Friday 11th June 10

Spent the morning getting myself together for going to Manchester.

Got a train after lunch and got a seat, and deleted exactly 100 emails from my inbox.

When I got to Manchester I got a £1.50 streetmap, and then walked along to Canal St to Eazysleep where I'd booked a room, and had an hour's lie down before walking with my unicycle and little rucksack, and extendable telescopic fishing rod with a pink WNBR flag, and got to the park on Oxford Road just as other World Naked Bike Riders were gathering. I had a bite of tea which I'd brought with me, and practised unicycling in a mask which Tony had lent or given me. I decided I couldn't wear the mask as it kept on slipping and making my vision really difficult, and it would make it more likely that I'd fall off. I sorted the flag on the pole and held it on with a safety pin through the eyelet at the end. I decided not to have the pole fully extended as it was too huge. Janie from the Spencer Tunick photo installations showed up to do the ride and it was good to see her again.

Just before we set off I gave out leaflets for the Sheffield and York rides on the 19th, and by this time, there were well over 100 colourful and scantily clad participants. We had quite a lot of police escorts and the Friday evening Manchester public were very appreciative, apart from one Asian family of 4 who all stood with their backs to us as we cycled past. I was careful to lower my flagpole for when we went under the tram power lines, but at all other times I waved it gently to and fro. I got EXTREMELY hot and sweaty as unicycling is very hard work... everybody else was cold!

We ended up back in the same park after an hour; I estimate we cycled about 6 miles. I was exhausted. I met a chap, Ian, who had participated in the Spencer Tunick installation but had been out of the country and hadn't got his invitation to the preview, and as I wasn't able to go, i offered him my ticket.... except I couldn't find it, but I found out later that he went to the Lowry and said that I had an invite and that I couldn't go; they checked my name and let him in instead. Whilst we were walking together, he told me about his carbon calculator which I'll try out in the next couple of days.

I met up with a friend and after that had a relatively early night.