That Figures
A day of back-to-back meetings in Glasgow which culminated with that anxious moment at half past five in which I'm sent the latest Rajar for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Scotland.
Like every other radio station in Britain we're not allowed to reveal these figures until seven o'clock the following morning so that's about all I can say at the moment.
We get this report four times a year and it's a bit like getting a statistical snapshot of what the audience was doing three months ago. That forces you to remember what was happening during the long, hot Scottish summer. Does warm weather mean that people listen to more radio... or less? You can drive yourself mad trying to second guess this kind of thing.
Luckily I managed to escape from it all when our sports presenter Annie McGuire knocked on my office door and invited me to a bar across the road for a glass of wine. We were deep in conversation about the future of Scottish football when a man slapped a brochure on our table and tried to persuade me to join some kind of fantasy car club which offered the chance to drive any one of fifteen luxury cars.
"£2000 pounds a year, " the man explained, "plus Vat of course."
I immeditately rushed to the toilet and checked the mirror to ensure that my head did not button up at the back.
