The promise that I issue to you is that by one o'clock today, you will know more than you do now.

LBC 97.3 Mystery Hour with James O'Brien.

Three minutes after 12, this is LBC 97.3.

And this is, well, it's all right. It's many people's favourite part of the week. If you're new to the program, and you haven't heard this before, you should know that that guarantee is cast iron, it's copper bottomed, it's gold-plated. Talk about mixing your metallic metaphors. There is very, very, very little chance of you staying here until one o'clock and not knowing more by

them than you do now. I cannot, however, vouch for the quality of the knowledge that you will gain.

I simply can't. I've got no way of guaranteeing that you'll be grateful for the knowledge that you've got.

All I can guarantee is that you will know more by one o'clock than you do now.

It's called Mystery Hour because we solve mysteries.

There is almost certainly something lurking in the back of your mind

that could be loosely described as a who, what, why, where or when.

Possibly a whither, possibly a whence.

The idea is this.

Somebody else listening to this radio program will know the answer.

It's funny, isn't it? If you were listening in the first hour when we were talking about the way in which technology

is riding roughshod over humanity, it sounds a little bit pompous that, especially when I tell

you that the conversation was conducted in the context of driverless trains on the Jubilee line.

But it's true. We get computers to do so much now of the things we used to

do ourselves that there's probably a downside to the convenience that ensues. And in its own

little way, Mystery Hour is an example of that, because you're not allowed to use any of the

technological references that so many of us use on a daily basis. So you can't Google this or Wikipedia. It's an issue of trust, which again is something you can't do with the computer. You can't trust a computer. I can trust a human being. I trust you, if you hear someone else asking a question to which you know the answer. I trust you. You will ring me with the answer, and I don't need to check that you haven't looked it up, because Mystery Hour is a human endeavor. It's a celebration of learning, and indeed, although I've never really noticed this before, a celebration of trust as well. So if you need an answer to a question, call me now. 0845-6060--3 is the number to call.

And if, you know, anything from rocket science right through to your shoelaces, whatever it is that's got you puzzled, befuddled, baffled, or nonplussed.

I want to hear the question.

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