Good afternoon: it is hot, bright and Friday; and, as with night following day and traffic wardens following innocent motorists, Saturday and Sunday beckon. We will get you off to a cracking start.
Unless you live in Surrey this weekend, where we've breaking news of a possible disease outbreak. Could be some time before we know if it's for real. It could be that, just at the moment you spread marmalade on your breakfast toast, the all-clear will be sounded.
Or not. We'll tell you what the experts are saying tonight at 6.
Idi Amin was a fat, brutal dictator who, whilst falling short of mass genocide, was a killer and torturer of hideous proportions: both the size of the man and the scale of his crimes, if you follow me.
All I want to say at this stage is, given all we know about genetics and nasty things that run in the blood of even nastier families, you will be pleased to hear the current whereabouts of a young thug who was involved in some brutal goings on in Camden last year. It is the stuff of movies, I tell you. Piers is our Stephen Spielberg.
Earlier this week someone found the Boss's baby son's hat and the car keys we had separately left on different trains. We both got back our precious property. Hurrah.
In my case some kind soul handed them in and I got them back from Waterloo Lost Property just 24 hours later. Thank you God, thank you "finding person" and thank you Waterloo lost property.
They were sitting on top of a medium size tray in the Lost Property Office with about thirty keys in it....
At St Pancras, soon to be home to Eurostar, imagine the size of tray (or probably packing case) they require to hold the hundred examples of a particular item already handed in this year. It is rapidly becoming the most frequently lost/found thing at that beautiful terminus: bigger than a set of keys but smaller than an artificial leg, also often lost apparently!
All will be revealed to a chorus of "Ah" at 6.
A man from Wimbledon packed his jam-sandwiches, flask of tea and a bit of toffee and set sail for Australia. Weeks and thousands of miles later he foundered. He had not one but two maps and the cause of his disappointment has form. So what was it and how come he is the man with the reddest face in both northern and southern hemispheres? Give ear to Robin Ross in her fetching matelot outfit, tonight.
Which just leaves Buddy the stage show, a terrific film about the hoax surrounding Howard Hughes (The Aviator) diaries and Tamzin's stellar What Not To Miss, all wrapped up in a review of the evening papers and tied together with Mona's weather forecast: how big will those UV numbers be tonight?
Join me and Tamzin, wrestling with her What Not to Miss script as I write, at 6.
Sun bathe first but be there later!!
Alastair
