It's surprising, the things you'll do for Michael Portillo...

I'm sleep deprived. Hell, I'm life-deprived right now.

Last week I was on the late shift, which naturally ended up finishing slightly later each night than planned. Then I worked the weekend. I was supposed to go and see New Moon on Saturday evening. But I had to work later. Then I worked 12 hours on Sunday. I got a free Thai meal out of it. But it still felt pretty rubbish.

On the up side, I did manage to watch the X Factor - since there wasn't a lot to do, I had it on in the background! And little lamb Lloyd got the boot, rightly so of course. Considering his..... quality of talent?... I had half expected them to start bargaining off Lloyd votes on offer. Perhaps a reduced price, or even two for one?

So. It's now the end of an eleven day week. All in all my first weekend of work went fairly well, but it is surprising the effect it has on you. On tuesday I nearly fainted, and had to go home early. That was nice. But I've been working in our second building all week, which is a really nice working environment; much more homely and relaxed.

Relaxed, of course, until it came to doing lunches on Thursday. Michael Portillo was in - a lovely fella really, though obviously well used to the somewhat 'celebrity' lifestyle. So here's a few things you might not have known about Michael Portillo (and probably wouldn't actually care to know, but clearly I'm going to tell you anyway!).

He likes a mixture of tea (white, no sugar) and cafatiere coffee (again, white, no sugar) throughout the day. Later in the day, after recording his VO for a good few hours, he opted for a camomile tea. I tried to ask if he wanted milk - which luckily I had brought along in a seperate jug - but he couldn't hear me through his headphones. Some very obvious hand signals later and we established that he didn't. All in all he was very polite, generally a nice guy.

I was slightly miffed when, after travelling in one direction for his colleague's lunches, I had to then sprint in totally the other direction for his food. Nothing to do with him, of course, just bad luck.

And when Michael Portillo wants his second chicken tikka masala (with pilau rice and mango chutney) of the week, what you gonna do?

"Good morning... irrationally scared receptionist speaking?"

Yesterday came the moment I'd been dreading for the past four weeks (yes I know, four weeks already). I had to cover our receptionist for the first time.

There are three runners at our company and one receptionist, and we all have to squish our lunch breaks into the afternoon, so when the receptionist goes on her break one of us covers the desk for her. I'd managed to escape doing it so far (less 'escaped' and more wasn't asked because I didn't know what the hell I was doing!), but, rightly so, my time to learn finally came.

I've been sitting on reception in our second building since my first day, but there's more to do on the main reception, so naturally I was... well, insert your own faeces-related obscenity. The job in it's entirety would probably prove damn near impossible for me, but covering for an hour, I knew, wasn't going to be all that bad. Basically I answer the phone, transfer calls to staff and clients, take messages, book couriers, log/dispatch tapes and generally be front of house. And, you know, it went ok. Although booking my first courier was bloody scary and could have gone much more smoothly - although tonight, as a result, I booked two, and each went perfectly!

It wasn't until afterwards that I realised just how irrational I was being. One of my bosses said she'd never seen someone look so scared! And I was. But then, when talking to a colleague in the kitchen after my ordeal was over, I realised that this fairly small thing - which, granted, does carry a lot of pressure when there isn't really room for mistakes - scared me more than all of the other, much bigger, less ordinary that I've done and am doing.

Should I travel through seven airports and take two mammoth bus journeys without really knowing where the hell I'm going? Yeah alright. Today you're going to be our sound assistant, which potentially could have a big effect on several takes of our film, alright? Yeah... alright. Wanna film Clothes Show Live with me? Yeah, course (Haven't told you that bit yet, have I!).

This stuff. No probs. Some nerves, but more excitement and total willingness. Covering reception? I'd rather not. Ok, so I did it again today and it went fine. I'm getting the hang of the phone, what to do and what to ask and whatnot, as well as getting to know the system much better. So generally the worst is over, and I should be fine now.

But it's funny. It's funny that the stuff you wouldn't expect to be that scary frightens me much much more than some stuff that would make some people run a mile.

I'm basically just a bit of a silly goose.

Executively Produced Tea.

The producer and executive producer of 'Travels With Bradshaw' for Talkback Thames were in today to view the offline edit for the show. The producer always enjoys a white Earl Grey, no sugar, when she's here and is currently on her third. The executive producer, a very serious-looking man who carries a clipboard and expensive pen and doesn't say very much, had a white English tea, no sugar.

It's the clients doing the offline editing here that have the more complicated stuff. Many a trip to Pret has been made for coffee.

Maybe that's a sign that coffee isn't my calling?

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In other news, for the first time last night I managed to catch one of the many programmes edited here at Halo on TV - Berlin on the BBC. Very cool to see three of my colleagues in the credits!