From Our Own Correspondent

It seems to me like I have known some of their names for ever.

I can’t remember what day of the week it was on when “the radio” was my Mums old Roberts radio (powered by batteries only slightly smaller than a housebrick) but it seems to have formed part of my radio listening and, with the demise of Letter from America, is the place I turn to when I want to listen to how words should be used.

It was no surprise to me that I came out from Stanfords bookshop in Covent Garden with an anthology of fifty years of writings from the programme. Not just a travel book From Our Own Correspondent records history and the world as it changes. From the major moments (like 9/11) to small sketches observing life on a Russian train or in an Indian bookshop From Our Own Correspondent

Most poignant to me was the report from Frank Gardener, filed the day before he was shot and his cameraman Simon Cumbers killed.

So, if you want to join me and get to know Kate Adie, Emma Jane Kirby, Tim Llewellyn and Daniel Lak visit the BBC FOOC site and listen to the show …

Seminar...

Seminar …

I tumble out of bed and stagger along the landing. The study is full of piles of “stuff” waiting to be sorted. Expenses forms, receipts, bills to pay, recipes to read. Taped to the shelf above my desk are three pages of A4 with “things to do this week” printed on them. There’s more handwritten additions to these lists than things crossed out.

I check my mail and read a few news sites and blogs, check the stats on my site and wonder how to publicise it more widely. After a negotiating a bowl of cereal (both milk and Special K spilled on the floor) I shower, dress and head out.

Driving to the office I turn the music up loud and sink into the leather seats trying to calm the thousand thoughts in my head, nagging and reminding me what I need to do today and what I forgot from yesterday.

We grab a coffee at the office and setup in the room before splitting up to take separate conference calls on different matters. He has the luxury of the room, I’m camped out in the corridor. There’s loads of empty offices with family snaps on the desks and jumpers and umbrellas on hangers but I don’t know the dynamics of this place. It would be easy to use one of them but I would be risking the owner suddenly appearing.

The call drags on for an hour and moves us no further forward. Already I know the feedback I will get is get it done faster. The response will be “How ?”.

The seminar starts, despite us both needing a half day to prepare and structure it. Again we all introduce ourselves and hope that this time will be the last time as we drag together the lacework of resources spread across the country. Then I talk, using Netmeeting and the Wiki we illustrate points and nudge them gently towards getting things finished. We both field questions and try to provide helpful direction and advice before we hang up and hope that they can get all we need done today completed.

Lunch is Chinese. We must be here early as no one is eating and the kitchen is in overdrive. We stretch out lunch as long as possible but still not the full hour we should have. The afternoon is more one on one calls as we review what they have done, fix their problems and plot their progress.

By six it’s time to catch up with the all the work we should have done, trying to clear the email which came in today, before we leave, lingering in the car park trying to agree when to meet tomorrow.

I drive home on the A roads and not the motorway, calling people to get updates on what is happening and trying to sort things before people go on holiday next week.

At home I speak to Anne about Daisy’s birthday next week, trying to remember to book the evening out in my diary before someone thinks a call with the States then would be a nice way for me to spend an evening. I catch up with K’s day, watch a few goals from the England team and wonder why we didn’t play like that a month or so back and then watch the F Word.

In bed I finish my book, a fast read callled Aggressor by Andy McNab, set the radio to sleep mode and listen to Late Junction.

Tomorrow I will do this all over again.

The Kite Runner

There are three of us in the room cursed with too many chairs and not enough network points.

We’ve all come into the office today to work together. Trying to force what seems like weeks of work into a few hours and to work with the benefit of a whiteboard which seems reluctant to give up the last thing written on it before we cover it in the scrawl which doubles for my handwriting.

As we try to make sense of the task at hand I alt and tab my way through the forest of open window on my laptop. Email, Word, Firefox, a terminal Window connected to a Linux server miles away on the corporate LAN, Visio, Freemind - all open and being useful but also making it harder to find the right one to deal with the agreement we have just reached.

I refresh the Window attached to the Wiki and wonder how my single word of text, right justified has now appeared in the middle of the line. It’s an error I will need to resolve and the fix in at least fifteen places.

We break for lunch and go to the Chinese over the road, sitting as we always do and asking for Coke before we help ourselves at the buffet. After a second helping we stagger back to work into the evening and then, at last, I’m home.

Sitting out I read until the last of the light. The weather has turned and darkness comes early now. Reluctantly I huddle into my fleece trying to get to the end of the chapter of The Kite Runner and not wanting to be back inside…