Good afternoon.
The Hollies, Flanders and Swann, even The Who have all celebrated, in song, the contraptions that seem to have woven their way into a lot of our programme tonight.
One "variety" has rediscovered it's capacity to catch on fire; elsewhere, a company has set up a training centre in Warsaw, the capitol of Poland, to teach Poles how to drive them; and Spurs and Arsenal, two great teams we feature on the show tonight, use them to get to matches. The glorious omnibus: if bendy, it can be down-right dangerous; if operated by a Pole, it will be as safe as a safe bus should be; and, if occupied by football players, it will almost certainly be that distant cousin, the luxury coach. Glen and Mike are among the clippies pinging the bell for you, at 6... which is 2 LESS than the number of goals that featured in an extraordinary footy comeback you will enjoy watching, unless you are a brummy. In which case, tough.
Plus, we'll have expert views on whether Arsenal have travelled to yet more glory tonight.
The 2012 travelling people, who now want to travel from their disputed site, can't. The boys from the blackstuff who want to do a good job once the travelling people have travelled, can't either.
It is getting very silly out east and Simon Harris has been digging into why yet more digging has caused such mayhem.
Mayhem, too, around Exhibition Road where plans to turn it into a naked street, which has nothing to do with sex but everything to do with Holland, has caused uproar among those of you who are dependent on guide dogs.
What Katie Melua will make of it all, I dread to think but I guess we'll find out together when she joins us live at 6.
See you then.
Alastair & Katie (Derham, that is: not Melua - she's not here until 6 !)
PS: I know the Hollie's song title included the word Stop but permit the poetic license....
ping-ping.
