Tomorrow Never Knows...

Well, we're almost here, and if everything goes to plan then the Spawn will be popping out tomorrow. Of course, he or she is probably going to stay in the warm for another week, so I'm going to be struggling for new ways to fill this blog without repeating myself...
Today I managed to set the Twittersphere alight after posting comments about some wideboy driving around St Albans in an Audi with mirrored paintwork. Tacky, cheap and very, very nasty... I love Twitter, it's just so easy to engage with your readers *waves* "Hello everyone out there!" Before the dawn of social networking you generally had to make do with abusive phone calls and letters to the editor, whereas now you can chat with people in a much more friendly and informal fashion. Lovely.
Meanwhile, reporter Debbie has been unleashing hell on any flying insect which dares to enter Herts Ad Towers, regardless of whether they pose any stinging threat. Capital punishment is the only justice it seems, but her reaction times aren't as fast as mine, so I've ended up killing the blighters instead. We have a particularly ruthless piece of equipment for killing wasps - it's like a tennis racket, but rigged up with an electric shock to put them out of their misery sharpish. It hurts - I know this for a fact, after putting my finger onto the electric part of the thing and pressing the button. Cue lots of swearing.

Old wives' tales...

With just a couple of days to go until our due date, Mrs A and I spent the weekend trying to hurry things along a bit, while also trying to wrap up some of the DVD box sets we have been watching in case we don't get time to finish them after the Spawn arrives...
Hence we were out for a curry on Saturday night and went for a long walk the next day, neither of which seem to have provoked any sort of rumblings... And yes, there are other things you can do to hurry things along, but if you think I'm going to write about them in a public blog you've got another think coming! So I'm back at work today, laying out pages and generally trying to get as much done as possible just in case I get The Call.
Mrs A is getting pretty tired at the moment, which seems to result in a lot of spontaneous sofa snoozes, whereas I'm just twitchy. I hate waiting for things which are outside my control, it's a source of constant frustration, and I'm just anxious for everything to get underway...

Weekend looming...

Ar'noon. Today I've been desperately trying to sort out random jobs in case Mrs A starts Spawning over the weekend... A lot of the backroom bits and bobs which I find myself bogged down with still need to be sorted if I'm not here, and there's no guarantee I'll have my laptop with me either.
Hence only a brief update today, and it's not even that funny. Normal service resumed on Monday.

Hole in one...

In the old Herts Ad offices we had enough space to play mini-golf... That isn't the case in Herts Ad Towers, where it's a bit more cosy...

There's no such thing as a free lunch...

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon waiting to eat from a Tudor banquet at one of St Albans' oldest hotels. It was part of a big schmoozing event linked to the hotel being filmed for Channel 5 TV show The Hotel Inspector, and there were going to be all sorts of medieval munchies to chomp down on.
Unfortunately time ticks inexorably onwards, and I had to resign myself to the fact that, no, I couldn't justify spending so much of my day out of the office, even if I was hobnobbing with St Albans' great and good, and would have to go back to Herts Ad Towers... I left reporter Debbie to enjoy the feast - she's from New Zealand, which I think is a bit like living in the Middle Ages as it's full of hobbits and wizards.
So I sloped back to my desk clutching a steak and ale special from the purveyors of pirate pasties (you know the one, I can't remember what it's actually called), which really won't fill the hole I had reserved for tasty treats from Tudor times.
Back on the Spawn front, and there's still no news. This blog is going to get very repetitive if every entry is about how no, my first-born has still not arrived yet, but here's some random information about how Mrs A is feeling today. She's actually OK, thanks for asking. Didn't get up until almost 10 o'clock, and seems to have spent much of the day staring into space, but she likes to do that, so far be it for me to complain.
She had some weird dreams about going into labour, but it turned out this was related to back ache she had in her sleep, itself a possible sign of the process starting, although on this occasion that wasn't the case. The waiting game continues...

One week to go...

How did that happen? All of a sudden we've reached the final countdown before the great Spawning, when the time remaining can be measured in days rather than weeks or months, and it's all frighteningly real instead of being a distant date in the future.
It's sort of like that feeling you have when you're preparing for a holiday, with a mounting sense of anticipation and excitement, but without knowing when you're actually supposed to be catching your flight. Your bags are packed, you have your passport in your pocket, and yet nobody's given you a departure time. And at the risk of extending that metaphor further, when our slot comes up on the departures board we won't have time to scoot around duty free, so I'm loading up on giant-size Toblerone already...
The Spawn itself has apparently been grinding away inside Mrs A's womb, but I'm uncomfortable asking for further details just in case it involves women's bits. Slightly too much information there - how exactly does it "grind"? Ew.
Meanwhile, in the Herts Ad offices we're debating the naming of coffee sizes in Starbucks, which are basically meaningless. For some reason Tall is actually the smallest size and not tall at all, followed by Grande for medium and Venti for the largest. Venti is apparently Italian for 20, because the cup holds 20 fluid ounces of caffeine-fuelled goodness. So now you know. Thanks Starbucks, for confusing everybody more than they are already when faced with a barrage of different coffee varieties...

Facebook a no-no

As someone who is so immersed in the world of social media that I used a loo break at my wedding to change my Facebook status to "Married", it's going to be hard to avoid publishing constant updates throughout Mrs A's labour process. Unfortunately for my various Friends and Followers, the mother of my child has been very insistant on the lack of posts telling all and sundry how dilated she is, whether her waters have broken and "ooh, look, it's crowning!"...
Of course, there's nothing to stop me publishing photos of mum and baby in those moments of bliss immediately after labour, when she's too strung out on emotions, gas, air and any other substances which have been pumped into her body over the course of the delivery process to complain too much about me Tweeting images to the population of St Albans.
It's no longer the case whereby a notice in the Family Announcements pages of the Herts Ad is enough to inform the world about your new arrival - oh no, this has to be supplemented with a brace of candid snaps taken on one's iPhone with reckless abandon and a complete lack of self-awareness.
Regional journalists are probably more immersed in the world of social media than some of their national peers - columnists aside - who don't have the same need to invest their mortal souls in a community and trawl through hundreds of Tweets on a daily basis in the hope of finding a story...
Team Herts Ad love Twitter. We've a nice network of contacts who use it daily and are incredibly helpful in keeping us informed about what's happening across the district, but there are also some people who are just rude and obnoxious for no apparent reason, and end up being blocked as soon as possible...
Meanwhile, the Spawn has been drumming away like Phil Collins at a Genesis concert over the past few days. I'm wondering whether it's trying to communicate in Morse Code, asking when it's scheduled to depart the nice warm environment of Mrs A's womb for the real world. It can't be long, little one, you're running out of space in there and I'm sure you're looking forward to trying out those lungs on some air rather than amniotic fluid, if only to scream your heart out!

Bags packed...

It was a pretty uneventful weekend, hence the lack of updates, not because I've been busy helping Mrs A squeeze out our first-born, which is probably a good thing considering we're a bit short-staffed at work this week with news editor Mad off on hols.
After all the dramas of Friday afternoon, everything's back to business-as-usual today, with the team all beavering away in the office rather than out chasing up attempted murders.
It's all a bit surreal on the Spawn front, as we're really just counting the days until he or she hatches from their metaphorical egg. I've also been keeping off the vino in the meantime in case I'm needed for an 11th hour dash up the M1 to Luton and Dunstable Hospital, which is always tough, especially when you get to the end of a long news week and your mind feels like chow mein.
Bags are packed, including my special emergency kit of Pot Noodles, cereal bars, iPhone charger, iPod docking station, towel (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has much to answer for) and some reading matter, so I'm ready for us to leave at a moment's notice.

Signing off...

OK, going to disappear from the Bloggosphere for now! Just 15 minutes of Drivetime to go and I don't want to hang around afterwards! It's been emotional!

"For a strange kind of fashion there's a wrong and a right..."

A little dedication for Mrs A on Drivetime - The Riddle by Nik Kershaw...
Constant breaking news updates continuing from the scene of the suspected stabbing at The Quadrant. Natalie's on the scene with updates, so we've been able to post web stories as new information comes to light. Typically, there's nobody from the Herts Police press office available to comment as they've all gone home for the weekend. Bloody part-timers!

Almost done...

Laura's been telling Danny her Venus story. It involves her and her student pals dancing to the Bananarama song in a nightclub and pretending to shave themselves. On a podium. In Chester. Like Hollyoaks.
(Mrs A reports much movement from the Spawn this afternoon. He or she is definitely a wriggler, and you can often see it squirming around like some sort of alien infestation. Bless.)
Anyway, we're fast coming to the end of our time on Radio Verulam's Drivetime show, with just Laura and myself from the Herts Ad team left in the offices. Natalie's had to head out to investigate a suspected stabbing at a nearby shopping precinct, which is news as it happens, and not the usual sort of thing which happens on a Friday afternoon.
Ahhh! My iPod did come in handy after all, if only to play House of the Rising Sun to mark the birthday of one of the Animals. Will soon be discussing some of the films showing on TV this week... My choices are Con Air, The Day After Tomorrow, Tomorrow Never Dies, Hannibal, Cast Away and I Am Legend...

"Get your plants!"

Much hilarity ensued after reporter Laura and I were allowed to read out the community events - I never knew it could be such fun listing May fairs and plant sales, but you can really put yourself into it! The name "Captain Ralph" unfortunately sent me into hysterics, so apologies to him for finding his name so hilarious.
"Try and sound animated!" Danny tells reporter Natalie, as she prepares for her one-to-one interview slot, complete with Radio Verulam baseball cap.
"Crime is my forte," she tells the audience. "I almost fall out of the window whenever I hear a siren..."
Unfortunately, while she's busy on air she misses a very important breaking news story, and immediately disappears to chase it up afterwards. Rather kills the mood a bit after all the frivolity! But that's newspapers for you - skipping between the light and dark sides of life within a matter of minutes. Open any regional 'paper and you'll see it for yourself - all of human life is there...

"Twins scare me..."

The title of this post is courtesy of Radio Verulam Sunday DJ Jonny Seabrook, who apparently suffers from geminiphobia. Personally I don't have a problem with twins, apart from Danny De Vito and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie of the same name. In fact, twins run in Mrs A's family, so we could have had a double-bubble of Spawns if something technical had occurred at the fertilisation stage.
We're still on air with Radio Verulam for the next few hours, complete with remarkably limited playlist... I just had to do a little section explaining what I do, which usually ends up with me sounding somewhat preachy and worthy, but on this occasion I think I came across pretty well, if I do say so myself.

"This timing is approximate..."

Rather optimistically, Danny has given me a running order for his Drivetime show, including slots for traffic and travel, ads, songs and little features starring the Herts Ad team.
A great number of these slots have "This timing is approximate" written alongside them, which suggests either a laissez-faire attitude to proceedings, or an inability to keep on schedule. I guess we'll find out.
(Meanwhile, in my other identity as a dad-to-be, it seems Mrs A has been busy scrounging useful items from friends and colleagues for the Spawn. Today's haul includes a breast pump (not sure if it's plug-in or manual) and a sterilising kit. Lovely. I get quite excited about the gadget side of baby-rearing - it was certainly a lot easier to put our new travel system up and down once I started thinking of it along the lines of a Transformers action figure..)
Danny is talking about "the other side of the office", which suggests we have a much bigger set-up than in reality. Reporter Laura has been chatting on air about her job, which is always weird for reporters, being on the other side of an interview, but she's been bribed with a smorgasbord of different-flavoured doughnuts, so is playing ball for a change.
Being out of the studio has rather limited the choice of songs available for broadcast, hence a playlist which thus far has included the likes of Barry Manilow and Billy Joel. An offer to let them use my iPod instead was sadly turned down...

"HELLOOOOO ST ALBANS!"

"What could possibly go wrong?" asks Drivetime radio disc jockey Danny Smith. Famous last words.
Fortunately there's a 17 second delay, so if the proverbial does hit the fan then hopefully all will not be lost, especially if Danny keeps making jokes as crude as the ones he's been treating us to for his "warm-up"... It's all very professional - they have people doing the weather and everything.
Unfortunately, unlike when we usually have Radio Verulam playing in the office, we have to listen to all the "worthy" public service announcements, rather than just laughing at what Danny's saying and tweeting him with song requests.
Quite sure what impression listeners will get from our afternoon in the spotlight is hard to determine. Lots of cheering, tapping on keyboards and random comments - a pretty average day at the Herts Ad really...
More updates as things progress.

Preparing for broadcast...

Having read the blogs newly created by my Herts Ad colleagues, and feeling a pang of jealousy about how much funnier and biting their entries are in comparison to my own, I've resolved to display a level of wit previously reserved for those after-dinner conversations when you're trying to convince everyone in the room that you're actually a spy.
At the moment Danny Smith from Radio Verulam and his sidekick in the pink polo shirt are desperately trying to set up their complicated broadcasting operation from one of the desks in the Herts Ad office.
It's like watching Cro-Magnon Man discover fire. There is a look of obvious joy in Danny's eyes when some bright lights appear on his "console" and he mutters something about levels.
I'm not sure it was a good idea inviting them into the hallowed sanctuary of Herts Ad Towers.
Of course, the conversations before we go on air have been comedy gold, the sort of priceless material which journalists spout on a daily basis when unfortunately nobody is around with any recording equipment.
We've decided to pretend we're on a television documentary, and every so often one of us will look knowingly at an imaginary camera in the corner of the room and smile. I've decided the chosen location doesn't reflect my best profile, so we've introduced imaginary "deskcams" as well.
I'm also thinking about introducing Shakespearean asides into my everyday conversation. Sort of along the lines of: "Forsooth, m'lady doth not suspect my evil intent..." etc.
Reporter Natalie is showing off by offering to make everyone tea, even though she doesn't drink it and doesn't know how to make it. Nobody is fooled.
We await the moment when the big red switch is pulled and someone says we're on air.

Countdown to the Spawning...

For reasons which I may go into at another time, our local NHS Trust refuse to tell us the sex of our baby, so my wife and I have taken to calling it the Spawn. Don't look at me like that! It's a term of endearment, honestly, and not in anyway inspired by the sort of lurid comic books I read in the 1970s - "I gave birth to Satan's spawn!" "My child, the spawn of evil!" and the like... That's just wrong.
So we've less than a fortnight to go, and yes, it's very exciting, but I've also got to consider crisis management plans if Mrs A goes into labour on deadline day, and just how we're going to get a paper out during Jubilee week with all those bloody bank holidays.
Fortunately, my team of plucky reporters take it all in their stride, and are happy to do whatever it takes to ensure there's a Herts Advertiser on the streets every Thursday, even if the Editor's more focused on timing contractions than writing his next leader...
Editing a paper is like juggling the plates from an antique dinner service whilst also cooking a roast dinner and debating the pros and cons of the first-past-the-post system with a politics professor. It requires you to focus on a lot of different tasks at the exact same time, while also planning what you're doing three weeks from now and dealing with the consequences of the last few weeks simultaneously.
But I can do that. I've been in this job long enough to multi-task, and I think I'm pretty good at it. How I cope with these demands after three hours' sleep is another matter altogether.
So today, like every day in the newsroom, involves reacting to breaking news, responding to complaints and comments from this week's paper, and laying out pages for the next.
To liven things up a bit, this afternoon we're hosting the drivetime show for Radio Verulam, who will be broadcasting from our offices in St Albans city centre. Expect an update later...