I thought I'd blogged before this one to say about my 2nd hitching experience, but obviously not. Got back to Hull in 7 hours, after a lift from Dad to Bedford services, got a lift in a poundland truck (everything for a pound shop) to watford gap, then a truck carrying a load of fresh chickens to Asda, dropped me onto the M62, he was going to Newcastle. Then waited 45 mins, and it started to get cold, waiting for a lift along M62 to Hull. A lovely couple picked me up who'd been on a day trip somewhere. the guy saw me waiting there when they went into the service station, and felt sorry for me on the way out. he was a lorry driver, both from Hessle, which is where they dropped me. and the biggest wait of the whole journey? you guessed it, for a bus from hessle to town centre, 50 mins! I hope to write an article for Hullfire on hitchhiking, so I will detail the intereting things I've learnt about Saudi Arabia and Iraq, container transportation to China and shipping channels, being a squadie in the army, fishing in Hull, flyposting, temporary fencing at festivals, everything you'd want to know about preparing fresh chickens and anything else I've leant in the last fornight thanks to hitchiking...

I've Just got back from student radio conference in Leciester, www.studentradio.co.uk. was good, a bit long at 3 days, thu - sat, but a nice break for easter. it cost £30 plus £40 for 2 nights accomodation and £25 on the train. Went with Mandy, who does production at Jam. first day, heard Jon Holmes speak, who's just been fired from virgin radio for playing "swearing hangman for the under 12's" live on radio. Friday was workshops, with a speaker from BBC leceister and leicester sound commercial radio. also learnt a bit about digital radio, which still seems a long way off, but should start to emerge in mobile phones hopefully. Today, saturday saw the AGM (annual general meeting) of the SRA student radio conference, which descended into a bun fight of usual student politics, a taste of whats to come at the NUS conference in 2 week I suspect. Then free lunch from dominoes pizza, which was cool, plus a box of 100 free CD's for our student radio, unfortunately, we were getting the train and couldn't carry them! They had all been donated by what used to be Atlantic252, but is now a talk station, so they gave away all their music. tonnes of it....

The finalle was an acoustic set by the band Minuteman, who were good, but then followed some songs and chat by the king of lefty red political music, Billy Bragg, who I've loved since I saw him at a free festival with my mate Ted when we were 15, unfortunately our train was at half 3, so we missed the end questions and answer session with him, but he's offered to do a phone interview for his anti monarchy mischieve for the queens jubilee. he's written a song he hope to get into the charts the week of the jubilee. Usual stuff against monarchy, nationalism and union-jack waving pissed idiots... it's all good. He said he wanted a young punk band to come up with something, but nobody did.

cont. Met some cool people at the conference, Jim and Puffin from C4 radio at Christ church Canterbury, who know Ted who DJ's on his student radio, plus Jenny, Anna and Mandy from Fresh Air in Edinburgh and some other guys from Subcity in Glasgow. I was impressed with Leicester, a nice town, seemed to be a bit of a smog covering all the time, (but really nice sunshine all 3 days) I dunno if it has a pollution problem? Friendly people though, nice to see a multicultural society working in the UK. Back to whinging about public transport though, we leave billy brag early to get our train, only to be waiting 2 hours in Doncaster due to strikes by Arriva staff! not too bad though, I gave Katherine a call who lives their but studies at Hull, and she was home, so came out for a drink with me and Mandy, after we'd walked around the town, which again is really nice, similar to hull according to Katherine, but getting lots of regeneration money. not so multicultural I guess, we found a great queen mother shrine, which will definately be going up on this site. Union jacks and bunting, just what billy brag was on about... Got back to Hull at Half 9, after leaving leceister at 3.30! Hullfire laying up tomorrow I think, then back to uni on monday. and mint monday night. It'll be good to see everyone again.