The man who drives the snowplough

I don't have the time to write a daily blog. I managed it for a week earlier in the year, in March, but what I learned from that solipsistic experiment was that writing a daily diary that you expect others to read takes a certain amount of dedication and care. Oh, and time.

You know that old imponderable, "How does the snowplough driver get to work?" I wonder about that often. I am the snowplough driver, aren't I? What happens if I can't get to work? What happens when I get ill? Or go on holiday? Who covers for me? I spend such a lot of my time filling in for other people when they are either having a better time – on holiday – having a worse time – sick – or having a very different time that I suspect is a mixture of the two – having a baby. This is a well known fact. It defines me. I don't even mind.

I am usually the person they call at 6 Music when any or all of the aforementioned happen, and I'm there. I have not been on holiday this year, and don't expect to, as the holiday season is a very good season for me not to be on holiday during. I tried to have a holiday last year, after Edinburgh, and I ended up coming back to London twice during it, to fill in for other people. Don't sympathise. I run a small, self-employed business based upon the reorganisation of the English language. If I'm not at the end of a phone or email, I am not available for work.

I have, this week, been on 6 Music for five consecutive days. (My sixth is tomorrow.) I have been temporarily in the 10am-1pm slot, Lauren Laverne's rightful home. It's been bracing. Hers is the most complex "stranded" show on 6 Music daytime, with numerous features and a tradition of hosting live bands in the what used to be called the Hub. A half hour of Lauren's show does not go by without something to "hit": an item, or telephone conversation, a montage, a chat in the studio with a specialist of some sort, or a specially selected track with information attached. You can't go to sleep on the job, put it that way. I don't do it as often as I do Breakfast or Steve Lamacq's show, and both are a breeze in comparison.

It's been a good week. As you can see from my traditional block of Zelig photos, I met two bands, Bombay Bicycle Club and Airship, and one semi-legendary solo artist, Ryan Adams, who demanded a "closed set" and thus played and sang just for me, as I was the only other person in the kitchenette are. It was like a country-rock lapdance. I expect.

As for the Saturday show, I have been booked through September and October, but unlike other, permanent presenters, I have no guarantees of work beyond that. (I used to be a contracted presenter, but haven't been since March 2007.) This was how last year panned out in the same slot, with Richard: we were booked a month at a time; it just went on for a year. Josie is back tomorrow. People are looking forward to her return. Ironically, three other co-hosts filled in for Josie with me while she was away, each one experiencing the impermanence that I always feel, with someone else's smiling face on the website gazing out at the world while they work. Whenever Zoe Ball is away from her Radio 2 breakfast show, she is replaced by the reliable Lynn Parsons. Clearly, I feel a kinship with her.

This afternoon, I again filled in for Mark Kermode on BBC News, as he is not on holiday but at a film festival in the Shetlands. Because of these two combined bookings – Lauren and Mark, which I welcome – I couldn't practically fulfil one of my own actual weekly engagements, the Guardian Telly Addict review, so I had a week off. A holiday, if you like, although I wasn't on holiday. This means that someone at the Guardian filled in for me! Let's see, tomorrow morning. It certainly feels counterintuitive to have someone fill in for me!

Apart from a bloodshot eye and a bad foot, I haven't really been ill this year. I am grateful for that. A bloodshot eye and a bad foot don't stop me from working. I posted on Twitter last Friday that, as usual, I would be appearing on Zoe Ball's Radio 2 Breakfast show from 7am, and on 6 Music from 10am. Some wag responded: "Are you saving for a new kitchen or something." The implication, humorously meant or otherwise, was that I am working in order to make money. Well, I am. Where's the harm in this? Isn't that why we all work? As much as I enjoy most of my work, if I could do nothing all day tomorrow, I would.

During my run as Lauren, somebody posted on Twitter that they were tuning out of 6 Music to listen to Woman's Hour because I was on. Her reasoning was sound enough – and nobody's forced to listen – but my crime seemed to be that I wasn't a woman. She felt that a female presenter, rare enough, should be replaced by a female presenter. This lady didn't have to let me know she was turning off, but she felt the need to air her decision. It made me very cross. I never named and shamed her (she was quite contrite in subsequent Tweets), because I had no wish to, but my broader point was this: if you went into a shop and didn't wish to buy anything, would you a) walk out of the shop, or b) demand to see the manager so that you could tell him or her that you were walking out of the shop?

It's the first option, isn't it? But because of the ease of social media and electronic communication – and the sense of self-importance it imbues in us all – people do feel the need to let you know if they don't like you, whether to unfollow you on Twitter, or to – presumably – un-friend you on Facebook (I have never been on it), or, in the case of radio, let you know they don't want to listen to your voice.

I think you should have a bit of respect. I am, after all, just doing a job of work. I do my best. I never seek to replicate or replace the beloved regular presenter, and always make a point of saying, "Lauren's back on Monday."

I like to dig the garden, plant things and lay turf when I have no work to do. This is what a day off feels like. In employment, they call enforced suspension "gardening leave," but for me, it's not euphemistic.

When I used to have a regular weekly, on-the-page column at Radio Times, Mark Kermode would often fill in for me, and when he did, for the first time in my life, I was able to read the words, "Andrew Collins is away." And we all know what that means: don't panic, normal service will be resumed next week, you won't have to put up with this impostor for long. Spare a thought for we impostors.