Post by Frank IncenseHe was ok at times but DID annoy me the way he endlessly plugged his book.
The same way that Jon Gaunt does. Quite shamelessly too and bigging it up
like its a work of art.
Okay, I'm going to chip in now as a sometime Bitter
Ender to his show on Radio Aire.
Firstly, he is dyslexic - genuinely. Given the amount
of promotion that so-called celebrities such as Katie
Price and Wayne Rooney do of their ghost-written
CV's his is hardly out of proportion, particularly as
being James Whale it's a fair bet to wager he really
did write it himself.
What's also nice is that he hasn't got a chip on his
shoulder over dyslexia and it hasn't stopped him
achieving more in a long career than a whole lot of
people.
Cutting off? That's partly opportunism of the signal
delay kind, and often it depends on his mood. Some
measure of how popular he was prior to getting the
Friday night television show - and he's worth ten of
Jonathon Ross - was that he was still attracting
listeners to the somewhat stand-offish Radio Aire
at that point in time at which what is now referred
to as "the M62 corridor" was pioneering an evening
superstation for ILR, which Radio Aire was not part of.
On the other hand, he always critical of the public
service aspect of BBC local radio which allowed, in
his view, any old windbag to spout any old kind of
poorly thought-out crap and be treated deferentially.
I'm sure he never saw his own maturation as any
kind of self-fulfilling prophecy but it's very hard to
argue, and retain a modicum of credibility, that his
own standards haven't just been applied to himself
on this one.
It's kind of one of those things where if you don't
like the remit of the station then perhaps you should
leave. And, as talkSPORT is reliant on advertising
sponsorship to stay in business, and his show does
not count as politics, debate or any other of the
PSB slots stations can accountably demonstrate
balance (even if it is reminiscent of a gyroscope)
in, then yeah, his personal opinion doesn't and
shouldn't count.
Odd how nobody has pointed out that talkSPORT
broadcasts on AM and digital to the whole of the
UK yet he took it upon himself to become partially
involved in an aspect of the democratic process
which affects a neligible geographical proportion
of his audience.
As a host my finding was that if you rung up with
something to say he was willing to hear you out
and discuss, if you rung up being a prick you got
cut off. I tried both approaches. Actually it was
more nerve-wracking doing it over the phone into
someone else's show than live-to-air speech
broadcast work ever was.
Thanks for tipping me off about the book though
as I'd no idea he'd written one.
G DAEB
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