'The alarm clock goes off at 2am but I'm usually awake before then. Having a routine is the key. If you don't have a routine you are screwed. Up at two, shower and shave before 2.15am then put my suit on; everything except socks and tie. Don't ask me why, it just is. I'll have breakfast - two pieces of toast and a cup of tea - with the radio on. Now that I've WiFi'd my apartment I'll have my laptop open so I can look at news websites, although I'm more likely to be looking out the window, thinking 'God, this is hell'.
At about 2.30am I'll put on my tie. The viewers notice if you've worn the same tie twice. I keep a dark tie in my desk drawer for sombre occasions. The only time I remember us wearing black ties was for the Queen Mother's funeral and that was because there was a row at the BBC, where the anchor had worn a dark maroon.
The dilemma is, if you wear a black tie for one occasion, when do you not wear one? If I wear a black tie for the Queen Mother, but not for a foreign leader, am I sending an insulting message? I had a viewer from Asia chastising me for wearing a red tie during our tsunami coverage. What was I thinking of; 'Are you so ignorant you do not know that red is an auspicious colour in Asia?' I looked at my tie and it was vermillion red, almost a dark brown, but people were very offended by it. But when the Sri Lankan high commissioner arrived on the show he was wearing a tie that was redder than mine!
At 2.40am I'm back to the kitchen to pack the food I'm going to take to the office. It's usually a supermarket ready meal. I like to have a proper meal before I go on air. It may be 4am but I like to have pasta or something like that. Now it's 2.50am and since I gave up smoking I've started using patches. The speed with which I get the patch on depends on whether I've had a cigarette. The car picks me up at 3am and I'm only 10 minutes from the office. It's important I get into the car at 3am so I can hear the news from the BBC World Service. It's important to know what the opposition is doing.
Editorial meetings between ourselves in London and Atlanta are between 3.30am and about 4.30am, while we are putting together the gist of the programme. That takes us to about 4.45am and between 5am and 9am I'm on air. It's a weird experience. We are talking to people in Europe who are naked in their apartments or hotel rooms. Who do you want in the room with you when you are naked? You have to keep that in mind. Breakfast broadcasting is by far the most intimate. You are having a coffee, you are not really awake and I'm saying, 'Let me tell you what happened since you went to bed.'
After 9am we have a debrief meeting and that is our time to say what worked and what didn't. In a three-hour show you are going to get it wrong. You come out of a sombre story and you suddenly see the tease for the next piece because you are coming up to a break. 'And coming up next - balloon-juggling elephants!' Whose fault is that? That's everybody's fault. It's the writer for writing it, the producer for putting it there and most of all it's the d***head anchor because he didn't realise that's what he had to read next. So I read my scripts during the show. I'll try and stay ahead. If by accident there is a lighthearted tease after a sombre story I'll shout out, 'Generic to break', which tells everyone we've spotted something wrong and I'm just going to the break with, 'And this is CNN'. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.