Check Monday's blog

Tuesday - 7.20am

Huey

Just 5 more minutes.

Getting up this morning was so hard. It was a late one for sure. Not that we spent the night partying as mentioned earlier, well I didn't at least. I brought my laptop down to the bar to do some work whilst Will and Roachy entertained me with their banter as they sank a pint or two in celebration of it being Will's birthday... Star Pupil... Being Monday... Whatever the celebration, I did the grown-up equivalent of doing one's homework in front of the telly until 3am. Those two are so funny I could listen to them talk their nonsense all night - which is what I seem to do everytime we get together. The best kind of people to sit up late with are those you can not only laugh with but also laugh at, and last night I did lots of laughing with and at the pair of them.

Anyway, I pressed my snooze button on my alarm far too many times this morning and finally dragged myself out of bed when Roachy sent me a text saying "Get up! It's time for school". Who'd have thought such a simple text would fill me with so much fear. A long time has lapsed since I last had that phrase barked at me yet it still carries as much weight as it did all those years ago. Surely school today can't be anything like it was when I was at school... Can it?

Tuesday - 5.05pm

Kate (from the website)

Nutini in Nuneaton

Another great day for the Star Pupil crew with a fantastic school and a fantastic Star Pupil to go with it. The school is really special in it's positive and progressive attitude towards it's students and the results are more than obvious - we had a lot of fun spending time there. Jamelia also enjoyed it so much she didn't want to leave!

Other reasons I enjoyed today:

1) We got a spanking new bus with power sockets on it, woo hoo! Which means we can now work on the bus whlie we're on the move. Oh.

2) The AMAZING lunch that was served up by the school restaurant. I'd like to be able to say that there is more to us bus dwellers than our stomachs, but it would probably be a lie. We all seem obsessed with food and life on the road generally means a diet of crisps and chocolate - so the REALLY good mushroom stroganoff and beef goulash was like manna from heaven.

Taking the photos was really great fun today (even though Huey took all the blinding ones, the rascal) and now the technology is sorted out, it's all much easier from a web monkey point of view. That said, the whole bus is pretty exhausted and it's only day 2. Staying up to help Will belatedly celebrate his birthday possibly didn't help this state of affairs but given that it was self inflicted, I can't complain. But the feeling on the bus is nice and chilled out, if a little sleepy, and I'm looking at an amazing sunset as I type. There are harder ways to earn a living, I reckon

Headlice report: Still no sign of the little mites but on close inspection it would appear recent technology issues have created a few grey hairs.

Tuesday - 5.30pm

Roachy (He who does the TV stuff)

Jamie Who?

Etone School had the best school dinners I've ever seen - Jamie Olivers little heart would've swelled with pride. We ate so well at lunchtime that for just a few hours we left the crisps and chocolate on the bus alone... Got up at silly o'clock this morning to get to school and surprise Chelsea so the mood on the bus is fairly relaxed now as we head into the night to the next hotel and location.

A few of the team are up the back of the bus watching 'Little Miss Sunshine' on DVD, a couple of others are asleep, Wills editing a video, I'm drinking coffee... do you need this amount of detail? Move on. Will and I did a talk for the Media Studies class today and explained what we do, the equipment we use and how we got our jobs. They were a good class, listened with interest to our waffle and we took questions at the end. First question “How much do you get paid?” Get in!

Tuesday - 5.55pm

Huey

Too cool to be school

What kinda school has plasma screens in all the corridors showing music videos at break? I'll tell you what kinda school, the kind I never went to. I remember being treated to Wimbledon on the radio one strange year, and once Mr McKinstry played us a tape of his mates band in what used to be called Metal Work - but that was as cool as it got. No plasma screens and certainly no MTV. Today's school blew me away.

When I heard the place didn't have a canteen but a restaurant I though it was going to be some token suggestion that this school had moved on from the dark ages of my youth, but having spent a day hanging out with Chelsea and chatting to the teachers it was clear this place was a shining example of how schools should be. The thing I picked up on most wasn't the screens, the food or any of the facilities. It was simple really - it was passion, from the pupils to the chef to the teacher to the head. They all loved their school and their jobs and boy did it show.

We're on the bus and eyes are starting to close. Natasha has fallen asleep and is dribbling all over the place, she's very pretty though and has clearly mastered the art of dribbling elegantly. Far less pretty is Will who dribbles when asleep and awake. He's busy editing video. Edith, Megan, Piers and Natalie are watching DVDs at the back, whilst Roachy is being Roachy. Steve the driver has a new bus and sat nav to go with it so we should get back to the hotel by midnight then... Only joking Steve.