Good morning. It's 33. It's not 33. It's three minutes after 10. That was close.

I may have been a little bit casual in my approach to the microphone this morning. I apologize

for that. I didn't need to tell you that. That's how much I trust you. I didn't need to tell you that I

was slightly taken by surprise by the opening notes there of the jingle and I was on the other side of the studio

messing around with my rather large mug. So apologies for that. Now I am fully in the room.

My laser like focus is being brought to bear upon proceedings. Four minutes after tennis a time.

Front page of the Times. Laughing gas band to tackle bad behavior.

Now, I think you need a balanced diet, don't you? What I mean by that is I couldn't talk to you about the same stuff every single day. Whether I found it dull or interesting, I couldn't

talk to you about the same stuff every single day. There were periods during the immediate aftermath of Brexit where we did seem to be turning our attention to

attendant issues every day, but that was public service broadcasting. That was a ultimately vain and

failed attempt to warn, well, not you necessarily, but to try to warn at least parts of the country that we could reach about what is now happening.

I don't know if you saw the story about car production.

Lowest in about 60 years now in this country, exactly as predicted and foretold.

And I believe Mr. Weatherspoon has to put some pubs up for sale as well due to the complete

absence of all the things that he insisted would occur as a consequence of Brexit.

And then during COVID, COVID probably more than anything else, was the period in which

we were a single topic station, a single top, well, certainly a single topic program.

Every day, every hour would be dedicated to one element or other of the COVID-19 crisis and the attendant lockdowns. And that was weird. I found that

really quite odd. And especially when I was broadcasting from a shed at the bottom of my garden

because this is an oddly sociable job even though I sit alone in a room talking into a furry

fuzzy microphone it is oddly sociable I sense you I feel you I look at my screens and I

see you and even when I can't see, I kind of almost know you're there.

...