Garbled

The world is full of garbled reports. Yesterday, we were told, apropos of nothing, 3,000 dead. Today, it's '54 dead' in North Korea blast. Yesterday, two trains, one with gas, one with gasoline (subtle difference there), had collided. Though some were sceptical, saying that trains in N. Korea travel so slowly that he couldn't see how such a collision could happen.

Now we're told that one of them had explosives on it, which would explain the explosion.

Most of all, it seems less like an accident and more like a botched assassination attempt. I'm just making that up, but that's what most journalists appear to be doing, most of the time anyway.

One of the pleasures of my life, as you know, is Five Live Drive, with Peter Allen and Jane Garvey. I love Jane Garvey; she's no oil painting but she has the best voice on Radio. I especially love it as she's reading a news item and suddenly finds humour (usually in the one she previously read), and you hear an extra dimension to her voice as she swallows the laugh.

Last night, someone texted in to say that he'd seen her picture in this week's Radio Times, that she was gorgeous, and that Peter Allen was very lucky to work with her. Did they offer signed photos for sale? Peter Allen said, "Which one do you want, the one in the Radio Times, or a more recent one?"

Garvey: "Why? Which one did they use in the Radio Times?"

Allen: "I don't know. Just guessing."

Superb.