"I'm the ugliest man that's ever presented a programme"

TV The Guardian has a fabulous interview with Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley on the subject of the ITV morning show Daybreak and its disasterous launch. They're bullish, self-depricating yet defensive and their chemistry underscores that most of the show's problems have nothing to do with them and everything to do with the content. Chiles on the bad press:

"I get up at quarter to four," he says. "I get in the car at five past four, I say hello to the driver, he says hello to me. We both say how knackered we are, and then I read the papers. And I read that I'm the ugliest man that's ever presented a programme, I read that my close friend and co-presenter Christine is a social-climbing slag, and that the programme is the worst thing anyone's seen, and it's tanking, and it's a complete failure. I've read all that by the time I've gone round the Hogarth roundabout, so my day bottoms out at 4.15am. And then people say the problem is I'm grumpy. Well, a) I'm grumpy for a reason; and b) if you have got your arse in your hands, is there anything worse than somebody telling you to cheer up?"

This might yet be seen as the closest they'll get to infamous Bruce outburst on Big Night Out -- unless Chiles goes through with his promise herein to get out of his contract by saying the one word you can't ever get away with saying on television at that time of the morning.