I was planning to post something about the Chelsea Flower Show today, but then I attended the first ever Dabbler Summit… For those of you who weren’t able to be there yesterday, here are some photographs of the stylish venue – and here’s what you missed:
1) sofa.com’s hip and happening Chelsea showroom.
2) Flower beds more unique than any you’ll see at the Chelsea Flower Show.
3) Delicious free food and drinks.
4) Brit, Gaw and Worm et al in real life.
5) Glengoyne malt whisky and Dabbler tumblers courtesy of Glencairn Glass.
6) Fabulous views of Lots Road Power Station.
7) Boys’ toys, including model aircraft and Space Invaders machines.
8) Networking in the sofa lab.
9) More drinks in the pub till late.
10) Curious goings on in the loft.
Thanks for a most enjoyable afternoon – Dabblers are certainly connoisseurs of everything. It was lovely to meet you all. And, assuming you’re not too hungover, I’m waiting for an update. Any offers of a blow by blow account of what happened after I left?
Now that would be telling, Susan. Suffice it to say that Dabblers are clearly strong of liver.
And what a fine and elegant addition you made to the summit.
Luckily I had to leave before I had reached too glassy-eyed a state! Was great fun meeting the other dabblers in person, and very nice to meet you susan!
Yes Susan, both you and Recusant put me to shame sartorially, and I made a mental note to buy myself something – anything really, that might look like it was made in the 21st Century. We repaired to the Chelsea Ram peopled, as we arrived, by overweight middle-aged men barking into their mobiles and glaring at their lap-tops over pints of warm ale: most of them looked like they might be familiar with the mooring arrangements in Monte Carlo harbour. Later, their spawn arrived, all looking splendid and I thought ‘recession – what recession?’ Grape and grain were mixed as if there were no tomorrow (I’m sure there hasn’t been for one or two of us) and the conversation turned this way and that. Through the fog I remember Worm peeling off to catch a train to Cornwall, to collect a car and immediately drive it back – something like a 12 hour round trip. This seemed quite unhinged to me, but he completed the tableau by urging me to visit Jaywick (no, I hadn’t either), a town that time forgot on the Essex coast, which apparently looks like the back-lot from a Mad Max movie, and was named this year as the most deprived area in England. After that things went wonderfully downhill, coming to a shuddering halt in the general area of women’s bodies – always a cracking subject when men get together. Toby seemed to become fixated on the jag of stick-women in magazines, and wobblies on the High Street, a motion which I supported, alone I think. For an explanation, we needed Shop Curious. The drinking boutique had a number of really bad pictures of young women in various states of undress scattered around the walls, all selling for north of £1K. These, unnoticed until the booze kicked-in, suddenly became the focus of everybody’s attention, including Nige who had just arrived. He was moved to closely inspect perhaps the most provocative of them all, a reclining nude with Rubenesque buttocks, but the view he took was that her thighs looked more like a pair of chipolatas than the real thing. But that could have been the drink talking.
Thank god I had just enough sense left at closing time not to buy that painting.
Thanks for keeping me in the loop. I would love to have stayed and chatted longer… and to have seen what Nige was wearing. I understand he was sans cravat. You looked fine to me, Mahlerman. You’ve made me curious to see those pictures now… Didn’t you have any female company? What happened to the other girls? Off to Jaywick tomorrow.
Oh Nige had his cravat, Susan, it’s just that by 11pm he was sans everything else. We’re all banned from the Ram for life.
Great photos, btw.
Hoho – very funny Brit! Sorry to miss you Susan – maybe next time…