In a week when Fiona Stourton feels mixed emotions at the RTS Television Journalism Awards, one thing keeps stressing her out – moving office
The three most stressful events in life are supposed to be divorce, bereavement and moving house. I'd like to add a fourth – moving offices, my challenge of the moment.
The property agents' mantra, "The price is only so high because of the Chinese", has convinced me they are all working for UKIP.
In the meantime, I'm unashamedly using this publication to appeal for 750m2 (cheap) for our three lovely production companies, Blakeway, Brook Lapping and Films of Record.
And so to Marlborough House, Pall Mall. Oh, that we could afford something like this as office space. A stunning venue for a charity event hosted by the Children's Radio Foundation. I know this is a TV diary, but where would we be without our radio colleagues, who quite often go places that cameras can't?
The children's charity teaches children in Africa to be radio reporters. The speaker, Lesedi Mogoatlhe, is in tears as she describes how the latest projects have empowered children with Aids in South Africa and Ebola orphans in West Africa.
A really good cause.
Wednesday, 18 February is, of course, the RTS Television Journalism Awards. Always a lively event, but sad this year because the Society's Deputy Chief Executive, Claire Price, has left.
For those of us who have chaired quarrelsome juries under her calm guidance, it's hard to imagine how the RTS is going to manage effectively without her.
The evening is bracketed by sober stuff that makes us all reflect seriously on what we do.
The opening tribute to journalists who've died in the last year includes the 10 French colleagues murdered at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris and the Japanese journalist, Kenji Goto, beheaded by Isis.
At the end of the ceremony, the Judges' Award goes, by popular acclaim, to the three Al Jazeera journalists jailed without justification in Egypt for the past year.
Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed remain in Cairo on bail but, hooray, Peter Greste is present to pick up the award.
His speech is both inspiring and thought provoking. There is general nodding as he describes us all as a "cranky, cantankerous, competitive lot... caricatured as only moving in the same direction when there's a bar in the corner".
But, he continues, the campaign to release him and his colleagues has revealed that we will fight as one for our own and for the principle of free speech.
Social media, he argues, creates silos, as the like-minded speak among themselves. Our role as broadcasters must be to open up conversations and talk to everyone, whether they like it or not.
Peter is given a standing ovation, of course.
The BBC Showcase forum in Liverpool is held in the third week of February, when international buyers fly in to buy programmes. Up I go, looking for cash.
There's extra trepidation this year because of the threat of "works on the line". But, in fact, the journey is trouble free. The foreign broadcasters are convinced that it's proof of the power of the BBC that disruption has been averted.
There's an interesting development this year, as we meet colleagues from a Japanese website to discuss one-hour documentaries.
We've always been wary of digital platforms offering tiny budgets but, in certain overseas markets, websites are genuine rivals to domestic broadcasters and they have proper funds.
By the way, on the subject of new offices, did I mention we have an open dog policy? Amid the demands for decent cafés/tube access/convenient buses, there is another essential: dogs must be allowed.
Fiona Stourton is Creative Director, Ten Alps TV.
