Who's that Brit?

Despite trips to the supermarket (due to Mrs’ Ryan’s aversion to shopping brought on by being the size of the Ocado mother ship), ferrying the youth to rugby/cinema and a 9 year old sleep over, I managed some quality time this weekend.

My favourite part of the whole lot was nearly 4 hours of unbroken Piers Morgan. Let me qualify that, I’m not his biggest fan; in fact he is clearly up himself. But let’s face it, we had seen the best of Larry King, and to see a fellow countryman taking on a US broadcast institution is a big deal. When interview no.3 (Condoleezza Rice) was asked if she knew who he was, could only manage “Of course, he’s a Brit.”

My suspicion this was a slur was confirmed when she went on to say “We all know the Brits can make the telephone directory sound intellectual when they read it.”

Putting that aside, the interviews with America’s largest media icons, Oprah Winfrey and Howard Stern, were fantastic. Both difficult to interview for different reasons, both with their own constituencies these were difficult interviews. Taking them on first was with hindsight stroke of genius because he pulled it off, but had it gone the other way would have been foolhardy.

I wish the best of luck, and sincerely hoe he goes onto be an icon of the US media that rivals his first two interviews and the greatest talk show host of the all, his predecessor.