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Vernon Kay was reduced to fits of laughter and labelled his BBC Radio 2 colleague "unbelievable" after he made a bold assertion live on air. Jeremy Vine's comment came about when he appeared on Vernon's show this morning (March 27) to discuss "screen time", a news topic due to feature on his midday programme that day.

He touched upon recent government advice suggesting that children under five should have no more than one hour of screen time per day, and those under two should not be left alone with screens at all. Jeremy recounted seeing a father and his two young children, each engrossed in their own device. He speculated that societal views on children using such devices could eventually become as negative as perceptions towards smoking.

Jeremy stated: "Firstly, do you say, 'Well, that's impossible', or actually, 'About time, too'. And are we getting to the point where, I mean, for example, Vern, I was on the train the other day and there were two young, quite young children with their dad.

"The dad was on the phone, both of them had a device, both of them were about four, six-years-old. Is it going to be like seeing children smoking? Where you would not hesitate to say, 'Put that out', even if it's not your child."

At this juncture, Vernon interjected with his own tale. He described a similar situation at his gym, where he noticed a young person on a rowing machine who sat there for "12 minutes and didn't do an exercise" as they were preoccupied with their phone.

Vernon stated: "So I had to go to another machine. I watched him. I finished doing my exercises on another machine, didn't do anything because it just...you become submerged in content. And you forget.

"You forget what's going on in the world. It separates you. And I felt like going, 'Get off your phone!'"

Jeremy responded: "When I've been to the gym, there are people who think you build muscles by simply scrolling. Yeah, they don't do any exercises at all, and the weird thing is, they've got more muscles than anyone.

"And they're just walking around flexing. Oh, it must be drugs."

Vernon erupted into laughter at this comment, saying: "You're unbelievable!", as Jeremy added that he felt the situation was "very suspicious". An audibly tickled Vernon went on to plead with his colleague to "stop it", as Jeremy changed the subject.

In other news, as Dame Mary Berry marked her 91st birthday earlier this week, Vernon shared insights into the baking legend's true character, labelling her an "icon" and revealing that he spots her "in the village" from time to time.

Speaking on a different episode of his BBC Radio 2 programme, he said: "I see her every now and again in the village, Mary Berry. She's local to us, or we're local to her. Very, very sweet lady. Always good fun and an icon."