Good afternoon.
Katie asked if she might bring her wrap into the meeting. I accept it is cold but I didn't think she needed to cover her elegant neck and shoulders. How foolish I felt when I was told she was referring to a kind of Tex-Mex sweet-meat. Just goes to show how little some of us know about food.
School kids have no such problems. They know what they like and they reject and leave what they don't. Enter a brilliant Scottish chef who has just been voted school dinner laddie (check the spelling! a nearly clever gallic play on words) for cracking this perennial problem. You will be calling "Please sir, I want some more" when you see his skilled recipe for not only engaging the children in the creation of the food but also the verve with which they woof it down. Good tea-time stuff with Estelle.
Did you ever write notes, before exams, on your cuffs? Perhaps a small piece of paper, with crucial quotes for Corialanus, crammed in your knicker elastic? Ah, fond memories of youth, and pushing the boundaries of inventiveness and fraud. Well, there's a school tests scandal rocking our education system: systematic cheating - well certainly at certain schools, one of which is in Hemel Hempstead and another in Hackney.
What I think will make you spill your tea, even if it is a tightly wrapped wrap, is who has been doing the cheating. Phil Bayles puts an unlikely suspect in the corner and hears why mums and dads rather than jacks and jills are heading for detention. "It's a shokker" - (write that out properly, a hundred times, Stewart.)
Jerry Seinfeld was one of the most successful and certainly the most highly paid US sitcom artist for years. His vehicle was, unimaginatively called Seinfeld, yielding millions of viewers and millions of bucks for his efforts. So when someone of that stature and success floats an idea for a movie, those in the know are inclined to listen. But Steven Spielberg... and bees? Steve has donned a black and yellow fur coat to do his Mr
Bumble act on the red carpet to see what resulted from the Hollywood hive. The office is buzzing. No, really!
I have needed cold drinks, a darkened room and a chaise lounge to rest upon since it was confirmed that the Goddess of Covent Garden and the Venus of the Valleys are both dropping by to talk "Viva la Diva". I find my joints tightening and my palms perspiring as I write 'Darcey Bussell and Katherine Jenkins are live, on the show tonight!"
Katie is also very excited but in a purely artistic sense. I share that but am also like a little boy who knows Santa HAS read his Christmas letter.
Finally, the Mayor's head of race relations, Lee Jasper, will be with us.
This is a tough one. The Evening Standard has published two articles claiming Lee's activities leave something to be desired when it comes to the selection, funding and monitoring of certain groups in London engaged in race relations and ethnic diversity. You've probably read the articles but tonight you can hear what the target of them himself thinks. It matters because, if for no higher reason, it's your city and your money.
This is a tough one. The Evening Standard has published two articles claiming Lee's activities leave something to be desired when it comes to the selection, funding and monitoring of certain groups in London engaged in race relations and ethnic diversity. You've probably read the articles but tonight you can hear what the target of them himself thinks. It matters because, if for no higher reason, it's your city and your money.
We'll have the latest on the threat of a bus strike over pay in East and West London - that's the buses in East and West London, not the pay. Tamsin Roberts, we welcome back, but, as she slipped into her "clippie's cozzie", looked to me as if she wished the strike had already started.
Robin lightens your night with the weather, and thousands of light bulbs and sacks-full of singers in Trafalgar Square mean Christmas really is approaching.
As, I think, Darcy and Katherine probably are. Time for another moment of cool, calm reflection.
Up on your toes and through all those scales - we're live at 6.
Hope you join us.
Alastair & Katie.
