pained me greatly that I had to slope off just as the beer was coming out on the Saturday and miss the real mingling.  I had to dash home to get engaged and attend my gran’s 80th before the weekend was up.