The falls are off the agenda. Can't say I'm too disappointed - yes, they're a wonder of the world and worth seeing, but I'm worried they'll have been turned into a hideous tourist attraction fuelled by, well, precisely the likes of me.

Instead we've got incredibly exciting plans for the next three days, but I'm keeping them under wraps for now. All being well I'll provide an update tomorrow night from a special secret location...

But it means Niagara's going on the sacrificial block, as is Ottawa. I'll have to come back for those, the new plans are too good to miss.

In the mean time I'm off to see a performance of Spamalot in Toronto tonight, and from there to the airport tomorrow morning for the next adventure!

Remember my avocado plant? It's now 8ft tall and rather unmanageable for my small flat. I thought I'd try and palm it off on Kew Gardens or somewhere... but here is my very informative email response. Top marks for Kew though in terms of "visitor satisfaction".

"I'm afraid that for plant health reasons Kew cannot accept
donations from the public, so we couldn't take your avocado. Most
other botanic gardens operate a similar policy, so I can't think of
anywhere else that may be able to help you. However, if you live in
a sheltered area of the country like London you could try putting it
outside - although the books recommend a minimum temperature
of 13 degrees for avocados, as temperatures rise there are an
increasing number of reports of avocados surviving and even fruiting
outdoors, for example here.
This is quite a risky strategy as, of course, many that don't make it aren't
reported, but it may be worth it as a last resort.

If you try growing an avocado again, you can avoid this problem by
stopping the first shoot to emerge from the avocado stone once it
gets to about 15cm. Chop the top off, which will mean losing all
the leaves. Nothing will happen for a couple of weeks and you'll
start to worry that you've killed it, but then shoots will start to
emerge from the side of the main stem. these will be slower
growing and go sideways rather than upwards, and if you keep
pruning them when they reach the desired length you'll end up with
an avocado bush rather than a tree trying to escape through the
ceiling. If unchecked, under favourable conditions avocado trees
can reach a height of 20 metres!

I'm sorry that we couldn't be more helpful."

So there we are. Perhaps I'll persaude my parents to keep it.

You have no idea how thrilled I was to discover that Canada has black squirrels. They're like stealth squirrels! They drop from black helicopters and then frolic stealthily before disappearing into the aether. Apparently they're under threat from grey squirrels. Those bastards spoil everyone's fun.

Canada: pros

• Lots, and lots, of shops. On every intersection. Massive out-of-town shopping malls bigger than the towns themselves. I have never seen anything like it.


• Air conditioning.


• A bigger bed than the one I've got back home.


• Petrol is ridiculously cheap. It's the equivalent of 40p per litre in some places today. That's outrageous.


• Black squirrels.


• Drive-through banks. Not in the ram-raiding sense - pull up, then it works like a cashpoint at your window. Very useful.


• Amazing scenery. We went to the Algonquin Provincial Park today and walked some of the trails there. We reached a spectacular clifftop view across the whole park. I've never seen so many trees in my life. This one park probably equates to the sum total of all parks in Britain. There are even black squirrels.

Canada: cons

• A certain lack of soul about the place. The roads are all the same, the towns are all the same. Where are the landmarks? "How can you say all that?", demands my host, but all the roads go in straight lines forever and it's unnatural, I tell you. At one point the presence of a few bends in the road was even denoted by a sign reading "Winding Road"! England, with its thousands of years of history to back it up, has more going for it culturally at grass-roots level, I reckon.


• You can't buy alcohol in supermarkets, or indeed anywhere except government-operated alcohol stores. While I'm no drunkard I think I prefer the British approach to this. It seems odd to be restricted to one of two options for alcohol in the entire nation!


• Canadian radio seems to struggle up against the British equivalent. In some aspects this could be down to Amanda being unable to stick with one radio station for more than fifteen seconds at a time - poor Moose FM sent packing almost immediately in favour of Chum FM or More FM (what names) - but essentially they all play the same music, in the same style, with the same traffic and news and weather, blah blah blah. It makes me grateful for the diversity between, say, BBC Radio Berkshire, Reading 107 and 2-Ten. They all serve a different audience.


• There are no roundabouts here! I'm beginning to miss roundabouts. They'd break up all these infernal straight roads. It must be so difficult trying not to fall asleep without a good roundabout thrown into the mix.


• Think Vodafone has its finger in quite a few pies? Try Rogers, the Canadian equivalent. I haven't gone for more than five minutes in this country without seeing a Rogers logo. When I landed, my phone switched to Rogers. Rogers own video rental stores. Rogers run the TV service in this house. Rogers sponsor the main sports arena in Toronto. Rogers, Rogers, Rogers. It's terrible.


• Canadian TV shows are, generally, shockingly poor. The current show of choice is Rock Star Supernova - oh wait, wait! There's a protest going on. Apparently the show is American, not Canadian. It's a show very similar to X Factor, if you're wondering. "You've not even seen a Canadian TV show!", I'm told. Given I've seen a fair few shows in the evenings I've been here, and they've been no great shakes, that has to be a bit of an indictment.

Tomorrow we're off into Toronto to see Spamalot at the theatre, and I imagine Niagara Falls will come into play at some point soon, as will Ottawa.

My arch nemesis, Barclays. They are no longer. I have seen a personal banker and I'm now free of my "student" banking and have moved up into the world of being a "graduate". The personal banker chap was rather dismissive at first: he asked the dull questions, filled in his questionnaire on the computer and seemed to have no enthusiasm to help me at all. That was of course until I was asked what my expected salary would be. He then said, "oh right Madam..." and continued his questions. In reply to "how much is your rent", I stated what my "mortgage" payments were. Wonderful. A degree of superiority. I've also managed a proper Barclaycard and contacted the Student Loan Company. Now if that isn't enough contact with financial institutions for the day, I don't know what is. Tomorrow I have an appointment with my solicitor with respect to my will... Maybe then I'll be ready for work!

Incredible. Perhaps the toughest, hardest, most tearfull day for years. I mean, years. I needed a hug, but didn't get one.

- but have since received several from lovely people, so thank you!

Onwards and upwards... life in the real wolrd begins next week...!

So, as Amy will attest to having spoken to me rather dopily on the phone (I was dopey, not her), I have just woken up from an afternoon nap as a result of getting up at 4 to go to see an outside broadcast of Today this morning in Great Torrington.

It was an interesting experience. We were effectively in a theatre, with the radio desk up on the stage, chaired by Jim Naughtie, who was much better humoured than I had expected. Then, projected onto the cinema screen behind was a live feed from the studio, where Sarah Monatgue, Charlotte Green, and the rest of the London team could be seen. To the side in the theatre was the technical area, with two tech guys, a researcher, producer/editors, and the business and sports correspondents. I think Ollie is a very junior amalgamation of all of these to Jim Naughtie's Henry Kelly.

The technological part was all very cool, but I shan't go into detail here, safe to say that having a live linkup between Devon, London, and variously Turkey, America, and Toronto, is very cool. More interesting was seeing the Today programme in action - both its successes and flaws. For example, the whole thing is very polished, and the ability of the presenters to carry on an indepth discussion while reading the latest piece of paper from the editors and stirring their coffee is impressive. But what it also showed was the limitation of a radio interview and discussion. The pieces, particularly from Torrington on Tesco, organic boxes, and the teaching of history, did very little to inform. Setting up a debate by introducing three people with opposing viewpoints and then giving them a sentence each does not make for a good discussion. I know that there is merit in inviting these people on to the show and presenting the topic as a dialogue, but for those with any sort of prior knowledge (and even for those without), they would have been better off if Jim had just summarized everyone's views and read them out. Indeed, he'd probably have been able to give greater depth to them.

This was particularly frustrating for the history section. I wasn't expecting to get called on, though I did have a nice two sentence sound bite ready that argued for the necessity of contextualising the historical narrative in other subjects, and also featured the word underwhelmed. But to standard consesnual lines from the businessman who thought that history was not good preparation for life, the student who agreed, the historian in defense of history, the student who agreed, and the teacher on the importance of research skills, was predictable and uninformative. Similarly, the Tesco debate was similarly constructed. Today isn't meant to be anything like the Moral Maze or Newsnight, but somehow seeing the programme in person only emphasised the restricted nature of the reports in a way that doesn't come across when listening to the radio.

Still, the rest of it was great fun. The sports reporter, whose name I have temporarily forgotten, served admirably as a warm up act with Today bloopers, and was very polished, and the audience, of whom about 10 were either under 40 or male and not bearded, were into the spirit of the programme. And of course, I doubt it will be back in Torrington soon, or indeed ever. But tomorrow morning I will be listening with a slightly different focus on my drive to work, just to see what the immediate differences are to the ear, rather than ear and eye.

What a palaver at Gatwick Airport, "The Airport You'll Get If You're Not Willing To Pay".

We've had all the usual security searches given the "heightened level of awareness" (read: BAA panic attack) in the wake of recent events. God help the security staff having to frisk all the chavs here for metal objects - is it any bloody wonder the flight to Mallorca's four hours delayed...

Not that I have any problem with all the security, it's completely fine by me. If you're not intending to blow up the aircraft, you shouldn't be too bothered about a bit of a drop in hand luggage capacity and an inability to carry toothpaste on board with you. In fact, I think I prefer the little laptop bag I have with me to the unwieldy rucksack I'd have been lugging around otherwise.

Indeed I can find only one fault with air travel at Gatwick Airport, and that's all the other passengers. I am about to sound extraordinaly elitist but can we, please, have an airport with some sort of pre-qualifying? Perhaps a verbal reasoning test over the phone when booking, or a special episode of "Test The Nation" on BBC1 which determines the airport you use for the next year. We could have Gatwick Grammar and Gatwick Comprehensive.

The reason I say this is simply the sheer mass of dolts wandering this airport. I've never seen anything like it: a seeping wound of the vacant pouring into the departure lounge. Look at the destinations: Mallorca, Las Palmas, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Corfu. You can see in every second or third person's eyes a look of, "I'm here because over the next week or two I fully intend to not stop drinking."

This is backed up by the tannoy announcements. The poor sod making the last calls for passengers has routinely, in the hour or so I've sat here, been faced with upwards of 15 or 20 names to read out! Where the hell have all these people got to? What's so tricky about getting to the damned plane?

It is horrifying to place the engineering marvel of human accomplishment that is the aircraft itself, capable of flying thousands of miles, up against the evolutionary catastrophe that is the ordinary human passenger, unable to locate said aircraft in a confined environment with clear directions.

My one piece of hold luggage has been tucked away in the bowels of the airport, probably never to see the light of day again and certainly never to experience Canada. Its last hurrah before entering the void was when it weighed in at just under 18kg, a full 5kg under the limit, which I think we both considered a triumph.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go to the toilet, then go to Toronto.

(I've been trying not to indulge in the macabre but if those happen to be my very last printed words - ignore these - make sure they get published somewhere, they're not bad.)

My post for 27th August 2005 involved rubbish. Rubbish being a work of art. This year, it also involves rubbish. The proposition that we may be taxed for our rubbish. Excuse me? We already pay for rubbish collection in our Council Tax. The proposal is highly unlikely to encourage recycling. Why not just charge us more on the Council Tax and make recycling easier and more efficient? I don't see how paying for our rubbish would actually help - recycling needs to be easy and the citizen needs to have some desire to recycle. A positive drive, not a negative force e.g. tax, compelling us to act.

The comments on the BBC article areboth both interesting and amusing - many are also constructive so they save me the bother of going into the many arguments here. However one of my favourite, more frivilous of comments is the suggestion that if the rubbish tax were introduced then we should simply start with the Labour Party... the biggest load of rubbish in the country...

The theory

I'm out filming the main festival campus with Ben, our TV reporter. He's recording a piece to camera, which does what it says on the tin - reporter faces camera and speaks.

Ben's line goes something like:

"For most people, this is what Reading Festival's like. But if you want the full experience..."

And at that precise moment I pan the camera to the right very quickly towards the backstage entrance, so that it'll blur. That blur effect will then be used to join this segment to one with Ben inside the backstage area, where we blur into the shot. Does that make sense? Ben says "full experience...", massive motion blur effect, Ben reappears inside backstage area and carries on talking.

The reality

We start filming. Ben delivers his line:

"For most people, this is what Reading Festival's like. But if you want the full experience..."

I pan the camera round very quickly. It falls to rest with a bright, alert hippie squarely in the middle of the shot, who shouts:

"Think PENIS!"

Wow. So much wow. Wow on toast.

Wow number one: Muse are the greatest band on the planet right now. I've been in the middle of the crowd for the first three quarters of an hour and I could listen to them all day, all week, forever. I've been waiting to hear "Map Of The Problematique" live for ages and it was superb beyond words.

Wow number two: I've just got back into the press tent to edit up some Muse photos and had a look at our Reading and Leeds website. Looked at the Jet photo gallery and my photos from earlier are there - had a moment of not quite believing it was me who took them! It's so very, very cool to see photos I've taken get that kind of outlet.

I've got every single photo myself and pal Chris have taken over the weekend on my laptop. When I get a spare moment I will pick a 'greatest hits' selection and put them on here. There's so many amazing images - Chris is a legendary photographer (or deserves to be), his website's here. I'm chuffed that I have a complete photographic record of the festival on here! That's priceless.

My voice pieces are recorded for tomorrow morning's news bulletins with a thumping Muse chorus in the background. Why can't that happen more often? Ought to shake a few people out of bed given that it'll probably be interspersed between hymns. But then, the news team did ask for live festival atmosphere behind my voice...

Today is the start of the August bank holiday weekend, and having been at school or university for every other occassion, I finally get to have a statutory day off from work. This is quite the moment; I've been waiting some time for it, and after four weeks of getting back into early mornings and the like, it is great to have an extra lie in.

So, clearly, the best thing to do with my extra day is to get up even earlier than I would usually. It turns out that BBC Radio 4's Today programme has effectively a bank holiday roadshow thing going on, and this Monday, they're in Torrington, in North Devon. Who would ever have thought? I have tickets, and will be getting up at 4am on Monday to drive up to Torrington and be in my seat for 5.30am, in order to see Jim Naughtie and the sports reporters do some outside link ups. Best of all, though, there will be audience participation, and a report into the teaching of history in schools. Will I be able to embarrass myself with my knowledge of eighteenth century America on national radio? Let's hope not.

I'm delighted to report the heavens have opened at Reading Festival and it's tipping down. Just what I wanted. Fed up wearing these wellies with nothing but sun to bake them!

It's been quite a good day - we've overcome our technical problems and it's fantastic to see our pics online at the BBC's Reading/Leeds site moments after we take them. Not many photographers here will have a bespoke website built around their output! We have Lucy at BBC Music Interactive to thank, she's putting in a Herculean effort with her team back in London.

Remember, all the stuff is here. Some of the photos are amazing, especially the ones from Chris, our Main Stage photographer, who's putting in a massive effort. He's just gone out in the rain to Dizzee Rascal on the Radio 1 Stage because my camera's died. Hero!

Oh, and I'm also keeping a festival blog via SMS on the site, along with a couple of other BBC journos. Click here to read it. It gets sporadically updated when I and the London folks have time...

Be under no illusions. Working as a journalist at a rock festival is not the easiest job known to man, easy as it sounds.

For a start it's a battle just to even get in the festival with the right accreditation. So many people have a finger in the pie determining who does what, and goes where, that it's nigh on impossible just to turn up and claim your passes. We spent a good hour sorting it out this morning, even then not entirely to anyone's satisfaction.

Now I'm in the press tent filing photos - you can see the fruits of our labours here.

Even here no journalist is safe from the perils of festival work. The wireless network everyone is trying to use to send their images has failed on the lot of us - except me. For some reason my little laptop is persevering! So naturally I'm using it to write on Dayorama.

In summary, this is very much work and not at all gig-going. Although I did enjoy Guillemots on the Radio 1 stage earlier, and it's a privilege to see good bands like that up close from the press pit.

See, I've reminded myself how lucky I am. You don't even need to do it! I'll go out and stop moaning now.

Quote from a family friend who got an A* for her Religious Education GCSE in her results today:

"It's easy when they ask you questions, like in maths, but when you just have to write pages I forget loads. One question I just rambled on about teenage pregnancy - I didn't know what else to put!"

Well, what she actually said was:

"it is easy wen they ask u questions like in maths but wen u just hve to write pages i forget lds. one question i just rambled on about teenage pregnancy coz i didnt kno wo telse to put"

But I thought I'd better translate. 91 per cent for her in that particular exam, very good going! Especially since she took it a year early along with three others in which she got As.

The point is, who said teenage pregnancy ruined your GCSEs?

No. I'm sorry, but no. I've had my human rights infringed earlier this week and now you're trying to take what little bloody astronomical knowledge I have away from me!

I spend the best years of my life being told there are this many planets, and here they all are in a nice and wholly unrealistic line on a poster, and this one at the end is tiny and called Pluto, and suddenly BANG! It's gone!

Well not literally - what a story that would be - but it might as well blow up because clearly it means nothing to astronomers of the twenty-first century.

You can't just unwrite seventy-odd years of history like that. Alright fine, technically it's small enough that other non-planets are bigger, but being a planet is as much a spiritual thing as a physical one. It's a planet because, way back when, someone bloody well said so. That's why it's a planet, not because it meets the height restriction or any of that pap. It has that planetary je ne sais quoi.

The only small crumb of consolation I can find in today's decision is that Pluto will henceforth be referred to as a 'dwarf planet'.

This conjures up the most fantastic image of dwarven aliens - each replete with axe, westcountry accent and fiery temper - one day landing on Earth and enslaving the entire population. "Refer to our planet with politically incorrect terminology, will ye!", they will snarl, as they drink their outlandish alien cider and whistle "Hi Ho" through their grey, lipless mouth sockets.

Moving on: it's Reading Festival tomorrow til Sunday, and I've had my impossibly-tight wristband snapped around my defenceless right wrist. Come Saturday night it will probably be a toss-up between the continued existence of my hand and my ability to enter the festival, such will be the lack of circulation.

We drove down to the festival site to pick up the passes and the place was absolutely heaving. The Reading Evening Post's six foot cuddly lion (why?) was taking the brunt of the onslaught, faced as he was by jubilant hippies queueing to embrace his costume.

I also noticed that, in the comedy t-shirt stakes, I'll be playing with the big boys at this festival. Happilly we had a new batch arrive this week so I've got fresh, unspent ammunition to unleash on them all.

I'll be at the festival from very early until remarkably late each day so expect things from me on Dayorama to go a little quiet. Then I'm in Canada so my absence may continue! We shall see.

Yesterday evening four twenty-something girls met at Baker Street tube, in torrential rain. Were we dressed for the weather? Sort-of. We had umbrellas. But one of us had ballet shoes on, one was in a skirt suit and we were a little short on warm jumpers and waterproofs. However, we marched on. The aim was to sit in glorious sunshine in Regents Park and have a picnic. After that we would enjoy the Boyfriend at the Open Air Theatre. Sometimes in life things just don't go to plan.

We had our glorious picnic under the bandstand, overlooking the water and watching the rain patter down besides us. We remained mostly dry, but the floor of the bandstand was a little cold and things did look a bit grim. However we had coordinated, with very little coordination actually, a rather delicious dinner. The only repeated items of food were some Tesco strawberries - mine had the origin Kent, and the others were Hants. The Hants were much nicer. We were also impressed that Tesco strawberries were -born/produced/grown - that's the one, grown in Kent whereas those bought in West London were grown in Hants. Tesco bringing food from the local area to the locals? Quite impressive really. Well, perhaps. The blueberries were from Spain or somewhere though so that threw the idea off the bandstand and into the soggy guano covered mud. But it was romantic, it really was. Rather like being in a caravan in the rain. It would have helped if we had been dressed for it, and perhaps if it had been a romantic picnic, rather than four girls (romantic for some though, I'm sure). However it was romantic in a poetic sense, and we were rather optimistic about the chances of the play going ahead.

We did remark at this stage how British we were being - what other nationality would sit under a bandstand having a picnic in the rain. We didn't have a flask of tea though, so that let us down. We had a screw-top bottle of Chardonnay instead: aren't screw-tops wonderful? We had plastic cups and plates, and napkins and hand sanitiser - it was all there you know! Spot the organised girl and the jewish mothers...

So then we traipsed, in the rain, to the theatre. And the skies began to brighten and the performance began. For fifteen minutes. Then a voice asked the cast to stop and the band to cease playing. The stage was wet. Would four members of the audience come on stage to help them mop up? Fantastic. Once again, wonferfully British. And so four members did: A young girl - 12, 13yrs old? An elderly gentleman, in a tweedy suit, probably aged around 70yrs. A rather stylish 40-50yrs old lady who acted flirtatiously towards the 70yr old and tried her own rendition of the Charleston (the band began to play this as they mopped) and danced with her mop. And then finally a young man in his early 30s - looked like he'd never held a mop in his life, probably a City banker, pushed on stage by a woman no doubt and after a while he looked so tired and had the actions of someone simply saying "surely it's done now".

After that, unfortunately the heavens opened. The umbrellas came up. And that was that. End of performance.

We left the theatre and went and enjoyed a much warming hot chocolate and a chat. A couple of people went to watch the performance again today, but I'll be waiting until Sept 9th I think... so any one who wishes to join me is more than welcome...!

A thoroughly enjoyable evening though, nevertheless.

Yes, you read that correctly. It is 23rd August, just over 3mths till Christmas Day and I received my first Christmas catalogue in the post today - wishing me a very peaceful Christmas and Happy New Year. I'm still enjoying this year, thanks. The catalogue is from Christian Aid and arrived along with their quarterly magazine. The irony of it is that I shall probably keep the catalogue and I'll probably just buy my cards from it. So perhaps this early advertising thing works. But August. August? Is it really necessary to send a catalogue out this early? Doesn't it take something away from the joy and rush of Christmas? Or is it just a reflection of out lifestyle today? If this is our lifestyle, I'm not sure I agree. Although, I guess I'd best get used to it as its going to get a whole lot busier in a week or so!

I spent a large part of my day at the London Irish training complex in Sunbury-on-Thames, south-west London, and very nice it was too.

They're an extremely friendly bunch of people and the atmosphere at the training ground was suitably buoyant. The team had a great campaign last season so they're looking forward to trying to outdo themselves this time around. Plus it's a media day, with a team photo, and that's always a guaranteed laugh.

Here's the team making their somewhat unorthodox way to the team photo:

I spoke to Mike Catt, Aidan McCullen and Brian Smith, all of whose interviews I also filmed. Alas the audio went a bit wrong and while it's audible, it's not broadcast quality, so you'll be having to make do with a transcript and some nice photos on the site tomorrow.

We did however get one video on the site today - a harrowing story of bunny abuse. 80 rabbits have been rescued from a house in Wantage and are now being looked after at an animal shelter in Bracknell.

Our reporter Ben went to the shelter and filmed the rabbits. Some of their injuries are shocking. Particularly gruesome are those born as a result of in-breeding, whose teeth are chillingly deformed.

If you've a strong enough constitution to find out more, click here.

I have a horrific headache. Actually, I think it's more of a migraine. I've had it since sometime during yesterday afternoon, and whilst it has come and gone, it's never truly disappeared. My eyes hurt too. Especially after using the computer. And my scar above my right eye keeps stinging and it is rare that it does this unless I'm tired. I suggested to my Mum I get my eyes tested. And then she laughed. What happened before I started Yr13? What happened before I went up to Oxford? What happened before I began the LPC? I had these headaches, sore eyes and on each occasion I've had my eyes tested; with nothing wrong. So this time I don't think I'll bother. It just goes to show that inwardly I must be quite worried and scared at the moment, even if on the outside I feel absolutely fine and calm about it all. At least I'm still smiling. And I've an excuse to go and buy chocolate.

Dayorama is four years old today. If you're reading this on the day itself, you can use the 'On This Day' panel to the right hand side to read posts from our birthday in previous years.

On the very first day of Dayorama's existence, I made a post noting that the word Dayorama had no results on Google. It now has 57,000.

We may not be responsible for all of those - after all, some American children cannot spell 'diorama' - but I imagine we've contributed a fair number. Well done team! And thanks, of course, for reading.

That there is the Barclays Premiership trophy. Except I can't show you that image in full, because the uncensored version in all its pure, unfiltered glory would destroy the very foundations of the society we live in.

Actually that's bollocks, of course it wouldn't. The photo is of what I am reliably informed is the 'back' of the Barclays Premiership trophy. It looked exactly the same, to me, as the front.

But one the Barclays Premiership trophy's two quite burly minders came over to me and actually stopped me from filming it.

"You can't take a photo of that," he told me, as though this were the most obvious rule in the world. "Go round the other side."

Not being one to risk a brawl in a broadcast studio I naturally complied - just as I'm referring to it as the 'Barclays Premiership trophy', as I have been told so to do.

It's a shame really, isn't it? We live in a world where a (Barclays Premiership) trophy comes along to a radio station where a lucky young man has won the chance to have his photo taken with it, and suddenly there's so many rules and regulations.

Okay, so you're not allowed to touch it, which makes perfect sense in order to maintain its pristine condition. But not photographing the back of it? When it looks identical to the front? WHY?! What's the worst that could happen?

As far as I'm concerned this is symptomatic of the world in which we now have to live. Absolutely everything with so much as a minute commercial value is promoted and policed to within an inch of its life. I never expected to have to say this, but it feels like the Barclays Premiership trophy is threatening my basic human rights! If I can't take a photo of a piece of metal from an angle of my choice, what can I do?

Still. It's a very nice Barclays Premiership trophy. Here's the front of it:

You may be under the illusion that the purpose behind Dayorama has something to do with a relaxed “current affairs weblog” or something, commenting on anything from “fish bones to degree ceremonies, elections to bus journeys”. Well, you’re only partly correct. It also operates as a form of amazon-wish list. You know, the page where you put all the things you’d like, in the hope that someone will buy them for you when it is your birthday?

Why? Well, last week I grumbled that my Mother had read Dayorama from Croatia and found out about the fact that the house, their house, was rather messy in their absence. Grumble about my Mother reading Dayorama? Never again. A couple of days ago I mentioned Satellite Navigation systems for cars. I was thinking of buying one – if I could afford it – and came around to the idea of asking for one from my parents at Christmas. I’d never mentioned this to my parents, in fact the first they heard/thought of the idea was when they read about it on Dayorama. It just so happens they were thinking of buying me a start of work/well done in your exams present… and so today I received a TomTom 710. A wonderful surprise. Totally unexpected. And lovely. Thank you. However, thanks also to Dayorama.

Mum, Dad… I’d really like a top of the range Mercedes….

Do you think that’ll work? No, maybe not. Worth a try anyway!

*Edit: Darling OJ has just pointed out that when I start work I won't have any time and therefore will be unable to use the Sat Nav. He's just jealous right? On the other hand... perhaps he has a point. He's always bloody right. Damn! But at least I could use it if I had the chance... and the less I go out, the quicker I can save for the Merc...!

It has not been a brilliant day for English relations with the rest of the world, having accused various people of ball-tampering and plane-tampering respectively.

In fact I reckon there's been something in the air inspiring conflict today. We were driving back through the streets of London following the Chelsea v Manchester City match, about which the less said the better, when someone clipped my dad's wing mirror, pushing it 90 degrees the wrong way.

Luckily it's quite a clever wing mirror and remained attached to the car and fully functional - right down to the Batmobile-esque button which folds the wing mirrors in, a feature I would want for aerodynamic showiness rather than fitting into tight parking spaces.

But my dad, bless him, used a four-letter word I have never heard him use before in the general direction of the culprit. Then he spent the next ten minutes trying to win the day by hoping his queue of traffic would overtake theirs, thus establishing us as supreme reigning champions of driving.

Today, I note, is also unusual since it's the first time all this month that I've not actually been in the newsroom. On Friday I had a call from a certain Mr Wooding on a work-related note! That was certainly remarkable. The man is already doing a fine job of creating The Westcountry Wing.

Where to begin?! I’ve started using the calendar on the right hand side of the screen. Well, I say “started to use”. I’ve put in one entry, and thus messed up Ollie’s formatting. I’ve been away for the last few days… to East Anglia. East Anglia as a whole has a rather dismal reputation. Not one which is enhanced by remarks such as these. At the end of the day you have to make the effort to go there: it isn’t a place you drive through (like Kent, or Buckinghamshire or somewhere like that). However it is a tremendously beautiful place: very flat but quintessentially English. Lovely.

It always amazes me though how different the roads are. I was chatting to my Godmother about this, who has lived in both Kent and Suffolk and commutes frequently between the two. Kent driving is fast. It’s cutthroat. It’s aggressive. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this is a good thing, but it’s a fact. It’s a different pace of life and this is clearly reflected in the driving and the ardent haste to get everywhere fast and without taking any prisoners. To that end, I’m rather glad I have the experience of the Kent/outer London roads, but it is much more pleasant to drive somewhere when you can just bimble along happily.

What else? Oh yes. The start of work is looming and becoming somewhat more daunting by the minute.

What a brilliant first football match to be covering for my job - Reading FC came behind from two goals down to beat Middlesbrough 3-2 in their first ever Premiership clash. Cue much excitement all round.

In fact it's a bloomin' exciting day all round. Aston Villa have just smacked home the first ever goal at Arsenal's brand new Emirates Stadium as I watch the highlights on Match Of The Day, and the half hour or so I caught of Alan Green's Five Live phone-in was buzzing with hyper fans up and down the country. It's great to have football well and truly back now that all four divisions are off and running.

Just two people successfully predicted 3-2 to Reading in our online Fantasy Football comp (I was relatively close, at 2-1, but not close enough). Even the most ardent optimists would struggle to have justified it beforehand. What a great game.

With a bit of luck - oooh, Arsenal have equalised - I'll start again, with a bit of luck we should be getting the technology to allow me to produce online coverage from within the stadium. That'll mean I can watch the game at the same time as editing photos, audio and text for the website, which would be absolutely ideal - not to mention being relatively close to the commentary team.

Coming up in the next week I've got meetings with folk from Reading FC (Monday) and London Irish (Tuesday), then a couple of days to prepare for Reading Festival, which runs from Friday to Sunday. After that it's off to Canada for a week!

I'll also be writing up my meeting with the UFO expert last Thursday for the Berkshire website. It's had to take a seat on the back burner while the football season kicks off (and you know what, I'm quite proud of today's coverage).

Other stuff you might have missed from the past week: Bagot goats plus pics, trouble at Gatwick plus video, and ladies' rugby in Reading (including the havoc pregnancy wreaks on female rugby teams!).

This Big Brother final diary was updated from 8.50pm until 11.00pm on the night of the Big Brother 7 final. Probably best to scroll down to the bottom and work your way up to appreciate things in their chronological order...

11.00pm Right, back to your homes, nothing more to see here. Our winner is Pete, second place is Glyn, third is Aisleyne, which is a result I'll happily take. But hats off, and then back on cowboy-stylee, to Richard too.

Pete leaps off his chair then back onto it. "It's been a blast," says Davina. And here comes the mightily-long Big Brother's Best Bits sequence, with a Snow Patrol track as the bed, which is a horrible, horrible way to have to remember the entire series.

One final fact: did you know that this series of Big Brother started before I started my job? It lasted for six more days than my professional career to date. There's a thought.

10.50pm

Davina: "How does it feel?"
Pete: "Ahhh! Wankers!"

And that sums up this entire series.

Davina must not have had a harder series of interviews in her life. First Nikki, unable to open her mouth, then Pete, unable to shut himself up long enough to actually answer her questions.

Davina: "You've done very well!"
Pete: "Have I?"

Pete says he was at his most relaxed cuddling Richard. See! Richard's the real winner.

10.40pm It's madness. Sheer madness. Pete comes through the Big Brother doors, reaches the stairs, tumbles down the stairs in semi-controlled fashion, is seized by rabid fans and only eventually does he notice the goggle-eyed Davina.

There are fireworks going off all over the place which are hardly helping, and it's a little like watching Pete trying to dodge sniper fire rather than him celebrating a Big Brother win. He's now crab-walking backwards down the stage. Ad break!

10.38pm "I'm going to talk to the house," says Davina, talking to a house with just one crazed Pete in it. Pete is destroying the furniture and has gone just a little feral in the last 20 minutes.

10.35pm It's all gone a bit Wales crazy, with the by-now obligatory Glyn-speaks-Welsh moment. Bangor University has itself a new superstar.

10.30pm Our valiant runner-up, Glyn, gets hold of a Welsh flag and drapes it over himself for the photographers, just prior to one of the final ad breaks of Big Brother 7. I am ashamed to say that I will miss it. How did I manage to avoid Big Brothers 2 through 6 without so much as batting an eyelid, then get sucked in so comprehensively by this one?

Glyn is sat with Davina, whose pregnancies you can use to work out which week of each Big Brother it is. Pete is rolling around the floor of the Big Brother house in the background. Glyn is now singing with, well, quite an impressive voice! Cerys Matthews, move over.

"Oh no, I don't want to see it," says Glyn when threatened with footage of him 13 weeks ago. There's a marked difference, especially in the hair department. It's safe to say it's an improvement.

His montage has a section devoted to Wales and, I'm not sure, but I think I can see the Welsh flag folded neatly by his chair. Bless!

10.20pm Pete! A good deal. We'll take that. The crowd go stark, raving wild. It was a foregone conclusion for months on end but we love him anyway. And the screaming we're hearing is definitely not Tourette's any more...

10.15pm Aisleyne spends her entire "Best Bits" montage holding her head in her hands and mouthing "I am so sorry" at fellow ex-housemates.

Davina makes a comment about fake boobs at the precise moment Aisleyne spots her dad in the crowd, providing an odd juxtaposition. Aisleyne does well to keep yelling "Dad!" until Davina shuts up about the boobs.

To be brutally honest her post-eviction interview was verging on tedious. Poor girl exhausted all that attitude in her first few weeks and now she's too nice to be entertaining. See, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't on this programme.

10.05pm Aisleyne, having at least made a half-hearted attempt to enclose her breasts in fabric, emerges to fewer boos than one might have initially expected. As she descends the staircase she achieves an octave previously known only to soprano bats, then immediately reclaims the 'attitude' of which she was earlier so ashamed when she sees the cameras.

10.00pm Here we go then, it's the final countdown. Who will win - Pete, or Glyn?

Alright, alright, let's be honest. It's going to be Pete. Even asking the question is akin to speculating on the Christmas present your aunt might prefer: a detached house on a tropical island, or smallpox.

9.20pm Aisleyne's out, having announced it to herself about nine times over during Davina's usual agonising silence. And I swear Pete has just brilliantly continuity-announced that 8 Out Of 10 Cats is about to follow this! That man's got a job as a voiceover artist after this. Or not, thinking about it.

Glyn wants the toilet, poor man. Pete has continuity-announced 8 Out Of 10 Cats again! But now he's not sure if it's the Friday Night Project. This, for a man who's been in the house since the very beginning, is remarkably good knowledge of the Channel 4 schedule!

I shall leave the increasingly-desperate Glyn to his search for a toilet and return at 10pm for more.

9.10pm Richard, the Dime bar of Big Brother: "popular on the outside, unpopular on the inside". But he's just so charming and affable, far more so - and far more genuine, I personally feel - than many of his fellow housemates.

Very nice video montage from the Big Brother crew showing Richard's many moments of advice styled as a Montel Williams/Trisha recap. And much applause all round! Have you noticed that? He's had bags of applause and not a boo to be heard. Rightly so, too.

"You always gave great nomination," says Davina, leaving the S off the end of 'nominations' to make it sound rather sordid.

Richard one-liners:

• That man was like a chihuahua on a fat man's leg
• If he bent over you could serve dinner for eight on it
• I'll rip your lungs out of your throat and shove them up your ass
• She's like genital warts, she just won't seem to go away
• And, his trademark, out with the plastics

9.00pm "This is what live television's all about," says Davina, as the entire programme comes crashing down around Nikki. Having been evicted she finds herself, in a final fit of dramatic ennuie, unable to speak at all. Davina makes a valiant effort but eventually abandons all hope and tries to lead Nikki off to her fellow housemates, only for her to fall over. The producers are clearly completely flummoxed so they press the self-destruct button, go back and evict Richard to move things along.

Naturally I'm disappointed one of my two favourites is leaving fourth, but I like any of the remaining three enough to be satisfied with them winning it.

8:50pm Nikki has finished in fifth place in the final of Big Brother. This is an unbelievable result. I was fully prepared for the single most spine-chillingly absurd, annoying, petty, shallow and vindictive woman on the planet to stay in right til the end. That she's been kicked out before Richard has made my (equally petty, shallow, vindictive) evening.

Remember, I want Richard or Aisleyne to win (faced with having to choose between the two then Richard, but they're roughly equal). My mum wants Glyn. The rest of the nation wants Pete.

Every now and again I see a story on BBC News Online that I just wish I'd had the chance to write:

Filipino 'dwarf' judge loses case

A Philippines judge who said he consulted imaginary mystic dwarves has failed to convince the Supreme Court to allow him to keep his job.
Florentino Floro was appealing against a three-year inquiry which led to his removal due to incompetence and bias.

He told investigators three mystic dwarves - Armand, Luis and Angel - had helped him to carry out healing sessions during breaks in his chambers.

The court said psychic phenomena had no place in the judiciary.

The bench backed a medical finding that the judge was suffering from psychosis.

[source: BBC News - 'Filipino "dwarf" judge loses case']

And so it continues if you follow the link.

In other news, Chris Tarrant has just called the studio demanding to know if we were talking about Reading's first Premiership campaign, starting tomorrow (of course we were). Chris then asked if he could come on air and talk about it, which he duly did. He's gone for a 3-0 Reading win. All that generosity on WWTBAM has turned him overly optimistic, I fear.

Today I met a gentleman named Michael, a UFO expert from Oxfordshire with a dossier containing sightings of unidentified flying objects that have made their way across Berkshire in recent years.

He is a very nice man but it's fair to say that if you think UFOs are a load of nonsense, he'd come across as quite the eccentric. His house has much UFO paraphernalia dangling from the trees and fence outside it, not least a rather large dish with some wires attached, and - though I didn't actually step inside - I was able to see quite a lot of boxes and papers spread out in less-than-immaculate fashion.

Michael told me it had been even worse a few years earlier, so much so that in order to enter the building he'd had to climb in through a window and shuffle into the space between the junk and the ceiling. Then it seems the council got involved when a next-door neighbour complained about rats (rats Michael says didn't exist). The council have since backed off and the house did indeed look pretty inhabitable, if a bit scruffy with the boxes.

I noticed that his hall mirror had wires attached to it, which I found a somewhat unlikely set-up. He explained that he used it to receive - and, from the bottom of his garden, transmit - "imaginary frequencies", which, he told me, are similar to the imaginary numbers one encounters in advanced maths. Apparently you can get speech, music, the works, all on frequencies which technically do not exist.

I took him up to Wittenham Clumps, a rather scenic hill affording views of Berkshire, where we did an interview. On the way we established that he's a keen fan of the author Philip K. Dick, We also established his theory that some form of human drone, mass-produced in robotic fashion by earlier extra-terrestrial intelligence, built the pyramids.

At the end of the journey home he demonstrated to me his home-made method of creating oxygen, should one come under attack by sarin gas on the tube.

It is safe to say that I am not particularly convinced of the presence of extra-terrestrial life, but nor - as with the ghosts I went searching for a couple of weeks ago - am I unwilling to entertain the theory that such things may exist.

I certainly am convinced that people like Michael are very much an asset to British society. Imagine if all the people getting wasted in town of a Saturday night took up UFO-watching instead. The world would be a better place. (If only because they'd be abducted.)

Post title taken from the Klaatu and, more famously, Carpenters track, which was played immediately prior to today's interview, thanks to a particularly hilarious gentleman operating the studio at the time.

Accepted internet fact:

It's fun to put your name into Google and see if your name turns up anywhere unexpected.

It's probably less fun if your name is Tory Blair - for a BBC correspondent exists with this name! How utterly unfortunate do you have to be? Poor Tory. She currently has a video report on the BBC News Online website about couples in New York recreating a famous kiss.

Put "Tory Blair" into any search engine and I bet you have to wait a while before you find a page referring to her.

I don't think I've had a particularly tiring day today but for some reason my legs are burning with exhaustion as though I've run a hundred miles.

This morning was fantastic. I went to Odds Farm Park, just down the road, where they raise all kinds of rare breeds of animal. They're doing really well with some Bagot goats, which look a little something like this:

Bagot goats are, I'm told, extremely rare, and Odds Farm Park has the second largest herd in the UK. So that was certainly interesting and I had great fun talking to livestock manager Clare, assistant Shelley and work experience girl Katy, all of whom had the dubious pleasure of being dragged to a microphone by yours truly.

The highlight for me was, however, the sheep racing.

This was sheer brilliance. Five sheep racing round a short rectangular track towards a trough of food, negotiating a series of jumps along the way ("woolly jumpers" as Linda in the newsroom later observed). My chosen sheep came a disappointing third but I was amazed at the sheer speed - and comparative grace - with which they took the jumps.

I recorded Clare's sheep racing commentary while the event was taking place. Tomorrow on the BBC Berkshire site you'll be able to pick your sheep from the list of competitors, then listen to the commentary to find out if it won!

Meanwhile on the site you can already see an exclusive extended interview with a lady named Paula. She emailed the site a few days ago with a tale of woe from Gatwick Airport - her luggage, like that of many others, had been slashed open and ransacked for valuables. Certain unscrupulous individuals are targeting luggage stowed in the hold because, with increased security measures in place (i.e. no hand luggage), valuables had to go in the hold in these cases.

Our BBC reporter Joe Campbell spoke to Paula about it and provided us with the full interview. This is the second time in a week that Joe's delivered a small but perfectly formed video report created especially for the online team, which is really putting the idea of convergence into practice. We officially like Joe.

One unforeseen consequence of my job is that I'm slowly starting to enjoy speedway.

Not sure what speedway is? Click here.

Reading Bulldogs are taking on Poole Pirates tonight and it happens to be on Sky Sports 2. When I discovered it was on TV l thought I'd watch for a few minutes just to see how the local team were getting on. Almost an hour later and I'm still watching.

Reading are tearing Poole apart - it's 25-13 after six heats which, even with my limited knowledge, is a pretty damn good score for the Bulldogs.

Part of the attraction is that when I've spent time editing up the audio highlights from Radio Berkshire coverage, so as to put them online, it's sounded like a great laugh. Our sports editor moonlights as the man on the PA at the Smallmead Stadium, where it takes place, and I think I can hear him in the background on Sky tonight. When he leaves audio of his post-match interviews it has the feel of a friendly, fun atmosphere, and it looks like the same on the box.

There's so much speedway too. These teams seem to be at it at least two or three times a week and, when not riding for their local clubs, the riders end up in things like the Swedish championships a couple of nights ago! Not to mention the World Cup last month. If you're a speedway fan you'll not be left wanting this summer, that's for sure.

And since I'm in a Reading mood, click here to download one of our brand new Reading FC wallpapers (or a London Irish one if you feel like it).

We've had more luck with images of Reading than the Reading Chronicle newspaper. Here's an extract from the Chronicle editor's blog:

We had a major problem with Reading's team picture which has been supplied by the FA Premier League licensing people. I can't go into too much detail, but unfortunately we have just discovered that one of the players has a wig on (the wrong picture was sent over just minutes before going to press). There aren't too many times where we have used the phrase "Stop Press", but this was one of them.

I do hope I'll get to see the photo in question. It'd be a shame to waste the one with the wig...

Now, you could say that I had it coming. I posted on this day last year regarding flip-flops. From Monsoon. They were shockingly sub-standard. This year I went back to Monsoon and refused to pay an inflated price for the same flip-flop, so went and bought some lovely leather ones from Jones instead. And I had the vouchers from when I'd complained about the last pair of shoes turning my feet black anyway. So the flip flops. This morning was a typical "Manic Monday". I should have got up earlier, and should have been more organised before going to bed. Not to worry. I ran around like a headless chicken before the CAB and managed to do all the things I needed to, despite a crisis call from my Aunt, a chat to my piano teacher and then a call from my God Mother. All before 9.10am - having got up at 8.20am. There was a shower and cleaning and a cat and numerous other things in there too. But I made a mistake. I didn't look at the weather forecast. The black clouds should have warned me. But they didn't. I wore my flip flops. And I got to work, and it was raining. And I had to step in lots of puddles, arriving looking like a drowned rat, in flip flops. And then after work I had to scurry around town (it's best to scurry quickly, you don't want to spend too long in Maidstone) and I got even wetter feet. But hey ho. The point of all this is, the flip flops took it. They didn't disintegrate - like the last pair I wore in the rain. And my feet were nice and clean (?), well, wet. There's a few morals in this story. However it is elementary. As far as flip flops are concerned, I shall never learn. And tomorrow I am back at work, followed by London for dinner, back to Kent, Norfolk on Weds, Suffolk Thurs and Fri and back sometime over the weekend. Numerous things to do. A stack of ironing. But all is good. So long as I get to East Anglia in one piece.... (oh I wish I had a spare £215 to buy a TomTom - I'm thinking an Xmas present - not sure the budget stretches just yet!).

Goodness. With OJ suddenly back to posting on Dayorama some semblance of order is restored. Surprising to note, however, that during his long absence he has lost the ability to spell "Troy McClure". (A character from The Simpsons, for those wondering. Dad.) He could spell it on 30 May this year, but now? Gone.

Interesting also that between his 30 May reference and today's there had been 177 Dayorama posts. Of these, OJ has contributed: 1.

And is if that weren't enough naming and shaming for one post, it should also be brought to your attention that OJ's new work email address takes the form (before the @ sign) of surname then first initial, with no underscore or dot. OJ's is thus WOODINGO. As I have written on his Facebook wall, much to his parents' amusement so I'm told, this spells Woo! Dingo!. It is a great email address.

I watched Hotel Rwanda on Sky Movies last night. It tells the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager housing Tutsi refugees during the Rwandan genocide of the early 1990s.

I was about eight or nine when the Rwanda conflict was going on, and I can just about remember the news reports at the time. This film did so much to try to explain precisely what had been happening and how it really feels to be caught up in it. For a start I grew up with the impression, from news reports, that if you send UN trucks in somewhere then that's your problem solved: your UN trucks go in, they restore peace, everyone is okay again.

Hotel Rwanda gives the lie to that. It shows in brutal clarity the arrival, and subsequent departure, of UN reinforcements at the hotel, and it shows the gulf between diplomats and reality in these situations. Most importantly, in several shocking but compelling sequences, the film made plain the loneliness, isolation and vulnerability of a single UN truck carrying Tutsi refugees.

One comment on the IMDB movie website calls this film "an acting treasure". That exactly sums it up for me. It's only on reading about the film online that I've remembered the events were portrayed by actors and none of it was real. Every second was, for me, believable. It's a serious, depressing film which makes you wonder about the civilization you inhabit, but I've not seen finer (or more educational) cinema.

Sorry, that was me falling off my chair.

Hi there, I'm Troy Mclure, and you may remember me.... yadda yadda yadda.

Yes, it's a post from me again, now that various forces, such as the alignment of the moon, the tides, and a clean desk and working internet connection, have joined together in one moment of glory. I'll try posting more, I really will, but given that the copy I turn out work is decidedly less interesting and less public than Ollie's, expect few work related anecdotes. Especially involving small furry animals. Or super ones, come to that.

Anyway, it's time for a review of theme tunes to adverts. First, for Channel 4's trailer for the next episode of Dispatches on PPI, they're using a track by Seth Lakeman (see Dayorama passim.). The boy has come far in a year, though I'm slightly surprised that he's re-released Freedom Fields with re-recorded tracks, which I might have to go and buy again. Second, two related iTunes things. The very cool track to the Citroen advert with the iceskating transforming C4 has been released, and it's a dance track I've actually gone and bought. A rarity indeed. While there, I also found (don't ask me how) a track from Miami Vice (the show, not the film). It's an instrumental track called Crockett's Theme, and the very nifty guitar riff on it was, in fact, the jingle used by NatWest in the early to mid 90s. You know the one, with the guitar going down the notes in a very manly way. Well, I remember it, and I remember a group of us air guitarring it on the playground aged 10 or so. Now of course that doesn't sound very cool, but now that I know it was from Miami Vice, I'd like to think we were just ahead of our time, given the uber Michael Mann HD visual effects from the new film (which I understand are probably the best thing about it).

The following constants apply:

• I love football.
• I love most sport, really.
• I love broadcasting.
• I love the internet.

So it's not a bad job when you get to create broadcast and online coverage of football (and most sport, really). Today was our 'trial run' for the season ahead with Reading FC entertaining Feyenoord in a friendly and London Irish rugby club taking part in the Middlesex Sevens tournament at Twickenham.

I'm really getting into this football season, so much so that having spent all afternoon working on sport I came home and watched Football Tonight on Sky for another hour for highlights, results and interviews. Why can't I find any football league highlights programme anywhere? Who's got the rights? Don't tell me I've got to wait til Sunday night or Monday, bloody hell.

Good job the Premiership starts next week so I'll have MOTD to come home to (with Reading on it!). Reading v Middlesbrough on Saturday, Chelsea v Manchester City on Sunday, fantastic stuff. I even get to run a fantasy football league and get paid for it this time!

Nikki has been voted in to rejoin the five remaining Big Brother housemates as the mammoth series crawls into its final week. Once again the nation - and the four voting contestants who brought Nikki back - have been seduced by stupidity. I'd have had Grace in. Evil is the source of all good television.

I made a discovery earlier today that I can't resist sharing with you.

It was drawn to my attention around lunchtime that my colleague Linda didn't know who Super Secret Secret Squirrel was. Do you?

Right. For the uninitiated, Super Secret Secret Squirrel was a shady sciurine figure who appeared in cartoons in the 1990s - usually, if not exclusively, following the animation 'Two Stupid Dogs', of similarly legendary status.

The original Secret Squirrel debuted in the 1960s (squirrels - cool in every decade). It seems he hibernated during much of the 1980s before emerging not just Secret, but Super Secret Secret.

This much information I was able to impart to Linda. But I needed a photo and some more details. Lo and behold, Wikipedia hoves into view.

"Oh God," I hear you cry, "not another journalist yakking on about Wikipedia." But that's not where I'm going with this, I've known all about Wikipedia and liked it for quite a long time.

What I did not know is that Wikipedia has a category dedicated to "Fictional Squirrels".

It's a Who's Who of make-believe squirrels! Can you believe that someone, somewhere, has had the time and inclination to pull together the sum total of man's fictional squirrel knowledge in one place?

People complain about Wikipedia's reliability, accuracy and authenticity, but you show me the pages of Encyclopaedia Britannica with fictional squirrels in them. Go on. Try it.

Not only that but I was able to use Wikipedia to establish that "sciurine" is the appropriate squirrel adjective (as per "bovine" for cow or "feline" for cat). And yes, in this post-Hutton world, I did check it against a separate source.

See, now I like Aisleyne, and I like Grace. So putting the two of them together in the same room, if only for 21 minutes, was going to be interesting.

Grace, put back in the House Next Door having been evicted at least a month ago, got 21 minutes in the main Big Brother house to celebrate her 21st birthday. Aisleyne, who despises Grace for pouring water over Suzie when the former was evicted, couldn't resist.

She started having a go. Grace completely dealt with her. Oh, how I laughed. Aisleyne, where once I valued you most highly, you've just been blown out of the water by the Queen Bitch herself.

How can anyone want dopey Nikki anywhere near this house when we could have a good week or so of Aisleyne versus Grace action? That would rock. Time will shortly tell - more soon.