IT’S always best to interview someone face to face. But sometimes, for whatever reason, that’s just not possible.
The request, “Can you call them on their mobile?” often leads to interesting conversations in all sorts of different ways.
I was having a mobile phone chat with Olympic gold winner turned TV presenter Jonathan Edwards this week. He was sat at home in Newcastle. Or that’s what I thought.

Suddenly the ever polite Jonathan asked, “Ian, do you mind calling me back in ten minutes? I’ve just pulled in for some petrol.”
It turned out he was actually driving to Manchester and talking on a hands free mobile in his car. Life is full of little surprises, as Jonathan – now with a full tank – later explained.
He’s part of the BBC Sport team covering this Sunday’s Great North Run and has his own special memories of the world’s biggest half marathon – from Newcastle to South Shields.
They include starting the run in both 1995 and 2000, plus one incident from working on the live TV coverage last year.
“I was doing the interviews and what I thought was a white snowdrop was running towards me. Then I saw a notice saying, ‘Running for prostate cancer.’ And I thought, ‘That’s not a snowdrop.’ And indeed it wasn’t. It was a sperm.”
Jonathan then had the job of informing the Sunday morning TV audience…
Click here for today’s MEN TV feature.