Poor Man About Town

It's been a long time since I have tuned into LBC, it was becoming increasingly unlistenable - drivel and earwax give tremendous earaches. Time was there were fairly good broadcasters on board, now they all seem to be refugees from the tabloid press, whose skills are broadcasting can be likened to a chimpanzees with typewriters. I guess that the content is dictated in a similar vein. It's now become complete tabloid trash. I shan't be tuning into LBC ever again.

Labels: broadcasting, LBC, Radio, tabloid, trash

I was listening to Nick Ferrari earlier this week, he did a review of the past year; one of the topics of discussion was Blair, he had a retinue of several political pundits commenting on his tenure in office. All said he did not do enough Thatcherism but fucked up big time in Iraq. Hang on, what are these bozos on about - not doing enough Thatcherism, that's a bit like a trio of junkies commenting on a friend who died of a drug overdose not doing enough heroine. Fucking marvelous. Then Nick Ferrari invited people to phone in to comment, hardly any supported Blair and Nick put paid to their detractions fairly quickly. I think the topic came quickly to a close. It seemed as if the production team were expecting loads of people to phone to say what a swell guy Blair is.

Labels: Blair, British Politics, LBC, Nick Ferrari, Radio

Nick Ferrari's show is degenerating into complete crap - I used to tune into his show to shout at the radio and in the process wake myself up in the mornings. Now, there seems to be endless items on fucking babies. Today's item was on IVF and the implantation of "fertilised embryos" (sic). I shouted "fuck off" at the radio and switched channels to the more sedate territory of Radio 4's Today programme.

Is Galliard Homes determining this shite? If so, it is wasting an awful lot of money.

Labels: broadcasting, LBC, Nick Ferrari, Radio, Radio 4, trash

Tuned into Nick Ferrari on LBC today and there it was again with the frequency of the Chinese Water Torture - Galliard Homes ads at every single commercial break. If I come into billions of pounds, I would buy Galliard Homes so that I would make the entire company go bust, such are my feelings. By the way, there is no such thing as a home anymore, all this housing boom bullshit has put paid to this notion - suggest that Galliard Homes change its name to Galliard Properties.

Labels: Advertising, Greedy Property Developers, LBC, Radio

I was listening to Nick Ferrari and LBC were playing fucking Galliard Homes ads with gay abandon. The adverts are rendered in shouting form, hectoring one to buy a box that you can buy to let in inner London. Who the fuck is going to rent a box in Inner London? Nick Ferrari topic of discussion was around rehabilitation of criminals, he took the lock em up line throughout the discussion. I got the feeling that his tongue was firmly planted in his cheek when he quoted one e-mail as suggesting that criminals should be locked in a room and played non-stop LBC adverts. If the standard of the Galliard Homes' ads is anything to go by then I think it would be a splendid idea to play them this ouvres, I believe that there will be a significant drop in crime rates were any con threatened with this kind of sentence.

Labels: Advertising, commercials, LBC, Radio

I was listening to Nick Ferrari on LBC today. Gosh, his show's content is fast becoming a veritable cornucopia of audio shit. Gone are the days of extremely entertaining right-wing belicose only to be replaced by fucking baby talk. There was an item on his show about how women have been made lonely by virtue of having to looking their squawking shitting soft machine all day long. He interviewed a woman an American woman by the name of 'Carter-Ann' (What kind of stupid name is that?). The parents may have named her 'BeerCanMan-Pugh'. We were regaled with a litany of American-accented moaning about how her husband does his own thing and how she feels lumbered with having to look after baby. Oh well, we are living in a post-femenist age where the feminist baby of female emancipation was tipped out with the bath water. There is no way my-ex would have accepted anything that had been lumbered on her; but we are of a different generation - gosh, being old-fashioned can bring along a delicious sense of irony at times.

I digress, Nick Ferrari's show has become real shit - check this out, he is now having to advertise goods and services as if they were topics under discussion. It is at this point that I tell the radio to "fuck off" and switch channels to Radio 4 and listen to the Today programme.

Another point is when Nick goes on holiday, we have Kelvin McKenzie of The Sun fame. He's about as wooden and entertaining as a coffin lid. His shows are uunlistenable. His delivery is like that of a dinner lady plonking stale mashed potato on your plate. He gets told to "Fuck off" before he barely speaks.

Labels: bullshit, Kelvin McKenzie, LBC, Nick Ferrari, Radio

A few months ago, some man representing the TV Licensing Authority came to my door. He said that if I had a television, I needed a tv licence to watch it. I admitted to having a television and he gave me the chance of buying the television which I duly did - I got a card where I go to the newsagent and pay £5.50 in instalments each week. Ever since I have started to pay for the television, I have made an important discovery - I am paying for crap. I am paying for twelve year olds who present television programmes but do not have enough intelligence to dig holes and fill them again. Let's look at what I am paying for:

BBC1 - shit - complete shit - unwatchable - despite its pedigree of being the first tv channel in this country - it cannot even come up to the poor standards of Channel 5. As for its news coverage - Mickey Mouse and Goofy may as well be presenting the news.

BBC2 - Promising start and evolution then turned to the contents of a blocked toilet in order to ape Channel 4's trashy output.

BBC3 - Who the fuck watches this channel. I don't think twelve year olds watch this.

BBC4 - Excellent, Excellent, Excellent - worth every penny of my licence fee.

Radio 1 - well the yoof listen to it.

Radio 2 - good programmes, I really like Johnny Walker.

Radio 3 - great programmes, good classical output, good source of musical education.

Radio 4 - can't imagine life without it, if it were compulsory to have a radio receiver licemce, I'd cough up.

BBC on the internet - lifw`would be quite horrible without listen again.


The biggest irony is that most of the licence fee goes on the things I hate about the BBC - BBC1, BBC2 and BBC3. The problem is that the BBC makes me feel that I am in a minority about the things I like about it. It is as if the BBC alludes that its output must appeal to the 'wider audience'. Oh, fuck off!

Labels: BBC, BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, Radio, Radio 3, Radio 4, Television

Being quite skint at the moment, I have to behave myself with my bank account - I am fast approaching the end of my overdraft limit and I have too much month at the end of my pay. I went into my bank, HSBC, to obtain a statement print-out to check on things. My nerves were somewhat jangled and the muzak did little to alleviate the situation. The muzak stopped, a male voice announced "This is HSBC radio" then a female voice came on, deejay, talking deejay babble - you know that twelve year old shit - that was babble babble babble and next we have babble...then there were ads about the crippling and balls busting loans that the bank offers. What the fuck is HSBC playing at; spending on all that interest I pay them on some twelve year old to announce fucking records.

Labels: Banksy, commercials, Radio, trash

If LBC is not careful, it will lose numerous listeners because of the plethora of horrible ads currently being broadcast by the station. These include our ever favourite property developer Galliard Homes; Churchill Insurance; O2; M & S; Lloyds TSB. Whenever these ads come on, I scream "fuck off" at the radio and switch stations. I know that the station has to earn bread but they have to balance the frequency of broadcast of these horrid specimens of commercial art and the needs of the needs of the listeners.

Labels: commercials, LBC, Radio

My favourite grumpy old git, Ed Reardon, is back on Listen Again; I have heard the episode two or three times before and I never tire of it. If you like grumpy old men - Ed's your man

Labels: Ed Reardon, grumpy old men, Radio

It was a real treat to hear Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger of The Doors fame on Johnnie Walker BBC Radio 2 today. Sadly, Ray did not give Robbie of an opportunity to speak; but Ray had an awful lot say about the Hippies, the Sixties; Jim Morrison; politics and music - wow. You can check it out on the above and lister to these two rock legends speak.

Now that's what I call a radio programme.

Labels: Radio

Magenta Divine has been selling her voice to two of the worst radio ad culprits - DFS and Galliard Homes. I guess that Magenta was a bit of style icon and that by using her voice these two companies hope that people will consider their products rather chic. I don't think so.

Labels: commercials, LBC, Radio

I tuned into Any Questions today on BBC's Listen Again facility. Gosh it was fucking boring, the panel was fucking boring - they consisted Andy Burnham - Some twelve year old Health Minister; Chris Grayling - Shadow Transport Secretary; Derek Simpson - General Secretary Amicus and Ruth Deech. I never heard of Derek Simpson until now - he said "he promised to give Tony Blair and effing migraine" - oh really, I think Blair has got more of an effing migraine and it is highly doubtful whether this being of such remarkable feats has made any contribution to Blair's headaches. Derek Simpson's performance on this programme was quite lacklustre and I am led to think whether the Amicus membership is getting their moneysworth from this man. As for Andy Burnham, who sounded like the New Labour version of The Worker's Friend, made a very patronising statement about working class people being deprived of University Places becauses they do not know the language or techniques to get a place, he was talking as if the working class had some kind of intellectual deficiency or learning difficulty - bullshit! History has taught us that if anyone is determined enough they will achieveThe rest of the panel were equally bland. It was worst ever Any Questions in to which I have tuned. It was complete bollocks. This programme should fizz not fizzle out.

Labels: Any Questions, BBC, New Labour, Radio

Yes, Radio 3 is, on the whole, highbrow. It is money well-spent. It has come to the rescue when LBC has got too trashy in the mornings or when there are too many Galliard Homes ads on.

There is a programme on Montiverdi's Opera, Orpheus. I hate opera but like Montiverdi. This programme was a complete scan of the work through different interpretations. We had the history, the ambience and the period. Good commentary on the various interpretations. Some really good comments on the demands made on the musicians, including the singers. One singer gave a good on-the-spot vibrato example.

Having said that, I could not sit through the 2 - 3 hours of this work uninterrupted.

Labels: Radio

I had to switch off LBC today - Galliard Homes is back with a vengance! They have changed the ad and bunged the Horse of the Year show theme music as its background. In the foreground, there is this voice yelling at you to buy their property...the tedium...this is the price we have to pay for a decent radio station - it's London rival BBC London is unlistenable, it's real shit.

Labels: Radio

I always listen to LBC; I put up with an awful lot in terms of their ads. I tolerated the DFS sofa ads over Christmas with its jollity Christmas music. If anything, this ad made me want to buy one of their offending articles and burn the fucking thing in the high street declaring that DFS get on my nerves.

With DFS stopping its saturation campaign, Galliard are now back on air - not so much appealing to the Protestant Work Ethic but the Heathen Greed Creed. You know the sort - spend only a measly couple hundred grand and you will get gezillions in the next three hours!!!. When Galliard comes on, I check out the content to come (usually Nick Ferrari's spate of silliness in the mornings) and switch channels to Radio 3 , ah civilisation!

Learned by midday, that this Oasis of civilisation may well be under threat. Patricia Hewitt has agreed the licence fee with conditions that will trash the entire corporation. This would mean that our listening to Radio 3 will be blitzed by the likes of Galliard Homes and DFS

Labels: Radio

LBC keep on churning out these adverts for Galliard Homes, these ads are really getting on my nerves - all they seem to do is to conjure images in my mind of extremely greedy property developers who seem to be on the rampage for every scrap of land and every single brick in London. I have checked out the homes on offer and, in my view, they look really monstrous; the sort of confections one would find in nouveau suburbia rather than a major capital - in fact London is fast becoming just another retail park with luxury apartments thrown in for good measure. Give it another five years or so, London will lose whatever character it possesses thanks to this massive and thoughtless redevelopment of the city. Y'know the economic downturn is imminent, people are already been laid off from jobs etc. Companies like Galliard Homes are going to have an awful lot to lose when the tide comes in - that's one consolation.

When Gerald Ratner declared that he was selling crap he was expressing a sentiment that many property developers keep tightly to themselves. Let's face it, whatever they put up is complete crap and the wierd and wonderful things is that people buy it!

Labels: commercials, Greedy Property Developers, LBC, Radio