Alex Lester - The Best Time of The Day!

The Best Time of The Day!

Alex Lester keeps U.K. truckers and other night-shift workers awake with his weird and strange observations, but. without him, we would be lost. Long live the Dark Lord and "The Wife". The programme currently starts at 2am, ending at 5am, and has become something of a national institution with an enormous and fiercely loyal cult audience of nightshift workers and early risers. The meaningless but catchy show slogans are SCOF (Swirling Cesspool Of Filth) and Slap My Top (thought to be a variation on the music hall soundbite slap my thigh - but reserved exclusively for people with bald heads) and listeners have marketed the show by writing the phrase in the dirt on the backs of trucks and vans. There was a limited edition range of T-shirts with the slogan written in Cantonese developed by a listener, which Lester awarded to people who came up with the most innovative uses of the slogan - winners included a local radio reporter who got the expression into a story; a man who wrote and recorded a song with the slogan as its title; a mystery girl, for placing an ad for Lester's show in the small ads section of a local newspaper and a man who developed a website which remains a communal meeting point for the programme's listeners, and is listed in the External Links section below. As well as T-Shirts another listener produced a range of glow in the dark Alex Lester wristbands which were also given away as prizes on the show.The new phrase for the 2010 - 2011 Truck Writing Season is WALLOP (We're Alex Lester's Lovely Overnight People).

Despite the ungodly hour, Lester prides himself on calling his programme The Best Time Of The Day. As one of the longest-serving broadcasters on the network, he is occasionally heard on Radio 2 during the daytime when regular presenters are away. The new slogan for the show is buffoon town.

The programme was broadcast from 4am until 6.30am from 1990 until 1992, and from 3am to 5am until 1994. For sixteen years after 1994 the programme began at 3am and finished at 6am, until it was rescheduled in 2010 after changes to the Radio 2 morning schedule. It now broadcasts from 2am to 5am every weekday.