RADIO REVIEW:THERE WAS A bit of an argy-bargy on Tuesday's Mooney(RTÉ Radio One, weekdays). Paddy O'Gorman, who made his name talking to social welfare recipients on his series Queuing for a Living, will happily interview the working classes – he just wouldn't like to go on holidays with them.
“Would I go to Bettystown myself on holidays?” he said when a texter asked him to apologise for his “low-class” comments. “Sure I’m much too middle class for that.” But when prodded by presenter Derek Mooney, perhaps with one eye on his own demographic, O’Gorman apologised . . . sort of. “I am sorry if I offended anybody,” he said, before adding of Bettystown Del Sol, “It’s a big traditional Dublin working class, extended-family holiday.”
He then tried flattering his host. “My mother warns me about you, Derek. She says Derek Mooney draws you out and gets you to say things you shouldn’t do.” But it didn’t work. “If there’s something lurking at the back of your mind that I manage to tease out of you, Paddy, then you have to examine your own conscience,” Mooney said.
O’Gorman said, “It is a strong working-class Dublin accent that you find in the caravan parks.” He added, “Apartheid South Africa was black and white. In a Western country such as Ireland, class distinction is based on a thousand subtle distinctions.” O’Gorman’s attitude provided an accidental insight into how the middle classes long to differentiate themselves from the working classes.
"I keep making this point that classes look after classes and that the upper echelons of the civil services will fight bitterly because they can make or break ministers," Eamon Keane said over on Lunchtime(Newstalk 106-108, weekdays). He was in a more heated debate with economist Colm McCarthy, he of the An Bord Snip Nua report, about how to make fair and equitable cuts in social services.
The debate pitted disadvantaged groups against public service cuts recommended by economists. “There are certain social costs that economists don’t look at,” Keane said. McCarthy interrupted: “It’s just absolutely groundless to say that economists are not sensitive and not conscious of the impacts of different measures . . .” They would both have bloodied noses at the end of this.
“If I could get back to the evidence, Eamon, this may not be your cup of tea . . .” McCarthy said, citing a report by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) on public sector pay raises from low to high levels. “I don’t doubt the evidence,” Keane said. “I was just making a simple point, which mightn’t be your cup of tea . . . that the upper echelons have a bit more power than at the lower echelons.” Time for elevenses and to call it a draw.
RTÉ Radio's new schedule began this week. Sean Rocks presents the new early evening arts show, Arena(RTÉ Radio One, weekdays), which replaces the solid if plodding The Arts Show. He got off to a lively and promising start with coverage of the Dublin Fringe Festival. Arenadidn't review any computer games, thanks be to God, an item threatened in one newspaper interview with head of RTÉ Radio Clare Duignan. The task for Arenawill be to choose good so-called low culture (from television, as the most obvious example) and good high culture (theatre, literature etc) without thinking it has to be an either/or choice. Rocks spoke to Douglas Coupland about his new novel, Generation A, set in the near future about five people who are brought together after experiencing a bee sting in a world where people believed bees were extinct. Coupland said when he first heard news a few years ago that bee populations were shrinking, he feared for the planet. "I just about vomited on the spot," he said.
Other stations are chasing a broader audience too. Marty Whelan At Midday(Lyric FM, weekdays) began this week, but it airs at the same time as the feel-good musical treats of Ronan Collins(RTÉ Radio One, weekdays). Whelan is a talented broadcaster, but I don't believe the music of Frank Sinatra, Cat Stevens and Peggy Lee was originally what Lyric FM's mission was about. "Do I love you, do I?" Whelan said on Monday, quoting Cole Porter, "Doesn't one and one make two?" There was not enough love on the radio this week, but when assessing their relationship with the something-for-everyone-in-the-audience Lyric FM, classical music lovers may yet hesitate before answering Porter's questions.
qfottrell@irishtimes.com