John Humphrys must be the Marmite of Radio 4 – you either love him or hate him
I belong to the latter school
As soon as I no longer had a sort of professional reason for listening to the Today programme, I stopped
I used to like Radio 5 in the mornings, but then they brought in N Campbell. (Just as women over 40 should stop wearing their hair long & loose – before people start saying she ought to – so men over 40 should stop calling themselves Nicky. And both sexes should stop calling their Mother mummy)
Although he has his moments (asking Nick Clegg about God) & some of the banter can be good, he is generally miscast for this programme. His questions go on & on, you lose all interest by the time he stops for an answer. Any politician has seen it coming for so long that they are as prepared as The Ancient Mariner to waffle on
And I am surprised that violence has not been done, the way Campbell butts in on other people’s interviews
Imagine James Naughtie doing that to Humphrys!
Now that I have a push button radio with pre-sets, I spend my time flicking through the stations when something comes on that I cannot bear. And so it is only recently I have discovered how Radios 4 & 5 tend to cover exactly the same stories each morning. There is probably more football 0n 5 & more foreign on 4, but otherwise they are even interviewing the same people. Sometimes I switch over to hear somebody say: We are expecting to interview the Home Secretary, to which I mutter sotto voce: Yes, as soon as she has finished in the other studio
Setting the agenda for the day, indeed. I did not realise that there is literally only one
