From rolling greens to dull dens of iniquity

RadioReview:On Drivetime Sport (RTÉ Radio 1, Wednesday), Des Cahill sounded awestruck by the greens. "They're super-fast and slick," he enthused, "amazing, a real challenge." Worn down by the sheer tedium of the days of hourly speculation about whether Trevor would get into the tent with Bertie, for a brief moment I thought that either I or Cahill was hallucinating.

That's what happens when you tune into a programme midway. It turned out he was enthusing about the turf in Oakmont in advance of golf's US Open. Padraig Harrington talked about the roll on the greens there, which apparently suits some golfers more than others - he was positive about his chances in the tournament, though.

It's nothing compared with the roll the Irish Greens are on now they're in Government with Fianna Fáil, and hopefully the ripe opportunities of such a coalition will spur our comedians into some satire-making action. Gift Grub got in first (The Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show, Today FM, Tuesday), with a sketch featuring Bertie in Green-wooing mode, planning on changing the State cars for ones that run on vegetable oil ("we'll refuel in Burdocks"), and starting the day with Pilates finished off with a classic yoga "sun salute" or, as Bertie does it, "howaya".

This week's Documentary on One: The Catacombs (RTÉ Radio 1, Wednesday), about a den of drinking and general licentiousness in a basement in Dublin's Fitzwilliam Place in the late 1940s, held the promise of a racy listen.

But, like those people who precede the dullest anecdote with "you'll love this, it's hilarious", the programme woefully failed to live up to its billing. The Catacombs seems to have been a cross between a flophouse and a late-night drinking den. Patrick Kavanagh was to be found there being bad-tempered and depressed, while Brendan Behan regularly passed out on the table - was there a kip in Dublin that was free from that pair?

Despite having people - JP Donleavy, Joan De Frenay and Sheila Bradshaw - who were there, the producer Ciaran Cassidy missed an opportunity to create the atmosphere of the period. There was half-hearted use of a bit of jazz music at one point, but otherwise it was dull, with too much talk, no real sense of place and, more crucially, little cultural or social context.

Donleavy remembered the dank basement in a bohemian light. His description of the goings-on in dark corners 60 years ago showed that Oliver J Flanagan was indeed wrong with his famous pronouncement on The Late Late Show that there was no sex in Ireland before television. One of the women remembered it a bit more pragmatically. "Probably quite a lot of sex went on there," she said. "I don't think you would have got a very useful husband in the Catacombs. It was mostly drinkers with literary leanings." Maybe it was an amazing and interesting place - but you wouldn't think it from this programme.

Yoko Ono delved into her fascinating past in a revealing Desert Island Discs (BBC Radio 4, Sunday), where she talked about her life with John Lennon, her successful career before she met the Beatle - often lost in the discussion about their life - and, poignantly, Lennon's last words before being murdered by Mark Chapman in December 1980. "We were returning from the studio and I said, 'Should we go and have dinner before we go home?', and John was saying, 'No, let's go home because I want to see Sean before he goes to sleep'." She chose Beautiful Boy, a song he wrote for their young son, to represent Lennon's body of work.

Her other musical choices included Gracie Fields's When I Grow Too Old to Dream - maybe in deference to her very British, Radio 4 surroundings - and disappointingly, because it has to be the most overused choice on the programme, Edith Piaf's Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien. You couldn't fault her one luxury though: "My life for the next 30 years."

The high point of the listening week was Wednesday's Ray D'Arcy Show (Today FM) where, in a sort of Jim'll Fix It move - without the shiny tracksuits and the bling (though it is radio, so maybe) - D'Arcy made listeners' dreams come true. Noel from Navan wanted Tommy Tiernan to perform in his living room, and it was hilarious, though of course it was spectacularly vulgar and politically incorrect, with jokes that would make my keyboard seize if I tried to type them. Give yourself a laugh, download the podcast.