non-You and non-Yours

Preparing a programme which is destined never to go out is a strange experience! I've been trying to find a parallel! Is it like being left at the church, along with all the guests, while your beloved fails to show up! Perhaps it's like a false pregnancy, although at the moment I seem only to be able to come up with examples I either haven't experienced, or am biologically incapable of experiencing.

Ah: I've got it; it's like the long-awaited cup game involving my football team, Southampton which, on the very morning of the game, is called off because of bad weather. There you are: arrangements made, emotions tuned to a high pitch of excitement and then: total deflation; a day stretching ahead whose central point has been removed.

Okay: a bit overblown perhaps; I present You and Yours every Friday: but it was a bit like that at eight o'clock last Friday morning, when we would normally have been starting the morning planning meeting, when we learned that the election was still the only game in town, and that the World at One was to become the World at Twelve, and You and Yours was to become non-You and non-Yours. What made it the more annoying, even though we'd had fair warning that it might happen, was that I'd had to deny myself the pleasurable torture of staying up and watching the results, in order to get the minimum sleep to do a job I knew I might never do.

Still: these things happen in broadcasting, and lest all you care about is not my feelings in the matter but whether there has been any waste of BBC resources, let me assure you most of the items we had prepared will still be used, either in subsequent programmes of mine, or in editions presented by Julian and Winifred. Oh: and that's another thing! While I was denying myself the joy of listening to Dimbleby, Naughtie and co. my fellow-presenters J. and W. were actually out on the stump, bringing you the excitement from counts in Leeds and Ashfield. Not that I'm bitter, you understand! After all, as my friends said, what are you moaning about! you got a half-holiday, didn't you! Trouble is, I never did know what to do with a half-holiday! Anyway, back to business; the next Disability Newsletter will be delivered early next week! Honest!

• Peter White presents You and Yours and In Touch on BBC Radio 4

• You & Yours is on BBC Radio 4 at 1200 weekdays. Listen to today's episode on the Radio 4 web site.


• For more information about schedule changes and Radio 4's coverage of the 2010 general election click here.
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