Monday, October 02, 2006

Give me that Old Time Religion

Last week's mini-tour of European cities beginning with the letter B meant two early morning cab rides to Heathrow.

Getting a minicab anytime of the day in London can be a colourful slice of life at the best of times. Speeding through London at 60mph is not, in my opinion, life enhancing. So, thankfully the lottery that is Greyhound Cars spared me from budding Michael Schumacher's.

No, last week it was a battle of the airwaves.

I can just about stomach bland music at 5:15 in the morning. The dulcet tones of John Humphreys after 6am or the shipping forecast: fine. But, Premier Christian Radio? To boot, an American hack of the pulpit giving a less than rapturous account of the life of Saul. Uh. (A quick web search brings up said Old Testament preacher.)

But, Saul (he was a bad geezer, y'know) and the programme that followed about how to spruce up your sex life (as a married couple, of course), beat the pants of what I had to endure on Friday morning.

Chris Moyles. Radio One.

My god. I never knew anyone listening to Radio One anymore.

Imagine a fat bloke with the charisma of a stale bun. Throw in his mate who is the only one stupid enough to laugh at fat bloke's jokes. But, mate thinks fat bloke is cool so sucks up to him. They probably went to school together. Fat bloke probably worked for Hospital Radio whilst mate cleaned out bed pans.

Radio One for some reason has added a girlie to this format. I've know idea what her role is. She doesn't seem to suck up to fat bloke. She has no rapport with mate. Obviously they didn't go to the same school. In fact, I suspect she's got a proper qualification in broadcasting or journalism. The only reason she's wasting her time on this pile of crap is that she can't get a proper gig on Radio 6, the BBC's cool music station.

Fat bloke occasionally plays some music. Now you won't hear his choices on Radio 6 because he doesn't want the music to stand out, otherwise it might show up the blather from the three airheads for what it is. Blather. So, fat bloke plays some Coldplay or that bloke from the Sony ad.

In some ways I can understand why the driver chose this wallpaper. Just that: it's wallpaper. It probably makes driving around comatose people at 6am who do NOT want to engage in blather that much less tedious for the poor bloke.

Oh, both drivers got a good tip. What tipped the balance was arriving in one piece having not experienced unreasonable early morning g-forces hammering down the A4. Maybe it helped that I was suffering from radio numbed brain.

:: Posted by pete @ 20:45