30th January

Breakfast redeemed the hotel! So second day on site for Coca Cola and today is the conference day. I’m going round filming the activities that the delegates are taking part in to edit, together with interviews shot at lunchtime, into a video to show at the end of the conference. The activities are loosely based on each brand’s identity…

Although at the end of the event no one actually watches the video except for me and some of the management who are almost trampled underfoot as 1200 sales people made a dash for the exit! I actually only stayed to watch the video and could have gone an hour earlier and ironically I then get stuck for almost another hour in the car park as everyone tried to get out onto the road which ran right round the stadium to the exit.

Eventually I get out onto the road and breathe a sigh of relief but it is short lived as at the next roundabout I can see that the traffic on the M6 southbound is absolutely solid. I head up the slip road anyway, which is being controlled by traffic lights as it joins the motorway to try and ease the congestion. When I eventually get onto the main motorway I discover that the reason the traffic is so slow is that the M1 ahead is closed. So I put my satnav on and it recommends coming off at the next exit and doubling back to go down the M40 instead, conservatively estimating that it will take almost twice as long to stay on the current route. So that’s what I do and the journey home isn’t too bad. (I did discover that the point where the M40 joins the M25 is the same distance from my house whether I go north round the M25 and over the bridge or south – 76 miles each way!