Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Day Nineteen: A Jolly Good Time

I ate breakfast this morning down in the cafeteria, like usual, and, like usual, was not impressed. I'm not sure if it's because the breakfast food here is not very good or if it's because I'm just getting tired of it, but breakfast is actually starting to annoy me. If I hadn't all ready paid for it, I'd walk down the street to Gregg's and get some real breakfast. But anyhow. Not too long after that we went out for our Tuesday field trip(s).

First stop on the agenda was the Daily Telegraph. A man named George took us on a tour of the Daily Telegraph, which is England most highly circulated credible newspaper. There are tabloids that have a higher circulation rate, but they aren't considered serious journalistic sources. The Daily Telegraph goes out to about 2 million people across the U.K. and the rest of the world every day, so it's a very important paper. The tour was nice and was it quite impressive to look around and see the workings of such a place. He provided us with a lot of good information and overall I really enjoyed the tour.

Once the tour was over we rode the train to Canary Wharf and ate lunch. Dr. Martin, Michael, Alex, Ann, and I ate at a pub called the Cat and Canary. I had hoped the pub meal would be cheaper than some of the restaurants nearby, but it ended up actually being more expensive. The fish and chips though were pretty darn good, so I can't complain about that. After lunch I spent my time walking around looking for something sweet to eat and I ended up just going to Starbucks and getting a huge chocolate chip cookie. I almost felt kind of bad eating it though because when I walked outside, some people were shooting photographs for some sort of modeling thing and I walked by the model, who was quite tall and thin, and realized I was fiendishly eating something she most likely would never dare eat.

Around 2:00 p.m. we made our way to Westferry Printers, our second field trip of the day. Before we started off though we saw a man on a moped get into an argument with some police officers. Mopeds are pretty big around here, but frankly, I can't take a man seriously if he's riding on a moped. Anyhow, we arrived at Westferry Printers and got ready for our tour. Just for some background: Westferry Printers is a mass printer that handles the printing of the Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, The Guardian, The Observer, and several other important newspapers. They are one, if not the, largest printers in Europe, and therefore in the world. They started us out with watching a video on their history, which although interesting, I nearly fell asleep watching because it was warm, the lights were off, I had just eaten lunch--you know how it goes.

After the video though we actually took a tour through the print and shipping rooms. It was fascinating to hear about how they operate the enormous printers and make the plates to run the newspapers. For every newspaper there are usually over 1,000 plates made. The printer wasn't very busy when we got there; most of their work is done between the hours of 10 at night and 6 in the morning. On the tour they provided us with a set of ear protection that was amazing. I couldn't hardly hear anything. They would be useful with all of the door slamming that goes on in the dorms. And truthfully, I did think about pocketing a pair of ear plugs they keep attached to the wall (they have boxes and boxes of them) for use, but I have the feeling I wouldn't be able to hear anything while I slept.

The tour was pretty extensive and impressive. At the end they gave us all a little "Press" badge and gave us a few souvenir papers. I have an insert to the Financial Times related to Nigeria that won't be in the paper until Thursday, July 12, 2007, so seeing the date on it is kind of bizarre. But, the tour was great and we enjoyed ourselves.

We caught a bus back to Canary Wharf, rode the tube back to the dorms, and then hung out for a bit. A bunch of us ate dinner in the little dining area near our rooms and we had a pretty good time. After that I stopped by the Tesco to buy some groceries. I tried to use a coupon I cut out of the Daily Mail for a free jug of Tropicana, but Tesco wouldn't accept it. I'm not really that surprised, because the way the coupon is, it only says it is valid at participating retailers, but it doesn't tell you the name of any places. It's sort of like you just have to find a shop that's nice enough to let you get a free bottle of Tropicana. Nonetheless, I came back and unloaded my stuff, then went downstairs and talked for a bit with some of the people doing laundry.

We walked quite a bit today, so most likely I'm about to just lay down and go to sleep. It doesn't even begin to get dark here until 9:30 p.m., and the sun doesn't fully set until 10:00 p.m. or later, so going to bed early is kind of difficult. But, I don't think I'll have a problem with that tonight. Pictures from today's trips around London can be viewed here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8494714@N03/