ZDNet UK's Bletchley Park big day out

This Thursday, ZDNet UK is upping sticks and abandoning our London offices. We will become a touring machine and run the site, hopefully as normal, from The National Museum Of Computing at Bletchley Park.

We're doing this for a number of reasons. One is that, with the Olympics coming, we want to find out what it's like to take a team of people and do our everyday work from somewhere outside London with just Wi-Fi and power laid on. Another is that it's good to know these things for disaster recovery planning: you only know if something works by doing it.

ZDNet UK will be remote working from Bletchley Park for the day. What could possibly go wrong? Image credit: Bletchley Park Trust

The National Museum Of Computing is also hosting a fascinating event in the evening at Bletchley Park, Turing And His Times, which will include a talk by computer historian Prof Simon Lavington on Turing and his Contemporaries, a simulation of the Pilot ACE computer by TNMOC trustee Kevin Murrell, and the first formal public showing of a video commissioned by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) of the recollections of two of Turing's colleagues. It's hosted by the inimitable Bill Thompson, worth the price of admission by himself.

What else should you expect? Normal service, we hope. That's rather the point. But we'll also be roaming the corridors of BP, and have a hit list of some exceptionally interesting technology old and, er, old, that we'll be covering during the day. And the museum is open as usual, so if you drop by during the day or for the event in the evening, be sure to seek us out.

Of course, nothing will go wrong in our attempt to run a website from a secret military establishment so there'll be nothing to write about on that score apart from how well it's all going. On no account should you check into ZDNet UK regularly during the day, nor should you follow our tweets or Facebook page, in the hope of seeing grown professionals at the interface between social media and massive meltdown.

It won't happen. How could it?

The National Museum Of Computing has been very helpful in getting this idea on the road, so thanks there in advance - and here's looking forward to an exciting, stimulating and unusual day (not) at the office. Perhaps we'll see you there.