Stuff I heard on the radio.....

Thanks to the fact that I now work in the D12 area, I have the luxury of extra radio-listening time in the car on the way in and back from work... Lately I've become addicted to radio in general. I listen to Newstalk all the time and a bit of 2FM (when the knob gets stuck...).

On 2FM the other night though they had this program on with a bunch of people having an 'informal' and light hearted chat about things in general. The main topics of the day were about the new attempted enforcement of penalties etc. for L drivers and the way the minister had stupidly rushed in to make it law within a week without any other warning... Among the huge uproar it caused, there was an outcry of protest, not just from those affected directly (ie: the L Drivers) but the Driving Instructors union. One of the guys pointed out that, only in Ireland, could it happen that the aforementioned union would be called IMPACT...

As they went on to discuss this and other topics, one of the guys said how equally ironic it was that the Minister for the Gaeltacht didn't even speak Irish, the Minister for Finance had no business qualifications at all and the Minister for Health... well, what can I say....?!

Morning Radio!

I normally avoid RTE like the plague, both their radio and their TV programs... Not because they're particularly crap or anything, but mostly out of a sense of resentment for the way they get away with running their business. They have the comfort of, not only their TV Licence revenues, which seems to be enough for the BBC in the UK, but also their advertising revenues. Now, I don't have a huge issue with that extra revenue in itself. Fair play to them that they've managed to get that one over on the public for so long without being held to judgement for the crap that they put out on the air.

But you've got to wonder if we're really getting value for our Euro when you see them just taking an idea from the Beeb or any of the other stations, and changing the name, the set and the people on it, making a 2nd rate job of re-hashing an imitation and then broadcasting it... I mean, who watches that crap? It can only be those poor bog warriors who have no choice but to watch these programs because they've fallen out of the reach of satelite and cable coverage...

I recently had first hand experience of how well run the place was when I was with a friend going over to the studios in Donnybrook to drop off something for the Late Late Show. We got to the security gate - and I use the term extremely loosely here - got to the barrier only to be subjected to the most rigorous of screening...

We opened the window in the car and told their Rottweiler of a guard - fierce, he looked! - that we had a parcel to be dropped off at Studio 1 for the Late Late. 'Grand' he said and promptly lifted the barrier to let us in...!!

Surely in this day and age of terrorism - to which Ireland is not immune - a little more caution should be exercised by the national TV broadcaster?! He had no idea what was in the parcel, he never asked who we were... And, Studio 1 itself, was fully open and accessible. I hardly need to highlight the potential of a situation like that...

But I digress... The main reason I hate RTE at the moment is for taking Marty Wheelan off the air on the 2FM Morning Show. I'd never really been into Marty until I heard the morning show... Then, soon after I got hooked to it, they got rid of him and replaced him, not with another of their homegrown talents, but with the Strawberry Alarm Clock crew from FM104. I can't listen to them.... I've been aimlessly wandering the airwaves now for months and still haven't found anything remotely as good... Every radio show in the morning seems to be obsessed with making skin-crawlingly cringeable crank calls....

There is one thing I like in RTE though... Marian Finnucan :-)