It was a damn early start to the day today (well 6am. Student remember!). However the early start was compensated for by considerable high spirits on the bus into London (Us...30 students on the BCUC pilot's course, here, on a bus into London, using a "Get Your Tits Out" sign to incite hilarity with passing drivers....with our reputation? Well what did they expect!?). As we arrived at the pace of an arthirtic snail into Central London, and the US Embassy, we disembarked in a rapid fashion. The coach couldn't stop in the traffic controlled area, so our lecturers got us to bail out of the vehicle assault-troop stylee, "go go go!!". We then had an unexpected celebrity moment - Lee Evans was exiting the rear of the Embassy! He even stopped to do a mini-sketchette for us. What a nice guy.

Although the total time spent in the Embassy amounted to about 98% waiting, with the "interview" being over in less than a minute, there were two minor hitches. One was my own, and was due to my home-made photo not really being up to scratch. However this was quickly fixed by me quickly nipping out to get another one. My friend Nibi was not so lucky - he was told that due to his second name being a commom Muslim name, they would have to run additional checks, taking 3 weeks. We're flying out in 3 weeks... I wonder if they should run checks on the name "Smith" too, that's common. But on the flip side, my country didn't experience 9/11.

The rest of the time in London was spent in Starbucks, and in also one of our number (the ginger one) trying to get a test ride in an Aston Martin DB9. We think he may well have succeeded as well! We then rolled onto Cranfield...more high spirits ensued, and a few risque conversations that may or may not have carried all the way to the lecturer-infected front part of the bus. Oo-er.

Cranfield looked great, the campus, airfield, buildings all seemed to say "This is a top-notch uni, with none of that atmosphere of BCUC's Wellsbourne Campus. That is to say, it does not give the appearance of a secondary school that is hard-pressed to be a University, let alone a College." However the accomodation seemed well....1960s. Serviceable, but not too modern. Still, when all you're going to do is study for 8 hours a day, it was nice enough. And there was even a "diskotech" on site, as described by our tour guide. Wow, a diskotech.

The lecture given by a senior captain from Flybe was very good, highly informative & down to earth. The lecture by the head of CCAT was also informative..but not in the same way. Apparently they had anticipated that out of our class of 37, a maximum of 24 would actually want to go onto the 2nd year of the course at Cranfield. So the fact that all of us want to, funds notwithstanding, has apparently come as a bit of a surprise to them.

However, the esteemed training captain said no problem, we're going to send 10 of you to Bournemouth instead. Who wants to go? There then appeared to be a slight problem, when only 1 person volunteered to go to Bournemouth instead. No matter, apparently something will be worked out....

But it didn't end there! Apparently the reason for the move was CAA regs on max class size, i.e. 24 studes.....however we were quick to point out that 37 minus 10 is....27! This came as a surprise to the CCAT bloke, who told us that we in fact numbered only 33. Good lord, I thought, we've got 4 interlopers who aren't actually on the course, they're just pretending. This turned out to be an admin cock-up in actual fact, BCUC had failed to mention to Cabair that yes, while there were 33 people doing their PPL this year....4 students on the course had started the year with a PPL and therefore were not on the list, even though they fully intended to start Year 2. Oh dear. It's worrying when the senior bloke in an organisation can't count the number of students he's gonna have on a course, and even more so when he accepts 13 more that he can legally take. Still...we were assured that something would be worked out. We'll see.