When the talk about the HSE just has to stop...
THE ANTON SAVAGE SHOW Newstalk, Sundays, 10am
OLIVER CALLAN RTÉ1, weekdays, 9am
ECLECTIC CELT Limerick City Community Radio, Sundays, 2pm
People often ask me the question: if there was one thing you could change about radio in Ireland, what would it be?
Without hesitation, I always say the same thing: I would ban all talk about the HSE from programmes on Sunday mornings.
It’s not a huge ask, is it? Yet the difference it would make to my own sense of wellbeing is almost incalculable – and I’m sure others feel the same way. During The Anton Savage Show last Sunday there was talk about the HSE with its former chief, Paul Reid. Such a d arkness came over me, I almost forgot it was Super Sunday, with the promise of Premier League action that afternoon.
There was an item about the HSE on The Pat Kenny Show the following day, and that was fine. I can take it during the working week, but never on a Sunday, either during the Savage show or The Brendan O’Connor Show.
I can even take it on RTE1’s This Week, because I accept that they are working within certain parameters. But in any forum where there is some choice in the matter, for reasons I can’t quite explain, it is abhorrent to me. I think I may literally be allergic to it.
Well, I can explain it to some extent, in that the HSE tends to attract a certain kind of speaker whose main goal in life is to be regarded as a Very Serious Person. And we need to set aside a few precious hours of the week when we are free of such individuals.
Not that there was anything wrong with Savage’s piece on the HSE, other than the fact that it should never have happened. Later he interviewed Alastair Campbell about US politics and it was like a great weight had been lifted from him – from all of us.
Savage’s approach to the interview with Campbell was to position himself as a normal, intelligent person with some enthusiasm for the great issues at stake in America’s forthcoming election, in the light of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The next morning on RTÉ1, Oliver Callan seemed to position himself as someone who had come down with a sudden dose of the “both-sidesing” virus. He was interviewing Lorcan Nyhan, who contributes to this paper on US politics, and who spoke strongly here, cheerfully dealing with this strange version of the otherwise excellent Callan.
You’d have to imagine that some sort of RTÉ edict has gone down, demanding that presenters “both-sides” the hell out of Harris v Trump from now till November. And since “both-sidesing” is often essentially wrong, it left us with this sense of a sophisticated presenter carrying on like someone he is not – with that churlish tone that says, “ah sure, they’re all the same”.
Callan framed the Harris-Trump contest as “the vibes artist” against “the jibes artist”. Ah yes, the difference between them may be no greater than that between the letter “v” and the letter “j” – and the fact that one of them doesn’t accept the results of elections that he loses, but anyway...
Callan leaned into lines about “the whole media establishment” backing Harris and her policy free “vibes”. Nyhan explained that most elections are actually about vibes; conversely he pointed out the Biden administration’s policies have been very effective, but a lot of people are still not feeling those vibes.
Still concerned about Harris’s avoidance of interviews with the media establishment which is supposedly backing her, Callan quoted the line that Trump has done “lots of mostly hostile press conferences”.
I mean, wherever that quote is coming from, it needs to be said that at one of those “hostile” affairs, a “reporter” asked this question: “Have you put much thought into why God saved your life?”
Still, I would like to hear Callan doing more interviews with Lorcan Nyhan as the campaign intensifies, but next time as himself. That would be fine.
I was freed from such troubles last Sunday, when by some happy accident I found myself listening to Limerick City Community Radio – in particular the Eclectic Celt show, presented by John O’Regan. It had Horslips’s The
High Reel, The Lakes of Pontchartrain by GráDee from Achill, and many other Irish artists doing their stuff with deeply learned commentary from O’Regan.
My recovery from the HSE allergy was complete.