Like this:

Last Monday night I went to Camden in London. I wore my new hat and a dress. This combination made cycling difficult, but I hoiked up my skirts and sat on ‘em, and the on the train, The Ginger One found me a paperclip and I fashioned it into a hat pin (stationery hat pin, you can guess where this is going…) When we got to Londinium we walked to a pub. We walked along a canal and it was pleasant. I think we may have had a minor lovers’ tiff, but I don’t recall, so it can’t have been bad. When we got into the pub (The Prince Albert), there were lots of people who looked vaguely familiar, and a few people I remembered from the last time a bunch of stationery addicted mentals met in a pub. There were also people whose names I knew but faces I did not. Two of these were @biltawulf and @mapsadaisical. I was going to bring a cupcake for @biltawulf cause it was his birthday the week before, but I am a terrible person, and I forgot. Nevertheless, they introduced themselves, and I sat down near @mapsadaisical and joined the “I’m at #stationeryclub3” tweeting. Then I settled in to chat and drink and chat.

Soon, people started running away upstairs, so I assumed we were about to start. We all signed in on post-its and we stuck ‘em on a big blackboard. There were a lot of post-its. There were even more on the tables, including exciting highlighters with little tag dispensery things on the end. I sat on a table with @rachaelmorgan and @isnumber6 (we had resorted to twitter names by this point) and commenced our silliness. Our table would have benefitted from @siansparkles, @bekkimeehan and @tipyourhat, but they couldn’t come. Which was very unfortunate. @isnumber6 covered my glasses in tag things (Picture to follow if I can get it off him) and a man made me pull silly grinning faces and took a picture of me. We also stuck a folded post-it in the band of my hat so it looked like I was the mad hatter. @isnumber6 was not allowed in the picture. I think the man was gingerist. Bastard. I also made @biltawulf a sign using an arrow post-it and a normal one which said “This man is looking for a #biltawife”. It did not work, he did not find one (apparently that changed at Stationery Club version 3.5 which I missed, booo. Congratulations @iamjamesward, you’ll make a beautiful bride.)

After some more larking around, @iamjamesward attempted to get our attention and showed us some videos about post-it notes. Then we skyped (I skype, you skype, he/she/it skypes) with GEOFF. The important man who made post-it’s the world-wide (I assume, how could they not be?!) phenomenon they are today. ‘Pparently, the glue is failed aircraft glue made by Spence Thingame, and he had the idea of covering a board with it and sticking paper to it. Art someone-or-other, who was Thingame’s colleague had a fit of the smart and suggested putting the glue on the paper rather than the other way around. Thus “Peel and Press” notes were born. Then GEOFF, Geoff, dear Geoff had to try and sell them or something. He got a bit pissed off that lots of people were calling him asking for free samples, when 3M (the company, don’tyaknow) was about to pull the plug, but he got his secretary/distributor to redirect all the calls to head of marketing, teehee. And off they flew. The rest, as they say, is l’histoire.

Then we asked some questions as the beer, or gin or whatever I was drinking kicked in, and everything started going a bit fast. I think The Ward asked us some questions. I may have answered, I know not. I abandoned @isnumber6 and @rachaelmorgan ‘cause they were talking serious politics and I was in a whimsical mood/only like talking about things I understand. I talked to lots of people, including @lbrsarah (we talked about animal testing), @Redearedrabbit (I don’t remember what we talked about), ermmmmmmmmmm @theazzo and @chocoquirrel as they left, and I don’t remember after that. I helped @iamjamesward fold up all the names so we could pick a winner of a goodybag. @MandrewB won it and I was jealous. I wrote down all the names too so I could tell the man from that place who was there.

Next we were ushered downstairs so I swiped as much post-it stuff as I could carry (quite a lot), and trotted down with my drink. I spoke to @mandrewb and @mapsadaisical and @biltawulf a bit, and @mandrewb gave me a nice pretty girly dispenser of post-its. It was very kind of him. We left the pub and I thought we were going to another pub but we weren’t, so I gave @sillyheathen a hug cause she is sweet then @isnumber6 and I wobbled our way back to the station and went back to the Steve. My paperclip hat pin worked wonderfully. We went to bed and then to sleep and then the next day we went to work and reverted to our normal names. The End.

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