To listen to my brief appearance on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 yesterday, click on the image below.
Or here.
The item begins at 32:30 and includes an interview with Don Bryden, MD of the recruitment company that is offering non-smokers an additional four days’ holiday a year to ‘compensate’ them for the time smokers are allegedly away from their desks on fag breaks.
I understand the idea began as office banter so Bryden must be pinching himself at all the free publicity. In the interviews I have seen and heard he certainly seems to be enjoying the attention. Likewise his staff - even the smokers. They all seem to think it's a great wheeze.
The Jeremy Vine interview took place while I was en route to record another interview for Channel 5 News at the ITN studios in London. Appropriately, perhaps, they were both conducted with me standing outside, sheltering from the wind and rain.
For Radio 2 I had to speak to Vine on my mobile on the periphery of Kings Cross station. It took me a while to find somewhere where there wasn’t too much noise from train announcements or passing traffic.
When I eventually found a quiet corner and was about to go on air I found myself competing with a station cleaner and his trolley, a man conducting a loud conversation on his own phone, and a couple of smokers looking for somewhere to have a quick cigarette.
Having survived their unwelcome presence, I arrived early at ITN and was invited to make use of their splendid new cafe called Healthy & Happy. Ironically this was a theme Don Bryden kept pushing to justify his firm’s new policy.
When the time came to be interviewed however I was naturally dispatched outside where it was blowing a mini gale. At one point we had to stop filming while a huge lorry reversed behind us.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the exciting and glamorous world I inhabit.
Anyway, I shall be back in London today to do another interview on the subject, this time for Sky News. Fingers crossed, I'll be in a nice warm studio.
Update: For the Sky News interview I was indeed in a studio, albeit one that was no larger than a broom cupboard.
It was also so cold they apologised in advance!
