Radio Review: It took Dr Michael Smurfit, or Michael as I now like to call him, around 10 minutes to realise that he had absolutely nothing to fear from Susan McReynolds, (Saturday with Susan McReynolds, RTÉ Radio 1).
She started as she meant to continue - gushing about his "sporting triumphs". If you didn't know better you might have gotten the idea that Michael went out in a pastel V-neck holding a nine iron and came back with the Ryder Cup under his oxter for our national trophy case in between legging it around the track in shiny silks to win the Melbourne Cup, twice.
Once the media-shy businessman copped that his interviewer was on his side he relaxed, lost the air of edgy wariness that threatened to kill the interview stone dead and admitted in a sort of conspiratorial way that he doesn't give many interviews and that when he does he is "reasonably guarded".
There were no probing questions about his personal or business life and there was a strong sense that he was setting the agenda. Even when, unprompted, he went into difficult personal areas such as his first divorce and the recent death by suicide of his nephew - about which he talked with great feeling - or even the daft business of having his own bottle of Château Pétrus at the dinner table, McReynolds didn't follow him. She stuck to her script. Though maybe she was in awe - and why not, he is after all a proper global business magnate, what with his great fortune, philanthropic works, appetite for the finer things in life and a yacht called after his mammy.
At the Galway races he said he loved mingling among the people - she should at least have raised an aural eyebrow at that bit of folksy guff, instead of gushing "you're always in there among the crowds". And he doesn't mind one bit if people call him Michael - which is a good, she could have reminded him, because that is his name. Future hopes include discovering a cure for blindness and striking oil - not the ambitions of your average 70-year-old, and top-quality mogul stuff.
SO WHILE IT'S a pity that Marian Finucane, instead of her stand-in, didn't get a crack at Michael, Gerry Ryan's holiday replacement Avril Hoare (2FM, Mon-Fri) is doing a fantastic job in a difficult slot. She's perfect in Ryan's place, great with phone-ins, and she sounds young and fresh which is what that station is supposed to be all about.
On Wednesday she and her guest, fellow 2FM DJ Jenny Huston, dissected with a great deal of girly humour a new book by fashion dragons Trinny and Susannah, who have quite a lot to say on the business of buying the proper underwear and getting a bra that fits. It really was a mercy Ryan wasn't back from his holidays.
She's got good material too - the item on Budhia Singh, the five-year-old Indian boy who became famous at the start of the summer for his astonishing feats of marathon running, brought the story up to date. Interviewing the Guardian's Amelia Gentleman in Delhi, Hoare teased out the various facets of what has become a big story in India. Human rights groups continue to protest about forcing a child to run marathons, his impoverished mother who sold him when he was a baby for the equivalent of €9 wants him back but his "trainer" says he's just giving him a better life.
Ryan's time slot is split between her and DJ Nikki Hayes - rare to find back-to-back female voices in primetime radio slots. Their competition, at least in some parts of the country, is Orla Barry at Newstalk (Mon-Fri) who had more than her fair share of August old reliables this week, though her item on restaurant critics was worth a listen if only because Helen Lucy Burke and Alan Stanford are always good value. Barry's programme is now called Life!, a terrifyingly upbeat and self-conscious new name that sounds more like a product from a mobile phone company.
Both foodies sounded very serious and knowledgeable about food but happily don't seem to take themselves too seriously. Both know what the rest of us have long suspected - that food reviewers in this tiny country often have rather a different experience than the rest of us. They're simply too recognisable.
Both talked about how our libel laws can sometimes hold them back - when Burke wanted to include in a review the little matter of an establishment's rat infestation she was legally advised not to. Stanford said that his picture and that of his fellow newspaper restaurant reviewers were up in several kitchens - close, he surmised, to the dart board.
