The Oval

What a day!

Up early to get the exhibition stand out of the car and then Uber across to the Oval, which took at inordinate amount of time to travel 3.6 miles in the London traffic...

... and which we had allowed for, so we arrived in good time to put up our stand and set out our wares.

Having availed myself of coffee and breakfast, I hung around for a while, and then listened to a presentation on AI by a chap from Microsoft. He was also a paediatrician, which naturally made him a great candidate to talk to a room full of people from the NHS.

As ever with AI, the stuff that is based around large language models and statistical analysis was fair enough - summarising documents etc - and the guy did some cute stuff getting ChatGPT to convert medical instructions into language fit for nine years olds, then into a Winnie the Pooh story*, and then into Urdu. 

All the stuff AI can do in the future, though: still a bit vague and not without some significant - and, I'd say, fundamental - challenges. 

Anyway, after that, I walked over to Waterloo to meet Dan and my brother, Wol, for a pint on Roupell Street before we went on to the Union Jack Club to meet my Dad for lunch, which was all very enjoyable. It's always lovely when Dad has the space to tell a story or two. 

Tempting though it was to stay out with Dan, I headed back to the Oval to the conference. The last break was already done, so we quietly struck camp and made our way outside for another Uber and slooow journey through London. 

And in the evening we took the bus up to Hyde Park and met Dan and Milly for the latter's birthday meal at Mercato Mayfair, which is a grand response** to Mackie Mayor's in Manchester: basically, you find a table - nice work Dan and Milly! - and then order from the various stalls.

I must say that the location - a deconsecrated church - was excellent, and despite the large numbers of people in the venue, we had a great time, followed by postprandial drinks at The Devonshire Arms nearby.

The only dark cloud over the evening was that Abi was in quite a lot of pain with her ear. She called us as we were on our way to the pub, rapidly escalating her way from Dan to me to the Minx, who convinced her to go to A&E.

*As ever with large language models, glossing over any question of copyright. 
** I sure it isn't, it just struck me that way as Mackie's was the first one of these places that I ever went to.