Deadline day

Today is deadline day. We don't actually go to press finally until the early afternoon, but as a reporter I have now finished my job.

So this is the uneasy waiting bit, while the paper is being put together by the subs - and we find out what vital pieces of information are missing. Hopefully none. There's not a lot I can do apart from read proofs of pages and hang around. Can't really go anywhere in case there's a late breaking story or a major development.
The office is silent, and slightly tense - the subs are working their asses off while all the reporters do is sit around and read/go on the internet/start work on next week's paper (yeah right).
No-one really breathes a sigh of relief until we've sent all the pages, the adverts have been put on at the next centre and finally they're printed, I think in Peterborough, ready to hit the shops tomorrow morning.

And to think daily papers do this every day.

Weeks when I'm ostensibly in charge, I pretty much sit in the office from the minute I get here to the time I leave, without going out for lunch, phoning, writing, phoning again, delegating, reading other reporters copy... Tough stuff.