SUTLS

I woke up at half six today and immediately cleaned my teeth, washed my face and straightened my hair. When I say this, I don't mean I did it with straighteners like girls and emos, its just that my hair can be quite wild in the morning so I have to fill the sink with water (quite hot, but not boiling) and put my head in it. Today was a special day because instead of going to school, I was going down to London with the rest of the band to record a live session for Radio 1 at Maida Vale studios.

Rowan picked us up at half seven and we went to the post office sorting department to collect a package first. It contained a picture of Rowan and Joe crawling round the Nottingham Marathon. While we were there, we went to a mobile cafe and had breakfast cobs each. I had mushroom, bacon and sausage with brown sauce and it cost me £1.80. It was nice for a short time but it made the inside of my mouth waterproof for the rest of the day and began to taste of disease and illness the more I ate. It seemed like such a good idea for the first few mouthfuls too. Joe and Rowan were similarly appalled by what an adverse affect their sandwiches had on them.

We then began travelling to London. Rowan was driving, Joe was navigating, I was trying to sleep. Rowan has a portable DVD player so Joe and I watched Shaun of The Dead. Rowan kept trying to as well so we had to turn the sound down and move the screen so he couldn't see it. We didn't want to crash because we had lots of other people's equipment in the back. The journey down was fine until we actually got to London. Rowan decided that he would take one wrong turning and because of this, we were stuck in traffic for two hours. I cannot begin to describe how much I hate London and the general way of life down there. It's packed and everything's made of concrete and grey. We eventually got to Maida Vale half an hour late. Joe wasn't handling the stress or excitement very well and went mad for a bit. We met Will and Al there as they had come down by train and then got our special BBC passes. Lloyd joined us shortly after. Maida Vale is just a network of tunnels underground. Our studio was right next to the BBC symphonic orchestra room. Will Young recorded there the day before.

The room itself was really good. It was a bit like a two tiered nuclear bunker. There was a downstairs where the music part was done and this was overlooked by a balcony. The balcony had settees, a water machine (not a sink, one of those office ones) and a coffee/tea machine. This was in equal parts an amazing and confusing device. You put in a cartridge and you get out a hot drink. I have yet to decide whther I'm happy about things that defy the laws of physics, but on this occassion, we were all impressed.

There was no food around, but luckily we bought Snickers and spicy Space Raiders. The session itself went really well despite early jitters. Simon the producer started the afternoon by telling us if we didn't get it in the first couple of takes it probably wasn't going to happen. Then, during one of the only times we made a mistake, he said "stop messing about, you're at the BBC for fuck's sake." To be fair, Rowan is quite irritating, but this did make me panic slightly. Luckily, Joe didn't hear him say this. Joe stresses too much as it is. It didn't take us long to do all our songs plus an extra one for good luck. They will be played on Rob Da Bank's show in March, with maybe the extra song going out on Huw Steven's as a teaser. We had some pictures taken and Joe and Rowan did an interview. I didn't hear what they said but I imagine it was mainly Joe shouting "Booya!" because he wants that to be his catchphrase (after toying with 'Wombaddy') and Rowan talking nonsense.

At one point I went for a wander and looked in the symphonic hall. It was big and had lots of instruments in it. I also went in the artist's lounge. There were a few fat men wearing suits and bow ties who were obviously in the orchestra. I nodded at them, they sneered at the fact I was looking a bit like a tramp, then I went on my way. We made sure we signed our name on the studio wall in amongst all the proper bands. Owen Hopkin, from a band called the Crimea, came down for a bit. When we had finished, we all went for a drink. On the way out of the studio we found a mad Mexican gibbering to himself in one of the corridors. I started to wander what an insane person could be doing there and how he got in, then began to think about how long he may have been trapped in the Maida Vale maze system. He was pretty funny to listen to.

Joe, Rowan and Owen all went in the van to listen to what we had recorded today, so the rest of us walked to the pub. We got a bit lost over the 200 metre walk and ended up in the wrong bar. It was very odd because the whole place had been barricaded into little sections and to get to each of them you had to crawl through tiny doors that got smaller and smaller as you moved around the place. The last one was quite a tight squeeze. Then, if that wasn't odd enough, a dog came through the hatch a couple of minutes later. He was looking at his watch and shaking his head. It was a magical place, or perhaps a dwarf bar. There was actually a dog, but he didn't have a watch. He could speak though.

We drank up and then went to the right pub where we chatted with Owen about music and the industry as if we were pros like him. Most of us got tricked into thinking we were for a bit, especially when we were being given advice about how to write the second album and get on festival bills. After eating two big macs, it was a bit of a comedown having to drive back to Nottingham and go back to not being famous. I slept for most of the journey home and we got back around midnight. I have my bottom set year nine first thing the next day.