Something to get up for

Well, today was a first for me. I listened to the Today programme on iPlayer, because I had to hear it again!

I woke this morning as usual at 6:15am, put the radio on and was treated to an erudite, somewhat left-field analysis of the place of the City of London in the life of the nation. This was followed by a wonderful critique of the politics of sport introduced by the flat voiced Rob Bonnet. I wondered if I was tuned to the right station. But I was.

And the contributions kept getting better - Rowan Williams reading his poetry, John Pilger at his polemic best taking the media to task for not reporting the facts, even Tom Waits singing about the weather in the run up to the 6:58 forecast!

And the reason for all this? PJ Harvey was guest editor and wanted to give the programme a fresh twist. She certainly did that - and some! I've no doubt there'll be a lot of whining about objectivity and propaganda but I'd be delighted if Polly Jean were to guest edit the show once a week. It would restore the balance that people are always banging on about by giving us the chance to hear a different set of witnesses from the world's coalface.

Fantastic stuff - thanks BBC (that three hours on its own was worth my licence fee for this year) and thanks PJ Harvey for your creativity, wit and chutzpah!