As some of you may know, I am at my mums for Christmas, which means I was in a little piddly village somewhere on the outskirts of Leicester in the UK for a week. The sort of place that you blink and you miss it.
I had made plans to meet up with the delectable Johanna Cherry and fellow mac-fiend Ciaran Walsh, and then the effervescent Lorna Jane made herself available too (yay!).
Well, best laid plans of mice and men and whatnot, Johanna and Ciaran were unable to make it, but Lorna did, and my grand-mentoree and I spent a wonderful night in a Wetherspoons (after one drink in this… very authentic old-mans british pub) and had many [more] drinks and I got some good pub food (Sausages, Beans & Chips ftw!) and we had some great chit-chat about this, that and the other. I don’t know Lorna went away from the evening with any food for thought, but I was grateful for the company of such a wonderful girl (I’m sure I was the envy of every guy in there 
).
Then on Saturday, I got a call from Paul Morgan, saying he was in the village and would I like to meet at The Queen (formerly The Egyptian Queen) for a drink. So, being the generally sociable geek that I am, I set off for the beer… er, I mean, the meeting. 
Whilst speaking to Paul, one of the things that came out, was how I was a member of an “inner circle” of speakers and PHP elites. He mentioned that we always congregate together at conferences and it can be a little daunting for people not in this group to approach us.
My response to him, after thinking on it a while, was that we are not an elitist “clique”. We’re just friends, and I think that through our friendships our skills have been able to progress to the point they are at, but that is not why we are friends (although discussions over said skills can lead to friendship). When we huddle together in a bar, it’s about having fun – not the future of PHP; though typically discussions about programming will come up… that’s because we’re geeks.
So, in short, you’re not trying to crack the shell of a “clique” which needs you to be a PHP god to be considered for inclusion; you are observing a group of friends, and you should approach us as such
Thank you for the great chat Paul, it allowed me to elaborate on some things I’ve been percolating on for a while, but hadn’t brought up to others yet, and your views in response were much appreciated!
This is all I’m going to write in this post, because I’m going to write a New Years post with a little more on the web development community as a whole.
Anyhow, I’m back in the US and recovering from my marathon flight, and no work till Wednesday. Woo!
– Davey