Many years ago, a PR by the name of Bill Moores came up with the idea of holding a Christmas party in one of London’s oldest pubs, the Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street (the spiritual home of all British journalists) for a lunch, and then afternoon, of drinking and feasting.
Sadly Bill’s no longer running the party, but Sourcewire has carried on the tradition and it’s the place everyone in the tech press (and other areas) meets to drink, eat and catch up. It’s free beer and steak and kidney pie for a few hours, and then everyone spreads out and goes to other watering holes.
It’s my first one for three years and it was a joyful day to catch up with everyone again, to see some of the old faces and a few of the new ones. The beer may not be ideal (it is a Sam Smiths pub after all) but the atmosphere in the low-ceilinged pub is perfect – it’s one of the city’s oldest watering holes and it’s not hard to imagine Samuel Johnson, Tennyson or Conan Doyle sitting down for a pint and a chat (although not at the same time of course.)
There were some great writers at the annual meeting today, not on that level (at least outside our own heads,) but the conversation was interesting, it was great to see so many old friends and almost everyone came away from the meeting happier than at the start of the day – but only just.
As I staggered back to my bed, I couldn’t help feeling a little bit depressed. Three of the major technology publishers are holding redundancies and a lot of good hacks are either changing professions or facing a fight for the increasingly small freelance pie. I’d thought the bloodletting in the industry was dying away – it appears there is still some way to go.
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