Sir, - I've been watching the new improved Eircom weather forecast after the News on RTE 1 for the past week or so now. I've listened attentively to the new improved presenters and I've looked at the new improved maps and I have one small question: why was it all changed?
I miss the isobars; I miss Evelyn Cusack breathing a sigh of relief when she's finished her forecast. Dammit, I even miss Gerry Fleming winking at me - but most of all I miss the feeling that the person telling me about the weather happens to know what he or she is actually talking about.
I'm sure the new people are perfectly good presenters but they're not meteorologists. Which would you prefer when you're ill: to go and talk to a real live doctor or see someone who can look and sound great but not have the foggiest notion what's wrong with you? Give me the qualified professional every time. Give me the person who can make an interesting off-the-cuff comment and who can carry your interest with his or her enthusiasm for the subject. Our new improved weather forecasts might seem terribly polished but they are bland - just somebody listing off a load of facts. No thanks.
Will we continue to have our news and weather programmes "dumbed down" until they are as useless as some of the American stuff we see on satellite TV with its 20-second sound bites?
What will happen next? Will Anne Doyle and Eileen Dunne be dumped off the News and replaced with actors? I can see it now. "And here is the evening news read by Mylie from Glenroe . . ." Well, Holy God! - Yours, etc.,
Jim Halligan, Eaton Wood Court, Shankill, Dublin 18.