I glance around the foyer where, under fluorescent accent lighting, posters of our most popular stars jockey for position. In pride of place, on the magenta wall opposite the entrance, hangs a full-body shot of Sonya Sokolov, a Russian bombshell in silver spandex who hosts, of all things, our children’s cartoon programme. There are multiple pictures of the pale-faced and bushy-eyebrowed youths who present our various music video shows. I’m grateful the promo for my show is positioned down in the basement, outside the studio where we film. One bonus of working at the less illustrious end of this business is that I don’t have to see my face, ten times enlarged and beaming over a bowl of whipped cream, up here on display. In the picture, I’m sporting a stupendously high-peaked white chef’s hat I’ve never once been forced to wear on camera. Not one to play the shrinking violet, here in reception, on the back wall in an ornately gilded frame, hangs a life-sized oil painting of Zelda. Painted as nude as the day she was born, she’s wearing only her gold hoop earrings and a strategically draped plum-coloured silk sheet. In the far corner are black and white photographs of the news crew and of Suzi Sunshine, the latest in a long line of attractive weathergirls – I’m not making up the name, though Suzi might be. Beside Suzi is a patch of canary yellow paint that’s conspicuously brighter than the rest of the wall: the place where Howard’s promo hung for a great many years, until today.

‘Howard may have been a crotchety old goat, but isn’t that what television is all about – personalities?’ Mitzi proposes.

It seems to me profound wisdom for someone reluctantly stuck sitting behind a front desk. ‘I’ll miss the old goat nicking my cooking sherry,’ I say, pricked by an unexpected pang of nostalgia. I will miss chasing Howard out of my studio, him plonking the bottle of fortified wine wherever it lands and cursing me for denying him a drop as I mock-threaten him with my rolling-pin. I will miss it all.

Not to mention that the forced exit of an industry legend doesn’t bode well for my inexperience on a flagging cookery show. A storm is brewing indeed.

‘Drinks are from six tonight at The White Horse,’ Mitzi says.

‘I’ll pop by,’ I say.

‘One last tipple for Howie.’

‘Old trouser snake!’ shouts a baby-faced production assistant, as he crosses the room.

2

From reception, I head directly to the first-floor dressing room. Here, Brendan and Brenda, who ordinarily work for the newsroom, also attend to my hair and make-up each morning – the end result being that I arrive on my cookery set looking like I too should be shoved into a suit, shunted behind a desk and forced to read autocues about breaking headlines.