Thoughts for the day

- I got a text message from Mary this morning saying that this morning's Thought for the Day was brilliant thanks to "good old Angela". Once upon a time I shared a room in silent suffering with somebody who set his clock radio to wake him up with this institution every morning (so my mood for the rest of the day would be determined by the speaker*). These days I rarely find myself waking up at the right time for it - I'm either far too early or far too late - thus today I became in all probability the first person in the history of the world to use the BBC's "listen again" feature to hear Thought for the Day.

- I spent the weekend making a short film, assisted by the pillar of organisational strength who is James Aylett. It all went rather well - there were some complicated scenes to choreograph and (thanks in part to James' copious note-taking prior to shooting) all went smoothly and remarkably quickly. Notable moments included a disgusting shot in the freezing cold involving profiteroles (don't ask - but I'll never eat profiteroles again); filming a scene in the toilets in Borders (and the weeks it took to get permission to do so because everybody assumed we wanted to film porn); and filming porn (or at least discovering quite how pornographic you can make something that is not in the least bit pornographic).

- Otherwise, I have been spending my time intensively writing my biopic. So far it's been as much research as creative thinking and I've written reams and reams of absolute crap. Which would usually depress me, but I notice that on Joe Craig's website it says "The first draft of anything is rubbish". When I first saw this I indignantly thought "nonsense, my first drafts are always superb", but after a week writing absolute crap I find myself gratefully thinking "good old Joe Craig, what a wise chap he is - why isn't he on Thought for the Day?"

- The most recent episode of Neighbours was entitled "Turtle eclipse of the heart". Is there any end to this programme's brilliance?

*And for reference purposes, those Thought for the Day speakers and corresponding mood forecasts in full:

Angela Tilby - a calm, wise and thoughtful mood; and a second helping of pudding at dinner.
Anne Atkins - an extremely bad mood and a day full of aggressive confrontations.
Rabbi Lionel Blue - a good mood, though slightly camp and prone to bouts of tap dancing.
A random humanist - a very bad mood and determination to write strongly worded letters to the BBC; since when have humanists been allowed to have thoughts?
The timing's gone slightly wrong on the Today Programme and John Humphreys is now interviewing David Blunkett - the foulest mood possible, of course.