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?