This is LBC from Global, leading Britain's conversation with James O'Brien.

Three minutes after ten is the time, and you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC,

where we will, just a moment, turn our attention to a couple of stories

that I'm going to cunningly and expertly knit together.

That's undermines my claims to expertise, doesn't it, when I can't even currently pronounce the single syllable word knit.

But two stories, one from the Office of National Statistics, another from the Journal of Marriage and Family,

both circling the same plug hole,

and it is marriage that is disappearing down the plug hole.

You may, if you're new to the program, be relatively surprised by the outbreak of

Victoriana that I'm about to indulge in.

But, of course, if you do listen to the program on a regular basis,

you'll know that it is deeply sincere, sincere and it runs it runs through me like blackpool through a stick of rock

we'll try and work out why we'll also look at john lewis and ask whether or not if they can't do

well can any shop in the traditional sense a bit of an apocalyptic one it's got a touch of the greatest hits

actually today or at least the hardy perennials if this was an aha concert today we would be doing

take on me the sun always shines on tv and cry wolf even if we'd release seven new albums in the

interim we know that that's what the

hardcore fans want when they turn up. If it was a James concert, you'd be calling out for come

home, sit down, and she's a star. And I would prefer, obviously, as a songwriter and performer

of great repute and diversity, I'd much rather do the more recent

stuff, living in extraordinary times, is a magnificent album, but I know what the punters want.

So back in the day, barely a week would pass without us addressing the vexed questions of

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