I used to do my Nelson Mandela voice to blag restaurant tables in Cape Town. It rarely worked. Now what a great city that is.

That business aspect of the media, that Charlotte Street world, the advertising and programme executives, it leaves me absolutely cold. I'm supposed to be the director of a television company, but I've only ever seen that company as a vehicle for making the kind of programmes we wanted to make, getting our ideas on the screen.

Tony Blair has always said he will be judged by history. Now Alastair Campbell is history we await his judgment.

Just when exactly does the Millennium begin? Some say 1999, some say 2000, and some say 2001. You wait a thousand years for one, and three turn up at once.

When you consider what Tony Blair was saying about liberty, human rights and that sort of thing, it would be terribly revolutionary to sell the speeches he and Jack Straw made in 1994.

Multimedia? As far as I'm concerned, it's reading with the radio on!

Now I'm instantly nervous about the demands of doing a weekly column.