The morning after the General Election, and John is reporting from Downing Street on Labour winning an historic 3rd term. Tony Blair, flying EasyJet (well we all want to save a quid or two) has cleared Luton airport and is presumably on a National Express en route to Victoria bus terminus.

It isn't a great night for Labour; their share of the vote is down by 6%, largely on the back of the unpopular war in Iraq. A notable labour loss is Stephen Twigg, MP for Enfield Southgate. Twigg was of course the first openly gay MP to enter the House of Commons, and was archnemesis of Michael Portillo, having so memorably ousted the tory in one of the most iconic moments in the '97 election.

John's obviously had a late night, and uncharacteristically fluffs one or two lines (for the record, Tony Blower's consituency was not Sheffield.) But, like the professional he is, he seamlessly covers these slips. So, only the most astute of psychology students will be able to identify the cognitive thinking employed by John to recall the name of Mr Twigg.

Calling Dr Freud...

Possibly one of the best half hours in the history of post-supermarket-sweep daytime chat shows was provided by an episode of The Time, The Place in 1996. "Do you think British Men are Lousy Lovers?", asked John. On hand to contribute some light hearted anecdotes to the debate was Thurston Lowe, the renowned sexologist. Well, not really, because Thurston was in fact Christopher Morris, the legendary japester. John knew this of course, he was only pretending that he didn't.

Thurston explained how wealthy Italian women used to ship themselves to Roman Britain to be serviced by the wild native Saxons ( John: "Is that true?!..." Thurston: "Yeah!") and that, in ancient Greek times, the occasional depiction of the minotaur as a large four-legged breast signified man's fear of sex. And apparently, Athena, goddess of wisdom, was so wise because she had a second brain in her breast ( John: "...yeah...")

Late on in the show, John got word though his earpiece that perhaps Thurston was not a sexologist after all, and that he'd been making it all up. John decided to confront the trickster with a rather half-hearted "You're very familiar..." (ie "haven't got a clue who you are...")

Chris attempted to double bluff John, claiming his real name was Peter Davis and that his publishers had asked him not to reveal his name before publication of his book next year. But John was having none of it. Chris had been rumbled.

Whether John still has nightmares about this episode is open to question. Whatever, ITV saw fit to continue with the early morning repeat the next day. Maybe that's not surprising. Perhaps John took the opportunity to demonstrate that he's an all round good egg, and it was he himself who demanded that the show be rebroadcast. Unsubstantiated rumours also suggest that the whole incident was an elaborate jape, devised by John himself, to take at poke at the daytime TV establishment. Whatever, you can bet that the oily Kilroy-Silk wouldn't have stood for it. After all, remember when he kicked that pensioner off his show?

When all said and done, an episode in TV history that can sit proudly alongside classics such as John Noakes / Shep Death incident on Fax ("would you like a glass of water, John?") or like when that kid congratulated Five Star on their musical ability on on Going Live.

Yeah, pretty much as you'd expect; John (aged 23) is inappropriately touched by a strange old man with a false arm.

Rod Hull died in 1999 after falling from his roof whilst fixing the TV aerial during Manchester United's Champions' League semi final with Inter Milan, probably because Emu was mucking about.

It's always funny until someone gets hurt.