Shake, rattle and rock

Last Thursday, Raglan Road merely provided a handy means of avoiding the crowd headed to Landsdowne Road for the Ireland Ruby friendly. But the next night, when Luke Kelly sang of it, and I listened from my garden bench in Clare under that lovely moon, 'Raglan Road' was again mythical; the poet Paddy Kavanagh was wastin' his time on the young one and Luke's voice was again in the business of breaking your heart.

The Wild Rover: The Unique Voice of Luke Kelly suffered from that usual Irish radio thing where they throw a whole long line of names of the contributors at you and let you sort it out for yourself. This "Ah sure, you must know your man" attitude must drive newcomers to Ireland demented. And as we often do with our heroes in Ireland, Luke's life was edited to suit the moment, with little or no reference to his loves or losses.

The Best of Rattlebag – a blessed thing for those too moidered to get arty farty in the afternoons – treated us to a rich and rewarding journey into the films of Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, with Tony Tracy as guide. I knew little of Almodovar except that his acceptance speeches at award ceremonies were always in dicey English with no sign of improvement, in much the same way as Martin McGuinness and co never seem to lose that "oul' accent" despite decades of peace talks. Did you hear him describe Mo Mowlam as "a great human bean?"

Almodovar's angst and influences and personal life were wonderfully dealt with as and how they related to his work. He's not Irish, you see, so we can go there. And the excerpts from the fabulous film soundtracks were a joy in themselves.

Rattlebag also remembered Phil Lynott, a statue of whom was unveiled off Grafton Street last week. While many colleagues and friends dealt with the early stages of his career, it was left to Gary Moore to put into words how he himself left Thin Lizzy because Phil's "whole drug thing" was affecting the band, and how Phil was left lonely in his big house with "liggers and scumbags."

Phil's mother remembered her boy with love and pride, but referred to his wife only as "the wife". There is something very unsettling about mothers who live through their children and, listening to her, it was hard to keep from thinking that she is still doing that, all these years after his death.

Paddy O'Gorman's Changes was the first in a six-part series about issues of concern in contemporary Ireland. This week's dealt with the changes in our pub culture. The programme was a kind of 'Paddy does Dublin' with less of the "travellers at the crossroads in Connemara" and more of the "deciding on wines in Morton's of Ranelagh" and – oh save me – a women describing her move from pubs to off licences as 'evolution'.

He found a barman bemoaning the lack of "proper barmen" who will get a chat going in the bar. He gave as an example a scenario of a few strangers at the counter and a little dog being knocked down outside. They all go out to look, and afterwards the barman says, "Poor old dog, but sure he'll be all right", and then they progress to talking about their own dogs and the match and, hey presto, strangers have become drinking buddies.

"Now," says he, "the Chinese guy doesn't do that or the guy from Australia or the French girl working behind the counter. Like a lighthouse in a bog – looks fantastic but fairly useless." Ah well. At least we can be grateful that Paddy didn't ask him how his love life was going.