How do I ever get speaking gigs? I’m guessing it goes like this…

To Brighton, to address a conference of property investors. Unusually, I find myself programmed alongside both Gerard Lyons, City economist turned Mayor Boris’s adviser, who is notably upbeat in his forecast, and Robert Peston, who is distinctly downbeat in an extended after-dinner lecture with graphs, but gets away with it because his voice mannerisms are so compelling and women in the audience are fascinated by his new haircut.

I do a lot of this kind of work and always enjoy it, but what’s different this time is that I’m more accustomed to being booked as a stand-in for the likes of Pesto and Lyons than as a stand-up awards-ceremony-compère sandwiched between them — the solo gigs generally coming my way after phone calls to the speaker agency that, I imagine, go something like this…

‘Hello, we’d like to book that brainy sexpot Robert Peston off the telly to light up our business conference.