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From Kevin Marsh:
There's something almost unbearably sad about this time of year.
The realisation that summer is turning into autumn. That there'll be no more days of real heat; that the days are getting shorter, the nights longer and that soon another year will be over and we will all be fractionally nearer our end.
Here at Today, of course, it's not the earlier sunsets that bother us. It鈥檚 the later sunrises. Especially the presenters. Actually, it all got a bit anxiety inducing this week because in the office move (operation "Re-arranging the Deckchairs") someone mislaid the box of dayglo armbands that John, Jim, Sarah and Ed wear to make sure they get in safely and unmolested on dark mornings. I bought them replacements, obviously, because I know you have to look after presenters and anyway the dawn crocodile of Today presenters picking its way to the studio is a bit of a local feature and in some people's minds a minor tourist attraction.
Margaret Lovett - who was without doubt the interview of the week - would understand the comfortable attraction of the scene, pitched emotionally somewhere between the Ovalteenies and Start-Rite shoes. Ms Lovett is the marvellous lady who wrote "The Great and Terrible Quest" some forty years ago; one of the most captivating children's books ever, but one which became mysteriously rare in the intervening years. As a result, some cad in the US had, apparently, republished a facsimile of the book - without sending its author a penny in royalties, assuming rather callously, one imagines, that Ms Lovett was no longer with us. Well, she is still among us. And conducts herself with a grace that should shame all of us. Ms Lovett insisted that she was not too concerned that her intellectually property rights had been breached, nor that finally she was receiving a royalties cheque. Rather she was glad that ! someone had taken her book (which she said she always rather liked) and made it available once again.
Culture clash of the week came on Wednesday. The question: is the Harley Davidson motorbike still cool ? Or is the belief that it's cool just the fantasy of middle-aged men who should know better ? The discussion pitched antipodean Paul Lewis - a nine times grand prix bike champion - against Christian Broughton - who edits the consumer section in 'Time Out'. You got the feeling that Mr Lewis would be at home on Route 66: Mr Broughton on the number 66.
Earlier, though, the very idea of the item had clicked some switch in Sarah. As soon as she got in that morning and saw her name against it on the running order, she threw caution and her dayglo armbands to the winds, kicked off her fur-lined bootees and leapt on the studio table playing "Born to be Wild" on an air guitar screaming "eat your heart out Suzie Quattro." Jim - who has a bit of the Dennis Hopper about him when you think about it - played it cooler. He eased off his duffle coat, slid into a cumfy chair, ripped the lid off his Alice B Toklas lunchbox and started nibbling furtively at some "special brownies" he'd brought in that morning.
As the sun came up, the look in his eye became more and more distant - but I was on my way into a meeting so that's probably why he didn't offer me one.
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