RADIO REVIEW:THAT LITTLE box in the corner of the room with the dial looks so innocent sitting there between the bread bin and the kettle. Well, my pretties, don't let it fool you. If you need to know anything about this year's radio, it's that the little box gives vent to the kind of hysteria you usually only get outside the gates of Leinster House after a budget. Or at a Beatles concert.
Hysteria can be useful and quite a lot of fun, if harnessed like nuclear power, but it must be used responsibly.
It reached a high in September with a Liveline(RTÉ Radio 1) phone-in on the banking crisis that led Brian Lenihan to lodge a complaint with RTÉ's director general. A few crazy coots hiding their money in their mattresses would soon be the least of his worries.
The barrage of calls that day showed that some Irish folk are, at heart, like lost children who need to be saved, and there is no shortage of larger-than-life RTÉ personalities ready to be their saviour - or at least an apostle who is all ears.
The cult of Ireland's "best-loved personalities" (to quote their own promo) needs occasional checking. On that show, Joe Duffy said his callers wouldn't believe banks even if they put their hands on a Bible: "Look at Lehman Brothers, look at Enron, Rusnak and AIB - the issue is trust. I know I sound like Jimmy Stewart in It's A Wonderful Life . . . " George Bailey, remember, was trying to prevent a run on the banks. Still, I have to hand it to him, the bearded and sandalled one was right.
Newstalk 106-108 was full of jumping beans. Or beans that were pushed. To allow for Tom Dunne's new show, which could do with the odd jolt of hysteria, Orla Barry was moved to Saturday's Weekend Blendand Brenda Power's Your Callhad its curtain call. Your Calltried carving a niche as a campaigning news show by calling Government officials and Dublin City Council on the hoof, but all this tele-doorstepping ultimately came across as too desperate for attention.
Moving Barry was a necessary evil, allowing another big name to go head-to-head with the boys: Ryan Tubridy on RTÉ Radio 1, Gerry Ryan on 2FM and Ray D'Arcy on Today FM. The fab four are all very different head-the-balls and each show reflects that.
Dunne is fascinated with warm breezes, Tubridy bakes cakes and likes to read books, Ryan likes bad language and food, while D'Arcy spins his own brand of wackness with his tight-knit team, who appear on air around him.
It has also been a year of political and economic upheaval. It began with Bertie Ahern's surprise exit stage left, stage right, front of house and through every fire exit in the building, and continues with the two Brians attempting to clean up after Ahern's decade-long party, while trying to explain it simply to the general public in order for them not to . . . PANIC! Lenihan has arguably been doing a more coherent job on the airwaves than his sometimes befuddled-sounding boss.
Ahern was ready for his close-up last April. Even on radio. But every political pundit and colleague did their best to back into the spotlight, trip over Ahern and take his curtains with them: everyone from Nicky Byrne from Westlife to Enda Kenny from Take That, I mean Fine Gael. Even cheeky Vincent Browne told Myles Dungan, who was filling in for Pat Kenny, that he couldn't stay on the line chatting about Ahern as he was on his way to the TV3 studio to do a special.
There were moments of genuine reflection. In February, Olivia O'Leary delivered an essay on RTÉ's Drivetimeon the PDs and our most narcissistic of generations. It effectively became a political obituary. "They badly needed some ordinary Joes, I suggested once . . . The very notion of them needing a Joe Duffy, they laughed. Well, you might ask, who has a bigger national presence now?"
O'Leary added: "Who was in power all those years and who was it who spoiled the children?"
The interview of the year was Marian Finucane's pre-record with the late Nuala O'Faolain. O'Faolain spoke about fear of death: "It seems like such a waste of creation that, with death, all that knowledge dies."
It was more extraordinary given the friendship between the two. Only once did you get a window into that. O'Faolain requested Albert Fry's Tráthnóna Beag Aréir. "We'll find it," Finucane said, her voice almost breaking. Despite this harrowing interview, it never did.
In the drive-time slots, George Hook is just the right side of cantankerous. If only he'd stop referring to himself as "Hookie". I worry what happens to a person if they buy into their own publicity. Matt Cooper on The Last Wordand Mary Wilson on Drivetimestill get first dibs on the best political guests. In October, the Hookster (now I'm at it!) complained that he has repeatedly asked for Mary Harney, who was everywhere but hanging her coat on Hookie's hook.
There was lovely colour reporting from Henry McKean on Moncrieff, Valerie Cox on Today With Pat Kennyand, yes, Brenda Donohue on Mooney.
The latter drives me barmy, but the team does have backbone. Donohue's visit to a school with June Rodgers to tell the vice-principal that she was going to the show's Christmas party in the Red Cow stopped me dead in my tracks. What fresh hell was this? But, as Rogers did her squeaky panto voice, I was shocked to find that even I was laughing.
qfottrell@irishtimes.com