For Years, We've Grown Dependant On American

The Key Thing About Me Is That I'm Really Not Very Interesting.

Now I Can Broadcast To An Audience Of Several Million People On The 'today' Programme. I Can Talk About The Day's News. But On Radio, Believe It Or Not, We Have Notes And Scripts. And While We Might Ad Lib The Odd Wryly Amusing Asides, They Come At The Frequency Of A Suburban Bus. About One Every 90 Minutes.

It Is No Wonder That Bank Capital Is Regulated. When Borrowing And Lending Is Profitable, It Is Tempting For Banks To Scale Up Their Operations And To Borrow And Lend Too Much In Relation To Their Capital, In Effect Reducing The Effectiveness Of The Potential Capital Cushion.

I Rarely Come Away From Presenting The 'today' Programme Without Some Sense Of Regret. There Is Always Some Question That I Should Have Asked, Or Some Point That I Should Have Made. This Is Annoying But Not Surprising. Perfection Is Hard To Achieve In A Three-hour Live Programme.

A Chair's Function Is Not Just To Provide A Place To Sit; It Is To Provide A Medium For Self-expression. Chairs Are About Status, For Example. Or Signalling Something About Oneself. That's Why The Words Chair, Seat And Bench Have Found Themselves Used To Describe High Status Professions, From Academia To Parliament To The Law.