BBC Breakfast star Dan Walker joked that he will have to suffer from the smells he hates as Covid restrictions begin to ease.
Next month, the presenter and his co-host Sally Nugent - who replaced Louise Minchin after she quit - will be able to ditch their laptops and use screens hidden in the coffee table for updates.
The move will help them appear a little friendlier – but it has a downside for Dan.
He said: “Sally’s coffee is much stronger than Louise’s was. I cannot bear the smell of coffee. I’ve never drunk a cup in my life.
"I don't like it. So Sally's smelly coffee at 6am is the worst thing about her."
He then made the conversation more positive and added: "The best thing about working with Sally, and this was the same as Louise, is it’s never a fight. If you watch some TV combinations, they’re fighting for space or the limelight.”
Meanwhile, Dan’s apparent annoying habit is playing Wordle in a 30-second mid-show break, but that's already what most people do when they have time.
Sally has been standing in on the show for years and was an obvious choice as host because she was already well-liked by viewers for her sports reports and in-depth interviews with big names.
After university, Sally worked as a reporter at BBC Radio Merseyside before moving to BBC North West Tonight as a sports presenter and did the first-ever TV interview with Wayne Rooney when he was just 16.
She joined BBC television in 2003 and filled in as co-presenter on the Breakfast red sofa from 2011. Last year she won Royal Television Society awards for interviewing footballer Marcus Rashford on ending child poverty and getting behind rugby league hero Rob Burrow’s campaign to fight motor neurone disease.
Rob’s pal and former teammate Kevin Sinfield praised Sally for her help, and she was at the finish line of Kevin’s 101-mile Leicester to Leeds run to raise money for the MND Association.
Kevin said: “BBC Breakfast has done a wonderful job, with Dan and Sally persuading people to get behind it.”
Of Marcus, she says: “He’s a great kid. He recognised in BBC Breakfast a place where he could just be honest and talk to people who maybe had similar upbringings and make a difference.”
Get all the biggest showbiz news straight to your inbox. Sign up for the free Mirror Showbiz newsletter.
Sally puts her success down to enjoying chatting and being brought up in the Wirral to “not treat people differently” whether they are famous or not. But even at 50, she thinks she has room for improvement.
“I learn something new every single day,” she says. “I learn loads from Dan. Dan is very generous.
"The only way you can do this job and improve is to make mistakes, move on, get better every day. You can do all the preparation the night before, but once that red light goes on, it’s just us two.
"You can’t do this job unless you trust the person you’re sitting next to 100%.”
Sally’s alarm goes off at 3.30am and she leaves her Cheshire home at 4.10am, while her husband, 14-year-old son and cavapoo dog are asleep. After a bowl of porridge at 5.50am, she is on air until 9.13am.
Do you have a story to sell? Get in touch with us at webcelebs@trinitymirror.com or call us direct at 0207 29 33033.
