As my last hour of work experience draws near, I'll let you in on my experiences of the past few days.

I went out with a photographer to a school - where my hand became famous in the pages of the Echo for a picture story on text messages being sent to parents when their children truant. I had to hold up a mobile phone and pose next to the school sign in chilly weather. A different job, you could say.

Today, was all indoors in the office and printing building. I wrote two pieces for FastTrack, the Southampton airport magazine - one on Frankfurt and a more challenging article covering the highlights of the Isle of Man. Tricky.

At lunchtime we visited the printing presses to see how all the papers are printed. Would you have guessed, all the double page spreads are inked onto sheets of aluminium as the base copy first, then re-printed onto paper. The rolls of paper are about 50 miles long - that's got to be a small forest of trees at least!
All dud papers which go out first are thankfully recycled, but after a while we had to leave due to the strong smell of ink in the building.

Back in the main offices I grabbed some interesting facts for the weekend supplement - did you know 10,000 birds die every year flying into closed windows? Or that Roman babies with crooked noses were thought to grow up to be good leaders? No? Well you do now.

My last job was writing a short 3 paragraph story on the Southampton branch of the British Cactus and Succulent society handing out cacti to children so they become more interested in them! Fascinating interview with the 75 year old 'publicity officer' and an experience which has put me in good stead for my news life of the future.

Overall the week has been quality - shame it's Good Friday tomorrow huh? A day off on work experience is such a shame isn't it... ;)

Signing out before my big break after graduation,
Dom Sacco.