Photosmudger On the Road

Just got back from a cracking day at Newcastle College, although rather knackered from giving the talk twice, and still a little emotionally fragile after finishing my Iain Banks book on the train - The Steep Approach to Garbadale has a nasty twist in it's tail folks, but is well worth reading. Anyway, on with the report card:

• Student Turnout - 9/10. A full house, augmented by the fact that I was asked to give the talk all over again to a 2nd set of folk in the afternoon.
• Number of Questions asked - 8/10. Very impressive, lots of questions, and pretty good ones too.
• Quality of tea and cakes - 11/10. This one goes all the way to 11 folks, straight out of Spinal Tap. A very enjoyable dinner the night before with Graham, Tea and Coffee in Staff mugs, and a cracking lunch in the Hospitality Suite. Shame we didn't have time for a massage at the same venue, as Dave was dying to have a manicure.
• Ability to handle the assignment - 8/10. Undoubtedly some of the best images we've seen, lots of very high production values around (models and Bentley's anyone - care to top that?) only let down by some slightly sloppy business stuff.
• Obsession with fake facial hair - 9/10. What is it about Newcastle and stick on Moustaches/Beards? Last year we had some, with a kind of ulterior motive/trying to cheat on the brief idea, and this year a whole set of big taches stuck on passers-by. 2 years in a row counts as a fetish in my book.
• Likelihood of Dave, Duncan, Myself and Graham invading China in the near future - 6/10. It would be inadvisable, and is in fact the 2nd rule of war, but it still seemed like a good idea at about 11.45 last night.

Right, off to bed, a last minute Cover shoot has appeared for tomorrow, then off for a weekend in the Lake District, which I'll roll neatly into next week's talk at UCL. See you then.