A fan-favourite presenter returned to Good Morning Britain on Friday after several weeks away
Good Morning Britain fans were delighted as a beloved star made their return to the ITV show on Friday (November 28).
During this morning’s instalment of the popular show, Kate Garraway was accompanied by Rob Rinder as they brought viewers the most recent news stories from Britain and beyond. It signals Rob’s comeback to the programme following a break of several weeks.
They were accompanied in the studio by Charlotte Hawkins, who managed the remainder of the day’s bulletins, whilst Laura Tobin delivered regular weather updates live from Austria.
Upon witnessing Rob’s comeback to the programme, numerous GMB watchers swiftly flocked to social media to express their joy, reports Wales Online.
“Glad to switch on to @robrinder, best presenter on the show, go get ’em Rob,” one viewer posted on X (formerly Twitter), with another commenting: “Brilliant to have Rob Rinder on this morning.”
A third declared, “Yay, Rob’s back!” with another likewise posting: “Nice to see Rob on.”
On today’s show, Rob and Kate discussed Labour’s U-turn on a key pledge for workers after they abandoned a promise to give all employees the right to claim unfair dismissal from their first day of employment. Business groups say it’s a crucial change.
They also anticipated a decision on whether the go-ahead will be given for a nationwide programme to screen millions of men for prostate cancer.
Plus, the duo met the everyday heroes aiming to top the charts, and revealed what could be Britain’s most Christmassy house.
However, ITV viewers couldn’t help but share their complaints minutes in as they didn’t understand why Laura was presenting the weather segment from the Austrian mountains instead of the studio.
“Scores of weather presenters and accompanying TV crews have travelled to Austria to talk about climate change,” one person wrote.
Another added: “Why is Laura in Austria to tell us about the UK weather? I thought we had to watch our carbon footprint?” while a third said: “Laura flew to Austria to discuss climate change on top of a mountain.”
A fourth fan echoed the sentiment, saying: “The show’s climate activist has pointlessly travelled to Austria. Think of the carbon footprint you’ve used, Tobin.”
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays on ITV1 and ITVX at 6am
A discussion about the budget was rapidly descending into an argument when Susanna Reid was forced to interrupt Good Morning Britain to reveal some devastating news
Heated Good Morning Britain budget chat interrupted as breaking news stirs up ‘awful memories’(Image: ITV)
Good Morning Britain‘s Susanna Reid was forced to interrupt a heated discussion about the budget as heartbreaking news came in. The ITV morning show host said the news brought back “awful memories”.
Susanna and the shows’ guests were talking about the “smorgasbord” of tax rises expected in the budget and the presenter seemed to be getting irate about the vague language being used to discuss it, frustratingly calling it all “semantics”.
But she soon had to stop the discussion to reveal some breaking news. “We’ve got some news coming out of Hong Kong,” she started. “Where a fire is engulfing a residential building.”
As live footage came in of the building burning, Susanna found the fire difficult to talk about. “Wow, goodness me, these are live pictures. They bring back awful memories don’t they?”
She couldn’t help drawing parallels between the Hong Kong fire, where several people are trapped inside, and the tragedy at Grenfell Tower in 2017.
The fire at Grenfell resulted in 72 deaths and a public inquiry was started to establish what happened and how such a disaster can be prevented in the future.
The inquiry, which only ended in February this year, found that there was a chain of failures across government and the private sector led to Grenfell Tower becoming a death trap in the event of a fire, as the cladding and insulation were failed fire safety tests.
Susanna described “plumes of grey smoke” coming out of the Hong Kong building and said local fire departments were “battling” to put out the fire and save the people inside.
Kevin Maguire, who was on the show to talk about the budget, said: “You’ve just got to hope that there are lots of exits and that the outside windows have been fitted properly so unlike Grenfell, the fire can’t go outside.”
After the Grenfell fire, it was found that the fire was able to move more easily between the interior and exterior of the building as the windows’ surrounds were made of materials that were less resistant to the heat. The windows themselves were an insufficient size when they were refurbished, necessitating larger surrounds.
Good Morning Britain soon turned back to talk about the budget. Andrew Pierce said he thought Rachel Reeves would be sacked after the budget.
This Morning star Michelle Elman has revealed that she is set to undergo another brain surgery after a scan showed another cyst on her brain
This Morning’s Michelle Elman shares that she’s set to undergo brain surgery after scan discovery(Image: Getty Images for BAFTA)
She has earned herself a legion of fans on the back of her life changing advice as This Morning’s relationship and life coach. But away from the cameras the TV expert has been battling a debilitating condition.
Michelle Elman recently revealed that she is to undergo surgery after a scan showed a new cyst had grown on her brain. The 32 year old star has been dealing with a condition called hydrocephalus.
This condition is caused by fluid building up on the brain creating pressure, that can be fatal if left untreated. Taking to social media, Michelle told her followers that she plans to remove the cyst next year.
On her Instagram story, she penned: “Yesterday I found out I need another brain surgery. I have a cyst in my brain again and also the magnet in my brain needs replacing.”
Currently, Michelle lives with a metal magnet on her brain which doctors inserted to control the flow of fluid to reduce a build up.
Michelle continued: “It’s not urgent but it is needed so now I have to figure out when to schedule this so it disrupts my life as little as possible. Inevitably I will have to pause my life and go deal with this, likelihood it will be next year, but until then it’s business as usual.”
But this is not the first time Michelle has been under the surgeon’s knife. She previously revealed that she has battled a brain tumour, a punctured intestine and obstructed bowels. And on the back of her various conditions, she has undergone 15 surgeries.
The TV personality has not had the best of luck. As she also shared with viewers on This Morning that she was engaged for a mere 24 hours after finding out that her fiancé, who she had been darting for three years, was cheating on her.
Hours after her partner popped the question a woman contacted her to expose her boyfriend’s deceitful behaviour.
Sat on the TV show’s infamous sofa, she revealed: “He was with me when I got the first message saying ‘Is this person your fiance?’ “I thought it was a colleague, like this person knows you, and it took a while to figure out. My first reaction was shock.”
She continued: “I was shaking and I kept saying, ‘Please tell me first I don’t want to find out from her’.”
Last year, she told hosts Ben Shepherd and Cat Deeley :”We met on a dating app, he was my first date after the pandemic. Love of my life, healthiest relationship I had ever had. I was engaged and then a woman reached out and asked if he was my fiancé. I ended up speaking to her for an hour on the phone. He was on a dating app, he was on a business trip and yeah…”
She continued: “I fully back myself. I am emotionally intelligent, smart, intelligent woman. I have every tool in my tool kit to notice red flags. If someone wants to lie to you they will. Wholeheartedly I did not see any red flags. As a red flag the second you go on their phone, the relationship is gone. The trust is gone.’
Unpacking how the revelation unfolded, she went on to say: “Then it was screenshots of the dating profile and his number, I believed her from the get go, but I needed evidence. She told me the hotel, and I said put that in your email, and it came up, then he admitted it. He admitted it and to others as well but I think my reaction was just was ‘you have ruined a good thing, this is supposed to be happiest day of my life’.”
His Saturday Morning show is even set for a new slot on ITV One next year as viewing figures continue to grow. The show, which began in 2017, will be extended until midday from January, reports the Mirror.
And while James has seen his audience share increase by around 8%, it seems his mum is often critical about one part of the programme. The Yorkshireman says his mum Sue often slams his outfit choices.
Speaking to IrelandLive, he said: “Usually my mum phones me up and says, ‘That shirt looks s*** – you can’t wear that again’. That’s usually the comment I get on Saturday Morning – ‘What the bloody hell are you wearing that shirt for?’ That’ll be the one, after all these years.”
James says his mum often sends him critiques of his look on screen. He explained she often says his hair “looks a mess” and asks if he had a night on the town before recording.
The chef however jokes that it “keeps him grounded”. James has now been on Saturday morning television for over two decades, first on Saturday Kitchen on the BBC before making the jump to ITV in 2017.
James has previously revealed that the desire to pursue his own projects was part of the reason for the switch.
Speaking at the Love Food show, James explained that ITV bosses ask what type of shows he wants to front.
Discussing his TV career, James said: “Television, I got dragged into it with the Hotel du Vin and I got dragged into it even more with the BBC and I think, having a reset, and by leaving that and resetting and going to ITV.
“ITV were the first people in 30 years who said, ‘What do you want to do?’ And that’s when I sat in a meeting and said, ‘Look, I’d love to go back to where I used to work in France’.”
James launched his illustrious career at Hotel Du Vin, where he became head chef at just 22 years old, a role that paved the way for his television debut on Ready Steady Cook and The Big Breakfast.
Before joining the Winchester establishment, he refined his culinary skills at Hostellerie De Plaisance in Saint-Émilion, France.
James Martin’s Saturday Morning will be back on screens from 9.30am today (November 8). This week Gavin & Stacey star Joanna Page, master mixologist Merlin Griffiths, and chefs Francesco Mazzei and Jude Kereama will join James at his Hampshire property.
There’s no shortage of bands commemorating their glory days as decade anniversaries of albums fly by. Yet few landmark releases feel not only fresh but forward-thinking 20 years after they were recorded. My Morning Jacket stumbled onto this kind of brilliance in October 2004 when it released its fourth studio album “Z.” Across 10 tracks of lush, euphoria-driven rock ‘n’ roll, the band captured a notable tone shift in its sound that melded Southern rock, haunting folk, psychedelic soul laced with jam band energy. It’s a set of songs that still make up a huge chunk of the bands live show. In September the band performed the album in its entirety to a sold-out Hollywood Palladium for its 20th anniversary.
“We still play these songs all the time,” said frontman and principal songwriter Jim James in a recent conversation. “So it’s not like we broke up after we released ‘Z’ and then we got back together 20 years later to play these songs, and it’s such a trip. We’ve been playing them nonstop for 20 years.”
Shortly after the release of its 10th studio album “is,” the band put out a deluxe reissue of “Z” that includes four B-sides and a whole album’s worth of demo versions of songs like “Wordless Chorus,” “Off the Record” and Dodante. Recently James spoke to The Times about the enduring power of “Z” and the joy of going back to the beginning of the album’s origins to give himself and his fans a new appreciation for the groundbreaking sound the band created.
The rerelease of “Z” was prefaced earlier this year with a full-album show at the Palladium. What was it like revisiting the album on stage first before it came out (again) on vinyl and streaming?
This is our fourth album now to hit the 20-year mark. So we’ve got some experience now doing these album shows. And it’s funny because some of the earlier albums we don’t play all the songs from them so we had to go back and relearn a lot of songs. But the songs from “Z” we pretty much play all the songs all the time. So it’s pretty hilarious how it involved no effort. It just involved playing them in that order of the sequence of the album. But we kind of laughed about that. We’re like, man, we don’t really even have to do any research or anything. We were all kind of reflecting just on how grateful we are that we like playing all the songs still. It’s such a great feeling to play songs for 20 years and never really get tired of them. People still want to hear them and there’s still excitement there, and they still feel fresh. It’s really a beautiful thing.
This was your first album using an outside producer. What was that like for you as the songwriter to step in the studio with John Leckie to help you realize your vision with “Z”?
It was so great, because I really needed somebody who could work with me and not let our egos clash too much. John was just really great about coming in and respecting what I wanted to do, but also voicing his opinion and what he liked and what he didn’t like and when he thought we could do better. And it was just really so refreshing and so good for us to have him there. I mean, his track record speaks for itself, he’s somebody who you can trust right off the bat, just because of all the things they’ve done in the past. He’s such a soft-spoken gentleman but he also has this hilarious, brutal honesty about him, which was always really great.
Your lineup had also changed between the previous album “It Still Moves” and “Z” — adding keyboard player Bo Koster and guitarist Carl Broemel who are still in the band today. So was that like stepping in the studio with the “new guys” for the first time?
It was really nerve-racking and really exciting all at once. We had some touring experience under our belt with Bo and Carl, so we kind of knew that it was working out on that level, but we’d never really recorded before, so it was a real test for all of us. And I think we all knew that. So everybody brought their A game to the session and we took it really seriously, but we also had a lot of fun and just really kind of got to know each other. That was good to do that out in the middle of nowhere, out there in the Catskills, up at the studio. It gave us some time to really bond without a lot of the real-world stuff coming in or other people coming in. So I think that was really important, that we did it that way.
Do you remember what song came out of the sessions first?
“It Beats 4 U” was the first one, because that was one we had already played live before we started recording. So I think that was the first song that we started messing with. But I think they all were kind of coming to life around the same time. So by the time we got in there to start unpacking them, I had already written them and kind of made the demos of them and stuff.
It’s great that you included so many demo versions of your songs on this rerelease. What was the process like of locating these, sifting through and sequencing which ones you wanted to put on the album?
Well, I love demos for a lot of my favorite bands — I love it when I get to hear the demos from the albums. So I’m always saving all that stuff; with my own stuff I’m always compiling all the demos, because that’s half the fun to me. Because sometimes you get this just like a beautiful glimpse into the song. Quite often, I end up liking the demo more than I like the actual album, song because you get a whole, whole new view of it. It’s also interesting when you’re sequencing for vinyl, because you don’t have unlimited time so you kind of got to pick and choose, and that kind of forces you to just choose the best. There’s a whole other round of band demos and then there were my demos, so there were a lot of things to choose from. But it kind of helps me to look at it in vinyl format. There’s still something about the vinyl time limit that helps with quality control. Just kind of pick the ones that I feel are most effective and then try and make a fun sequence so that hopefully, if somebody’s into them, it’s kind of like you get a bonus album that you can listen to.
We had four true songs, B-sides, that we really love too, that weren’t demos. So that was really nice to finally get those out, because those had been on different soundtracks. And then one wasn’t even released. So I don’t think that those weren’t even on streaming or anything for years and years. So it’s really cool to have those out kind of everywhere now, because I’ve always liked all those songs and been proud of those songs too. And I think most bands know the feeling of you know when you make a record. Sometimes songs just don’t fit the record, even if you still love the songs.
MMJ during the “Z” era.
(Sam Erickson)
Were you playing any of those live at the point where you released the album the first round, or did you shelve them for later?
We’ve always played “Where to Begin” live — off and on. We’ve also tried “Chills” a couple times, and I think we did “How Could I Know” a couple times. We’ve never played “The Devil’s Peanut Butter,” we kinda forgot that one existed until this whole [album rerelease] process started, and I found that song again. So we’ll probably play that one somewhere out on the next leg.
Was this process something that you enjoy doing, like, in terms of your how to, sort of like, reexamine an album?
I really love it because I just feel so grateful that anybody even gives a s–, you know? I mean, so there’s that part of me that’s just so grateful to even still be in the game, talking about this. But beyond that, it’s really cool for me because it’s like jumping in a time machine and going back and looking at that point in my life and getting perspective on where I am now, and seeing how I’ve grown and asking “where have I changed? Where have I not changed?” I look back and with all of these albums as they come up to this 20-year mark, and I see I’ve always been really mean and hard on myself, on Jim, but I know that Jim was doing the best he could at each time. That’s the one thing I’ve always kind of been able to see, to get myself through, to not be too hard on myself. I know I was giving it everything I had, so whether I would change things about it as I am today or not — we all look back on the past, and maybe there’s things we’d do differently, but it gives me a lot of comfort to know that I was trying as hard as I could, and all the guys in the band were trying as hard as they could. It really makes me feel proud of us for just putting in the time and effort.
