I’ve thought about a number of interesting questions today. The first came over lunch, where I maligned once again the lack of professional corporate history firms. Since it is Michaelmas, it is job application time for many people. (I have (wisely?) decided to hold off until after the New Year, since none of the positions I’m interested in have typical graduate schemes.) Discussing the issue over a splendid lunch, a friend was relating how he often got looks of disdain when he revealed he was applying to oil and gas firms. But, he argued, what else was an engineer with an interest in the industry really going to do? One of the joys – as well as one of the pains – of being a historian is that it allows you to do pretty much anything. Well, becoming a medic or vet might be a push, but otherwise, as I’ve mentioned before, the world is your oyster. Still, it is always a disappointment that there are no professional history firms out there that recruit students. I’m not entirely sure what a history firm would do, though. Historical consulting for TV and films? Still, I’m sure that if one did exist, the training program and perks would be second to none. We could be flown to New York for a six week boot camp on history that we don’t know. Perks would include free access to the New DNB, and as many bookmarks as you like. Yes, we’d know how to live. One of the most common routes for a historian to take is the law conversion course, usually with a training contract at a law firm that holds your hand through the process and pays nicely too. I can’t for the life of me work out how we got there, but the question was raised: is there a ballet conversion course? And if so, is a history or engineering degree a suitable qualification? The mind boggles.

The second interesting job related question that came up was just prior to lunch, when a group of us were sitting in the JCR browsing through the papers. (As an aside, where’s Matt?) Scattered around are a variety of brochures and invitations to career events. I was particularly struck by a flyer from Procter and Gamble. On the one side was a picture of high board diver (think of the eternal shots of the Barcelona Olympics), with a statement along the lines of “have a high flying career”. On the other side, however, was an open suitcase – one with a neck and wheels, no less – with a toothbrush and some toothpaste. It was on what was clearly a hotel bed, and next to it was a Treo, which is a Blackberry-esque device. I can’t remember the exact phrase, but we all agreed the insinuation was clear: not only will you work long hours, you’ll work weekends too out of a corporate hotel chain, and even if you do get home, we can get you on the Treo. Of course, this situation might be slightly improved by staff discounts on the toothpaste.

The final question concerned obituaries. Said friend read an obituary, with a by-line including the phrase “dapper activist”. How nice it would be, he said, to be remembered as dapper for posterity. I agreed, and mentioned that I believed that you would always know if you had done well in life if you got an obituary in a major paper. Naturally, the problem with this is that you are unlikely to know whether this is the case. There are a few people of sufficient status, however, that are likely to have pre-written obituaries. Either they are close to death, or are too important to not have one. You might remember a few years ago when the CNN accidentally released their pre-written obituaries for such luminaries as Dick Cheney, Pope John Paul II and Bob Hope on their website. (I hasted to add, this was when the latter two were still alive). And so the agreed conclusion was that you have truly made it in life when you have an obituary pre-written for you, and with bonus points if you get to see it yourself.

Now, these were the interesting questions that I’m happy to share. Other interesting questions that have been turned over in my mind include “I wonder whether James Madison actually thought of George Washington as the first president during the Constitutional Convention?”, “What kind of critical analysis could I do with the major works in Atlantic history?”, and “Where did I put my Bod card?”. The last was especially a concern – it was found in a trouser pocket that I had missed. I shall spare you the details on all of these, though. It’s Ollie’s 21st birthday tomorrow, and both Amy and I will be in London to celebrate it with him and his parents. I have absolutely no doubt that he will have pictures to show for it afterwards.

I've just had to "dvd" myself doing an advocacy presentation. In the basement of the LPC are dvd recording rooms... so off a friend an I traipsed. A hot, wondowless room with a camera and a dvd recorder. With a table in situe I was able to shuffle my papers and speak with a loud, audible voice. Or so they say. I'm about to watch myself...

"Kaplinsky fronts BBC evening news." No longer will he be able to wake up to her delightful face; will it be back to Radio 4?

Ross Kemp signs for an extra 3 months on EastEnders! You can take the girl out of Bow, but you can't take the Bow out of the girl. Or something on those lines.

For one of my first proper assessments, I've got to take a recording of a 'real' radio show (i.e. a professional one, broadcast on a real station) and produce a three minute package of my own where I discuss the show using clips from it. The show needs to be of at least some substance when it comes to news, so discussion shows or news analysis programmes are obviously preferred over anything music-heavy. The Archers is the only drama we're allowed to use, the rest are banned. We're supposed to provide a critique of matters technical and content-related, from errors in production to things we'd do differently to the presenters.

I chose Garry Richardson's Sportsweek, broadcast on Five Live at 9am each Sunday. Richardson has a style that grates with me, probing his interviewees each weekend for one audio soundbite that will form the lead sports story on the station for the rest of the day. Often a simple 'no comment' or refusal to directly answer a question will be misconstrued by Richardson and his team and end up as a splashed headline in later news bulletins, despite it being an exaggeration and simplification of what was said.

Of course, exaggerate and simplify might as well be the motto of the journalist, but it gives me something to get my teeth into in my critique. You can get an mp3 of the show off the BBC website as well, so no need to mess around trying to record radio directly onto my Ugly Soviet State Recorder (hereafter referred to as the USSR).

Imagine my horror then, this morning at 9am, when a Scottish voice pipes up on Five Live. "Good morning, this is Sportsweek, I'm Roddy Forsyth." What! Where the hell is Richardson? The swine's only gone away for the week just when I need to record him! I am thoroughly unamused. He'd better be back by next week or else there'll be trouble.

I meant to mention this the other day, when it was current, but somehow forgot.

Anyway, Boots have posted pre-tax profits for the last half a year that are down 9.6%. During that half a year, I moved away from Oxford and started using the LCC canteen for my sandwiches instead of the trusty Meal Deal. I'm disappointed not to be listed as a factor.

("New accounting rules"? They mean "not selling those triple-packs with the prawn mayo in any more". I know they do.)

Weekends are for work. That’s a very odd statement, but it rather reflects my working week. The way my seminars are organised means that Wednesday and Thursday are really my days off, and thus I work over the weekend. It’s nice to have the freedom to partake in such a schedule, and really, working over the weekend is nothing new. And it’s not as if it’s a lot of work, anyway – 5 hours or so a day? The important part, as ever, is to keep things ticking over during the week, so at least ideas remain floating in your head.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I suppose laziness is one part, but I would point out that my College internet connection has gone down more than (insert your own metaphor here) over the last two weeks. It’s a combination of two problems, apparently. First, there are too many people, and too few IP addresses. Given this is a problem they’ve had for three years now, and that they encourage you to bring your own computer, you would think they would have sorted this out by now. Evidently not. Second, it may (or may not) be linked to a computer that has a virus that spreads each time it is connected, thereby flooding our switches and crashing the network. Although I can promise it isn’t me and my fully updated, regularly virus scanned computer, this theory narrows it down to, oh, one or more of some 400 people. It’s hardly going to be solved soon. So we remain at the mercy of the network. Still, there is now some light on the horizon – my new phone allows broadband internet access from anywhere (where there is signal). Marvellous, especially as an emergency option.

Tomorrow is the start of fourth week, which has come around with some astonishing speed. One of the problems of the way the graduate course is set out is that, despite being here for 3 weeks, I still don’t feel as though I’ve achieved anything. Which is nonsense, because I’ve done three weeks worth of reading, a seminar presentation and significant preliminary work on both my thesis and first extended essay. Yet, until I have lengthy words down on a page – in the next couple of weeks – it seems as though I’m just kicking my feet. On the other hand, there aren’t many better places to kick your feet than Oxford.

You may remember from postings last year that I lived in a particularly noisy (and bright) room. It’s good to know that the girl living there this year is equally angered at the giant blast of air that comes from the Oxford Tube every twelve minutes, as well as the various drunks (though I suspect they blast more than just air). Fortunately, I am relatively immune from this in the middle of Bear Lane, although I occasionally hear the odd siren. I should also note how good my curtains are at blocking out light, which is not something that is immediately obvious when you look at them. I believe this may go some way to explaining my mammoth 13 hour sleep on Wednesday (although I was pretty tired too). Don’t forget that the clocks go back tonight – an extra hour in bed!

I’ll also take the time to point out a blog written by Ken Owen, who is also on my course, and has a similar research area. Well, he’s interested in colonial Philadelphia, which is much closer than the vast number of Nixon students that are also on the course. He writes like he speaks – intelligently and pithily, which I feel is what everyone should aim for. Highly recommended, despite the vast amounts of baseball. Now why aren’t people talking about the Pats-Colts match next week?

As you might be able to tell, there is relatively little of interest happening in Oxford. Even Lincoln, despite typical undergraduate japes, is hardly a hotbed of gossip. I sometimes wonder what might happen if I “borrowed” Ollie’s Soviet-style microphone and recorder and took it around Oxford a day. Would I find any interesting stories to share other than “Hey OJ, did you stack request the feminist book?” (As if; it was enough that I had to search it out and read it!) I doubt it, especially as we hit the fourth week trough. It will all change in November, I’m sure – because that’s when things start to happen. Or at least, more things happen than in October. If I’m struggling for future things to post, remind me to explain my theory of why the months of May and October are redundant.

I've been into Canterbury today. One of those shopping trips where you intend to buy nothing: always fatal as it is bound to result in you buying something over budget and unecessary. My purchase? A cushion. Priced at £49. It is "salmon pink" and made from afghan sheep wool (it actually has the suede on the back). And my justification? Every girl needs something pink and fluffy. Also, I received a council tax rebate (thanks to an "Amy-Style" letter), so I had to spend the money somehow! I've also come away with a skirt and top. But that's beside the point.

God help us, the Daily Mail's editorial staff have been unleashed on a blog - of sorts. It's not exactly updated every hour with the latest Mail opinion, but it's mildly interesting.

For a start, it's good to know that the Mail's top hacks can't tell the difference between 'phase' and 'faze'. The former usually refers to a segment of a process or a distinct time period; the latter means something like 'to disrupt, harass or take aback'. Not for 'Stacey' (surname unknown despite trying to find it), an editor of some description, who concludes a little tale about Quentin Letts coming in during a fire drill with this gem:

The man who faces down raging politicians on a regular basis simply cocked an eyebrow, smiled sweetly and proceeded to get up close and personal with a computer screen with nary a word. Nothing phases our Quentin.

Deary me. Read more absolute shite from the management of the country's second most popular daily newspaper here (or, of course, buy the paper each day).

Newsflash: I've just been told that Adrian (my old room-mate), now captain of Exeter College's darts 2nd team, almost cried during a match against St John's last night, even making to punch one opponent. This is all put down to 'banter', the nature of which I won't fully repeat, but which involved the phrase 'you ain't got no alibi'. Should make it clear enough.

Thanks to Jasper Milvain and his blog for the Daily Mail blog link. I've not met the gentleman in question but according to London Bloggers (which we're now on, courtesy of me, listed for about five different tube/rail stations covering myself and Amy), he lives near Streatham Common too, so he must be special. It seems to be good reading too, about many things book-related.

I sympathise with Amy. Firstly, life for both us is so fast-paced these days, compared with Oxford at any rate, that it can be hard to slow down enough to remember the simple things, like closing an open bracket. See the previous post. Secondly, I'm at home this weekend as well. It's my sister Lucy's eighth birthday on Sunday so we're all off to Tussaud's, which will be fun, and I'm enjoying catching up on some rest today.

See, Thursday night was a wee bit tiring - I went to a central London club for the first time (no, dad, not the Fulham or Chelsea variety). Fabric, in Farringdon, played host to the Uni of the Arts' freshers' bash, to which about half the newsroom ended up going. I got to bed - in a sleeping bag on a friend's sofa back in Elephant & Castle - at 4am, which was actually much better going than some other people, who got no sleep at all. I pitied one poor individual who, having spent the night on various substances of questionable legality and having got no sleep at all, had to deliver a three minute talk to us on planning permission in the London borough of Merton the following morning. That can't be easy, she carried it off remarkably in the circumstances. Needless to say my news quiz score was down to a pitiful 5/10 from 11/13 the previous week. How was I supposed to know where this week's European Summit had been held, or which foreign royal family had been in London? Ahem.

One of the highlights of Thursday night was watching Barney trying to get in without a ticket. He's a new addition to the course, joining two weeks after the rest of us to replace a girl named Anastacia who was supposed to join but never turned up. He hails from Guernsey and was doing quite well for himself at a bank in his former life, but now he feels like becoming a journalist like the rest of us. He had no ticket for the Fabric night, but lo and behold, at around midnight - as we were waiting to get in - he turned up with a friend outside the queue, microphone and recording device in hand. He was trying to get in by pretending to be reporting on the event for some fictitious organisation, interviewing people in the queue and generally looking important. Alas, it failed. Here's my photo of Barney laughing as the plan is rumbled by security, who are escorting his friend away from the barriers:

Once inside, Fabric turned out to be one hell of a warren. It's remarkably easy to get lost in there, which is never good when you need to stick with the people whose house you're staying in! Nor was the music entirely my thing (more drum 'n' bass than the indie stuff that gets me going), but it was all decent enough. Watching would-be film correspondent John bust some moves was as entertaining as if it were his arch rival Jonathan Ross.

Finally, since I've been digging through the photos on my phone for this post, here's one I took last week of a poster at my local station:

"Very gentle house cat"? Does that look like a very gentle house cat to you? He looks bloody genocidal! If I saw him on my travels I'd be crossing to the other side of the street and phoning the emergency services, not picking him up for a cuddle and a trip home to his owner. It's like Iraq: you'd think they'd all be thrilled that the evil bastard was gone, but no, someone actually wants him back.

In fact, he reminds me a little of a certain someone. How about this little individual, star of 2001's Cats And Dogs:

Just so nobody (i.e. Ollie who alwways seems to get hold of me when I am away and then wonders where I am, I am home for the weekend. Only been back about 3hrs, and it's lovely. Well, apart from the fact that my Mum hadn't made the sofa bed up for me. But, we can't have everything! At least there was homemade trifle left - saved especially for me :) Who says I've left home?! (and yes, I have brought some washing...)

Somewhat surprisingly, it turns out that meetings of the Wandsworth Borough Council pack in more drama and intrigue than your average soap opera.

On Wednesday night I went to one such meeting as part of a group of eight or nine of us on the course. The 'local government' section of the course demands that, among other things, we go to a council meeting to get an idea of what goes on. Now I feel like I've been missing out by not going before.

For a start, the town hall is a massive, grandiose structure with a huge main meeting atrium, decked out in the best technology on offer. Two big screens relay events to the tiny public gallery overlooking this atrium, where twelve individuals (eight of us and four others) sat watching. This was later referred to by one councillor as a 'packed' public gallery. Clearly large attendances are not the norm.

Right from the start, proceedings were enjoyable as the leader of the council (a Tory flagship council) engaged in some light verbal sparring with his Labour opponent, at one point dismissing the latter's question as a 'complete load of rubbish'. But the best was yet to come. Maybe we got lucky, because it was tonight that the planning application to knock down Battersea Power Station's chimneys was being discussed, but what followed was probably as passionate and funny as local government gets.

Four people had turned up in the public gallery to protest about the demolition of the chimneys and heckle the councillors, disregarding the facts that (a) the council has no power over what happens to the power station and (b) the chimneys are to be entirely replaced within weeks anyway. Those tiny hurdles meant nothing to these hardy souls, each on the wrong side of middle aged and each sporting an anti-Conservative chip on their shoulder. There were rumblings of discontent from the earliest stages when one of the malcontents yelled, "Why don't you stop waffling and answer the question!" This progressed to "Save the Chimneys!" from a different nutter, and then "The screens aren't working!", in reference to the aforementioned big screens, which gave the entire thing the atmosphere of a public hanging.

And so the discussion about the chimneys began. For one of the first times in a long time, the Labour and Tory representatives were unanimous in their backing for the chimney replacement scheme. They even applauded each other after moving statements about what the chimneys meant to the local area. This was too much for our hecklers. One lady, in particular, spat forth abuse with such venom that she practically fell over the balcony in her rage. "It's a fine thing when that cacking lot are applauding!" she cried, as the Tories welcomed a Labour speech on the subject. Eventually the mayor adjourned proceedings to allow the public gallery to calm down, at which point we left. It'll live long in the memory.

Take one bag of Sainsbury's "SO" Organic washed and ready to eat Watercress, Spinach and Rocket. Locate the "grown in" box on the front: UK, Kenya, Portugal, Italy, USA. That's one continental salad!

I scored a respectable ten on this BBC history quiz. I didn't know the missile place and the brandy. I hope you two come up with full marks...

You'd think something must be terribly amiss if OJ's posting more often than I am, but in actual fact I'm just being kept occupied by various things.

Primarily, of course, by the broadcasting stuff. I got my tick today, which means getting ticked off a list by one of the lecturers for having recorded a three minute interview of near-broadcast or broadcast standard. I nearly got this last week and scraped it this week (even though the quality was probably, if anything, worse), so thanks to OJ for being my guinea pig of choice. The audience appreciated his discussion of his fear of snakes.

It could have all been far worse. No fewer than four people in my group of ten were dispatched on their own into the surroundings of Elephant & Castle because their interviews weren't good enough - three have yet to return! Thankfully I was spared that walk of shame (you were sent out in the middle of the class, it wasn't as though you had a dignified period of waiting or anything).

The Kaiser Chiefs and Maximo Park were very good value at the Brixton Academy last night. The venue is amazing. I don't think I've been there before, or else I'm sure I would have remembered the strangely charming faux-outdoors setting with Mediterranean architecture of a sort and even the occasional clump of foliage adorning the walls. The stalls area takes the form of a slope, which is a cunning design underemployed at such venues, affording far more people a decent view than is usual.

This being Brixton I was mildly afraid given the many stories one hears, but the night passed off without incident. Well, almost. I was with my friends Becky and Clare and some of Clare's friends, and Becky did indeed get mildly physically assaulted, by an inebriated gent at the bar of a local pub, who said how lovely she looked and then grabbed her by the cheek for effect. When he asked her her name she lied and said 'Zara', a name that rang a bell with our drunken friend, who promptly introduced himself as 'Captain Mark, who rides horses'. Bizarre.

Heh:

Mum, if you are reading this... stop now.

It happens to be a family birthday this weekend. I bought some candles in S-bury today. There is a warning on the back (they are not S-bury own brand): "Warning: Choking Hazard - this toy is a small ball. Not for children under 3 years." First, since when has a candle + holder thing been a "ball"? And since when has it been a "toy!?". Also, the front of the packet reads: 36 pieces. It turns out that this actually means 24 candles + 12 holders. Now what damn use is that when you buy two packets, expecting to get 60 candles.

According to Gordon Ramsey, women can't cook, which I assume means that men can. In my case, I seem to have spent today at the Ollie Williams School of Cookery, as I am currently tending to a Sainsbury's ready meal, having been foiled in my attempt to make chilli, because not one, but four, shops failed to have some chilli mix powder in stock today.

Gosh, is it really a year? It shows what can happen when you force yourself to do things! In other news here, I'm suddenly incredibly busy, having had a relatively calm 2 weeks. Everything came out of nowhere! Work, shopping, phones - true madness. But a sign of how far I've come, surely, that I still found the time to write this (dross).

The three line (metaphorical) whip on OJ and Ollie to keep posting has worked: we've had at least one post per day for a whole year!! It was rather hard at the beginning to keep going and this ultimately resulted in several posts at about 11pm saying nothing more than one line, "just to ensure we had a post". However, the more we have all got used to it, the easier it has become. I know I automatically check now to make sure that someone has posted, and I'm sure the other two do too. We had one close shave though when neither OJ or I had the URL for posting, and Ollie had no internet connection... but we still managed to post, so all was ok. I think this marathon run has also enhanced Dayorama: at least regular readers (all six or so of them) know that there will be a new instalment of dross to read each day ("dross" being one of the many compliments we have received this year...!) Anyway, that's about it really. Happy Posting Birthday to us!

Also, (to add to my posting burst) I know I have moaned in the past that I hate any thoughts of Christmas, but I'm really looking forward to it this year. Not sure why. The time between now and then just seems filled with lots of little things: some hard (like LPC assessments) and some fun (like birthdays, quiz nights, nights out etc) but I just feel the next eight weeks will be good... it's written in the stars...

Edit: And of course on 16th Dec I'll literally be "Driving home for Christmas" to Chris Rhea. What could be better?! Did I tell you my Mum and I had a good look at the new Clio last weekend btw? It's a really amazing cute car. Fingers crossed the new 06 model will be on order in the New Year...

Also, I think I'm going to have to watch Eastenders tomorrow evening. I haven't seen it properly since A levelss, but Grant and Phil Mitchell return tomorrow... and I feel it could be unmissable! Sad or what? (don't answer that, thanks)

What to do on a Sunday afternoon? "Large, sprawling series of markets selling antiques, arts & crafts, clothing, books. A huge penumbra of flea markets. More of an attraction than a serious market. Visit as part of a trip to Greenwich (Observatory, Maritime museum, Cutty Sark, Naval Academy, Park, Queen's House, Blackheath, Ranger's House.) There's also a covered market in the central square, near the DLR station and the Cutty Sark". So that's what I did. DLR to Greenwich and a trot around the markets, craft stands and main street. Very pleasant, and interesting. Some wonderful art galleries. And I saw the Cutty Sark, and now know what it is!

Tropical Storm Alpha has been officially designated, making 2005 the all time greatest year for hurricanes on record. It's the twenty-second named storm, the most ever achieved in one hurricane season, and the first time the Greek alphabet has ever had to be called upon.

Which is all really interesting when you're thousands of miles away from the immediate impact these things have. This is one very good reason not to live in the US. I might bring this up with OJ tomorrow if I collar him to do some more interviews (I have yet to get a 'technically perfect' interview signed off in the sessions at uni, so I'll be interviewing people to death all day Sunday in the hope that one of them comes good).

I spoke to one of the BBC's business correspondents earlier today in the away end at Arsenal v Man City (since he's a big City fan too). He's been really helpful and has passed an email I sent along to a couple of other people at the BBC who might be able to sort a few things out for me in terms of work placements etc. It's worth a try at any rate. I am only just beginning to realise that this industry is all about contacts and networking, something I don't think I tend to particularly do without giving it real effort, so the process of emailing friends of friends of friends in order to try to get places is almost entirely alien to me. At least it feels like I'm starting to do it with plenty of time on my side.

I'm think I could easily compete against Ollie for being chilled and content with life at the moment. In fact, I have evidence of this. Do you realise I haven't written a letter of complaint for months? This is bad, very bad. My standards are clearly slipping. I need to get back to it!

Walking home late at night gets no less scary with practice.

I did the usual talk-to-self-to-preserve-sanity routine all the way home from the station tonight, even if that does sound a little self-defeating. I saw all of four people on the fifteen minute journey home, which makes it sound very safe and reassuring that there were no gangs lurking on street corners or anything, but it doesn't feel like that at all. It's almost too quiet.

For example, the bus stop outside the supermarket on the way home has been smashed to pieces. There's glass everywhere. It was fine when I left at 5pm, but six hours later it had been vandalised to hell. There was not a human being in sight as I walked past it. The whole point of me coming home before midnight is that I avoid the very worst of the anti-social stuff that goes on in the streets of south London, but it would seem that there's one inescapable flaw in that plan - bad things happen before 11pm too.

I'm also starving, since I haven't eaten for ten hours and the fish and chip shop, to my horror, had closed by 11:15pm (I'm used to Oxford where kebab shops are still open well into the early hours). I don't want to disturb people here by bunging something in the oven and I'm probably still too drunk to start peeling an orange - the ones I bought are right bastards - so I'll just have to suffer.

In case you're wondering (and apologies for the stream-of-consciousness nature of this post, I'm not in the right frame of mind for concise, searing insight), I've been out in Farringdon with friends on the journalism course to celebrate a couple of birthdays. Yana is 28 and Hannah, to my astonishment, is 27 (she looks 24 maximum). I had a great time and it really feels like being part of a team. Yesterday we learnt how to use the roundtable discussion studio, which involved someone producing the show from a different studio, a presenter, two guests and someone phoning in. Earlier we'd been out interviewing people again and I'd ended up chatting to a lovely guy from Manchester who'd come down to visit the Imperial War Museum. It was the best day I've had on the course and one of the best (along with things like graduation) I've had in a long, long time. And I normally have good days. I've known very little to match how great I felt at the end of Thursday. I get a huge adrenaline rush out of being in the presenter's chair in the studio, getting a countdown from a producer in my headphones, then the red 'on air' lights bursting to life, the faders going up and introducing a show. It feels like a natural place for me to be and that's very reassuring. The fact that I'm broadcasting to six people and my course director, all sat watching us, doesn't seem to dampen the nerves!

One final thing. I keep on learning amazing things about the people I'm working with. I've mentioned before that the age range on the course is vast (18 to late 30s) and that the level of experience differs wildly. I got talking to Will tonight, one of the oldest on the course - he has a 10 year old daughter - and a commuter from Brighton each day. I thought he'd made a great decision to change career and come and learn some broadcasting, because he's really cut out for it, but it turns out it wasn't so much of a career change. Will's previous life was as a network director. That's the person with a massive bank of screens and faders in front of them who controls television output. He was BBC America's network director when it launched, directing all the trails and announcements that go in between the shows. That not good enough? He directed Watchdog with Anne Robinson. For those of you at the back, I repeat: he has directed Watchdog. I am on the same course as a man who was directing Watchdog when I was what, 12? Plus, a couple of days ago, he told me I had a good voice and that I'd go far. At the time that was a really nice compliment to get anyway from a guy I really like, but now it's from a guy I really like who's spent his working life surrounded by TV announcers and top presenters. I love this course.

It would appear that Dayorama is dodgy. Illegal. Last week I could access the website quite happily at the ICSL... now it is a banned website and worthy of security warning after security warning. Oh well!

(the title derives from some of our more common search strings...!)

So hopefully I'll be back to posting on Dayorama more often now that the internet in Bear Lane seems to have been repaired (or at least, it has for me). It's amazing how much a lack of web access drives you mad - missing all the rubbish that I browse through isn't a problem, but when it actually starts to prevent me from doing work, it's maddening. After last night's impromptu dinner, today has been a productive work day, hopefully setting up an equally productive weekend, as I wrestle the consensus school of American historians in time to produce a presentation for Wednesday. Having had a bit of an unproductive funk, this refound vigour can only be a good thing!

A friend from College, up from the City for the day on a recruiting drive, and over drinks: "I've never been to the Old Parsonage."
Me: "Well, next time you're up, we should go."
Friend: "Why not now?"
Friend brings out phone, books table for three, and an evening of much good food and conversation ensues. Marvellous.

Oh dear. I've watched too much Frasier. More later.

Have a look at this article: 'Fugitive rat sets distance record' [BBC News Online].

Ignore the by no means insignificant achievement of the rat in swimming 400m across open waters. Focus on the last paragraph:

The uninhabited and forested Noises Islands (Motuhoropapa and Otata) off northeast New Zealand were reinvaded by Norway rats at least six times between 1981 and 2002.

Viking rats! Fantastic! Not content with sending its humans over to Britain and much of Europe throughout the early medieval period, Norway has cultivated a breed of rat with an insatiable appetite for pillage and conquer! We're screwed if the Norwegian chickens get bird flu...

Further to the interview with OJ (see last post), this is the blooper reel. It's been numbered because I envisage there being enough material for many, many more blooper reels over the course of the year and probably the future.

Look out for the following:
- my dad comparing a car to a woman;
- OJ whispering 'shameless' and not realising the power of the microphone;
- me losing my train of thought;
- OJ rubbing his injuries for effect;
- OJ accidentally threatening to drop out of uni;
- and me having more than one Groundhog Day moment.

Normally we'd call her Amy.

No, no, I jest. Below you'll find an interview (one of many) I conducted with OJ in Lincoln College, Oxford last weekend. For a couple of minutes all is quiet in the background, then a rather outspoken bird kicks off in the distance, something I hadn't noticed at the time but which made me want to throttle it when I got to the studio.

I hope everyone appreciates why I took such an interest in hurricanes over the years, now that they're all over the headlines. Wilma is now the strongest hurricane on record according to some reports (although the National Hurricane Center urges caution over that assertion, since it's based on unconfirmed readings from an air force reconnaissance craft in the eye of the storm). It also makes this year a record-tying year for named storms and hurricanes (which are two different things). The next named storm, if there is one before the season ends in November, will have to be called Alpha, the first time the Greek alphabet has had to be called upon.

Elsewhere, I'm working on a couple of plans for podcasts. Podcasts, for the uninitiated (hi dad), are similar to weblogs like this, except audio. This means that whenever someone 'posts' some audio, you can download it and listen to it, be that on your PC or on a mobile device (e.g. an iPod) or whatever. The audio I put on here is an irregular form of podcasting.

The new ideas are first, a Dayorama podcast involving all three of us, and second, a music podcast with Clare, who's also on my broadcasting course. That might expand into a fully fledged LCC podcast involving as many people as possible, depending on interest in the idea. It'd be great fun to do if lots of people wanted to contribute, it'd be like producing our own weekly drivetime programme, and our course director likes the idea. Both ideas would use the LCC studios - for Dayorama, I'd probably have OJ on a phone line into the studio (I tried it successfully with him earlier today) and Amy with me in the studio itself.

I've also had a chat with my course director about work placements over Christmas and Easter, and have got an idea of what to aim for (neither of these would be official LCC placements, that one takes place after Easter). I'm going to make my enquiries and see what happens, it's all a bit up in the air.

This afternoon I left a couple of messages on people's answering machines and with their PAs for a story I'm researching on local bus routes. A couple of hours later I got a call back from Gordon Taylor of the West London Residents' Association, about a 'funeral procession' they are staging tomorrow in protest against the congestion charge. I have never heard of Gordon Taylor or his association, and none of my messages were left for him, yet he knew my name and my phone number and was sure I'd wanted to talk to him. Either someone left him a message pretending to be me, or I phoned him in my sleep. I acted quickly and interviewed him anyway, but I'm at a loss for how he got my details and why he thought I wanted to talk to him. It makes no sense at all. However, I am not one to discourage people from phoning me with good London stories, even if I don't solicit them. It can only help.

Still haven't forgotten that audio... honest.

After my nasty experience at Morrisons, finally there is an answer: Waitrose at Canary Wharf. Everything you need and lots of organic meat and veg. It took me 20mins to get there on leaving my flat, and whilst it may be a bit more expensive, it's worth it!

Glenn Del Medico, who retired as the BBC's chief programme legal advisor last year, came to deliver a class to us this afternoon - and he'll be returning every fortnight in future.

His opening class involved defamation: that is, the law governing libellous and slanderous comments, designed to protect the individual from unwarranted damage to their reputation whilst enshrining journalistic (and basic human) rights to freedom of expression. After all, an individual may justifiably have their reputation tarnished if a journalist can prove that their conduct warrants it.

Defamation law is, however, an absolute minefield riddled with uncertainty. There is no hard definition of what constitutes defamation and what does not; only a set of slightly dog-eared maxims to which journalists, lawyers and would-be victims of defamation may turn. I previously thought that media law was applied by journalists to ensure that nothing they publish could defame anyone and result in a lawsuit - in actuality, it is the job of journalists and their lawyers to decide which of the many hundreds of defamations they regularly print is likely to attract a lawsuit. That depends on a gut feeling (David Blunkett is unlikely to sue the makers of 'A Very Social Secretary' for example, though he could well be within his rights) and what defence the publisher thinks it can muster up (in that example, the defence of humour is in fact valid and likely to succeed).

Del Medico talks with great presence and exudes wisdom, so he's a very good teacher to have even before we reach his experience (he has spent his entire working career since the age of 21 as a consultant for the BBC). He provided examples for us to discuss between ourselves and raised some fascinating legal points. He insists that there is no right or wrong in law and I therefore quote him in the knowledge that other lawyers might well contradict what he has to say, but his analysis of a story involving the naming of a 15 year old girl who had become an alleged victim of a sexual offence was intriguing. He explained that if the report claims her alleged attacker has been charged with "sexual offences", the journalist may not name the girl in the article - alleged victims of sexual offences may not be named from the very moment a complaint of that nature is raised by them or on their behalf. By contrast, if the reporter writes that her alleged attach has been charged with "serious offences", and drops the allusion to a sexual offence, he may name the girl without fear of prosecution, even if he knows the offences to be sexual. I presume this leaves editors the dilemma of which is more important, the name of the victim or the nature of the offences which allegedly took place (I suspect, in most instances, the latter).

In other news, I'm already having to start planning my Easter work placement, which is arranged by my course director. We have a choice between a commercial station and the BBC, which is not as clear-cut as some might think. First, it is by no means certain that I will take a job at a commercial station just because I did a placement at one. Second, and even if I did do just that, the low pay at commercial stations is counterbalanced by getting to do lots of things, very quickly. At the BBC it can take months from joining to actually get on air (from what I can tell, my near-daily exposure to the public on Somerset Sound was highly unusual and probably to do with the unusual nature of the station, since it's one of the BBC's smallest). At commercial stations only one or two people might be employed on the news side, one to look after each main shift, so I would be writing and presenting my own bulletins within days of joining. Plus, when my course director worked at a managerial level at BBC London, he says he all but exclusively hired people from the commercial sector, simply because he knew how hard they would have been working for not much money. So a year or two in commercial radio is good training and a way to catch the eye with a CV.

Finally, I got my first assignment back today. Remember the story about the parrot? Well, I had to write up that and two other stories about my local area. I got 7 out of 10. The range in the class was from 6 to 8, and our course director said this was the best first batch he'd ever had from a group, so I'm happy. I now have to follow one story up for this Thursday, whilst tomorrow I'm learning how to conduct telephone interviews in our studio. I have a very cunning plan which involves this, which may or may not come to fruition - we'll see.

Oh and I've not forgotten all that audio I keep promising, it'll make it online sooner or later!

It is a strange fact of life, but it is possible to “hear” silence. In the countryside, surrounded by fields and clouds, you can often “hear” the silence of the landscape. However, silence isn’t something you would usually associate with the hustle and bustle of London. Today, as I waited for the tube at Mile End, there must have been around seventy people spread out along the four platforms. There was no music. No announcements. No trains coming and going. No one was moving. The air was still. You could just hear silence. Remarkable.

Namely shorthand (see last post) and 'journalese'.

We're in the middle of reviewing some pages of the BBC Style Guide that discuss journalese, the tired vocabulary of the lazy hack who insists on using tedious words because he thinks all other hacks do. Which is probably true and is why the problem is fairly self-perpetuating. Examples of journalese, lifted directly from the Style Guide with their explanation, are:

Bid - another one straight from the Hack's Book of Wee Words. When was the last time you said to a colleague: "Leaves on the line foiled my bid to get to work"?

Blunder - a word that seems to exist only in journalese, along with its close friend bungle.

Centred around - makes no sense, but is much heard.

Chaos - a hardy perennial in the hack's garden of delight.

Emerged - often used when we are late on a story or to suggest spurious journalistic endeavour.

Fighting for his/her life - the subject is probably unconscious in a hospital bed and making no attempt to do anything.

Quiz - the noun is fine, the verb is an abomination.

Sustain fatal injuries - or die.

The style guide left off another word we were given as an example of appalling newswriting - 'grill'. The idea behind writing broadcast news is to write it as though you're talking to the person listening, and no one says 'I grilled him' or any derivatives in normal conversation unless doing it intentionally (and probably ironically).

Lo and behold, at the top of the BBC News website - 'Tory hopefuls face MPs grilling'. (They may partly be excused for being a written and not broadcast medium, but only partly.)

This paragraph on collective nouns was also interesting:

It is the policy of BBC Radio News that collective nouns should be plural, as in The Government have decided. Other departments, such as BBC Online, have resolved that collective nouns should always be singular, as in The Government has decided. BBC Television News has no policy and uses whichever sounds best in context.

Good to see the BBC is a model of consistency.

I'm on a quick break during our Monday morning class, which is shorthand - the first time I've ever been taught it. We need to get up to eighty words per minute by the end of the course, and shorthand appears as a truly bonkers system at first, so I'm loving it.

I can't really demonstrate using a keyboard, but for example, you can represent the word 'soap' using a tiny circle with a long, straight line underneath, a little like a drawing of a street lamp.

Here's an image I've nicked from another website showing the shorthand alphabet (or one version of it - it gets more complicated, I'm told):

Right, back to the action. Newswriting this afternoon, followed by arsing about in a studio in my spare time this evening listening to those recordings I made this weekend. As soon as I get a chance I'll pop some up on here.

Or should that be: One lady, a rucksack, two bags, an embroidery frame and a cactus went from Kent to Bow? Dressed in scruffy jeans, walking boots and a rugby shirt with the Kent County Council and the Duke of Edinburgh’s logo splashed across it, I was quite an incongruous sight! If I had been asked by the transport police to reveal the contents of the bags, there would have been more surprise. The rucksack held: a Christmas hits album, my degree certificate, a sleeping bag, a jumper, a pair of smart shoes, a TV guide (from the Guardian on Saturday) a diary and a box of cross stitch threads. The bags were just as bad. To those in the know… marrows and library books. Having said that, here I am. Just over two hours door to door: happy with that.

And here comes my gripe. You just knew it was coming. I think of myself as quite a seasoned traveller around our fair Isles. I enjoy travelling. I often carry quite a lot of stuff around with me (and this afternoon was no exception) but I never, ever, ever, stop at the top of stairs in tube stations, or in front of barriers to collapse my stupid little travel bag on wheels. You know the ones? Suitcases on legs with a little plastic handle. Just as crappy as a little dog. At least you could excuse a dog for not wanting to go through the tube barrier. I swear that when I am a rich lawyer and frequently flying transatlantic, I will refuse to have one of these things. What is wrong with a holdall? Or a rucksack (my personal favourite, though perhaps not so appropriate with a business suit). I just don’t see why anyone wants to bend their arm backwards in order to tow the thing. Why not just sling it all on your back or carry it? I could probably have fitted all my junk this afternoon into one of these cases. But I tried it once, on the way to Crewe. And I won’t do it again. Awful. A health hazard both to the user who bends their back and to everyone else who trips over them. Room 101? Without a doubt.

Ollie has magically appeared in Oxford for a variety of reasons, and we have just had a pleasant lunch, followed by an enjoyable hour or so of Ollie interviewing me with his giant brick of a recorder. I have no doubt he will post some of the best ones (they were all 3 minute pieces) on here, as well as some of the bloopers, of which there were many.

Most people expect reasonable doubt in a courtroom to be a matter of how likely it is that the defendant committed a certain crime. Most people expect reasonable doubt to be something created in the mind of a judge or jury in order to acquit the defendant. Few people expect reasonable doubt to exist in the mind of the defendant.

In Thames Magistrates Court this morning, however, that was the case. A young man was brought before the District Judge on a charge of threatening behaviour - refusing to leave a bus at 7:30am yesterday morning and, consequently, verbally abusing the police officers who came to evict him from it. How did he plead, asked the District Judge. "Not guilty," said the defendant in defiant tone.

Cue a short break in proceedings as the defendant's representative scurried over to the dock and imparted some advice in hushed but urgent manner.

"Er, guilty," clarified the defendant.

Someone equally confused about their guilt was Dan, the young man with Asperger's Syndrome who occupied a central role in tonight's episode of The Brief on ITV, starring Alan Davies. Dan's difficulties meant that he came across as unlikeable and distant to the jury at his trial, where he stood accused of murdering his mother. It eventually transpired, several plot twists later, that he had indeed done so, but with no malicious intent and with the actual aim of calming her down.

The plot is secondary to the acting, though. Playing a man with Asperger's in a courtroom facing the question of whether he murdered his mother or not, trying to suppress his own memory of the night's events, cannot have been the easiest script to have landed on the young actor's doormat. It's a real achievement to play that role without everyone watching thinking, at least once, "that's an actor pretending to have Asperger's". Making a character like that entirely believable earns plenty of respect from me.

Well, it is at the LPC at the moment anyway. All work done and dusted for the week ahead and I'm off to Kent (DofE-ing) for the weekend. Have a good one...

Only a quick post since I'm very tired and trying to fathom the various journeys I'll need to make tomorrow in the Northern Line's absence - and indeed, it's that I want to talk about. At 1:42pm today, Transport for London very kindly sent me an email to let me know that the Northern Line was out of action, going on to list the selection of alternatives from which I might like to choose.

Dear Mr Williams,

I am writing to let you know that the Northern line is not running today due to problems connected to the signalling system.

...

I apologise for the disruption to your journey. Please be assured that we are working to resolve this problem.

Yours sincerely

George McInulty
Service Director - Northern line

I noticed a sign at Bank tube station today: apparently it is an offence to use flash photography anywhere on the Underground. It's the first time I had seen the signs, and I really didn't realise that was the case.

I'll stop with the Drop The Dead Donkey puns now, I swear.

Like my last post, this is another audio clip from today's experimentation with the new recording devices we've been given (they're not, as previously suggested, iRivers - more like iBricks, but they do the job).

To test our ability to get the audio levels right on our recordings, we had to interview someone else on the course for a minute about a subject of our choice. I interviewed Rachel and chose Christmas. Her description of her favourite Christmas present conjured up a fantastic image...

As I walked out of the LCC this morning, needing to interview someone to demonstrate I could use my new recording equipment, someone yelled my name.

I turned around and Alex Cooper, history student at Oxford until graduating the same as me, was stood there. Apparently he now lives down here too, which is fantastic, and he made my life a whole lot easier by allowing me to interview him.

Use the audio player below to hear Alex's thoughts before tonight's England v Poland encounter.