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Friday 25 November 
Forgot to mention it, but on Wednesday I took my mobile phone in to a well-known high street carphone warehouse (it's not a warehouse and most of their phones aren't car) because, after about three years' constant but dwindling service, the battery has stopped recharging properly. In fact, I'm lucky if I can get one call out of each charge and that's not efficient is it? (I have reduced my mobile use to the bare minimum this year, leaving it turned off most of the time, and putting it on only to check my messages. In other words, I rule it, it does not rule me. I like my mobile: it's small, it doesn't take photos, it is not the envy of teenage muggers, and, up until recently, it worked.) I was hoping they'd give me a new one, as I have a direct debit with them and that makes me a long-term, loyal customer, albeit one that doesn't run up a very big phone bill.

Naturally, the 12-year-old boy behind the counter looked at my phone as if it was perhaps a prop from a Keystone Cops film - partly in wonder, partly in disgust. "You should have had an upgrade," he informed me. (Nobody has ever offered me an upgrade; they just take my money by direct debit every month and send me an email to tell me they are doing it.) He took great pleasure in telling me that they no longer make the model I have been using for the past three years - something I had rather suspected in this constantly-upgraded world of waste we all live in.

I asked him for a replacement battery, but they don't make the batteries either. My worst nightmare: I was going to need a new phone. I was about to become one of those people who replace their phones. There are too many phones, that do too many things. Where to start? I said I wanted the same phone, same make, same features, same network, as being in shops turns me into a conservative who fears change. He told me I was eligible for a replacement within a certain price bracket (the seemingly random figure of £117), but the closest phone he could find in the vast catalogue cost £53 more. I told him I did not want to pay an extra £53 and assured him I didn't want a camera or one that plays music videos or connects to the internet, so he looked a bit harder in the catalogue and - whaddya know? - found what was patently the newer equivalent of my old phone, except a bit nicer-looking, and black. It would cost me precisely no pounds . I wonder why he didn't just offer me this one to start with? It couldn't be that he wanted to get £53 out of me, could it?

Anyway, I signed some bits of paper, refused the insurance and he gave me my new black phone. He even kindly took the SIM card from my old, joke one and placed it inside the new one, and gave me my old phone to keep (for sentimental reasons, I assume, or unless Michael Aspel comes to town). I thanked him kindly and went on my way. Unfortunately, I later discovered whilst playing with my new phone, that none of my stored phone numbers are in it any more. This is rubbish. I thought the whole point of SIM cards is that you take your identity with you as you upgrade your mobile on a regular basis. No? (I look forward to taking it back to the well-known high street carphone warehouse, but I'm glad the boy gave me old phone, as when you re-insert the SIM card, all the old numbers are still there.) Oh, it's got a camera in it. I didn't ask for it, but I don't think you can get a mobile without a camera any more. I have taken a picture of Chilli, one of my cats, and made it my wallpaper. The people who exist to make us buy things we don't need have won.

Today, armed with my new phone with no numbers stored in it, I went to the iconic BBC TV Centre to record the voiceover for The Time Of Our Lives, the final piece of the documentary jigsaw. Paul, the director who directed me in Witney and Bristol last week and kept calling me Andy, until I told him it wasn't my name (and who looks like a younger Allan Little, BBC's World Affairs correspondent, crossed with Craig Cash), had come down to oversee it. I was late because it is cold outside and the British rail network doesn't like it when it's cold and my train went really slowly between Redhill and Clapham Junction. (This is fair enough. After all, for most of the year in Britain it is exactly the same temperature, and it's pretty weird for the temperature to drop as winter approaches. They were caught unawares. What can you do?) Anyway, the voiceover was painless, and it was good to see a rough cut of the pilot. It's got my big face all over it, so if BBC1 don't commission the series, I think we'll know why.

More incompetence: my next appointment was with a production company called Love at a post-production house called Fusion in Soho , where I would be voicing two documentaries that are showing on Sky One. I finished at TVC at 11am and Love had insisted on sending a car for me, even though the Tube would get me there in 20 minutes. (As you know, I'm not one for taking unnecessary cabs, but they did insist.) I had made it crystal clear that I would be at Wood Lane reception and not at the Stage Door entrance, which is the one inside the famous "doughnut" BBC building, as seen on countless BBC programmes, most famously Record Breakers when Roy Castle did that big tapdance. To get to the Stage Door entrance, cars have to pass through a security gate. To make things much easier for the driver, I specified the Wood Lane entrance as the cab would be able to pull up on the road and I could hop in. You see, I was trying to make life easier . There was no cab at Wood Lane reception when I got there at 11. I called my agent to get her to double-check that the driver knew which entrance. She did. He had been told. By ten past, still no cab.

If I'd taken the Tube I could have been halfway there by now, so you can imagine my mounting frustration. (Often, in the crazy world of the media, it's better to make your own way there.) Someone from the production company called me (making it two unnecessary mobile phone calls and two steps closer to brain cancer), telling me I was to look out for a silver Mercedes. I went outside and started walking along the pavement in the direction of the doughnut. I saw a silver Mercedes. Where do you think he was going, readers? That's right. Through the security gate and towards the Stage Door entrance. I waited, patiently, and eventually he came back out of the security gates and drove along Wood Lane , and pulled up outside the entrance I had previously specified. I got in. He seemed a cheery young man, and I was unable to be cross with him, but it does illustrate the pointlessness of getting cabs. I arrived at Fusion about 20 minutes later than I would have done if I'd taken public transport, the only difference being, the driver of the tube train wouldn't have asked me if I wanted the radio on or not. (I did, as I wanted to hear if George Best was dead. He wasn't.)

At Fusion, I met Terri, the producer and director of the two documentaries, Rock Stars' Wives and Rock Stars' Kids . She seemed very nice, as did Steve, the sound engineer. (Sound engineers are always very nice, in my experience.) I sat in the soundproofed booth with my cup of peppermint tea and my water, put on my headphones, rustled my script and began. It's a strange job, voiceover. You are paid to speak , not to invent things and talk , but to say the words written on the paper in front of you, and to say them well. It's almost primal. You are your voice. Your voice is you. You don't say, "Hi! I'm Andrew Collins and this is a documentary about rock stars' wives . . . ", you just speak, with your voice, into a microphone and it will at some point come out of somebody's telly, to help them understand or appreciate the documentary.

Some viewers may sit there and try and work out who's speaking from the voice. Mine will be much harder to guess than, say, Geoffrey Palmer's or Andrew Lincoln's. I am not employed because I have a famous voice, which sort of makes it harder, as just being me isn't enough - I have to talk well. (By the way, I'm not trying to make voiceover sound hard. It's the closest you can get to stealing a living, and I haven't done that much of it - I'm just saying: it's a strange job. Oddly nerve wracking. Probably not for Palmer or Lincoln, but it is for me.) So, with a break for lunch, we motored on through one and a half documentaries between midday and 3.30. It went very well. I said my links, on cue, waiting for the exact second on the timecode before I said them, at the correct speed, with the correct emphasis and in the correct tone, and without popping or fluffing too often, and to the correct length.

The only reason we stopped at 3.30, half way through Rock Stars' Kids, was because there was a power cut. Without warning (they never warn you!), the screens went blank and the lights went off. It turned out to be a localised power cut in D'Arblay Street only, as if perhaps a giant fuse had blown, as not all the electricity went off. Now I have to come back on Monday morning to finish off. Most inconvenient, but, in this instance, nobody's fault. The trains don't work and the power's out. Is somebody trying to tell us something? ("The power's out in the heart of man," according to Arcade Fire, and they know.)

Third and final appointment on this hectic day: a meeting at my agent's office with Richard, producer of Banter, the Radio 4 comedy show we piloted in Edinburgh . We record the first two programmes in two weeks' time. I can't wait. The only downside to this meeting was that it finished at 5.30, which meant I had to come home at exactly the same time as everybody else who works in London but lives in Surrey or Sussex or parts of Hampshire. I'm not going to complain about the unholy, subhuman scrum at Victoria Station. At least the trains were running on time and at train speed, and I got a seat. Also, I never wanted to become one of those people who complain about trains. (George Best was dead by the time I got to my agent's at 4.00. It is sad that he's gone. He was the first famous person I saw when I first moved to London in 1984. He used to live in Chelsea , and I saw him taking his washing to a launderette. I concluded that I must have landed in the most glamorous place in the world because George Best lived there.)

Didn't watch Little Britain. Did watch The Worst Week Of My Life. That is me exercising my right to choose. (I know what Little Britain was like, without watching it. Some characters who always do the same thing did it, but in slightly different circumstances, people who were fat were funny, people who were foreign were funny, people who were old were funny, and a new character performed a bodily function.)

After way too long a gap, watched A Good Day, episode 17 of The West Wing, written by Carol Flint, a passable one in which Kate juggled a potential invasion of Canada and Toby was out-debated by a schoolboy. Only five eps to go.

Watched half of Later, which was the last in the series. You could tell, as a group called Jools Holland and His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra were the main musical guest. However, to help fill the gaps between him and his orchestra, they had booked The Rakes, whose rendition of 22 Grand Job was a revelation. What a charismatic singer (who I think is called Alan). Must investigate their album, which we've got, but I've never listened to. Later does it again.

Saturday 26 November 
This morning I killed my leg when I tripped over someone's briefcase. Slight mishap on the 6 Music Chart: played Georgia , a track from OMD's Architecture and Morality album to illustrate the album chart from yesteryear (1981) and it started skipping. Worse, it did so while I was lining up the next track so I didn't spot it immediately. This threw out the timing of the programme, which is done with military precision. That's it really. At least it proves it's live.

Watched the rest of Later from last night, but on fast forward, just to catch the second song by The Rakes, Retreat, which was equally compelling. They are like the Ruts and Gang Of Four and Wire and early Squeeze and Joy Division. That's how good they are. I'm delighted to learn that they're supporting Franz Ferdinand this week. I need to see them. As promised, listened to their album Capture/Release while waiting for Bodies to start. It's a cracker, not least a track called The Guilt in which Alan repeats the line, "Everything is f-----ed!" Talking of which, Bodies ended its second series tonight with a double helping on BBC2 and BBC3. Even though Jed Mercurio - who, incidentally, wrote, produced and directed these episodes - tied up all the stories, we were still left gasping for more. I won't go into the plot, as some of you may be waiting for the final episode on BBC2 next Saturday (in which my comedy friend Steve Furst does some harrowing work as the concerned husband of a blind and deaf pregnant woman). Enjoy. This has been, without a doubt, the high point of the year for TV drama. And a vintage one for the people who make fully-operative, child-bearing latex vaginas. Well done, all of you. 

Watched Man Stroke Woman on BBC3, the new relationships-based sketch show that isn't Spoons, produced, so we keep being told, by Ash Atalla (as if anybody cares who the producer is on any other comedy programme ever). Anyway, thanks largely to strong performances from Nick Frost, the bloke who played Nathan Barley, the pointy-faced one off Clocking Off and three women who I sexistly can't name, it was mostly engaging. The best sketch was when Nick Frost woke up, obviously feeling the worse for wear after a drunken night, next to a fat, ugly woman. He quietly eased himself out of the bed, got dressed and snuck down the stairs. Then he saw a photo of himself and the woman on their wedding day and a little boy passed him, saying, "Morning, Dad." Now that is genius. (If you thought it was funny from my bald description, I rest my case.) I may have to watch this programme again, just in case any of the other sketches are that good.

Sunday 27 November 
This is a picture of The Rakes. I really must dig out my grey shirt. By the way, I realise I was being very childish in last week's blog when I said I hoped Ghostfaced Killer by the Dead 60s would go in at number 31. I said it just to annoy whoever at their record company decided to spend all their money on radio advertising. The single actually went in at 25, and I offer them my best wishes for that superb result (their highest chart placing so far) and for being one of two interesting bands on Top Of The Pops - the other being The Teardrop Explodes from 1981. Now that I am obsessed with The Rakes, whose album I listened to on a loop on the way to work today and whose biog on their website is less than useless, I can tell you that their first chart entry was with Retreat at number 24 in April this year, followed by Work Work Work (Pub Club Sleep), which reached 32 in August (the same month as the debut album Capture/Release got to a lowly 32), then 22 Grand Job, which should have been their biggest hit but was their smallest, at 39 this month. They deserve more recognition. Their website is here 
 
Saw the deer in the garden this morning, which was nice. While I was out at work, we had five foxes as well. And my bird feeders are filled to the brim after a seed delivery on Friday.

Early night, as I'm up with the lark tomorrow. Caught some of OFI Sunday, having missed last week's opener. I like Chris Evans, but most of what I saw was he and his great mate Jimmy Nesbitt being great mates and talking about Ant and Dec's pro-celebrity golf tournament they played in, which was shown on Sky. (Chris kept repeating the fact that the tournament was watched by "a million people" and that the clips from it were now being watched by "five million people". He's obsessed by numbers and measures success by them. If you live by viewing figures, you die by them. Apparently last week's show began with five million but ended up with 2.5 million, so it depends when he showed the clips this week I suppose.) I also saw some of Allan Little talking about Europe in Panorama while I was making a fruit smoothie for my breakfast. I like him.

Monday 28 November 
Stupidly early start as I had to be at Fusion by 9am to complete the voiceover I started on Friday. I caught the 7.18 from Reigate , which is far and away the best option if you're forced to travel into London at exactly the same time as everybody else who lives in Surrey , Sussex or parts of Hampshire. The 7.18 gets you into Redhill in time to catch the 7.27 to Victoria , but, even though the platform is packed with people on their way to a 22-grand job, this train only comes from Three Bridges and is thus almost empty. A seat for everyone! Including me! Listening to 22-Grand Job on my iPod! (Of course, it stops everywhere, this train and is standing-room-only by East Croydon , but I don't care, as I have a seat!) We had the voiceover in the can by 10.30, which left me with enough time to pop into that carphone warehouse on Oxford Street to see about my SIM card problem. A different 12-year-old boy solved it. They are really very good in there. He took the SIM card out of my new phone, put it back in my old phone (which I had sensibly brought with me), and then copied the phone numbers onto it. Who knew that you could, or would ever have to, do that? I now have my numbers in my new phone. Life is sweet. If only I could export the contacts from my iMac to my PowerBook as easily.

At midday I found myself at a small but smartly-turned-out TV production company called Enteraction in Vauxhall, South London . I was here for a screen test. And I don't mean some film questions set by Michael Rodd. Unusually for me, I was being screen-tested for a presenter's job on a movie show for a branded satellite channel. (No matter what the job is, I see this as good practice.) My co-host was Olivia Lee, who you may have seen in Channel 4's Balls Of Steel prank show (I hadn't, but then she didn't know who the hell I was, so we were evenly matched). It was all over so fast! We were shown into a small studio, given mics to clip on ourselves, told which crosses to stand on, and then had to read from autocues and come up with a minute or so's spontaneous banter about Flightplan and Revolver, between scripted links. I think we did a good job, but it was such an odd situation to be in. We'd met five whole minutes before on the sofa in reception, so there was little chance of any chemistry. The presenter's job, no matter what channel, is mostly about being able to read and stand still and smile. You can see Olivia Lee's CV here (she was on Basil Brush!)
Found out this afternoon that Grass is definitely coming out on DVD in February 2006, and that Simon and I will be recording an audio commentary sometime in the next month. Wahey! It almost makes up for the fact that BBC2 wouldn't give us a second series. At least we get a souvenir for our troubles.

Finally watched the season finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm, the one in which Larry makes his debut on Broadway in The Producers. I'll be honest, I've not been entirely enamoured with the dominance of this particular thread, but it paid off beautifully, and not totally predictably either. I liked the Jerry Seinfeld cameo - it was so self-consciously stagy. And I liked the way they just repeated a gag from the first series - remember when Larry gave money to one parking attendant to give to another, and trusted them to do it, and they didn't? Well, he did the same with two hotel porters in this one.

Caught the most of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I've been let down by this Shakespeare Retold series. I actually can't see the point in updating Shakespeare and dispensing with the language. You admire the way the writers have re-set and re-staged the plays - Macbeth in a restaurant, Much Ado in a local TV newsroom, Dream in Centre Parcs - and you can congratulate yourself for spotting the references in the names and dialogue, and of course, the casting has been uniformly excellent, but at the end of the day, what's the point? I only watched tonight's because my friend Simon was in it. He was very good in a criminally small role, but then so were Johnny Vegas and Lennie James and Ben Crompton (Man Stroke Woman) and Dean Lennox Kelly (aka Kev out of Shameless) in the larger ones. You may take that as read: British telly is packed with superb performers. They should be doing Shakespeare. No, I mean doing Shakespeare.

The Queen's Sister, taped from last night, was a fine piece of work: a controversial portrait by playwright Craig Warner of Princess Margaret that showed her to be self-centred, drunk, horny and cold-shouldered by the Queen (who didn't even appear for the entire two hours, a bit like Elizabeth Mainwaring or Her Indoors). Played with incredible depth, full body, outstanding wigs and latex jowl by Lucy Cohu, she looked as if she would romp her way through it, until her estrangement and repression by the family firm who would subsequently so disapprove of Diana caused her to go off the rails a bit. Toby Stephens was excellent as Lord Snowdon (who, in real life, was said to be "incandescent" about the film, although he comes across rather well), and David Threlfall played a blinder as the Duke of Edinburgh. There was a tender heart in among all the camp fun, and it ended in sadness. (Further proof of what fantastic actors TV has at its fingertips right now.)

Tuesday 29 November 
A very productive day in. I really broke the back of the episode of sitcom I've promised to have ready for Lee when he gets back off his honeymoon. For an inspirational lunch break I watched two episodes of Seinfeld, the last of season two and the first of season three, plus extras. (The extras are delightful, but mainly consist of Larry David saying that what happens in the episode happened to him in real life, then Jason Alexander heaping praise upon Larry David's writing and a Castle Rock executive admitting to interfering in some way.) In some ways it's depressing to watch the masters at work when you're writing a sitcom, but the sheer simplicity of some of it was motivating. And to hear George say this line: "I've driven women to lesbianism before, but never a mental institution."

I didn't even play the Rakes album today but the songs are embedded in my head and I am unconsciously singing them all day . . . 22 grand job, in the city, it's alright, that sounds nice, it's alright, it's alright . . . We are the machines, carrying on various genes . . . I had just woke up, everything was f----ed, from the night before, I was beyond repair, everything was f----ed, maaaaaaaan! What a band.

The biggest idiot ever to grace Property Ladder tonight: a woman from Poole who'd bought this stunning £375,000 Art Deco house and, instead of developing it in appropriate Art Deco style, went horrendously over-budget fitting it out to look like her dream home, and anyone else's worst nightmare. She spent thousands on some hand-made tiles for a downstairs loo and £245 on a single roll of wallpaper ("But it's so lovely!"), while her sister, who was supposed to be watching the budget, instead watched it spiral through the roof (which also needed replacing, at a cost of £20,000). In the end, the refit budget went from £100,000 to an astronomical £259,000, which, if they'd sold it for the asking price of £600,000, would have left them £34,000 out of pocket. As it happened, they couldn't sell it. It tears my heart out this programme and almost makes me want to develop property, just so that I could do it Sarah's way. Unmissable.

And finally, episode 18 of The West Wing, written by Eli Attie and called La Palabra, which had something to do with the Latino vote in California . In case you're watching this on More4, or on DVD and you're not as far through it as me, I am duty bound to say no more. Other than I think Donna spoke the fastest in this one, with Will a close second, and Leo a commendable third.

BLOG COMPETITION!

Alright, readers! Every week until people stop entering, I'll be inserting a line from one of my childhood diaries into the blog. This week's rogue quote comes from my diary of 1975, when I was ten. If anyone can correctly spot the sentence for a modest prize, email the show via andrew.6music@bbc.co.uk and perhaps specify that it's the entry for Week 35, as we accidentally gave last week's prize to someone with the week before's answer. My fault. And please do post comments below, just to check if the form is working. (Hello to all at TV Cream, who parodied this very blurb in last week's Digi-Creamguide. You're on it.)

This column represents the views of Andrew Collins and not necessarily the BBC.