Usually at this time of year there is always something vaguely festive going on in my social calendar. For the past three years I’ve had Christmas meals with people at uni, then before then it was the school Xmas dinners. This year, almost inevitably, I was to share it with web developers.

Sunday was a really good night, with a good strong pack of Multipackers descending on Cafe Rouge in Birmingham. There were also a few new faces which is always good, the food was very nice, the waiter was ill-tempered and the beer was flowing.

Despite Trev’s protestations, party hats only really remained on during the meal, and there were some interesting interpretations of the French menu. For example, it took me five minutes to work out what Stu was on about until I finally realised he was asking if I had a prawn cocktail.

After food at two, drinks were served in Lloyd’s Bar and we spent most of the evening there before people finally started to make their own ways. Matt, Leevi, Dave and myself stayed on a bit longer to find another bar and had another couple in Walkabout before making for the station where us last three all realised we’d missed the last train. And it was all down to the Tooheys (brings back memories).

In the end Leevi got the bus and Dave stayed over at mine; a more fortunate end of the evening than Gavin who managed to get his car locked in a car park along with his phone and keys, and so spent the night in a city central hotel.

All fun.

At the moment I’m meddling with textpattern and tweaking some code, but by Friday I’m going to be back on the move again and up in Loughborough for a couple of meetings and then the weekend. I also heard that the headmaster at my old school is going to be moving on at the end of the year. That’ll open up a few discussions I feel.

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Mike's birthday celebrations were highly amusing, exciting, destructive and hazy. This morning Swan and I reminisced over the night before while Mike pulled his mattress out of the guttering, back through the velux window and into his room. Not that it was the only item that had been placed outside. Mike's shoes were somewhere in the garden too.

Last night was enjoyable. Due to an administrative error, we had ended up buying more alcohol than was required for such an event, and so after meeting Mike's Grantham mates, we ended playing Ring of Fire to some odd northern rules. Was still very funny and this entertained the house while guests came and went including Jono, Noel, Nature, Caz, Lauren and a few other familiars. Mike has made 'party bags' for us too, but I couldn't help but feel disappointed to find they only contained a jammy dodger.

Because of the rain we took taxis onto campus and Swan and myself managed to blag our way in on our old student cards. Almost instantly I ran into Dylan, the first of a handful of ex-coursemates I've not seen in over a year, including Cat and Justin. Sean and Tongy were both about too and the night disappeared fairly quickly over a few doubles. Swanny tells me.

The night ended with dancing and talking biscuits to alot of people.

After decorating Mike's room this morning and abusing his computer including his Facebook account, he eventually let his other friends go home (after demanding they stayed another day and hiding their train tickets) and we whiled a few hours away watching Family Guy, Futurama and ripping Mike quite a lot. Ah, the good old days.

I needed to be in the Lloyds bar on Broad Street in Brum at 2pm, so took the crammed train via Leicester. I ran into Paul on the platform and we ended up standing for the rest of the journey. After thinking the venue might have been changed for about five minutes, everyone else turned up and there were some fantastic discussions regarding 'interesting' alternatives to captchca with Ross and Gaz. We eventually moved on to get a 'handmade burger' at Brindley Place and then into the James Brindley (Multipack's private bar) for some pool. After making it perfectly clear how completely I have lost my ability on the table, the remaining stragglers bought one last pint at the Sports Cafe before heading home. Another good little meet up.

At Moor Street I ended up sitting next to an 80 year old lady who called me "a gentleman" after I put her on the right train. If only more elderly people had decent manners these days. We ended up discussing the Blitz and family history after I decided that, despite her owning a computer, she didn't have much to say on the topics of XSLT and captchca.

I have a large number of photos I need to sort out.

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Yesterday was The Multipack's first birthday which made the whole thing a little more special. In fact, so special we all got free cake and wine. @media eat your heart out; if anyone is going to get web geeks fat and drunk it's going to be Multipack.

It was good to see the usual faces plus, and there must have been about twenty of us in total patronising the Wharf10 bar, which is in a fairly nice part of the town from what I could establish. The only other time I've ever been to Walsall was for the illuminations, a bastion of culture in the West Midlands.

There are a considerable amount of jobs I need to sort out today for friends. I've got some university samples to email, some people to phone (Jon where are you?) and one or two other things critical to me surviving the weekend.

I think I forgot to mention that on Thursday this week I went back into OSH (the old school) on request of my old technology head of department to speak to some fifth years about uni and what it's like. The next day (I don't know if coincidently or not) I got a letter from their new head of business asking if I would like to be of any assistance to them. I enjoy passing on the knowledge, so I'll be replying.

I spoke to Currin yesterday, and so I need to correct something I said earlier. I was totally misguided when I said that as a result of this enterprise programme he would be spending time at Berkley in California. Apparently not. Instead (once he's finished dining in parliament and meeting the cabinet) he will be spending time at Harvard then at Stanford Business Schools. Nice one. I think it's fair to say that boy has landed on his feet; well done DDS :)

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The past few days have been remarkably busy. On Thursday I went to Birmingham with Sister One, primarily to escape the house during the nice weather and secondly to do some cultural stuff.

We visited the IKON gallery, an Victorian gothic building (which looks like an old art college) near Brindley Place which has been converted into a display space. The building and the gallery fitting was very good, although I wasn't all that bothered by most of the exhibits. There were one or two things that caught my eye however. Firstly an interactive experiment to judge how we all see colour differently (although I do wonder how accurate it could be) and a date project which showed a ridiculous level of commitment. The artist had made a piece every Sunday since 1966, the day's date carefully painted on a stretched canvas in the language of the present locality. If the piece was not completed before 12 midnight on that day, it was destroyed. Apparently the artist is still adding to the collection. That means they are doing one right now.

Saturday was Multipack day. I met Stu and Matt on the train in Birmingham and then met everyone else in the Pitcher and Piano in Nottingham. Another Victorian neo-gothic conversion, the pub fills the entire building and Kate had made sure we had seats in the choir stalls.

There was much beer, food and discussion about the return of comic sans (*spits*). There was also a discussion on photography and Gaz and I sidetracked on freelancing/travelling for a while before we were chivvied out of the choir stalls to be replaced by a stag-do.

There were a few new faces once again and at about 7pm we all went our separate ways (unfortunately the trains from Nottingham never run later than about 9pm on a Saturday so there seemed little point pushing it). Upon getting within two blocks of the station we were however stopped by the police.The street was filled with emergency services and we found out that there had been a controlled explosion a few minutes earlier. Thankfully we only caught the tail-end of whatever excitement had been, and ten minutes later we were (surprisingly) on a train back to New Street.

Other things of note from this week include hearing from Swanny, who let me know that once again Mike had come down to visit him in Romford. Bearing in mind the last time Mike went down he was refused entry to all the venues he tried as he didn't have any ID on him, he had hoped this trip would have been more of a success. Apparently he was wrong. Being a quiet night, only one place in town was open and when he tried to go in the bouncer stopped him and told him he couldn't come in. The reason? He was carrying his insulin pen. Mike argued that this was a critical piece of medical equipment, the bouncer argued it could be used as an offensive weapon. Mike argued that it would be a silly idea to go around stabbing people with his insulin, especially since he was diabetic and this was his lifeline. This went on for a few minutes before the manager thought Mike had been talking to the bouncer for too long, told him he didn't want to hear it and sent him and Swan away. Denied entry because you've got diabetes. Hmm.

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"I saw that building 20 minutes ago," I thought to myself as my bus drove past the Blackheath Social Club for the second time this journey. It was a Sunday morning and that meant replacement bus services and continual disruption to what would on any other day have been considered a fairly simple journey. Quarter of an hour after my train had departed, my bus dropped me at Smethwick Galton Bridge station. Despite these problems and Trev's directions, I still managed to arrive at Leamington Spa and locate the correct geeks at the correct time in the correct park.

The weather held, and then improved, meaning we pretty much got a full day of sunshine. There was even a need for sunglasses. A good thing considering the picnic element of the event, and it meant that all sandwiches remained dry, which is more than can be said for Stu, who went for a paddle to retrieve the official Geek In The Park football. We quickly decided that wetting the attendees was a bad idea, and the task of rescuing future water-bound footballs was contracted out to rowers on the river. The 5-a-side tournament was a great success, so much so that it soon evolved into into a 6-a-side match. I was able to comprehensively display my lack of talent and fitness, yet we still won, hurrah.

There were approximately 35 'picniceers', not including kids (of which there were a good number), and a similar figure of developers who turned up for the evening event. Those who braved out the entire day ate dinner at the nearby Scream pub and afterwards headed over to the Jug and Jester for a dose of discussion before I finally had to call it a day and head home.

Patrick and Bruce took the subject of pragmatic accessibility as the core focus for the talk; chain-smoking their way through a passionate discussion about where the responsibilities of the web developers and the user agents meet. The speakers made some important observations about the expectation of designers to provide solutions to browser shortcomings. The podcast will be available for download soon from the Geek In The Park web site, but in the meanwhile thought I would summarise my feelings and conclusions whilst they are still fresh in my mind.

Patrick highlighted the real need for the browsers to take a greater interest in their interface development and not just the compliance to web-based standards (quoting the poor browser subscription to W3C User Agent Guidelines). My personal feeling on this is, as developers, we do already have a way of addressing these gaps in the software. Mozilla and Microsoft have already allow additional function can be mapped into the interface, and there is no reason why we should not be creating solutions that can be plugged into the browsers. The current plethora of extensions are tailored specifically for the developer market (who doesn't have the developer toolbar installed?), but there is hardly anything created specifically for the end users.

The sort of extension I envisage is a toolbar of solutions to standard access problems which are currently routinely patched by developers. The sort of problems I mean are that of font resizing, the 'aesthetic' problem of skip links and the issues of colour contrast. Some of these settings can already be changed in the UA, but mostly are hidden away so that your standard user hasn't got a clue about it. Others simply have not been implemented.

An 'access toolbar' could be combined into a single extension and act as showcase to both web and UA developers. This prototype would have little impact on the standard user (as they still don't know what an extension is); the real benefit would be the ability to demonstrate to the UA developers what the web developers would like, and why it would help us. It would also help to channel the heated discussions onto how to implement the good access features into the browser interface, rather than carry on the superficial arguments over how we should spend our time working around problems that should be being addressed by another group of people. I don't think the extension would ever need to be shown to the public, it should simply be an example of an interface, showcasing features that should be considered for inclusion in a final release product.

I believe that enough pressure could levy change. It's an optimistic view I know, but if you look at the current rates of innovation within the industry, there are two very different speeds. On the one hand, the W3C et al take years to formulate their specifications, then the browsers then take years to implement them. The content of CSS 3 and XHTML 2 are still being debated, but by the time they are widely adopted we will have known exactly what was coming in them for half a decade - no novel advancements, no innovation, just what we already know and expect, and similarly the browsers seem to fail to provide spectacular never-seen-before advancements.

On the other side of the divide is the developers. We have a vested interest in improving our working methods, and innovations in projects/applications are commonplace. The level of creativity and drive is unbridled; we are seeing rapid advances in our design techniques, but all this energy is being channelled into the formulation of CSS hacks and browser workarounds, which is a reactive approach to the problems. This is confusing considering the proactive and innovative nature of the rest of the work that we are involved in (our sites).

If we look at what happens when developers' energy is applied to a generic web problem we can see the results can be very effective. I refer you to Microformats. Within a short period we have a set of specifications that I am confident will eventually become a grassroots web standard and become woven into the fabric of everyday, semantic mark-up. By it's wide scale adoption, Microformats would provide a precedent for developer-led change. Not by W3C committees and not by browser makers, but by developers. If Yahoo! or Google were to start to incorporate these formats in their normal web results, it would be a coup d'etat, and demonstrate that we can make an effective impact on wider web policy.

The point I am trying to illustrate is that there is often a lot of talking about the way we can improve our design/accessibility techniques. It's a by-product of our creativity and online innovation. What is lacking is actions. As has been shown on many occasions, the industry giants are prepared to take on board good ideas. They are willing to pay good money for it. Take Writely, Flickr, del.icio.us... all bought up and adapted by the Big Guns. Why? The technology existed and was proved to work. There would be no point of turning up on Dragon's Den without a prototype. If you want a browser to adopt a feature, you need to mock it up, shout about it, build up a fan base and get the idea adopted. We can talk about what other people should be doing for us as much as we like, but unless we spend some time illustrating what we mean, it's never going to be. What makes this easier is that the tools for the job are already available.

I would like to thank both Bruce and Patrick for getting me psyched starting me thinking. With a bit of enthusiasm and some help, I am sure us developers could bolt together some kind of useful little demo bar that might help the UA makers see where we are coming from and open a discussion on what we want need from them. Bruce and Patrick are already compiling a list of things we need to see addressed in UAs, so this could be a very useful stepping stone.

On other topics I have less to say (mostly because I've spilt my heart already), but I would like to agree with their idea of a pragmatic approach to access. The key is to assess the project scope (time & money) and work out if you can adopt a fully accessible schema given the resources available. If you can't, draw up contingencies. If you've made a site that doesn't provide an alternative stylesheet because the project wasn't long enough to allow it, don't feel guilty. Acknowledge you had to make the sacrifice and be prepared to make the change if and when you need it. You are not likely to be immediately sued for not having a high-vis stylesheet if you quickly and cheerfully react to any request or complaint. You will appear in a better light for meeting the needs of your visitors, whilst improving the access level generally on a per-se basis.

Of course it is desirable to have the stylesheet there in the first place, but we all know there are times where a compromise has to be reached for one reason or another. I must stress I am not advocating cutting of corners just because you want your tea a bit earlier; the responsibility that lies with the developer here requires a very pragmatic and realistic approach. You don't want to discriminate and you don't want to leave you or your client vulnerable to criticism. Remember, in law everything is judged in relation to a 'reasonable person', and by my estimation, as long as you could demonstrate you were reasoned in your decisions, you are likely to be within your rights (as a designer only; your client might be liable for not making the resources available)*. Make your code valid, prioritise you access features, then be prepared to act immediately if the audience requests something you couldn't deliver first time around. Crucially, only compromise on access when there is no alternative.

Lastly, Bruce and Patrick were keen to talk about the advantage of baselines in terms of legal positioning of firms. I am still not convinced this is a good way forward. As Nicky Danino put it, "it gives people a get out clause," and I agree. Just because we want to make it easier to define the lowest boundaries, doesn't mean we should do it by providing ways that allows the relaxing of standards. I think it is fairly clear from the years of discussion already under our belts is that the WCAG AAA spec is a holy grail of accessibility, no one can really claim to have achieved it. What is important is that people demonstrate that they have striven to achieve it. Oddly, they don't have to succeed to be successful. It is more important to see people have made a serious attempt at accessibility and standards than to let them pick their own marker and sit on it as low as possible because their in-house access policy says they can. As the classifications are all subjective I predict it won't help the legal position anyway; I think the courts are more likely to weigh a decision based on the level of commitment shown to meeting the godly targets rather than whether they managed to meet a self-set lowly minimum.

Opinions over. I had a great day, it was really good to meet all you folks I'd not met before, and to catch up with those of you I already knew. Thankfully there were no Geek In The Pond fatalities despite the precautions the police took, and hopefully I'll get a chance to see some of you again at the Multipack meet in two weeks time.

*Disclaimer: I am not a legal expert, or anything even similar and this is simply my interpretation and opinion. Please do not use my ramblings as a basis for any access policy without consultation with a legal professional, as without precedent, all this advice is purely speculation and should be treated as such. I won't not hold any responsibility for anyone acting on my advice as I cannot confirm it's value.

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Having never had a laptop before, the only time I was ever really exposed to wireless internet was at home. Things have changed.

Yesterday was my third Multipack attendance, this time at a private bar in Sutton Coldfield. In order to get to Sutton I took the train, which I was delighted to discover had been mostly replaced with a bus service. After about five minutes in my seat I was greeted by the obligatory nutter, who introduced himself to me and the rest of the bus by shouting "Andy? Is there an Andy w800i here?"

And yes there was, and it was me. So Chris (as I soon found out) came and sat next to me for the next ten minutes until his stop, asking for me to Bluetooth over any garage or RnB I had on my phone. Well, despite being the bad boy gangsta rapper I am, I didn't have anything but a Kanye track that was vaguely interesting to Chris, so he took that and left. Despite being a nutter, he was a fairly pleasant one and really if more nutters could follow Chris' line of being pleasant and not smelling of alcohol at midday (unlike the person sitting behind me), then I would be very happy.

I got to Sutton. The WAA bar is every bit as fancy as the photos I'd seen beforehand, but we didn't stay there long before heading over to a pub called The Station, then finally moving to another pub for some food. Some good discussions were had and everything drew to a close at about 7pm (I think?).

On the replacement bus service back (hooray) I got a call from Gwyther telling me Will had turned up and there was going to be some drinking of Budweiser. I was only twenty minutes away, and despite having to get back to The 'Bridge for Beth's 21st later, it was decided that this was entirely plausible and I was soon in Moseley frequenting some pubs. At one one point in the evening I was told "This is the girls' toilet; get out of the girls' toilet" which will teach me to read signs properly. Anyway, I never made it to Beth's as I missed the last bus back. I am left here at Gwyther's making the most of next doors internet connection and thinking about how and when I'm getting home.

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Well, the whole weekend has been a bit chaotic. Not that I actually lost control at any point, but it certainly has been a case of leapfrogging from one thing to the next. On Friday I finished up in the workshops at about 4.30pm, still reticent about going home and missing the IDT BBQ going on, but I realised I needed to bite the bullet and get back before Saturday. Jon drove me home after a flash delivery of the IDT stash. Nick supplied me with three full bags of the stuff, and tonight is going to be spent labelling the things up ready for distribution sometime tomorrow or the next day. It's going to be a mission, but a necessary one, especially if I am even considering getting into bed tonight (it is currently stacked with the garments in question). They are looking fantastic however, so I'm not going to whinge.

Yesterday was my second Multipack meeting. Numbers had grown and there were around the twenty mark, if not over. The staff at Pennyblack's were clearly under the misapprehension that we were there for food, when infact the majority of the event was spent under an alcohol cloud. Dave and I hashed out some new ideas for a project that could be very beneficial to both of us, and the night ended at around 11.30pm in a bar devoid of lager, discussing the intricacies of resolution support. It was thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. Photos here.

Today I've had to deal with a hacked site and a backlog of other rubbish that I seem to attract like a oversized crap magnet. It is not so fun as the rest of the weekend's activities, although I have had one or two emails that brightened my day.

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