The Manchester BSD UG Thing

[Paul Robinson]

A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King.

-- Emily Dickinson

'tis true that a little madness in the spring is wholesome unless by  
"madness" you mean "install Vista".

There has been some consternation suggesting that my recent posts  
announcing the Manchester BSD UG meetings have been lacking in:

a) Sufficient poetry
b) Sufficient humour
c) Sufficient information

To this, I reply that poetry and humour are not right, but  
privileges, bestowed upon ladies and gentlemen of the finest  
character. In recent months I have noticed a shocking decline in said  
character of group, e.g.:

a) Not enough people wearing flowers in their buttonholes
b) I saw several people arrive *without a gentleman's hat* the other  
month.
c) Unpolished shoes. Enough said, I fear.

You are therefore undeserving of poetry and humour and I shall now  
act merely as custodian of records and guardian of your moral  
decline. Sounds like fun, no?

However, there is no excuse for a lack of information about these  
little events:

What?
-----

The Manchester BSD User Group started in 2002 at the Lass O'Gowrie  
pub as a means to getting Unix users of a certain character and  
ability into the same physical space on a regular basis in order to  
share information, stories and guidance.

Since then it has become a night in the pub populated by sys admins,  
developers and various tech/geek types of different hues. We no  
longer laugh quite so hard when somebody mentions Linux or the GPL,  
and secretly we all want to run Ubuntu on Apple laptops.

A few months ago I proposed a logo for the group which consisted of a  
unicorn prancing under a rainbow. This was received with much  
support. It'll either be that, or the source code of 'xargs'  
manipulated somehow into a fractal image: we are a mass of  
contradiction and confusion, if nothing else.

The meetings are an informal, relaxed, friendly chat down the pub.  
There are no talks, no agendas (at least not written down - I have a  
secret plan to rob everybody, but don't tell them), no schedules or  
mission statements. It therefore resembles an unorganised rabble, and  
we're proud of it.

When?
-----

We always meet on the first Tuesday of each calendar month. The next  
meeting occurs on the 3rd of April. Likely dates for the next 3  
months after that are:

1st May
5th June
3rd July

We typically meet around 7:30pm. Sometimes people turn up earlier,  
sometimes people don't get there until much later. People drift on  
when they feel they want to, and in recent months that has been  
around 9-10pm.

Where?
------

One of the public rooms around the back of the bar in:

The Briton's Protection Pub
50 Great Bridgewater Street
Castlefield
Manchester
M1 5LE

+53.475072, -2.247262

Or, in old money:

+53° 28' 30.26", -2° 14' 50.14"

Or in Crown Copyright money:

SJ83599765

If you can't find it with that lot, mail me off-list and you can have  
my number and I will come and find you somehow.