The day is finally here... It's BlogFest!

[BrunoTech]

This here is the all-singing, all-dancing BlogFest Live Blog thread: the place to post all your 'Festy updates if you're joining us in person at Kings Place - and also the place to hang out if you're with us in spirit only , for an hour-by-hour report on the action.

The Bloggers' team will be checking in regularly to give you a sense of the day as it unfolds - but this live blog is most definitely a communal effort, so if you're at BlogFest, please do post your updates here. You can also upload photos - just click on 'choose file' at the bottom of the thread. You have to have IOS 6 or later if you're on an iPhone though, so make sure you download the latest version.

Finally, don't forget you can talk and read about BlogFest on Twitter, using the hashtag #BlogFest.

So, BlogFesters - smartphones/iPads/laptops at the ready, please, and let's get this party Live Blog started

Argh wibble!!! I'm petrified! (And also not dressed yet. .. is that a problem? ;) )

So long as you're dressed by the time you get here, katese11. Don't want to scare the horses

I'm just at the train station now. I desperately want one of the other people in the waiting room to ask me where I'm going so I can say, "Well, ACTUALLY..." Sadly, they're all engrossed in a conversation about the merits of gel vs shellac nails and whether the thing they can smell in the waiting room is sausages or bacon.

Everyone gathering for the opening address now - very exciting. Much gulping of coffee ...

Hope you all have a great day! Wish I could be with you all. I'm sure it will go brilliantly

Ooh, look: here we all are

Our own JustineMumsnet raises the curtain on the day's festivities

Really vigorous debate around free speech and online anonymity in the opening session on what kind of internet we want. LOTS of love in the room for Stella Creasy ...

In it for the lolz.
Viv groskop asks 'can you learn to be funny or is it innate?'

Tim Dowling admits: 'it's my wife who's funny, I just write it down'

Who do you allow to read your writing before it's published?

Viv Groskop: 'not my husband. He appears in my book quite a lot and the first question from my publisher was 'is the husband going to sue?'

We're on to our Think Bombs - five to ten min blasts on the theme: 'how will technology change how we think', from psychologist Prof Tanya Byron, technology 'thinker' Dr Sue Black, and the fab Jon Ronson. Tanya's up now - she's talking about the need to reallyt think before we regulate 'difficult' content online - because if we do, we close off a channel for people who previously haven't had any voice at all.

Tanya says it's a question of risk versus opportunity. We're already raising kids in captivity - they're doing their thinking and learning online. We can't take that from them - but we try to.

Think bombs: How will technology shape how we think?

We're in the strange and wonderful world of Jon Ronson. He's telling us about the time he discovered that a group of German academics had created a Twitterbot version of himself. It tweeted constantly about fusion food and dinner parties, which gave him the rage. But when Jon confronted them, they were equally cross that that he wanted them to take the bot down: “You’re saying there is only one Jon Ronson and you want to maintain that authenticity, but we’re not persuaded by that. We think there’s already a layer of artifice and that it’s your online personality – the brand Jon Ronson – you’re trying to protect.” “IT’S JUST ME TWEETING,” he yelled.

BARNSTORMING Think Bomb from Jon Ronson there - on whether technology is encouraging a pitchfork-grabbing herd mentality.
Of Twitterstorms and online outrage, he said: "[Public shaming] was abolished as a punishment in 1837 – the stocks, the pillory, the scarlet letter, the whipping post, the lot. And now they’re back, delivered like remotely administered drone strikes..."

His talk also involved aforementioned German academics and multiple uses of the C-word. Only at a Mumsnet event could this happen

Wish i was there :( sounds like you're having an interesting day

oooh, we've got our lovely professional pics coming through now. Here are Toby Young and Stella Creasy MP locking horns in the opening session on the sort of internet we're after ...

oops, try again:

... and here's Justine, kicking things off

wish you were too, petite. Next year?

ah, the pic of justine hasn't worked. trying again, again

We'll do a glorious gallery later

oh lord, it's there now

Not enough gin, Sarah, obviously