Giving up Radio 4

[Fnaar]

5Live for me... or radio2 if there's a show I like (an't stand Wogan and the fogies, but those my age are generally OK... Evans, Ross (I know loads hate him, but I find him funny)... but for news etc in't morning, 5Live it is... (battle between me and Mrs F... she switches it back to 4, I switch it back to 5)

 

[threebikesmcginty]

5Live for me... or radio2 if there's a show I like (an't stand Wogan and the fogies, but those my age are generally OK... Evans, Ross (I know loads hate him, but I find him funny)... but for news etc in't morning, 5Live it is... (battle between me and Mrs F... she switches it back to 4, I switch it back to 5)

I quite like Mark Radcliffe (sp?) - in fairness to him the guy knows his music!

 

[Fnaar]

I quite like Mark Radcliffe (sp?) - in fairness to him the guy knows his music!

Yup... very good show... I like some folky stuff too, on occasion, so Mike Harding (and Bob Harris if I'ma feelin' a little bit country) gets a listen now and again....

 

[Glow worm]

Quoting richp....
''On the other hand, I listened to From Our Own Correspondent today and it is generally radio journalism of the highest order. They are interesting, important stories from around the globe that would never make it into any other programme bar the World Service''.

Dead right - some real gems on this programme, stuff you'd never hear anywhere else.

With the Today programme, I still stick with it out of habit I guess. I'm not keen on Naughtie (he's obsessed with classical music and always bangs on about it) and I'm really pleased old wiggie Ed Stourton is buggering off as he just sounds like an old Etonian toff (which of course he is). Thought for the day is always a must miss and coincides nicely with trip from bedroom to kitchen for first cuppa - when the kettle's boiled, the sanctimonius self indulgent claptrap is over - see http://www.platitudes.org.uk/platblog/index.php

Great to hear old Count Arthur Strong back again tonight though even if only a repeat.

 

[Fnaar]

I'm getting into radio 4 ranty mode now... women's hour... every time I accidentally chance upon it, it seems to be about how muslim women who wear a veil are really flying the flag for independent women everywhere...

 

[Norm]

I'm getting into radio 4 ranty mode now... women's hour...

I understand that they are renaming it "Feminist's Hour".

 

[rich p]

I have to agree that Womens Hour can be dull but they don't bang on about vaginal discharge as much as they used to. There was a feature on it recently about men knitting in pubs! Well, I'm a free thinking radical (or is that a molecule?) but come on......
For sheer tedium though I don't think you can beat You and Yours.

 

[Arch]

Cut me in half, and I have radio 4 written through me. I wake to it, and go to sleep to it, and it's on whenever I'm not watching telly.

I'm not sure it's their fault the news is the way it is. I think politicians are becoming shallower and bitchier, and the reporting just follows that. I love Eddie Mair.

I use the radio as a sort of audio wallpaper - I zone out a bit sometimes, but then I click back in as and when.

Yes, Woman's Hour is often very dull - and that's a woman's opinion. But what other programme would even try to flip between gynaecology and baking?

Another vote from me for From Our Own Correspondent, excellent stuff.

 

[Arch]

For sheer tedium though I don't think you can beat You and Yours.

I was on You and Yours once...

I agree it's dull, that's the point I have lunch and watch Bargain Hunt.

 

[rich p]

Hmmm, it's looking a bit crusty Ms Archer!

That's a WH comment on your baking, Arch, not the gynae bit

 

[eldudino]

I rarely listen daily now as I don't take the car, but the other week I needed to go shopping and pick my wife up after work so I drove in. The 'interview' with Peter Mandelson conisisted of Jim Naughtie trying for about 4 minutes to get Mandelson to say the word 'cuts' - completely pointless. As the OP said, it's all become about the blame game.

 

[chap]

Vive Radio 3 (and 4)

I must begin by acknowledging that I am very irregular poster in this corner of CycleChat - I hope you don't mind me joining your conversation.

After years of waking up to the Today prog and then getting home to hear Analysis, and similar programmes on R4, I finally snapped last week. It suddenly occurred to me that I was being fed relentless gloom and doom and "someone must be blamed" almost everyday. The tone of the programming appeared to be one long whinge. The government should be doing this. The police aren't policing; the government aren't governing; councils aren't ... errr... councilling. Big business is big business. It's always someone else's fault.

Don't do it!!!

So one evening, in the middle of a programme about how some local council had failed its residents, I reached up and retuned to Radio 3.

Suddenly my day is full of Bach(s), Vivaldi, Shostokovich, and yet more strange, exotic and unfamiliar composers and performers. It is populated by an erudite and slightly eccentric group of people who seem to be forever apologising because the last programme has just over-run. And the news bulletins are a gentle whisper that I can barely hear and that are soon replaced by a little gem the presenter has found in his CD collection and wants to share with us.

It's not that I am opposed to Radio 4 programming. Indeed I still return to Radio 4 for (some of) the funnies and plays. It was just the sheer wall-to-wallness of gloom that got to me. To avoid getting caught I usually tune tentatively to R4 ready to tune away again in case I inadvertently get hit by another dose of whinging.

Now I feel more calm and relaxed when I arise (although late for work more often than in the past). And when I get home in the evening I can throw off the shackles of the working day more easily. If only I had done it sooner.

Now all I have to do is ween myself off P+L.

Ah! Now you're talking, I am a big fan of Radio 3, and still maintain that Radio is where the BBC are doing it right (well that is BBC Radio 3, 4, and sometimes 2). Oddly enough there are a group of individuals (FOR3: Friends of Radio 3) discontent with the 'dimming down' of Radio 3. To an extent they had a point (not enough rigorous debate/talk), but woe betide any station to be ran by that sorry bunch :S

Personally, I love the station (uninterrupted concerts, 'Through the Night', and the World Music showcases - bar country music )

 

[rich p]

I rarely listen daily now as I don't take the car, but the other week I needed to go shopping and pick my wife up after work so I drove in. The 'interview' with Peter Mandelson conisisted of Jim Naughtie trying for about 4 minutes to get Mandelson to say the word 'cuts' - completely pointless. As the OP said, it's all become about the blame game.

In fairness perhaps the questioners have to try and trap the politicians because they're so glib and clever at dodging the answers these days. They both deserve each other and I deserve R3

 

[Arch]

I rarely listen daily now as I don't take the car, but the other week I needed to go shopping and pick my wife up after work so I drove in. The 'interview' with Peter Mandelson conisisted of Jim Naughtie trying for about 4 minutes to get Mandelson to say the word 'cuts' - completely pointless. As the OP said, it's all become about the blame game.

Yeah, but that wouldn't happen if politicians didn't work themselves into a paddy trying to sound as if they and they alone could make the world perfect with no pain. If Mandelson and his ilk could just say "we will have to make cuts" then we could get on with the honest business of running a decent country...

 

[Garz]

Radio? Next you'l be sharing that you tuned into a BBC broadcasting station and found some tv!

On a serious note, I think all forms of media are guilty of this nowadays. It's not even original, what cheeses me off even more is its almost normal for people I encounter to be whining about the government or how they pay too much in fees/taxes.

Everyone's on the bandwagon, such as blame society we now live in.