Confessions of a Cog

There’s something about Chris.

There’s something about Chris. Don’t know what it is. But his Radio Two breakfast show is so bright, so bouncy, so full of bonhomie, it’s irresistible. I just can’t turn it off — even though I know Evan and Jim are waiting patiently on the other side. By the weekend I was wondering how I’d cope without that blast of high-octane energy to wake me up. Yes, I’m going to have to admit it. I’m a Cog — and proud of it.

He’s not, it’s true, blessed with Sir Terry’s smooth, seductive voice. It’s actually a bit hoarse and grating, and the decibel level is far too high for first thing in the morning when it’s still pitch-dark beyond the bathroom window. He never stops talking, rushing onwards from trifle to trifle and, crime of all crimes, butting in when the music’s still playing. So far, too, his playlist has been ultra-safe, guaranteed not to fluster the Togs. It’s veered from the horrors of ‘Copacabana’ to the embarrassment of reminding us that we once liked Simply Red. But even hearing the Monkees this morning didn’t propel me straight to the ‘off’ button.

Our Chris is a chatterer, a gossip, a non-stop firecracker of disconnected thoughts. You might well think, who needs that first thing in the morning? Yet as he bounces along, one minute daring to chat to a just-awake eight-year-old about his day at a ‘Victorian school’ (Chris brilliantly switched off those extra decibels, as if he were bending down to talk to the obviously overwhelmed kid), and the next, without missing a beat, asking a shepherdess in Shap the name of her three-legged sheepdog, you feel yourself being inexorably drawn in. What on earth is he going to say next?

For sheer professionalism I’d give him (and his team) a nine and a half out of ten.