Radio Review Belinda McKeonIf you leaned in very close to your radio in the days approaching the start of the Olympic Games, you could have heard a burden being lifted from the shoulders of Irish radio presenters. Or a voice inside their heads, and those of their producers.
Only two more days until there'll definitely be something to talk about, it said. Only two more days of having to rehash these same ideas about reality TV and deportation and Sports Utility Vehicles. Only one more day. Hang in there. Let the television previewer bang on about the prospect of that documentary on breast reduction for another few minutes. Oh, and they're relaunching Cabbage Patch Kids? Get someone who makes their living handling PR for dolls on the phone right now, and hand them 10 minutes of airtime (Seán Moncrieff, Newstalk 106, Wednesday).
The athletes are coming, and they'll leave the silly season for dust. On Five Seven Live (RTÉ1, daily) Philip Bouchier-Hayes could be heard counting down to the opening ceremony. Meanwhile, for his morning missive from Athens, on Wednesday's Summer Days (RTÉ1), Des Cahill, that Tony Soprano of sports broadcasting - mess with him, you sense, and your U-14 Gaelic victory will swim with the radio fishes - hauled in a pair of Greek street musicians to accompany his report. "I had to pay them a fiver," he joked (one hopes) to Tom McGurk. Anticipation indeed.
In any case, the Olympics wait was shortened by the news last weekend that Irish runner Cathal Lombard had tested positive for a banned substance, and was on his way home. On Monday night, Lombard had refused to comment to waiting media at Cork airport, where it took the combined forces of airport police and gardaí to escort him from the building. Wednesday's radio was made of anticipation of a different sort, as the deadline for Lombard's formal statement inched ever closer. While quotes about dishonesty and dishonour came in thick and fast, the tone of coverage, on RTÉ at least, was reasoned and restrained. On Five Seven Live, Bouchier-Hayes didn't need to resort to the easy option of Lombard-bashing; his sensitive interview with Lombard's fellow Cork distance runner, Mark Carroll, bypassed outrage to bring home the enormity of the disappointment this represented for the Irish Olympic team, and to consider the reasons Lombard would feel compelled to do as he did.
Carroll wanted to get a message to Lombard to go and run as soon as he could, and to younger athletes that this wasn't the way it had to be. When Lombard's formal statement came into the studio minutes later, it read like a response to Carroll's very words, and Bouchier-Hayes had the acumen to let it stand, keeping line-by-line dissection to a minimum. What Lombard did was wrong; the story is not just about the disgrace, but about the dilemma he must have felt acutely enough to take such a foolish course. Exploring that dilemma was the responsible course; getting PR guru Terry Prone to tear strips off Lombard's letter, as Damien Kiberd did on Wednesday Lunchtime (Newstalk 106, daily) was the cheap one. According to Prone, a radio regular, Lombard's self-deprecating tone was a winner; he might have a future in PR "because you don't have to do something good to be famous now". Or to be on the speed-dial of easily pleased radio producers, it might seem.
Given the day's discussions, the opening questions of Tuesday's Being Human (RTÉ1), Richard Hannaford's documentary on the future of human evolution, had a ring of unwitting irony. "Why is it that world records seem to be constantly broken?" asked Hannaford, referring in particular to the sport of running. "Is it that we are getting faster as a species?"
In a lively and absorbing programme, Hannaford talked to people with varying perspectives on the apparent physical surge, upwards and onwards, of the human species. According to the buyer for a young women's boutique, the average leg length of today's teenage girls is 33 inches, as opposed to 30 only five years ago. And they're slimmer of hip and bigger of chest. Good for them. For the rest of us, all that's stretching ahead is a lifetime of insecurity.
One woman who had a fierce case of such a complex was Queen Medb, who wanted the bull of the Ulster chieftain Dáire so badly she led an army of Connacht tribesmen across the country to snatch it. Their route is traced by Dermot Somers and producer Peter Woods in On The Trail of the Táin (RTÉ1, Wednesday), an evocative documentary series which crosses every ford and climbs every height referred to in the epic. This programme journeyed from Tarmonbarry in Co Roscommon to the prehistoric cairns of Co Meath, and Somers's passion for the story brought to life, simply and vividly, the figures, the places, the anxieties. Listening to him, with the roar of the Shannon in the background, you could almost feel the fury in the queen's eyes. That's anticipation.
Bernice Harrison is on leave