Radio Review:A few months ago, while tuning into the in-flight radio on a flight to San Francisco, I heard the familiar pontifications of George Hook rattling around my head, writes Quentin Fottrell.
His voice rumbled on no matter what button I pressed. He wasn't on the radio, as it happened. He was sitting behind me . . . for the next 10 hours. No volume control would save me now.
Would this be the first time an air hostess would actually have a passenger request to be moved from Premier to Economy? With Hook's musings wafting over my noggin, and they were, I soon fell fast asleep.
But this week I also sat through The Right Hook (Newstalk 106, Monday-Friday) as he trawled through the day's news stories with the same methodical laboriousness a robotic bank clerk might show stamping a never-ending pile of cheques day after day. Stamp! Stamp! Stamp! And that's what it felt like. How could anybody sleep through that?
One of his interviewees told him, "As I told your researcher . . ." That's like seeing the strings in a magic or puppet show. It's time to wake up and smell the testosterone. These hard men of radio frequently know the answers before they even ask the questions.
Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey came on to do what he did on Questions & Answers that week: talk a lot without actually saying very much at all. On public transport ticket prices, Dempsey said, "It has to be paid for and it's reasonable to ask people who are actually using the service." The sweet talk was enough to give me a toothache.
After this love-in, Hook actually thanked Dempsey, an elected official, for always answering his questions and said he was "grateful" to have him on. Hook is marketed as a growling tiger, fearlessly grilling politicians, but on air he is a fake-fur pussycat. Ageing male sports broadcasters are branded as bulldogs. Newstalk's TV promo has Hook saying to an unseen figure: "I'm a patient man, minister, and I've asked the question now three times." With this media image why wouldn't Dempsey go on? Hook is a patient man. We could be waiting a lifetime before he goes for the jugular.
It took Áine Lawlor on Morning Ireland (Radio 1, Monday-Friday) - yes, one of the "ladies" (as Hook calls them) - to take a bite out of Dempsey. She asked him if mid-2009 is time enough to reduce the driver blood alcohol limit from 80 milligrams to 50. Dempsey repeatedly cited the buzzwords of expert advice, research and consultation. He also said the optimum level to reduce the limit would have to take into account "Irish circumstances". Lawlor leapt like a gazelle, asking the minister who would argue against 50 milligrams and to define "Irish circumstances". He answered, but said little. His last words: "I will go with what my experts recommend." So much for leadership.
Back on Newstalk, Hook spoke with Kyle Jarvis of the Eagle Times of Claremont, New Hampshire, about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Hook asked, "What about this thing about change?" Obama's slogan is "Change We Can Believe In" and all candidates have it as their theme, but his vague question was a hopelessly floppy non-starter.
Before the New Hampshire vote, he didn't ask about Clinton's Iraq vote fudgery or what she could do to re-energise. Nor did he question Obama's gilded wagon train of hope that is untarnished despite his inexperience and negative campaigning against Clinton, whose husband's 1992 presidential campaign he is shamelessly aping.
Hook's "rant" (his own word for it) on Bertie's tax position promised to be a real doozy, and eventually delivered. An excerpt: "As children we were told by our mothers there would be no trouble as long as we told the truth . . . Bertie would do well to remember that in the coming months." It sounded like an unknowing parody of Kent Brockman's "My Two Cents" from The Simpsons or an editorial from the Beano.
On Wednesday, Pat Kenny (Today with Pat Kenny, RTÉ Radio 1, Monday-Friday) replayed Clinton's teary moment before her New Hampshire win. Niall O'Dowd of the Irish Voice said women rose up as a factor, as did the faltering US economy. (Obama's snide aside to Clinton, "You're likeable enough", in the TV debate and growing cockiness probably didn't help either.)
Presenters such as Hook and Eamon Dunphy - who has the added benefit of a raspy voice - ham up their grumpy old men schtick, scowling for the camera. It has been a lucrative act for both of them. But it is an act.
Pat Kenny doesn't do this macho-tastic smoke and mirrors, and on radio he remains a far sharper, more experienced and agile interviewer.
Meanwhile, Gerry Ryan (The Gerry Ryan Show, RTÉ 2FM, Monday-Friday) enjoys his puerile place among them, as the boy who refuses to grow up. He Googled images of "tape worm porn" showing people passing them. Ryan famously relishes talking about sex, bodily functions and food. Trouble was, I wasn't sure if this grossed him out . . . or just made him hungry.