One of the great things about working from home is having the luxury of being able to listen to the radio; in fact I have the radio on all day. It is kind of ironic that I don’t watch much TV at all but I listen to the radio for several hours a day……on my television. The advent of digital television allows me to listen radio 4 and 5 without out the interference of listening to it on Long Wave or Amplitude Modulation otherwise known as LW and AM. In general, I listen to these two stations almost exclusively, but occasionally I flick through the multitude of other stations discovering that if you browse long enough you will eventually find a station that is presented by Simon Bates or the former keyboard player from eighties band A Flock of Seagulls.

I also listen to BBC Radio Berkshire after Reading FC home games and sometimes I tune in for the live commentary on away games. However, trying to listen to local radio commentary of a game involving the team you support is painful stuff, especially when the commentators are hard core Reading fans. The result is chaotic and panic stricken broadcasting involving shit all over the studio floor during an opposition attack and premature ejaculation during a Reading throw in deep in opposition territory, it is impossible to follow. The fan’s phone in after the games is obviously exclusive to Broadmoor Hospital and to add to its bizarre nature it is interrupted every ten minutes by a voice-over that blares out: “Radio Berkshire…..travel you trust“. Why you wouldn’t trust a travel bulletin saying that the M4 Eastbound is busy is totally beyond me. Do all the other rival local stations tell you travel lies? “Radio Two Ten FM….dubious travel you can’t rely on!”

So my days are spent listening mostly to quirky Radio 4 afternoon plays (the latest featuring a Jewish doctor getting kidnapped in Stalingrad and getting lobbed on a cattle truck to Warsaw) and Radio 5 listener phone ins. Nicky Campbell does one of these between nine and ten in the morning that features some of Britain’s highest class ranters that always include at least one militant scouser and a no nonsense, fucking angry, Alpha male from somewhere near the Medway valley south east of London. This year has been a vintage one for ranters, what with the bankers bonuses, the Murdoch (News international) scandal and last but not least, the London riots that have triggered some of most rabid vitriol I have heard during my forty three years on this planet….”WHAT THEY NEED TO DO NICKY IS THIS………….THEY NEED TO DOUSE THOSE RIOTERS IN PETROL AND SET THEM ON FIRE….SEE HOW THEY LIKE IT……. THAT’S WHAT MY DAD DID TO ME…..NEVER DID ME ANY HARM“

However, my best phone in of the year so far was the one today about whether Psychic Sally was genuine. I hadn’t heard of her before, but if you look her up you will see that she is making an absolute fortune doing a British tour that involves exploiting the personal tragedies of people who are in such a state of despair they are prepared to believe anything they hear from this mistress of manipulative evil. If you Google her name, you will see that she has been exposed as a fake time and time again, but still, unbelievably, people came on the show to defend her, it is incredible. Whenever these people are challenged by science they always reject the opportunity to defend themselves, claiming they have nothing to prove and as you would expect, today they were defended by perennial head case Uri Geller, who reared his ugly head to spout his utter nonsense, once again rejecting the opportunity to justify his existence.

Some of callers were obviously clinically insane, but the best was saved for last when some guy from  Wiltshire claimed that his wife had met the Devil himself!

“Now, you might laugh Nicky, but my wife was a very intelligent woman…………she met the Devil!


NC: “Blimey that’s fascinating, what did he look like?” (At this point I was on the kitchen floor)

“Pretty normal really….

NC: “Sorry I have to stop you there we have run out of time…..”

Cue the music for ten O’clock the news.

You bastard Nicky Campbell……I really wanted hear the rest of that…..”Pretty normal really, red jacket, black shirt, carrying a fork…………….


If you have had enough of the crap on TV get your radio on, it’s worth it.