The opening ceremony was 2 hours later than scheduled, which was just fine by me, as it allowed me to finish a heap of writing before the obligatory doors were called and the consumption of the wine lake could begin.

After the initial opening ceremony, there was a prize giving for the DUB Awards, a comic collection of half a dozen prizes (a free bottle of beer or something equally small) in categories such as Best Scener Beard, Biggest Loser (of weight) and similar titles.

The next item was a new departure, a live coding competition. Eight coders were given 25 minutes each to come up with a graphic, head-to-head in pairs. The winning four went forward to the finals to be held later today (Saturday). It seemed to go down quite well, with many people gathering at the front to take note of the code used to produce the effects and cheer on the participants. The event also gave some of the resident DJs the chance to provide the background music to the coders as they worked.

A couple of hours’ serious drinking time ensued, before the first concert of the weekend. Gasman (Matt Westcott) uses a Sinclair Spectrum, a guitar synth (he informs me the proper term is ‘a keytar’), a Mac and a good deal of fun to ‘make stuff do things it patently shouldn’t’. The end result is an eclectic mix of self-written tunes and covers (including Hung Up and Thriller) backed with graphics and footage from any number of places around the world. This concert showcased part of a Japanese fire festival in the footage, and I didn’t know whether to concentrate on what my feet were doing or watch the screen. The result was a convoluted effort that might have resembled Irish dancing if I hadn’t been wearing unlaced purple patent DMs!

More of the same later, including the quarter finals and finals of the live coding, more concerts and even some seminars.