Every day at The Journal we go into conference - where we discuss the stories of the day - and share more bad news: people being laid off, energy prices going up, the value of your house is going down and so on and so on.

At this morning's conference there was more of the same and we discussed whether we could do a story with some reasons to be cheerful. We all agreed that we should...then couldn't think of any.

"A medic told today how he saw a colleague called Clive Greedy eating a piece of celery as they were treating a dying man who had collapsed in his kitchen."

Depending on who you believe, Kevin Keegan has either resigned as Newcastle United manager or he's been sacked. Or, quite possibly, he hasn't.

Rumours have been circulating on Tyneside about Keegan all day but as I write this at 5.04pm, the club has said nothing and neither has he. In short, we don't know - for definite, that is - anything.

To be entirely accurate, I should probably point out that we beat a team that used to be called Evening Chronicle but has just changed their name to NUFC Beat, but it's near as we're going to get to a derby victory. I believe this means we have the "bragging rights" in Thomson House at the moment.

After two weeks of the Media League, The Journal is top with two wins out of two. Things can only go downhill from here, but we're still, as the old football cliche would have it, over the moon.

The champers was a gift from ncjmedia to mark my 10 years' service to The Journal - a milestone that had rather slipped my mind. I was reminded of a quote that the late, great John Peel once gave about his long career at the BBC: "You could see it as selfless dedication to the cause of public-service broadcasting or a shocking lack of ambition. It's been kind of both, really."

The broadcast media call on Peter whenever they want someone to talk about Northern Rock because (a) he's pretty good at it (b) their researchers don't always try that hard to find talking heads and (c) the Rock's own staff aren't so keen.

The Rock seems to have had a policy of keeping its head down ever since news of their troubles broke and I'm sure they have their reasons. (For what it's worth, I think they've been far too quiet and allowed a lot of the national papers - probably with input from the Rock's competitors - to dictate the news agenda, but there you go).

Fairly useless in the grand scheme of things, I know, but fun nonetheless.

Here's what it makes of Journal Blog Central:

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Speaking after he announced that newspapers would be given access to court documents for free, Justice Secretary Jack Straw said that "local and regional newspapers are indeed the backbone of our democracy."

How nice of Mr Straw. His Labour colleague Jim Sheridan seems less enamoured with us, however, saying: "A high proportion of people living in the UK have some difficulty in even believing the racing results printed by some of our newspapers".

Most of the myths about journos - that we all wear trilbies with cards in the brims and are drunk by lunchtime - are no longer true, I'm afraid, but the idea that we're all pretty foul-mouthed cynics is a bit nearer the mark.

I don't know why swearing is so much of the journalistic culture, but it most definitely is. My dear old ma, having brought me up right and proper, would be distraught if she could hear the way I go on this office, I'd have to say. And the sweariness that abounds in The Journal newsroom does occasionally get us in trouble.

There's nothing wrong with the story as such, but I just wonder why the Express needs to use the word "Now" in the headline. Surely the fact that the story is happening "now" is taken as read - we're newspapers after all.

"Your Shopping Bill Hits New High" seems to me to mean exactly the same as "Now Your Shopping Bill Hits New High", making the word "now" completely superfluous.

Many of today's nationals, for example, have gone big on fuel protests, though it's noticeable that their coverage of fuel protests is much more sympathetic to British hauliers than it is to French fishermen.

Both are protesting about the same thing - the price of diesel - but the stories about French ports being blockaded are all about the dastardly foreigners and how a few plucky British yachtsmen have defied them.

"The Manchester based company behind a bottled spring water which helps reduce blood pressure is distributing water to Rangers fans to help them keep their cool ahead of the UEFA Cup Final.

"Works With Water's 120/80, named after the optimum blood pressure level, contains dairy peptides which are clinically proven to help lower high blood pressure."

The subsequent riots, you have to think, were not the advert they were hoping for...

The water should help keep stress levels under control amongst the estimated 100,000 fans gathered in Manchester as tensions rise ahead of the big match.

Anyone who knows me will know that I would probably pay good money to see Billy Bragg if he was singing a selection of Ethiopian nursery rhymes accompanied only by the spoons. But of the many times I've seen him over the past 20 years, I think last night was one of his finest performances - full of passion, humour and, of course, great songs.

Now you may be wondering what my Bragg review has to do with a blog about life in the Journal newsroom, so I'll explain...

This weekend, for example, I've been showing an Australian film crew around Newcastle and Gateshead and helping them film a segment for a programme called The Great Outdoors (their version of Wish You Were Here, I think).

This basically meant walking around town with a bloke called Ernie Dingo (honest) and talking to him about local attractions and then trying to teach him how to speak Geordie.

For months I have been taking the mick out of those awful surveys punted our way by desperate PR firms.

But there comes a point when you can't satirise these people any more and that came today when we got a hopeless PR survey...about PR.