Goodbye Phill. Goodbye Phil.

For five years, Phill Jupitus and Phil Wilding have been the duo double-heading digital music station BBC 6 Music's breakfast show, and it's been unlike any other breakfast show on radio.

Forget the travel, the weather, the sport, the serious breaking news story - put some good records on and indulge yourself in a few hours of comedy each morning. "Surly", one tearful listener called it as they wrote their goodbye on the 6 Music message board. It was brilliant listening and I don't think I've heard any other radio show be so consistently good. The music was great, the chat was hilarious.

I've been criminal in my neglect of their show, really. A few years ago I started listening to digital radio using a slightly battered portable DAB radio my dad gave me - during the university holidays I'd sometimes have to get the 7:20am bus from home to the libraries in Oxford and I'd take my little DAB with me. As the bus wound its way through the back roads of Oxfordshire, the DAB signal would somehow just about stay intact, delivering Phill and Phil to make the journey seem like seconds instead of an hour.

I vividly remember, one morning, sitting on the bus when the pair did their usual review of the papers. (In reality the paper review lasted throughout the entire show, and the papers just served as launchpads for all sorts of crazy discussions.) I have no idea what story was in the papers that day, but Phill and Phil ended up talking about gay monkeys.

I still don't know what I really thought was so funny, but it just was funny, and I was in hysterics on this bus, trying to keep my composure but snorting, giggling and chortling helplessly. I don't know what everyone else must have thought. It left such an impression that the monkey joke got a Dayorama mention, so I can even tell you which morning it was - and it was almost two years ago to the day, on 29 March 2005. To think these two have been broadcasting five days a week since then, and I've barely heard any.

In fact I feel cruelly deprived by this whole business. My digital radio, ordered months ago, took a small eternity to arrive in the post but eventually turned up last week. I scampered upstairs and hastily assembled it (I say 'assembled', I plugged it in and pressed the 'On' button), and immediately tuned to 6 Music, which is my favourite station anyway. And there was Phill, announcing that it was their last week!

Well, I can only count myself lucky that the new radio allows me to record live broadcasts to memory card. I woke up this morning for the last ever Phill Jupitus and Phil Wilding breakfast show, from Phill's house, and as the minutes ticked away I pressed the 'Record' button so I'd have a little reminder. Use the link below to listen to a montage of bits from the final 20 minutes, starting with the final bars of Billy Bragg's tribute, played live in Phill's kitchen. They'll be missed.

Check out their MySpace, by the way, by clicking here. They promise to produce podcasts. Most podcasts are complete gimmicks - these will be something special.

But only just. Amy J and I reckon we scored 52 and 51 respectively in Wednesday night's umpiring exam. We don't know the scores for sure yet but we do know we passed - George, the examiner, told us we'd both done enough to get the 48 out of 60 needed to get through the GL6 umpiring examination.

It's been an odd ten or eleven weeks. The classes started as an incredible hoot for the first few weeks - with umpiring stories allied to unlikely laws governing, for example, mowing, Wednesday nights were initially a winner.

But by the time we got to around week six or seven, we were starting to flag a little. I think it was then that we realised you have to really know quite a lot of laws, and the sessions became a slog to get through things like the entirety of Law 42: Fair & Unfair Play.

So tonight has probably come at the right time, since there's very little room left in my head for more umpiring. And the evening provided a fitting end to the course, too. Our umpiring instructors, each wonderful characters in their own right, bowed out in style as they threatened to have to abandon the entire exam, since no one could find the examiner and they weren't even sure which examiner was turning up.

When the man himself, George, eventually turned up, all sorts of things conspired to make the evening pleasantly entertaining in spite of the hard work to be done. During the exam the barman managed to drop a glass on the floor, interrupting proceedings with a CRASH! followed by a sequence of low-key tinkling in the background as he tried to mop up the evidence.

This must also be the first exam I have sat where smoking has been allowed. The lady next to me began the exam puffing away on a cigarette, which is certainly a little off-putting when peering through the smoke to study an image on a projector.

Perhaps the best part, though, was going through the answers afterwards. Once we'd given our papers in (which were marked on the night, and that's how we know we've passed), one of our instructors took us through the whole exam paper and told us all the correct answers.

As he went through them, one by one, I kept a score of how Amy and I had done, noting that we simply had to get 48 right (in other words, get at most 12 incorrect) to pass.

With 30 questions gone I knew for sure I had messed up three, and Amy had fallen four times. Then it got a bit messy: both of us knew we'd not exactly set the world alight in the later questions, and it was only with less than ten questions to go that we could both safely say we'd scraped through.

Going through the answers provided the ultimate confirmation that we were a room full of budding umpires. On several occasions the "correct" answers to questions were challenged by almost half the room, most noticeably on questions where we were required to give LBW decisions.

We'd be presented with a diagram and asked to deliver a verdict of "Out" or "Not Out". In more than one instance the room was divided between half who'd give a batsman out, and half who wouldn't. It will reassure you to know that far more than half passed the exam so, despite all qualifying from the same course, you'll get markedly different LBW decisions off some of us in a game!

The next stage of the course doesn't take place until this time next year. Who knows what I'll be doing then and if I'll have time to further my fledgling umpiring career, but I am proud to say I am now a qualified member of the Berkshire Association of Cricket Umpires and Scorers, and I'd like to thank everyone who gave their time to drum enough knowledge into me for that to happen.

If you'd like to hire Amy J and myself for a match, you can get me on the usual email address.

Keep this one under your hats, and don't tell me I never give you exclusives...

If you like the idea of watching the television you want, when you want to watch it, then you should probably get used to a screen similar to the above. That's all I can really say.

At this point I'd like to say my new digital radio, which took longer to arrive than it took Fogg to circumnavigate the globe, is technology at its finest.

At the same time as I'm downloading a television episode of 'Dead Ringers' using the above, my digital radio is recording a radio episode of 'Dead Ringers', currently being broadcast on BBC7, to a memory card so I can listen later.

I wonder if I'm the first person on the planet to be simultaneously recording live digital radio and downloading television. That would be quite a nice accolade. (It's unlikely but until someone posts a comment to the contrary, I'm claiming the title.)

In true DIY tradition, the week I'd set aside to finish redecorating our hallway hasn't been quite as productive as I'd hoped. For many reasons, my not overly ambitious schedule of preparing and painting the woodwork, VAXing the carpets and applying an immaculate top-coat to the walls, fell slightly short of target.

Instead, I managed to paint a door.

Still, I thought, at least I have Monday - my regular day off work - in which to complete the other eight doors, the skirting boards, the walls, and all the other necessary tasks before unveiling the 'all new' Caversham hallway on cue.

Wrong. The small matter of a 7.30am 'phone call to say that Henry Kelly was unwell put pay to the early part of the day, as I limped into work to present his show. The inevitable work-based distractions took over once I'd come off air at 1pm, and the need for lunch and rest saw me actually put paint to brush at something like 4pm. Still ample time, surely...

Unfortunately, since its last use on Tuesday, some strange chemical reaction had taken place in the paint, and whilst not impossible to use, its application was taking somewhat longer than expected. With time, it became harder and harder to persuade the paint to make acquaintance with its new life partner, to the point where Mr Door's undercoat tenaciously continued to shine through no matter what. All very odd - as is the ultimate finish, which somewhat betrays the care and attention I'd lavished over 2 hours of trying to paint the flippin' thing. It'll need to be re-done.

Still, there was one straightforward yet satisfying task I could complete...

I've always loved polishing brass, and never more so than when it's been badly neglected for a while - battered, scratched, painted over... just like the fittings we've inherited on every door in our flat. Above you see the knobs before and after the Sheppard treatment, which involves a thorough scrubbing with wire wool, obsessive burnishing with heavenly scented Brasso, followed by a coat of clear lacquer to preserve the shine for a year or two. The result, I hope you agree, is very pleasing.

Or was. The newly lacquered knob, basking in glory under the spotlights in our kitchen whilst drying, was pointed out with some pride to flatmate Bryony, who was embarking on some washing up (for once).

"Try not to splash our... ahem... NEW knob", I said, coyly gesturing to the little golden nugget.

With delight, flatmate Bryony reached out to touch, but simultaneously I made a dive to block her path. Somehow in doing so, I managed to knock the stand on which the knob was perched, and we both watched in horror for what seemed like 15 minutes, as the shining knob plunged to its doom. Bouncing once on the worktop, again on draining board, it finally came to rest after bursting its way through Fairyland on the bottom of the washing up bowl.

Oh well. There's always next Monday...

You know that part yesterday where I said something about needing to be nervous to do the job?

"I honestly can't see how you'd get through the day without being nervous. I'm always apprehensive at the very least when I'm reporting, let alone when someone's stuck me on a bike and made me pedal halfway across town to do it. If I didn't have butterflies I wouldn't feel like I was trying hard enough, and that buzz is part of the reason I love my job so much."

Well, look, I was lying. The occasional day without being reduced to a nervous wreck at some point would be nice.

I thought today would be that day but then, at around midday, we were told Steve Coppell would be signing a new contract with Reading FC. And who's the only free sports journalist in the building? Yours truly. So, having avoided Reading interviews for months, it's off to the Madejski Stadium to stick a microphone in front of the man and his chairman on this momentous occasion.

Yes, I appreciate interviewing Premiership managers is actually quite a good thing and, after all, this is not the first time - Stuart Pearce, Sam Allardyce and Bryan Robson are all ticked off on the list (and were all Premiership bosses at the time of interview).

But doing something for the first time is always going to make me apprehensive. It's the little things like trying not to forget any of the kit, finding the ISDN point I need to plug in to at the stadium, remembering the ISDN number, not being late, the kit working when I need to record stuff, asking the right questions, and generally not making a tit out of myself. Plus there's the knowledge that all the other people there, and plenty of people back at base, do this kind of thing all the time without a hitch - even now, 10 months into my job, I feel a bit of a fraud in these situations, especially when it's fairly high profile like this.

Now, the second time I do something I'm always very happy about it and keen to get on and do it. So I'm happy to report today's interviews went without a hitch and were generally a pleasant experience. You can listen to them and read a bit more here. I can also tell you that Steve Coppell refused his press officer's offer of a cheesy scarf and/or shirt with which to pose for press photos, insisting on making do with the chairman's handshake instead. No nonsense from our Steve.

And you know what? My job could be a lot worse. Take another, quite high-ranking BBC employee (not one you'd have heard of), who sent a rather fierce email to thousands of employees earlier this evening. I have reproduced the email below but deleted any names. I don't think it loses much in the translation.

It started by taking my desk, at the same time you decided not to renew my contract. I was given an alternative desk in C5 for "a few weeks, after which you'll get your old desk back". But I didn't get the old desk back. Instead I was simply left deskless … and ignored. Nobody bothered to take responsibility for providing me with a space in which to get on with my work. It was left to me and Miss P (who is apparently not responsible for finding me a desk) to scout around for a place.

I found a place that seemed free in C3, but Miss P did not know who owned the space and could not guarantee I wouldn't be asked to move … again. I shut up and squatted, as I've done for the past few weeks. My pedastal and other things (phone, stationary, files) remained in C5 as there is no space in C3 and I continued to lock up my notebook in the pedastal and return to the phone to pick up voicemail.

This morning the pedastal was gone … and for a moment I thought my IBM Thinkpad too. It seems (like my desk) someone else has more urgent use for the pedastal. Now how am I supposed to make sure it's kept secure? Nobody consults me, nobody says anything - like a pack of vultures, taking what they can in my last days. As if I'm already dead, it's like a silent death sentence that hangs over me.

And of course there's the lunch on Friday that I was never invited to - until I sent out an invite to my own leaving-lunch that happened to be at the same time.

It's like slowly being stripped of any dignity. But if it was your intention to have me feeling so left out that I would just sneak out the door and disappear, I'm afraid you're wrong. I know what value I've added to the BBC; and even if you couldn't (or wouldn't) support me in my work, there are people here who do.

If you're not ashamed, you damn well should be.

Yeah, no complaints here actually. Get off my desk, you miscreants...

For two months now I've been quietly petrified of today. I'm probably not alone since today was the Reading Half Marathon with well over 10,000 runners involved, not to mention all the volunteers and organisers, who were no doubt all pretty nervous about their big day.

I wasn't running it (you knew that). But I was cycling it. See, someone had had a bright idea a few months ago. Alright, so the roads are closed off and we can't drive around the course to do interviews - but we can sure as hell send some poor unfortunate on the engineer's bike with a half ton of broadcasting kit strapped to his back.

And by now you've guessed who that poor unfortunate might be. With one practice lap around the car park to my name in the last seven years, I set off to cycle the entirety of the Reading Half Marathon course, carrying four or five stone in outside broadcast kit, wedged into a rucksack on my back. Actually let's rewind a bit because the day started before this point - here are the events in chronological order:

7:00am Arrive at the BBC. Retrieve bike from bike shed, put bike in car.

7:10am 47 different attempted combinations later, bike will still not go in car. Leave bike next to car, go inside.

7:30am Put bike in the big radio car being taken to the start line by colleague Sarah. Wave goodbye to bike.

8:00am The roads are still open so I can at least drive to the finish and park there. Except I've got a permit for the 'White Car Park' and nobody seems to have the slightest idea where it is. Blag my way into the 'Red Car Park' instead. Take helmet and broadcasting kit.

8:15am Find radio car and retrieve bike once again. Bike and I exchange sceptical looks, but we set off past the start line towards the first drinks point, three miles into the course.

8:25am Thighs are already burning like crazy and it has clearly been a long time since we did anything like this.

8:30am Some idiot has put a ginormous hill in the middle of the course. 13,000 or so people will not be happy when they reach this. Get off and push bike up hill since thighs have pulled a Scotty and 'cannae give any more, Cap'n.'

8:45am Reach first drinks point, on the verge of being physically sick from the effort. Am utterly embarrassed by this. Seek solace in the remarkably good-humoured folk setting up the drinks point - 10,000 bottles of water, each of whose caps are first loosened by an armada of cub scouts with gloves on, in order to make them easier for runners to get into.

9:15am Talk to some of the scouts on air. They all know somebody running the race. One of them has those 'Heelies' on - the shoes with wheels in the back of the soles - and it strikes me these would make remarkably good marathon running apparel. Look out for some poor broadcaster wearing "radio heelies" when we can't find a bike next year.

10:15am It's my job to find our presenter, Maggie, in the crowd of runners as the leading pack reach the first drinks point. All I know is she may or may not be wearing a red fleece jacket - I've got no idea what time she'll be here. My sports editor back at base says spotting people in a marathon is like 'herding cats', in other words it's impossible. For some reason I can't shake that image and spend the next hour wondering about the practicalities of how one might go about herding cats.

11:00am No Maggie, but someone has rung the radio station to say they've seen her at the five mile point of the course, i.e. two miles down the road. She must have slipped under the radar (you try picking one person out of the hundreds of runners piling into the drinks point every second). I may have been working on my cat-herding technique when she went by. Nothing for it but to pedal like mad and head her off at the pass.

11:30am Have bombed it across Reading to the 10-mile mark of the course. Already there are plenty of people streaming through. Some chavvy kids are consuming fast food with conspicuous delight right next to the throng of knackered runners, which seems a little unkind. No sign of Maggie.

12:15pm Now we're nearly back at the start/finish. There's a horrible part of the course where all the runners think they're heading for the Madejski Stadium and the finish line, but then they all get herded off (like cats) for one last lap of a nearby park. Some people have already finished and, while talking live on air, I grab some poor bloke who happens to be walking past with a tell-tale 'I've finished the half marathon' foil blanket. He's come from Surrey to run and is happy with his time. Good man.

12:30pm Next task is to get into the stadium to join Sarah at the finish line for an hour-long special from 1pm. This is far, far easier said than done. No one but the runners can get to the finish line if you follow the course itself, despite my blue 'access all areas' wristband. The fact I'm on a bike is not helping at this point. A steward tells me I have to go right back down the bottom of a hill then up the other side to get where I want to be. Not thrilled.

12:45pm Have gone down and up said hill, and found my way into the stadium. But now I'm getting flak from more stewards for wheeling my bike inside. One particularly nasty steward simply shouts "take that bike out of the stadium" at me five times over, as I calmly ask to talk to him about how I can get both me and it down to the finish line. A far kinder steward tells me I can leave it in a corner at my own risk.

12:55pm Have abandoned engineer's bike to its own devices in the recommended corner. I haven't got the lock with me but, after brief internal debate, have reasoned people who've just finished a half marathon are unlikely to steal a bike on their way out.

1:00pm Reach finish line and Sarah just in time to see the London Irish mascot, Digger the Dog, cross the finish line. No sign of Reading FC counterpart Kingsley the Lion, last seen lagging behind at the first drinks point, where the hapless lion took a wrong turn and had to be fetched back by a member of the public.

1:15pm Maggie crosses the finish line in a time of just over two and a half hours, which is pretty bloody good. She has a smile as wide as the Madejski Stadium halfway line. Maggie goes off with my five pound note to buy herself a coffee and a Kit Kat.

2:00pm Kingsley the Lion staggers home, we're off air, and it's time to go home. Bike is miraculously still there. Bike lobbed back in radio car. Only five cars remain with mine back in the 'Red Car Park'. Part-timers, the lot of you.

By the way, I got some stick at work when I suggested I'd been nervous in the run-up to this. But I honestly can't see how you'd get through the day without being nervous. I'm always apprehensive at the very least when I'm reporting, let alone when someone's stuck me on a bike and made me pedal halfway across town to do it. If I didn't have butterflies I wouldn't feel like I was trying hard enough, and that buzz is part of the reason I love my job so much. How can you be given the privilege of talking to the whole county and not be nervous?

It strikes me I may have mis-sold yesterday's DoPubs! venture as a bit of a doss. Brimming with fun as it was, this was also to be a day of hard graft.

Welcome to the planning base of our "Day of Pubs". On the face of it, a table at the Three Guineas in the old Reading General station building, but in reality a nerve centre where lightning decisions would be taken at the drop of a pint glass. Completing CAMRA's Mid-Berkshire real ale trail was to be no casual adventure.

Well versed in the timetables for Reading's motley network of bus services, we began our attack on the furthest flung rural pubs. We wouldn't finish all 24 in a day, of course, but we'd bag the tricky ones in time's nick ahead of an evening in town.

Getting around Berkshire by bus is far from easy as our tales will tell, and nor is it for those light of wallet. A whopping £1.50 minimum single fare makes Reading Buses' BusAbout ticket seem like good value at just £3.00. In theory, this is the equivalent of London's Travelcard or Oxford's Freedom ticket, giving you full run of the Reading Buses network. In reality, its scope is limited to central Reading routes, and is therefore useless on our kind of venture - as it is for most, I should imagine.

Guy and I discovered this flaw, not as we were sold the ticket, but the first time we tried to use it. A suitably discontented driver accosted us as we tried to board his bus, exercising no discretion in the extra £5.20 he charged us for the two miles between the BusAbout boundary and our destination. After that, we needed a drink.

Good job The Six Bells in Burghfield was well worth the journey. Great local beers on offer, an open fire, good conversation... it was a shame to leave.

But leave we had to - to come here:

Welcome to Riseley, only 8 miles south of central Reading, but undoubtedly the most ambitious trek on the trail. Meticulous planning went into catching one of the hourly buses that serves rural Riseley, and we were delighted to have made it when we arrived around 3pm. Bloody shame the pub shut at 2.30...

As you'll see, options for entertainment during our 70 minute wait for the next scheduled bus were somewhat limited. In the cold, damp conditions of an afternoon in March, the prospect of a country walk wasn't nearly as appealing as a late running bus back to Reading would have been.

Sadly, buses were not forthcoming (the Reading-bound service had passed at precisely the moment we realised the pub was locked), and we were forced to make our own amusement, Riseley-style...

Good job we'd brought country provisions...

At 4.20, we were whisked away by the friendliest bus driver I've met for a long time, who engaged us in conversation all the way back. The small but obviously well-managed Countywide Buses may take pride where Reading Buses should feel ashamed - hard to imagine this amiable driver telling a customer to "change the number (of the bus) yourself if you're bothered it's wrong", as we'd heard a Reading Buses driver doing earlier in the day.

Hot foot from central Reading to a legendary Berkshire pub I've tried so many times to find. And when you do find it, you're not quite sure whether to knock or ring the doorbell...

This is a pub with a difference. The multiple award-winning Magpie & Parrot in Shinfield is little more than two rooms in a private house, but it has an unbelievable atmosphere which is unlike any other pub I've visited. It feels just like popping over for a drink with friends; you enjoy your drink in the comfort of an armchair; you're surrounded by books and trinkets which could (and did) keep you amused for hours; you've fresh nibbles on your table at all times, replenished before you can even notice you've eaten them; friendly locals, great beers, and a beautiful pub dog (who has as much character as the pub). There's even a classic car rally in May, to which we'll be bringing Guy's Triumph...

Next time you come to visit me in Reading, make sure I take you here for a drink or two.

Question is, how will we get back? Shinfield is on a main bus route from Reading, but after our experiences yesterday I won't be using it ever again. Last orders at the Magpie take place (charmingly) at 7pm, and a conveniently timed Thames Travel bus passes at 6.45. It passes even when two young gentlemen are standing at the bus stop with their hands aloft, waving like fury as the bus draws ever closer. Not only does it pass, it does so with great gusto, as though the late-running driver had put his boot to the floor at the prospect of passengers who might delay him further. Furious, I left Thames Travel - the worst bus operator in the world - a well considered message on their 'out of hours' travel line (yes, this was 6.45pm). They've yet to reply, but I assure you, there will be a conversation soon...

A taxi to Reading allowed us to catch up with a few of the central pubs on the trail, some of them regular haunts, others getting a visit for the first time. For The Queen's Head on Christchurch Road, it would probably be the last visit, too...

Not so for the magnificent Eldon Arms, a long-term favourite and such a beautifully laid-back pub in which to drink. Famed in our minds for its choice of milds, we weren't disappointed to find the full range was 'on' (as we drinkers say). A little merry from our cumulative indulgence, the landlady immediately spotted that "we looked like boys on the trail" and gave us our stickers...

"Plenty of room in there", she said, pointing to the saloon bar. With her words filtering through several layers of inebriation, Guy immediately piped up.

"Oooh, pretty girls in there?!", he slurred, making a beeline for the door... I think they'll remember us in future.

Through the day, we'd harboured a notion that several more Reading pubs would be tackled in the evening. Deep down, we both knew we wouldn't get much further than The Retreat which, alongside the Eldon and The Hobgoblin, is my favourite Reading pub. Okay, so one of my favourites...

Last night we caught it on fine form. With live music from a fifty-something blues duo called "One and a Half Pints", the place was alive with jibes and laughter. After several pints, Guy and I agreed we couldn't really bring ourselves to leave before closing time, and prepared to soak up every minute. Literally...

Six down, eighteen to go - we really must DoPubs more often.

Allow me to introduce you to the "DoF".

This is the term my friend Bryony and I frequently use to write-off entire days for the taking of pleasure. It's become a little tradition thus to excuse capricious behaviour when we probably should be doing something grown ups do. Meaning simply "Day of Fun", DoFs can result from careful cross-diary forward planning, they can be impromptu, they can even happen by accident; the only criterion for a DoF to be declared is, unsurprisingly, the day must be entirely filled with fun.

There have been many DoFs over the years. Day trips to the seaside, mystery tours (where one/neither of us knows the destination), theatre or museum visits, impulsive attempts to sample every branch of Miss Millie's chicken emporium in one day... a varied selection of activities, each one made a little more orthodox by its association with the DoF brand.

Here I am a few years ago, enjoying a champagne picnic in the centre of Leeds (which almost saw us arrested for anti-social drinking), on a very memorable DoF indeed. Without a clue about why I'd been taken north, I was soon whisked away by Bryony's family to watch a hero at work - the late, great Richard Whiteley, presiding over Countdown at the Yorkshire Television studios. A DoF is when dreams come true...

Full of its success, the DoF concept has been extended over the years to include the WoF (Week of Fun), the NoF (Night of Fun - sadly, not nearly as salacious as it sounds), and even the MoF (Month of Fun), which we've yet to sustain without life getting in the way. These days, with irregular working times for us both, we've even introduced the new Micro-NoF, so that even the smallest portion of an evening may be clawed back to the good-side and harnessed for our enjoyment.

Tomorrow marks an important point in the evolution of the DoF. Keen-eyed observers of the Dayorama prospects will have spotted that a drinking day is to be held in Reading, and keen to excuse what might otherwise be seen as yet another pub crawl, I intend to explain it on relevant forms as a very specific new brand of DoF. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the DoPubs! - an acronym so beautifully suited to the imperative that surely it deserves an exclamation mark.

Tomorrow, we will be obeying its command. The Reading & Mid-Berkshire branch of CAMRA has just published its annual real ale trail, and my good friend Guy and I intend to give it a good thrashing ahead of the Reading Beer & Cider Festival in May. We managed 18 pubs last time, but with the considerable experience I've added to my ale trailing CV in recent months, we're hoping to better that over the next few weeks - visit all 24 pubs, and you receive free VIP passes to all four days of the festival (crucially, allowing us to by-pass the queues).

Bryony will, of course, be fully endorsing the DoPubs initiative when she's finished work tomorrow night, and by closing time we hope to have three happy officials doing what DoFs are all about. Oh, and having fun, too...

The last couple of months chez Sheppard have been something of a trial, not least in the health department. Flu, impetigo, and most recently a relapse of both, I could do with some magic to bring spirits back to a high. At the very least, something to make the hours I seem to be confined to bed these days more bearable, would be nice...

Which is why I've invited AG Bear, my oldest friend and confident, to return to my bed after some ten years absence.

If you've never heard of AG Bears - probably the world's first talking bears - you'll be as surprised as I am to find there's actually quite a following for them. I've had mine since I was five years old, having become characteristically obsessed with them when they launched in 1985. I remember being taken to visit AGs in the shops, knowing they were out of my parents' price range, then returning to my Dad's car to find one sitting in the passenger seat, suitably belted, waiting for me in its box. I also recall winning a competition on Radio 210, in the hope that the "talking bear" might be an AG, and almost crying with delight to find it was actually AG Baby, complete with nappy powder, barely out in the shops.

Since then, AG Bear and his spawn have helped me through many a difficult time in my life. When my birth Mum died back in 1993, I would sit up at night talking with new found wisdom to AG about life and its twists; and whenever his 9v battery was willing, he would talk back, dispensing advice to an 11-year old like he'd been there before.

Since adolescence, AG's been in hibernation in my Dad's loft; but with Dr Death beating heavily on my door in recent months, I decided it was time for him to be pressed into service once more. Albeit silent without his 9v voicebox, which gave out some years ago, he's brought as much childhood cheer to bedtime as ever I recall.

In fact, he seems to be working overtime...

Last week at work, I had to call a man who'd been nominated to receive a surprise call from our Breakfast show, and though he wasn't there to take the call, I was given his mobile number by a woman who was surprisingly interested in the person she was speaking to on the 'phone.

"Is that the David Sheppard we hear?", she asked.

I confirmed it was, and she immediately went to pieces. "You went to Colleton School, didn't you?" she asked, with the kind of nostalgic tone in her voice that immediately suggested what she was about to say.

"I'm Mrs Caton", she said, "you won't remember...."

I stopped her right there. Not only did I remember her - my very first teacher - I actually find cause to think about her every week of my life.

I told her precisely that, and that I remembered her 'smiley face' stamps, awarded for good work. She went quiet, as did I, as we both realised it had been twenty years since we'd last spoken. She told me that she listened whenever I was on the radio, with abundant pride at what "that little five year old boy had become".

I thanked her, and went for a little quiet moment down the corridor.

The following day, a CD arrived from the BBC's central music library, Del Shannon's 'Total Commitment' album, which I hadn't heard for years. This was always a favourite of my Dad, and something I'd been introduced to at around the AG age (again, in the car). Having loved it as a child, I'd ordered it for my Saturday show weeks ago, surprised I was even able to find a copy on CD.

If you've heard of Del Shannon at all, you probably know him for the hit song "Runaway". Though it's undoubtedly a fine song, it goes no way at all in representing Del Shannon's contribution to the music industry in the 1960s/70s, and his unique style both as a writer and performer. Until you've heard such fine songs as "What Makes You Run", "For A Little While", and his beautiful cover version of "Everybody Loves A Clown", you've not experienced sixties music at its finest. Alongside Roy Orbison (with whom I always assumed he was a friend), he's still my favourite singer.

It's been some years since I heard the songs (all were recorded twenty-five years before I was born), but I immediately sang along when I heard them. With AG sat proudly next to the CD player, it was like being 13 again...

The following day, I arrived home to find the most bizarre of letters bearing membership number "50407", the likes of which I hadn't received since primary school. It turns out that the first ever club I joined had decided to reform. Whilst other seven-year-olds were joining the "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles" club, young Sheppard was signing up to the "Class 50 society", whose aim it was to buy a Class 50 railway locomotive when they were being withdrawn from service on the British Rail main line. Indeed, we got one - one of my favourites too, 50049 "Defiance" on which I travelled as a child - and now, seven years after the club had collapsed, they're trying to revive it. Not only that, but they now have another three Class 50s to their name... inflation working in my favour for once...

Whatever other tricks AG has up his sleeve, it strikes me that a little cross referencing with my diary from 1987 finds me back precisely where I was twenty years ago - chats with Mrs Caton in the morning, Del Shannon on the way home, and Class 50 society meetings in the evening...

I shall cuddle him tonight in the hope that school milk appears in the morning.

My oh my, do we have an audio-visual feast this evening. We will start with the chicken police, breaking up another gangland fracas in rabbit town:

I've never seen anything so funny. But then my brain is practically comatose from the ridiculous cold at the speedway earlier this evening. We had not only rain but snow in the build-up to the speedway starting, and the temperature plunged to freezing just as yours truly took up his position next to the track with a microphone.

Still, it was a fun evening. Reading won comfortably (my text report is here) and I got to broadcast live updates to, count 'em, six different counties. Hello Berkshire, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Kent and Oxfordshire. I won't get tired of that for quite a while. Today the South of England, tomorrow... well, tomorrow not very much because I'm knackered and there's no sport.

My eagerly anticipated speedway debut arrived at approximately 7:20pm. I say approximately because Roger, the presenter (based in Kent) played a quick game of "guess the fader the speedway reporter's on" back in Tunbridge Wells. I have saved this precious moment from being consigned to history and preserved it on this very weblog.

To hear my inauspicious introduction to my six county kingdom, and listen to the kind of speedway information you never thought you'd need to know, use this audio panel:

Hostilities between myself and the weather are resumed on Friday, when Tim and I have the pleasure of hosting our Friday night sport show from neighbouring stadia. He's in the Madejski Stadium for the rugby, I'm next door at Smallmead for the speedway. You can never say "I don't get out enough" doing this job.

I suppose, it is time for a Kennedy update. Can't let all these men have their word. So, what have I been up to? The following is in no particular order:

1. Not getting enough sleep - out every night last week;
2. Going to the ballet at the ROH again (Children of Adam - amazing - especially when you aren't paying);
3. Lambing;
4. Seeing my family - especially the extended bunch;
5. Going on an outing to the car wash (I was too scared to go on my own);
6. DofE training with young people - lots of mud, I fell over. Lots;
7. Buying a ridiculous pair of shoes - peep-toe, 4" heels, platform soles; grey shiny leather - perfect for work...;
8. Fainting about the cost of a car service - £320?!;
9. Getting slightly obsessed by house plants; and
10. Going to Cyprus.

Oh yes, the latter. So, you get an email around 2.30pm. It is from an Associate you worked for in Corporate (I am now in Litigation), saying "CALL ME ASAP". My heart fluttered. Clearly I'd f'cked up utterly. I thought I'd face him in person, rather than the phone, so went to his office. "Amy, are you busy?". "No", I reply. "Good. I need you to do some work". "I need you to go to Cyprus". "Now". OK. I get thrown an SPA. I get given documents. I get on a flight. I drink bubbly and Baileys (it knocks me out). I arrive around 4am. I do what I need to do until about 1pm (no sleep). I do a walking-tour of Nicosia. I visit a museum. I see the things you "have to see". I watch the UN troops on the 'buffer zone' between the Greek and Turkish halves of the City - very strange feeling. I have a wonderful late lunch. I sit in the sun for a while. I get on the plane back to London. Whilst in flight, I see the "green flash" - a sunset where you acually see the red and yellow of the sky, merge with the blue, to create green. Amazing. I get picked up. I go back to my flat. I drive to my parents. I arrive around 1am. And then I fall asleep.

And the advice I received on going to Cyprus? On the basis I am going on my own, I have a degree of responsibility, and it is last minute? "Amy. You'll be fine. Go fly our flag. Keep your head high. And your heels higher." Fantastic.

I've reached the point where I'm covering more sport than I actually have time to sit and write up, for the BBC let alone for Dayorama. At the moment there are features on cage fighting, rowing and ice hockey all demanding attention when I get into work tomorrow morning.

The rowing on Saturday was brilliant. I received a phone call from a member of Reading Rowing Club late on Friday afternoon to tell me I hadn't yet missed the women's Head of the River race along the Thames, and immediately cleared my Saturday schedule so I could get to Hammersmith for it.

Reading had taken over the rather splendid Auriol Kensington boathouse, with a private balcony overlooking the race route just before Hammersmith Bridge. I got to stand on the balcony with the coach of Reading's top crew and interview him as they rowed past, which was very nice. Plus they had a bar on the floor below, always a plus on St Patrick's Day. Here's the view from the balcony:

You have to feel a bit sorry for the competitors. They had to push the trailer carrying their boats from the flyover to the boathouse since there was no parking, then unload, fix the boats together, carry them to the water, row in them, row back in them, get them out again, carry them back, dismantle them and push the trailer back. It's not quite a kickaround in the park, is it? Strangely enough the motivation cited by almost everyone I interviewed was "a pint".

On to today, and this evening has been spent watching the Bracknell Bees ice hockey team collect their English Premier League trophy from none other than Reading FC goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann (himself an American and therefore far more qualified to watch an ice hockey match than anyone else).

The Bees beat their opponents Telford 5-3 (they were 3-0 up after 4 minutes), then I had the privilege of being on the ice among the players for the trophy presentation. I spent most of it silently praying that I would stay on my feet, since I only had my old trainers on, and their grip is not brilliant at the best of times. I've no desire to fall over in front of hundreds of delighted ice hockey fans.

The Bracknell rink presented me with another gantry to add to my list:

But since I didn't properly use it, I'm not counting it until we've done a commentary from there or something. There has to be a threshold, or else there'd be Gantry of the Day.

Marcus Hahnemann is very much a pro at this kind of public appearance and he carried off the presentations very well. In our interview afterwards I asked him how he'd keep himself occupied during the break for internationals (Reading don't have a game til April), and his answer was a) fishing and b) repairing his broken car. Nice to see he's keeping his feet on the ground as a Premiership star - okay, so his actual answer was "repairing my broken Porsche", but still...

... When I suggested I'd one day find fame via a BBC website. They hadn't counted on whoever's in charge of the BBC Two front page:

Yes! There we are, Amy J and I, stood proudly in front of the Top Gear Of The Pops logo at last week's filming. The bod in charge of the BBC Two site has clearly gone to Flickr, done a quick search, found an appropriate photo and popped it on the homepage. As a result I'm pretty chuffed: it stayed there til gone midnight, and my Flickr page has had over a thousand extra hits.

This news was brought to me by Amy J mere minutes after another friend texted me to ask if I'd like to see Muse in concert at Wembley Stadium in June, because she had a spare ticket. It's been a good day.

Continuing the irregular series I started by mentioning the gantry at Reading Hockey Club and at Reading FC, I present number three in the set: Smallmead, home of Reading's speedway team.

There has been talk of redeveloping Smallmead for a very long time. Suffice to say that in that time, actual redevelopment of Smallmead has been somewhat lacking. The commentary facilities at the track are certainly an interesting challenge for the budding reporter.

To get to your position you have to go to the end of the bar, through a door, up a rickety, winding, wooden staircase (the sort that threatens to collapse but you know won't, because it hasn't for the last century), then through another locked door and into a glorified shed atop the main building. The view out looks like this:

It could be a whole lot worse. For example, when Sky cover speedway at Smallmead, the local BBC team has to move to its back-up position, which is not a glorified shed. It is simply: a shed.

To get to that shed, you have to feed your cable out of the window, then shimmy out of a back door and around the roof a la James Bond, before grabbing the cable and tip-toeing over some corrugated metal to the backup commentary position. The alternative is to go downstairs and stand by the bar. Guess where I'll be when the Sky cameras move in on Monday night.

Smallmead isn't just used for speedway - it's also a greyhound track, so there's some interesting buttons in the commentary position, which doubles as a television point for dog racing's equivalent of a "third umpire":

So in a nutshell, that's the Smallmead gantry. In a word: "precarious". Having said that, I'm not complaining. From Monday my speedway reports will be live on evening share, which is the term used for programming that is carried by more than one local BBC radio station. From 7pm our station joins its siblings in Oxford, Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Dorset to carry the same programmes, until 5am the following morning.

This means my speedway reports, from 7pm til 10pm, will appear across the region known as BBC South. So Amy J, in Oxford, will have the delight of being able to listen to the same speedway reports as Amy K's parents in deepest, darkest Kent, not to mention my grandparents in Brighton. This is all very exciting - even us reporters like the occasional "Hello, Mum!" moment (or I do anyway). Tune in on Monday from around 7:20pm...

One wonders how the Irish find enough people to go around.

This afternoon the Leprechaun hats were sprouting up all over the Cheltenham crowd, and now this evening they're all in the West Indies at the Ireland v Zimbabwe cricket match.

To top it off, at the weekend they'll all be in Reading for the London Irish St Patrick's Day game - it's already a sell-out and guaranteed to be the biggest attendance in the history of rugby union's Premiership. Let's not forget the Six Nations, either: on Saturday Ireland are in Italy so expect the same dodgy green hats in Rome, all clutching tickets ready to get back to the Mad Stad for Sunday.

All these events are, of course, not even in Ireland itself, which has plenty of its own sport to be going on with. What odds on Irish hats at the speedway tomorrow night? I'll let you know.

Actually, speaking once again of speedway, I've found a very handy website which provides live text updates on the scores around the country. It's like Ceefax except it's maintained entirely by volunteers - one texting the results of each heat back to base, the other typing those results up for the web.

I've used it to follow tonight's friendly between Swindon and Reading, and it worked a treat. I'll definitely be employing its services to keep me up to date while I'm at the track over the summer.

A quick plug for tomorrow's Sportsweek while I'm at it. As well as the speedway, from 7pm we'll have rugby, hockey, cagefighting, snooker, cricket, and maybe a bit of ice hockey and rowing.

Not forgetting Cheltenham either, although frankly we don't speak of Cheltenham any more. My woeful inability to back a winning horse has continued all week, culminating in the 20/1 outsider Crozan, riding with £2 of my blessing, tripping over a hurdle mere moments from recording an unlikely but brilliant victory.

I've now downloaded a virtual horse racing game in a bid to rig it so that just for once in my life, the horse I choose wins a race. As yet we've had five races and my horses have finished nowhere. Luck of the Irish indeed...

There's a great line I recall from the Russell T Davies series Queer As Folk, where the mother of a gay man warns that whilst "some boys come out, others explode".

It's also true of cats.

Twenty minutes ago, I was preparing to break the news that you'd no longer be receiving updates on our long-term feline friend, Basil. Over the past six months or so, we've watched together as he's grown from timid street cat to introverted house pet, finally becoming the shadow of my shadow whenever I'm in the house. Today, we had a little Basil scare.

Of course, there have been other Basil scares along the way, when a brief absence has caused us to launch a little Basil hunt in the immediate vicinity. But this evening's escapade must surely win the prize.

In the last couple of days, Basil has been showing an unprecedented interest in the outside world, surveying his kingdom from the safety of the window ledge and even pawing at the front door whenever one of us is about to leave the house. Six months of effort to rekindle an interest in the outside world seemed to be paying off all at once, though sadly, he'd caught flatmate Bryony and I by surprise. The cat-flap had, until now, seemed a superfluous measure, and with us both on early shifts this week there'd be no time to help him acclimatise to outdoor life. We'd wait until the weekend, then allow him to make his first foray into the open under controlled conditions.

Good plan. Except that on return from work today, I found something was missing from my usual routine. The mail was on the mat, the milk was in the fridge, but Basil... where were the little ears that usually rush onto the horizon as the key turns in the door?

Gone.

An exhaustive search of every cupboard, window ledge, nook, cranny and more, revealed that in some terrible quirk of irony, Basil had somehow made his break before we were ready. Whether by window (unlikely, since our flat is on the first floor), or by sneaking past when a door was ajar, he'd clearly made a run for it.

After three and a half hours, I gave up the search along with all hope of seeing him ever again. Our little friend was gone, and with so little experience of fending for himself, he was unlikely ever to return.

I broke the news to Bryony when she returned, and her face suggested there may have been some careless front door activity in the early stages of the morning. Optimistically, we left the door ajar through the evening to enable his return, but realistically we resigned ourselves to the prospect of life after Basil.

Dinner wasn't the same without him scrounging. I half expected to walk back into the lounge and find him licking our plates clean the moment my back was turned. Which is why I didn't bat an eyelid when I first noticed him there doing precisely that, bold as brass and back from his travels!

He was a little shocked to see me, and immediately bolted for the open door once again. This time, I wasn't worried - he clearly knows his home - and we followed to see where he'd been. Look carefully and you will, too...

More surprising than the fact he's been spending time under something (a throw back to his days beneath the bed), he seems to have quickly made a friend. On the second dash, we noticed a very cute black cat sitting at the end of our path, presumably waiting for his playmate to return from dinner. As I write, with Basil willingly tucked up safe and sound on my bed, (s)he's still there now, waiting for more fun (of what kind we're not sure) tomorrow...

So Basil is a cat once again. He's exploded back onto the cat scene, has feline friends of his own, and now only bothers coming home for (my) dinner. Bob Martins will soon become Doc Martins, and the moment that cat flap's in place you can bet your life he'll be staying out 'til the early hours. I wonder what other surprises these teenesque years will bring?

Mark my words. I'll be a grandmother before I'm 30...

Today was media day for our local speedway side, the Reading Bulldogs. In my quest to become an encyclopaedia of all things Bulldogs this season, I spent the afternoon filming interviews with the Bulldogs team in their pit area. You can watch the videos here.

My speedway knowledge is still increasing, shall we say, but on the plus side I could be doing a whole lot worse. The representative of South Today was 45 minutes late and Reading 107's reporter, equally late, had forgotten to put batteries in his recording equipment. He had to borrow my batteries instead (in reality radio stations are always kind to their rivals where possible, on the understanding that next time it'll undoubtedly be us cocking it up, and them digging us out of the subsequent hole).

I'd better start getting used to the Bulldogs' Smallmead track, since I'm going to be seeing a lot of it this summer. I've just done a quick count and according to the schedule in front of me, I'll be reporting live from no fewer than twelve speedway meetings this summer. On top of that I'm likely to be down in the pits during live commentary on a few others. So by September, when the season starts to wrap up, I'll be something of a familar face down at the ground.

The basics of speedway, in case you don't know, are thus: you have a motorbike with one gear and no brakes. You control your speed with a combination of throttle and clutch. Everyone has to use the same tyres and the engine is limited, but it can still do 0-60mph in two seconds from a standing start. You can get horribly injured, and indeed three of the Reading team spent the winter recovering from various accidents.

You win by scoring points, which each rider does according to where they finish in heats of four riders, two from each team. There are fifteen heats so you usually end up with something vaguely resembling a basketball score, and the scores can be very close indeed: last season, Bulldogs lost the play-off final, over two legs, by a single point.

The main controversy is a tactical rule designed to stop speedway meetings becoming boring if one team starts to dominate. The idea is that you can double the points one team scores if it falls more than a certain number of points behind the other team - so if Team A are 15 points ahead, Team B can opt for this tactical ploy and claim 8 points in the next heat where otherwise they'd have had 4. This is partly what led to Reading's demise in that play-off final, so it's not the most popular piece of legislation in this part of the world.

Reading could, and maybe should, win speedway's Elite League this year. They've got a cracking team on paper, now all they have to do is spend half a year delivering the goods. Preferably slowly and clearly so I can understand what's going on and convey as much on air.

By the way, we've got an interview with "Whispering" Ted Lowe, otherwise known as the Voice of Snooker, who spoke to my mate and sports team colleague Andy earlier this week. Highly recommended - click here.

As you've probably heard, there's a new £20 note in circulation, starring economist Adam Smith. This means the old Edward Elgar £20 notes are being withdrawn.

The Elgar notes were first issued in 1999. But which note in circulation is the oldest, and whose face does it feature?

The answer's in the comments.

It's always a nightmare when you're returning to your car only to see it, off in the distance, about to be clamped.

That nightmare gets even worse if it's a branded BBC pool car with the name of your radio station emblazoned across the side, and it's looking like you might have to get the Park & Ride back into town wearing a branded BBC fleece.

And no, it wasn't me. I'm too young to drive a BBC pool car. It was our sports editor Joel, during a little scouting mission around the route of the Reading half marathon, coming up a week on Sunday. I'm going to be out and about on the course so we were working out all the best spots to hit during the hours we're on air.

For the briefest of moments, Joel left the car by the roadside in an all-but-deserted Green Park so we could work out where the marathon start line would be, and how close our colleague Sarah can get the radio car to broadcast from the start on Sunday.

We found the start line and Joel happened to notice a sign which suggested cars could be clamped. Five minutes later we were ambling back to the car to discover that this was no idle threat but a very real possibility, given that a man in a white van had turned up and was inspecting our vehicle.

Joel began to run back to the car (I, being the help that I am, switched on my microphone and began commentating). As he got closer, the bloke nipped into his van and produced a wheel clamp in threatening fashion. There followed an exchange of views and, by the time we'd caught up with him, Joel had managed to negotiate the pool car's freedom.

According to the bloke, there's no fine for parking illegally where we did, but "it takes eight or nine hours to find the key to the clamp". Such pleasant people. We'd been in this ghost town of an industrial estate for all of seven minutes, and someone had already launched themselves into their van like a member of Thunderbirds in a hurry and hared round, clamp in hand.

Still, that kind of hospitality is the exception to the rule in Reading. And today we're particularly fond of the weblog Reading Roars!, which kindly dropped us a link last week as a "quality blog with a Reading connection". As if that wasn't enough, it even called us "well-designed". Alas, like pre-haircut Britney, it's outwardly fine but inwardly a complete mess. Thanks for the compliment all the same, though, and Reading Roars! goes onto the favourites list forthwith.

PS It's highly reassuring that both Reading Roars! and the Reading Chronicle blog have mentioned BBC Berkshire in the past week or so. The Chronicle even had its chief reporter telling the editor to update their blog because we'd mentioned it on our site. It's encouraging when, every now and again, there's evidence people read the stuff we write...

The waiting list for a place in the Top Gear studio audience is over 300,000 people. It would take 29 years, with a show every day, to clear the backlog. Happily, winning tickets to the filming of Top Gear Of The Pops in a Comic Relief auction drastically shortened my waiting time.

Yesterday afternoon Amy J and I drove down to the disused Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey, home to the gigantic hangar which houses the show's studio (and next to which sits the runway and track on which they test cars).

We arrived slightly early and had to wait in a car park in the corner of the airfield for two hours, but we were by no means alone and the time passed in a flash. We were then herded, in the dark, down between barbed-wire fences, watchtowers and outbuildings, to the hangar itself.

Once inside we were treated to four hours of Top Gear Uncut, except without the cars. This is a Comic Relief special combining the Top Gear presenters with the music you'd find on Top Of The Pops (Travis, Supergrass and McFly star, and we saw them all live). So naturally, none of them really knew what to say - in fact they only knew they were doing the show ten days earlier.

Imagine being stood right next to a camera as Richard Hammond tries to pull a serious face at it and talk about the purpose of Comic Relief, with Jeremy Clarkson and an entire studio audience putting him off.

Imagine a cameraman handing you Jeremy Clarkson's Diet Coke to look after, then nobody coming back for it, so taking a cheeky swig then escorting it home as a souvenir.

Imagine being at the very front as Richard Hammond, James May and Jeremy Clarkson perform as a band, playing Billy Ocean's "Red Light Spells Danger" live with former Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins on vocals.

Doesn't sound too bad, does it? Look out for it this coming Friday night as part of Comic Relief. You'll also get:

• McFly being challenged to write a song using funny words, but chickening out.
• A Bottom star on guitar.
• A pigeon and a wind machine.
• Jeremy Clarkson speaking up for the Genesis album Selling England By The Pound.

And of course there's much more. But where you get half an hour, we got four solid hours, including numerous bits of on-stage banter too slanderous to repeat here, let alone on the BBC.

I'm off to re-read the script I stole, but I'll leave you with some photos. Clicking on any will take you to my Flickr account, where you can find larger versions.

As in, they've sold less than 21.

The FA have comprehensively cocked up their ticket website, having apparently not anticipated that a lot of people might want tickets to the first ever game at the new Wembley Stadium - England U21s v Italy U21s.

I've spent a good part of my afternoon trying to get tickets but have been met with this selection of responses from the website:

It's getting to the stage where hope is beginning to fade, and one wonders if anybody has successfully managed to buy a ticket.

A couple of times a reasonably normal-looking screen appeared, and at one point I was number 900 of 11,000 in the online queue to be served, but that was back in the dim and distant past at around 3:30pm. Since then it's been nothing but a plague of error messages.

It's nice to know that with the stadium debacle finally sorted, the FA can still maintain Wembley's proud tradition of absolutely everything about it being crap.

Welcome to the summer of 1966, and the sight that would have started thousands of holidays each day.

If you've ever travelled to London by coach, you'll instantly recognise the venue as Victoria Coach Station, still Central London's only coach interchange. Journeys to destinations all over the country and beyond have been starting here for 75 years now, and yesterday we marked that anniversary with a modest display of some of the many types of coach that have used the terminal during its lifetime.

Modest it was, not because attendance or interest was low, but because unlike so many of Britain's other great transport landmarks Victoria Coach Station is just as busy as ever, even on a Sunday morning in March. Hardly a moment passed when some National Express giant wasn't arriving with a full load from Penzance or Edinburgh, and with space at a premium for both coaches and passengers, our celebrations understandably had to be kept in hand.

Generously, TfL had allocated one third of the coach station's main stands to our display, and the result was just perfect. With up to seven or eight coaches on display at any one time, and many more taking part elsewhere, they were rotated on a timetable throughout the day, not only giving the many photographers a range of different poses to choose from, but also recreating a sense of bustle and movement of arrivals and departures. There was nothing static about this display.

It also gave a welcome chance to explore a bit of Battersea Park, where the coaches parked up between turns in the coach station. My Dad's coach and its former friend from the West Country seemed to enjoy the sunshine as much as we did.

Transport for London often receive a bad press from those interested in keeping old vehicles alive. On this occasion, they must be praised highly for their magnificent efforts to commemorate the contribution Victoria Coach Station makes to London. The vehicle owners were treated like royalty (I fulfilled the ambition of a roast lunch in a bu... sorry, coachman's canteen, and not a penny was handed over), and the coach station was beautifully dressed with posters and window etchings to mark the anniversary. It couldn't have been better.

And by the way, I didn't take you back to 1966 at all. Only yesterday...

If you were to chose two sports involving polar opposites of society, field hockey and cage fighting would probably be safe bets. Today I've managed to cover both.

We started up in the gantry at Sonning Lane, home of Reading hockey club. It's the first time I've found my way into a gantry, although I imagine that as gantries go, this is one of the riskier affairs. It's a wooden structure perched above the small stand at the ground, accessible via this ladder:

And missing a plank in the middle, thus making life a little dangerous for those who don't look where they're stepping:

Still, it afforded a great view of the pitch and the surrounding area.

More to the point, Reading ladies beat Wimbledon 3-0 to win their league title. I had a cracking time and there was a great "group interview" with the victorious girls after the match - I'll post a link when I've edited it and it's all online.

Into the car at the hockey club and off we go across town to the Rivermead leisure centre, scene of the return of cage fighting to Berkshire.

You may remember that last year I reported on cage fighting in Bracknell. This was the same deal, except this time I'd been allowed to shadow the medical team - filiming the fighters' medicals, sitting ringside with the paramedic, and even bursting into the ring with them when a fighter needed urgent treatment.

It was a fascinating evening and actually quite good entertainment. Whisper it quietly but I don't think cage fighting quite deserves the bad reputation it has. In fact I'm inclined to agree with the paramedic, who said it only suffers because the name involves the word "cage". Apparently local authorities have no problem if you say it's happening in a ring, but start using the world "cage" and often they don't want to know, even though the cage is probably better designed and more fit for purpose than the ring.

From what I've seen tonight the medical procedures in place are certainly adequate, and the fighters simply seem happy to be taking part. They've all got day jobs, they're all laughing and smiling. I'm struggling to see the harm and Rita, my work colleague who came with me, loved her whole evening to the point where she insists her name is first on the list to come to the next one. This despite nearly getting blood in her beer once or twice (we were that close).

Perhaps it's telling that there were almost 900 more spectators at the cage fighting than made it to the hockey. Me? I can easily watch both. But then with basketball, ice hockey, racing, hockey and cage fighting to my name this week, with speedway and a half marathon to come, keeping an open mind is becoming a part of the job description.

Today would be a very good day to win the lottery.

For a start it would go some way to offsetting the damage caused by winning the bid for those tickets to the Comic Relief Top Gear special on Sunday.

But more importantly, and in the same vein, this little puppy would be coming home with me:

Of course it's not an ordinary bloody Ford Cortina. It's the Cortina, as used by Messrs Hunt and Tyler in Life On Mars. Those cunning gits at Comic Relief have persuaded the producers to part with it (since the show has always been set to run for two series alone, it won't be needed by them any more), and it's being auctioned off for charity on eBay.

At the time of writing the car, a 1974 model despite the series being set in 1973, will set you back more than £10,000.

Congratulations to whichever individual has the money and taste to currently be leading the bidding. If I had my way I'd plonk fifty grand at the very least on the table tomorrow in a bid to take that hunk of metal home. Then I'd spend the rest of the lottery win on a bigger driveway - the Dodge is going nowhere.

Speaking of the Dodge, you may remember that a while back I noticed Dodge advertising in my ice hockey game on the PS2.

Well it seems it's not just fictitious US ice hockey which gets the Dodge treatment - real UK ice hockey's in on the act too. Admittedly this photo could have been better (I was in a hurry), but this is a Dodge Caliber with the Basingstoke Bison logo outside their home rink:

The Bison, who I already liked anyway, definitely get my vote with their prudent and tasteful choice of sponsor. Click here to read about the 'Hockey 101' night I attended at the rink on Thursday - if you're interested in ice hockey you might pick up a thing or two.

Tonight I bring you a bit of light relief with a couple of fun games people have sent me.

Now, I've been getting interested in finding a house recently, but I'm sure we'd all agree it's for the best if I'm not allowed to be the architect behind it. I have inherited my father's aptitude for art (he boasts of the time he scored 4 out of 100 for his drawing of a horse), so when the following website asked me to draw a house, I knew I'd be in trouble.

DrawAHouse.com reckons the house you draw on their website will tell them plenty about you. Sadly, or perhaps fortuitously, I have lost the house I drew since I did it at work (it was a busy afternoon, clearly). However I have managed to preserve the conclusions DrawAHouse.com reached about my personality from my squiggly little house:

Your house tells the world that you ought to be a leader. You are a freedom lover and a strong person. You are shy and reserved. If you've drawn a cross on each of windows, you always want to live alone. You are very tidy person. There's nothing wrong with that because you're pretty popular among friends. son.

When it comes to love, you shut yourself off. It's difficult to win your heart because you have decided to keep your feelings deep inside. You have a strong personality and you like to command, influence and control people.

You are not a romantic person by nature. It also safe to say that others don't see you as a flirt. You don't think much about yourself.

It's a bit like a horoscope: read it enough times and you'll start to believe that's actually like you. But Linda, sat next to me, got an almost identical result for her markedly different house - hers had Gothic influences and definitely hinted at her Dutch heritage, whereas mine was a traditional Lancastrian farmhouse belching black smoke from its humongous chimney. So I'm inclined to believe this is not the most scientific test in the world and I am, after all, romantic, flirtatious, and certainly untidy.

Have a go at drawing your own house here.

Game number two was sent to me by its designer, which I find rather endearing. It forms part of the Red Nose Day site and the aim seems to be to make the logistics of water supply, rarely a sexy topic, appealing to kids. It's called 'Let It Flow' and I enjoyed it so much that I managed not only to complete all ten levels, but also to come in second in the High Score chart at the time of writing!

The idea is you connect all the water pipes up in a sort of Tetris-esque shapebusting environment, so that the water flows from one end to the other without any spillages along the way.

I'm sure you'll want to give it a go, if only to get a better score than me. If you were decent at maths and you think you have quite a logical brain, you'll probably fare well. Click here to play.

Finally, the title of this post is not just a pun on the comic relief provided by these games. Amy J and I have struck it a bit lucky, and will be going to see the Comic Relief special Top Gear Of The Pops being filmed on Sunday. A full report will of course follow!

One of the great joys of having every Wednesday off is the ability to watch Prime Minister's Questions, live and in full. You can't beat that half an hour for 'Punch and Judy politics', which is of course a far more enjoyable breed of politics than any other on offer. Unless you're a Liberal Democrat, in which case PMQs is no fun at all and you've already discovered many other enjoyable perks of politics, most of them illegal in many countries.

This week David Cameron took another opportunity to lob grenades at Gordon Brown before the good Chancellor gets his chance to fight back once Blair's gone. Cameron employed the ingenious measure of asking members of the Cabinet to vote on their future under Gordon - have a listen:

This from the man who would have 'Punch and Judy' banished. I hope he regrets that statement. The very last thing you want to do to Prime Minister's Questions is get rid of the comedy and high farce element, to be replaced by more inane wittering from pet Labour MPs, asking if the Prime Minister will congratulate himself for the success of a flower arranging demonstration in their Grimethorpe West constituency.

By the way, I managed to get my first ever shots onto regional telly on Monday night. South Today aired the story of Reading Rockets' triumph in the basketball at the weekend, using some of the footage I shot for the web special (which you can find here).

Apparently I, in my inexperience, cocked up some button or other while sending the footage down the line from Caversham to Southampton, which made some shots look a little the worse for wear on screen, but we live and learn (in my defence there was nobody around to help so it's a miracle it got there in the first place). I should have some speedway stuff to send them next week so we'll try to get it completely right next time!

,,, I am 1/4 of a qualified lawyer. Yep, I've sold my soul for 6mths now. The next 6mths should be "steadier". I may have a life, and weekends, back again.

A couple of points to note:

Why is it when you buy "special offer" wine with £2 off or something, it is vile. And you still buy it, becuase it looks like a bargain at £6.99 not £8.99... and it is still vile. No such thing as a free lunch.

Early evening TV is utter ROT (i've been in since 6.30 for the past two days). I have managed to tidy a drawer, do all my filing (since Novemeber... ouch) and sort my DVDs and CDs. Next up is the "shoe" shelf and the wardrobe. Then I'll get a life.

On the "filing" point, I made a resolve to always file bank statements, bills etc the day I received them. When I was a student this was easy. Then worked kicked in. And instead they got thrown in a box-file. I filed everything since November on Sunday. It took me 20mins. Genius. The thing is, I never wanted to do this. I wanted to be organised. I had always criticised my father for lobbing everything into a box and then waiting until the box over-flowed (or my Mum screeched at him) before he filed everything. Well, I think he has a point. Life is too short to worry about it any more than every three months or so.

My Saturday was utterly wonderful but utterly obscure. I spent the day yomping around fields and hills in Kent teaching 14-15yr olds how to navigate. I also fell over in the mud. At 3.30 I was in a field. By 4.30 I was in my flat. By 5.30 I was in black tie, and in a cab on the way to dinner at Inner Temple. By 10ish I was at an engagement party. By 12p I was at a club in the East end. By 3am I was in bed. No point being ordinary.

I've got an obsession for house plants.

I have my first day of vacation on Friday.

Hey, tell you what - this basketball lark's a lot better than I'd previously suspected.

Football's my game and I've sat through a few relegations, plus the occasional promotion, and they were pretty heart-stopping affairs. But at least you had moments in the game where you could take a breath or two and try to gather your thoughts.

Basketball, on the other hand, is relentless in its mathematical massacre of your mind. After three seconds of today's National Trophy Final between Reading Rockets and Worthing Thunder, Reading scored. Four seconds later, Worthing were winning by 3 points to 2. So I'd been watching seven seconds of basketball and had already experienced joy and frustration.

By the end of the first quarter, with the scores level, I was staring at the bloody stubs where once there were fingernails. At half time I needed defibrillating. With three quarters gone and Rockets nursing a 15-point lead I was elated. Five minutes later, with that 15-point lead obliterated and Worthing within two points, I was near-suicidal. And then we - er, Rockets - won.

You try and be neutral on an occasion like this. I'd travelled up with the team and fans, eaten with them, slept if not with them then in the same hotel, been in the changing rooms before the game, and basically been there to experience just about every aspect of basketball for two days. It was thrilling and I'm extremely grateful to the team and management for letting me come on board, both literally and metaphorically.

Hopefully I've got some good video of the game and the build-up, which I'll spend tonight and tomorrow editing up - I'll post a link when it's done. But seriously - don't write off basketball as just another minority sport enjoyed by a few loons insisting on being different. This game finished 91-85 to Reading and I felt every point, disputed every foul, kicked every advertising board the Rockets coach demolished (he's not the Steve Coppell of basketball).

And you know what? This is the team's first National Trophy title. I'm a lucky charm. This seat on the luxury coach is reserved for future Cup finals.

Welcome to transport, basketball style.

I'm on the Reading Rockets' coach going up to the National Trophy Final in Newcastle, to be held tomorrow afternoon. We've got the Rockets squad on board, plus a group of the team's most loyal supporters, and of course the Rockets' coaching and backroom staff.

This is not your ordinary coach. When I booked my place on it I had visions of it being one of those outwardly quite swish but inwardly knackered and boring coaches you get lumbered with on school trips - lucky if you've got a TV at the front, no creature comforts, don't go near the toilet if such a device even exists.

This coach has a toilet and, though I haven't been near it through years of training to avoid such things, I'm sure it's fine. Because this coach also has an oven. And a microwave, a sink, and fridges in between the seats. Every seat has a table, and there are four DVD flat screens. My laptop has its own power point and my headphones are plugged into the table, which is giving me the Five Live commentary on the football.

I'm told the coach company involved narrowly lost out on the contract to supply transport to Reading FC, and you can see why. This makes travel by train, formerly my preferred method of travel if someone told me to go to Newcastle, look like an amateur, painful, expensive form of self-harm.

We've just stopped for a very welcome KFC - another surprise since I hadn't expected Britain's top sportsmen to partake of the Colonel's Secret Recipe on the journey up. However I'm told the players do bring pasta and other such sporty foods, they just don't worry too much the day before a game. This is an attitude I applaud. It's certainly difficult to lose the Reading Rockets team in the crowd at the services, since most of them are upwards of 6' 8" in height.

We're around 30 miles away from Sheffield so there's a while to go yet. I've got Shaun Goater's autobiography, the radio, the laptop and possibly one of the best basketball teams in the country to keep me occupied. Time should fly.

This evening marked a minor first for me: the first full, live show I've produced. Every Friday night from now on, at 7pm, we have an hour's sports round-up with things like football, rugby, basketball, athletics, cricket, speedway and so on.

Tonight we kicked off with Alec Stewart, who was very good previewing the forthcoming Cricket World Cup in the West Indies. He's going out there with another former England captain, Graham Gooch, and together they're spending the two weeks on a boat touring the Caribbean with some lucky people who won trips on it. Not a bad life for these retired England captains, is it?

I also asked him what he thinks of Paul Nixon, the 36-year-old brought in to keep wicket for England at the World Cup. Stewart toured with Nixon six years ago but kept him out of the side - I asked why, if Nixon wasn't good enough six years ago, he was suddenly good enough now.

The answer: "He was good enough six years ago, but he wasn't as good as me."

Credit also to my co-presenter Tim for one of the more glowing put-downs I've ever received, on or off air. In an interview the Maidenhead United boss told us that one player had had to leave because his wife had given birth the previous Saturday. Tim commented that this was a disgrace, giving birth on a matchday - I added that my dad had never really forgiven me for making him miss a 0-0 draw between Man City and West Ham when I was born.

"I'd rather have had the 0-0 draw than you," said Tim. Thanks for that.

Tomorrow brings another landmark: I'm off to Newcastle to report on the national basketball final between Reading Rockets and Worthing Thunder. Just like Arsenal and Chelsea going to Wales for the Carling Cup, it's another mildly nonsensical relocation of players and supporters a few hundred miles to the north for two hours, at most, of sport.

I'm going on the team coach with the Rockets and their fans, and staying at their hotel, which should be quite a nice experience - and of course I'll be at Sunday's final reporting for the web, radio, and local TV news. It's the furthest I've been in the pursuit of sport since joining the BBC, and it should be a great couple of days, armed to the teeth with recording and live broadcast equipment.

We had a very pleasant young man in on work experience today and when describing what I did for a living, it suddenly became extremely apparent that essentially, my job is a glorified hobby. Long may it remain that way.

Bloody Barclaycard have just been on the phone.

"Hi there," in an American accent. "I'm calling from Barclaycard. You told us you don't want us to ever call you unless it's to do with the running of your account, but periodically we ask our customers to review that decision."

End of phone call. What sort of idiots does a company have to employ to end up calling people who don't want to be called, to check if they still don't want to be called? I'm off to cancel my card for that, they don't deserve a penny.

That's Amy J at Lord's last year, trying not to look as excited as Simon Jones before facing Cambridge in the women's Varsity match.

But last night she received an honour she says is as great as being picked for that Oxford team. She was asked to represent the Berkshire Association of Cricket Umpires & Scorers at the 2007 regional Finger Quiz.

Now this is positive discrimination at its absolute worst, and naturally I appealed to every available authority to discover why I was overlooked for the prestigious honour. The answer:

• She's "better looking" than me (Gah! Were there any women on the panel?)
• She's younger than me
• She got 24 out of 24 on her homework (I got 23)

This is appalling. The first point is very much in the eye of the beholder and I feel should never form part of the selection criteria. Certainly not when I'm involved.

The second point shocks me to my inner core - it's the first time in my entire life that I've been passed over because I'm too old for something! It can only be downhill from here.

The third point is an absolute outrage. The stuffy woman somehow pulls full marks out of the bag for the very first time in week seven of the course, having been knocked out of sight by yours truly in the first six, and suddenly the glamour of being a, well, Fingerer, is bestowed on her!

I tell you, there'll be grim repercussions. For a start there's my threat to record her performance in the quiz itself - she and three others of varying skill levels will represent Berkshire against the likes of Hampshire, Surrey and other surrounding counties, in a test of umpiring skill to be held somewhere in darkest Berks.

But that's for the future - some time near the end of April, in fact. First I had to put my journalistic hat back on and grab an interview with the lucky nominee...