Well, hello and welcome to this week's For the Many Podcasts.

First of all, a couple of apologies.

Normally, you get this podcast into your iTunes podcast-y, inboxy thing, or even Google

podcast-y-inboxy thing, on a Sunday.

Well, unfortunately, Jackie has been indisposed this weekend. So I have been frantically

searching for somebody to take her place. Virtually everybody I've asked is too busy or, frankly,

couldn't give a toss. But Liam Halligan joins us this week. You know how to make a guy feel good,

Ian? Believe me, I do.

You didn't tell me it was that kind of podcast. Liam is, well, he's multifaceted.

He writes for the telegraph on economics and business issues.

And we are colleagues on CNN Talk,

which is a fabulous midday program on CNN International,

should you never have seen it.

Now, the way this works, Liam, is that basically we talk for however long we fancy about

various things.

We have a bit of a laugh.

We swear a bit and we get a bit smotty.

But I think that might be a bit weird with you.

So maybe we won't do that if you don't mind.

So we're going to do all the usual stuff, but this podcast might be a little bit shorter than usual

because we are recording it at 5 past 4 on Monday afternoon, and my show starts at 7, as you know.

So I do need to prepare for that a little bit because we don't want you to be able to spot the lack of joins at the seams.

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