Teacher, mother, secret lover – I am none of these things
I’m glad I hit the Snooze button on my alarm clock this morning, because as a result I was still next to the radio when this happened live on Radio 4 this morning.
Poor Charlotte Green – when I listened to the News Quiz (before it became insufferably smug) the best part was usually her reading out the press cuttings, often struggling to get through them without laughing.
TV and radio star Jeremy Beadle dies. Watch out for a million lazy articles in tomorrow’s papers describing him as “the most hated man in Britain” etc. I never really understood that; he came up to Merseyside to do panto a couple of years ago and he sat in with Pete Price on the Radio City phone-in one night, where he came across a genuinely nice and engaging person (Beadle, not Price, obviously). He even listened patiently to a dull woman who insisted on telling him her idea for a TV show.
I also have to admit to loving Beadle’s About when I was a kid. At its height, it was as funny and entertaining as Balls of Steel thinks it is.
In fact, how do we know it’s not an elaborate prank now? He could show up at his own funeral in a bad wig and sunglasses. “Thanks for being a great sport!”
Quite possibly the radio highlight of the year: Rob Brydon singing Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr Hitler? to the tune of Yesterday Once More on the opening episode of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.
You HAVE to listen to it: follow the link here (it starts at about the 11:20 mark, but of course the rest of the show is a must-listen too).
Russia is pointing nuclear weapons at us, Tony Blair is still Prime Minister and Big Brother is occupying 80% of all newspaper and TV airtime, but forget all that and rejoice, for I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue is back! With Stephen Fry! And jokes at the expense of ITV Play!
Glancing through my TV listings magazine the other day, I was pleased to notice a late-night programme called ITV Play, and anticipated a cultural experience with an hour or two of Pinter or Ayckbourn. You can imagine my surprise on tuning in to find a pair of chavs asking me to phone up to guess how many sides there are on a triangle. Now the BBC are at it. Well, as a long-time supporter of public service broadcasting I’ll tell them where they can stick their ill-gained profits… Straight in my top pocket, as soon as we finish this week’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Chance premium-rate phone quiz.
In a rare show of generosity, my employers have graciously permitted us to have some background music while we work.
The radio in our office is tuned, for some reason, to Wirral’s Buzz 97.1. They have an annoying “fast-paced” style to their news bulletins, with a very brief weather forecast read out beforehand. It’s OK in theory, but this morning the newsreader started her 10am bulletin with the hilarious-sounding (to me, anyway) sentence, “Blustery and wet, I’m Alina Cavanagh.”
I like to think it was my recommendation that resulted in this:-
Emap has won the new FM local radio licence in Liverpool with a speech radio format, City Talk.
News, comedy, sport and “local issues” programmes are promised. If Radio City can pull this off successfully (given that proper, intelligent, speech radio can be quite expensive) this could quite possibly be the best thing to happen to radio in Liverpool for a long time.
But please don’t go down the American road of phone-ins starring loud-mouthed right-wingers.
Well that’s just not fair. The BBC are recording an edition of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue in Southport on 22nd October. I’ve only just found out about it, and of course it’s already sold out.
Looks like I’ve missed out on my chance to see the delightful Samantha. 
Ten organisations are bidding to run Liverpool’s new FM station, and Ofcom have posted the applications online for examination.
I hope one of the talk-based formats wins; an intelligent speech station would be a boon to Merseyside.
Jack FM, on the other hand, sounds like the worst radio station format ever.
The BBC have a nice round-up of some of yesterday’s April Fools Day pranks. My personal favourite came from Radio 4′s Today who announced that the “popular” Radio 4 UK Theme was to be replaced by a new “EU Theme” (link goes to streaming RealAudio file) — cue predictably enraged Little Englanders.