Eddie Mair's Touchy-Feely Show

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes, but isn't that ghetto-ised to early one morning...where it belongs?

No - 40minutes every Saturday teatime. (When all decent-minded folks are listening to Jazz Line-Up on R3. )

[eighthobstruction]

....EM: the Ken Bruce of the News....

[cloughie]

No - 40minutes every Saturday teatime. (When all decent-minded folks are listening to Jazz Line-Up on R3. )

Or checking the footie results!

[Conchis]

....EM: the Ken Bruce of the News....

That's about right. But then, I like Ken Bruce! :)

[eighthobstruction]

That's about right. But then, I like Ken Bruce! :)

[Tony Halstead]

It's the only valid tactic when dealing with that slimy p.o.s. Most interviewers are disarmed by his 'loveable public shcoolboy' act (and it IS an act - the 'loveable' part at least).

I don't 'do' lovability....

[eighthobstruction]

I don't 'do' lovability....

.....and then worst of all 'by what ever means necessary' he somehow managed to elevate Robert Peston to a hieght that only the Peter Principle can explain (here I have to admit I asked if PM would piece together all the strange noises that Peston makes at the beginning of each sentence/word; and they did a little 30 second feature [ so 8thO is being a bit hypocritical].
I'm sure they are lovely blokes to have a drink with , but realpolitik and all that.

[Lat-Literal]

It has always been a news programme too far, coming just ahead of the half-hour long Six O'Clock News. Originally, it had a slightly early LBC feel as if it was competing with it. But I'm going back several decades there. To my mind, it also had at that time a slightly frosty focus on business which was of no interest to any teenager blocking out the so-called real world.

Yes, the Mair version is different and, yes, it is a forerunner to Broadcasting House and The One Show. In fact, BH is often given a plug. Sound effect : Milk being poured into a bowl. Mair: What is the connection between rice krispies and a nuclear holocaust? Sound effect: not fully working WW2 air raid siren. Mair : Later........Sound effect: Brief clip from the film Quatermass.......Mair : You the listener will tell us as Postman Pat delivers the weekly postbag.......Sound effect: Postman Pat theme tune.........Mair : But before you can say snap, crackle and armageddon here's Paddy.....Two sound effects: Breaking china and a snippet of Joy Division's "Isolation".....Mair : To tell us what you will be doing on Sunday morning if you aren't daft enough to leave your shelter for the cereal aisle in Lidl (and remember in this a still pre-bomb era, so we are told, other reputable cereal providers are also available).

I watch Pointless.

It has more point.

[DracoM]

All I can say is that many posters seem to be listening to a different show!!

The programme may have an ironic default, but actually, it asks hard questions, and under the banter / irony, is a very serious programme.

Mair is for me one of the very best practitioners on radio - or TV if it comes to that - and his capacity to re-calibrate according to the nature of the interview and interviewee is enviable. His unadvertised and often sudden flip from irony to deadly seriousness is enough to wobble the hardest.

[gradus]

All I can say is that many posters seem to be listening to a different show!!

The programme may have an ironic default, but actually, it asks hard questions, and under the banter / irony, is a very serious programme.

Mair is for me one of the very best practitioners on radio - or TV if it comes to that - and his capacity to re-calibrate according to the nature of the interview and interviewee is enviable. His unadvertised and often sudden flip from irony to deadly seriousness is enough to wobble the hardest.

My view too. His devastating sarcasm is impressive as well.

[eighthobstruction]

All I can say is that many posters seem to be listening to a different show!!

The programme may have an ironic default, but actually, it asks hard questions, and under the banter / irony, is a very serious programme.

Mair is for me one of the very best practitioners on radio - or TV if it comes to that - and his capacity to re-calibrate according to the nature of the interview and interviewee is enviable. His unadvertised and often sudden flip from irony to deadly seriousness is enough to wobble the hardest.

.....Yes there was the Boris interview. The questions which flummoxed Boris were very simple questions of policy not killer questions. Yes, 3 cheers to Eddie for taking it to the max by recalibrating....Considering he is the lead presenter ; on 75% of the time, he does not repeat this feat often over a year....and I am there shouting out the real question he should be asking as he follows some minor inexactitude that the interveiwee has spoken sensing some advantage/a bone to chew on, that often dissolves away, and valuable time gets eaten up by this. He does often have a disarming first question, that completely throws the 'opponent'....but while it provides an interesting first minute to the interview , it also often makes the interview a mess that has no flesh. Eddie is just as likely to get stopped by a minister standing infront of his stumps as all the rest are.....Martha Carney the worst of the lot.

....in general I believe we are talking ref the papp that is put in and encouraged by EM and his producer....he does have good qualities too, but not enough for him to be bigger than the programme....

[DracoM]

Martha Kearney is a total pushover and should NEVER IMO have been placed at the centre of WATO. Utterly, utterly out of her depth. Avoids every head on issue, swallows every bit of central office prompting the politicians are spouting from their phones. Awful. Real disservice to front line BBC journalism and encapsulates the 'BBC want no trouble because we know you can make Charter renewal tricky if we cross you' stuff.

[Lat-Literal]

.....Yes there was the Boris interview. The questions which flummoxed Boris were very simple questions of policy not killer questions. Yes, 3 cheers to Eddie for taking it to the max by recalibrating....Considering he is the lead presenter ; on 75% of the time, he does not repeat this feat often over a year....and I am there shouting out the real question he should be asking as he follows some minor inexactitude that the interveiwee has spoken sensing some advantage/a bone to chew on, that often dissolves away, and valuable time gets eaten up by this. He does often have a disarming first question, that completely throws the 'opponent'....but while it provides an interesting first minute to the interview , it also often makes the interview a mess that has no flesh. Eddie is just as likely to get stopped by a minister standing infront of his stumps as all the rest are.....Martha Carney the worst of the lot.

....in general I believe we are talking ref the papp that is put in and encouraged by EM and his producer....he does have good qualities too, but not enough for him to be bigger than the programme....

Martha Carney is a total pushover and should NEVER IMO have been placed at the centre of WATO. Utterly, utterly out of her depth. Avoids every head on issue, swallows every bit of central office prompting the politicians are spouting from their phones. Awful. Real disservice to front line BBC journalism and encapsulates the 'BBC want no trouble because we know you can make Charter renewal tricky if we cross you' stuff.

It's Kearney.

I like her.

[eighthobstruction]

Martha Kearney is a total pushover and should NEVER IMO have been placed at the centre of WATO. Utterly, utterly out of her depth. Avoids every head on issue, swallows every bit of central office prompting the politicians are spouting from their phones. Awful. Real disservice to front line BBC journalism and encapsulates the 'BBC want no trouble because we know you can make Charter renewal tricky if we cross you' stuff.

....yes I wonder again and again if the lack of real depth in questions and production values [intellectual] has to do with fears ref Charter Renwal....while Today, WatO and PM (+ I guess TWT, which I do not listen to) lets the bulk of earth turning news to go hang and replace it with emotions, dwelling on scandal, mischief, quasi corruption, natural disasters etc, picking over carcases (David Bowie etc, nice easy day for the production team). They have the reporters , the journalists on the pay roll.....NHS, Education, science, tech, correspondents all over the world etc, but they are all sqeezed into 10-20% of the output....

[Lat-Literal]

....yes I wonder again and again if the lack of real depth in questions and production values [intellectual] has to do with fears ref Charter Renwal....while Today, WatO and PM (+ I guess TWT, which I do not listen to) lets the bulk of earth turning news to go hang and replace it with emotions, dwelling on scandal, mischief, quasi corruption, natural disasters etc, picking over carcases (David Bowie etc, nice easy day for the production team). They have the reporters , the journalists on the pay roll.....NHS, Education, science, tech, correspondents all over the world etc, but they are all sqeezed into 10-20% of the output....

I am not sure I agree. On Monday, day and night, I had waves of a recurrence of what I am hoping is trigeminal neuralgia. My skull felt like it was splitting and I thought I was about to have a stroke. At times I couldn't stay still and other times I couldn't move. I was often on the verge of dialling 999 and would have seriously panicked had I not weathered it before.

I can still feel that it has happened, like having been driven into by a truck. No one on this forum would have known or even had an inkling. Much the same is true of the latest condition of many members of this forum who have been diagnosed with very serious conditions. They mention those from time to time and I'm pleased that they feel they can do so. It's all for the good. But having been largely housebound for the week and on occasions so dosed up I couldn't summon up the confidence to switch to another radio station, what I was met with was something very different. Obsessional wall to wall medical stories and I have to say I find this modern trend extremely distressing. No wonder there is so much societal depression.

The stories ranged from the inability of hospitals to cope with demand to ones based on the latest three press notices by cancer charities. Of course, I have now come to expect it. For several years, the news has been full of sickness actual as well as sickness societal. But it's entirely unprecedented and trying to avoid it is like trying to avoid mines in a mine field. It also extends to music programmes, gardening slots, thought for the day,.......you name it. Woman's Hour which I listen to rarely is especially fond of "what we all need to talk about more". It's illness, terminal illness, euthanasia, death, the menopause in the workplace, domestic abuse, rape and children being thrown into fires in Myanmar while their parents are being shot. Call me odd but I think many women - and men - were happier with the knitting patterns and suggestions of lovely walks in Woman's Weekly. Now it is even in male sport.

Where I would agree with you is on the lack of journalistic challenge. For example, I happen to believe that non consensual actions that are habitually undertaken by the NHS are tantamount to non-sexual rape. You won't find many takers for that one on the BBC, especially when, say, future strategy on the BRCA gene is being discussed. In most places, I would have been hounded down for my viewpoint or no platformed. But I was pleased, at least, that Vanessa Feltz had the bottle to be a part of the awkward squad on Radio London by pointing out that 9 in 10 breast and ovarian cancers were not caused by that gene and compulsory testing of women at the tender age of 30 would put 1 in 300 in a very difficult spot.

Should they have a mastectomy and a hysterectomy immediately with all that entailed, as 70% do when putting themselves forward voluntarily for testing, knowing that it was no guarantee of a solution? And was it really cost effective in hard terms, given the increase in such operations, the possibility of ultimately needing to provide cancer treatments anyway and that each test comes from private industries at a cost of £1400? Ah yes, those industries. News : There is still time to get the flu jab. That's a nicer little earner too. It has now been admitted it was of no use whatsoever to elderly people in the winter of 2016/2017 but at least it's semi-voluntary. Of course, anyone who opts out will be given third class treatment. The numbers who undertake it in any surgery - this applies to other private industry tests too - affect its assessment of efficiency. Consequently, don't toe the line and get a black mark.