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Before falling asleep on the sofa tonight, I watched the last part of a BBC4 series called Animation Nation , which was about the evolution of kids' animated TV, from Noggin The Nog to Wallace & Gromit . For the most part, I was struck by just how gentle and yet melancholy the programmes from my youth were - The Clangers , Camberwick Green , Pogles Wood , The Snowman . There is something sad about this island and it comes out in the strangest places.

Meanwhile, over in America, jazz, gospel, big band, rhythm and blues were turning into soul on a new six-part BBC2 series from the makers of Dancing In The Streets called Soul Deep . Having recently seen Ray, there wasn't much new to learn in the first part, but it was intelligently put together. I could have done without the impressionistic reconstruction of a young Ray Charles playing the piano. Who needs it? You've got footage from the time, and Ray himself being wheezily but charismatically interviewed! I wish documentary makers would lay off the reconstruction. It's not bloody drama. There was no reconstruction in Dancing In The Street s.

Sunday May 8
Saw the orange, funny-tailed fox again this morning when I went out to string one of the bird feeders back up (a squirrel had gnawed through the flex from which it is hung - don't ask - it's something I have vowed not to let wind me up in 2005). There was a piece on the Mail On Sunday about Princess Michael of Kent threatening to leave the country because she's "bored" now that foxhunting is banned. That'll be a great loss.

Robin Ince was in to go through the papers on my Sunday show, as Richard Herring is gigging the next three weekends. Robin was on lively form, although we all agreed his material on Maxine Carr was a little edgy for three on a Sunday afternoon. That's comedians though - it's what you pay them for. (We paid Robin with a Go-Betweens album.)
"Planned engineering works" meant no trains at all from Redhill to London, so I was forced to drive all the way in. So much for encouraging us to use our cars less and public transport more.

Monday May 9
A half-day of writing the sitcom for the quite well known comedian. (He and I have hit upon a very pleasing working method - having had our initial brainstorming, getting-to-know-you meeting, I now come up with character and story ideas and email them to him, he adds his own thoughts, emails them back, and I then combine them into what I've written until we've honed it into shape. It saves me having to get any trains, and it seems to be bearing fruit. Also, I can tap away at it whenever I get a spare moment. Our deadline for a finished pilot script is the beginning of next week. Let's see how this week pans out. It's completely different from working with The Fast Show's Simon Day, who is not big on computers and prefers to work together. Different methods; different comedians; different end results.)

Saw the gorgeous fox again, out in broad daylight, probably sniffing round for food again. He actually stopped to scratch himself for a bit so had a good view of him. No sign of Princess Michael of Kent.

It was a half-day because after lunch I started to think about getting my stuff together to travel into London for what may well be my only big industry night out all year: the Sony Awards. Why not call them the "radio Oscars"? Everybody else does. I've been umpteen times in the past - ten years ago I won a Gold, with Stuart Maconie, for The Hit Parade on Radio 1. Here's a picture from that memorable night (enjoy my double chin). 

Anyway, I was invited this year because I was a judge again (Best Drama), and thus knew the outcome of at least one of the 32 award categories. Actually, I say that, but as 6 Music's Henry and I went through the programme, making bets on who would win what, I couldn't actually remember which drama we'd awarded the Gold to. Held at the Grosvenor House Hotel, where 90% of all awards ceremonies are held in London, it was black tie, which is always an unedifying experience for the men. Having said that, dress code is a great leveller, and I wasn't impressed by the otherwise admirable Andy Kershaw petulantly turning up in a checked shirt and jeans. It's not school, Andy.

It was a night of crushing disappointment for 6 Music. We were beaten to Digital Station of the Year by . . . Capital Disney, whatever that is. Literally beaten by a Mickey Mouse radio station. It was a grim end to an evening that got grimmer as it unfolded: Ric Blaxill didn't win Station Programmer, and Steve Lamacq didn't win Music Broadcaster. (I won't detail who did win these awards. The full results are here)

It was a good night, though, for Radio 2, with whom we share a controller, Lesley. Ironically, she almost lost control when they won Station of the Year, only just keeping it together on the podium. Good for them. I have decided that 6 Music isn't the kind of station that wins awards. It's not new any more, it's not niche, it's actually quite hard to "sell", except to those that love it and live by it. Having judged the Sonys twice, I know how the voting process goes, and unless there's a persuasive consensus, it's almost a random process. Somebody has to win, and it might as well be . . . Unless, as a judge, you regularly listen to all the radio stations put forward, how can you compare one with the other? At least at the actual Oscars, they watch the whole film. How can you assess 6 Music, or Capital Disney, by listening to an hour's highlights on a MiniDisc? (Having said all that, if we'd won, I'd have graciously accepted the process as fair and noble and commiserated with the losers.) The evening's not just about winning and losing or getting Bronze, which is kind of neither. I went along mainly because I don't do a lot of showbiz events these days, and it's a peculiar but perversely enjoyable way to spend what turned out to be five and a half hours (I left as soon as it the ceremony was over at 11.30 - I can't stand drunken post mortems).

It's good to see people you don't normally see - or even people you do normally see, like Jon Holmes. I chatted to Alex Lowe, the genial writer and actor who was in Grass, who wanted to know if the radio play that our mutual friend Ewan Bailey had been in was a winner in Best Drama. It wasn't. Ewan was very good as Oliver Hardy in Stan, and I felt bad that he hadn't won, but you must leave all nepotistic thoughts at the door. (Bloody awards.) I chatted to Jarvis Cocker for ages; he said he didn't know anybody, and had been flown in from France, where he's lived for two and a half years now, to showbiz up the in-the-bag acceptance for the Radio 1 John Peel tribute he voiced. He still doesn't speak French! Good to see Brett Anderson too - I congratulated him for cheering up Top Of the Pops on Friday, and he commented how weird it was to be on the programme aged 37. I said he was an ambassador not just for decent, guitar-based music but also for "the older man" and I think he took umbrage at this description. I remember being 37.

When I bumped into Harry Hill I shook his hand and without thinking called him "Harry", which is only odd because I know him as Mat, his real name. We go way back to when he was a medical student and aspiring playwright in the 80s, and it's pleasing to know that he's still the same bloke, albeit richer, underneath his ITV persona. He presented an award and was somewhat miffed to be described in his intro as "the host of You've Been Framed ". Even though he is. I shook Danny Baker by the hand to congratulate him for winning DJ of the Year. He seemed genuinely shocked by the accolade.

I walked back to the hotel just before midnight. It was a lovely, warm, still night, and, having not drunk any alcohol, I felt clear-headed. Not a bad Sonys. Saw nice people. Sat with nice people. Watched nice people win awards (Christian O'Connell, Danny Baker, Jeremy Vine, Steve Wright, the organisers of Radio Aid - although Mark Storey was a bit the worse for wear and delivered one of the longest and drunkest speeches of the night). Dignified tributes to Peel and Vance. It was nice of the sinisterly bearded Steve Wright to mention Miles in his acceptance speech - that's Miles Mendoza, who recommends websites on Steve's show and works on ours at 6 Music. He lays out this very blog every week. Enjoyed wearing a nice black suit, if not a dicky bow. Ate some nice beef.

Awards ceremonies do a good job in that they reward people for services rendered, including, at the Sonys, lots of local stations, who also get a table-banging night out in London's glittering West End. It would be wrong of me to be blasé, but unless you're drunk, it's harder to get whipped up into a frenzy, or depressed, by the outcome. 6 Music lives to broadcast another day.

Tuesday May 10
Woke up bright and early in my hotel room. Not being a sales rep, I had no desire to spend any undue time in it, so I skipped breakfast (they can't do poached eggs anyway), checked out and managed to make the 7.17 back to Redhill. No taxis at that time of day so I walked home from Redhill with my suit bag under my arm and a blue sky above my head. Home in time to poach my own eggs at 8.30. Changed into my painting clothes and was pretty soon applying the decisive second coat to the hall. A week off between coats strikes me as very civilised. After all, who's timing me? Nobody. That's the joy of doing it yourself.

Saw the fox again. He's now a daily visitor. All we'd thrown out on the lawn were some off-cuts of bread, but he was sniffing those out and happily eating them. I think we have some kind of deal with him now. He's younger than we first realised, and his two-part tail is due to it not having fluffed out properly yet. What a sweetheart. I'd like to call him Otis, after his nemesis, but won't.

Started earlier and finished the second coat much sooner than last Monday. Can't wait to see it fully dried and bathed in natural sunlight tomorrow. My mobile only rang twice all day and I ignored it.

Bad Behaviour was very different to last week's. Rather than the usual council-estate, big-settee, nugget-eating tearaways that helpfully populate this kind of programme, tonight's subjects were four lisping boys of varying age and temperament with a Christian mum, a long-absent dad and a dithering, soil-scientist doormat of a stepdad. The spectral psychologist prescribed the same as last week: £1's pocket money incrementally reduced by "sanctions" for each misdemeanour (including some disgraceful swearing that takes me by surprise every time). And it worked. Again.

There's a second fox, without the kink in his tail. Just as orange, just as sweet. I'm calling them both Foxy.

Wednesday May 11
That rare thing: a whole day spent at home, sitting at my Mac, just writing. I completed the sitcom draft and dispatched it to the quite famous comedian.

Word magazine sent me a Best Of The Tube DVD to review. It's absolutely mesmerising. Unlike the Live Aid DVD, which cut out all extraneous business to leave just the songs, this one makes a virtue of the links and is far more vivid as a result. It's six hours taken from series one, 1982-83, including some thrilling live music from The Jam to Shalamar, and some fabulously amateurish, ill-prepared, one-microphone interviews by Paula Yates, Jools Holland and Muriel Gray. It takes me right back. What an essential social document it is.

Thursday May 12
Two unpleasant jobs as park warden today when I went out to refill the bird feeders: pick up a dead rat and dump it on the compost heap, and knock down the first signs of a wasps' nest from inside the shed - it was fascinating to watch as a single wasp set about building it up from a tiny, ping pong ball-sized cocoon, but I thought it best to have it away now before it gets too big. It was either that or let the shed become a no-go area.

By the way, one of my peanut feeders was halfway down the garden. I think perhaps the fox had taken it away, unless the squirrels moved it as a team.

Spent all day up until 4.30pm rewriting a selection of five-star film reviews for the Radio Times Guide To Fil ms , sixth edition, part of my remit as Film Editor, a post I've had for five years now (this will the fifth edition of the book on which I've been a "consulting editor"). Just old classics that needed a lick of paint like The Great Escape , The Godfather , The Philadelphia Story. Not exactly unpleasant work, but I had a daunting 22 classics to get through, and I almost managed it. Five left.

Went to the Reigate Screen to see Kingdom Of Heaven - afternoon performance, four other people in there, one of whom was Edwina Currie! (Film pretty much as reviewed elsewhere: not as good as Gladiator, Orlando Bloom lacking something as leader of men.)

Friday May 13
It's been a good week for magazines. New issues of Word and Sight & Sound arrived on my doormat (even though I write for Word, I took out a subscription at the very beginning to support what is a small publishing company's new venture and I keep it up). Also, a very good post-election New Statesmen with loads still in it to read (the editor Peter Wilby has been removed in a bloodless coup by political editor John Kampfner, as reported in the paper yesterday - its impact in the wider media is far greater than its tiny 25,000 circulation, but I would not be without it). Plus, I have overlapping New Yorkers - the new one came yesterday and I haven't finished last week's. It's because I haven't been on the train much this week.

Remedied that by going in to 6 Music for various duties including my first ever appearance on Roundtable as a guest! All very exciting. Strange though to be coming home on the 19.32 train again, after six weeks of my new life.
 
 
The views expressed in this column are the views of Andrew Collins and do not represent the views of the BBC.