When words fail, the silence says it all

Radio Review: On television, a constant refrain from experienced news reporters standing in front of the devastation has been that "words cannot describe the scene", so it's not surprising that radio hasn't been the best medium to adequately convey the horrors of the tsunami. Even basic information coming down crackly telephone lines sounded distant and removed - pictures really did say it all.

Although maybe that's just as well because even while the biggest news story was unfolding, RTÉ radio stuck to its holiday schedule; the main current affairs programme, Five Seven Live, was half its usual length, becoming the not quite as catchy Five Six Live, and Morning Ireland was still in its "ah, sure there'll be no news, it's Christmas and who'd be listening anyway" hour-long format. Even Pat Kenny is still off-air on his Christmas jollies - his programme appears to be inextricably linked to the school timetable - and Philip Boucher Hayes's sombre-toned reports from Thailand sounded out of place in the lighter magazine programme presented by Evelyn O'Rourke that was aired in Kenny's absence.

At least the first week of the New Year did bring a slew of new programmes from the national broadcaster - far too many, even, to be reviewed in a single radio column. Most enjoyable was How to Stuff a Giraffe (RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday). Any programme that includes the line "first get your giraffe and peel it" is always going to be an attention-grabber. It was the first in a six-part series, Chopped, Pickled and Stuffed, where science journalist Mary Mulvihill explores the Natural History Museum or "dead zoo" as it's more familiarly known to generations of Dubliners.

This is the way to serve up science: great dollops of information made palatable by a camouflage of sheer entertainment. Two years ago, the museum's giraffe, which had been shot and brought to the Victorian era museum by a Colonel Plunkett, was in a sorry state: baldy, bumpy, with its raggedy stitches just barely containing its ancient stuffing. It prompted the museum's curator Nigel Monaghan to go big game hunting, and he headed for a taxidermist's in Holland where he was offered the choice of two giraffes. The off-the-peg pre-stuffed one didn't suit - too big to get in the door - so he bought a skin that had been in storage for 30 years which was subsequently stretched over a fibreglass giraffe shape on site in Kildare street. The skin, incidentally, folded up so compactly that it fitted in a bin liner. Other exhibits are scheduled for a programme of cleaning and restoration or "replacing glass eyes, a shampoo and set", said Monaghan, whose demystification of his job made for easy listening.

Also out to demystify, but this time the Internet, was Ruth Buchanan in the first part of her new series Net Nanny (RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday). She didn't sing or talk about her dogs but delivered a slick, informative programme that had solid, jargon-free information for complete beginners and even the odd nugget for seasoned surfers. It was followed by a new series signalling a rejuvenation in the drama output of the station. Seven well-known writers have been commissioned to write monologues on the theme of The Seven Ages of Man (RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday), and the first one kicked off with Maeve Binchy writing on babyhood. She built her story around the idea that a baby understands everything - this one had moved so far beyond ga ga goo goo he could use a mobile phone. The literary device failed - though Mikel Murfi did his all as the baby - because the world Binchy created was so determined to find a happy ending it sounded hopelessly twee and out of touch; what could have been a dramatic rumination on one of the most mysterious times of life was as substantial as a spoonful of baby rice. The producer tried hard to make the script work, resorting to additional voices and a bit of incidental music, but even the writers of the surreal Desperate Housewives would be hard pressed to think up some of the situations, including the one where the unfaithful mother regularly used the elderly male porter in her lover's apartment block as a baby-sitter. Apart from a bit of tut-tutting about the mammy's carry-on, the salt-of-the-earth porter didn't mind one little bit. It was just one of the jarring scenes - or maybe I've been approaching the whole business of finding suitable childcare with far too narrow a view.

But back to the tragic events in the Indian Ocean, because really, no matter what other stories and diversions were pumped out over the airwaves, it was never far from our minds. The three minutes of silence at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, observed by nearly all stations up and down the FM dial, meant that the most thought-provoking moments on radio this week were silent ones.