It shouldn't be this exciting but it is - I can get my work email at home and I'm thrilled about it. Most people would run screaming from the notion, but I've been in and out of my inbox like an e-ferret all evening.

When I joined the BBC I was quite surprised that getting work email at home was apparently not on the cards for most of our staff. It's all based in Outlook which means you can only check your email once you're logged in on a BBC PC.

Unless, that is, you have one of those exciting little key-fob things that you can see on the left of the picture. It generates a random six-digit number every thirty seconds - all you do is go to the special BBC Webmail site, pop your username and password in, then add the random six-digit number to a special four-digit number you already know, and you're in! Top notch security and email for all.

But perhaps the best part is it's not just email. The BBC intranet is called Gateway and it's huge - you can find all sorts of documents there and do everything, from signing up for Hostile Environments training to reading about what will happen on Radio 4 when Nelson Mandela dies. It's also got the news wires on it with all the clips you hear in your news bulletins.

Oh, and it's got every single thing that was on telly on BBC1 or BBC2 for the past fortnight, available to watch again at 350kb per second. So I've not missed last week's Life On Mars after all! It's almost too good to be true. I'll probably get a phone call shortly from some poor engineer trying to keep the whole network online under the strain of my telly catch-up needs.

The ultimate best bit? Take a look at the name of the tab in which my Webmail is displayed above. The system on which all this is based is called the "Whale Communications Portal". When you first install it, your computer proudly announces it is "Downloading Whale", then "Installing Whale", and finally "Launching Whale". Of all these brilliant design features, the name is by far the best.

Post title in honour of "Network Wail", written three and a half years ago, to show I can still butcher the same old pun.

This has been a very long but very, very good day.

It started with this morning's early sport shift at work, relatively pleasant although unspectacular. But the moment that ended, it all kicked off.

Literally so, in fact. Our top member of the Dayorama recurring character list, Amy J, found herself with no better offer than an afternoon in the pub watching the League Cup Final with me, so I picked her up from Reading station (via a rail replacement bus from Oxford to Didcot for the poor woman), and off we went in search of a suitable venue.

On the way out of Reading we received a sign that the day was going to be a bit special. Driving into the village of Sonning Common there is a field on the right hand side of the road. Suddenly Amy J shouted, "It's the end of the rainbow!" And sure enough, in that field, you could see the end of a rainbow.

I have never seen anything like it - I was sure the whole point of rainbows was that this never, ever happened, but right in front of us was the actual terminus of a rainbow. It disappeared into the fabric of the field. Sadly we were disappearing into the fabric of Sonning Common before we could record this on camera. Yes, I know people say similar things when they see Nessie or Bigfoot, but really. Truly. Honestly. I'll never see that again.

At the very least, this unlikely sighting suggested itself as a good omen, so we pressed on in search of the Holy Grail: a pub with a telly and food. It was approaching 3pm and kick-off when we got to my home village of Stokenchurch, and we had the choice of two pubs in the centre.

• The King's Arms Hotel: posh, swanky, refined, well upholstered, ample parking, empty, plenty of food, no telly
• The Four Horseshoes: cheap, cheerful, looks a bit knackered, throw the car up against the pavement outside and hope for the best, absolutely rammed full of football fans, answer was "I'll see if there's anything left" when asked about food, but TELLY with FOOTBALL on it

You know which one we went for. We went to the bar with a view to taking a free table at the back of the pub, which was quite far from the TV but it'd do, to find out more about the food situation. The barmaid insisted we go through to the restaurant to order some food, and we could bring it back into the bar to watch the game.

Through we went and we emerged into some kind of culinary paradise. There, in front of a few rows of relatively elderly people cheerfully noshing away, was a portly, welcoming gentleman stood behind a carvery. Lamb, beef, ham and pork were all on display, with an armada of pots and pans holding all manner of vegetables and the like, plus gravy, Yorkshire puddings and roast potatoes by the dozen.

I let Amy go first. "Can I have the lamb please?" She said.
"Of course!" He replied. "Here, have this lamb shank." And out of some tin foil there magically appeared an entire lamb shank. "And there's this lamb too," he added, picking up all the remains of the day's lamb and bundling the lot onto Amy's plate. "Oh and have some beef." On went the beef.

Well by this time I was quaking at the thought of having discovered The Bottomless Carvery, and I walked away with beef and pork, accompanied by a large quantity of Yorkshires and potatoes. All this for £7 each in what has to be the bargain of the century.

Back to the bar we went with not a moment to spare for the football, and we sat at the back table where we could just about see the telly. But then we noticed another television hanging close by on the wall to our right, above a beautiful, roaring, open fire.

I popped to the bar and politely enquired why it wasn't working.
"Oh, it is working!" Said the gentleman who'd just given me half a farm to eat. "I'll switch it on."
Lo and behold we had our own, private widescreen television for the whole of the League Cup Final, with our own table, and a mountain of food and drink.

The game wasn't exactly bad either, was it? Two goals in the opening 20 minutes including one for Berkshire's very own Theo Walcott (must try to get him onto our sports show), the whole John Terry affair for which the phrase "sickening blow" was invented, and the great big brawl at the end with Mourinho and Wenger both on the pitch. Can't ask for much more.

We rounded off the evening watching Spaced on DVD - a series I'd never even heard of til today, despite it being produced six or seven years ago. It's got Bill Bailey in it so it automatically comes recommended, and one episode in particular has reignited my dormant passion for paintballing. Then Top Gear with the grim timeliness of their feature in which a car at a level crossing is crushed by an oncoming train.

To finish, a cautionary tale. It is sometimes difficult, when bringing a girl home to the family unannounced, to make it precisely clear what the relationship is - or isn't - with said girl to avoid later confusion.

This is particularly the case if the girl realises we are both reeking of smoke from the pub and, when upstairs having said initial hellos, asks to borrow a clean shirt to solve the problem. Hours later it occurs to me that disappearing to my bedroom with Amy J, only for her to return to dinner a little later wearing my clothes, may have given off somewhat unintended signals. Wait til we get a house together...

"Go away for a few days, and do something that forces you to relax," said the Doctor. So I did.

Trains and beer.

Almost two years ago, I embarked on a mission of sheer dalliance, combining the two great passions of every boy and man in the kingdom and taking them to extremes. A chance encounter with some leaflets at Bristol Temple Meads introduced me to the concept of the 'Rail Ale Trail', which does precisely what it says on the sleeve - in this case, taking you on a tour of Wessex via the salient drinking points in each locale. Armed with a drinking buddy, a timetable and quite literally the most fluid of plans, an entire week was spent crawling between Bristol and Weymouth and the various real ale pubs en-route - 28 in all.

I can't remember much beyond Frome, but I know it's one of the best holiday's I've ever had. It's not just that it was a pub crawl on an enormous scale; it took us to parts of the countryside we'd never seen before, and gave us an excuse to support some of the rural micro-breweries... by macro-drinking them out of house and home.

So imagine my delight when I realised there are more of these things to be done....

Having 'planned' a week off in February, the timing was perfect. The trail would be purely medicinal, and any liquids taken on board the same, ensuring the patient remains well hydrated at all times.

I decided I'd tackle the Tarka trail between Exeter and Barnstaple. It's a notoriously scenic line, and one I haven't travelled for years. With 19 pubs on the trail, 14 stations on the line (many of them request stops), and 11 trains a day in each direction, it was unlikely my three-day jaunt would be earning me the commemorative beer glass, awarded to those with a fully stamped leaflet. But, played sensibly, I might just manage a t-shirt for Ollie...

The casual drinker may decide to begin his trail at one end of the line, and drink his way to the other. However, the "experienced beer traveller" (as I was termed by one of the wonderful landlords I met) knows that to maximise his drinking time, he must juggle the sticky thorns of opening hours and irregular train times - and here, that meant starting in the middle.

Welcome to Morchard Road station, one of the more remote outposts on the line, served by a mere ten trains per day, and then only if you wave your hand like fury at the approaching train. It's so remote you can hear your train approaching from miles away, echoing around the Yeo valley on the clickety-click unwelded track. What a great feeling of adventure it is late at night to watch lights emerging from an otherwise pitch black landscape, and to have the train stop just for you with one flash of the light from your mobile 'phone.

I got to enjoy it twice at Morchard Road, for that's where I based myself on the first night, in digs above the pub itself. A wise choice, as you can see...

After my first (and second) pint of the trail at The Devonshire Dumpling, an evening in Barnstaple beckoned, where a three hour window between arrival and last train allowed all four town pubs to be ticked off. Opposite one of the four, a reminder that we're very lucky still to have the Tarka line:

Here's the old Barnstaple Town station, on the opposite side of the River Yeo to the current Barnstaple station (formerly Barnstaple Junction) and long since lost from the railway map. A late casualty of Dr Beeching, it's a clue that Barnstaple used to be a hive of railway activity, with lines to Lynton (closed in 1935), Bideford (1965) and Ilfracombe (1970). Lengthy express trains would stop on their way to/from London, and goods traffic would come and go from the enormous yard at Barnstaple Junction. The Town station is now a school, though the old sign lives on... as, happily, does the truncated line to Exeter.

Thank goodness - quite apart from being a lifeline to the communities it serves (barely a seat is free at peak times), it's the line that takes us to the pub.

An evening's drinking in Barnstaple should have warranted something of a lie in the following morning, but there was no such luck. Miss the 0944 from Morchard Road, and that's your lot 'til 1452. In that time, I had at least two pubs earmarked for a visit.

Punch drunk on weather and scenery, I decided to re-do the trip to Barnstaple in daylight (I'm glad I did), before returning to remotest Eggesford:

It's hard to enjoy sights like this and believe that you're not on some preserved railway or other, with stations and atmospheres carefully pickled in aspic. This is a functional line, working hard for its existence, and the fact that it's beautiful is treated as a happy bonus.

You'll find precious few houses in Eggesford, but you will find an early opener in the form of The Fox & Hounds, more of a hotel than a pub, and a little more polished than I'd have liked in such a rural location. It was also one of three pubs to stare in amazement as I produced my Rail Ale Trail leaflet and asked them to stamp it. Here, far from the official stamp (which some pubs treasure in a locked cabinet, or with pride of place behind the bar), I received a cheque stamp across my booklet, together with the kind of smile that made me feel like a weirdo for asking. While we're at it, let's name and shame The Jolly Porter in Exeter and The Lamb in Barnstaple (the latter is nothing short of a dive, by the way), both of whom came up with similarly poor substitutes for the real thing. Frankly, if they're happy to accept the extra custom that something like the Rail Ale Trail must draw, the least they can do is play along with the game.

Thank goodness for The Rising Sun up the line at Umberleigh, which has everything right. From the moment I collected my leaflet, people had suggested this as a good venue for lunch, and I even overheard two men in a pub 20 miles away discussing their next visit - mine would be sooner. A barman who clearly lives and breathes the pub gave a welcome like no other, and for the second time I found myself walking away from the bar having forgotten to pay. It was just like popping round to a friend's for a beer. A top class chef friend, that is.

A hefty lunch necessitated a hefty walk. I picked a hill and decided to climb to the top, before deciding halfway-up that the view probably couldn't get any better.

(The train sits in this photo like it's some co-incidence it passed as I clicked the shutter. Actually, I waited 35 minutes to see it. Still, the panting had subsided after 25...)

It's difficult to imagine the Tarka Line as a major express route. For much of its length today there's just a single track. Looking down on Umberleigh station from the road bridge, it's almost a typical branch line scene. Look carefully though, and you'll see the second platform past which the Atlantic Coast Express ('ACE' to its many friends) once hurtled on its way to London...

Having exhausted the top end of the line, I returned to Exeter to find digs, ahead of what I suspected would be a night of passion. The southern end of the line plays host to the undoubted star of the trail, the cleverly named Beer Engine at Newton St. Cyres, which not only brews its own beer but lets you see it being done and offers you the chance to take away a few kegs! Timing my stop to coincide with dinner, I shoehorned in visits to The Mare & Foal in Yeoford and The Crediton Inn (both worthy of a more lengthy stop if you can), and arrived at The Beer Engine just after 9pm. I wasn't disappointed.

It's hard to imagine how it could be better. It feels like some undiscovered jewel in the trail, brewing away in the middle of nowhere and yet comfortably filled with happy drinkers and diners enjoying the time of their lives. The pub has a railway theme, with beautifully sign-written notices pointing the way to "First Class Beer", and even railway references in the names of their three main brews. I fell in love with Piston Bitter, and not just because it's the best pun I've seen this year.

Armed with my carrykeg, I staggered my way back to the tiny platform at Newton St. Cyres three pints and a lemon sole heavier, but light of heart. One of those moments where the atmosphere is all.

With 10 pubs down, I'd scheduled a little time for drinking in Exeter the following afternoon, but couldn't go home without the essential trip along the Dawlish sea wall. It's my favourite stretch of railway line in this country, with sea on one side of the train, and red rock on the other. I jumped on at Exeter Central to be sure of a good seat, so was understandably disappointed to find that First Great Western's window cleaner had apparently got the year off...

(Understandably, the trains take quite a battering on rough days, so I'll find it in my heart to forgive them - but let's hope they get this sorted for the tourist season.)

The briefest of stops at Teignmouth gave me time to enjoy one of my all time favourite stations, followed by a trip to Starcross to enjoy another all time favourite. Why do fish and chips taste better when the view looks like this?

I even managed to build in an 'extra' pub, The Atmospheric Railway Inn in Starcross, which is a must for anybody interested in the history of Devon's railways. No stamp, I just fancied a drink...

So to Exeter, a final two official pubs, and home. I'm still reeling from the atmosphere of three days spent in the tranquillity of Devon's prettiest villages, on trains we're very lucky to have. Long may any initiative continue that helps to bolster loadings on our rural railways (not that the Barnstaple line seemed to need it much), particularly when they draw you into the local communities too. Like anything, a Rail Ale Trail is probably best tackled with a pal or two in tow, but you'll never be short of company en route if you do decide to go it alone - the local people know what you're up to, and share in your adventure whenever they can.

The minute the leaflets in front of me stop spinning, I'll be planning the next one.

On last night's Match Of The Day, some plonker in the MOTD graphics department got it badly wrong at the start of the Charlton v West Ham highlights.

In the background behind Gary Lineker appeared the club crests of Charlton and... Spurs! The dang fool had somehow mixed Spurs and West Ham up, so while Lineker yakked on about the Hammers, the Tottenham crest rotated serenely above his left ear.

Now I imagine very few people have, or crave, the dubious honour of being awake to watch both the Saturday night and Sunday morning versions of Match Of The Day. But clearly this crass club crest calamity (say that when you're drunk) caused someone plenty of concern, since in this morning's version, it's magically been corrected!

One can only assume they dragged the poor man Lineker back into the studio at the end of Saturday's live broadcast and made him re-do his link. The things he has to put up with - if it's not graphics going wrong, it's football managers walking into his shot.

This is exactly the sort of thing that makes every football fan convinced the BBC hates their club, by the way. I've seen plenty of Reading fans complaining about coverage on BBC Sport Online (a favourite seems to be to confuse the club with Portsmouth), and in the latest edition of Man City fanzine King Of The Kippax, there's a whole two-page spread devoted to one man's analysis of how often the club feature last on MOTD.

I can categorically state that nobody who puts the highlights together, or works for BBC Sport, actively tries to confuse Reading with Portsmouth or put Man City last in the billing. Essentially, the problem is thus: imagine how many people work for the BBC department looking after your football club. Now divide that number by three. That's how many people are actually working in that BBC department, and they've probably got an entire division of clubs in their care. Portsmouth... Reading... QPR... Luton... Celtic - they could all blur into one, couldn't they?

What do you reckon a BBC local radio station has to do to get listeners threatening to boycott it?

Perhaps holding a Justin Timberlake day - "all Justin, all the time" with special Timberlake bulletins entitled "News Justin" - would do it.

Or maybe illustrating a news story about cruelty to animals by taking a microphone, strapping it to a hubcap, and setting out to run over some kittens.

Failing that, setting up an "Exchange" with a Swedish station - we go there and broadcast in English for a week, the come here and broadcast in Swedish - might prove unpopular.

All of which I'd consider far more heinous crimes than inviting a tabloid journalist onto a football phone-in, but a few people who contribute to our message board beg to differ.

Oliver Holt, Daily Mirror sports writer, is due to appear on Friday night's show. He has incurred the wrath of Reading fans recently by penning a series of very negative articles about the club - slating some of the players and the owner in terms a lot of supporters find deeply offensive.

Given the strength of animosity between Holt, the club, and its many fans, we thought it would be good to get him onto the show and make him accountable. He can write what he likes in the national press and it can be quite difficult to openly challenge a print journalist - after all you can write to his paper, but will they print it? Plus, nowadays, all the vitriolic emails you find the time to send can be deleted at the press of one, maybe two buttons.

So the plan is to get Holt onto the programme and find out what it is that makes him tick. Why, when so many people are so positive about Reading in the Premiership, does Holt beg to differ? Is it simply to sell papers or does he really believe in what he writes? Are there aspects of the club he doesn't properly understand (like the chairman's involvement), or aspects where he's wilfully blinkered himself? I for one would like to know what his priorities are for each article he writes - does he think he's writing serious football articles? Is he surprised that people pay his thoughts much attention? Had he always wanted to do this job, for this newspaper?

Alas, some Reading fans seem to think this is a step too far. All day I've been dealing with a small minority of supporters on the message board who insist they're not going to listen, and they'll blacklist the radio station for even giving Holt the time of day.

I think this attitude is a bit silly. It does not bode well for free speech in this country if a journalist who dislikes Reading is not allowed on air because Reading fans are uncomfortable with what he has to say. The whole point is that it's a forum to challenge his views that is otherwise quite tricky to come by - when was the last time you got to have your say to a national print journalist with whom you disagreed strongly?

Morever, the station is now being treated as though it's lined every Reading fan up, then run down the line kicking each one individually in the teeth. This is nonsense. We've spent all season talking to great guests on our phone-in about how well Reading are doing, and why that should be. The one time we introduce someone who doesn't like the club, and isn't prepared to indulge in the collective wallowing in all the recent success, it's as though we've shot Kingsley the lion (club mascot).

Personally I'd have thought it's an interesting exercise in working out why one journalist thinks it's worth sticking his neck out and trying to dislike a club that everyone else has welcomed into the Premiership quite gladly. Turning it into a witch-hunt and threatening a plague upon all our houses isn't making the most of what is a good opportunity to properly question one of only two or three real "Bad Guys" fans have come across in the top flight (we could possibly add Mourinho and Neil Warnock).

Tomorrow's also the first day of our new sports programme by the way, produced by yours truly. We've got some nice boxing stuff plus basketball and non-league football, to be followed by live rugby commentary. Tune in from 6pm!

I have an apology to make. Since my rise to television last week, I've been far too preoccupied - autographs, A-list parties and, of course loves, doing coffee - to have posted here. Of course, you all think it sounds very glamorous, but I assure you, it's just a way of life for little old me; the way I pass my time between in-vision engagements...

Or it could just be that I've been ill. Again.

Since my flirtation with what turned out to be "just flu" a few weeks ago, I've not been feeling right. Ollie will testify that I've been a grouchy little bugger, snapping without warning, and at times throwing tantrums of the kind usually associated with people less than a quarter of my age.

I'll hold my hands up to those charges (well, as far as my ailment will allow), but will say in my defence, I've been a very worried man.

Just as the usual symptoms of flu began to subside about a week ago, I began to develop some pretty nasty extras which - sparing you the full details - have pretty much come to affect the parts of my body I use most every day: hands, feet, legs, and worse. Dr Google's diagnoses of the said symptoms seemed unanimous in forecasting my untimely demise, and consequently I've thought of little else.

Today though, I discovered what's really going on. Far from the killer diseases helpfully suggested by the Google School of Medicine, it turns out I've contracted something that is fairly mainstream and commonplace... at least in the nursery school. Yes, some 20 years after conflict was scheduled, my flu-ridden immune system has been confronted in battle by King Impetigo, his army of bacteria bolstered through the years to give a particularly gruesome fight.

For those who've never had the pleasure, impetigo is a particularly nasty skin complaint which usually affects infants. You can only admire the Doctor's diplomacy as she spotted (like it?) the symptoms in a 25 year old man, asking if I "worked with children, at all?". Bemused to find that I'm the second youngest in my workplace, her line of questioning switched to whether I'd "recently played any contact sport?", as apparently rugby players share this with each other all the time. Her face, bless her, showed that she'd already worked out the answer to that one.

So, it's a mystery. The bug is apparently airborne, and can therefore be caught at any time if your immune system is sufficiently knackered. Otherwise, it's a touching thing, passed on by communal use of towels, flannels, even office equipment. My flatmate has already begun burning my possessions, just in case.

But if Ollie, having negotiated his own telly piece from Newcastle in a few weeks, suddenly and mysteriously disappears from these parts for any length of time, we'll have confirmation of another carrier of this bizarre and unpleasant ailment. This never used to happen when we were just on the radio...

Anyone who catches themselves listening to our radio station all day (and these people do exist) must vaguely wonder what my job title is.

I was woken up at 8:30am by work phoning to ask if I could go to the Madejski Stadium as quickly as possible, to be in place when the queues at the ticket office started to build. Reading fans are understandably very keen to get their hands on tickets for the FA Cup replay against Manchester United, and the ticket office opened at 10am. So I duly threw some clothes on and nipped over to the stadium for a piece on our mid-morning programme.

Only after that did I remember I was supposed to be on air talking about cricket umpiring, later in the same programme. So I had to dash back to the newsroom, edit all the stuff for the umpiring feature, and go and do that. From live reporter at a football stadium to extended umpiring discussion in two hours.

During the afternoon our sports presenter had to go and have his compulsory fire training (had mine: the essential message was either get out or stay in, but we're not sure which). So I took over sport bulletins for a couple of hours in his absence.

And just after 4:30pm, with no one else from the web team in work (one on holiday, one on scheduled day off), I did the "what's on the web" feature for our drivetime programme. The topic: an interview with the father of one of the men who murdered Reading schoolgirl Mary-Ann Leneghan. From football, to cricket, to bulletins, to murderers.

As David pointed out to me, this is by no means unheard of at our station. Our gardening expert routinely presents travel bulletins, for example. Not that I mind, and not that I think it really affects anything. We're not exactly overflowing with staff so it's by necessity that we take our Alan Titchmarsh and give him some traffic cameras to watch. Stay tuned for Gary Lineker with Crimewatch UK...

By the way, rather excitingly, I'm now definitely going up to Newcastle in a couple of weeks to follow the Reading Rockets basketball team. They're in the final of the EBL National Trophy, and I'll be on the coach with the team and supporters, at the team hotel, then courtside at the game, with a TV camera. Frankly I don't have a job title, because you can't call that a job, can you?

Well, if you are so inclined, this week has been pretty interesting for lawyers. In the news I mean. On Monday, we bega with the public humiliation of Rothschild by the Take-over panel. There were various other snippets, and then of course the rather tragic death of the Associate at Freshfields. I don't want to speculate as to whether it was intentional. His memory doesn't deserve that, nor do his family. It's really quite bizarre when the stictly personal life of a normal member of the public suddenly gets turned upside down And a law firm, at the midst of its recruiting events is made to look like a slave machine. I know it makes a good story. I know it fills the column inches in the law journals, but sometimes... can't people just be left alone?

A very kind lady at the University of Reading press office has sent me this photo with, presumably, the aim of destroying my soul:

There is no redeeming feature to that photo. None. I don't even know why I'm sharing it, especially given I'm going to a party at OJ's place where, last time, lots of people said they read Dayorama. If you see me there tonight, don't mention this, thanks.

This man probably thinks I'm a plonker.

At some stage in their career, everyone in radio finds themselves locked in battle with their equipment. It's mutually assured destruction: your stuff isn't working so you're not working either. You can't get on air if you can't broadcast. It's seriously stressful in a live situation and you quickly learn which people around you can or can't cope with it when it happens. You also quickly learn if you can cope.

Even if you're not live on air, chances are you're working to a deadline and people back at the studio are expecting you to fill a sizeable gap in their running order. Today I abandoned a day off to go and interview the Olympic rower and twice gold medallist James Cracknell, who was opening a brand new multi-million-pound fitness centre at the University of Reading.

The centre is gorgeous. You can look at some photos I took here, but rest assured it's the kind of place that makes even me want to start going to the gym more often. There is a whole bank of plasma TVs showing BBC News 24 and Sky Sports on the wall in front of the running machines, while some of the step machines and cycling machines have their very own TV sets built into the consoles. There's light, there's space, there's all manner of equipment, and it's all brand spanking new. Reading's fine young rowers, eleven of whom are on special sports scholarships with a view to becoming Olympic champions, all had one word for it when I asked them: "brilliant".

Which isn't what James Cracknell thought of the facilities he had when he was at the University of Reading back in the early 1990s. According to him the weights room was a bit like a broom cupboard and nobody even knew where it was - other training facilities were frequented more often by drunks than by athletes, to the extent that it required a special key to unlock them in the unlikely event of anyone wanting to train.

Those days are long gone, and that's precisely the message I wanted to convey when I dragged the poor man into a quiet corner of the fitness centre to be interviewed. I'd recorded the opening ceremony in full but no radio package is complete without a solid one-to-one interview, plus, frankly, I'd quite like to speak to someone with two Olympic gold medals to their name. I think most people would.

I still use the recording equipment I was given in the first week of my postgrad. It has never let me down and I understand it inside out, having been thoroughly well trained on all the various menus and buttons. But it's common practice to do a quick "level check" on someone - ask their name or what they had for breakfast while recording it - before each interview, to make sure all is well.

All was not well. James Cracknell set off talking and the small lights on top of my recording device, which leap up and down according to the sound reaching the microphone, barely moved. I stopped James to solve whatever small problem was preventing the thing working properly.

Five minutes later I had an extremely polite but doubtless less than thrilled Olympic champion stood next to me, while I emptied out the batteries and ferreted around all those menus I thought I knew so well. The little lights steadfastly refused to recommence leaping, and abject panic was beginning to set in. Not only did I have a drivetime programme waiting for five minutes of James Cracknell, but I had James Cracknell waiting for five minutes of James Cracknell.

Somewhere in the distance lurked an equally unimpressed press officer (ITV having been and gone by now), with all the other dignitaries having gone for lunch. It's at around that moment, face burning beetroot, sweat tingling on the brow, that I'd have really liked all £2m of fitness centre to eat me up and bury me beneath a particularly heavy treadmill. Champion rower MBE remained utterly unperturbed. I became immensely perturbed.

After more fruitless faffing around I'd all but given up when suddenly I remembered a godsend from those halcyon postgrad days - the recording device has an internal microphone. Now I know what you're thinking: yes, internal microphones are shockingly poor and no match for a normal microphone. But when your normal microphone's taken the Robbie Williams approach to working (stopped lighting up and gone off), there's not much choice.

So having remembered how to change the appropriate setting and switch on the internal microphone, back I went to James Cracknell. The lights came on! Having established where the tiny little internal mic lived, I held the brick of a recorder at his face and recorded the whole interview. I then apologised around 30 more times than were probably strictly necessary, and scampered off home in a fit of deepest embarrassment.

To my absolute relief and delight, the finished article doesn't sound bad at all. In fact, you'd struggle to tell it apart from my normal microphone (being indoors with no wind helped - outdoors it'd have been a write-off). Have a listen here, and see if you can hear that little quiver of despair in my voice. Oh and if you're reading, James, sorry. Again.

While studying for a postgrad in broadcasting, you have to do a fair bit of work about media law. The exams at the end often take the form of questions like:

"You receive a call in the newsroom at 5.30am from a pig farmer. He proceeds to tell you he is absolutely certain that he just saw local MP Jeremy Bogstaff engaged in grossly inappropriate conduct with a farmhand, down behind the barn. What steps do you take in covering this story?"

The answer is not:

"It's six o'clock, I'm Ollie Williams. Our top story this hour: local MP Jeremy Bogstaff has been round the back of the barn again sniffing cocaine off the pigswill-stained backside of another poor farm boy."

Instead there's the usual rigmarole of having to stand up some legal defence or other before we're confident we can carry a story. The most useful one is being able to prove it's actually true, a defence rarely available to any British tabloid.

But the thing with these questions is you always think: does this really happen? Will I really get a call from a voyeuristic farmer who happened to think the best thing to do was ring the local radio station? Will it really just be down to me to make a decision?

And then you get a brilliant real life example to prove just how these things can and do happen.

A friend of mine lives next door to the girlfriend of a Premiership footballer. Yesterday he texted me to tell me he'd just seen this footballer leaving the house in floods of tears, and that it looked like they had split up.

Tonight I got another frantic text:

"Give me a quick call sometime, can you? You will not believe what is happening here."

It's like those bits in Star Trek when Scotty's voice appears on the intercom. "Captain, I think yae shud come down here an' see this." He can't just tell us what's wrong - we have to all go and look before we're any the wiser.

Having waited forty minutes til the end of Life On Mars (priorities), I gave him a call.

"You won't believe it. You remember my text from yesterday, yeah? Well he came back today and somehow broke in, and had to be restrained! The police have been round here twice today. There's talk of a restraining order and everything."

Obviously it's not wise for tomorrow's sports bulletins to start with, "We think a Premiership footballer's gone postal and he might get a restraining order". For a start radio stations tend to nurture their relationships with football clubs and it would wreck that overnight. But that's no excuse for not running a story - it's very hard to ignore something like this when one of your reporters is seeing it all with their own eyes.

What will always stop us is the fact that there's very little we can prove and in all honesty, what's our Premiership footballer done wrong? Had a row with the ex and been led away to simmer down, apparently. It's a good episode of Dream Team but it's really none of our business until it winds up in something like a court.

I think we'll go for the answer the law exams never give you. "Wait for a tabloid to print it, then go to town with the line 'reports claim that...'." In the mean time, camera phones at the ready boys.

In the great tradition of moving from one extreme to another, here's my new best friend:

Since my flatmate went away last week, our dear cat Basil and I have entered a new and unexpected era. Far from the frightened feline who ventured from beneath the bed only when he could be certain that no human life was nearby, our kitty has without warning found his confidence, cheek and meow. So relentless has been his quest for my company in the last few days, I've started to hide from him.

Not that he's beyond seeking me out, of course...

Every morning for five days, I've been awoken by a very different alarm to normal, one with a great sense of urgency to its ring. No snooze button will silence the meow of Basil in the wee small hours, but only an invitation to join me in the warmth of my duvet where, hopefully, a few more hours may be taken before the meowing resumes. Usually in my ear.

From the second I enter the house to the moment I (pretend to) exit, my shadow is stalked by little white paws. He knows my routine better than I; he waits by the kitchen table, knowing that's where I'll bring the mail; he chases me to the rack of CDs in my room, and then to the stereo in the lounge, probably knowing it'll be Boz Scaggs again; he even waits for me outside the loo, meowing periodically to make certain I haven't fallen in.

So why the sudden affection? One school of thought is that he's feeling lonely in the absence of Bryony, under whose bed he usually sleeps, and who generally spends more time in the house than her erratic broadcasting flatmate. Another says it's only Bryony he fears, and therefore he's making metaphorical hay in her absence.

My money (quite literally) goes on the fact I went out on Wednesday and bought the most delicious looking cat food I could find, far more expensive than his usual cuisine which often goes untouched. He's been wolfing that down just as quickly as he's been coming to Uncle David to ask for a tummy tickle... or is it just to ask for more? The answer could simply be that we have a cat with expensive tastes and a nose for the more refined dish. Cats like Basil, like basil, obviously.

Much as he currently appears to be man's best friend, he's just being a cat after all...

On Friday night, one of the members of management at work came over and asked me how I'd feel about starting a marathon in front of a few thousand people, live on air and on a tannoy at the same time.

I was terrified.

It's all well and good doing sports bulletins etc on air - you're in a studio with your mates and no matter how many million people are listening, you can't see any of them. It doesn't feel like there's an audience there.

Stood in front of more than two thousand people about to start a 13-mile half marathon, it's a bit different. Everyone's watching you, and most of those people are willing you to shut up so they can get on with the running. Plus you've got to make sure you go live on air at the same time as the tannoy, and you've got to make sure the race starts at the right time.

Ideally what you'd like in that situation is plenty of time to get your bearings and feel comfortable about what's happening. That wasn't really on offer so Sunday morning came round in a bit of a blur, and I hardly slept a wink last night.

It was nervewracking to say the least, but it seemed to go fairly well - not least because, with the headphones on, you can hardly hear the tannoy so you could pretend it wasn't really there. In no time at all the klaxon had sounded and everyone was jogging past us. In fact, it all sounded a bit like this:

We were privileged to watch a gentleman named Williard set a brand new record for this particular half marathon - one hour, four minutes and fifty-two seconds (there'll be an interview with him on the Berkshire site tomorrow). We were less privileged to accidentallly bury our radio car in the sodden, muddy grass next to the start/finish line. It eventually had to be winched to safety by a kind gentleman in a 4x4 with a rope. Embarrassing but I'm sure there's some commitments to grass-roots sport in there somewhere.

All this in the same morning as England won the cricket! The first I knew was when someone else announced it in the tannoy, and I was listening with as much delight as anyone else to our reporter Pat Murphy during my sports bulletin. An unlikely victory in what was, in many respects, an unlikely morning.

I feel like I've been doing my job forever. And that's just today.

For today was one of those rare occasions when BBC local radio is given a chance by just about everybody to prove what it can do. Like the Fire Brigade, people find it reassuring to know we're there, but for many it would take a local emergency to break them away from their trusted morning routine to begin listening to the unknown. And besides, isn't local radio just for old people?

Our job as public service broadcasters is to give them what they came for: school closures, travel news, weather forecasts which mention their very hamlet, let alone their next village or town. But if we're worth our sorts as a radio station, we'll jolly well show them what else we do fantastically on a daily basis, and keep 'em on side for tomorrow. I, along with countless others, have spent my day trying to do just that.

My day started at precisely 0436 with a call to say the presenter of our Early Show was currently stranded in snow. By default, I made my way through the less exposed roads of Berkshire and skidded into the studio with two minutes to go, waking the county with the most heartfelt account of the local roads it could possibly have hoped for. Five minutes later, I was joined on the 'phone by a reporter at the opposite end of the county who, for the sake of finding out how long it would take Berkshire's commuters, had already set off on a journey across the roads of East Berkshire. He started his piece (at 0505) with the line "Hooray, hooray - we have some snow today!". It said it all.

Our regular presenter was, as I put it, eventually "dug out with teaspoons", and arrived with news of impassable roads to the north of our patch, and before 0540 we'd painted a faithful picture of the entire county that I'm certain no other station had managed to do. And we'd played REM and Nelly Furtado (you'll note there's very little room for Joseph Lock these days), with the usual belting stories and gags in between.

In flooded the school closure calls from anxious head teachers, each worried they'd be the first - by 0630, we were reassuring them that dozens had thrown in the towel before them. By 0830, we had a list which granted a snowman licence to pupils of some 110 Berkshire schools, telling us they wouldn't be holding lessons today. I remembered that feeling of listening to the radio and hanging off the name of every school, hoping that mine would be next; bizarre to think I now had a hand in it.

By 0845, I was put on standby to present the mid-morning show of one Henry Kelly, now fighting his way to Berkshire by train having been unable to part car and driveway. With some relief, Henry arrived in good time (and excellent spirits, too), and I was able to afford a moment for coffee precisely five hours into my day.

Back in the newsroom by 0930, I set about editing a second trail showcasing highlights of our snow coverage. Only then, listening back to the morning's 'output' (a very clinical industry word to describe what comes out of Berkshire's speakers as a result of all this hard work), did I get a chance to appreciate quite how engaging the whole thing had been. Of course, there was no sense of laboured public service announcements or information exchanges - that's all a myth about local radio these days. But for the fact we were talking about important local things, we sounded - as we usually do - just like one of the big networks to which many of our new found listeners would normally have been glued.

I'm willing to bet they'll be with us tomorrow, and not just because the thawed foundations of this morning's snow are re-freezing as I write. They'll be there because our foundations on the dial are just as solid. I'm proud that the roots of my career are in BBC local radio; you should try it sometime.

Today's snow has meant all sorts of fun and games for all kinds of people in Dayorama's environs.

Amy J has been out making snowmen in the grounds of St Hugh's College.

My dad had to embark on the treacherous journey to his industrial unit early this morning. It's a big day for him tomorrow - he's running an auction in Northampton - so the snow couldn't be allowed to stop anything. We spent the early evening loading up a huge van as the ice began to get tricky again.

David knows the treacherous drive to work only too well, having been called out of bed at 4:35am to fill in on air for our usual early morning presenter, who was stuck in the snow. He calls today "the busiest" of his working career, but that's his story, not mine.

And I've been at home for most of the day, messing around in the snow in the back garden. The kids are all off school thanks to the conditions so we made snowmen, threw snowballs at each other, and threw snowballs at next door's kids. What more can you ask for?

So here's a picture special of the snow in our village. Hope you got some snow, and hope you enjoyed it without being too inconvenienced! Use the gadget below to browse through the photos, and click on any photo for a larger version hosted on Flickr.

Tesco is launching itself as "Fresh & Easy" in the USA with a series of stores set to open in the midwest and west coast, starting with Phoenix, Arizona.

Here's how Tim Mason, of Tesco USA, sold the idea to the British press:

"The Fresh & Easy Neighbourhood Market format is designed to draw customers back to their local neighbourhoods by offering high quality, fresh and nutritious food at affordable prices.

"Our company has enjoyed strong success in countries throughout Europe and Asia, and we are excited to bring that success to America."

[source: BBC News Online - 'Arizona gets first Tesco US store']

And here's how he sold it to the Arizona Republic newspaper:

"It is not a funny specialty store that sells imported things that a few Brits have a hankering for. It is very deliberately designed to meet the needs of the 21st-century American consumer."

[source: Arizona Republic - 'Tesco touts healthfulness, ease']

Funny how the mildly denigrating latter comment didn't make it over this side of the pond. Still, at least there's no danger of Tesco destroying the smaller town centre shops in Arizona. If they ever even existed they've long since been killed off by the indigenous grocery behemoths, let alone the plucky outsiders.

Meet Henry, my friend of old:

It's not a very good picture, but it's all he deserves. This week, he's proved himself to be far too small and flighty to withstand despeckling.

Contrary to how it may appear, Henry has always remained staunchly uncontactable outside the buildings he calls home in Oxford and Wimbledon (the 'phone' in the photograph is made of foam). A man of principle, over the years he's stood by and lost countless friends to their Nokia 7110s and Motorola StarTACs, each time a little more embittered at having his company put on-hold while yet another front is flipped.

Most of us, content with a succession of newer models, remembered our old friend with affection - and, for those of us who could put our 'phones down for long enough to think about it, a certain admiration. But not any more.

Henry writes:

The final bastion of the Old Order has fallen. The years of merciless attack had left me cold, alone, utterly defeated. A pale shadow of my former self, I was no match this weekend for the combined forces of my brother's old mobile phone and my father's old pay-as-you-go contract.

So. Happy now?

If you want to call me, I'll be in my room.

If you want to text me, I'll be in my room: [Henry's email address]

If I'm not in my room, I will be out engaged in Very Important Business or having a Very Nice Time with Other People, and will on no account answer any calls directed to [mobile number].

Please email me your numbers so that I may burn them. And never let it be said that I am not gracious in defeat.

Bastards.

Henry

I always knew something terrible like this would happen, and frankly, I'm disappointed. He's already stolen my penchant for real ale (previously he drank Carlsberg), and beaten me to London's best party venue for ale drinkers last year. Now this - and I bet he's got a better bloody mobile than I have.

When I think of the years of my life I've wasted on this man, arranging every single aspect of our meetings with absolute precision and then having to turn up on time. The rewards will be small; I shalln’t even have the pleasure of helping him to choose his first ringtone (my money's on the one they call "Provincial", which is the mobile 'phone's answer to a suburban housing development named "Badger's Rest"). In common with the many others who have stood by Henry and loudly taken our calls through the hard times, there'll be no credit for me.

He’ll soon be bothering us at all hours. In my experience, the late adopters tend to be worst when it comes to manners behind the mobile. Another of my good friends who withstood temptation for a number of years now passes the time between calls and texts with the odd game of snake. I remember when she had a right ear.

Well, I’m done with Henry, even if he does still leave an elegant double space after his full stops (I'm not allowed to these days). I shalln't be talking to him ever again, the swine. Not unless he texts me first.

On Facebook, that social networking site to which we continually refer and which you probably don't care much about, there is the opportunity to join - and create - groups.

My old university friend Mark has just joined a group called: "I'm Not Southern, I'm Not Northern, I'm From East Anglia!"

Now I realise there are one or two readers who may be mildly offended, but one has to ask why anybody would want to shout that fact from the rooftops, when it's generally agreed that East Anglia is at the very least geographically deficient (flat, boring, no decent roads), and probably lacking in many other faculties.

I had a quick look at the group and sure enough, right there in a group supposedly celebrating East Anglia, lies the very reason it's the subject of such scorn. Here's a comment from a lady named "Beca" (parents may have been unable to get as far as a recognised spelling), left on the group's page:

"what I really hat is that people only know where east engla is because jade bloody goody was dence enough to think it was abroad that readiclous. PLus they think its like 20 min from one side to the other. Nowrich and cambridge ar nowhere bloody near each other there in differen counties people make me mad."

Someone else has joined the group simply to vent long-held frustrations:

"Why are you proud to be whats commonly known as the a*se of England? I had to LIVE in suffolk! Actually live there!"

I've been to Colchester a couple of times, Norwich a couple of times, and spent a memorable evening in Great Yarmouth winning eight different cuddly toys out of those funny little grappling-hook machines. That'll do me.

A particularly interesting letter appeared in the inbox for the website's "Feedback" page yesterday. The sender had come to the feedback form via an article on two Reading girls' football players who'd gone for trials at Fulham FC. Here is the text of the letter in full:

Greetings to u in the name of our lord jesus christ,

I am a young footballer,with a great view of being in your team and by GOD grace taking us some were.

I submited an application to join your team i please do want you to highlight me more on how to go about it because i am realy interested in joining ur team,i had already stated in my application that i am a vibrant young football star with a dream,i have my video clips of little of my very best and my pictures maybe i can do forward my pix to ur mail so u see me,or rather my video clips.

I play for my club here in nigeria bafana fc,and solid rock fc,as a striker cus i excebit all it take to run it. But all the same i would like to come for a trial of playing with u and i promise you will never regrate me coming in jesus name. Ild like to hear from you as soon as you get my mail .here is my contact adress ... (deleted from mail).

Thank you

GOD bless

from Tobi

I've deleted Tobi's full contact details, but part of the address given was:

(Street name), Off Moshoba, By The Power Line, Ojodu, Ikeja, Nigeria

I refuse to believe this is your typical Nigerian spam - for a start it's asking for a trial at a football team, not money, and secondly it's quite some Nigerian spammer who approaches specifically via the page dedicated to trials with a football team.

Alas, Tobi's not going to get a gig with Fulham's girls or the BBC Berkshire charity team, but here's hoping something works out somewhere.

What a bizarre experience.

Our newsreader came over and asked if I knew how to switch one of our four newsroom TV sets to News 24. So I went to ferret out the remote controls, then wedged myself into the ridiculous little corner of the newsroom from whence you can actually get a line of sight to the digital boxes controlling them all.

At that moment, our sports editor started trying to manually get to News 24 by flipping buttons on the top of each TV. This has been known to occasionally work but since I was already on the task, I said quite loudly words to the effect of: "It's alright, I'm already trying to find News 24."

I eventually got News 24 on one of the screens, and added, quite loudly: "Right, we've got News 24."

It was then that our sports editor took a moment to talk to me, quite quietly.

"You know Faye's on News 24, don't you?" He said, pointing at Faye, our assistant news editor, sat at the desk next to us.

"How do you mean?"

"She's on News 24!" Again, accompanied by a gesture towards the screen. There was no Faye on the screen, just the presenters and some closed captioning.

"No she isn't!"

"On the phone!" In a frantic, hushed whisper.

I watched the closed captioning a little more closely. About three seconds after Faye spoke, her words were appearing, transcribed, in big yellow letters on the TV. I had just been shouting "We've got News 24!" on News 24.

The Sun has pulled off a blinder in acquiring the video footage of a friendly fire incident which killed a British soldier.

You can watch the full fifteen-minute video here. I just have done and, if you've ever played any Flight Simulator games, it's a bizarre, harrowing experience to see and hear what it's like behind the controls of a real fighter jet when something's just gone horribly, horribly wrong. Even listening to the audio alone is extremely powerful.

It's hard to believe that the first episode of Life On Mars aired over a year ago, and I can't wait for the new (and final) series to start on 13 February - particularly when the posters advertising the show's return are this good:

How clever of the folk in charge of the campaign, using the old-style BBC logos, lettering and house style (note "13th February", which you'd rarely if ever see now, in place of "13 February"). In the show, of course, the plot centres on a character who's been thrown back to the mid-1970s, from whence he's half-trying to escape while solving all sorts of crimes. At the same time, it could all be a dream and he could be in a coma. It's one hell of a plot.

And it's not just the posters which have had the 1970s treatment either. Look at this brilliant trail for the show, taken from the BBC earlier today:

Even the voice of the announcer has been changed to chime with the blue "BBC1 Colour" logo - a masterstroke when so many TV trails seem to follow the same tired pattern.

So it's Tuesday 13 (alright, 13th) February when the action kicks off again. Here's what I said last time:

Bloody marvellous, Life On Mars. I wasn't around in the 1970s to know what they were like, but the 70s on display in Life On Mars is believable enough to me. But forget that, it's just great to see a decent new cop show on telly - this is like a British Starsky & Hutch, right down to the natty cars and cardboard boxes all over the shop. Thrown in the good-cop-bad-cop leading actors leaping into action, hurdling a table like they're The Sweeney and fighting each other as often as they fight the bad guys, and you're really cooking with gas. Top it off with the time travel from Dr Who and the odd surreal he's-actually-in-a-coma moment, bring to the boil, and it's the best show I've seen on telly for ages.

Sorry, did someone say Starsky & Hutch? Because the BBC have a Life On Mars trail just for you...

A final quick admin note: there's four new Dayorama banners in the system. Numbers 69 through to 72 will occasionally appear at the top of your page - or you can press "refresh" a gazillion times over til you've found them all.

Thanks to Amy J for the video clips and the poster pic.

Thank heavens the media has remained relatively calm since the confirmed outbreak of H5N1 in Suffolk over the weekend. During the last wave of panic, some of the country's top journalists approached the story as though it would be the making of their career, blissfully missing the irony of a bulletin topped by Monty Python's dead parrot. This time, we've probably been helped by the fact the news broke on a Saturday, leaving fewer people on duty to co-ordinate national hysteria with purposeful walks up and down the newsroom.

But if there's one person who's almost unconscious with calm about flu - albeit the standard human variety - it's my Doctor.

After two weeks of the most debilitating symptoms I can remember, I finally agreed to conquer my fear of the surgery and visit my GP for a little advice. An appointment was booked, the visit duly made, and an agonising 75 minutes later than scheduled, I was called in.

I'm no GP, but if were I'd assume that when a man who's visited the surgery just three times in thirteen years appears on the guest list, there must be a big problem. But throughout my consultation, the GP was disarmingly blasé about what was wrong - he'd clearly seen it a hundred times before.

Unquestionably charming and with an excellent bedside manner, he listened as I reeled off the unpleasant signs of impending death as I saw them, nodding sagely with each one. A quick listen on his stethoscope front and back, and he proclaimed it to be 'just flu'. I'd need to agree to lots of rest, drink lots of water, take lots of tablets, and all would return to normal in about a week.

Just flu?! As opposed to what, exactly? What could possibly be more debilitating than the dose of flu which has stopped me from getting out of bed, from concentrating, from eating and drinking, and ultimately from going to work?

The answer? The kind of flu which I bet many patients have convinced themselves they have. You can bet your life that every hypochondriac in the country has been gobbling their way to the doctor's surgery today, summoning the odd sneeze and persuading themselves they've not been feeling right since Christmas dinner. For once, the media are not panicking, but you can bet your life the people will be. That's probably why I had to wait so long for my appointment...

It must have been a relief for the Doctor to see a man whose glands genuinely were sticking out on either side of his neck, instead of somebody wearing a rubber wattle for attention. I shall never again be afraid of visiting the Doctor. It's he who should be afraid of us.

Much as I loath the service I receive from First Great Western, this wasn't down to me.

Fortunately, none of the 400 passengers or further evacuees from Didcot Parkway station seems to have been hurt, but it could be leaving First Great Western with some long-term damage. If postings on a number of railway forums are to be believed, this is the third such fire involving one of First's newly re-engined High Speed Trains. And, let's be honest, the enthusiasts are usually right.

If there's one thing First Great Western is right about, it's the long-term merits of refurbishing its 30-year old HST fleet over buying new; they're much preferred by passengers on the grounds of speed, number of seats, ride-quality and comfort, to the point where FGW plans not to renew the lease on some of its newer trains when HST refurbishment is complete. But with quite such dramatic teething troubles (for teething troubles they are, I'm certain), it's a wonder the country's media aren't licking around First's headquarters with all the ferocity of Saturday's flames.

I hope they get this sorted before something terrible happens. Quite aside from the potential dangers of trains bursting into flames unannounced, it would be tragic to see the excellent reputation of the HST besmirched by an ignorant media, hungry for an easy scapegoat. The age of the train would dominate the headlines, and First would be slaughtered for their use of 'museum pieces' or the like, where actually they deserve praise. The danger lies not with the HST because it's old, but with a modification that presumably needs a little more thought.

It could happen to any train...

... but as Ollie and his online journalist friends know, seldom you can find a photo, eh Ollie?...

Last night a party was held, somewhere in the East End, and largely for my benefit (premature birthday: hint, numero uno). A few things to note. The theme, decided upon in a pub in Greenwich one Sunday afternoon, was "Bollywood". No, we weren't jumping on the Big Brother bandwagon but I have had a lot of Inddian experience lately, so it was fitting to spread the joy. I suppose it is a slightly offensive theme, but wonderful. And so easy. Go to Whitechapel market, pick up a few saris for £10 (for those on Facebook, I suspect photos will appear at some stage), buy some bracelets, a couple of Bollywood DVDs and raid the "Indian" food section of Tesco. Genius. Hilarious party. Plenty of spontaneous dancing. And too much drink. And the worst thing, we've decided, is not the clearing up. It is deciding who will get up to buy the papers, milk and orange juice in order to continue the gentle awakening into Sunday afternoon.

Radio's all about timing.

Bulletins timed to the split second so that, in some cases, forty different radio stations can all start their own programmes off the back of your final sentence at precisely three minutes past the hour.

Live reports from international football matches, where commentators start at precisely thirty seconds past four minutes past the hour and last for exactly one minute, so that their report will fit into the news bulletin.

Timing the final song of a show to the exact second so that it'll fade nicely underneath the run-up to the news, giving the presenter time to talk their way up to the crescendo at the top of the hour.

But accidental timing is the best. My 8:30 sport bulletin started with a clip of our radio commentary for Leroy Lita's first goal against Manchester City yesterday. At the same time, by pure coincidence, the repeat of Match Of The Day on BBC1 - silently playing away on the small telly in the corner of the studio - had got to the Reading match.

At the precise moment I finished my cue into the clip and Clare pressed the button to fire the audio, the Match Of The Day highlights got to the bit where Lita scores his goal. Our clip and their highlights coincided exactly - our commentator talked the ball into the net as we watched it.

I hope, for anyone lucky (!) enough to have been listening to us and watching MOTD at the same time, it was as funny as we found it.

You have to feel sorry for the 160,000 turkeys on a farm at Holton, in Suffolk, now facing the chop after three thousand of their colleagues succumbed to the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

They probably got away with Christmas on the grounds that Farepak collapsed - thousands upon thousands of Christmas hampers went unpacked, so our feathered friends were given a stay of execution.

Only, sadly, for Christmas to catch up with them a month and a bit later. Whoever sneezed first in that barn last night must have experienced an all-too-fleeting moment of the deepest unpopularity before they expired.

There's some horrific pictures on the BBC News website, showing turkeys apparently being emptied from a truck into a container as the authorities try to contain the outbreak.

Meanwhile here in Berkshire all thoughts turn to how we're going to cover this story.

Last year we put a piece of broadcasting kit in a farmhouse in West Berkshire - if bird flu appeared in the area, it meant we could get a local farmer on air in good sound quality almost immediately.

Two months ago we sent an engineer out to bring all that kit back, since it was felt we needed it elsewhere. Do we rush it back in place in the expectation that H5N1 will wend its way across the south? Will our roving reporter be stood in the middle of nearest turkey farm come Monday morning? There's about three people in this newsroom all weekend, so resources aren't exactly overflowing, but if I were you I'd put money on the sound of gobbling on your radio this coming week.

I have never seen anyone half as happy as one of my colleagues, earlier this afternoon, when they burst into the newsroom to find me.

"Come and look! Come and look! It's brilliant!" The gentleman in question grabbed the keyboard. "Have a look at Wikipedia."

He duly took me to the Wikipedia page for the professor whose recent theory caused me so much grief in December.

"Look how much they've written about it! It's huge!" And it is, as well. Some poor unfortunate soul, volunteering their services to the world, has written up the whole shebang for Wikipedia. There's even a news article about the debacle, including quotes from this weblog. Somebody has been very hard at work, with too much time on their hands. But credit to them all the same - they've got some very useful mathematical diagrams and the whole thing seems very well done.

That wasn't enough for my good colleague though, by now practically bouncing up and down with fire in his eyes. "You can even edit it as well!"

Five minutes later and he had indeed edited it, adding to the top of the article the name of the BBC regional news programme on which the original item was aired, and the name of the reporter (i.e. his name).

It amuses me greatly to note that, within half an hour, the good people who maintain Wikipedia - i.e. the general public, since that's the whole point of it - had gone back into the article and removed the reporter's name again! I don't think he's noticed yet.

Not only that but, in what would appear to be a form of punishment, they've removed the other reference to our good reporter, and a reference to me, later in the text. My fifteen minutes of Wikipedia fame destroyed by my over-excited colleague. Disgraceful.

However I find it immensely comforting that within moments of the boy getting a bit carried away with all his newfound "I can edit anything I like" power, one of the old hands quietly stepped back in and put it all back the way it was. Here's an extract from the "history" of the article, which records all changes made:

Someone, almost certainly over on the other side of the world, has delicately but firmly slapped my good friend's wrist and restored the entire article to its pre-interfering-TV-journalist state. The human race is a remarkable thing.

Actually, there's one very serious point to this. The "history" pages for each and every Wikipedia or Wikinews article are invaluable. They allow you to see precisely what changes were made, who changed what, and why they did it. For example, when the news article was edited to include my comments on Dayorama, a note was attached to the history: "Here's what Williams had to say." So I know precisely when my comments were included, and by whom.

That's extremely transparent and should be something to which the BBC's websites aspire. I've always been one for things like documentation - I find this sort of thing interesting as much as I find it useful - and if it was built into the technology we have, I'd love to use it to explain changes I made, rather than leaving sinister-minded visitors to guess at all manner of conspiracy theories.

In fact I'd imagine the vast majority of BBC online journalists