Day one in the NATO Northwood headquarters

Well today I found out that even doing NATO exercises could be boring.

As an add-on to our course, in the sense that not everyone does it and it isn’t assessed, I’ve been taking part in a NATO navy training exercise.

The idea is that whilst NATO does their normal training exercises in a fictitious country they are trailed around by journalists asking them questions, alongside more journalists subbing stories and asking supplementary questions from base camp, to train them in dealing with the media.

I am one of the journalists at base camp, which is obviously less exciting than running around a ship where the action is taking place but I still thought it would be quite fun.

As it turns out on our first day everyone was frustrated, partly because things were just being set up. But also partly due to the fact that the Spanish NATO force, which is role playing the scenario on this occasion, were refusing to tell the on-board journalists anything because they didn’t have security clearance.

Of course this is the time that I realise that the only game I have on my computer is chess, which is all well and good but it’s not the best thing to play when you’re killing time.

I don’t have the internet on my computer here, so I can’t kill time on Facebook, YouTube and Hotmail, or any of the other scourges of office management.

And no I can’t send my friends texts, because they have mobile blockers here – they sap your battery down to nothing so you can’t use your phone, I knew this in advance, so my phone was at home.

At first it was odd being surrounded by people in Navy uniforms, but soon enough this fact fades into the background.

They pay for all my meals here provided I have breakfast at the hotel and lunch and dinner in the mess.

And they pay for the hotel and give me a wage in return for me doing something that I love doing anyway.

Yes, it’s all a bit jammy.

Anyway, back to food.

Lunch was unremarkable, but you know it was free.

I must admit I felt intimidated by the hall with its high ceiling and modern chandeliers, I hope it didn’t show.

On sitting down I looked casually to my right to be greeted by a full length portrait of the Queen and Prince Philip, I have to say that was a bit freaky – the republican in me was screaming: “get me out of here!”

Then we went into a lounge area for coffee, well everyone else drank coffee I just stayed to be sociable, and I managed to read one article in the newspaper before we had to head back, to doing not a lot.


In the evening we went to the awful local pub for a quite frankly equally awful pub quiz.

Ciaran and Nick sulked as a result, they took real exception to the questions in the sports round, while me and Becky just laughed a lot – at them, the questions and our difficulty in answering them.

I kept half an eye on the football, but to be honest it wasn’t that inspiring so it was more like an eighth of an eye by the end.

Then we traipsed home to watch yet more family guy.