Who are the longest running UK bloggers, asks Mike, in his first post since January. The question has been discussed one word at a time all over twitter, provoking me to lose a couple of hours in the Rise archives, which have been sufficiently trimmed to leave only long descriptions of my failure to live in Hungary, and extracts from my teenage diaries.
This seems to be a good time to make a history of the Uborka Cocktail Hour. It began as a tea party in 2003, serving earl grey and many types of cake; Londonmark was particularly keen on the lemon fondant fancies.
At some point this genteel virtual gathering was corrupted, probably by Dr Pockless who always did and always does turn up with a nice shirt, a curmudgeonly attitude, and a grunt of “mine’s a pint.” He did at one point provide us with a nice logo, though.
One of the highlights of the cocktail hour was Stuart & Krissa’s Online Engagement Party, hosted with aplomb by the abovementioned Mike.
The most common theme has been death.
The traditional cocktail hour format has been an invitation early on Friday, with orders placed in the comments; followed a few hours later by a witty round-up. Back in the day when we used hover tags, the best jokes were a mouseover away. These days I am too lazy to write the round-up post, and deservedly, cocktail drinkers have dwindled.
Today I promise to serve your drinks in the late afternoon, if you would be so kind as to leave an order, in the style of your early-years-of-blogging self (or any old style if you don’t have an early years of blogging), right down there in the commentses.
