Cheltenham Town striker Steve Gillespie and I get along quite well.

The deal is this: whenever I turn up to watch Cheltenham at their home ground, Whaddon Road, Steve scores a goal for me.

He did it against Scunthorpe last season (although admittedly he got himself sent off afterwards), and yesterday he did it again, scoring the only goal to record a thrilling, historic victory over fallen giants Leeds United.

Except - if you were listening to BBC Radio 5live for your score updates, you'd have had a slightly different impression of the game.

First, watch this video we filmed from the halfway line. It shows a Leeds United disallowed goal.

You can tell the goal will not stand because the disembodied figure of Amy Jones, self-appointed number one Cheltenham fan, hoves into view within a second of ball hitting net. Lo and behold, there is the linesman, flag raised aloft. No goal.

A shame BBC reporter Simon Mann didn't have Amy to help him out...

"We've all been there," says Eleanor Oldroyd in incredibly patronising fashion. There will have been heads hung low in the Mann household yesterday evening. Unlucky, son. And there is a scoreboard, too...

Well, um, another stunningly exciting Sunday of work awaits me tomorrow. I’m rather grateful I got all the necessary sight-seeing out of the way prior to these current beasting at work. A few random musings in place of anything more exciting.

First, my Thursday this week appeared to span a great number of hours more than the usual 24. I was in work until 3am on Wednesday night / Thursday morning, so in effect my Thursday began on Wednesday. Then of course it continued as Thursday in its true sense when I was back at work for 9am. It continued into Friday’s early hours, but for all intents and purposes it still felt like Thursday. And then my friend and colleague who was out in London until the early hours of Friday morning was effectively still having her Thursday night out until around 11am on my Friday morning. It was only then that Thursday finally departed. That’s one long Thursday. All that said, all passed rather quickly.

Second, if one listens to ClassicFM “listen live” at work, from say around 9pm until 1 or 2am (as I have many times of late), one progresses from the lunchtime program into “drivetime” and then, on one occasion, I also managed the opening sounds of “relaxing classics at 7pm”. That’s when you really realize that London is truly half a day apart (and, arguably, that you should be in bed).

Third, I’m astounded by the repercussions one wretched game of football has – OK, so we’ve lost our Euro 2008 campaign and, apparently, prejudiced our Euro 2010 qualification. But that’s nothing. The share prices of various sports retailers fell on Thursday; shops are predicting a fall in sales of England football kits and all associated paraphernalia; and apparently we’re going to be drinking less beer and holding less BBQs next summer as a result. I suppose that shall ease the Governments anxiety over our growing obesity epidemic.

Fourth, yesterday I learnt that if a ship is "listing badly", it means that it is tipping badly / leaning to one side. And there was me thinking it meant that you'd been pretty ineffective in writing your weekly shopping list and had thus forgotten to buy a loaf of bread.

It takes me five hours of travelling each day - two and a half hours each way, door to door - to get to and from the office, now that I'm working in London.

That includes four hours of coach travel a day. If on-demand downloadable television hadn't been invented, I don't know how I'd cope.

I used to think on-demand TV (like the BBC's iPlayer and Channel 4's 4OD) was a bit gimmicky, and that nobody really wanted to watch stuff whenever they felt like it. What would be the point? It'd be a phenomenal waste of time.

But then I discovered it proves incredibly handy for passing time on a coach and, in fact, makes you feel like you're making use of time you'd otherwise waste. Now, each night, I go to iPlayer and 4OD and make sure I've got at least three hours of brand new telly on my laptop ready for the morning, plus a DVD or two for good measure.

This week's menu has been:

Tuesday: QI, Family Guy, Have I Got News For You, Film 2007
Wednesday: Family Guy, Outtake TV, Top Gear
Thursday: Cranford, Family Guy, Sound
Friday: Waterloo Road, Cranford, Peep Show, The £800,000,000 Railway Station

Funny how shows like Cranford, the new BBC period drama with a hint of comedy, suddenly appeal when you know you can watch them at your leisure. I wouldn't have touched that with a bargepole if sat at home in front of the box. But stick me on a crowded coach in Friday evening rush-hour traffic, and escape to a Cheshire village in 1842 has a remarkable quality to it. And what a first episode, too! Loved it.

Already I'm planning next week's schedule - see, they talk about this in terms of "let the audience create the schedule", and they're actually bloody right!

The first three episodes of new Channel 4 series Nearly Famous, alongside a documentary on the Antarctic, another episode of QI and the latest Film 2007, are all ready and waiting. Plus I'll be having episode two of Cranford on Sunday night, and anything else that looks tasty.

Then, come another 5.30am start on Monday, I'll settle back, relax, and watch the telly I was too knackered to stay up for all last week. And anyway, why on earth would you want to watch telly when the broadcasters tell you to? Funny how a little experience can change an opinion, isn't it.

My first week in my new job has reached its conclusion and, for the first time in over a year, I actually know what it is to have 'that Friday feeling'.

Now that I work - gasp - a normal 9-to-5 Monday-to-Friday week, it means the coach journey back home on Friday evening is a cause for minor celebration. It's not that I don't like the new job - far from it - but the prospect of a couple of days without five hours' commute is a nice thought, as is tomorrow's ice hockey commentary and a trip to see Cheltenham v Leeds on Sunday.

Anyway, given I've not stopped by since Tuesday's car crash, I should get that out of the way first. I'm fine, no lasting damage, and the car is going in for repairs early next week. It has remained perfectly driveable so the damage is purely aesthetic (I've been searching for that word all week and only now have I remembered it). The only enduring effect, in fact, is a newfound paranoia when changing lanes. I now require at least two miles' open road in either direction before pulling out, and exist in a state of neurosis whereby I'm sure my wing mirrors move whenever I'm not looking directly at them. This may require therapy, or a good slap.

At work things are going well, although it is difficult to overstate quite how different my day job now is, despite the fact that I am technically still exactly what I was before, an online sports journalist.

In the old job I'd come in and be racing against time all day long in some shape or form - meeting deadlines with sports bulletins and programmes, getting interviews online as soon as possible, driving to outside broadcasts and interviews.

In the new job I turn up and then sit and have a very good, long think. Thinking was a sport reserved for the car on the way to interviews when I was doing radio; the concept of taking time to just think in the newsroom never, ever materialised.

But now I'm tasked with getting things right for our main Olympics website, which means it's my job to come up with ideas, flesh those ideas out, then find the people who can turn them into a reality.

When you're reading sports bulletins the deadlines come every half an hour or so - now, the ultimate deadline is ten months away, which means it's a very different mindset. Suddenly I find myself having to create, and dream up, my own workload, rather than arriving at work knowing what I've got to do. It's like having to come up with hurdles to throw in front of yourself, then working out how to leap over them.

The good thing is, when you're setting your agenda, you can make it pretty interesting. Today's been about working out how we're going to make the best out of social networking over the next year - in other words, going through sites like Bebo and Facebook, trying to work out what we could offer that people would want to consume via social networking sites. It's odd to spend your day trying to surf Facebook with a purpose, rather than in the usual aimless fashion.

But now, for the whole weekend, I'm going to forget about that and actually enjoy the idea of a Saturday and Sunday off. Well, except for the ice hockey on Saturday night. But that's hardly a chore, now, is it?

Did you see that big crash on the M40 just after Junction 6 this morning?

If you did, I hope you waved. I was in it.

There's the Dodge, hazards mournfully flashing into the dusk as the blues and twos of the Thames Valley police force whirl behind it.

It had just gone 6am and I was heading up to the Thornhill park and ride to catch the Oxford Tube into London for my first day in my new job.

But about 30 seconds after joining the motorway, two cars in front ploughed into each other. The people-mover in front of me performed an emergency stop, and there was nothing I could do. With my brakes squealing I went into the back of them.

First things first. Happily it seems that nobody in the car in front of me was injured, and so far all I can feel is a dull ache in my knees - and if that's all I come away with, then I'll be able to count myself lucky.

As for the driver of one of the two vehicles in the original smash - who knows. It's not that they were taken to hospital or anything. They ran away! There was absolutely no sign of the driver of the most badly damaged car, he or she had simply managed to do a runner. How on earth it's possible, physically or mentally, to leg it after a crash like that, I have no idea. The other fellow seemed shaken but okay.

Their two cars won't be seeing any more tarmac, but the Dodge has come through it as well as I reckon a car can get through any motorway smash. The front radiator grille has a fairly lengthy crack which means it's a little loose in places, and there are a couple of dents to the bodywork around the bumper, but frankly I'm amazed at how little damage has been done. It could have been so much worse.

I'll have to take it to be repaired, but it made it as far as the park and ride and ought to get me home tonight - none of the lights or electronics have been damaged and no warning lights are showing. The likes of your car magazines might not be the Caliber's biggest fan, but it is a sturdy beast and today it put plenty of itself between me and the crash, with barely a scratch to show for it.

So, back to the scene. Immediately following the awful realisation that for the first time in my life I wasn't going to stop in time, and the dull shunt of bodywork on bodywork, I slapped the hazard lights on. At this point traffic was still doing 70mph behind me (being the last car in the crash) so I am lucky nobody else came barrelling in, or I could be in hospital now.

I got out, abandoning the car sprawled across the fast lane, and with my legs shaking furiously, made it to the car in front to check that everyone was okay. In it was a party of gentlemen making their way to Didcot power station in a leased people-mover. They all seemed fine. The car in front of them, a write-off, had lost its driver. He or she had simply vanished.

Within what seems like seconds, as lorries and cars squeezed through the gap in the middle lane, the police had arrived. They shut the motorway behind us for around half an hour as they swept the debris from the road and we moved our cars to the hard shoulder. The speed, efficiency and calm attitude of the officers was exceptional. The copper taking details, for OJ's benefit, reminded me of our old geography teacher, Mr Beale. I've now got to find myself a police station and present the relevant licence and insurance documents, within the next seven days.

Eventually, having inspected my car and done a little work to repair the grille, I was given the all clear to gingerly pull away and join the trickle of traffic now making it past us in the one re-opened lane.

It was bizarre sitting on the coach as it travelled back past the scene of the accident, heading southbound. There was still only one lane open, a good 45 minutes after I left the scene. The tailback behind the accident stretched for at least two junctions of the M40, and within the queue another two cars had collided, with a separate ambulance and police car on the scene. Funny how when you're in a queue like that, you think you're the most inconvenienced man alive, but having been in the crash that causes one, you wish you'd left it an extra half hour and been one of the chasing pack behind the cones.

I can feel things starting to seize up slightly now, and my only fear is that some kind of incredibly unfunny injury will slowly but surely manifest itself. But for a crash in the fast lane on the M40 at 6am, I'm doing remarkably well to be able to sit down and write this less than two hours after the event. (I won't be able to publish this later, but it's 8am as I type).

Of course, at least it's one way to dispel those first-day-at-work jitters...

I hate leaving. Whenever I leave people or places that have been part of my life for any length of time, I can't help but get a little misty eyed.

So waving goodbye to colleagues here in Caversham before I head off to London for the next few months has been tough. I genuinely love my old job and all the people that go with it, and I've had a constant lump in my throat for the past few days.

Not only that but, this being my first proper job, I've never had another job to leave. So it's the first time I've had to confront a change of workplace. It's all a bit odd.

But now, sat here in the all but deserted newsroom on a Sunday afternoon, it's come to an end. I've published my last webpage, fetched my last guest, and read my last sports bulletin - in the company of no less than broadcasting legend Richard Skinner. I didn't know what to say when he went for an on-air goodbye and ended up sounding very silly, but it was a lovely gesture:

My new desk awaits, on the fifth floor of the now-doomed Television Centre, as part of BBC Sport, one of the departments set to move out of TVC to Manchester in the next few years. (Have you seen the Salford designs? It's going to be bloody brilliant, I'm halfway to renting a flat oop north already!)

TVC's limited future does nothing to diminish its iconic power as a building, though. When I went for an introductory day last week my jaw dropped about eighty different times - be it celebrities behind me in the lunch queue, through to walking past big signs that simply say: "Entertainment", or "Drama". I can only imagine what goes on behind those doors. It's like some kind of broadcasting Hogwarts, without the funky dress code.

You'll be getting plenty more of this as the weeks go by. I'll be working on our 2008 Olympics coverage, developing features with some of the athletes taking part, as well as coming up with ideas for our website. But I'll also be using the telly next to my desk to watch UK Gold during my lunch break, and suffering withdrawal with the nearest Diet Coke facilities a whole three floors away (which can only be a healthy development!).

And my preferred mode of transport: the Oxford Tube. My three month pass allows me onto any bus, any time, anywhere. It's two hours each way though, so I'll be downloading myself plenty of telly to watch on the way in and out of London. If you see a decent podcast to keep me occupied, send it my way!

Oh and finally, speaking of that, I really like the Telegraph TV service I found the other day. Click here to have a look. The kitchen experiments filmed by the Telegraph science editor are particularly good value, and have a homely but fun quality to them. Well done lads!

... spent in the office. Um, not much to say. But it's 10.30pm and I'm literally just in - so that's a gain of 1 1/2hrs on last Sunday. At the same time, it's great work and it's strangely fulfilling / it'd be boring if it were any different.

Not much in the way of HK to report. Christmas has arrived. Decorations everywhere ranging from the tasteful to the, well, simply vile. *bucks Christmas Blend is alive and well. Oh and HMV is playing vaguely cheesy / Xmas warm-up music.

What would possess anyone to part with over twenty quid to spend an entire Saturday in a cinema, watching two series of a sitcom that they already own on DVD?

What would possess someone who already works in a cinema to spend their entire Saturday in a different cinema, watching two series of a sitcom that they already own on DVD?

Spaced has possessed those people. And it possessed myself, Amy J, Sarah and Lucy to gather at the British Film Institute on Saturday. At 12.30pm they showed all seven episodes of the first series. At 7.30pm they showed all seven episodes of the second series. And then we went home.

Except, a few nice things happened along the way. First, I snuck out after the first four episodes and stood in the standby queue for the Q&A session that was going to take place in between the two screenings. A Q&A session with almost the entire Spaced cast, including none other than Simon Pegg (of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and, er, Spaced fame, among many others).

Tickets for the Q&A were sold out when I booked the tickets for the screenings, so the standby queue was our only hope. Happily, when I reached it, it wasn't very long. But it was the strangest queue in the world:

There were ten people ahead of me, all standard issue studenty, arty types that sit and drink alcohol in standby queues at film institutes. And boy, had some of them been drinking alcohol. It transpired that the gentleman at the head of the queue had been in it since 10am, and in fact had constituted the queue in its entirety for at least two hours.

At 1pm-ish he'd been joined by a few others and had proceeded to get himself very, very drunk, sat at the front of the line. By 3pm when I joined the queue, he was a little loud but not overtly tipsy. By 4.30pm when I got my standby tickets for the Q&A (hurrah!), he was wandering the queue offering a selection of newspaper supplements to bemused Spaced fans.

While I had been waiting in line, others in our party had been busy. Sarah and Lucy had been watching the final few episodes of series one. Amy J had been dipping in and out of them (the episodes), but had been a little distracted by the appearance, outside one of the auditorium doors, of Simon Pegg. And a few other cast members. She might have managed to persuade them to sign stuff:

But she didn't bump into Simon Pegg as he left a gents' toilet. That honour was reserved for Sarah, as Pegg took evasive action to avoid her on re-entering the corridor. (There's a euphemism.) Sarah turned crimson, purple, green and white simultaneously, then had to press herself against a wall to avoid keeling over. It seems the man had that effect on quite a lot of people in the building. Strange.

Pegg was not the only victim mercilessly tracked down by the teenage duo of Sarah and Lucy, led in their mercenary celebrity bounty hunt by a rampant Amy J, for whom this sort of thing is a routine bloodsport, a bit like pheasant shooting but less humane. Spaced star Nick Frost, outside the venue for a crafty fag behind a flight of stairs, was brutally assaulted with a camera and two young women, to the point where he felt compelled to run away and hide (though that could have been the queue of fifty fans that built up behind them).

Everyone left the venue with a piece of paper full of signatures and some nice photos involving celebrities. Everyone, that is, except me. Nothing on this earth will persuade me to pester a celebrity to have my photograph taken with them. I would rather gnaw my own nipples off than either:

a) become the nineteen millionth person that day to trouble some poor individual with the misfortune to have become well known; or

b) lower myself to the status of 'fan with a camera and a marker pen'.

Seriously. We were stood outside the VIP area, roped off with a security guard uttering menacing directions at passers-by now and then, with the three girls trying to barter for autographs with the admin lady. I felt a quite horrible pang of disgust that I had to stand outside the rope and do the whole 'pleb' routine. My fingers teased my BBC ID card in my pocket. "Why must I be a total nobody outside the rope when I could be a total nobody inside it?" I asked myself.

But then, even total-nobody-outside-rope status beats wanker-who-got-told-to-shove-his-BBC-pass status.

And you know what? I'm just happy that everybody else was happy. Not that I wasn't happy, because I was happy. But I was happier because other people were happy, and that was no happy accident. It all fell into place. What a brilliant day out.

By the way - if you were in seat M32, you're going to kick yourself. You won the special prize announced on stage. But you'd gone home so the bloke in seat M31 took it. Just thought you'd like to know.

Light relief for you, the reader, that is. No photos, no ghastly waffle about some temple or what not in and around HK. Nope, this weekend I have spent admiring the view from my office window. And I think I've posted that view before, so I can't even bore you with it again. All well and good though - strangely satisfying.

Amy J and myself descended on Earls Court, London on Saturday for the MPH motor show. Here's the video, including a special guest appearance from a Dayorama legend:

It was something of a whistle-stop tour given we only had a couple of hours, then managed to spend almost half our time in a Pizza Express - but on the plus side, their Chicken Caesar salad was rather good.

Amy J got to see the show itself with Messrs Clarkson, Hammond and May. In the mean time yours truly was on a train back to Slough for the ice hockey - the Jets beat the Phantoms 4-2, find out all about it here.

By the way, I'll be starting at BBC Sport in London on the 19th or 20th of this month, you may be interested to know, hopefully with a day or two next week also thrown in, to familiarise myself with the place.

There is currently a great internal debate raging as to whether I should drive, take the train, or get the Oxford Tube. If anyone does an M40 corridor commute into London and has any advice on this matter, I'd be very grateful.

I decided to have a wander in the Northern area of Kowloon on Sunday, known as Mong Kok. It's famous for being "simply HK" - where real life happens, markets bustle and the food is incredibly authentic, perhaps too much so.

I began at the Bird Market. As the name suggests, it's a market selling all manner of birds from chirpy little song birds through to large parrots. Everything is probably on an engangered species list somewhere - but animal cruelty and temptation to get swiftly on the phone to the local RSPB aside, it was an incredible experience. Elderly gentlemen were sitting around on low stools, watching the birds - apparently listening to find the best songbird since such a bird is meant to bring good fortune - and other birds were hanging in ornate bird cages from tree branches. The
bird cages were beautiful though.

And from there I went to the aptly called Flower Market Road. No prizes for guessing what this road contains. Row after row of plant and flower sellers. Wonderfully colourful and reminded me of Covent Garden.

From there I wandered along a road known for selling fish. Fish are good for feng shui, apparently, hence their popularity. Once again, animal rights go out of the window. Shop upon shop selling all manner of fish in plastic bags (the sort banned from fair grounds in England decades ago), with very little room to move around. Somehow this was much worse than the caged birds. I couldn't look at the shops selling kittens and puppies, but I know they were there.

The eateries were also pretty authentic and I didn't linger long to view the fare available. If you took a punt and suggested that one of the batter covered ball-shaped things probably once had a home in the rodent section of the neighbouring pet shop, you wouldn't be far off. The ducks
were rather recognisable too, although they'd been cooked - the fact they are roasted with their heads on rather gives their identity away. Oh and I don't want to think what the things that look like the inside of some farm animal actually are. Maybe I just did. Yummy!

Swiftly moving on to the Ladies' Market. This is a pretty standard market - cheap trash is universal. Be it London, NY or HK, the fake bags, sunglasses and t-shirts all look the same.

From there I glanced at the nearby temple, but I think we're all aware my love affair with temples was brief and didn't last long. The Jade Market was thankfully just around the corner. Stall upon stall of jade. Pendants, small carvings, bracelets, rings etc. I don't know what jade is "good"
jade, but it was interesting to browse around.

So therein lies my rather fascinating Sunday wander around some of HK's markets. My feet hurt.

And so it came to pass that a colleague and I decided to complete stages 1 & 2 of the Hong Kong Trail today. As I think I’ve said, the HK Trail spans a 50km stretch across the Island. It is divided into eight stages of unequal length and varying difficulty – the Dragon’s Back was stage eight. Our plan is to complete the remaining five stages sometime before I disappear back to the UK.

Today’s 12.5km effort began at the Peak above Central HK and wound its way SE. It was really very pleasurable; the weather was ideal for walking and some of the views during the early part of the walk were spectacular.

That said, the trail is pretty effortless. Well, despite the fact you need to walk of course and there are a few slopes and steps. There’s no real sense of achievement in navigation or escapism since the paths are man-made and are sign-posted at each juncture. Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t make un-enjoyable, but it moves the enjoyment to the company you are with, the general scenery and amazing vistas – rather than achievement in finding your way, tackling a herd of cows or fighting a barrage of brambles. Just a different mentality, I suppose.

An incredibly revitalizing and healthy Saturday all told, though. And to top it all I’ve managed the ghastly task of getting my boots re-heeled and putting dry cleaning in.

Oh and I managed to meet a challenge set by Anthony: I purchased a poppy. The British Legion Poppy Appeal does not end, simply because one isn't on the shores of England. What is it that Brooke said... "If I should die, think only this of me: that there's some corner of a foreign field that is, forever, England".