A rather frustrating morning. I wrote my EDP column and then jumped into a cab to go to see my friend Sarah Southern perform her TENTATIVELY TORY show. The whole of Edinburgh seemed to be gridlocked. After forty minutes we'd had to avoid two sets of gridlock and ended back where we started. So I missed her show and now can't go to it until my final day, Sunday.
I still can't get over the massive publicity the John McDonnell interview attracted yesterday. Three spots on the Today Programme, front page of the Times and all over the rest of the media too. Quite something. And then all the BBC shows and Sky were running with it all day. It led WATO and PM apparently too.
So my first appointment of the day was to join Christopher Biggins (again!) on his LATE LUNCH show at the Pleasance Dome. He and I are almost forming a double act. It's a live chat show and I was on with my friend Graham Seed who played Nigel Pargetter in The Archers.
Then it was off to the Gilded Balloon for the 4pm show, where my guests today were Jacqui Smith and Louise Casey. It wasn't quite a full house but it was an enthusiastic audience which got more enthusiastic as the hour progressed. And Jacqui became more and more outrageous, culminating in her answer to my question as to which part of her body she loved, and which she hated. "Well I've got nice Tits," she retorted. The audience roared their approval. She then went on to talk about how she found Michel Barnier "a cold fish" and rather arrogant. "Is that because he didn't like your tits?" I replied? It was just like the FOR THE MANY PODCAST for a second!
My 6pm show was with Paul Gambaccini, whose book I published four years ago. I kind of grew up with Paul as he was always part of my Radio 1 listening and when I got the chance to publish his book I leapt at it. He went through agonies courtesy of Operation Yewtree and was treated appallingly by the Metropolitan Police. My problem was that we only had an hour, and I could easily have talked to him for an hour about his radio career and then another hour about the awful experience of being accused of sexual abuse. I think I talked less in this hour than any of the others, which is not a bad thing.
I then went for a drink with Pavan, an LBC listener from Coventry who calls into my show sometimes, and then finished off the evening going to see Frank Skinner, a top guy and very funny with it.
So, today we have Layla Moran and Heidi Allen followed by Sir John Curtice and Michael Crick. And somewhere I've got to find time to write a column for the Evening Standard and ConservativeHome.
