For my weekly writing spot on this site, see the One-Minute Mystic, with a new meditation posted every Monday. Also see The Village, the story of Misty Longings, England's most beautiful village, posted episode by episode earlier this year.       "If you could just wait in here. There's coffee, fruit juice, toast and croissant if you want it – and the papers of course. Someone will collect you." I take my place in the corner. There's a nervous air in the room. Everyone looks at everyone else to see if they are famous. The older man next to me eats a croissant and reads the Telegraph. I'm too nervous to do either. The young man opposite takes a call on his mobile, arranging his evening, happy that we all listen in. The young woman present leaves the room to answer her phone, as a tired Bishop wanders in to collect his coat and bag, an angry reflection on Saddam's execution duly presented. So just another day in the waiting room for Radio 4's Today programme. Soon we are talking. The man with the croissant is here to speak on behalf of train passengers, now the increased fares have been announced. We stop talking when the train item comes up on the news. He listens, and then has another croissant. The young man is a rock journalist – reporting music, not mountains. But he also does sport, and he's going to speak about a truly appalling year for English sport – apart from three-day eventing obviously. If we took horses more seriously, we'd be celebrating a cracking year. But we don't – so we aren't. The young woman returns, and we talk about shop unions. She seems well informed and it turns out she is a local councillor in London, here on the programme to defend significant increases in their allowances. She will now get £10,000 a year, which she says she needs to enable her to do this demanding job. On air, a retired councillor is set against her, declaring everything she says to be "bunkum". The programme demands a contest, a mauling, and we are each gladiators for our truth. This is hard news, hard knocks and harsh words, all right? Suddenly I am in the arena, told simply to sit by the yellow microphone, as John Prescott slugs it out with the interviewer. It's edgy stuff, tense and present, the studio electric with raised eyebrows and grimace. Prescott is angry at the press for trying to split Brown and Blair. "Mr Prescott, thank you very much", and without a word being said to me off air, my interview begins. My adversary, in a regional studio, is swift and sure, I rather stumbling, and before I know it, I am being ushered out, battered, bloodied but alive, as the sports news is read, and the rock journalist guided towards the combat chair. I am chauffered across London, and dropped at the shop in time to help finish the morning delivery. Within half an hour of leaving the Today studio, I have a parsnip in my hand. It's a sort of homecoming. More writings © Simon Parke