9. The Today Programme

Oh, I know...'yawn'. Just another middle-class liberal who doesn't have to get up and go out to a real job, pontificating about the BBC's in-house toothless terriers. But wait! Give me a chance. It's not what you think.

For the large part, the Today programme provides a soothing background burble as I emerge from sleep and attempt to engage brain and sinew. It gives me something to latch onto that isn't the sultry temptation of dreamland. In the old days, the alarm was set to come on at half-past seven, which meant that I awoke to the sports report. I don't care about sport, but Gary's got a voice well-suited to the early morning. Now that I am a slugabed writer, the alarm comes on at eight - so I get a bit of news and then left in the tender care of the Today presenters, and that's when things become interesting. I think the combinations are important. If it's Sarah and John, I know there will be a certain amount of giggling. If it's Justin and Evan, I don't think it's fanciful to suggest that you can sense the vanity, the posturing - the sexual tension? After all, Justin's got seriously perfect hair, and Evan seems to enjoy his seniority. I'm always glad to listen to Sarah, but sometimes Evan gets a bit squeaky - like today, when he was being tormented by an oiler-than-thou Tory lying about manipulating crime statistics. I understand why Evan becomes enraged, I just wish his indignation didn't make him sound so much like Julie Burchill.

Sometimes a segment will infuriate me sufficiently to catapult me out of bed and into the shower, muttering darkly. It might be John giving somebody an unreasonably hard time because he feels like it and fancies rolling some extra rrrrrs today. It might be a politician, lying and evading and disappointing. Yesterday's example was a young female playwright (a demographic of which I am generally inordinately fond) who couldn't string an articulate sentence together. It took her the best part of 10 minutes (with revivifying tea break) to adequately describe what her new play was about! I thought Baroness Warnock was going to have to practice some euthanasia, right there and then.

The mornings that begin with a rant from me often precede energetic, productive days. At very least, my weekday rendezvous with the Today programme keeps me better informed than I would be if I relied solely on the Guardian and the front cover of Reveal! magazine - my only other sources of news. For that alone, I think we should all be thankful.

Your editors today were Georgina Baker, and Spell Check. Good Morning.