I was intrigued, so clicked on the link and found a sign-up page for a spy-based secret dining event. Well, I've always liked the idea of secret dining but have ever done it, and the website said the location would be near to a station on the East London railway line that runs less than five miles from home .... and I never win anything anyway .... so I signed up.
Thursday afternoon, I'm at work. My mobile rings, and I'm asked if I'm available the following evening as I've won tickets!
Friday, after work, I start to make my way New Cross Gate, which is about the middle of the line. I'm still on the train from London Bridge when I receive a text: AGENTS! THIS IS THE SPYMASTER. PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO ...." and then the details of where to go, what to look for, and the password. It also gives a deadline of one hour to get there.
40 minutes later I walk into the entry of an aquarium supplies showroom in east London, and am greeted by a secretive young lady in a white lab coat. Having given the password, I'm informed I'm in group 3, and told to look around until someone makes contact.
Photographs by Seánan Forbes (www.seananforbes.com)
Within a few minutes a gentleman - also wearing a white labcoat - approaches us. "It's good to see you again! And I'm so sorry about that mix-up when I accidentally wiped your memories, but I'm glad you made it back safely. Are you ready for another mission?" We confirm that we are, and are instructed to take a photograph representing camouflage and tweet it with the hashtags #nothingtoseehere and #MI1020.
Photographs are taken and tweeted. A little while later, we are given another mission - to tweet a believable, but totally untrue, explanation of the last tweet with the hashtags #whereiamtonight and #MI1020.
Soon after this, Group 3 is assembled (eleven of us in total), we're issued trilbies, photographed, given three Nokia Lumia 'phones between the group, shown how they work, and led back to the entrance to start our group mission. We're each given a sealed envelope marked "Confidential". It's raining, so we're given bright yellow umbrellas.
One of the 'phones rings, and a message tells us to make our way to the canal at the end of the street and make contact with the spy under the bridge. We will be greeted with the words "The moon is very bright tonight", to which the reply is "Far brighter that I would have expected". We head out into the night.
We find the spy quite easily - well, she's not that hard to find, despite being hidden in a bin! Passwords are exchanged, and she asks us to take a group photograph with her. When she looks at it, she asks to zoom in on something on the wall behind her - and there's a message "Phone Val". We're told there's an old-fashioned call box round the corner, and there may be something there to give us Val's number. We find the call box easily enough, but there's a slight problem; it's in use! And the lady inside is somewhat taken aback at eleven people in trilbies trying to read the number from a flyer stuck to the inside wall of the box .....
We make the call, and a recorded message tells us to follow the map that appears on the Nokia phone. It will lead us to a burger van, where we are to ask Frank for his specials.
(It's only now that I realise that Val and Frank are my mother's and father's names!)
We find the burger van, and Frank, and ask him for his specials. His first special is a cup of mulled wine for each of us. Then he directs us to look at his specials board, and there's a line of writing too small to read at the top - but a photograph and the zoom function on the Nokia make it easy to read our next instruction.
Two doors up the road we knock on the door and give the password "Frank is sexy".
We're let into an MOT-style garage under the railway arches, where a large man in overalls and carrying a breaker bar decides we're here to unblock the toilet. We're advised to remove our coats, and they're hung up for us. We're shown into ... well, the toilet ... but it has room for all of us, then the back wall open up and we're in a massive dining area! This is the Research and Tasting Facility. The end walls are painted white, onto which are projected various electronic screens, clocks are set to assorted time zones (including Roswell), the book shelves contain spy fiction, and there's a rather dodgy lab-type area where a couple of people seem to be undergoing some kind of thought transfer process ....
We're shown to our tables, and offered drinks - cocktails, spirits, wine, beers, soft drinks, whatever we want. They appear, and shortly afterwards a rather excitable young lady (lab coated, of course) explains to us to look out for double agents, what to do if we spot anything suspicious, etc. Next to come to us the gadget man, who demonstrates (and gets us to practise with) some of his latest inventions. These include the laser bream, which helps to find targets underwater ....
We open the Confidential envelopes we were given back at the aquarium to find some enlarged microfilm which is, of course, the menu.
We wait for all the groups to arrive and settle, then suddenly a group of white-coated people enter the hall carrying piles of small yellow cases. There is a strong smell of wood smoke. The cases are put on the tables between each pair of diners, and we open to find - well, smoke - and the first course.
The evening progresses. The food is excellent, the drinks are plentiful. There are urgent messages from the SpyMaster projected onto the walls, and various challenges.
Then, just before the dessert arrives we realise - WE'VE BEEN INFILTRATED! One person on each table turns out to be a double agent, and there's a bit of a chase. My group feels somewhat betrayed by the charming young man we had accepted as one of our own, but we console ourselves by eating his dessert ....
A few days later, after Gingerline had run five days of the event, they released this wrap video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd_LViPjkpY
A great night! I have every intention of attending one of their regular dinners in the coming year.
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