A council meeting hangover

Well yesterday I got my first taste of a full city council meeting. Democracy in action, it was thrilling.

The day started badly (like a lot of my days seem to, and I always thought I was a morning person). Some idiot had parked outside our garage blocking our car in, forcing us to take our bikes to college despite rain and near gale-force winds.

By the time I got to college, I had an attractive wet and muddy streak between my bum cheeks, due to my bike's sad lack of a mud-guard. I like to call it the cyclists' skid mark; a proud badge of honour.

After the obligatory early morning slog through short hand, we were off to council, held in the middle of the city. It's a cycle ride that normally takes 20 minutes but due to before mentioned gale force winds, took nearly 45 minutes.

I arrived at the council chambers wobbly-legged and wind swept but enthusiastic nonetheless.

The main item on the agenda: Portsmouth's world cup bid. Debate began at about 1.30 and raged
with only one short break until 7 o'clock.

Good lord councillors like their own voices. The most annoying thing was that most councillors started their little speeches with “I know what most I'm about to say has been said before...”

WELL WHY ARE YOU SAYING IT THEN? No one here wants to hear you parrot what has already been said a dozen times. We all want to go to the pub!

After a lot a lot a lot of debate, and a lot of time spent squabbling over how they should actually conduct the vote, they eventually voted to 'boot out the bid', much to the consternation of some of my football fanatic classmates.

By that time, I just wanted to get out of there (I was hungry). Of course, just like real journalists, we had to write up our story over night.

I have the unfortunate problem of my brain completely shutting down past about 9 o'clock. And plus I had about 50 pages of short hand notes to decipher.

Needless to say, the evening was a bit of a slog.

It was pretty hard getting out of bed this morning. Perhaps my 'council meeting hangover' is best illustrated by the fact that as I stood slack-jawed in the shower, I forgot to shut my mouth when rubbing a nice soapy lather on my face. Uck, I could still taste soap at lunchtime...