Good morning. It's three minutes after ten and you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC.

Should we begin with a quick apology? Oh, it's good to begin with apologies.

A gentleman rang in yesterday who I believe had a background in catering and I mocked the suggestion that they may have employed professional caterers for the parties being held at number 10 Downing Street.

And while no pictures have yet emerged

of professional caterers apparently being employed for the illegal parties at number 10 Downing Street,

we do now have evidence of Ban Marie. When you're speaking French, do you pronounce the S on the

plurals? Is it Ban Marie or Banerese? Anyway, big, sort of heated trays full of grub,

which I don't think you've got them knocking about in the cupboard under the kettle, have you?

At Conservative Party HQ, it looks to me as if the plate of Canapes was very carefully arranged.

It looks like a sort of medieval sundial or something like that.

So you've got carefully arranged canapes plus Banerese equals professional caterers.

I know it's pronounced canapes or canapes, but when you have been a professional gossip columnist and lived for 18 months on little more than canapes and indeed canapes, then you're allowed

a little bit of levity in the nomenclature of party food.

So apologies, I forget your name.

No doubt someone will remind me via text,

but you were probably right,

and they were stupid enough to employ professional caterers,

albeit at the CCHQ party that Sean Bailey threw on December the 14th,

I think, was it December the 14th, as opposed to

the Downing Street parties about which we await more details. I've said it before and I'll say it again.

It's the ones in the flat that we really want to know about. Who was there for Christmas and who was

celebrating the departure of Dominic Cummings on November the 17th, I think that was.

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