Internet Relay Chat is the original real-time text-based chat system. Indepedent, federated, and simple enough to build bots on. And a bunch of people with links to Bristol still use it.
We're in ##bristol on libera. You can connect via webchat using either Kiwiirc or Gamja, which is more lightweight. Stats for the channel are available from ircdriven or Netsplit.
See you there!