Thursday 23rd September

Today is the regular Publishers Publicity Circle (PPC) meeting in central London, where book PRs meet to hear talks from journalists, editors and, in today's case, folks from the telly. I've not been to one before – usually preferring not to bother travelling into central during the day – but it's certainly my turn this month, so Jess and I jump on the tube around midday. The weather is appalling, and when Jess accidentally leaves her umbrella on the tube we huddle together as we struggle up Charing Cross Road towards Foyles. There's another reason why I've always been keen to avoid the PPC meetings, one which becomes startlingly apparent as soon as we arrive at the huge bookshop's top-floor gallery: that everyone (bar me) who works in book publicity is short, blonde and female. And I really do mean virtually everyone – in a room of around 60 people I can count maybe one other guy. It's weird, and it makes me wonder quite how the worlds of publishing and PR seem to end up so predominantly female.

The speakers today are pretty interesting, at least – we get to hear from the guest booker from The One Show (who seems to do a hell of a lot of work) as well as producers from Sky News, Newsnight and The Culture Show. We take down a few names and email addresses and get out of the room before the dull-looking sandwiches and desperate PR networking begin. Luckily the weather's brightened up, and by the time we get back to the office at 3 my four-day week is almost over.

This evening I've planned to meet up with Tim in town, as I haven't him for a while (and probably won't again as he's off to Australia fairly soon) and he's killing time in London before heading off to Stansted for an early flight to Gothenburg. I head into town for the second time today and meet Tim at Oxford Circus, before we head up to The Cock for a beer. The place is busy, so we take refuge in the upstairs section and catch up for a while. Hunger soon sets in so we head off to Tortilla – a tasty nearby burrito place – before heading towards Tim's Baker Street bus stop and settling in another Sam Smith's pub. His bus is due at 11.30, so at around 11 we say our goodbyes and I head for the tube. It's weird to think I'll probably be married by the next time we meet up – and that for a short while my two oldest friends will both be on the opposite side of the planet from me.