My Instinct Is To Assume That We

As It Happens, I Have Personally Been Something Of An Enthusiast For The London Olympic Games, Mainly On The Grounds A) That A Bit Of Wasteland Will Be Made Nice And B) That It Tends To Make Everybody Happy That Their Country Should Be The Centre Of World Attention For A Couple Of Weeks In Their Life.

I've Never Enjoyed Sleep As Much Until I Got The 'today' Job. There Is Something About Early Sleep That's Much Better Than Late Sleep. I Feel Myself Going To Sleep; I Don't Just Plonk My Head On The Pillow. It's A Sort Of Winding-down Thing.

Even The 'today' Programme Involves A Balance Between The Worthy-but-heavy Items With The Worthless-but-entertainingly-light Ones.

Now I Can Broadcast To An Audience Of Several Million People On The 'today' Programme. I Can Talk About The Day's News. But On Radio, Believe It Or Not, We Have Notes And Scripts. And While We Might Ad Lib The Odd Wryly Amusing Asides, They Come At The Frequency Of A Suburban Bus. About One Every 90 Minutes.

One Of The Key Problems Is That The Germans Know What They Do Because Everywhere They Go There's A 'made In Germany' Label On It - They Can Feel Proud Of Volkswagens And Audis And Mercedes.