And fucking home.
See, there really is a lot of things I have to say. Be prepared for a blog post masquerading as an essay; an essay of epic proportions. Let's face it, I'm not doing any other essay this year so I might as well make up for it here.
Let me start off the entry by saying that my week in London was one of the best weeks I've ever had, and certainly the best week I've spent as part of the University of Worcester.
We set off on Sunday; Judith arrived at my house nice and early, the plan being to get a cab from mine. The cab arrived promptly, Daniel and Paul already inside, having caught it at uni. Matt was late, but not too late. The buzz was just fantastic; everyone was equally excited and filled with anticipation. We got to Foregate Street Station, where myself and Daniel ran off to fetch a Maccy Ds. McChicken Sandwiches for breakfast are just pure bites of golden pleasure.
Cutting a long story about delays and train stations short, we arrived at Paddington at around 3.10, and hit
The Generator at about half three.
I kid you not; people in gaol have it better. The room was smaller than my bedroom here in Worcester, and contain 2 locker cabinets, a small washbasin and two bunk beds. For four blokes to be confined in such a space was... let's say... a possible health hazard. A hazard specifically for Daniel's health, as another night of having to endure his snoring would have resulted in pain/serious injury/death. Judith was separated into a girls only room, where she shared with girls from Strathclyde, Stockholm and Bristol. I'm not sure who got the better deal here.
Greeted on arrival by Ricky Patel, head of EPOCH, we loitered around the area until it was time for drinks at a swanky Covent Garden bar, The Langley. Drinks were expensive, but not too bad. Having only brought a tenner, I was able to afford a Magners. I came away with £6 change, which I didn't begrudge too much. The theme of the evening was networking, which is what we did. We met all the teams - that is, we met Kingston-Upon-Thames, Strathclyde, Bristol, York and Birmingham. New York and Royal Holloway pulled out before the competition had begun and last year's winners Stockholm had yet to show, but were expected. Highlights from Sunday include getting to know Diana and Roshni from Kingston; top people.
Monday morning was shit - early mornings are never early enough when there are communal showers involved. By the end of the week I was completely comfortable going up and down all floors wearing only my towel looking for a free cubicle. We went downstairs for a breakfast of Coco Pops (fucking lush man) and waited for reps of LSE (London School of Economics) to take us to the first day's briefing. He got here twenty minutes too late, and as such we were twenty minutes late for the briefing.
Monday's task was a sales challenge. The managing director of Mozzo Coffee set us the task of selling 27 bags of ground coffee as well as securing contracts from businesses around London. This was, for lack of a better word, a complete bollock ache. We split up, Paul and Daniel selling the bags, myself and Judith scoring contracts and Matt coordinating. Paul and Daniel did magnificently, we did not - Judith degressed into deeper and deeper levels of stress, with myself falling into shallower and shallower levels of apathy. Matt joined us and we flailed around for a bit more, finally meeting Paul and Daniel at Canary Wharf. We decided to cheat entirely, and allow WIN to buy the remaining bags of coffee and put down different names on the invoice sheets; Catherine played a blinder. According to the books, she bought 7 bags for a fiver each. We found out on Thursday that Kingston had won this challenge, and admirably so - managing to sell each bag at £12.50 each. Fucking great.
Monday night saw the gang of us heading to Pizza Express for a nice nosh, all paid for by LSE. We made some firm friends here in the form of Kingston and Strathclyde - Jimmy from Strathclyde is a legend. Also, Louise is really fit. We went off after that for some drinks, at Maxwells in Covent Garden. Top stuff.
Tuesday was Worcester's day. The Marketing Challenge was set by the marketing director of Orange; we had to come up with a tariff for their new "Triple Play" package - a plan aimed at the small office/home office (SOHO) market, and present it to them at the end of the day. The day was spent in a room just coming up with ideas. Matt spent a good portion of the day on the phone to Orange just talking tariffs, Judith doing the internet research, whilst myself, Daniel and Paul making the presentation and adverts. Today was Paul and Daniel's - Paul's amazing taglines and presentation and Daniel's billboard ads were brilliant, and when it came to the group presentation we kicked arse. We won the challenge unanimously, causing gasps from the other unis who, until this point, hadn't really seen us as a threat. Let's face it, no one had actually heard of Worcester before.
I honestly can't remember what we did on Tuesday night. I think that night there was a fashion show, which we ditched in favour of drinks. Ah yes, we went to Nandos, us and the Strathclyde lot, and Paul managed to blag us free starters and salads. Fucking legend, that guy. Went back to the hostel for drinks, then an early night - especially for Judith who was really feeling the strain of the days.
Wednesday saw us being presented with the Strategy Challenge, the challenge that all of us were looking forward to - last year involved the teams having to buy alcohol and sell it on for the highest profit at the union bar, and it seemed like this one was going to be the most fun. The challenge, it seemed, was to run a market stall for a day down at Camden Lock. Each team was given £75 and told to do with it what they will. We were taken down to the market to have a look around, and despite the fact that we were allocated last dibs on picking our stall, we got a really top location, and right next door to Kingston and York.
And get this. Our product was... me. Everyone voted that we should sell my "artwork" on the stall - you know those doodles I do (if not, they're on
deviantART page). Which was overwhelming for all of half an hour, until we had picked up the required paper and pens with which I was to create such artworks. I headed over to the uni library (which the word "awesome" really doesn't do justice) and sat down to draw. It's weird. I've never drawn a doodle for a specific purpose before, it's always just been something to pass the time whilst waiting for the lectures to finish. But I managed to knock out 4; two small, one medium and one large. I did a couple more on the actual stall, but that's getting ahead of myself. I was alone at this point. I dumped my stuff back at the hostel and headed over to Covent Garden - dinner was at Maxwells tonight, and I'm not missing LSE paying for anything.
Meal was alright but in no way spectacular. We split up at this point; Judith and Matt were knackered and so myself, Daniel and Paul headed over to Planet Hollywood on Leicester Square for some overpriced and pretentious cocktails. Paul went for a "Cool Runnings", Daniel an "Indecent Proposal", which was just a margarita, and I opted for a "Comet", which tasted like orange juice. Paul got the best detail. Cool Runnings all the way. We kept the glasses like, trophies of the tournament.
Thursday was awesome, by far the best day. Setting up the stall was ace, and when it was finished it really did look as though I was an artist selling my work. We had the frames all over, and a laptop showing a slideshow of my deviantART stuff. Lisa, Tonia and Lee from WIN came down specially and brought loads of printouts and flyers, and by midday our stall looked awesome. Strathclyde opted for a Scottish themed stall and all turned up in kilts - fucking legends, I'm telling you. Bristol spraypainted some t-shirts with Banksy art and even had a giant canvas painted. Stockholm sold all sorts of knick-knacks, including a CD of a friend's band, which I bought. Swedish electronica ain't that bad. Birmingham were reduced to 2 members after their leader, the enigma that is Dan Dash, had to go home for an exam, but that didn't affect them at all. They sold sale-or-return clothing. Kingston were selling jewellery at first, but then opted to blag some stuff from local businesses and raffle it off. York had a similar idea, an iPod Shuffle being their main prize.
The whole day was just amazing. Catherine came up to see the stall, and we lunched and talked and whatnot. Spending the day in the vibrant marketplace, with awesome people and selling stuff I felt proud to sell was just mint. We really did all have a big laugh, and finished with a pint. The debriefing at the end even included applause for me from everyone else, which was highly embarrassing, but I feigned apathy and lit up a fag. Seriously, there was no better way to end the week. The only down side is that some of the art I sold was commission; I now have to draw up 8 A3 sized artworks in 4 weeks. Haha.
After the stall, we went to a final debrief, where we were told the winners of each challenge. Kingston not only snagged the sales award, but also grabbed top place on the market challenge. We came second in that, and second overall; Kingston walked away with the top prize. My honest feeling about that? I couldn't be more chuffed. I came down to London expecting nothing, made a bunch of new friends, had a go at running my own business and have a renewed passion to make The Green Apples Co. really work this time, and my CV's going to look better. We came second, beating last year's winners (Stockholm) and 4 other universities - 5 universities with specialities in business. We kicked fucking ASS.
Thursday night, we hit The Pitcher and Piano for a drink or two before heading to Pizza Express with the Kingston folks. After a lovely meal (not for me, I'd had a Burger King prior to the winners' announcements), we decided to attend the winners party at The Pangaea, Mayfair - the very same bar that saw Prince Harry kicked out for bad behaviour quite recently. We went pretty much just to placate Judith; no one really wanted to pay £15 entry (that was guestlist prices). It wasn't that bad on getting in, though the pretention was both palpable and suffocating. I walk in and get a vodka and ice to ease the pain, and found to my delight that a shot of vodka cost just £7.49. I had to pay on my card after the bartender insisted I have to have it once it's been poured. It's the slowest-sipped vodka I've ever drunk.
Man, the best part of the club - and yes, there was a best part - was the menu. Out of curiosity, we checked out the prices of the most expensive bottle of champagne there. It's comforting to be able to say I've had a drink at a club which sells £15,000 bottles of champagne, let me tell you.
Friday was a nice round up. Early out, check out at 10 and off around London. Matt went with Daniel and Louise (Strathclyde, really fit) somewhere, and myself, Paul and Judith paid fucking tons for a bus tour of London. We met up again, lunched, and headed out for a boat cruise on the Thames, which was really nice. Myself, Daniel and Paul then headed out to Camden Market to say goodbye to the place. I was really choked to be leaving anyway, and to see the empty stalls we'd occupied so busily the day before was really hard. Course, if Paul had taken up one of the numerous offers for skunk he'd received on the way up it wouldn't have been so bad.
And that's that. We hit the train, missed it, waited an hour in Paddington and got back nice and nice like. And then back to normal; work yesterday and today, and then tomorrow... I need to speak with uni.
I'm spent. That's all I can do tonight. I do have other things to say, but let's leave EPOCH in one blog.
I'm really sad I'm home. I want to still be there.
