Today I realised why I worked. First, Tescos on a Monday is traumatic. It is busy, full of children, under-stocked and dreadful. Why, why, would anyone chose to go to Tesco on a Monday. At least I didn't get asked for ID today, and I managed to get a 1p reduction from my bill for having a recyclable Sainsbury bag-for-life! Second, daytime TV is awful. I managed to catch 5 minutes of Neighbours. I wouldn't have thought it possible but it seems both the story line and the acting has declined in the past five or so years from when I actually watched it regularly. Third, the tube. I caught the tube for the first time in around 6 weeks today. OK, so I live and work in London, but I catch the DLR to work and I have escaped for the past few weekends. The City was full of tourists today, and even when I left Soho around 22:15, it was still heaving. Thank heavens for black cabs home. I'm pretty happy that this side of London is lost on me for the most part, but at the same time I love it. I realised today that when in Hong Kong I shall truly miss London. Naturally, I shall miss England's green and pleasant land, but I'll also miss the buzz, the atmosphere and most of all the anonymity that the Big Smoke provides. Good job HK will be home-from-home in that respect, I suppose!

Apologies for the radio silence over the past week or so, but I have been on holiday in Croatia.

One thing is for certain, I was quickly displaced on Dayorama: Ollie soon leapt to the task of reporting about the weather, and David admirably complained about, what could arguably now be described as his arch nemesis, NatWest.

The wonders of modern technology (e.g. my BlackBerry) meant I could happily feed my Parents the weather reports for Berkshire on a regular basis. My
Father, huffing and puffing at the narrative and the lack of fact (at this juncture I did point out that Mr. Williams was a journalist first, meteorologist second) then went and checked the weather in more detail via the so-called "cyber-room" in our hotel. It was a hot-topic of conversation amongst the various Brits, not that there were many in the hotel.

I am currently writing this post sitting on my balcony. It's around half 8 and I've been fed and watered. I'm packed and simply waiting for the transport to the airport; so what better excuse than to sit and type a post.

By some small miracle, or simply because I'm pretty jammy, I landed myself a rather palatial double room with a beautiful sea view. I can currently hear the sea lapping gently against the rocky coastline and can see (pardon the pun) for miles. Just a few tiny islands and a ship on the horizon breaks the view for what must stretch to
the Eastern Coast of Italy.

*Apologies, the above is reminiscent of the "champagne on the opera house roof post". I shall digress rapidly*

So, Croatia. A stunningly beautiful country. I admit to being quite surprised. I admit I was a little skeptical when I'd been told how tranquil, clean and friendly, not to mention picturesque, the country and its inhabitants were, but it seems my reservations were misplaced.

We stayed on what is known as the Dalmation coast. This is so-called since it lines the region of Dalmatia. Apparently the name is derived from an Llyrian tribe called the “Dalmatae” who lived in the area of the Eastern Adriatic 1,000 years BC, not not because it is full of Dalmations, nor is it particularly spotty. The small resort of Cavtat (pronounced sav-tat) nestles in a small bay, with a couple of churches, a mausoleum, and a spattering of small shops. The harbour is busy with boats coming in and out and people fishing. But, what struck me was how quiet and peaceful it was. In reality, you saw very few people and if you slipped off onto one of the coastal walks, you could walk for several minutes without seeing a single person. That isn't to say the area isn't popular, but it seems to absorb people and sites as a matter of course.

The below is a picture of Cavtat. Rather pretty, yes?

The highlight of the area is of course Dubrovnik. It's incredible to think that the City was under siege as recently as 1991-2 and only escaped from the fear of attack as late as 1995. The scars of the troubles are still visible, but the City has undergone a miraculous redevelopment. It's a highly interesting City from an architectural prospective, as well as seeping in history. There is a mix of Byzantine, Romanesque, Baroque and Italian Gothic architecture - it’s incongruous but it works. The history spans the Crusades, the tussles for power between Venice and Dubrovnik for trade in the Adriatic, the ongoing battle between the Serbian and Roman population and most recently the twentieth century world wars. Naturally there are also various legends, notably that of St Balaise, and the Catholic ancestry is prevalent, not least illustrated by the cross that sits on Mount Srd, overlooking the City.

The below is a view of Dubrovnik’s rooftops, taken from the City walls.

I've often argued with Ollie that buildings look more attractive from behind, or from their roof. I think the above proves my point. [Ollie: I admit you were right about the shed on the green in Stokenchurch!]

The small island of Lokrum is also beautiful. It sits off the coast of Dubrivnik, is a nature reserve, it is practically
unspoilt and is home to hosts of peacocks, not to mention the baby peacocks. I've now got a few feathers. The problem is that superstition is rather confusing on this point. Peacock feathers may or may not be lucky. There's a chance that now I have them in my flat I'll die and old maid. Nothing new there then.

So I think that's about it for my summary from Croatia. It was wonderfully warm and sunny. I’m tanned and relaxed. And I’m not back to work until Tuesday!

It's now fifteen days since I received a call from my bank to check that my holiday in Romania was going well.

It came as little surprise to the man on the 'phone - an operative from NatWest's Group Security and Fraud department - that in fact I'd never been to Romania, and unlike those making large demands on my bank account in recent days, I'd not been busy buying spare parts for a Daewoo Nubira...

Identity fraud is a terrible thing for banks, and not because it costs them a packet in refunding poor sods like me. Indeed, a Police friend of mine assures me that when likely perpetrators do get caught (often at great expense to the Police), most banks are reluctant to press charges. Instead, they're content to write-off a growing chunk of money each quarter to feed the Daewoo men's extravagance, and hang the unpredictability of court cases - along with justice, of course.

No - it's a terrible thing because it exposes every crack in a bank's ability to handle its customers, and for that matter, their money. Of course, NatWest were first to spot the violation of my account, so full (erm) credit to them for putting a block on my card within hours of the obviously iffy transaction.

My qualm is not with that side of things. Rather, it's their inability to deal with the basics of customer service which riles me, an ineptitude which means that fifteen days, four phone calls and five visits to the bank later, I'm still unable to use my account without producing my defunct card and driver's licence across a counter.

In case you're thinking of opening an account with NatWest, here's the timeline I penned on the back of an envelope whilst enduring the familiar wait in my local branch today (I now know them so well I was greeted by name in the queue and shaken by hand by one member of staff):

12/07/07- Call from NatWest to report suspicious activity. Replacement card and fraud declaration to be sent, and activity logged as confirmed fraud;

13/07/07- Visit to main local branch to withdraw money using defunct card and driver's licence as ID;

16/07/07 - Visit to small local branch to check on progress of new card and documents. Told that the new card was inexplicably logged as "destroyed". Second replacement card was ordered;

19/07/07 - Visit to main local branch to withdraw money using defunct card and driver's licence as ID. No news of the card;

22/07/07 - Call made to Group Security & Fraud to enquire about lack of documents. Told that no documents (or card) had been sent because there was "no address details on my account". Erm, not quite sure why, and in any case, nice of them to let me know. I'd need to fill in a fraud declaration at my local branch;

22/07/07 - Visit to main local branch to insert rocket up anybody who would listen. Helpful lady helped me to log my address, and looked into previous card requests. Confirmed that one card had been destroyed, and a second had been "ordered though not checked off". She'd do the necessary. Meantime, I was given a fraud declaration, but told I could have done it via the telephone. Oh, and I'd need to report it to the Police;

25/07/07 - Call from Tilehurst branch (not my local) to report that my withdrawal on 12/07/07 had not been taken from my account, but from somebody else's in error! I told this story on the radio, and later received a text message from my parents (who'd heard), declaring the unfortunate debtor to be my Dad - he'd been chasing the error at his end;

27/07/07 - Call from main local branch to report that my new card had finally been delivered. On collection, I was told I'd need to wait a further 5 working days for my new PIN to arrive (it couldn't be sent to my home address, since there still wasn't one registered to my account).

So, you see my frustration. At almost every stage of this so far futile process, somebody has ill-advised me, processed something incorrectly, or not mentioned a complication which, days later, I'll have to discover for myself. My initial anger at losing money to fraudsters is now secondary to the frustration of losing my independence after 1630 on weekdays (1530 on Saturdays, crippled all day on Sundays), and the countless hours it's taken me to get nowhere with NatWest.

Give it five working days, I may just hand all banking matters to the Romanians. At least they know what they're doing with my money.

It's the little things that are often the most telling.

After six days of 6:00am starts and nine days without a day off, my mobile phone charger has migrated to work. Now, instead of charging my phone at home, we have reached the stage where I get more battery life out of it by leaving it on charge at work.

I fear this marks an unsettling turn in events. I'll be moving the bed in next. I am going to set a record with my lie-in on Tuesday morning.

Floodwatch: Floods have gone, the map lives on. Had the Press Gazette on the phone earlier today, who interviewed me for ten minutes - will be interested to see what bits they use, if any. I continue to be surprised at the reaction - I swear it just seemed like the obvious thing to do to build a map. People are acting as though I swapped News 24 to rolling map coverage, where Bill Turnbull could click a marker and Natasha Kaplinsky would appear at the location of his choice. Now that would be worth an interview.

Good morning! Things must be getting better with the flooding in Berkshire - it's 8am and I'm still in bed.

It's been a long week for everyone. The flooding that did occur was thankfully minimal but, given its unpredictable nature, we've had to have staff working flat out to make sure we're not caught out. Even so we have to maintain our normal programming at the same time, so lots of people have been doing two or three jobs and we've drafted in help from other stations.

The map continues to attract attention. The Environment Agency themselves emailed me yesterday enquiring after it:

Your interactive flood map appears to be a very useful source of information to supplement the information we have been collecting. Especially where you quote the time & date the photograph is taken and also who took the photograph.

Could you please forward this e-mail to the department or person who has produced this map and is responsible for storing and publishing these photographs. We would be very interested in discussing potential uses and also ideas such as this interactive flood map to improve sharing of information during a flood event.

It would be nice to have more data from the Environment Agency to work with in future. I was told by one visitor to the map that the EA collects data on water velocity etc at different points which would be handy for people to see, plus the EA has its own flood map showing a blue area within which houses are at risk of flooding. It'd be very useful to build that into the map next time.

Life has started to go on outside flooding now. I went to Bisham Abbey yesterday afternoon to interview Marcus Willis, a 17-year-old tennis player from Berkshire who got to the third round of the Wimbledon Boys' tournament this year. His Russian coach once counted Anna Kournikova as a pupil, and he's joining the men's tennis circuit this September - at least if he passes his GCSEs, anyway.

Marcus seems a very nice guy. We recorded a five minute interview about his tennis aspirations (and his mum's GCSE worries) and the most telling aspect was that throughout the entire interview, he was watching the practice match going on behind my shoulder. He was talking at the same time and clearly taking in the questions, but I don't think he missed a point of the game being played on the opposite court.

If he's living and breathing tennis to that extent he's probably going to go far, and he reckons he's got a chance of becoming a future Wimbledon champion (coach Victor Roubanov says top 50 is a definite). So keep an eye out for the name and, naturally, remember where you heard it first. The video interview should be on the Berkshire site later today.

The wait goes on. I'm at home now but expecting to be called back into work at any point during the night. It all depends how bad the flooding is.

Yesterday I wrote to compare the atmosphere in our newsroom to a form of embattled trench in a warzone, hours away from the final battle. In response, Dan Grey wrote the following comment:

I think you guys need to calm down a bit. Listen to what the EA are telling you: that the Thames on a Flood Warning, NOT a Severe Flood warning (i.e. widespread flooding of property is NOT expected), and that the flood is only going to be at or below 2003 (which saw only very limited flooding in Caversham), and nowhere near 1947 (that was The Big One, when as far up as Gosbrook Road flooded to some depth).

I couldn't agree more about the calming down, but it's difficult. One half of you is driven by a sort of journalistic fervour for there to be a story, the other half keeps that in check and stops things getting carried away. On top of that some people had quite real concerns that their houses would flood (and indeed some already have, as I said). So calming down wasn't easy.

I don't agree about the Environment Agency advice though. Dan goes on to say:

At most, some farmland and the very lowest-lying areas are going to flood. Flood Warning only means that there's a *possibility* of some flooding, not that it will happen (yes, the EA warning system is poor). Severe Flood Warning is the one to listen for - when you hear that, that means flooding of property *is* going to happen.

The EA has been saying this throughout - check the archived information bulletins on the News section of their site.

Well, no, Dan, they haven't been saying that throughout. I've been in work for ten or eleven hours a day these past four days, and I've heard at least 20 Environment Agency spokespeople on our radio station in that time. The advice has been constantly changing. I promise you that 36 hours ago, the EA were predicting floods akin to 1947, both on air and on the phone to us off air.

Since then they've been all over the place, from predicting a surge of water down the Thames (causing the Evening Standard to demand residents of London near the Thames "flee") to the most recent advice, which is that the flood will be more like the floods of 2003, if not the lesser floods of 2000.

I don't blame the EA at all for the ever-changing nature of their advice. I imagine predicting exactly how a river will flood, taking into account all its tributaries, the surrounding geography and the weather pattern, is an incredibly inexact science. As one of our presenters said this morning, it's a wonder they can predict anything at all.

But it makes preparing for the flood something of a dark art. It's looking fairly certain now that Berkshire will fare much better than Oxford, let alone the likes of Gloucester - but earlier in the week the EA advice could easily have been interpreted to suggest vast swathes of Caversham would be under four or five feet. We had friends and colleagues sweating over the EA's flood map, showing a blue zone in which housing would be affected by severe flood, even though their houses were very much on the border of that zone.

If the news bulletins on the EA's website do show a consistent line of advice, then they're at odds with the interviews we conducted with EA spokespeople on air. It's not their fault, but is it any wonder it's difficult to keep calm when none of us know if we'll be in work overnight? We've already had one TV reporter spend 28 hours in Pangbourne on Environment Agency advice in anticipation of flooding which has yet to arrive - it creates a lot of uncertainty, because we need to be there when it happens, and so we have to have everybody on pins to jump the moment it kicks off.

All that said, it is very easy to get carried away when you see what's going on in places like Cheltenham and Gloucester - see Amy J's comment on my last post for an idea of what it's like there. And thanks for the compliment about the map, Dan. I've had quite a lot of good feedback about it today, and a lot of people similarly want it to be extended to cover places like Oxford. Sadly that's not possible this time around (it'd take forever to coordinate it with the information they have, and our map can only accommodate 100 markers at a time before things go a bit awry), but I'll be pushing for us to do something like that if this happens again in future.

The weather and the water continue to dominate proceedings.

We are very much in the calm before the storm. There has been flooding in some areas since the torrential rain on Friday, compounded by blocked drains in some areas, but The Big One will be when the Thames bursts its banks either tomorrow or on Wednesday.

And it's not if, it's when. The Environment Agency tells us we can only sit, wait, and get our valuables to higher ground as the water that's just hit Oxford makes its way down the Thames into Berkshire.

In the newsroom it's like a trench as the troops count down the hours before they go over the top. A few members of staff have already been flooded and are off work as they try to cope - one or two more are back in work despite having houses under a couple of feet of water. One newsreader is performing admirably to read out flood warnings every half an hour without referring to the fact that her house, and her partner's, are both under water.

This morning we had three or four reporters out in various parts of the county that have been worst hit. When they returned to base it was almost as though our scouts had come back to the war room to pass on valuable information on the enemy's movements. The news bulletins begin, 'It's not over yet'. The Environment Agency spokespeople make hourly appearance.

It's an electric, uncomfortable atmosphere, alive with both the sense that a big news story is hoving into view - we are, after all, journalists - and the very real fear for many people that their houses and cars are on borrowed time. This afternoon I have had one colleague leaning on my shoulder, trying not to cry, softly despairing as the Environment Agency confirmed her house was in a Flood Warning zone. "I can't take this ... I've just got too much to do. I don't have a spare second this week, my house can't flood."

Another colleague, who only works here at weekends and lives a stone's throw from the Thames in Caversham, has been texting me from her weekday workplace. "Do you know which bits of Caversham have been evacuated? Is it where I live?" The apprehension is palpable. It turns out it's a false alarm - Caversham's residents are going nowhere, yet - but I've already offered to help her bail her house out when the time comes. It's all but inevitable.

You even start to wonder whether we're all that safe on top of our hill in Caversham Park. We'll never flood, but what about water supplies? There are over 300,000 people in Gloucester with nothing to drink and that's terrifying. Little things, like how would you flush the toilet? How do you feed a baby without water or power to warm a bottle? It feels like our colleagues further to the West - further along the front line - have already gone over the top, and we're the next in line.

And what did Blackadder do when next in line? He made a beeline for the general's war room by any spurious means he could, so that's exactly what I've done. I am Chief Mapper in the war room, having drawn up an interactive flood map for the radio station's website.

The idea came to me on Sunday night at home - we had more than 80 photos on the website but no good way to browse them, other than plod through one by one. So over the space of four hours I transferred the whole lot into a customised Google Map: working out where the photos were taken (most people who sent them in were very specific), producing a small thumbnail image linking to a bigger version, adding little blue markers in the correct places which open a photo when you click.

Then, this morning, it occurred to me the map had so much more potential. So I highlighted the stretches of Berkshire rivers under Flood Warnings using a thick yellow line, and gave ones with the All Clear a green line (when the worst hits, it'll go red). Now there are red markers alongside the blue ones - these allow you to listen to reports from BBC correspondents who've been in the various affected areas today. Green markers let you play Youtube videos of flooding in the Berkshire road where the marker sits.

I'm quite proud of it, and it's had a bit of attention in the newsroom which is great - I just hope it proves useful to people outside the newsroom in the big, wide, worried world. Keeping it updated is a round-the-clock job so I'm sleeping with my mobile by my side, and it needs constant maintenance - one of our reporters has just emailed me to state his "devastation" that his audio report won't play properly. But it's a thousand times easier to access our coverage with the map, so with a bit of luck, it'll be worth it.

And with a bit of luck, there won't be too much to add in the coming days. Ready, men?

Here's the only picture taken this weekend, which shows a bus that isn't submerged to its waist in filthy water.

It's noteworthy for another reason, too. I appear to be in the driver's seat. Yes, hours before much of Oxfordshire became submerged in spewed Cherwell, it was the venue for my very first driving lesson in a bus.

Having been involved with buses since the age of zero, it won't surprise you to learn I've done the odd bit of shunting before. On my fourth birthday, I was allowed to 'drive' a Routemaster on the test track at London Transport's old training centre in Chiswick, albeit on the lap of an instructor who could actually reach the pedals.

To drive one for real - at least with the blessing of the law and your insurance company - you need to be 25. So yesterday was my first taste of proper bus driving; and very flavoursome it was too.

As you'll see, I'm far too small to look convincing as the driver of an 8 ton, 72-seat, 14 foot high beast; indeed, with 30 feet of bus trailing behind me, I felt no more qualified for the job than I did at the age of four. This time, though, there was no lap to sit on.

My instructors - co-owners Steve, Ken and Charles - were alarmingly optimistic about my maiden voyage, shoeing me into the cab at a well chosen industrial estate in Thame. Imagine the look on the face of an already terrified first time driver trying their hand at piloting a red Vauxhall Astra around the same industrial estate, who suddenly happened upon us coming round the next bend in our red machine. They didn't stay long.

Neither did we, it's true to say. With Ken and Charles observing from outside, and Steve alongside me in the cab, several laps of the yard were accomplished, including a tricky reverse manoeuvre between (or, in reality, over) two kerbs. With such rules as "aim for the broadcasters, then steer" under my belt, the most memorable phrase came three laps later: it went something like "fancy taking us back to Long Crendon?"...

I shan't forget the moment when, having barely taken in that I was about to drive a Routemaster on the road, I was hearing the familiar "ding ding" of the bell - this time at the other end of the bus, as a signal for me.
It's a funny thing when some previously forbidden fruit suddenly becomes a possibility.

With supervision aplenty, I negotiated T-junctions, left turns, right turns, roundabouts... all with a basic but entirely new observation at the front of my mind. Buses are quite big.

3 miles later, we reached Long Crendon unscathed, and against my own belief that it was probably all a dream, the photograph above proves it. All agreed it was "a very smooth journey", and predicted I'd soon be ready for a test.

21 years later, Chiswick may earn its latest graduate...

That's all that's been going through my head for the past few hours. I drove home from the radio station at 6pm and the rain had started again, sloshing down on already-sodden roads running north out of Reading. Berkshire hasn't had this kind of weather in half a century.

Which, in a way, is brilliant news for a radio station. We're the first port of call for people needing to know what the weather is doing and, especially, people stuck in the inevitable travel chaos. The M4 suffered a landslide, the railway stations shut down, there were power cuts even to homes that might have avoided the floods, and A roads across the county soon became gridlocked.

For the whole of Friday the whole radio station set about the county like scalded earwigs. We dropped pretty much everything and went for wall-to-wall flood coverage straight from reporters and eyewitnesses in the areas worst affected, like Maidenhead and Newbury. Almost everyone you talk to has something interesting to say, something they've seen or experienced that's unique, and we piled it all onto the air.

In the mean time the website received dozens and dozens of emails with brilliant photos. My colleague Linda fought her way through this veritable flood of emails yesterday and it was my turn today - click here to see the pictures, they're stunning. Or click here to read about a stable that had to evacuate twenty horses in four feet of water.

Even the Friday night sport show became a two-hour sport and flooding special, with yours truly anchoring a phone-in for the first time.

I don't think I will ever forget my first caller: a gentleman named Matt who had been stuck in traffic for nine hours, and missed his wedding rehearsal as a result. He was stuck in traffic in the classic car he'd rented for his big day. He sounded so resigned to his situation, he was almost happy.

Matt's nine hour ordeal was a Sunday morning drive compared to others though. One man was trying to get to Leicester to take a woman out for a first date, but couldn't get past Didcot; a family on the same road were going home to Wigan from Butlins in Bognor; a bloke from Glasgow had spent 14 hours trying to get to a festival in Newbury, only to end up stuck a mile outside the entrance.

Today things initially calmed down a bit, but this afternoon we've been taking call after call as the floods continue and traffic backs up again. And it might get even worse - the Environment Agency told us Berkshire and London are at "serious risk" of flooding tomorrow night or Monday as the Thames threatens to burst its banks. If that happens, Monday's going to be an insane day.

(By the way, if you see that "serious risk" quote elsewhere, I take full responsibility. I discovered how to flash news items across BBC wires today, and that quote from our interview has since appeared on News 24 and News Online. I'm a proud man.)

We haven't had anything on Barclays for a while, have we? Well, here's a double dosage.

1. I've finally paid off my student overdraft, so I wanted to close that account down. I have another current account. It transpires it is harder to close a bank account than open one. I emailed the barclays customer service department since I couldn't, unsurprisingly, find the answer to "how do I close my account" on their website. They replied saying I needed to telephone their customer service department. So I did. They told me I needed to a) write to Barclays; b) return my cheque books, shredded; and c) return my bank card, again shredded. The process to close down the account takes approximately two weeks.

2. Actually, praise. I gave a cheque to work the other week for a few expenses. It was returned today. The reason "no mandate". The accounts guy and I were puzzled. No longer. I received a letter from Barclays today. They told me they had refused to cash a cheque for the amount of X to X because they didn't think I had written it. The signature didn't look sufficiently like the one the one they have for me on record. They thought I may have been the object of fraud, and told me to look after my cheque book. It's great they "check" these things... and I'd best be less hasty next time I write a cheque!

That gargantuan monster is perched down the other end of the bed from me, a few hours after we both underwent a bilateral partial nail ablation.

In plain English, someone ripped my toenail out and burnt the nail root at the sides to stop it growing back.

Happily it wasn't just any old someone, it was a very experienced specialist in Milton Keynes who seemed to know what he was doing. That said, it took them five injections to numb my toe - normally they only do two, and I do now apparently hold a record for the Most Stubborn Toe in Britain.

At the moment the freshly pillaged toe is trying desperately to recover under that dressing. Hopefully it'll heal in the next few weeks and I'll be finally rid of the ingrowing toenails that have plagued me for the last, well, eight or nine years.

I was fifteen, maybe sixteen, when I had my left big toe operated on after a good few months' pain. Then two and a half years ago I had to have my right big toe done for the same reason. Alas, it grew back - the doctor who operated hadn't removed the nail root to stop that happening, and frankly I'm glad he didn't, since the anaesthetic wore off during that operation. I've never known agony like it before or since.

Today's operation put 2005's botched job to rights, or at least I hope it did. Only time will tell. I'm told I have a broad nail root and a way of walking that makes me particularly susceptible to these but, given they've both now been properly surgically removed, I'd like to think the nightmare is over.

Not for you it isn't, though. Are you brave enough to take a look at the toe before today's operation? If you're wondering what a particularly hideous ingrown toenail looks like after two years of malignant growth, all you have to do is click here. Dare you.

Oh and if you want to see what it looked like in 2004, before the first operation, click here. And don't say I never provide informative photos.

I think I've replaced Barclays with the Inland Revenue.

I'm going to be working in HK for 6mths, so need to notify HM R&C. Simple, right? I complete a form, send it off, and all should be OK. Obviously it won't be OK, but we'll come to that in around 7 months time.

I finally found, downloaded, printed and completed the required HM R&C Form. I then needed to find out where to send it. I went on the HM R&C website. I go to the "contact us" section. It provides a raft of options. Unfortunately it doesn't tell me where my "local" tax office is. Follow "L", and "London" isn't an option. "Kent" has an 0845 number, and there was an everlasting wait for someone to answer. I abandoned this option and tried the list of helpful answers on the website. Unfortunately it didn't tell me how to contact them.

I ended up calling a random helpdesk number, something to do with returning a self-assessment tax form. After a while I was verified. I was then told that my local tax office was Salford. Salford? That's hardly local. I did try to argue, but I didn't really get anywhere.

So, my form has gone off to Salford. Who knows what will happen en route. In the meanwhile, I've tried to close one of my accounts with Barclays. Just wait for that saga to unfold.

We're all too familiar with Facebook. In the past couple of months I've had conversations with people I went to Primary School with and haven't spoken to for over ten years, and found out what peers from Secondary School are up to.

I remember a while back trying to predict when we would all get fed-up with the concept. When will we give up on it? When will it become unfashionable?

It doesn't seem that time is approaching just yet. Facebook has expanded and now has a host of new applications. In addition, the breadth of people who are members has increased considerably. At work, for instance, I now have a number of Attorneys who are "friends". Today, even my secretary (who, incidentally, has a 21yr old daughter) joined. It's insane. How many employers will try to check out potential candidates, via Facebook? It's a dangerous environment: best check those privacy settings.

You might be confused for thinking I was in Wales this weekend. In fact, it was last weekend but I have only just got round to a) doing my washing; and b) downloading photographs.

A wonderful weekend. It's slightly ironic though when you book a trip away for yourself and two friends from Thursday night through until Sunday evening, and you're the last to arrive on Saturday morning after your holiday gets cancelled and you're in work too late on the Friday to drive to Wales that night and instead get up at 4am to get there in time for brekkie on Saturday.

What to say? Amazing weather, good scenery, too much whisky (to the point where the hearts and diamonds on the pack of playing cards began to look surprisingly similar - I'd been up for 21hrs at this point, though) and grand food.

Some amusing incidents too and unsurprisingly I managed to land feet first in a bog, and then sit on a clump of grass and giggle, and giggle and giggle. Oh and eating a 16oz sausage (no euphemism intended) also provided entertainment. I'd recommend this place, too - Ty Croeso. If you want to head away from the smoke and into Wales, the Black Mountains are worth it. Fabulous walking and utterly beautiful. Here's a scenic photo:

Right, allow me to set the scene. About a month ago, my radio station adopted a panda. Here's what I wrote at the time:

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).

More: This Is What We Bamboo

Well, the panda has not been forgotten, and today it made its first live appearance on air. See, I'd shipped it over from China to join me in the commentary gantry at Ascot for the afternoon's racing.

Alright, so maybe it wasn't the actual panda...

And alright, if I'm honest, maybe it wasn't even that panda. See, cuddly panda toys can't really talk. What I needed was an actor to play the role of the panda on air for me. Someone with quite a deep voice. Someone the listeners (and presenters) wouldn't recognise. Who could I call on?

Yep. OJ is officially the voice of Zhu Xiong the panda, of Wanglang Province, China. We caught up with the panda's activities since being adopted last month, and the panda helped us pick a few horses for that afternoon's "horse tipping" competition. Miraculously the panda even correctly chose Pelican Prince as the winner of the first race, but sadly hadn't put any bamboo on it.

When not indulging our panda storyline, we spent a very enjoyable afternoon on the seventh floor of the Ascot grandstand, able to see Wembley Stadium in the distance, watch the cricket being played on a pitch inside the racecourse, and of course watch the racing from our vantage point directly above the winning post.

I even got to try my hand at racing commentary a couple of times - which, let me tell you, is a nigh on impossible art, trying to make out blurry sequences of colours hurtling along five furlongs away. A couple of times I only just recognised the correct horse at the last moment. I don't envy the likes of Cornelius Lysaght and John McCririck, that's for sure, and nor do I think I pose a serious threat to their job security.

I think OJ would join me in recommending The Old Hatchet, a pub just a few minutes' drive from Ascot. We decamped there after the final race and it was a lovely place, serving decent food at a reasonable price in a peaceful, shady beer garden. Is it any wonder OJ's texted me his approval for these invitations on 'press gigs'?

There's nothing more annoying than having good stories to tell, but not being able to tell them. It's the reporter's nightmare: the scoop, the exclusive, the thundering top line, gagged for one reason or another.

I've got two tonight. In the first place, I cannot tell you about the friend who could be on the verge of landing a place in the next series of a major BBC1 series. You'd know it, it's a household name and all over the BBC's schedules while it's on air. Final auditions are set to be held soon and my friend is one interview away from, how can I put this, being hired.

See, we usually find a way to tell at least some of the story.

I can tell you my second story, but I can't use the picture that would really sell it to you. It is always disappointing when friends know you well enough that they warn you a photo is under strict copyright when they email it across.

So let me describe the image instead.

My friend Helen, long ginger hair brushing a red dress with black heels, is sat on top of a table - not unlike the kind you'd find in a classroom, relatively small and spartan but sturdy.

She's wearing a nervous smile breaking into a laugh, eyes fixed apprehensively in the middle distance. In one hand is a wine glass, although it looks empty. The other hand is at the end of an outstretched arm, wafting through the air as though she's trying to balance.

She is in a restaurant. Around her, clients of the establishment wear expressions of shock, amazement and delight, much like the waiter stood by the door on the far side of the room.

The reason they are all shocked is the man beneath Helen. Well, beneath and behind. He stands, arms outstretched, holding the entire table - with Helen on board - in his teeth. It is not supported by any other means.

This man - looking middle aged, with a receding hairline and neat moustache brushing the table surface - is George. George is going for a world record for weight lifted by teeth alone. Helen's weight is part of that record.

If only you could see the photo. It's a marvel! Earlier I asked her how she came to be involved in this most bizarre record attempt, which took place in Luxembourg:

"One of my students at the FTD [German Financial Times, where she's an intern] is going to work for the photographer as a translator (because the photographer's English).So she asked me if I had time to come along. Apparently his teeth can take 52kg."

Now I'm not prejudging you or anything, but I reckon you've had a boring day by comparison with Helen.

I met Ollie for dinner this evening. I was a little preoccupied with work, but then went into relaxed mode (akin to my giggling fit in Wales last weekend, sitting on a clump of grass, entirely surrounded by bog - but that's a story for another day) and began to spout utter rot. I admit it was rubbish. Ollie even began to wonder if my non-alcoholic beer had indeed been pure liquor. But that's what makes life entertaining. Three points for the record:

a) I stand by my theory that buildings often look better from the back. Mixtures of rooftops, chimneys and unexpected additions appeal;

b) I also stand by my theory that road-signs are larger than you expect. When driving along the motorway, they look pretty small. But standing underneath one... well, they're massive. As Ollie said, note this day as the day Amy learnt about perspective; and

c) When will it be so accepted that we can't smoke in public buildings, that it is no longer necessary to display no smoking signs?

Editor's note from Ollie: Amy appears to have forgotten to put a title on this post, so I have added one for the time being. Now, it's not that I despair, but one does fear for the legal profession.

Words military spokespeople never thought they'd say:

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."

That's as may be, but try telling that to the Iraqi locals around Basra, where the British military are of course based. They have a different story to tell. Mike Drummond, editor of US paper The Charlotte Observer on attachment in Iraq, explains more:

White “hog badgers” [are] attacking people in Basra. Badgers, of all things. And white ones, no less.

The story comes gratis from the Al-Mashriq newspaper, one of the many dailies our staff reviews at morning meetings. The article even used some jpeg images culled from the Internet. One of the images, I’m fairly certain, isn’t even of a badger. I’m also fairly certain badgers don’t live in Iraq.

Supposedly, the creatures have something to do with a British military plot, Al-Mashriq said, citing scared locals.

Later, [Mike's associate] Hussein and I have a chat [and] the subject, naturally, turns to badgers in Basra.

Hussein talked with one of his friends there. Didn’t know anything about badgers, white ones or otherwise. But he did hear about the young man who was bitten by a dog. Later, the young man flew into a mad rage and, before dying, bit his father. The older man is now in the hospital. You know, that sounds like rabies to me.

So now authorities in Basra have declared a sort of jihad on feral dogs in the city. Given how itchy the trigger fingers are in this country, you don’t want to be a dog, or anything on four legs, wandering the streets of Basra. Those badgers better lay low.

More: Mike Drummond's Baghdad Diary

Well, for more of the British response - plus some quotes from locals who insist the British killer badgers are very real - click here.

This was lying on the kitchen table earlier today:

You might remember my sister Alice went through the eleven-plus, and got through. Now it'll be younger sister Lucy's turn, so back out come all the tests, mock papers and guides.

This particular book was lying open at this page:

See if you can spot the problem I had with that page.

In the mean time, another problem I have with it is that the question itself is bloody difficult!

Have a look at the example first. Would you immediately associate "stable" with barn and shed, and with steady and firm?

Move on to number 25. What word would go with bat and stick, and also society and group? I've not got the answer sheet and I'll confess, I've no idea what the answer is. Maybe it's 'racket', but that strikes me as a bit high-brow to expect 11-year-olds to associate racketeering with groups. It can't be.

Am I being unduly thick? By all means let me know the answer if it's obvious, but it's not to me! I reckon 26 is probably "segment", 27 "thick", and 28 "swamp". Even then, if you soak something, do you swamp it? I'm fairly sure my eleven-year-old self would have been lucky to get one mark for writing his name on the paper, let alone scoring marks on the questions inside.

And yes, the original problem is that the book's author has been unable to spell "separate" correctly. And yet we're supposed to know what links bat, stick, society and group. Separate planets.

Update: Congratulations to OJ, who supplies the following:

"I had to resort to a thesaurus, but I'm pretty sure that number 25 would be "club". I got "swamp" and "thick" as well, although I had to look over "stable" to see what they were getting at.

"As I remember it, the 11+ scholarship examination we sat just involved some colouring in, didn't it?"

And many thanks to "AN Other" on the comments, who comes up with a better answer for number 26: perhaps it's "part", not "segment".

AN also attempts number 29, which you can just make out in the picture. They reckon class/category and arrange/order are linked by "sort", whereas earlier I'd have gone for "group". It's a mess.

Just a short lesson for life. Don't have an oversized handbag / manbag. Or if you do, make sure you don't have a rip in the lining so your house keys fall in the lining. If you do, make sure you know about it. Do make sure you don't get back to your flat at 12.45am from work, realise you don't have keys. Or, think you don't. Go back to work. Then find keys in bag. Get stuck in work because the lifts shut down for scheduled maintenance. And b[a]ggered if I am walking 46 flights of stairs. Have to descend in the "goods lift" - a horrid experience - and then get back in cab and go home. Agh. I need sleep.

We all know football clubs have their celebrity fans, but we don't often get to see them behind the scenes when the results come through.

How do Noel and Liam react as another City home match comes and goes without a goal? Can Elton be restrained when Watford go a goal down in the 89th minute? Does Cherie Blair yell, "Goodbye, we won't miss you!", when someone's sent off against Tony's beloved Newcastle?

Well, here's a sneak peek into the inner sanctum of one celebrity Sheffield United fan, at the critical moment of the 2006/07 Premiership season. Win, and they stay up. Lose, they go down. We join the action as the videprinter jumps to life...

Bless Madonna, trying to get into the spirit of things as she closes the Live Earth event at Wembley.

What to say, when you're the last act on stage and everyone else has already harped on endlessly about the environment? What to say, when Terence Stamp has just come on stage and sucked any momentum out of the entire day with a dry, monotone speech delivered like a lecture to the Wembley WI?

Here's Madge's suggestion:

'"If you want to save the planet, let me see you jumping up and down!"

What's that going to achieve? Are we going to collectively jog the planet slightly off course, widen the orbit a fraction, and cool the face of the globe just enough to get by for another few hundred years? I mean, it's a plan, but even 80,000 people being ordered to "Jump, Motherfuckers!" by a 48-year-old mother of two-and-a-bit is unlikely to work. Al, we need a Plan B.

Earlier this week I went to see my grandparents (for the first time in a long time) down near Brighton. During the afternoon we had a look at the many hundreds of photos they've saved up, of all the family over the years - and to my surprise they've also kept dozens of postcards.

This first one was sent back by me. For reasons which will become apparent, I'm not sure where I was at the time, or how old I was.

The aircraft isn't giving much away about the location. Sadly, neither's the back of the postcard!

One would hope one wasn't very old when writing that, although I know many people will suggest my writing's barely improved since. For those that can't interpret the hieroglyphics, the postcard says:

"Dear Nanny: Don't you think this plane is beautiful. All my love, Oliver."

And then on the right hand side, where most people would put the address, I've simply added:

"Have a happy day."

The postal service would have to be incredibly intuitive to have got that back to my grandparents, so I assume a wise old adult bundled it up with theirs and sent them in an envelope. I find it endearing that my priority was not minutiae like names and addresses, but more to wish everyone well in their lives.

Next to it in the box is one that my dad sent back, date 29 July 1994:

It's obvious enough from the postcard (a slightly better choice than my earlier effort) that we're in Switzerland. We used to go there quite a lot for summer holidays, playing tennis and golf. His writing on the back is a wee bit better too, although I'd suggest one or two words need a bit of work!

I sincerely hope these postcards weren't sent at the same time, because that would have made me nine years old, and - even allowing for that legendary untidy scrawl - it would have been a fairly terrible effort. Happily my dad's been comparatively loquacious with his.

"Dear Bill & Jean: Oll and I arrived safely and we are currently crossing the lake en route to the top of Mount Pilatus.

Weather very warm indeed, we are both melting, but plenty of refreshment helps.

Thank you both for looking after Oll and for Christmas, we are looking forward to it.

Take care, Chris."

Well obviously, those are the sort of sentiments I'd meant to convey - but it really was a beautiful plane.

So here am I, barging back into your life after a radio silence of almost two months, without so much as a word of explanation. Rest assured I'll bore you with many of those over the coming weeks and months (essentially just busy times at work to blame). But now, onward...

Today marks an important personal anniversary for me; if it's not seven years since the actual conception of my broadcasting career, it's certainly seven years since the foreplay began.

I remember the morning of July 4th 2000 very well. For a start, I'd made the very bold exception of missing the opening few minutes of Wake Up to Wogan; knowing me at 17, probably for the first time in years. Instead, at precisely 0734 (keen by a minute), I arrived at the Hallam Street entrance to Broadcasting House in London, on a promise of this:

It's not my back you see, but that of the great Alan Dedicoat, chief announcer of Radio 2, and the well chosen recipient of a letter from a dear school friend of mine, begging a chance for me to visit the radio station I loved best. Busying myself with exam stress, I knew nothing of the letter until the shock arrival of an email, purporting to be from one of my great radio idols, offering "lunch and a look round... If you pass".

(I gathered a few well observed special requests had probably been made by my friend, as there was also mention that I'd "probably get to see Ken Bruce".)

Nervously suppressing his over-enthusiasm, 17-year old Sheppard proudly announced his appointment to see the Voice of the Balls, and like a grown up, was invited to call the internal number himself. Like a proper anorak, I still remember it.

I spent the early part of the morning with Deadly in Studio 1D, watching his side of the notorious exchanges with Wogan and Walters, and soaking up every detail. I even got to wiggle my first fader - the one for Studio 1F, then Ken Bruce's studio - at 0930, to a fanfare from Wogan on the off-air studio talkback, saying he "liked the lights"...

I was soon whisked upstairs to Studio 1J to meet Wogan and Walters in person, receiving the characteristically warm welcome that made me feel like the interesting one. And, above and beyond in true Dedicoat style, I not only got to meet Ken Bruce, but sat with him for the final chunk of his show.

"17 years, of Ruscombe in Berkshire?", he asked, on being introduced. It was how I signed my letters to the show.

I didn't win the 'Headline Hunt' that day.

It's exactly seven years since I decided a career in radio needn't be just a dream. Everything I'd seen had confirmed that what you hear on the radio is real; somewhere, albeit in strange dark rooms, there are real people making the stuff. Human beings, and some very decent ones at that. Why shouldn't I be amongst them?

Seven years on, I still struggle to believe it earns me a living. So did my Bank Manager for a while; but it now does, just. I now spend more of my time in studios than I do in my bed, and yet it's all still every bit as entrancing as it was seven years ago. It's a fine career, but it'll never be work.

Speaking of careers, I'm pleased to say that my parallel role in the bus industry became official at the beginning of the month: I'm now Transport Manager to ThisBus.com, the fully licensed operating wing of the Broadcasters' Bus Consortium. My business partners and I will soon be hiring out the Routemaster for weddings, day trips and the like, a fact cannily picked up on in this piece from the Daily Express a couple of weeks ago:

Wonder what David Sheppard, 17 years, of Ruscombe in Berkshire, would have made of that?

I don't know why I pay X amount per month for the full Sky package. It is stress inducing. a) there is NOTHING on to watch; and b) I end up listening to VH1 Classics as I get ready for work in the morning and today it was playing Bucks Fizz... so had that wretched tune in my mind all day... "make you're mind up"... aghh! It just means I get annoyed about having 550+ hopeless channels rather than 5. Ho-hum.

I'll post about bounce-ability someday. Ollie has it all wrong.

Oh, and I just lost my vacation. I love my job.

On Saturday night I went to the thirtieth birthday celebrations of a good friend - let's call her Miss X.

I stayed til around midnight then went home. It turns out I should have taken up the offer of the couch for the night, because in leaving, I missed the best of the action.

According to Miss X, at around 2am she was out in the garden with friends, enjoying the bouncy castle she'd taken the liberty of hiring for her house party. Yes, I did say thirtieth, not third or thirteenth. It had been raining quite torrentially so the bouncy castle was fairly wet. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

On attempting to dismount the bouncy castle, the birthday girl fell into a crumpled heap, to the extent that she couldn't get up for the pain. She had to be escorted to bed (every birthday girl's dream, I'm sure), and the party-goers had the good sense and moral vacancy to continue proceedings in her absence downstairs.

Come the morning, Miss X awoke to both a hangover and a dreadful pain in the leg. Two hours later, at A&E, she was coolly informed by the duty doctors that she has sprained her medial knee ligament (bad) and quite possibly her cruciate ligament (very, very bad).

Today I found her on her sofa, watching daytime television, nursing a pair of crutches. She's off work for the next few days but, frankly, she didn't look likely to be making a return to work any time soon. After all, it took her ten minutes to reach the door from the couch to let me in (and I'd already locked myself out of one house that day, but that's another story).

Now, damaging your knee ligaments on your thirtieth birthday is an achievement in itself, but most people finish their birthdays legless in at least one sense, so perhaps it's not the end of the world.

Unless, that is, you've got an interview for The Apprentice on Thursday.

Yes, Miss X could be the next Katie Hopkins (boo), except she's now unable to reach the door, let alone central London for a grilling from the show's producers, now hiring in time for filming of the next series to begin on 15 September this year.

She's sent the producers an email in which she rather delicately admits to having damaged her knee, without revealing the precise bouncy-castle related circumstances. In return they've offered her the chance at an interview in either Manchester or Birmingham next week.

It's touch and go. Should she go to the interview, do you think? She says she's very happy in her current job and had only light-heartedly submitted her application. And now she's in no real fit state to travel. But at the same time she's a competitive soul and has the opportunity of a lifetime to earn a place on one of the most talked-about shows on television. What would you do?

Alright then, hands up. Who wants to see my sister falling off a horse?

Oh now that's nasty. How could you? But since you're so keen...

Thank the Lord for professional photographers at children's sports events, capturing those moments that big brothers throughout the land would otherwise have missed. Poor Alice. This is one of a series of photos which trace, like a flipbook, the slow parting of ways between horse and human.

Of course I wouldn't be introducing this public humiliation if she wasn't actually, secretly, quite good. She and fellow sister Lucy even own 'virtual' horses on Howrse.com, as though a real horse weren't enough. Feed it (Alice's is, apparently, 'too fat'), take it over the gallops, train it up... it's like a twenty-first century four-legged Tamagotchi.

One wonders if a virtual horse can throw you off. I'm sure Alice will let us know.

The other day we were sent a press release about a survey, conducted by YouGov on behalf of Friction TV - the "online debating website" (as, presumably, opposed to an offline debating website, which would be even less useful).

As is tradition, the press release began by picking out some key headlines from the survey's results. Like the Daily Mail on the wrong side of its bed, the email screamed:

Only Half of the British Population has Ever Spoken out About a Sensitive Issue

Er... and this is a bad thing because?

Yes, everyone has the right to free speech. But how stupid you must have to be, to suggest that 50 per cent of the population speaking out is somehow a woefully inadequate showing.

Think about it for a minute. Think of an issue like, say, smoking, or abortion, or religious extremism, or animal testing. Now think of people you know who you think ought to be speaking out about it.

Can you think of anyone? For each of those issues I can think of one or two friends or family members who have direct experience, strong views, and an ability to put those views succinctly and powerfully - in short, they are people who can contribute something worthwhile.

At the same time I can think of plenty of friends, whom I love dearly, who probably shouldn't be trying to speak out about any 'sensitive issue', and indeed aren't doing. Not because they don't have a view, or should be denied their right to free speech, but because lots of other people - mostly newspaper pundits - are already doing the speaking out, and we don't need every man and his dog piling in to have their say.

Of course we treasure our right to free speech but that doesn't mean we should all be taking any and every opportunity to exercise it. Our days are full of enough people trying to preach this or that without each person you meet trying a little amateur evangelism on their chosen issue of the day.

If I feel deeply about something I might write about it here, but is that 'speaking out'? I'd define 'speaking out' as trying to make your views as public as possible, not popping them on your weblog or sharing them over coffee with a few friends. Or I might find a recognised voice on radio, television or in print, who shares my views, and email them my support. That's not speaking out, that's democracy - electing someone else to represent me far more effectively than I can.

Just think about that 50 per cent of the nation. If that's such a bad figure, what might be better? Let's say 80 per cent of the nation get the chance to speak out. Who's in that 80 per cent? Without sinking too swiftly into any depths of class stereotyping, 80 per cent of Britain would include some fairly unsavoury types, not to mention some people who simply don't know enough about anything to hold a view worth speaking out with, when others are doing it better.

If we lived in a world where more than 50 per cent of the population spoke out about sensitive issues, we'd be all the poorer for it. So whatever it was you had to say that's really important: save it and talk to me about telly instead.

So, there’s no smoking with our pinch and punch this morning. We awake to a smoke-free England. Our friends in Scotland, Wales and Ireland have been smoke-free for a while but as usual, this green and pleasant land (arguably pleasanter now for the lack of smoke) is one of the last to catch on.

The website here changed (I’m told, probably automatically and by code) at midnight last night to reflect that we “live” in a smoke-free England, rather than “we will live in one” come July 1st. I don’t anyone can successfully argue that the smoking ban is a bad thing. In fact, both smokers and non-smokers alike appear to be pleased that it will come in to force. My own father smoked for years, until of course his lung collapsed, and that put an end to the cheeky cigarettes in the garage. Colleagues smoke, I’ve friends who smoke, but all seem pleased the ban is in force. Even Dot Cotton, perhaps one of England’s notorious on-screen smokers, who has been battling with giving up for the past few months, ceremoniously smoked her last in the launderette in Friday night’s episode.

But what real impact will it have? At work, we’ve gained another room in place of the smoking room. There was a suggestion, again on Eastenders, that pubs would be less desirable. Cries of “a G and T won’t be the same without a fag, we may as well stay at home to drink and smoke in peace”, are I feel a little exaggerated. If anything it will encourage non-smokers back into pubs. I’d be lying if I said I’d never smoked a cigarette, and judging by the statistics here, a significant percentage of the population have indeed smoked at one point in their lives, but there is nothing worse than coming back from a night in a pub / club and smelling like one large stale cigarette. Urgh. And it increases my dry-cleaning bill. But what about the clubs? Apparently in Scotland, the smell in clubs following the smoking ban was terrible. Smoke seems to mask the spilt alcohol, the body odor and the smells of sick. Remove the smoke and suddenly clubs and bars smell distinctly unpleasant. I shudder to think what “Filth” would smell like. Oh the sticky floor! So maybe our pubs and clubs will have an utter overhaul and those smoke-stained lampshades and fag-burned carpets will be banished forever.

What’s interesting is how it has been played in the media and in shops / businesses. I’ve already mentioned the last drag by Dot in Eastenders. But as mentioned above, she’s been struggling to give up for months. In Coronation Street, two characters who haven’t really smoked for months, suddenly began to smoke and complain how hard it is to give up. There have been adverts on the DLR, and also I assume on the tube, for weeks. Boots are dishing out patches, gum (that’s a concept I just can’t fathom) and inhalers. Businesses are offering free counseling / courses to aid giving up. It’s all very encouraging, but also it does highlight the so-called “nanny state”. Of course, the smoking ban protects both the lives of smokers and non-smokers who will have been affected through the effect passive smoking. I can see Jurisprudence exam pages in years to come arguing whether the state was just and fair to impose the ban. What will be next? How dangerous does it have to be for the state to “ban” something? Questions that will only be answered through the passage of time.

So what do we tell our children? Will smoking be something only history books mention? Almost like a passing fashion trend. “For the majority of the twentieth century, until the early twenty-first century, the majority of the population of England smoked. Smoking was first brought to England in… etc.” I know my Mother has talked of how different smoking was in the 60s (sorry, Mum, for showing your age!), and I could recall an utterly different situation. Will we talk about how we had our last cigarette in a pub? I know friends who have had, rather sadly, photographs taken of them in pubs having a last cigarette. Or will it just disappear in a puff of smoke? Oh, and what else are we going to get taxed on. The bbc site, linked above, details the percentage of a cigarette packed that was taxed. Hardly the dog-end of the tax regime.

So, with that I suppose we enter a new era. I don’t think we’ll see an iconic picture of Gordon smoking a cigar, aka Churchill, sometime soon.

We ought to have known, really. If there is anything early Saturday evening television has taught us, it's that whenever something is amiss in major British cities, it's got something to do with a Time Lord.

The following copy has just arrived down the wires from Cardiff:

Two controlled explosions will be carried out in Cardiff this afternoon, as part of a BBC production, believed to be Doctor Who or Torchwood.

The explosions - large enough to damage a number of windows at the film site - will take place at 1200 and 1400.

South Wales Police say they understand that, with the heightened security measures currently in place across the country, this may cause some concern to members of the public in the vicinity who are unaware of these events.

High visibility uniformed Police Officers are on duty in the City Centre to provide the necessary public reassurance.

Quite what South Wales Police think those officers will achieve, God only knows. Have they not seen the show? You need a police box!