The ZZ9 15th anniversary party

Jubilee Tavern, London, 8th December 1995

A review by Robert J Newman, adapted from MH59

Over 40 members plus a few friends turned up at the Jubilee Tavern and signed the new ZZ9 meetings book (the last one, started at the 10th anniversary party, had been filled), honorary member Kevin "Mouse Trainer" Davies included. This was less than expected and hoped for, but the weather was abysmal on the day.

The first event was mattress racing. Dop beat Simo in the whose stupid idea was it to have mattress racing grudge match, and we then had eliminators, semi-finals and a final race, all of which involved lots of flolloping, cheating and carpet burns on elbows. The eventual winner was... err... I can't remember, why didn't anyone write it down? Who were you? Write in. The prize was one of ZZ9's fine "Glasgow" T-shirts. We held a free raffle and several lucky members won things including a "Glasgow" T-shirt. We also gave free "Glasgow" T-shirts to the members who turned up with the lowest and highest membership numbers.

Hippy set up a merchandise table selling our towels, pens, "Glasgow" T-shirts (now on special offer). The Vogon Poetry Reading was much enhanced by the total failure of anyone to bring any Vogon Poetry with them, thus completely eliminating the need to bother with this event at all.

The final occurrence of the evening was the charity auction. This was originally just an idea of mine to fill a few minutes and get rid of a few items of old junk that ZZ9 and I had. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of mentioning it to people and several people turned up with various weird and wonderful items. Once we got going, other members started producing things as if from nowhere and donating them to the auction; even The Jubilee Tavern got in on the act and donated a number of items, including the chance to pour yourself a pint behind the bar (went for £3 I think). The single largest amount anyone paid for anything was £22 for a Cosgrove Hall "Dangermouse" T-shirt donated by Simo; the name of the person who is so sad he would pay anything for Dangermouse trivia will remain nameless [it was you -- Ed]. At the end of the evening, we had collected over £160 for The Jubilee Tavern's various resident charities from the Auction alone, additional money was put into the collecting bottles

Kevin the Landlord was a brilliant host, who got right into the spirit of things; so much so that we have decided to hold London pub meetings at his pub in future. He even had the Guide radio series on tape behind the bar!

This account has hardly begun to cover the variety of fun things we did, and if you are one of the many people who had been intending to go but stayed away because of the freezing weather then you made a big mistake. The whole thing was enormous fun. Oh and... did I mention the "Glasgow" T-shirts?