Off, then, to Tottenham for the first time this season. What to say? I ;love going there, although the hackroom is horribly cramped, the hackfood - how to put this? - is not to my liking and the hackbox is more Conference than Premier League and built not so much for short-legged dwarfs than pre-school children and can it really be true they forgot to put a press box in when they built the stand?
The best aspect of all is how close we are to the benches. This means every last managerial grimace and mouthed obscenity can be treasured forever and Sunderland can check with their own hacks whether Tottenham's first goal was offside. It wasn't and they're keen to know who played Robbie Keane onside. More than one defender is the correct answer.
At half-time, as some hacks troops off, someone (not me) accidentally knocks someone else's laptop (not mine) onto the floor. It crashes onto the concrete with the sort of rattling thud that sickens anyone dependent for theirs. It doesn't appear to be broken, but these things take hold and brood, like electrical cancer.
Since it's arguably the game of the day, everyone has an essay to write so there's not much chat, but I do swap child-rearing tales with Amy from The Observer. Her boy already looks like he's better at football than me. More to the point, it's the sort of encounter nobody can take their eyes off: Sunderland are all over Spurs, but they're thwarted by a combination of poor finishing (a big hello to Jordan Henderson here), misfortune (Andy Reid hits the post from somewhere near the North Circular) and Heurelho Gomes, who saves a penalty as part of the best goalkeeping performance I've seen in years. Is this really the buffoon who Juande Ramos signed? Apparently it is. No wonder he has so much applause to milk he's last into the dressing rooms.
Afterwards, Steve Bruce has too much information vis-a-vis Keane's goal, so he moans - incorrectly on many levels - that Gomes should have been sent off for bringing down Darren Bent for the penalty, but Harry Redknapp didn't think it was a penalty in the first place. Ho hum. Unlucky they were and infinitely better than when I saw them at Stoke the other week, but Bruce might have been better addressing his team's lack of firepower without the suspended Kenwyne Jones.
As ever, Redknapp gets a certain group of hacks (male, cynical and over 50) giggling like smitten schoolgirls. He makes a joke about his diamond formation not sparkling (hold on to your sides at the back) and they're laughing like hyenas. It's an admirably honest admission and, of course, he's done wonders for Tottenham after Ramos and Martin Jol, but it gets him off a hook of his own making. Not one to be pinned down is the man they call H.