Ever wondered what it's like to go on a press junket abroad? Kevin 0'Connorspills the beans.

WHO goes on trips? As editors are reluctant to let star writers or productive hacks away from base for three days, media junkets are made-up of freelances who are glad of the gig and staffers Owed a Favour. Ask not which category I fall into - but ye shall find me, as we gather at Dublin Airport in the hazy dawn, as we look at our travelling companions.

Take number 1, Har, for Harry, veteran male hack, once of fine reputation, now out of rehab, and looking like he strayed into the wrong departure lounge.

Not sure if leaving or arriving in Dublin. What year is it, anyway?

We call him Har, in the confident prediction he will get drunk on the first night and and start argument about Irish politics with Tatiana from the InTourist Office.

When told Tatiana thinks Ireland is - ah yes, Holland, now I know, he will gurgle "har . . . har . . . ". Actually, Har started off in character, parking his oversize figure next to another of the pack, Kim (2).

She promptly moved seat, not realising she was in the company of the Great Scribe, who can write between whiskeys what she will agonise over a dozen '"Where I'm at in My Life" phone calls to friends.

Kim is a glamorous housewife from Killiney who has long wanted to be a journalist, since being told at Holy Faith convent she was "good at English".

Thirty years on, having become diverted from her true vocation by tennis parties and marriage, with hubby on constant business trips and the teenagers as B&B guests in her house, she is "finding herself" again . . . helped by inebriated discussion with her editor, leading to "an assignment" - to spend three days looking at slums in Eastern Europe bought by smart Micks who plan to make them into bargain apartments.

Surprise, surprise, the editor is also on the trip. No sooner airbound out of Dublin, then Kim orders champagne , airily telling the hostess to "put it on the tab", which is news to the PR minder in the seat behind, who smiles icily.

The PR minder has been given a budget by the absent property developer, who lodged a few thousand to her account and told her "Give the hacks everying, but keep them sober until the last day . . ."

Kim needs the restorative because she realised, too late¨, too late - she will be warding off her editor at the evening reception.

Well, it's close your eyes and imagine the byline: "Star writer Kim brings you the facts about Romanian property". Nice - or should that be Bulgaria - what country is Bucharest the capital of . . . Hence champagne, as an early anaesthetic to a career move and geography lesson.

All observed by MOI (3) - mendicant former radio producer who cannot stay at home for more than three weeks.

Once a strong-minded Marxist who put ideological steel into interviewers (he thinks).

Now in decline but needs to see - again - How Capitalism Wins. As All Wars are now the same, he may as well get well fed on this one.

Usually bores his companions with Did You Know snippets of Cold War trivia. Will spend free time looking for bullet marks in buildings until someone points out it's stucco peeling. (Seems familiar! - ed)

He will chat with Melanie, (4), widow of university lecturer from Newcastle, whose friend worked on The Mail and after hours of self-pity on phone, he gave her the gig .

Melanie hopes to meet an Eastern European millionaire who made his dosh from selling state assets ( (ie The Party's).

Melanie knows he will tell her the real story about plutonium in Grosvenor Square and - with his acrobatic abilities from his daily gym workout - inspire her to write a novel about rekindled (if not inflamed) passion.

Mick (5), a sports journalist owed a favour, will write about Real Madrid, even though the trip is to Bucharest. Igor (6), is a thick-set man (more gyms) whose appearance owes much to reconstructive surgery.

He has unusual speech patterns , disappears in Bucharest and rejoins at Prague, as if he has never been absent.

He is loaded with property brochures, except they are from a previous trip to Crete. Friendly to everyone in a gruff way, but Har wonders where he met him before . . .

Works for a London "features agency" that no one else has heard of . . .

So dear reader, how did we get on . . ? What happened when Har asked the Minister of the Interior if the underground cells in the Lubyanka was still functioning, why did English Melanie and Irish Mick (unlikely pairing) take so long returning from thermal baths in the forest.

And why did Kim sport a red-and-black bruise on her neck after the editor failed to surface on the second morning . . .?

Alas, dear reader, you shall have to wait until Maeve Binchy hears about our trip.

Then you may buy the elongated version at an airport near you . . . and property pages will never seem quite the same again.