RADIO REVIEW:WITH ALL the sounds of music, news bulletins and jingles on air, there is a refreshing lack of pretention and fuss about The Curious Ear(RTÉ Radio One, Wednesdays). It celebrates the quietest corners of Irish life.
Producer Ronan Kelly has lately been sampling work by students, such as Ed O’Neill from the Institute of Technology in Tallaght, who walked around Dún Laoghaire and, after some nifty mixing in the studio, created a soothing urban “soundscape”. Seagulls, surf and the regular clanking of the Dart can be as reassuring and familiar as a friend’s voice.
Another student from Dublin City University, Ed Prendergast, went one step further in an interview with a woman who has synaesthesia, a condition where one word can evoke a colour, taste or sense of touch.
“Monday is like a cannonball,” she said, “it’s soft, grey and shiny. Tuesday is pale green, long and has soft edges. Wednesday is rectangular and bottle green with a coarse grass texture. Thursday is a bubble with a waterfall falling through it. Friday is a spear, on fire like a flame. Saturday is soft, white like a bed sheet flowing in the wind . . .”
If Joe Kearney's Documentary On One: Biking Viking(RTÉ Radio One, Saturday) was a colour, it would be purple, for its overwritten script, and smell of incense and motor oil for the reverential tone it took with its subject, a 62-year-old biker turned Celtic "chief". Pete O'Connor was once known as Fat Pete, but now he is Father of the Oak. "The years have mellowed this warrior," Kearney said. Why is it that if a middle-aged man dresses up in a tunic and prances around with a sword it inspires awe, rather than a plea for him to stop acting the maggot and come in for his tea? Blame Jeremy Clarkson and other boys with toys.
O’Connor said, “I want to be cremated and have my ashes scattered on the Hill of Tara.” As they spoke, there was a bleeping sound in the background. Kearney explained: “An alarm sensor periodically interrupts to remind us we’re in the present tense and not in a time of holy wells when miracles still happened and heroes walked the land.”
Kearney introduced us to O’Connor’s son, but again his fawning description would make a tour guide in Bunratty Castle blush. “The fascination with sharp blades has been passed to Pete’s son Eddie. He’s a tattoo artist, warrior and clan member,” Kearney gushed. “His rite of passage is straight from the pages of a Boy’s Own adventure tale.” Which is where it should have stayed.
The fearsomely titled Coleman At Large(Newstalk 106-108, Monday) with economist Marc Coleman began this week with a panel discussion about cost cuts, greed, fat cats, the politics of consensus and social partnership.
(I have a funny feeling they will be the topics next week too.) Testing the resolve of listeners, there was a lengthy audio recap of what Coleman called “the year from hell”, from Finance Minister Brian Lenihan’s “call to patriotic action” budget speech to angry crowds outside the Dáil protesting the (temporary) withdrawal of the free medical card for over-70s and George Lee’s speech after his victory for Fine Gael in the byelection. Did we really need to relive all of that . . . again?
The debate itself went around in circles with commentators repeating points they made before on other shows and, as always, stating the obvious. Sounding like a broken record, Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said the big question for the National Asset Management Agency was how the banks’ toxic assets should be valued. She also spoke of the misery of unemployment and indebtedness.
“We’re going to talk about that suffering and deprivation . . . after this break,” Coleman said. I could hardly wait.
On Wednesday's Breakfast On 4(4FM, weekdays) Gareth O'Callaghan played the wonderfully cheesy and catchy In Your Eyessung by Niamh Kavanagh. 4FM plays the most uncool and memorable of all guilty pleasures.
It brought me back to 1993, a time before we were fools for the love of money. O’Callaghan said he must get Kavanagh on to review the papers. I associate her voice with a time of burgeoning national optimism. Hearing her musing on the fate of the property empire of Liam Carroll or, worse, Nama, would be just too much to bear.