They're back! The migratory chat-show hosts, Pat Kenny, Marian Finucane, Gareth O'Callaghan and Vincent Browne, returned yesterday (Gay Byrne returns tomorrow) to over-winter for another season at RTE Radio 1. Gay and Gareth O'Callaghan are resuming their job-share at the 11 a.m. slot - if it's Gareth, this must be Tuesday! - with Pat Kenny back in the more prestigious earlier position. It's not so much a new autumn schedule as a return of the old familiar autumn schedule.
Gerry Ryan, who stayed at his post on 2 FM and kept current issues on the boil during the summer mornings, is now off on a break. Though the show does tend towards the tabloid, the host's laid-back attitude is refreshing and his refusal to be impressed by self-importance will be missed. His mobile reporter, Brenda Donoghue, is standing in for him but as she has tended towards the pie-eating contest side of things, it will be interesting to see what she makes of a full show and if she can hold listeners away from the Radio 1 stars.
For those who were simply brought up, more by accident than design, Rearin' to Go on RTE 1 on Wednesday (the pun only works with a vernacular pronunciation) was an eye-opener.
Parents today, it revealed, are locked in a battle with an insidious force, known as peer-group pressure which has the power to take control of their children. It can dictate what clothes they wear, hair fashion, diet, social activities and values, and its interests are those of international manufacturers.
Siobhan said that her five-year old was "very concerned about how his clothes and hair were viewed" and that a sarcastic remark, such as "I really like your T-shirt" was enough to have the garment discarded. An eight-year old who thought that soccer was boring and who had no love for the cub scouts came home and announced, "I'm going to change my life; I'm going to take up the stupid soccer and join the cubs". Still, his mother said he was happy now and he does have a decade in which to change his mind and still have a rebellious youth.
There was some very sound advice from Mark Harold; he was described as a clinical psychologist - a description which would normally have me reaching for the dial quicker than a shirt-change at Manchester United. He said that the onset of puberty was akin to "two years of mental illness"; is there anybody close to the species who would challenge this? He reminded parents that when their child was saying "everyone else is allowed to . . ." so were all the others. The programme, even for those not actively concerned in "parenting", moves along with a mix of views and interviews at a pace that never falters. Children, parents and experts all have their say and it is a credit to the two presenter/interviewers that they never obstruct the flow. Unlike the style of interviewing prevalent in other areas, where the interviewee is merely the foil for the interviewer's starring role, here both Annette Black and Mick Peelo only spoke when necessary to help the contributors get their message across.
"Would you risk your life for a tree, travel to Mexico for a flower or meet wild bulls in Hawaii for a pine cone?" The answer is obviously "not in a million years" but with a promotion like that, Spectrum (RTE Radio 1, Wednesday) had to be worth a listen.
Mathew Jebb, a taxonomist at the herbarium of the National Botanic Gardens brought Keelin Shanley on a tour of his dried-plant collection. There was lots of rummaging noise as he enthused about his work in what I imagined was a dark and dusty room - here a Chinese handkerchief tree (rustle, rustle); there a carnivorous Indonesian pitcher plant (rummage, rummage). The wild bull story concerned the violent death of David Douglas, after whom the Douglas fir is named, who fell or was pushed by his native guide, into a pit containing a wild bull - a fate some of Vincent Browne's guests might well prefer.
