always listening in

I don’t know if anybody else has noticed the strange occurrence on BBC Radio 4 news. The news readers all seem to pronounce any year from the century, well, strangely.

Whereas most of us would say Two-thousand and four that isn’t good enough for Radio 4. No they insist on twenty-ohh-four. What’s the problem I hear you ask? The major problem I have is that I have to think about what year they are referring to. I don’t want to spend my precious brain energy having to figure out the year – I want to be able to concentrate on the news.

Just isn’t funny. I’ve been listening to his show for a few weeks now and just find him more than anything irritating. His type of humour just doesn’t quite fit the station; he’d be rather more at home on Radio 2. But then I guess this is the summer known as a place to fill the schedule rather than do anything special.

On a slightly different note, I was listening to Feedback on Sunday night. Somebody asked about the reason behind the shorter run of I’m sorry I haven’t a clue. I was expecting a response along the lines of “Well the guys are just getting old and find it hard”. But no, it’s all about “other commitments” the teams have. Shame. As “Quote, unquote” has a run of around 12 programmes we only get 6 per series of I’m sorry I haven’t a clue.

Whenever I listen to the radio in the afternoons the drama just seems really weird. Odd themes, normally a bit screwed up. Why?

The news and current affairs departements of the BBC are on strike today. It’s not really had a dramatic effect on my life – well unless you count waking to a documentary on the biggest names in jazz which did freak me out a bit.

My breakfast show of choice is normally the Today programme so I was slightly miffed that it had been cancelled until that is until 8.30am came – a repeat of ‘I’m sorry I haven’t a clue’ had me in absolute hysterics which was rather unfortunate as I was on the train at the time.

All in all I had a slightly better Monday morning than I would normally have had thanks to a little old strike.

I do, he’s so smug and thinks he’s so funny. But the problem is he is quite funny, least funnier than most DJs out there (Bush & Troy on GWR actually make me feel sick).

Danny Baker keeps poping up on stations almost out of the blue. I first heard him on Radio 1 back in 1995 and thought the way he used listeners callling in was great – the sound of somebody riding a bike into a lake had me in histerics. I’d turn on my radio and there he was and he always made me laugh (moving to Five Live and then to Talk Sport and finally to Radio London).

I know that I’m probably alone in this – when I’ve talked about him before people seem to activley dislike the poor fella. I mean the Daz adverts were a huge mistake.

Well anyway through the magic of the Interweb I can now listen to Danny Baker on Radio London, the show doesn’t seem to have changed in 10 years – same crappy jingles, huge radio posse – ace., oh and I’ve just found out he won a Sony award last week.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about this – I listen to the Archers at lease once a day, well I say listen it’s just in the background mostly, but I really can’t seem to get into it. I can’t relate to any of the characters, the story lines, or even the location. The worst thing about it is that the Mrs really likes it, so I can’t flick over to 5 Live or BBC 7 when it comes on.

I know that I’m not alone in this, there must be people out there who feel the same – I just haven’t met any of them. Everyone I talk to about it either never listens so doesn’t really have an opinion or they love the Archers. Am I alone in hating the Archers?

• The Archers (Even the website is a bit crumby)

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I was listening to the Today programme this morning when I heard something disturbing – the newscaster kept referring to the year as twenty-ohh-six.

Not two-thousand and six as everybody else in country refers to it, no, Radio 4 are making it sound like we are living in some Buck Rodgers time travel future Jetson’s world.
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