Hello and welcome to rock and roll politics, the podcast. It was rock and roll politics, the weekly podcast.

And first of all, I have to apologise for not making it a weekly podcast. It was quite some time ago when I recorded the last one.

I'm really sorry about that. I know we're all told who do

podcasts make it every week the same day and everything. But I've been really busy. I'm not quite

sure why I've been really busy. Partly Brexit. Brexit is sucking up a lot of time and

attention for all of us in political journalism for obvious reasons. I'm finishing a book on

modern prime ministers from Harold Wilson to Theresa May. The May chapter keeps on becoming problematic.

And that's taking up a lot of time, but one way and a bit of fun as well, a bit of non-Brexit fun

every now and again

watching Tottenham hotspur watching a few plays you know having a bit of a bit of a laugh doing a bit of

performing on the stage um i have to do all these things i'm completely hooked her completely

hooked on these stage performances in a strange way. On New Year's Eve,

we had a kind of dinner with some friends and we all did our hopes for the new year and I couldn't

think of anything beyond the usual cliches about becoming an athlete and losing the weight

required to have the body of an athlete and all those cliches. But I kind of just spontaneously said after a vat of wine,

I just want to spend more time on the stage.

I think for some journalists, the stages are really interesting

and important additional outlet.

For a start, there's a real appetite for live performance when I do these rock and roll

politics shows in London well the last one in December when I was sold out by October and I'm

doing one in March in London in King's Place and that sold out at the end of December and they've

added another one in March March being a month of heightened political interest.

...