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Mystery Hour with James O'Brien on LBC.

Three minutes after 12 and mystery hour is indeed upon us once again,

your weekly opportunity to achieve the sort of satisfaction that no other radio program can provide.

What I mean by that is, of course, you probably have a question rattling around your little grey cells at the moment, and somebody else listening to this programme will have the answer to it.

0845-60-60-9773 is the number you need. Because getting a bit, getting crazy popular now, so repetition has become a bit of a problem. An awful lot of people ring in in the first couple of minutes with questions that we've dealt with recently. That means that at about four minutes after 12, you get the chance to come through on the second wind. So hit the numbers now if you've already tried and failed to get through because you've got a better chance of getting through now than you did then.

Oh, 0845-60-60973. The who's, the whys, the what's, the where-for's. It's a bit like those newspaper columns. You're familiar with those, notes and queries, Q&A. Someone writes in and says, why do we do this? What is the origin of that? Where does that come from? I noticed this. Could be scientific, could be serious, could be really incredibly silly. If it's diverting and interesting, we'll ask it. If it's repetitious and dull, we will not. And they're getting a bit tougher, I've noticed, on the phones. You will be told. You will be told your question is not interesting and politely invited to sling your hook. The management's decision is final. I stress that because the longer you spend arguing, the harder it is for the next person with a decent question to get through.

You get through chiefly by phone.

I very, very occasionally allow contributions via other media, but generally speaking, this is phones all the way.

And if you hear somebody else ask a question to which you know the answer, then the number remains the same.

0845-60609-7-3.

You may get a mystery out of a round of applause, one of the most sought-after and valuable accolades in the history of broadcasting.

Yours for the taking, if you can answer a question that someone else asks.

And the only other bit of housework I'd mentioned is this is where I risk sounding even more pompous than usual,

but I do happen to sincerely believe that it's really important to celebrate knowledge and

education. So this is about stuff you know. Some of the people will perhaps ask, some of the

contributors will perhaps ask questions that you could find out by consulting a work of reference or an internet search engine.

But the point is, we don't want to.

I sometimes see my kids doing their homework and realize that their life is going to be very different from mine.

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