Cover Girl

Book of the Week: Still getting through Jonathan Strange (see previous post)

Got my first lead story in the paper yesterday. Well done, me! Finally! (Though some small part of my brain keeps telling me it was probably because there was a lack of strong news stories this week. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers – and as if I was ever going to say no, don’t use it as the front page lead! It’s not good enough!)

Bomb scare at Tescos over the weekend spilled over into the paper on Monday – the bosses got an anonymous letter on Saturday asking that we do the necessary to ensure that casualties were kept to a minimum. A right comedy of errors, really, given that there was some postal strike or other and we didn’t get it until the bomb threat was over. Don’t think Da Big Mon was too pleased at having to spend three hours on Monday morning being quizzed by cops.

We also got our first Couchsurfing enquiry this week. A 36-year-old French teacher of Spanish who’s taken a year off to go around Europe on her Vespa. That sounds fantastic. Really hope she comes to stay. Thinking of going for an Edinburgh Couchsurfing event this weekend – barbecue on Salisbury Crags – but we’ll see how we feel tomorrow. Got quite a lot going on.

Today was Rob’s last day. I’ll miss him, in a way, although we only met when I started work in May. I thought perhaps he didn’t like me at first, but I think it was just me in the end. He was always very obliging – with the best computer in the newsroom, he was always being asked to check this or that (mostly by me) – and very friendly. I hope he has great fun in South America (am very jealous!). I also found out that journalists over here, even after they have passed the NCE, only earn £19k max. Hmmm. Might be time to consider a change of career.

The last Harry Potter book goes on sale at midnight (Saturday). Just a little under six hours to go here – guess kids in Malaysia have already got their noses in the book. It’s already 1am back home. Looking forward to going out in Edinburgh tonight and seeing what Potter parties are like over here.

Factoids of the Week:
Gay and lesbian youth are two to three times more likely to commit suicide than other youths and 30% of all completed youth suicides are related to the issue of sexual identity.

Before they were the Windsors (or Mountbatten-Windsors, as a few of them are called), the royal family were the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas.