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I haven't mentioned the squirrels and my bird feeders for a while, because I thought we'd reached a working agreement, a garden détente. I'd replaced all the smaller feeders with ten- or twelve-hole giants, which meant more seeds could be left out at one time and with increased feeding stations the battle for food between the birds and the squirrels was less intense. For a good while now, the tits, finches, nuthatches and parrots have been living in perfect harm-o-nee with their fluffy-tailed cousins. However of late, the squirrels have reverted to their bad old ways: gnawing through the flex that holds up the middle of the three feeders - always that one - I don't know why. This last week I have been doggedly re-stringing it up in the branches of the apple tree on a daily basis! Two days ago I tried to get clever and strung it back using two lengths of flex. It came down within 12 hours. In line with the "new attitude" I adopted on New Year's Day, I am remaining calm and stoic and philosophical. But let's just say, a battle has recommenced. A battle of wills. You know the bit in Apocalypse Now, where Martin Sheen reveals that the Americans rebuild the Do Long Bridge each day and the Viet Cong blow up it each night? The squirrels are the Viet Cong.

Fulfilling a solemn promise I made to myself, an entire day devoted to writing my book. I finished Chapter 3. That's a good feeling.

We have the Guardian delivered every day, but often buy the Independent as a news-junkie top-up. Today, I boldly added the Independent to my delivery order at the newsagent. It's an experiment. Nobody really needs two daily papers. The Guardian has better design (although that could all change when it goes Berliner next Monday), better columnists and Peter Bradshaw, but its health coverage is lamentable and there's too much Tim Dowling; the Indie has campaigning front covers and is more outspoken, editorially, but its columnists are bland. Let battle commence.

Having criminally missed the whole of Coast on BBC2, it was good to catch up with the final programme tonight, which wrapped up the series and set out some interesting ecological scenarios for the future. Oddly, they seemed to believe in global warming, but I've listened to a lot of American government scientists over the last couple of days and they say there is no global warming. How odd.

Watched BBC2's It's Grim Up North for the sole reason that Stuart was among its professional northerners. It was a silly programme in which those from the north and south cleaved to every stereotype in the book whilst purporting to despise stereotypes. It's made by Liberty Bell, who are based in Newcastle, so they have every right to carry a geographical chip on their shoulder, but most of the participants were toeing a party line. It's only a bit of fun. That's not Stuart's house by the way. People always think they film you in your house. Odds on it'll be a boutique hotel in . . . London.

Saturday 3 September 
A nice way to spend your wedding anniversary: in a box at the Royal Albert Hall on a balmy evening. Yes, at the Proms. It was serendipitous really - I was invited by Radio 2 and 6 Music controller Lesley Douglas and it just happened to coincide with the happy day, so we event-combined. I've been to the Albert Hall plenty, albeit to see acts like Echo & The Bunnymen, The The and Elton John, but never before to a Prom. I can't claim to know much about classical music, so was greatly looking forward to expanding my palette with Prom 66. (Once went to an opera and didn't really like it beyond the novelty and the spectacle, but you have to open yourself up to new experiences.)

The ever-sociable Lesley was there in Box 17 to greet us, along with my agent Kate and Mark from her office (filling in for husband John, who had been at the England-Wales match in Cardiff, reporting on it for the Sunday Times), plus Radio 2's Russell Davies and his partner, someone connected to Radio 2 whom I sort of recognised but wasn't introduced to, and newsreader Kirsty Young and her husband. Not drinking, I just settled down and enjoyed the show: Sir Colin Davis conducting students from the Royal Academy of Music and New York's Julliard School, broadcast live on Radio 3 and BBC2 to a packed, non-air-conditioned, self-fanning audience. They played Aaron Copland's Fanfare For The Common Man, which I knew because it was a hit, followed by the more lengthy Sixth Symphony by Ralph Vaughan-Williams, written in 1948, then, after the interval, Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz, the highlight, as it was so percussive and melodramatic, with the quiet bits only partially ruined by coughing, whose outbreaks I suggest are entirely psychological (one person coughs, other people cough).

I counted the orchestra at one point - there were 124 of them, unless I counted a couple of viola players twice. That's a big orchestra isn't it? The saxophonist, who had a solo in the Vaughan-Williams, wore red. Is that significant? I loved the percussionists - but then I am the type of person who always watches the drummer in a rock band - especially the young man whose job it was to strike the huge church bells towards the climax. Fantastique I enjoyed allowing myself to be transported to anther place by the music and the people-watching was prime, too. I became fixated on a man with a grey ponytail with his eyes closed who obviously knew and adored the Berlioz, nodding his head in quiet rhapsody. I felt very much like a sober visitor to this world, but content, and I didn't cough once.

Thanked Lesley kindly, then drove to Wimbledon for the ceremonial Thai meal. A good night.

Sunday 4 September
At around 4am this morning, my parents parked their car on our drive and took a taxi to Gatwick Airport. I know this because their car was on the drive when I woke up. They had an early flight to Portugal (or was it Spain? Somewhere with golf) and, because we live so close to Gatwick, did what relatives do in those circumstances ie. use our drive as a free long-term car park! I don't mind. It's odd to think they were here and I didn't even see them.

Thoroughly enjoyed meeting Jah Wobble for In Your Own Time this afternoon. Incredibly dapper in what looked like a tailored cream suit, with piercing blue eyes, he was just a born entertainer, treating every question with absolute seriousness while retaining the patter of a practised stand-up. His answer to the listener query, "What's your favourite jam?" had to be heard to be believed. A gentleman. If today's programme is still up on Listen Again when you read this, give Wobble a spin.

Another documentary, again on Channel 4, about terrorism, this time a historical perspective on current events: The Road To 9/11. As the fourth anniversary of September 11, 2001 approaches (spare me), the broadcasters are competing to memorialise it. This was an American-made piece, but compelling, tracing the sticky, largely insoluble situation we're in now back to the Second World War, when colonial Britain, having carved up the Middle East, gave it all back, the state of Israel was founded and the trouble began. Throw in a few Arab dictators and a lot of oil money, and bang!

Monday 5 September
Hot and horrible today. Had a day off and, after polishing off two newspapers, spent a lot of the day reading about the oil crisis, the history of British television and the Beatles. A nice, rounded reading list. (I'm in the midst of writing my TV column for Word about channel launches, also preparing for a talking-head engagement tomorrow about the Beatles. The oil crisis is just for fun.)

Anyone else sick of seeing President Bush with his insincere arms around black hurricane victims?

Retreated from the modern world to 1940, when death and destruction were so much less complicated, for another Foyle's War, the last of the current box set. Arguably the best one so far, in which Foyle gets to the bottom of the death of an 11-year-old evacuee by hand grenade. It was beautifully plotted, taking in conscientious objectors, the hint of a love affair for Sam, the threat of a German invasion and even the firebombing of an Italian restaurant by a Hastings mob. (Also, an early appearance by then-unknown David Tennant.) Inspired to order the next box set, which is oddly only available in the US. It could take weeks to get here.

I'd pitched the idea of a piece about the similarities between Grass and The Green Green Grass to the Guardian. They said yes. I wrote it while the chicken was cooking this evening.

Tuesday 6 September 
Hot again. Talking head duties this afternoon at a rather tasteful boutique hotel in Belgravia (that part of London which seems to be just hotels and embassies - surely no real people live there?), this time for a BBC1 pilot which is about bringing down sacred cows. I had to explain why the Beatles aren't all they're cracked up to be. It was good fun. Nobody apart from some BBC executives is going to see it, but if they get the commission, maybe they'll give me a call.

Sat next to a bloke on the train home who was eating a bag of McCoys crisps. They stank. I don't think people who eat processed snacks have any idea how offensive they are to others. By East Croydon I felt as if I'd eaten a bag myself. How dangerous is passive snack-eating?

I was looking forward to the new series of Nighty Night at 10.30 tonight. In fact, I was looking forward to it too much and it was predestined to disappoint. I admire Julia Davis, for both her writing and performance (and I love the direction Angus Deayton's character has taken), but it was too much a case of taboo-busting subjects being ticked off, one by one: horse sex, chemical toilet, old ladies having a wax etc. etc.

Oh yes, sat through BBC4's coverage of the dreary Mercury Prize. If you ask me, I think this year's shortlist contained a lot of makeweight indie music. I'm not naming names. I was happy with the prize going to Anthony and The Johnsons. His voice is not to my taste, but his work is at least different, and since law dictates that neither the folk nor the jazz artist can win, he was the next best thing. Plus, he seemed genuinely surprised, and I liked him. Good work for keeping that Chichester accent even though you've lived in America since you were 12. Some people pick one up after a weekend out there. Some commercial radio DJs pick them up in Chichester. Why weren't Kasabian nominated by the way? Their album came out in September 2004 - isn't that within the Mercury year?

What a lot of fuss everybody's making about John Humphrys and a certain after-dinner speech. I won't comment on it, for fear of compromising my impartiality.

Wednesday 7 September
I had two pieces in today's Guardian. Read them here and here. Both tinged with sadness as they were in sections that are being dropped in the new redesign, which launches next week. That's progress.

Another trip into town, this time armed with a new playlist on my iPod, to appear live on Front Row and talk to presenter Kirsty Lang about Rock School. I think I crammed everything in I wanted to cram in, including the line about child abuse (ie. teaching kids of nine to play Frank Zappa).

Home in time to decisively not watch Supernanny. Decided it's just too similar each week, and that the parents are too depressing. Instead mopped up two shows from last night, the latest Don't Get Me Started (good subject: the homogenisation of British culture; poor presenter: someone called Sam Delaney, who wore an admirable duffle coat nevertheless, thus proving he is no high street fashion victim) and the first of a new series of Drama Connections , focusing on Auf Wiedersehen Pet. It's a spin-off of Comedy Connections and a bit like having a hot bath: undemanding, easy, relaxing. Good to hear Jimmy Nail described as an "arsehole" by one of the show's producers. I met him once. He was.

Then Lost, next week's episode on E4, which is now a habit, a bit like Dominic Monahan's.

Thursday 8 September
I knew a very English, very proper Radio 4 producer who used entirely inappropriate corporate American jargon. He once described what amounted to making a few phonecalls as "firefighting". I won't try and make my job sound more thrilling than it is, but I did find the adrenalin pumping this morning when four things came in at once. I'd written my review of Monster's Ball for Radio Times but that was bounced back for an alternative opening paragraph; Lee Mack sent through the latest version of our sitcom script for me to look at; 6 Music called to see if I could fill in for Steve 4-7pm (I couldn't - too much on); and all this while I was finishing a column for a national newspaper (it's a kind of audition, so I won't jinx it with details). Plus I hadn't eaten my breakfast and I was really hungry for an omelette! I managed to keep all the plates spinning (except the one with my non-existent omelette on it) and everybody sweet but I was sweating for a while there. By brunch-time I had re-filed my RT copy, filed the hush-hush column and sent some material back to Lee. Nobody has thus far emailed back with a complaint. The omelette was lovely. This afternoon I watched a DVD that arrived by special delivery and needed reviewing immediately , the low-budget intertwined-lives drama 13 Conversations About One Thing (very depressing, but then I like Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light), and polished off my Telly Addict column for Word.

This evening, caught up The Sea Inside on DVD (I've had it for ages, it's been just sitting there, saying "Watch me! Send me back! Exchange me for Downfall!) The true story of a quadriplegic, Ramón Sampedro, played with admirable lack of vanity by Javier Bardem, who fought for 28 years for the right to die with dignity. An excellent film, not least for the central performance.

What a day. Happy to remove my firefighter's helmet at the end of it.

The views expressed are those of Andrew Collins and not necessarily those of the BBC.