My friend John Humphrys has managed to get on to the front pages again. We first met in the 1980s when I was a very junior bod on Today and he had just arrived to present. He was the same then as he is now: argumentative, hostile to authority of any kind, gimlet-focused on what people said (on and off air) but quick to smile too, and quick to laugh at himself. He was also uninterested in his own seniority at a time when the BBC was still as conscious of rank as the department store bosses in Are You Being Served? I don’t think Brian Redhead or John Timpson ever addressed a word to me but this new presenter would talk to anyone about anything. He still does: the other day, at four in the morning, he offered to show me his exercise regime. I had to hide in the loo.
John doesn’t do Twitter.
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