Am preparing for a happily quiet day before a jaunt out to a local beer festival for the evening (it's a tough job, but someone's got to do it).

Going out to do some court reporting in a minute (once my bacon sandwich and tea hangover cure kicks in - it was my birthday yesterday and I partied rather well!). Better that than being in the office anyway. At the moment there's nothing much going on, just a few phone calls/emails to field from people annoyed about our front page telling the story of the dead girl.

For once it's not a cock up with the story though (thank goodness). That's quite straightforward. The family didn't want to speak to me and I didn't hassle them about that. But unfortunately the front page advert (which takes up the bottom of the page directly under the screaming headline SCHOOLGIRL KILLED IN BIKE CRASH) is for a local no-win-no-fee solicitors and starts 'have you been involved in an accident which wasn't your fault in the last three years...?' If it wasn't in such bad taste it would be funny. As it is, I'll be happy to get out of the office for a bit, even if it means I get glowered at by solicitors at our local magistrates court - they *really* dislike journalists. Which is quite insulting really, bearing in mind they're *lawyers* how trustworthy is that anyway?!

Ok. Imagine the person you love most love in your life has died suddenly in a horrific accident.

It's senseless. Arbitrary. In the morning you say bye and disappear off to work and then sometime during the day you get a phonecall, or a police officer comes to your office to tell you the terrible news. The person you love is dead. It's all you can do to get your head around it. How can it be? You saw them an hour ago. They must have made a mistake. It's someone else.

But it's not.

You go home, and in amongst having to give information to the officers, identify a body and begin to think about funeral arrangements, the doorbell goes. And it's a reporter for your local paper who wants to interview you. Just wondering if they could have a few words - and a picture of your loved one - for a tribute in the paper.

What would you do?

Personally I'd definitely slam the door in their face and tell them to fuck off.

Depending on how soon afterwards it was, I'd be tempted to smack them in the face for good measure.

Luckily that's never happened to me.

The part of my job I hate the most is death knocks (yup, horrible name for them, but that's what they are). Now, these are different from obituaries, which usually come later, when people are beginning to deal with their grief. Death knocks are pure, raw emotion. People like my SO - who has a tendency to believe most reporters are media spivs - highlight them as one of the things that show how much we love to suck into other people's misery. It's not quite like that, but the nature of knocking on someone's door in that situation does make me feel pretty scummy.

I've been very lucky with the death knocks I've done since I started at the paper. Of the half dozen I've been sent out on (mostly kids, which makes it worse), five have had people who wanted to speak to me either immediately or not long after, and the final one was a man who just told me to go away. But every time there's that moment when you're standing on the doorstep taking a deep breath about to ring the bell wondering how the hell you're going to find the words to explain why you're bothering them at a time when their world feels like it's ending. My more experienced colleagues say it gets easier with time, but it hasn't for me yet - although I suppose the first one I did I was so choked up I could hardly ask the poor kid's family my questions, so maybe it is getting better slowly.

Last night a 12-year-old girl was killed in a car accident on her way home from school. In our editorial meeting we had a debate over when it was appropriate to death knock and - thankfully - it was decided I should wait until tomorrow morning to go out there. I've just gotten home after a 14 hour day, I have to get up in 9 hours to go to work again and my first stop has to be this poor girl's house.

I love my job, but sometimes I hate my job.

Back at work, (well not now, obviously) and knackered.

It's amazing how a cleared desk and empty in-tray can metamorphose into a pile of paper from hell in one short week. I spent the whole day getting rid of crap filler and nib [news in brief] rubbish so I could start on some newer, better stories. But then there were none.

On the plus side, I did get the day off next week to sit my driving theory test - which is cool.

And I have found an End of Buffy party to go to which will stave off my sci-fi related pangs. Oh yes, I have embraced my inner geek...!

Will go now and watch I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. I wish I could say it was for ironic post-modern type reasons, but I have actually become addicted to watching sub Z-List celebs humiliate themselves and scare themselves shitless for our delectation. I know I'm an evil bitch... I just don't care!

Well I promised to explain the joy of the convention. And as the dust has settled, I've got some time to spare and the weekend is almost over, now is probably the time to explain...

First off, everyone's knows about conventions. Or they think they do. Believe me, before this one I was the same. I've seen Galaxy Quest, Trekkies, and even Chasing Amy (comic cons, but the same kind of thing) so I thought I knew exactly what to expect. In fact me and J (one of my best friends and my con-queen partner in crime) booked the thing drunk. Basically because I'm out of London we hardly see each other much and we both have a long term interest in Buffy and Angel (and before that X-Files and Star Trek) and thought 'sod it, if it's terrible and everyone's mad we can hang out in the corner and mock and we'll at least get to spend some time together'. But it didn't work that way. Noooooosirreeeebob.

Instead we got into it, had a fantastic time, spent way too much money and I ended up turning into a queueing nutwoman. I haven't laughed and had so much fun in ages and now I am completely hooked - in fact I've already booked for another convention booked by the same guy next year (June next year. Yup. As in 13 months away). This is what happens. You end up going a little wild.

Coo it's been a while since I was last here.

I would say I've been busy at work but actually, well I haven't (I've been off work for nearly a week on holiday!). I have however stopped updating this site for the mo from my work machine - according to the grapevine internet usage is being monitored quite carefully now and while the odd surf to Buffy/24 sites probably won't be commented on, posting to this is a tidge different!

So, what have I spent this time off work doing? Well... I have actually been deflowered. I am no longer a virgin, and before some smart arse asks how I can have been co-habiting all this time I'm talking conventions. Yup. I have hidden my geekdom quite well (ok, only the occasional trip to London's Star Trek theme pub) but now I'm coming out. I went to an Angel convention and it was great.

So there you have it. I'm a net sci-fi geek stereotype!

I will write up about it properly tomorrow, as it's actually quite funny. I also want to sort out this site a bit more before I unleash it to the world. In the meantime, let's just freak everyone out further by admitting I spent the afternoon trying to find a copy of Barry Manilow's Mandy on CD. If you were there you'll know why. If not, watch this space :)