RADIO REVIEW:AND YOU THOUGHT you had problems with the extra 50 cent on a bottle of wine?
On Monday Tom Dunne(Newstalk 106-108, weekdays) the host was having a Dostoyevsky-like meltdown over his red "live" studio light not working. Well, it was more of a fiddle-faddle than a meltdown. I don't think he does meltdowns. Not on radio, anyway. He is a warm, gentle breeze on the airwaves during these chilly October days, especially compared to the sulfurous ill wind emanating from government buildings this last week.
Anyway, the red studio light wasn't working for Tom. Maybe Marconi House was saving on electricity. "It's like doing a show and there's nobody out there," he said, sounding like a character from The Twlight Zone. "I don't have my performance-enhancing red light." It was as if he was gazing skywards for the Northern Star and it had gone and disappeared on him. Finally, it came back.
On Tuesday, he was also freaked out by his likeness on giant posters as he travelled home on the Dart: "It's like I'm haunting myself in my own dreams. I think it's visible from space. I can't tell people I'm 6'4" on the internet anymore."
On Tuesday's The Tubridy Show(RTÉ Radio One, weekdays) Ryan was having the opposite problem. While Tom was running away from himself, Ryan was chasing the zeitgeist, as he does so often with mixed results, bringing "hip" to Radio One. Think of your embarrassing uncle, dressed in an argyle stretch knit, trousers just short of his ankles, doing a disco dance at a family wedding, and you have it. "You've all been living beyond your means!" Ryan said. "The government has officially declared that the 1980s are back." Then the uncle does the splits.
Ryan was giving it socks with "Recession Revisited": Princess Diana luminous bows are back (allegedly), ra-ra skirts (allegedly) and MC Hammer pants (I'll give him that). "Brian Lenihan is the top newsmaker," Ryan said, adding, "George Michael is playing in the park, don't know what sort of park . . ." This is his second George Michael crack. The pop singer clearly has problems, but kicking him when he's down to kick-start his show? It's up there with Ryan's recent 50th birthday greeting to Michael Jackson: "Happy birthday, you big weirdo!"
Earlier that day, Morning Ireland(RTÉ Radio One, weekdays) was setting the scene for the budget. "Willie O'Dea is barefoot," Áine Lawlor said. "I don't know whether it's to do with these hair-shirt times!" Barefoot? Dear God . . . Actually, what she said was: "Willie O'Dea is on foot." My mistake. But Mary O'Rourke has walked to Kildare Street for years. This wasn't noteworthy unless, that is, Willie was keenly aware of the photographers at the gates of Leinster House. Too late. Noel Dempsey already let slip the tax rises on Monday, thereby backing into the pre-budget spotlight and taking the curtains with him.
Christopher McKevitt did some Morning Ireland vox-pops. "Tax the fat cats and leave the rest of us alone," one man said. "The Taoiseach should be ashamed of himself!" a woman with an enviable Dublin coddle added. "He's been finance minister and he should have seen this coming down the road."
On Moncrieff (Newstalk 106-108, weekdays) a woman ranted to king of the vox-pops Henry McKean. "They should boot the flippin' lot of them out. I'd rather put Sinn Féin in. At least they go out and fight for their country. It's scandalous really." Let's assume the more mild-mannered quotes didn't make it on the air.
The day after the night before - that's Wednesday! - Brian Lenihan was all over the airwaves, defending his income tax levy and means testing medical cards for the over-70s and, the day after the day the day after the night before - that's Thursday! - defending the €1 billion bank guarantee charge. The banks, he told Morning Ireland, couldn't afford to pay more. Unlike us poor craters. The budget has been chewed over elsewhere in this paper but, whatever your opinion, aside from playing to the backbenchers with his over-the-top call to patriotic duty in his speech, Lenihan was articulate and dignified throughout.
But the funniest budget moment came on The Ray D'Arcy Show(Today FM, weekdays) on Wednesday. Ray read an excerpt from a news report in this newspaper: "The middle classes will also have to fork out more for a bottle of wine, after the Minister imposed a 50 cent increase in excise duty per bottle."
He took that sentence rather more literally than was originally intended. "Do the working classes not drink wine?" Ray asked. Maireád Farrell, a working-class girl from Finglas, said she would buy Jenny Kelly, a middle-class girl from Foxrock, a nice bottle of wine in the off-licence to save her paying the 50 cent herself.
This is the kind of can-do spirit we need right now.
It's also the kind of budget loophole even the Minister for Finance could not have seen coming.