A story stretched to snapping point

RadioReview: The bounce has gone from his bungee - it's a saying well known to fans of Wallace and Gromit - and listening to what turned out to be the interview of the week on News at One (RTÉ Radio 1, Wednesday), Sean Haughey made himself sound like a man hanging in the wind at the end of a long length of elastic.

As the story ran on, Tom Kitt on Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1, Thursday) gave the northside TD hope that he might be snapped back into a top job at some point. But isn't the over-exposure of the saga more about the media simply getting its predictions wrong and feeling outwitted by Bertie than it is about anything else? Haughey didn't lose his high-paying, high-prestige job, he just wasn't promoted - there are middle managers in every organisation dreaming of having their names on the door of a corner office and bridesmaids looking longingly at bridal bouquets.

The story clogged up the airwaves for most of the week and that News at One interview took the spotlight from the newly elevated Mary Wallace whose first big interview had taken place a couple of hours earlier (Today with Pat Kenny, RTÉ Radio 1, Wednesday). In a sometimes tetchy interview, in which Wallace showed - unlike her plasticine namesake - she is not given to flashes of colour, Kenny asked the new junior minister several times where she stood on the EU nitrates directive and gave up when it became clear she wasn't going to give a clear answer.

A new Sunday morning series, Radio Forecast, (RTÉ Radio 1) should help radio fans trying to plan their Radio 1 listening week. It's a preview show where producers are interviewed by Liz Sweeney and clips are played. It might just encourage more people to tune into the evening schedule.

A new series in that schedule started this week with presenter Ella McSweeney looking at brain-related health issues in Mind Matters (RTÉ Radio 1, Thursday). She started with Alzheimer's disease, which was discovered and named as a disease by Dr Alois Alzheimer in 1906. The programme explored in layman's terms how the disease happens - Dr Dominic Walsh could be a poster boy for the plain English movement - while Prof John Hardy in the same accessible language charted the scientific community's work on understanding the disease.

The most affecting voice belonged to Peter (74), a retired scientist who noticed his memory slipping eight years ago. For him, the worst part is not knowing how the disease will progress, whether he will be able to recognise his grandchild in five years' time or wondering when his ability to read will slip way. A vaccine is on the way, although the scientists predict it will be at least five years before there will be a "good treatment".

You don't have to have a school-going child to know that this week was mid-term - the number of stand-ins in Montrose is as sure an indicator that the kids are off as any school calendar. Radio 1 has the best subs' bench with Tom McGurk in for a day for Pat Kenny on Monday, Evelyn O'Rourke for Joe Duffy on Liveline on a couple of days and Brenda Power doing the business for Marian Finucane (RTÉ 1, Saturday, Sunday) although her item on Desperate Housewives was toe-curlingly bad - three blokes in studio drooling for more time than was strictly necessary over Eva Longoria, who stars in the programme, while Power showed few signs of ever having seen the series.

On 2fm the subs' bench is missing a key player - RTÉ still hasn't found a credible Gerry Ryan replacement. Gareth O'Callaghan was the stand-in and he interviewed Catherine Hughes (The Gerry Ryan Show, 2fm, Thursday) author of a biography of the original domestic goddess, Mrs Beeton. The whole item, which in Ryan's hands would have been a bit of fun, floundered around for what felt like hours - by the end of it, even the author sounded bored to death.

A programme of obituaries could be pretty grim but Matthew Bannister's new series Last Word (BBC R4 Friday) is surprisingly entertaining. People love reading newspaper obituaries because of the between-the-lines stuff - "didn't suffer fools gladly" usually means "friendless crank" and they're the only place that the hoary old chestnut "confirmed bachelor" still gets an outing. On radio it's quite different, because in this programme we get to hear personal reminiscences from friends and family as well as archive material which, for those few moments at least, brings a person back to life.

The late Peter Benchley, creator of Jaws - which scared a generation out of the water - knew his life was defined by the movie. "I could be elected Pope, or win the Nobel Peace Prize, and still at my funeral they'd play 'do do, do do . . . do do, do do'."