After being abducted by aliens (yes, we were told to make some of this up), we bundled ourselves into the minibuses amongst arguments over who was brave enough (or stupid enough) to experience Mr Woods ‘creative’ driving. 

Mrs Owen’s bus left first in the right direction whilst Mr Wood headed towards Brighton, which he later insisted was just to check the suspension on the roundabout!

After 2 ½ hours and Mrs Owen’s ‘groovy’ music our minibus arrived in Banbury. Ten minutes later Mr Wood arrived with many stories of ‘taking the scenic route’ i.e. kerbs, shortcuts and the wrong motorway. In Banbury we were given two hours to look round the shops, so we headed for McDonalds and the girls decided to eye up the local totty. They had nothing on us!

In the second half of the journey, the music got worse and Mr Wood’s driving deteriorated as we approached the Youth Hostel, arriving ½ an hour after us with Mrs Owen. Our first view of Manchester was a smashed car window next to our parking space which reception didn’t know about!

When the two minibuses had arrived, we were given the keys to our rooms only to discover that just 2 had TV’s and kettles. We decided the girls in there suddenly seemed much more attractive!

At the work session in the evening we had the rules outlined and discovered that our rampant sex sessions had to finish at midnight and that the area we were staying in was the gay centre of the city, which was probably why Queer as Folk was filmed here.

Group 6 then went on to explain the route to the Catalyst museum involving Mr Wood’s minibus and sore bottoms (they didn’t mention any stops for extra-curricular activities)! Other groups also explained and gave us information on tomorrow’s activities trying to answer Razaq’s questions convincingly.