I've had a late night tonight, working - moderating a group discussion with Pharmacists. It's hellishly lonely travelling late at night - especially when you've been at work for 14 hours and all you want to do is get home as quickly as possible and snuggle up on the sofa with David and the dogs.

Radio 4 had a scientific show on and I wanted something a bit more lively so I flicked around the channels looking for something more interesting.

I came across Virgin Radio - surely the most dismal station on the radio. I may be mistaken but really feel as though their programming is designed to appeal to no-one. Tonight, they had a phone-in show where sad, lonely people phone up the DJ and tell anyone prepared to listen about the woes of their life. I've never heard anything so depressing - both the sad, lonely people who were phoning in and the pseudo-interest of the DJ seemed unbelievably terrible. I'm not completely hard-hearted, the pathos of the show oozed out into the cold, autumn night and just made me feel thankful for my own lot. Life has treated me a bit more kindly than it has these poor souls. I wondered what they were looking for by 'confessing' all on a radio show - is it sympathy, remorse, reassurance or what? I couldn't decide.

I made a mental note to buy myself a CD player for my car asap so next time I could listen to something a bit more stimulating.