Recently I've been Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and the Chechen president, writes Mick Hodgkin. I've also been an assortment of rebel gunmen, refugees, earthquake victims and lawyers - though I don't usually get to be the judge, because Luke's got the best High Court judge voice.
Of course, only friends and family notice - "I heard you being a terrorist suspect today", they will say. But it's a daily occurrence in the Channel 4 News/More4 newsroom. About 15 minutes before the programme goes out, a producer will come flying out of the edit suite with a desparate look, yelling: "I need a man - now!"
"Well, I suppose..." you reply.
"OK great, you're a warlord who's accused of mass murder". And a lip mic is shoved into your hand. "Alright", you say, "But what's my motivation?"
This picture has been doing the rounds of pro-insugency websites tagged with much hilarity "is this the stupidest army in the world?".
It purports to show a US soldier inserting a mortar in the wrong way round. We think it's a little too goofily posed to be true.
What do you think?
I've just got back from 10 days in Ohio and it was so different from what I'd been led to expect, writes Nima Elbagir.
Those preconceptions came mostly from conversations with urbane US East Coasters. "It's really just one big farm" and "why do they have a vote?" - that sort of thing.
Both on my own behalf and on the behalf of those who misled us who are not quite brave enough to purge their own consciences you know who you are.
First of all people were incredibly lovely and polite - you have no idea how many times we rolled up - black girl, asian guy- to motels in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night expecting to be kept occupied while someone sent for the men in the white hoods.
During the course of our lives, transcendental moments come along, and we are forced to sit up and take notice. Everybody has their moments. We all react differently, writes John Dickie in Oaxaca, Mexico.
It is difficult to figure out how to begin retelling the story of any one of those moments. Presumably, it is up to each person to do their best to convey the transcendence felt, and for each listener to absorb it as their own.
In this instance, all I can do is begin by telling you that, yesterday, for around a hundred minutes, I was dead.
In all the debates and controversies about rail privatisation, one key issue has been overlooked: filming permissions. I have just filmed the rail journey from London to Liverpool via Newcastle, York and Manchester. Shooting in four stations, operated by three companies, and on four trains - all owned by different conglomerates - takes a total of six separate permissions.
Add a desire to get into the cab of a train, and into the Grand Hall of the National Railway Museum and the actual telling of the story becomes secondary to organising the logistics. Andrew Thomas writes . . .
We've been messing around with Google Earth, trying to make our latest scoop about parking tickets look a bit more visually exciting.
Local authorities are raising huge sums of money from parking fines - some have generated more than £1m of fines from a single street. Extraordinary. Outrageous. But not much to look at.
Google Earth is a great way to make this kind of geographical info more attractive to surf through. It's already used quite a lot on telly - a quick swoop above Iraq on Google Earth is much cheaper than hiring a helicopter and heading out to the Middle East.
But it's also an easy way to make an interactive map. We produce a little file with all the co-ordinates in it, and anyone with Google Earth an upload it.
So we've produced a Google Earth 'layer' with all the parking ticket hotspot on it, shown as little red cars. Have a look here to download the instructions on how to do view it.
Or if you're already a Google Earth expert, download the .kmz file from here.
A couple of weeks ago we did a story about the Space Elevator - a hypothetical way of getting to space, by hanging a long cable from a satelite and sending lifts up and down it, writes Ben King.
It's a lovely idea, but it's slightly beyond the scope of modern technology to make it possible. But to encourage people to try and develop the technologies necessary, NASA has sponsored a competition.
That happened this weekend - university teams got together to see who could build the strongest cable, and the best robot to climb up it.
Sadly, none were quite good enough to claim the prize from NASA... But you can read the full story of the competition here. If you have no idea what we're talking about, it's probably best to watch our report first.
Tory tax plans have got the blogosphere in a lather. But not all Tory bloggers are after cuts...
"CONSERVATIVES "SAY SOMETHING SENSIBLE" SHOCK SENSATION! ******ALERT ALERT ALERT****** Rejoice. The Conservative Party has FINALLY said something quite sensible."
That was the verdict on the right-wing A Tangled Web blog. But for many bloggers of a Conservative persuasion, tax cuts are anything from electoral good sense to religious obligation.
I don't know if journalism is supposed to be like the Stanislavski school of acting, writes Helene Cacace. Should a journalist experience the feelings and emotions of the interviewee, like a method actor and his part? Well, by the end of a recent interview with Billy Bragg I almost felt I was Billy Bragg... (well sort of).
Billy Bragg's new book 'The Progressive Patriot, A Search for Belonging' is a personal journey; a search for his own identity and the meaning of being English. Interwoven in the novel are his musical influences, from Dylan to the Clash and then musings about his own family tree - his ancestors' involvement with the Unions, with long chapters on great events in British history - the Magna Carta, the Reformation, the creation of the Welfare State.
It's probably the type of book you read over a long period alongside another, so you can digest and contemplate his theories - a luxury I didn't have as a journalist. I condensed reading into the 24 hours before meeting the author.
