BBC News 24

Chris Eakin's turned up early now...

Chris Eakin has arrived on the scene at 5.45pm. With the statement from Charles Kennedy at any moment and the 6pm update on Sharon's condition, it will need 2 anchors there to keep up with it all.

I think it's unfortunate that all the news has been piling in with just a single presenter rosta'd in. It works quite well during the week when a presenter has to work on their own for whatever reason, but bad timing today with a busy afternoon of Breaking News. They probably thought they'd get away with it today due to the hourly simulcasts with BBC World from Israel.

Would have been better today if they had rung up the main man Tim Willcox instead, or got Chris Eakin on the whole 16:00 - 19:00 and got Tim on the 19:00 shift. But you can't plan news!...

Jon is in Israel, and has made it on air at 18:25. Presumably he will be anchoring from there for the rest of today and tomorrow

Seems like News 24 are being a lot more flexible with presenter rotas now than before. The normal 4-7/7-11/11-1 boundaries have been torn apart this week with presenters moving all over the place to cover the large amount of breaking news.

The BREAKING ticker slug's behaviour has been interesting. Anyone know why it does what it does? It starts as red, but seems to just flick to dark grey after a while - doesn't spin or anything, just changes colour.

Why do I keep wanting to give Louise a cuddle??

What?

Now Ben Brown has come out of the woodwork for N24.

Ben Brown presenting with Louise this afternoon - puts in occasional appearances presenting on World, but is this his first time behind the desk at N24?

Didn't he present Breakfast at weekends with Sian sometimes?

I don't think so. I remember a Ben Geoghan (sp?) presenting once with Sian on a Saturday though.

Ben Brown has most recently been a Special Correspondent for the BBC's Ten O'Clock News.