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i heard the funniest thing on the today program this morning. they ran an article marking the 100th anniversary of the introduction of the sos signal as the international distress call, and they had a morse code expert in the studio to talk a little of the history of the signal. in addition, he was to tap out a morse code message, for listeners to decipher.

i can just imagine the editor's reasoning for including this stunt in the program, and, even as i listened, i could sense the expressions of horror and panic spreading across the faces of the presenters. for as the morse code bleeps passed the one minute mark, i detected uncomfortable shuffling of papers from sarah montague. this was soon followed by alan partridge style attempts at tactful interruption:

'i think, er...right. we're...we're going to have to cut in here...it's either an extremely long message, or you're repeating it over and over'.

the morsist, sounding hurt, protested that it was only 'what they asked him to say'. and with edward stourton chuckling in the background, montague eventually tells him that he he could 'stop it now, that would be lovely'.

you can listen to the whole clip here.