At a recording of Room 101 for the BBC

Taken before the start of the show - Episode 2 of Series 16, hosted by Frank Skinner with panellists Russell Howard, John Torode and Katherine Parkinson.

A jolly good evening with lots of laughs and good interaction between the guests and the audience. Very interesting to be part of the audience watching the show and all the goings on around the production. The performance took a couple of hours to complete but will only be 30 minutes when shown.

I applied for tickets to see Have I Got News For You as well, but have not been successful yet. Tickets are free but you have to find your own way there. In our case it was the High Speed Train from Strood to St Pancras then the low speed rattler to Elstree and Borehamwood.

We arrived at the studio nice and early, 30 minutes before the audience were let into the holding area. We were near the front of the queue with about 50 metres of queue behind us. When we were admitted we were given a blue sticker with numbers on; 265 and 266. When we arrived at the holding area there were crowds of people. Where did they all come from?

People were called to enter the studio in batches of 50 based on their number. When we arived the studio was nearly full, we were resigned to sitting at the back. Then a lucky break, we were beckoned down to some vacant seats in the front row of the raised section as you can see here. I suspect most of the people lining up behind us didn't get in.

The journey back was a little less easy than the one up there. Our expected High Speed Train was cancelled owing to missing staff?? so we had to wait half an hour longer in a draughty station for the next one meaning we arrived home at 12.30am rather than midnight.