Today is summer. Tomorrow will start off nice but according to Chris the Midnight Weatherman it’s going to rain later in the afternoon. Perhaps even thunder.

Summer will be over.

While it lasted, though, it was fantastic. Very hot and very bright. Mark and I lay on the grass in Soho Square at lunchtime and I drifted off to sleep, only waking up when I felt my arms starting to scorch. We celebrated the weather with ice cream on the way back to the office, which was refreshingly cool once we got inside.

I had an admin day, working my way steadily through a tall pile of invoices and tidying up the loose ends of my email. We closed the latest issue at the beginning of the week, so I’m using the time to get the regular non-editorial jobs sorted out before the rush of the next issue starts again.

The breakfast show piece went well. I had my first early night in weeks last night so felt far more awake and aware for it than I often do. I talked about the ReplayTV 4000, which is a hard-disk video recorder currently on sale in America that makes it very easy to skip adverts and share programmes over the Internet.

Naturally, the broadcasters aren’t entirely happy about the idea of you being able to skip adverts with a single button press so they took the case to a Californian court where the judge ordered Sonicblue, who make the ReplayTV, to log every single key press their customers make.

It’s a massive invasion of privacy, and to be honest skipping the ads with a single press isn’t that much different to speeding through them on a regular video (or, in fact, going to make a cup of tea while they’re on). The sharing of programmes on the Internet is another matter, of course, but again that’s not all that different to lending a tape to a mate.

The show went well. I always feel refreshed after a week away. James did keep on getting the jingles mixed up, though, and playing the ones with just Gordon’s name on towards the end of the show. He also hit the dump button at a rather inopportune moment and we lost seven seconds of output behind a misplaced jingle. Hmmm.

Still, I’ll listen to it back at the weekend and see how it sounded. I was happy with the opening fifteen minute chat, and we had Bobby from Web User in to do the news. He’s always good fun. He was my boss for three months, but I’ve only really got to know him since he’s left PCW. It’s scary to think that was over two years ago now.

In fact, my five year anniversary at PCW is coming up in three months. I can’t believe I’ve been there so long. When I joined I thought I’d only stay there between six months and two years. Now I’m one of the longest-serving members of staff, having worked with five editors, three reviews editors, two production editors, five reviews editors, three art editors, nine sub editors and deputy art editors, one news editor, one news reporter, ten staff writers, three editorial assistants and four labs testers — and even then I think I may have forgotten a few. It’s quite a list. 46 people. Add in the number of sales, marketing, publishing, management and administration people and you’re talking hundreds. I guess I ought to have a party to celebrate. Or drinks, at least.

Something to ponder.

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