We're not all in the same boats, are we? I can't remember who it was that said this first.

We're all on the same sea, but we're in incredibly different boats. I want to bear that in mind this morning.

Hello, by the way. How are you doing? Three minutes after ten is the time. And you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC because I want to begin if I may and once again

we find ourselves trying to walk the tightrope standby for a stand by for the first Partridgeism of the

day we have to walk a tightrope between facts and fun right actually that's more that's more

David Brent than Alan Partridge I think but but I mean it you know you do not want to turn your radio on and have an you know a kind of endless intoning of all the calamities that we have largely inflicted upon ourselves and in some cases have fallen victim to through no fault of our own.

However, neither can we do the ostrich, which seems increasingly popular in some corners of my industry.

This is a year you'll remember in which rather than preparing for no deal of Brexit or properly addressing the rampaging virus, we have instead devoted hours of time

and oodles of energy to the really important questions. Like, why can't we have an audience

sing-along and an event with no audiences? Or how dare the National Trust plan to publish the history

of a historic house in an actual historic house.

And what's wrong with racist footballers booing Black Lives Matter?

And also cycle lanes and Megan Markle.

So all the big important issues, they've definitely picked all the right fights this year.

July we could have extended, of course, the transition period.

Smack in the middle of the current carnage. They had the opportunity to extend beyond December the 31st, what you

might call the negotiating period, having campaigned on the ludicrous, fatuous, but temporarily

effective. Slogan get Brexit done. Boris Johnson had boxed himself into a corner that he

couldn't get out of. And that is why we are where we are. France has shut its borders or controlled

them, as you might prefer to say. And albeit that people like you and me can respond to that with a

degree of unhappiness, we have to remind ourselves that people unlike you and me can respond to that with a degree of unhappiness,

we have to remind ourselves that people unlike you and me a week ago,

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