You have to feel sorry for Peter Sissons. He's live on BBC News 24, a car has crashed into Glasgow Airport, and he's got an eyewitness on the line. Except the eyewitness seems to be having trouble hearing, and then a completely different voice appears in its place. Listen to Peter's somewhat bemused reaction and remember - all this is live on air:

I don't know why I should be laughing, given this happens to the likes of us far more frequently than it'll ever happen to Peter Sissons. Later on I'll present to you a truly mad five minutes from David's show earlier today, where we ran a competition in which contestants had to name all the train operating companies in the UK. It gets to the point where we have people yelling the word 'cuff links!' down the line at us.

(This is the 'second song of Sissons' since the first one was last year.)

Sometimes, when I look back on the past 36 hours of my life, it all seems a little surreal.

We begin, rather unusually for me, at the beginning: yesterday morning. I arrived at work and had a conference call at 9am. I then had a raft of research, but had to do this in the cab on the way to a vault to deposit nigh-on €150,000,000 in bonds.

By the time I was back it was around 11.45am, so two colleagues and I thought we'd beat the rush and have an early lunch. We had a glass of wine, and then by half 12 we were back in the office.

Then my effective boss asked me to lunch, and it wasn't the sort of thing you refuse. So I ended up picking at sweetcorn and prawns out of a bowl of rice.

In the afternoon I pottered around and it got to around 7pm. A colleague and I decided to have a glass of wine. Well, we shared a bottle. But it was only around 8pm, so we roped in a good friend and another colleague, and we went on, and on, and on some more.

At about 4am common sense kicked in, so we all went home.

And by 9am we were all in work and in the middle of completing a transaction. Then we had breakfast. I then spent the remainder of the day in a training course.

Thankfully I'm now home. I've a raft of work. That's what tomorrow morning is for. Bring on the weekend!

It would have been difficult to miss the widespread coverage of the symbolic hand-over of power between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown this week, but that I did. Not through ignorance, you understand, but sheer business. I was at a job interview (which you'll hear about as and when things progress, over the next 9-12 months), then travelling with my mother, and generally being constructive.

I did discover, therefore, that if you are a busy, hard-working member of society, you don't realy notice which personalities occupy the seats of power so long as you have food on your plate, a roof over your head, and the trains run on time (mine didn't). After all, Tim Henman is still out of Wimbledon, England are still rubbish at cricket, and it's still raining. Plus ça change, Gordon, plus ça change.

Nevertheless, it has been pointed out that six of the new Cabinet (Ed and David Miliband, Ed Balls, Ruth Kelly, Jacqui Smith and James Purnell) read PPE at Oxford. Those of us in the Dayorama Village - it's like the Westminster Village, but better - stifled a giggle at that because I read PPE at Oxford. I expect my job offer got lost in the post...

Much like my father's, really. The few hardy souls who've read my Dayorama biography - yes we have those: click here - will have read Ollie's rather cryptic message about there being a Lord in the family. It is true; my father is a working peer, though he prefers to be known as 'a Peer of the Realm.' His take on the new PM is this:

"I have not yet received a job offer from Gordon. Maybe he has lost my number.
Different PM: still ignored.
love,
Sulking Dad"

Well, exactly.

Exciting times in Minehead - the blackbirds who've made my mum's back garden their home have finally turfed their young ones out of the nest, to develop in the big, wide world. Well, the big, wide back garden at any rate.

Here is one of the youngsters out and about, out back:

"The babies have fledged and this is one of them taken with my new camera lens," writes the owner of the garden. "He is jauntily sitting under the tree preening, and copying his parents in behaving as though he owns the garden!"

There has been much activity on the blackbird front over these past few weeks. Last year, to my mother's horror, a pair of plucky robins built a lovely nest over a pond, only to promptly fall in it and drown. This year the blackbirds have wisely chosen a tree over the other side of the garden, but have had to deal with all sorts of trauma in the mean time, not least magpies invading. We wish them all well.

That's no longer a question. Today Tony Blair ploughed through his final Prime Minister's Questions, and in a few short moments he'll pop his feet up, settle back, relax, and look forward to a peaceful non-confrontational retirement... as a Mid-East envoy.

In the mean time he did still have that half-hour minefield to negotiate. We know the drill by now. First, the condolences to the members of the armed forces killed this week. Then the announcement of Prime Ministerial engagements. Except this week: "I will have no such further meetings later today, or any other day." Much laughter in the Commons.

Everyone seems to be wearing their front bench finery, particularly the likes of Ruth Kelly, who's dolled herself right up for this one. Gordon continues to look deeply bored by the whole process: he gives off an aura which suggests, in present mood, his answer to most PMQs would be, "Whatever".

And perhaps that attitude's rubbing off. To a Lib Dem question about the relationship between Church and State - "given his successor's reported views" - Blair's simple response: "I think I'm really not bothered about that one."

You know what, today does mark a paradigm shift on the front benches. For the first time in a long time, the Conservatives will have the better hair. Maggie's hair went a bit wild, John Major's retreated to a polar opposite, and several Tory leaders since have been entirely bereft - all the while, Tony's kept a refined mop, but one which suggests a hint of daring on occasion, even as it's greyed with age.

Gordon, by contrast, not only has boring hair, but hair that's already showing a considerable grey twinge. If he sticks around as long as Blair, it'll all be an arctic white by 2017.

And as we look across to the other side of the House, we find David Cameron's hair has miraculously Blairified itself! It seems to have perked up a bit from out of nowhere, as though it were arching a bushy eyebrow, and it's developed that upstanding greyish tweak without joining Brown in the box marked 'grey' entirely. Cameron is clearly the heir to Blair hair and this can only bode well for his election chances.

In the mean time PMQs continues, although it's like leaving a family gathering where you know the various strands of the family don't particularly like each other, but feel the need to be courteous. Messrs Cameron and Campbell pay their respects, Blair pays them back, and all the while everyone disassociates themselves from the other's politics.

There's that awkward tension in the air as these various family members share a cool, distant pat on the back resembling a hug. You stand by the door waiting to leap into the car and drive off, but someone else keeps insisting on paying a phenomenally insincere compliment.

Ian Paisley has the honour of the penultimate question. "I fully understand he was downcast, disappointed, angry and that perhaps he even lost his temper. But I want to say that he treated me with the greatest of courtesy. I disagreed with him on many things but we faced them, and I'm glad today that I can stand here and say to the Prime Minister: the people of Northern Ireland felt the same way as he felt, but we have made progress.

"Not as great a progress as I would like to see, but they are dedicated. The Unionist people I speak for are dedicated to see what has been started, concluded, so that every man and woman in Ulster will have the same rights, liberties and opportunities. I hope he'll look back and be able to say it was well worthwhile."

And if you're friends with Ian Paisley, you know it's time to leave.

Tony Blair's final words: "That is that. The end." Applause. Ovation from both sides. And with that the Prime Minister, doing well to hold back tears, shakes the hand of the Speaker of the House and departs.

My absences grow ever longer. Way back when - it feels like decades ago but was actually last Wednesday - my mum completed her marathon fiftieth birthday celebrations with a trip to the Eden Project, in Cornwall, to see Peter Gabriel with me.

And to think I moaned when it rained before I went to Switzerland. And to think I was taken aback by the rain in Switzerland. That was but a murky prelude to the true majesty of the rainstorms which swept across the Eden Project throughout the evening. My mother, wisely, bought a cheap rainproof at the shop as we arrived. I, on the other hand, decided to tough it out.

After the support acts had finished, drenched to the bone, certain of pneumonia and squelching like a tub of jelly with every step, I went in search of a cheap umbrella. I found a teensy tiny one for £4. It didn't rain again. God plays his hand expertly, you know.

Mother had put the shop to good use not only by insulating herself against the rain. She'd happened across a cuddly toy black sheep (it may be a cow, I'm not entirely sure), and the moment their eyes met, it became clear they wouldn't be parted.

The sheep/cow became known as 'Blood' - Peter Gabriel has a song called 'The Blood Of Eden', and the connection should be fairly obvious. It's not a name I'm terribly keen on, but my suggestions weren't given much time of day (not that they were much better). So 'Blood' it is.

Meanwhile, as evidence on the right hand side above, there was plenty of flora to be admiring in the hours before Peter Gabriel emerged on stage. The Eden Project really is a fantastic place to go and attend a gig. Not only is their choice of artist rather good, they open their huge biomes until 9pm, allowing you to wander the tropical and temperate spheres at your leisure, listening to the opening acts. There's plenty of food at not-too-ridiculous prices, and plenty of space in which to be eating it. It's not a bad arrangement at all.

Peter Gabriel only announced this date quite recently, and his presence was tied in to the launch of a new piece of sculpture, called something like 'The Seed', aptly homed in the centre of 'The Core', one of Eden's main buildings. The Seed's claim to fame is that it is the largest sculpture, in Britain at least, made from a single piece of rock.

This is all well and good but, in the author's humble opinion, it has taken on the form of a giant urinal cake.

I try to be a connoisseur of the arts, I really do. But it's a monumental struggle.

The gig itself was as spectacularly good as I could have hoped. Gabriel, brilliantly, elected to play lesser-known tracks as voted for on his website by fans.

This is exactly what I wanted and I got to hear tracks like 'Intruder', 'No Self Control' and 'Humdrum' live - which I never thought would happen in my lifetime. Frankly halfway through the gig I wasn't expecting to hear them in my lifetime, as I was fully expecting to either drown or die of cold, but it was all worthwhile.

I realise I'm in a minority in holding artists like Genesis and Peter Gabriel in the esteem that I do, at my age, but seriously - it's worth giving them a chance. They create songs rich in layers, with brilliant lyrics and a real sense that this is craftsmanship, a kind of delicate, passionate art that's not the same as many other pop, rock or indie acts. It's all a bit different.

Try 'San Jacinto' by Peter Gabriel, or 'Domino' by Genesis, as songs which weren't particularly huge successes for either, but exemplify the spirit of their work. Then for an idea of the breadth of their catalogues, go for 'Moribund The Burgermeister' by Gabriel (opening track of his first solo album), and 'Trick Of The Tail' by Genesis. It's accessible and inventive stuff.

I've got a second chance to see Genesis in a couple of weeks at Twickenham, and am working on a second opportunity to see Peter Gabriel too. Where are today's equivalents? Who, of today's bands, will be around to sell out stadia like Twickenham in the year 2030?

I've learnt two things about the Royal Mail this week.

First, they are actually quite technologically advanced. Their website, from the postcode finder through to "Fee2Pay", is rather accessible.

Second, they don't just make their money through inflated postage prices. Boy do they make it when the mail sender fails to put the correct postage on an envelope.

My father sent me an A5 envelope but uselessly, didn't put the correct postage on. He was 6p short. The Royal Mail are making me pay £1.06.

The £1 is an admin charge? You what? I correct myself, it is a "handling charge". Better be gold plated, clean hands!

For Shep it'd probably be boring, going on tedious, to present an hour-long sports show on Friday early evening. But it's now been over two hours since the first ever radio show I could properly call my own finished, and I've yet to come down off the ceiling.

Well, maybe not the first ever. I used to have shows now and then on student radio, but I could count my internet-based audience using various gadgets, and the maximum listening figure I got was: eight.

So it's a bit of a step up to be given an entire county.

To say I was nervous beforehand would be something of an understatement. David can attest that I was circling the newsroom like a shark with Parkinson's in the hour prior to broadcast, and when producer Rita spilt coffee on a keyboard, all anyone could see was me walking round with rolls of brown-stained toilet paper, which was remarkably apt.

See, I've wanted to do this for ages. I've been in the newsroom before, wondering what the odds are that the regular presenters and every other available person will all be held up in traffic, leaving me to stride in and save the day. So when I got in this morning to find an email telling me I was presenting tonight, it put me on excitable pins all day long.

Our station is particularly blessed with experienced, brilliant presenters who've been there for decades and seen it all (Henry Kelly, for example). One of these is Phil Kennedy, a veteran of national radio and frankly a bloody good presenter. When I heard Phil utter the immortal words, "That's it from me, here's Ollie", I'm amazed I stayed conscious. It's the equivalent of David Beckham rolling the ball across for you to score in an empty net in the World Cup Final, in your first ever competitive football match.

I think the hour went okay. As with all things like this, it felt like mere seconds, and we managed to fit everything in without making any big cock-ups. But the credit for that rests with Rita, who was operating the desk which sends everything from our studio out to air, and who calmly massaged my shaking soul through reams of jingles, beds and clips, which otherwise would have sent my head rolling from my shoulders.

I promise you presenting radio is not easy, but the best people make it seem like it is. That's why I blame David for making me think I'd get away with it. In case you don't know, Mr Sheppard is standing in for Paul Miller across BBC local radio in the South for the next week or so, and he's doing a brilliant job - everyone there, and everyone listening, loves him. Don't forget to tune in... he'll be in the studio by now ready for 10pm, and if his palms are sweating anything like mine were, he'll have to swim to his microphone fader.

(PS: My ego would like it to be made clear that tonight's Sportsweek, with yours truly bricking it throughout, is available on Listen Again for a week.)

So, some bright spark has decided that tomorrow shall be Lights Out London day.

I don't disagree with this in principle. It's a great idea to help the people of London see how much wasted electricity they use. From 9pm until 10pm tomorrow, all 'unnecessary' lighting should be turned off, and the capital should be plunged into darkness.

I am meant to be at a drinks event tomorrow evening on the top floor of the Gherkin, so this should be an interesting sight.*

But I've got two questions:

i. Why can't we just be encouraged to turn off non-essential lighting every day; and
ii. Why on earth would you encourage turning off the lights at 9pm on the longest day of the year?

I was in a very pleasant flat this evening, overlooking the Wharf and the skyline of London, and it was light until at least 9.45pm. So much for 'lights out London' - it's still partially daylight! The brain-child of someone whose internal lights are stuck on the dimmer switch?

* Shame I'm unlikely to attend since I'll almost certainly be stuck in work...

From Ollie

You may already have seen her on Dayorama's 'About' page for a couple of months and, finally, it's my pleasure to introduce Amy Jones to you.

Amy and I met while I was setting up an Election Special for student radio two years ago - she was the press officer for Oxford University's Lib Dem society. She's played cricket for the university at Lord's and, speaking of lords, there's one in the family. She's just finished at Oxford University and calls Cheltenham, and Botswana, home. Give her a warm welcome.

From here on in, it's Amy...

Hi, I'm Amy J; you may remember me from such Dayorama posts as this, this, and this. Rest assured that the rest of my life is equally exciting. Unfortunately, Ollie extended his invitation to Dayorama at precisely the moment when my life temporarily ceased to be so, because I had Finals looming large and was (mostly) chained to a desk in one of the many libraries Oxford has to offer.

Though I saw this as something of a challenge, and sought to be as interesting as possible for my remaining period at university, events conspired against me, and life really was as dull as I'd feared it might be. However, I am now BACK (not that any of you ever noticed that I went away), and promise to bring you the many exploits of my post-Finals summer including, but not limited to:

• England's first match at the new Wembley


• The Oxford-Cambridge One-Day Varsity cricket match


• A review of every one of John Simm's TV appearances to date

Luckily - and, for those of you who have been living under a rock for the past month, I suppose I should enclose a spoiler warning - I need not wait long to acquire new material for this last adventure; Simm is appearing as 'Harold Saxon/The Master' in this year's two-part Dr Who finale, beginning this Saturday. I wish I could retain an element of decorum about this, but the fact of the matter is, I haven't been this excited about a piece of television for a very long time.

The regeneration of Derek Jacobi's Professor into John Simm's Master last Saturday night represented, to me, the passing of the mantle of "Best Actor Of His Generation" from the first man to the second. Jacobi is now 68; Simm is 36. That gives me at least another 32 years of top-notch telly-watching; you'll be the first to hear my commentary on it.

This comes from the website www.votesaxon.co.uk. I've already clicked "Yes" on the poll asking if I'd vote for Harry Saxon. Well, you just WOULD, wouldn't you?!

Just for the record, here's my mum blowing out far fewer than the requisite number of candles as she reaches that grand landmark, fifty years of age:

Out of all the photos we have I've been told I can only put one up, and this is not the one, but being a journalist I'm never one for following other people's orders. Instead in the above picture you have my mum accompanied by yours truly, looking dignified as ever for the occasion, alongside partner Sheila's kids (L-R: Sarah, Anna, David, Chris).

If you look closely you'll see the cake shows someone playing a saxophone. We have the tremendous good fortune to live a couple of doors down from a brilliant cake shop, who delivered a fantastic cake to celebrate my mum's new-found love for a good bit of woodwind. She's already taken to the stage at Minehead's Regal Theatre as part of a wind band, and is now - shock, horror - due to sit her Grade One Saxophone examination in early July! Life begins, eh...

So, it's pretty poor that no one posted when Ollie was away. Apologies. No guesses for what I've been up to. Boy I love the view from the 23rd floor in my Canary Wharf tower! Actually, I don't have much to report since the weekend was either spent working or with my parents. It's always fun to turn up unannounced, washing in hand, and to invite myself for dinner. What news? Preparation for Hong Kong are coming along. I've had to get hold of my University transcripts though... it will take over 2 weeks! Something about the assistant being away, and then someone else not knowing what to do, and then some time delay. Or something. Ho-hum. But, I have managed something in the past few days. I managed to install my new dvd player... on my own. For those of you that know me, you'll appreciate that this is nothing short of a miracle. And I was tipsy at the time. Perhaps that made it easier?! Either way, it seems to work. Electrical goods are now fool-proof, or I am less blonde than first thought. I'd put money on the former.

I've spent most of the last week getting far wetter than was strictly necessary.

More news of Thursday night - in a World War One trench in the village of Shiplake - shortly, including video to prove it.

But first, to Switzerland.

I flew out to Zurich with my mum on Saturday afternoon, then we took the train to Bern, the beautiful Swiss capital. I'd left my camera at home (I'm in danger of becoming surgically attached to it, ditto my laptop, which also stayed behind), so all the photos here are the mother's:

Central Bern is improbably serene for a capital city, or at least it was for us. Admittedly our timing helped, since Sundays appear to have remained sacred in Switzerland, so none of the shops had opened. The human traffic was minimal, let alone the near non-existent vehicle traffic on the old Bern streets.

We walked down to the chalky turquoise and fast-flowing river, then back up to Bern's cathedral, which offers gorgeous views over the old town and even across to the Alpine mountains in the far distance.

We had a wander around the cathedral and a couple of the other churches in the city centre, being the suckers for architecture that we are. I'm impressed that one particular Bern church ceiling detail looks like a robotic Owl of Death:

Come Sunday night, the real reason for our trip out: Genesis, playing at Bern's new Stade de Suisse, the night before my mum's fiftieth birthday.

That's our view of the stage (and that's a photo off my camera by the way, very proud of that one). We were in the 'Golden Circle' right at the very front - more by virtue of these being the only tickets left when I booked, than any great desire to show off - between the stage and a whopping great big screen.

My mum was initially somewhat concerned about the prospect of so many hours standing up, but soon warmed to the idea when she found an Australian security guard who'd spent eight weeks in exactly the same Norwegian village as us earlier this year, and began to share photos. I have no idea how these things happen to us.

We were in the perfect location as the concert started - and then it began to rain. And then it began not only to rain, but absolutely lash it down with a vengeance. It was bloody brilliant. Thank God I don't spike my hair up any more: even with the legendary strength of my spikes, there'd have been a terrible collapse.

As the band finished off their two-and-a-half hour set, 'wet' did not even begin to describe the state of those of us in the open air at the front. God only knows how the band's equipment - all the lights etc - carried on functioning, and the big screen at the back of the stage died once or twice in the watery onslaught. It was biblical but made the whole evening all the more atmospheric.

Credit to the ever-efficient Swiss rail system: although the queues at the station after the gig were vaguely reminiscent of early 1940s Germany, as experienced by those who weren't German, there were special trains to get us to the stadium and back, and our hotel room was a stone's throw from Bern's main station - albeit another wet stone's throw as the rain persisted.

I think my mum's only disappointment was the journey back the following morning, on her fiftieth proper. She went through at least four sets of passport control at Zurich and Heathrow, and not once did someone notice her date of birth on her passport. You'd think they'd keep a balloon under the immigration desks or something. Disgrace.

Still, Happy Birthday mum - and it doesn't end there. Tomorrow night we're in Cornwall to see Peter Gabriel (ex-Genesis, of course) play at the Eden Project. Scattered showers are forecast, but they'll have to go some to beat Bern. Glastonbury eat your heart out.

The Daily Politics likes nothing more than a bolshy attempt to get into the spirit of things.

Yesterday, Tony Blair said:

"The fear of missing out means today's media, more than ever before, hunts in a pack.

"In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits. But no-one dares miss out."

Today, The Daily Politics had its answer:

For those of you that can't tell, on the left we have Jenny Scott, and on the right we have Andrew Neil, the show's very own political animals, introducing what they called "The Daily Feral Beasts" - and of course, wearing feral beast masks. No expense is spared in the BBC's political programming, you see.

Having donned the masks, Andrew Neil began an earnest discussion with Nick Robinson about the forthcoming PMQs.

"Are we actually going to try to have a serious interview?" Asked Robinson. I have no idea why he should express such surprise - it's hard to tell Neil is wearing a mask.

When I was growing up, one of the television programmes to which I was routinely glued was Playdays. You know the one - there were different stops each day, like the Roundabout Stop and Dot Stop, and depending where the bus stopped, there'd be a different sort of entertainment for the rest of the show.

Most of the stops didn't really do it for me (I never did work out the pattern behind when the bus stopped where), but the Why Bird Stop was quality. Whenever the Playbus stopped at the Why Bird Stop, the cheeky, irrepressible Why Bird would appear with her computer and generally cause mischief, then play us a nice video.

I'd forgotten all about Playdays til this afternoon, when suddenly, coming the other way up the hill before Sonning Common, was the Playbus!

I tell you, it's a miracle I stayed on the road, with this enormous blue icon of my childhood going the other way. I could not believe it. It's like turning up at Reading Station to find Thomas the Tank Engine pulling the 1624 Paddington stopping service.

So all afternoon I've been wondering what the hell the Playbus was doing trundling out of Sonning Common, given I'd previously thought it entirely a work of fiction.

A quick search of the web reveals the Playbus as a concept is very real. The one I passed was the Oxfordshire Playbus, whose mission is apparently:

To provide, or assist in the provision of recreational and leisure-time activities for children, young people and adults.

In other words they go round the county with a bus full of toys and happiness, and park up wherever they're most needed. What a brilliant bus that is.

And David, the national Playbus website even has a Buses For Sale page! If Mr Sheppard one day becomes proud owner of a blue double-decker Playbus, I will take back everything disparaging I have ever said about bus ownership.

Funny how a programme I watched religiously for years had slipped from my mind until now. I'm off to print out the colour-the-bus page on the Playbus website.

Congratulations to Heineken, whose very witty advert just made a welcome interruption into an otherwise tedious Prison Break:

In a way it's a shame they chose a lobster. I'd love to have seen the visual effects team replicate this with, say, a cow...

If you're wondering why the BBC News and BBC Sport websites are not updating overly quickly this morning, I may have some vague sort of answer.

Staff working on the websites - not to mention radio and telly - are having all kinds of problems logging in to BBC computers this morning. A couple of staff here are affected. This is the explanation one sent:

"I'm logged in now but it is apparently taking up to 3 hours for anyone in BBC News to log in and they don't know how long that will go on for.

"Apparently it's something to do with a printer in Jerusalem - you really couldn't make it up!"

At the time of writing the BBC News front page hasn't been updated for nearly an hour, and the BBC Sport cricket team have resorted to posting updates on the England-Windies test using the BBC's 606 message board.

Actually I've just had an email from our technical team which suggests there are two big problems this morning, not one:

"The News CPS has encountered a major publishing problem. We have been unable to update indexes or stories for the past two-and-a-half hours. We are assured that men with spanners are trying to solve the problem."

CPS is a content management system the BBC News Online team use to produce their pages - we use a different one, CMS, which appears unaffected. From what I can tell, it looks like the only thing the News/Sport Online teams can alter is the little ticker on their respective front pages, since that's a java script and doesn't have to be edited using the technology that's gone down!

Having previously surfed our intranet extensively, I can tell you there is a whopping great back-up plan on there for when things like this happen. What I can't tell you is to what extent anyone's following it. Full marks to Tom Fordyce for 606-based cricket updates though. Brilliant thinking.

Alright look: I hate bloggers who post about the search terms used to reach their website just as much as the next person. So much so that I've refrained from doing so for a good few years now, but allow me this one.

Someone, not even half an hour ago, arrived at Dayorama using the term:

"the biggest list of the bestest ways for me and my sexy sarah to be naughty together lots, with diagrams"

What?

Google has 83 results for this - none of which appear to at all match, with us coming in sixth. The post it links to is one about umpiring from a few months ago, one that certainly doesn't contain any diagrams of anything naughty. Like, for example, treading on the protected area of the wicket during your bowling action.

Good luck to Sarah and her beau in finding their misplaced diagrams. Sounds as though they'll misplace their diaphragms, the rate they're going.

I must confess that when I went into work today, I was not expecting to adopt a panda.

But they say anything can happen in the world of live radio, and so it is that the day ends with three local radio personnel funding the wellbeing and development of ten-year-old giant panda Zhu Xiong, a resident of the Wanglang nature reserve in central China.

And it's all because of this t-shirt:

Not exactly the same one - mine is orange - but the design is almost identical. If you can't make it out, the text reads "Yum Yum Panda Burgers".

Now I have never eaten panda, nor would I even entertain the thought - although of course, it's no different to eating a cow, or a chicken, or a fish, regardless of their endangered species status. If you approached me and told me I was on the menu because there are lots of me around, but the panda is off limits because there's only so many left, I wouldn't find your argument for my demise overly convincing. So in reality, our distaste at the idea of panda patties is probably somewhat hypocritical.

But that doesn't make the sentiment "Yum yum, panda burgers" any less heartless when read out on air by your presenter. So I had to think of something to pacify the many people who by now had me down as the thoughtless, gutless panda-consuming villain of the piece.

So I came up with the idea that for every text we received reading "Save the Panda", I would donate 50 pence to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), which has a panda as its logo and pays special attention to conservation work with the furry photo-negatives themselves. Our presenter Andy and fellow producer Rita matched this, so we were offering £1.50 per text.

In a few seconds flat the Pandometer had reached £30, so I went to find out how to donate. Lo and behold, the WWF pages advertised the chance to adopt a panda for £2.50 a month - £30 a year. Perfect! I filled out the direct debit form and the panda became BBC property (well, I adopted it, but it's on attachment).

We're promised a cuddly toy version of our panda in the post, plus regular updates and a photo of the real thing. Once we get all that I'll put a BBC webpage up for the panda, which is now as much a part of the weekend staff as anyone else, although we doubt we'll get a particularly good signal from the radio car in Wanglang province.

Now this had all been quite light-hearted but I was worried it might sound like we didn't really care what happens to pandas - who, after all, are remarkably beautiful, exquisite creatures.

So Alison, the off-duty WWF press officer (above), received an unlikely phone call.

"Hello?"
"Hello, is that Alison?"
"Yes, it is."
"Hi, Alison. My name's Ollie from the BBC, sorry to disturb you at the weekend. Now, for reasons that I can't really adequately explain, we've just adopted a panda on air."
"... I see..."
"Yeah, and we were sort of wondering if you might be able to come on the radio and talk to us about pandas."
"I'll see what I can do."

I'm eternally grateful to Alison - at 5:55pm, with the seconds ticking away til the end of the show, we had her explaining to the county just what our donation would mean. For example, some of our money will go to increasing the quantity of bamboo in the area, since it naturally grows at a very high altitude and can be hard for pandas to find. Who knew?

Alison promises we can call the WWF for regular updates, which we shall of course do. Not so long ago a BBC reporter went to Sri Lanka to check out our local radio station's work with tsunami-affected communities there - I think it's only fair I be sent to China to check up on Zhu Xiong. I'll get my passport.

I really, truly and honestly mean it when I say that meeting new people is the best part of my job.

I do a lot of that - we all do - and today the entire radio station gave itself over to helping members of the public produce our output, from the travel news to the sport, the drivetime programme to the weather forecast.

The project, called Making It, involved giving no more than few hours' training to 20-plus local people prepared to try their hand at broadcasting, then supervising them as they spent a day taking charge of what we do. So we had a news editor, a newsreader, a sports presenter or two, co-presenters for all our programmes, reporters across the county, TV reporters and much more - all supported by the people who do those jobs day in, day out.

Which of course means our online team had its own new stars, and here I am with Pauline, with whom I crafted an article on some breaking speedway news during the afternoon. Note the new hair and my ability to appear drunk at 3pm having not touched a drop in days.

Pauline was fantastic - imbued with a fine sense of humour and a decisive nature, both of which are fine assets when you're doing my job. She was joined by Thelma, who wrote us a brilliant article on the architecture of the Ascot Grandstand one year on, perfect to fit in with the new BBC series How We Built Britain, and topical with Royal Ascot just around the corner.

Together the three of us edited Thelma's excellent but rather long article down to an in-depth but punchy assessment of the first 12 months for the new-look Ascot. Have a read here.

If only every day brought an eager correspondent carrying a well-researched article on a hot Berkshire topic. If they ever read this, thanks to both of them for making my life so easy today!

Thanks to Malcolm too, our sports journalist in the morning, who conducted a very funny interview with the manager of a Reading football team about to go on a short tour of Poland. It transpired that Malcolm and his interviewee, Josh, both managed community football teams in the same league - and had much about which to talk!

The 'interview' ends with me holding the microphone as the pair of them indulge in a light-hearted war of words over whose team is better. I would have been rubbish doing that interview, but Malcolm had so much in common with Josh that it made a great few minutes of radio for tomorrow night's Sportsweek.

Not everything ran so smoothly. As the interview came to an end, with us all stood out on the football pitch at the front of the building, the fire alarm could be heard from within. A few moments later the entire staff of the radio station, with members of the public in tow, came streaming out, and we had put our emergency broadcast to air. This lasted a full half hour before we were allowed back in - certainly not helpful on a flagship day of broadcasting with twice our usual number of people in the newsroom!

The most important thing, for me, is not to let this feel like a one-off. We don't make a habit of ignoring listeners and members of the public unless it's a day with a special name with special t-shirts to hand out. Take our junior football section on the website, powered in its entirety by dedicated parents and coaches on the touchline sending in match reports and great photos. We have 40 local BBC websites and I'd put any money on ours being the best for junior football, and it's all their work, not mine.

On a separate note, social networking site Facebook is adding dozens of new applications every day, designed to help you customise your profile far beyond the old limits previously allowed. Today I was very pleasantly surprised by Dogbook, an application which enabled me to create a profile for my dog, Toby, attached to my own page. It looks brilliant and I'm dead proud to have my dog alongside me online. Bless the internet, it's been a lot of fun today.

From an MSN Messenger conversation a few moments ago:

Ben says: I was very wound up by a National Express commercial today.
Ollie says: Why's that?
Ben says: Because they managed to say, 'We are old-fashioned, racist bigots', without actually saying it. A groom leaving a church proclaims, 'We stand for traditional values'. What could that possibly refer to? I think it means, 'We hate gays, but we've found a slightly less direct way of letting you know'.
Ollie says: Or they could just mean marriage, the break-up of the family, etc. Could be wrong, but still.
Ben says: No, the National Express is homophobic. And I used to read it, because my grandad buys it, but now I refuse.
Ollie says: On what grounds could they object? Do gays stain their seats? And hang on, you used to read what?
Ben says: The National Express.
Ollie says: The National Express is a bus company. Do you mean The Daily Express?
Ben says: Yes. Yes, that's what I meant.

Some of you - certainly David - will know the Fox And Hounds pub in Christmas Common, South Oxfordshire.

It's set in the heart of the tiny village, with a small gravel car park leading to a beautiful countryside building comprising a bar with roaring fire on the left as you enter, and a rather gastronomically cultured restaurant on the right. (Octopus salad, anyone?)

A couple of months ago Amy and I decided to meet for lunch there, only to discover on arrival that it was closed for refurbishment and would re-open in early May.

It's on my way to work each day and duly, by early May, it had re-emerged as something quite different entirely. The very traditional Fox And Hounds sign and title letters had disappeared, to be replace by a garish - frankly, ugly - logo for a place called The Treacle Well. If you think the logo for the 2012 Olympics is bad, believe, it was a work of art compared to The Treacle Well's new sign. I've nothing against change, but I was horrified.

I didn't get the chance to go in and sample The Treacle Well's fare, but a quick search online reveals someone who did, and they were less than impressed:

Regrettably, the heart and soul of this wonderful old pub has been ripped out in the name of gastro-pub world domination. It has been re-named The Treacle Well (WTF???) and is now utterly and completely without salvation.

They'll be even less impressed when they realise they've been completely and utterly had - by the BBC.

Amy and I went back there today for a second attempt and, lo and beholf, everything was back to normal! The Fox And Hounds sign is back, the lettering is back, and there's no sign at all of The Treacle Well.

As we parked I was already thinking this mightily odd. Had the regulars been so furious that the old owners had been restored? It's unheard of for a pub to change ownership, then change back, in two months.

Inside we went. It was after 3pm, a time when many pubs aren't serving (boy did we find that out), so we asked the man behind the bar if there was any food going. The response:

"No, sorry, we're not serving any food. We're still getting everything back together after the BBC moved out."

Eh? If ever a sentence needed some elaboration it was that one, but he wasn't giving too much away.

"Yeah, the BBC were here for seven weeks filming a competition. People had to take over a pub and run it as best they could."

So that explains that. The Fox And Hounds became The Treacle Well for a forthcoming BBC television series in which some poor people try to run a pub to the best of their ability - clearly not well enough if our earlier correspondent is to be believed. Keep an eye out for it! But in the mean time, go back to enjoying your old pub, restored to its former glory.

After another four pubs told us they weren't doing food, we eventually found ourselves at The White Horse, the pub opposite the BBC in Caversham, which did us a very reasonable (and late) pub lunch for just over £15 total between the two of us, in a surprisingly quiet courtyard behind the pub. Certainly nicer than I remember the pub.

Our afternoon continued with Toby, the resident dog, now into his eleventh year on the planet and showing a little wear and tear in the limbs, but not in the enthusiasm for a good walk. Amy and I drove him out to the Chiltern Sculpture Trail, a wooded area punctuated by sculptures that may or may not actually be there - some were clearly visible, others had apparently been 'removed' at some point, lawfully or otherwise. We think this might have been one, with a little helpful graffiti:

The dog and Amy may never speak again after one incident which I can't possibly relay here, but otherwise it was a tranquil way to celebrate Amy's elevation to the post of Woman About Hong Kong-elect. Congratulations Amy!

Don't go out and buy an Architecture in Helsinki album.

It won't be anything like as good as seeing them live. I went to see them play at King's College London last night, their last UK date before a trip to the USA. My only preparation beforehand was five snatched minutes on their MySpace, where they sounded tolerable enough to at least go to the gig.

Well forget that - on stage Architecture in Helsinki are a brilliant presence, the six or seven members of the band chopping and changing between instruments like there's some sort of three-minute rule, with far more dancing on stage than among the awed audience.

We had a prime position perched on the stairs with a view across the stage, and it's just a guaranteed good evening when you've got a clear view of people enjoying their music to this degree. Plus there's plenty of percussion going on, from drum pads (when not accidentally destroyed by an overactive guitarist/singer/keyboardist/percussionist) to cowbells and all manner of intriguing ephemera draped over the drum kit.

Describing the kind of music these hyperactive Antipodeans conjure up isn't easy. A lot of the vocals are shouty and raw, so you'll not get much change if you're after ballads or a delicate refrain. You do get a rousing chorus with practically everyone singing in harmony, steel drums rattling over booming bass, and the simple sense that there's a party happening on stage and you'd be silly not to enjoy yourself.

Usually, I'll confess, I go to gigs - even bands I really like - and after four or five songs a part of me is counting down til the end of the set. It's not that I don't like the music, I just tend to find most gigs a bit stifling somehow, they're not really my natural habitat. When Architecture in Helsinki left after a one-song encore, I was open-mouthed that they were leaving so soon! It's not often I feel robbed when a band eventually departs.

I've since had a listen online and the studio-recorded stuff doesn't capture me like the live performance. AiH are by no means the first band like that - Editors, a real favourite band of mine, put in one of the best shows I've ever seen in front of no more than 50 people in Oxford before they started gaining recognition. But their first album didn't quite capture the same edge.

Buy the new AiH single, 'Heart It Races', to get a flavour for the band, but leave it there and give them your hard-earned cash when they turn up on your doorstep to play live.

So, I've a bit shafted with work recently. Worked the weekend. Worked till very late last night. Decided to have today off, although have worked all morning anyway, albeit from the comfort of my sofa. However... the exciting news is that I'm off to Hong Kong for 6mths come September. Rather daunting / great / aghhh / exciting / any other mix of emotion! I found out yesterday, and probably haven't stopped smiling since. It's a bit weird to find out about something though, have all of 30 secs to take it in, phone a couple of people, and then walk straight into a meeting, trying not to look like a Cheshire cat. Just wait, I'll be able to send a "sipping champagne from some opera house" post... (TM: OJ September 2003)

I've had a rather strange day. I've been out of sorts. Defensive. If I was a small animal, my fur would be standing up on end. I don't suppose it helped that I was in work for 7.30am. Considering I am usually still asleep at this time during the week, this was quite painful. Especially after a busy week of little sleep and a fair amount of alcohol. I got back to my flat utterly drained and exhausted. It was a beautiful day outside, but I decided to hibernate. Then realised that perhaps what I needed to do was to go home. So that's what I did. 50mins later and I was curled up on my the sofa at my parents. And what Saturday night entertainment did we have? The Joesph competition. In a similar way to "Finding Maria", or whatever it was called, Graham Norton hosts this talent competition... to find the perfect Joseph. It was the semi-finals this week: the last chance for Andrew Lloyd Webber to save one of the two least popular candidates. Next week it is the final... my money is on Lee. He's pretty fit, manly, and has a fantastic voice. My point is, that when this series began my Mother said, "oh I'm not goig to watch that sort of thing again". Famous last words! For one, we had to be in position to watch the show. Second, my ironing (yes, I took two shirts home to be ironed by my Mum's super iron) had to be done in the break between the competition and the results. Third, and rather alarmingly, my Father has an opinion on who should win. His comments are restricted from the exreme of "he's too much like a woman" or "he's good". Conisdering my father is profoundly deaf, this is rather entertaining. He admits to liking Denise Van Outen though, and also said he prefered the "Maria" competition: "I prefered the one with the women". Do men ever grow up?! So there we are. That was my evening. I voted too. Twice. I can't believe both my Mother and I voted! What else? Oh, I stole a bottle of wine, grabbed some post and got a much-needed hug (although, to be fair Ollie had provided me with a wonderful verbal hug earlier). So that's that. Just what I needed to do. I'm now back in London since I need to work early tomorrow, and visit my cousin. Maybe I'll have a day off one day this week. Oh, and my DVD player appears to have died. I'll have to wait until next month to replace that one!

That's that then. A 101-year-old record has been reset and Nicky Shorey is Reading's first England player since 1906.

Not that tomorrow's back pages are likely to have his name splashed in bold black lettering. It was a fairly anonymous England debut - but perhaps that's the best sort of England debut.

Each time Shorey got the ball, he looked to dispatch it swiftly, efficiently and calmly to another white shirt, then carried on with his game. Nothing flash, nothing too risky, in fact nothing risky at all. Pass and move, the essence of simple football. No complaints there.

If he'd scored a hat-trick, nobbled three Brazilians while the ref wasn't looking, and saved a penalty, that would have been brilliant - but where do you go from there? Equally the boy Shorey did nothing wrong, certainly nothing the commentators and pundits were prepared to pick up on, and I didn't spot anything either.

People voting on the BBC Sport player rater have, at the time of writing, given Shorey 6.53 out of 10 - behind Beckham (7.88), Gerrard (7.78) and Terry (7.24). Now even allowing for enthusiastic Reading fans clicking '10' a few dozen times, he's doing alright to be top of the pile behind those three, and he's streets ahead of the rest.

Staying under the radar is ideal in your first England game. He can go to Steve McClaren, say 'job done', and wait for his next opportunity - after all there's no guarantee Wayne Bridge will be back for the Estonia game, and even if he is, Bridge needs to find an extra gear to demonstrate why he ought to be ahead of Shorey in the pecking order.

The pressure is back off Nicky - til tomorrow's wedding. Earlier his bride-to-be Emily was joking that they need a cardboard cut-out of him for rehearsals. At least tonight wasn't a flop.

Big Brother watch

Ziggy has entered the house, with male hormones inside already as rare as stardust (barring one or two distinct 'maybes' on the testosterone front - we're talking pink hair).

Ziggy's introductory video was frankly soft porn, and the former boyband star has entered the house clad in an immaculate black suit.

After a little trouble wading through the doors he emerged to the kind of reception any boyband member would come to expect - a horde of screaming women. Kisses - on the cheek - all round. The twins are dancing in circles.

"Am I the only guy here?" See, this has all been about the girls' reaction, but no one really gave time to how poor Ziggy would react to the challenge of fending off the female population. He's just repeated it. "Am I the only guy in here?" He looks, frankly, a worried man.

Oh no hang on, that worried look has broken into a smug look. "Who's going to show me round?" Classic male approach, that - let the ladies assert their claim, take the pressure off, make them work for it. Full marks boyo.

Ziggy's swiftly called to the diary room and immediately takes the time to thank Big Brother for "the people you've put in the house". Give it time with the twins, Zigmeister, and you'll regret counting those chickens.

Outside Laura is looking underwhelmed, presumably because - and we have to be honest here - she's around ninth in the queue.

He's back out and the jacket's off. Any sweat patches on that white shirt? None discernible - good boy, that'd have ruined it.

It's just been confirmed that Ziggy will be the only one allowed to nominate people for eviction. Frankly he's not my type but for the rest of that lot, for the next week, he'll be some kind of God. I must wear suits more often, you know.