That Wednesday feeling (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

That Wednesday feeling

5:38pm Wednesday 12th November 2008

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It's that time of the week again - that time when any vague semblance of control over one's sanity goes right out the newsroom window.

The stress of meeting deadline sends us all a little potty, I think, and with EAE off with a mysterious (but thankfully, non-life-threatening) head injury, it's been just that bit more stressful. On top of that, there's been a bit of a dearth of hard news lately, so our front page was still under construction at about 10 o'clock this morning.

It's therefore none too easy to sum things up this week. We've had to struggle, what with one thing and another, and my own brain has definitely hit that Wednesday PM slump. Stories that should have taken five minutes have taken all afternoon and even blogging - which is usually a welcome break from the more serious stuff - is proving a much heavier task than usual.

It's almost as though we've hit a second Silly Season - there's a cat-killing dog in Highams Park, the threat of a phone mast in Walthamstow and exploding hedgehogs in Chingford.

There are, of course, a fair number of harder news stories in there but there seems to be a kind of fug (yes, that is a word and no, it is not rude) hanging over the office.

I don't know whether it's to do with the artificial warmth of the central heating or a general sense of exhaustion as the year winds down or indeed, the pressure of all the changes that have taken place over the last couple of weeks. Or perhaps it's simply the fact that it's now more or less officially winter and we're all suffering from a vitamin D deficiency due to lack of sunlight.

At any rate, everyone seems to be just a little bit stupefied today.

Take, for instance, a conversation about what we might be able to get away with saying over the phone if we say it with enough authority or the one about things you can and can't do in Dubai (public drinking being one them, apparently, and I'm sure people will remember the story about the couple who were arrested there this summer) - clear examples of suffering mental faculties, I'd say.

To conclude this week's rather gentler and more rambling blog, congratulations are in order for FFCR, who has now been reinstated as FCR. Well done - stay fearless!