Hearing the same gag all week is no joke
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HAY Byrne, sitting in for the man himself on The Ronan Collins Show, opened Monday’s edition of RTE’s lunchtime music programme by announcing that “it’s Albert George Cernik’s birthday today, better known as Guy Mitchell”, before playing the 1950s crooner’s most famous song, Singing The Blues.
Afterwards, the Risin’ Time host gave more details of the man whose birthday it apparently was, including, curiously, that he was “born on the 22nd of February, 1927”. So not his birthday at all then?
Shay went on to talk about the previous night’s Academy Awards ceremony, noting that the main music awards “went to La La Land,” then adding quickly: “Let me just double check that. Is that right?”
Similar references to the mix-up in which the wrong film was named Best Picture were ubiquitous for days.
Conor Brophy began his round-up of business news on Morning Ireland by declaring: “I made sure I checked twice before I pulled the script off the printer this morning.” The Ray D'Arcy Show, running through a new list of Ireland's best beaches, jokingly gave the top slot to La La Land rather than Inchydoney in Co Cork.
BBC radio was at it, too. Listening to numerous versions of the same joke made it feel increasingly unfair that Irish politicians are mocked mercilessly for repeating tired witticisms about “brown envelopes” when broadcasters, who are paid to think of original things to say each day, get away with comedic murder, too.
Though at least they had watched the incident. The Ryan Tubridy Show talked about the mix-up at the Oscars with a man who admitted that he “didn’t see it yet”.
Namechecking Donald Trump has become another easy fall-back position for presenters in need of an instant droll retort. The interview on Monday’s Moncrieff with the author of a new study on the positive effects of “direct interaction with non-human intelligences” ended with the presenter quipping that it’s as well aliens don’t land on the White House lawn or the new President would probably slap them with a travel ban. Well, hold our aching sides, lest they split with laughter.
Mercifully, Sean announced on Tuesday that “we’re going to give up mentioning Donald Trump for Lent”, adding: “I can’t express to you how difficult that’s going to be.” Listeners can only hope that he succeeds, because the obsession with Trump is becoming tiresome.
Matt Cooper of Today FM's Last Word is still plugging the line about misogyny being a key factor in Hillary Clinton's defeat, ignoring that 53pc of white women freely chose not to vote for her.
He was discussing whether woman make better leaders than men with regularguests, radio producer Aingeala Flannery and arts journalist Hugh Linehan. As always, both guests had plenty of interest to say, but the problem is that they don’t really disagree with one another on all that much, and, while there’s something dispiriting about radio shows becoming artificial clashes of irreconcilable positions, too much consensus is also problematic.
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