Michael Carøe Andersen

Tag: Meeting bloggers

The Top London Travel Blogs
The travel agency LastMinute.com has started publishing a monthly top 50 list of travel and lifestyle blogs in London/UK. To kick that off they organized an event they called Oh You Lucky Bloggers at Planet Hollywood. It’s not like Ann or I has made it into the list but it’s always fun to get out and meet other bloggers. The event was great, mingling with the cool crowd of London blogosphere.

I’m not sure how the list is compiled but there are some really cool blogs on it – go have a look yourself.

There is a couple of my favorite London blogs that hasn’t made the list so I figured I’d give them props here:
- IanVisits – Ian is constantly on top of what’s going on under and over ground in London events.
- London Cyclist – Andreas is really busy creating resources for the biking crowd in London
- Ghost signs – Not exclusively a London site but very interesting nonetheless with old painted signs on house.
- From The Upper Deck – Another quirky blog where Przemek drives around on the double deckers of London and takes pictures out the window as London life goes by below him.
- Georgian London – excitingly writings about life in London in the 18th century
- Scandinaivian Kitchen – for everything homely on London
March 27, 2010
How to pour an ale

One of the things I love about being here in UK is the hand pumped beers or cask ales as they are also called. These are unfiltered and unpasteurised beer that are not drawn from the kegs or containers by carbon dioxide but instead by hand pump or gravity. In UK you just have to look for the Cask Marque sign and you know the pub serves some good, traditional cask ale.

If you go to the north of England you will get your pint like the one on the left, smooth and creamy. If you ask for a pint in the south you will get one like the one on the right, clean and crisp. The two pints shown are the same beer but poured in two different ways that produces slight differences in taste. There is more of an explanation here.

Thursday Ann and I went to the February edition of London Bloggers Meetup. The meeting was sponsored by Greene King brewery who wanted to show of their new beer engine that could produce both Northern and Southern style pints. The head brewer John Bexon was there with another guy to tell about the beers and explained how to taste a beer.

I enjoyed speaking to other bloggers and having a night out. The beer was very good I enjoyed both versions – and it was free which makes it even better. We had a great evening where we got away with goody bags filled with interesting beers from the brewery and tickets for a rugby game but more on that some other time.

February 21, 2010
Bloggers in London and Twitterers in West Hampstead

When I move to a new city I try to find local bloggers – and this time round people on Twitter – as a way to explore my new hometown.

In Copenhagen I joined a bloggers dinner and learned about BarCamp through bloggers and in Prague I made a couple of Danish friends that I found through their blogs. I also met Empty Nested Karen and Minnesotan Al in Prague.

I’m trying to do the same in London but in London everything is so much bigger which is both good and bad. Good because you can find literally everything and all sorts of people, groups and activities. Bad because it easily becomes overwhelming and places and people are far apart. Nevertheless I’ve embarked on the London blogosphere and twittersphere.

Ann and I went to the Christmas gathering of a group called London Bloggers Meetup (#LBM) that organizes a monthly event for people who blog to meetup and chat.

The group was started two years ago by Andy and has gone from having a handful participants to having upwards of 100 now with the events getting booked out days or weeks before they take place. Here Andy is presenting one of the nights three speakers.

First speaker was a security expert from Symantec (who sponsored the bar tab), then followed one of the girls of Domestic Sluttery (they brought cookies!) talked about tips for bloggers and last was Arvind talking about Kiva – a microfinance project.

A great night and I got round to speak to a couple of bloggers like Jorgen, The Undercover Recruiter and Too Geeky Chris (and a couple I forgot, ups).

A few weeks later I went to West Hampstead a neighborhood 30 min walk away from here. There is an active and growing online community in West Hampstead that mainly engage on Twitter. Jonathan is the man behind the blog West Hampstead Life and he is also very active on Twitter where he has been the anchorman for a lot of events. I went to a meetup called a #WHampGather at Alice House a very cool pub/restaurant.

There were loads of people who turned up for the event, our corner was completely packed and the group was very divers. Again I met a lot of interesting people and had a good evening.

At both events there were prizes and gifts so from the bloggers meetup I came away with a copy of Symantics new anti virus program and the day after I won a lampshade and from the twitter event I won a cool Dot To Date calendar.

December 21, 2009
I'm in Malta!

Tuesday I arrived in Malta for the first time in nearly a year. It’s great to see Ann again, good to be back and everything looks so familiar yet still different from what I am used to. Wednesday we started out at Paula, a friend of Ann, who gave us both snazzy haircuts 🙂

Since I met Ann I’ve been following a couple of Maltese bloggers. Two of them we met last night for dinner and had a great time. Meeting other bloggers is always fun as it feels like you know a person even if you have never met. We had a nice evening at with La Delirante and Red a Salvadorian/Maltese couple. It was great to meet them and time flew as we had dinner.

April 9, 2009