Training

I have been absent for a while because I have been being trained in the art of running a newsdesk. Exciting stuff. What this really means is that I have been sitting through days of boring lectures while being forced to occasionally come up with a vaguely relevant idea or opinion, with a night of very heavy drinking with fellow journalists sandwiched in the middle.

On this occasion I didn't know any of my fellow "delegates", as they like to refer to us, but this did not stop us from all getting very drunk. And rather unfortunately, there were only four girls of the 16 people there and one of those did not stay in the hotel. The other two decided to call it a night at around 10.30pm, meaning I ended up hitting the town with six blokes. All I can say is that I drank an awful lot of beer and ended up sharing an awful lot of personal information with virtual strangers. I have come to the conclusion that binge-drinking probably isn't a great idea. The second day of the course was considerably less fun as I spent most of it wanting to throw up and chain-drinking cold water. Not even the trusty hotel fry-up cleared up the hangover.