Mike and Zeron's diary
Before: A Bad Night
00 Hours: The Start
01 Hours: Blood Tests and Fitness
06 Hours: Driving and Anal Probe
10 Hours: Game show
12 Hours: Sushi
16 Hours: Pimps and Coppers
18 Hours: Snooker Club
24 Hours: Down the Market
25 Hours: Rude Awakening
30 Hours: Fitness
36 Hours: Game Show Rematch
42 Hours: A boring night
48 Hours: Still bored
54 Hours: Danny Baker and Driving
60 Hours: Dancing Girls
66 Hours: Party
69 Hours: Bedtime!
Related programme
Read Mike Leahy and Zeron Gibson's sleep diary, as part of the BBC/OU's programme website for Lab Rats
12 hours: Sushi
Mike: It's seven o'clock in the evening and I'm actually feeling a bit better tonight - although compared to my hangover this morning it would be hard to feel worse - and am going to go out for a meal with Zeron. The meal is in a sushi bar, which I don't like the sound of. A runner takes us there, but we're not supposed to eat until the crew turns up. It doesn't stop the runner pigging out, and Zeron and I watch with watering mouths as he works his way around the various dishes.
Zeron: Mike wasn't impressed by the food at first. But as we sat there watching others eat he tuned into the raw fish and rice. By the time the crew arrived we were suitably ravenous. The horrible thing, though, was that by that time, all the best food that had been passed under our admiring noses had gone. Still it was a nice meal in the end.
16 hours: Pimps and Coppers
Zeron: After the sushi bar Mike and I headed off to a late night bar in the West End. On the way we had to pass through Soho. We are 'miked up' up as our producer Steve wanted to hear our conversation as we walked. At one stage, we were asked to stop and wait for a cue then continue walking toward the distant camera. As we stood in the wet looking highly suspicious, a figure emerged from the shadow and confronted us in broad London slang. He wanted to know why we were hanging around on his patch. He thought we were making a play for his night girls and wanted to take over his territory. All three of us looked at each other waiting for somebody to make the next move. Then Steve gave the hand signal we were waiting for. I spoke into my collar mic, "Roger that!", and our assailant vanished! He must have thought he was challenging two plain clothed officers.
Mike: After the club, I was on my own. I have nowhere to kip and had to walk the streets instead. I develop a weird feeling of envy for the down and outs. They may not have a warm or comfortable bed, but at least they can sleep. I don't much like large cities at the best of times, let alone wandering around during the small hours, with no sleep.
Zeron: I arrive, alone, back at the house. A hot milk warms me up. I do a video dairy to camera. And begin to feel it for Mike. The weather out there is crap! I climb into a warm bed, read and eventually drift off.
18 hours
Mike: It's one in the morning. The next stop is an all night snooker club in Kings Cross. Not my choice of entertainment. Sports are OK, but games never turned me on. The place was doing a good trade and there were plenty of aggressive drunks around. The rest of the clientele seem to be lonely old men and the employees of Chinese takeaways with a compulsion to gamble. Thankfully our next stops were in places where I felt more at home - a supermarket and a bagel bar. I used to work the nightshift at my local supermarket in Oxfordshire when funding myself through university.
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Content last updated: 25/08/2005








