Quoting a previous Steve Martin contribution:-

Even radio legends have their off days you know :-)

http://download.yousendit.com/A05A36E720109260

Damn you for this hideous point scoring.

Actually, to be fair, although I can't really remember it, this was very probably a 'bit'. I used to love doing continuity jokes with myself (sad b'stard, but hey I was young and happy then).

Here's the anoraky bit: You probably know Euronet was never live, but recorded at least two days in advance. It was all mastered onto an 8 hour slow running video tape which would auto-rewind and play out 3 times. I can't remember the exact time it started, it was I think 08:15, maybe 08:00, but the video was changed and started manually at Sky's then tiny Central Technical Area at dead on the right time each morning. It would play until it found no more recording, then it would auto-rewind and play again. The rewind would take (say) 4 minutes, and so the total recording on the tape would have to be (say) 7 hours 56 minutes. Thus the whole cycle of playing, rewinding and playing again took 8 hours. That kinda thing.

Asleep yet?

Anyway, I obviously had to do stuff to get it to time, so this was usually announcements of a continuity nature that would run to fill the last bit of the tape. The tape also opened with what appeared to be a continuation of those continuity announcements.

So, my little game would be to start the whole tape's recording with something that logically followed the 4 minutes of rewind time, and then 8 hours later record something that would be heard ahead of the 4 minutes of rewind time. In simple terms, I could start the 8 hour recording with (say) the answer to a question, and end the 8 hour recording with the question. The listener at home would hear "What's brown and sticky?" followed by 4 minutes of nothing, followed by the answer "A stick!", although in reality I'd recorded "A stick!", waited 8 hours and then recorded "What's brown and sticky?".

With me so far?

Ok, so the clip you have is of me apparently unable to find something, followed by a 4 minute gap, followed by me saying I'd found it. You guessed what I did yet? Yep, recorded the bit where I finally found it first, waited 8 hours then recorded the bit where I couldn't find it. See? Damn I'm good.

Having said that, I can't actually remember doing all that specific sequence and I've no recordings of the lovely Euronet to play to refresh my memories of how awful the station actually was. Sigh.

Anyway. I put it to you that rather than it being an off day it was in fact another demonstration of my sheer brilliance and indeed a very 'on' day. Wouldn't you agree? :-)
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* Christopher England just said that *