Oh dear. My spam threshold has been reached. I seem to have spent the week replying to every piece of spam, either by phone or email in an attempt to see why people add me to their mailing lists. Well, not all of my spam - I average 300 a week on my personal account, abou half that number again on my work account and another 50 or so on web mail, so I’m picking out the ones I can easily identify. This afternoon’s batch included several screens listing the most popular MP3s online. A swift ‘this is spam - I did not request it’ elicited a backlash, culminating in:

As the East Coast anchor for [removed to be discrete] and the host of shows heard on over 200 radio stations here in the US, and as someone who appears regularly on [removed to be discrete] on the Beeb, I’m the recipient of hundreds of unsolicited pieces of press related e-mail every day, and I can’t imagine that you aren’t in the same boat… I’ll be talking about this on my show tonight as an example of unimaginable levels of spam having created unreasonable reactions from people who should know better; that’s the only conclusion I can come to.

He seems to be under the impression that I will be impressed by someone who feels the need to point out that he is a radio presenter in the mistaken belief that I’m not one myself. So what am I supposed to do? Be massively impressed that he has a radio show? Quake in my boots and apologise profusely for asking to be removed from his mailing lists - lists I never asked to be a part of - and beg him not to mention me on his show? Or just send a friendly reply?

Thank you for taking me off you mailing list. Best of luck with your show this evening. Perhaps I’ll use this example on my show next week, too.

After all, there’s no need to be rude, is there?

Had another misplaced phone call from the BBC this morning. It’s getting quite amusing now. The Three Counties consumer programme has a habit of calling me up and chewing my ear off about PC World, the store. It follows a common pattern - they spend five minutes describing the woes of one of their listeners who has had trouble with service or a machine bought at PC World. I nod and make sympathetic noises while getting on with whatever it is I’m doing, then they ask if they can give me the listener’s customer number so I make the customer happy again and they can go on air and look all heroic for getting the problem sorted.

I pause, briefly, then explain that I don’t work for PC World, and that Personal Computer World, the magazine, being 25 years old give or take a month or two, was around long before the store and so is in no way affiliated. I explain that when you consider the volume of PCs PC World sells the ratio of people who have problems with them is perhaps far smaller than from some other manufacturers. They promise to change their contacts list, we laugh politely about the whole misunderstanding and they go away.

But I know it will happen again.

Beyond that, it’s been a fantastically productive day. I have edited raw copy for two complete group tests, dropping the equivalent of about 25 pages onto the server in a single day. I’ve learnt several new words in German (dot = there, etc), and sorted out the final details for Ursula and Mike coming around for dinner tomorrow evening.

How much better the world feels when you have had a productive day.

I’m wondering, though, we we don’t start the day sooner. I was looking at the BBC weather site and I see that sunrise is some time around half three in the morning now. If we took the clocks forward another couple of hours it would be half five, and wouldn’t set until gone ten at night. Surely that’s far more sensible.

Even just an hour would be better. It would put us in line with the rest of Europe, too, which would be a ‘Good Thing’, wouldn’t it?

Hmmm…

Oh, well. It’s seven on a Friday evening and I’m still in the office. Time for the gym, I feel, then an evening on a settee, somewhere. Tomorrow is a busy day. I’ll be wearing my drama trousers again for the next episode of Soldiers of Love. How I get myself roped into these things I don’t know - I’m a terrible actor.

At least this time I’m only playing a newsreader, so can pretty much be me. Last time - the automated autopsy device - was rather more taxing. I’m just grateful it was audio drama and not TV.

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