My daughter and I skipped school today to go on a bit of a jolly. Actually, since she attends a "media college" it could possibly be considered schoolwork, but then she'd probably need to write a report or something. Bah.

Anyway, it was quite a good day. We went out to the Beeb's Elstree Studio to watch the filming of Bamzooki, CBBC's new TV gameshow. We were able to go, of course, because my client Gameware created the Zook-builder toolkit. It wasn't the first television studio I'd been in - it's hard to grow up in California and not manage to find yourself in a studio at some point. My daughter wants to be a director when she grows up so this was a good opportunity to show her what's involved. I think she found some of it a little slow-going and has now decided she wants to be a camera-person rather than the person who has to ask the on-screen talent to do their bit over and over again. I'm sure she'll change her mind another 400 times before she's a grown-up.

One thing we hadn't realised was how many famous films that had been made at Elstree. Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars and 2001 - A Space Odyssey are just some of those that I saw listed on the studio walls. These days, Holby City and Eastenders are filmed at Elstree and I was a little disappointed not to run into Cat Slater or Alfie Moon in the cantine, 'though we did see rather a few hospital gowns at lunchtime.

Since we were up that way, we decided to take Jag's recommendation and hopped on a bus to Colindale and Oriental City. It was a very, very long bus ride and, had I realised, I probably would have caught a cab and got there in 10 minutes rather than the 45 it took on the bus, but nevermind. Great place with an absolutely huge Asian supermarket and all sorts of shops. It was all I could do not to buy myself a cheongsam but in the end, we went away with only a sushi dinner and a set of chopsticks.

Yes, I know, but really... how could I resist these?