"Where's my blue pen?"*

The last stage for a page before being committed to film is the final printout. Although the Ed will likely have glanced through the original review (or whatever) direct from the writer, this is the first time he'll see the page in full.

What it'll be is this: a sheet rolled out of the laser printer, blotchily light (the toner's on the way out again), with blank boxouts (the text, contrasting insufficiently with the background, has made the printer go mad and see everything as one colour), missing pictures (they weren't on the Mac the page was printed out from), through-a-mesh writing (not dotty, you understand, but so small in relation to the page that the printer resolution can't match it and all the Os look like zeroes as if it were a platform game password screen) and completely illegible captions (because captions are always completely illegible. It's a tradition or an old charter or something).

Mindful that this is the single most important document concerning that page of the national newsstand magazine he edits, the Ed will squint at it a lot, ring several mistakes (illusions of the squodgy printout which the Prod Ed will ignore, never revealing the Ed's waste of time to avoid hurting his feelings), laugh at the jokes (the writer hopes, having subtly moved quite near the Ed's desk to listen in, like every other writer ever in the history of all things) and examine the captions on-screen or ask for a picture-suppressed printout, whatever's easier. (Not the picture-suppressed printout, which inevitably suppresses most of the text. It's a hue thing.)

Satisfied, he signs the bottom of the covering paper that plots the course of the page through the production process. The page is finished! Only another 97 to do before tomorrow morning. All cheer, somewhere an angel gets its wings, Jonathan refuses to change all the "he"s to "s/he"s because it looks revolting, so mentions Linda at the bottom.

HEIGH HO for sir roger de coverly