It seems that it is happening again. Something which starts out as a light-hearted semi-joke, gradually turns into a serious proposition. Today I visited the Centre for Creative Collaboration, in Acton Road, Kings Cross, and chatted with Brian Condon and Lloyd Davies, the driving forces behind it. The C4CC has been established to stimulate collaboration, particularly between universities, SMEs, and creative entrepreneurs. We got to speculating as to what that might mean for the “thatlondon” concept.

There are lots of people, from those three sectors, who visit London on a regular basis, and might have some time to kill waiting for off-peak trains. So, the idea is, we pick a date, and invite anyone who is around a waiting for a long distance train out of London to gather at the C4CC in the late afternoon / early evening, and work out what we might collaborate on.

Watch this space for details of the first event. In the meantime, please register here http://thatlondon.eventbrite.com if the idea is of interest to you.

John Popham (@johnpopham)  5^th May 2010

What is "that London". Well, it's another one of those jokes with a semi-serious point. There are still people in the North of England (probably a dwindling minority) who talk about "that London, where they do things differently". This is said, of course, while chewing a piint of real ale, stroking a whippet, and checking the pigeon-loft.

The serious point is that there are lots of people, like me, who have to travel regularly to the capital (on missionary work, of course, you Londoners need educating in how to do things properly). Some of those people, like me, often have time on their hands, because we try to avoid paying the extortionate train fares you Londoners insist on stinging us for to travel in and out of the place at peak times. So the idea of the "that London" initiative is to encourage people in this situation to use the time spent waiting for off-peak trains to meet, to talk, and maybe to collaborate.