Mitchell On Meetings

David Mitchell, columnist of this parish, has a new Radio 4 series, Mitchell On Meetings. Mitchell doesn't like them. Mitchell, whose witty, slightly embittered articulacy makes him the ideal Radio 4 personality, has avoided meetings for years. But during this programme, the first of three, he realises that the comedy panel shows that make up much of his professional life are, in fact, quite like meetings: "There are the ones where no one's listening, and people have gone in with 10 things they want to say, and there are the ones where it's actually a conversation..."

This was such a delicious show, so cleverly hosted that interesting information just slid down, medicine sugared by fun. As with the 606-ers, disappointment and irritation are Mitchell's default moods, but, God, he makes them hilarious. On learning that introverts think before they speak, whereas extroverts just start chatting: "Look, while I'm thinking, I'm making a noise, why can't introverts learn that?"