Talkin' about my generation

I hereby present The Zimmers. With an average age of seventy-eight, they're the oldest gigging band in the world, and one of the few to have recorded their debut single at Abbey Road Studios. All royalties are going to Age Concern and there will be an associated making-of documentary on BBC2 in a few weeks.

Listen to it and weep, darlings!

And also: if you love me, pass on the link!

Wrap

So, this is the end. It's been a strange little three-week interlude, but as Claire said to me this evening, welcome to the next stage of the adventure.

But right now, at the moment of transition, I feel good. I arrived here actually two and a half weeks ago, and I wasn't scared, exactly; I was tiredly expecting to be spending a lot of time hiding in the toilets having anxiety, and counting the days before it was over, but doing it, because I'd regret not having it on my CV. And that is a stupid attitude to go into anything with, but I couldn't help it, that was what Hilary did to me. And I did, it's true, hide in the toilets a lot in the first couple of days, but, you know, I hide in the toilets whenever I start at a new job/educational establishment. I do it until I get used to the place.

And I got used to the place. I didn't have anxiety attacks, or at least not dissociated ones, and I got good at the job, and now I'm honestly sorry to be leaving. I've even slipped neatly into the nine-to-six lifestyle, into getting the Tube every day, into fitting myself into other people's schedules. And I spent hours and hours logging tapes until my brain nearly fell out - over a hundred hours of footage has to become one one-hour documentary - but I also saw Television Centre, walked right past David Tennant, saw a recording at Abbey Road, was patted on the head by various prominent former politicans and, most thrillingly of all, got to use [my name]@bbc.co.uk as my email address for a whole two weeks. It's been wonderful, and I'm so glad I got this opportunity.

Regarding the bit about former politicians - on Tuesday I heard the team were going off to interview MPs and begged to come along. This involved getting out of bed before six to present myself at half eight in front of the Department of Communities and Local Government, there to meet with Baroness Andrews, a Labour peer (and a syrupy-sweet, fake-as-all-get-out one at that). One of the old people who was contributing is called Winifred, and has moved care homes seventeen times. (All the old people in the band have some sort of issue - one hasn't left home in three years, another is so bored from lack of intellectual stimulation that his greatest pleasure is winding up Jehovah's Witnesses.) Anyway, to get her in, we gave her headphones and a boom and pretended our sound recordist just happened to be a hundred years old.

Following which we went to Westminster, to College Green, and I was set on politician-spotting duty. The thing is, most MPs aren't on television enough to be recognisable, and it's not as if I actually own a TV. (Yes, yes, I must have been the only person working in television who doesn't. I'm being investigated by the TV licensing people, if that counts.) So I ended up running up to people who looked vaguely familiar and saying, "Excuse me, [sir/madam], are you a Member of Parliament?"

And a surprising amount said yes. The first person we grabbed turned out to be Kenneth Clarke, who happily talked to Winifred on camera and didn't flinch when she stole his watch. The next one who came by was the Shadow Chancellor - whom I didn't know the name of, because who does? - who was also happy to talk to us. (His name is George Osbourne.)

The others were backbenchers. Martin Salter, MP for Reading, was insufferably rude, but two others, Bob Russell and Peter Bottomley, were terribly charming, spoke on camera, didn't mind having their watches stolen and both gave Winifred a kiss before departing.

(It bothers me that the people who went out of their way to make an old lady's day were all Conservatives and Lib Dems. My issues with the Labour Party have just got yet thornier.)

(No, she wasn't stealing their watches randomly. The point was to showcase the bizarre factoid that prisoners can appeal to the Human Rights Act if their conditions are sub-par, but the HRA doesn't apply to people in privately-owned care homes; consequently, Winifred was trying to get arrested.)

Just before we finished, someone tapped me on the shoulder and hissed, "Douglas Hurd!"

"What?" I said.

"In the striped suit! Run!" And, vainly, behind me as I started running, "Call him Lord Hurd!"

I drew to an undignified halt and breathlessly explained myself. He smiled at me, said, "I don't think so, dear," and patted me on the head before walking on.

Afterwards the rest of the team clambered into a van and went off to shoot elsewhere; I went back to White City on my own, through a ridiculously warm, bright, springlike day, and grinned to myself most of the way.

So I didn't really mind spending the rest of the week logging; I've probably had enough excitement for one week. I went out last night to have dinner with amchau, which was nice, and to get a birthday present for Mani, which I didn't manage until this morning. Today was my second-to-last day in work, and I've been told to leave my email address behind so I can be invited to the wrap party. Tomorrow I'm going back out to Hatfield Heath, spending the weekend frantically doing laundry and on Sunday morning I fly out from Heathrow.

London to New York. Next stage of the adventure...