So, the last edition of The Lab on Thursday, and the final London This Week today. As usual, it was raining outside, as it does every Sunday I have to be in Grays Inn Road, and as usual the show went far too fast to think about anything other than what the next question would be, so by the time it came to an end the significance didn’t really strike me.

There was no time for a long, fond look back at the studio, which will probably be dismantled over Christmas in the move to west London, as Jacqui King was on her way in for her last show, too.

I thanked Sam and Rupert for all they had done to make the show work over the last three or four months, then mooched around the newsroom for a while, leafing through the Sunday supplements and reading about the reindeer eaters in northern Siberia. I’d love to visit but somehow suspect I’d not get on well with the food.

So, wandered back towards Holborn, chatting with Sam. He hugged at the crossing and then she went back to work on Marcus Churchill’s show and I went to Sainsbury’s to grab a sandwich. I’m glad I did. I’d been considering skipping lunch until I got home, but a poor diabetic woman collapsed on the train. We were turfed off at Shenfield and crammed onto another train on its way in from London.

This, though, was only after a 20-minute wait that left me stranded amid the most vile family in Essex. Two fat women and half a dozen dirty-faced children. Honestly, this kid who insisted on bouncing up and down on the seat opposite - in his shoes - as though it were a trampoline had a face like Father Jack, with some thick jellow substance, like broken corn flakes caught in a smear of lemon curd, right around his mouth. Another vacant looking kid stood in front of me repeating ‘what’s your name, what’s your name, what’s your name, what’s your name’ over and over and over again.

I did my best to ignore him. So did his mother. She screamed at her other kids, and stood at the door for a cigarette, persumably so the smoke could blow back into the carriage and her kids could share it (along with the rest of us) without getting cold.

Finally made my paper chains when I got home, so at least there’s some evidence Christmas is on the way. Other evidence is a sparkling bathroom and tidy flat, ready for dad’s arrival tomorrow (still not got the muddy footprint off the yellow rug from when here was here last month). It was a good excuse for avoiding the online tax return, the login screen of which so comprehensively baffled me that it’s now locked me out before I’ve even got as far as entering my name.

The instructions are written in some kind of governmental code. I have two passwords and one User ID. It’s never clear which password you’re supposed to use. I also have to ‘activate’ my PIN, apparently, although the instructions in the letter that came with it don’t bear any relevance to the layout of the pages online and I could never find the necessary link - perhaps why I’m now locked out of the so-called ‘open’ government.

After that I got the cleaning bug, so scoured the freezer and switched it back on again, ready for shopping tomorrow evening. Or perhaps tonight at midnight, when Tesco opens for the last long run into Christmas.

I wonder if the shelves will be stocked?

1. London this Week
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