Breakfast

Life will never be the same again. Companies often send sample products into radio stations, and this week Kellogg's, to tie in with 'National Breakfast Week', sent us a selection of their cereals.

Capital's news editor Matthew Schofield, who sits opposite me, was first to notice the freebie brekky, grabbing the Crunchy Nut Cornflakes with a celebratory flourish, suggesting that his morning was about to get much, much better.

And that was when, with a natural decisiveness, I decided to try them myself. For the first time. Ever.

Mouths gaped in astonishment all around the newsroom.

Dan Dawson from sport said that not having tasted crunchy nut was like never having eaten an apple, so ubiquitous have they become.

My colleague from our sister station Classic FM, Jay Vydelingum, went even further, saying I'd missed what he described - with a certain rhetorical flamboyance, I thought - as a 'cultural flotilla.'

With such genuine gobsmackedness all around me, and as jaws were being retrieved from the floor, I plunged in, filling my bowl to the brim with a product guaranteed, I was told, to tantalise my tastebuds with a ticklishly infectious tableau of tastes.

Everything came to a halt. New news stopped being written. Fresh clips remained unedited as I prepared to end what I'd suddenly come to realise was an embarrassing culinary naivety.

My fellow newsreaders sat with their arms crossed in concentration, knowing they were about to witness something potentially earth-shattering.

After making sure the milk and cereal were properly mixed to an optimum consistency, I lifted my inaugural spoonful from the plastic canteen bowl.

Chewing slowly, so as not to waste the moment, my first impression was of a certain sweetness, and, er, crunchiness. But they were definitely not nutty, as in peanuts or walnuts.

They made a pleasant change, though, to my usual unsweatened muesli, which resembles moist cardboard.