Radio: bust after the boom

Alearned professor of law, Jerry White of Trinity College, was interviewed on This Week on Sunday (6 August) and asked his opinion on whether it would be constitutional for the government to ignore the results of the recently published provisional census and hold the next election on the existing constituency boundaries.

The Señor de la Casa (the husband) is an expert (he thinks) on such matters (actually on all matters) and was of the view that the point was missed entirely in the interview. The point, the Señor claims, is not whether it would be unconstitutional now to hold the elections on the existing boundaries in the wake of the publication of the provisional census results, but whether it would be unconstitutional to hold them after the full census results are published next April.

It seems to me that the Señor may be right (in this instance), in which case the whole point was missed in the interview. You don't expect that on This Week – such intelligent people who know so much more than the rest of us.

Actually, the programme got very boring indeed with the interview with two economists about the imminence of bust, after so long a boom. They said, well now, no bust, just, possibly, a slow down. Which is very unexciting. Also very well known. Haven't we been reading this in the papers over the last several months?

Before This Week, there was Leo Enright on The Sunday Show or whatever it is now called. Leo has a great voice. He is also a good broadcaster. Not much ego – actually hardly any on show (unlike you-know-who and the other you-know-whom and come to think of it that other fellow as well). Leo is informed, a little garrulous (but not at all as bad as the above mentioned), doesn't laugh at his own jokes, not even when they are jokes. But last Sunday (6 August), he had a panel that would bore for Ireland, actually for the whole enlarged EU. And prime among them were two notorious boring blahterers, Ronan Mullen and Eamon Delaney. They said nothing that wasn't bland, predictable, safe and dreary. Why are such people allowed on radio, or at least why are such people allowed on radio together?

I am being shunted off this slot from next week on because the Señora de la Magazine, Sara Burke, wants to take over. No consultation, no notice, no goodbyes, no golden handshakes, no handshakes at all. The aunt in the bath in Skibbereen, who used to fancy Tom McGurk, thinks I have an unfair dismissal case. When I broached this with the Señora I received a hurried note from her underling, a Mr Browne, saying another position would be found for me and would I please sign off with a few words of overview about radio today and the role it pays in modern life, its cultural significance and what Nietzsche might say of it. Honest.

I don't know what Nietzsche might say of it, although I think he might increasingly like Radio One, what with the likes of Tom McGurk, Pat Kenny et al flourishing the banners of the right.

As for overview, the role radio plays in modern life, its cultural significance. Give us a break, which is just what I am taking for myself.p