Press Tour: London and Bath Spa

I woke up this morning feeling like shit, the cockroaches had gotten the best of me, I was hoping the "continental breakfast", as I recall the sign I saw last night announced, was more than worth it. However considering the condition this hotel was in I was expecting the worse. I walked down the corridor to take the elevator to the restaurant to have some breakfast. I was quite hungry because the previous night was quite an exhausting one, the room was so bad that I was actually considering to take a shower with my shoes on. Ashley mentioned his shower looked so bad he was afraid to get some kind of rash from it. As I walked into the "restaurant" aka shit hole they served breakfast at my stomach turned at the sight of the British breakfast. There where pieces of bacon drifting in a bucket of fat begging people to save them from their gruesome death. There was some yellowish puree that was posing as scrambled eggs, I can not begin to describe how disgusting these dishes were. Ok fine, screw the continental breakfast why don't I just take some orange juice I thought, little did I know that the orange juice just looked like a bucket of vomit. I had seen enough as I walked towards the table where Ashley and Claas were sitting I looked at them and saw in their eyes the reflection of my emotion. We decided to eat some breakfast cereal with milk and a brown bun with some jam.

We were done eating and decided to move out to the first magazine we where meeting, this was a big one and it concerned London, I had to be accurate and smooth the British press where sharks from what I had heard. But before we could leave I had to get the suitcase and my backpack. I had to get to my room before the cleaning lady did or I would loose all my gear!! The thought became more vivid, my heart started pounding, the elevator reached the floor I was staying at, there were cleaning ladies all over the place! I had no idea which way to go, this place was a maze. As I pulled myself together and started breathing normally I noticed the sign pointing to the direction my room was in, I was running to save the project. Sweat running down my back, this was the corridor, my room was at the end, the cleaning lady was cleaning the room before mine. I ran to my room, opened the door and saw that it was in the state I had left it in. With much difficulty I grabbed the suitcase and my backpack and left for the lobby. Claas and Ashley were waiting there with a cab, we took off to our first appointment.

We arrive in a neat office, a cocky old woman asks us with a serious face to write our names in the visitors log. We comply and do as we're told, unexpectedly she offers us hart shaped lollipops as she cracks a smile. I couldn't let this go I had to negotiate for more than one lollipop, Claas and Ashley looked at me as if I was crazy, I looked back at them and the lady and said I needed another as a souvenir for my girlfriend. She pulled up here icy face again and gave me two more. I had won this battle but the true battle still had to take place. As we wait in a semi waiting room kind of space I stare at all the magazines this publisher owns and wonder if there is any competition at all in the publishing world. A bearded man arrives and introduces himself to us, he smiles and asks us to follow him. He takes us to a small room where I would present the product to him. As with the French magazine the presentation equipment was shit, by now I didn't really care. I knew that the size of the monitor or the quality of the speakers wasn't important for the presentation but that my connection to the viewers was the most important aspect of it all. I started up and discussed the product as if the viewers were part of my own team, I discussed why we made certain choices and why we were restricted in certain choices. They loved every moment of the presentation and more over they felt like the had lived through the production of this amazing product.

As we walk out of the building Claas stops a cab and we get in to head for London Hammersmith station. We arrive there and run to get the train tickets to Bath Spa, on the way to the ticket dispenser machine we see a McDonalds, this was our first chance of getting "good food"! We get the tickets and run to the McDonalds to get some food to eat in the train, with our backpacks, suitcases and bags of food we run to make it to the train. A two hour trip was ahead of us and Claas started by thanking me many times for my outstanding presentation, I felt truly honored to accept this compliment from someone that had worked in this industry for so many years.

We arrive at Bath Spa a beautiful city in the south west of england, this amazing city is said to be the most elegant city of England and I must agree it is truly amazing. After drinking two buckets of juice we go to the most important press encounters of this day. After walking through this old city a modern building rears its ugly head around the corner. We enter it and enlist in the visitors log as requested. The presentation equipment for this encounter is excellent, an eighty inch Sony LCD screen and a perfect sound system. Everybody arrives and the product is booted, I'm sweating my ass off and this time it's the agitation that's getting to me. The room is three by three meters and this eighty inch screen and the computer and the thirty degrees Celsius outside are generating enough heat to power a light bulb for weeks. I start presenting, pulling the same tricks as this afternoon, but I get interrupted by someone that's bringing in ice creams. My flow is rigid I don't do intermezzos and wasn't planning to either. I continued my presentation and the press genuinely seemed interested in the product, but after getting interrupted three more times I had enough. One of the journalists said he had to go and two others followed, I had to call it a day. I was dead tired and disappointed in this presentation, I didn't get the reaction I had asked for and I didn't do as well as I wanted to.

As we took a pint of cider at the train station Claas told me the presentation went really well and that the press was really interested in the product. He told me that these guys were more professional so they had to keep this ice cold unbiased face up. I had enough of this tour, I sat back in the train seat and took a nap. The hotel that was so disgusting suddenly felt like an oasis in the midst of a desert. I was looking forward to end the day with a cool glass of beer, but I barely could keep my eyes open.