Radio Review: Is there any chance that the people who make that treatment for vaginal thrush will run out of advertising money any time soon? I am rather pleased with myself that no matter how many times I've heard the dulcet-toned actor going on about tight underwear and itching, the brand name has failed to lodge in my brain.
It's got to the point that as soon as I hear it, I simply have to switch off - not the best thing to do if you're in my job. It's simply way too much information but who's to stop it?
In a discussion about another advertisement, last week Joe Duffy left listeners in no doubt that he thinks complaining to the Advertising Standard Authority of Ireland is a waste of time and I share his view in spades about that advertising industry-funded body. But there is a broader issue previously mentioned in this column, about the insidious way drug companies are slipping into consumer advertising by apparently advertising awareness of a medical condition not the drug. The loophole is in the legislation.
And when it comes to over-the-counter products, apart from issues such as the potential dangers associated with self-diagnoses and over-medicalisation, surely there has to be some sense of propriety? A friend in advertising who worked on an account for a brand of nappies once explained that the reason why nappy absorbency was always shown by using blue liquid was because no one - from broadcasters terrified of the switch-off factor, to the target buyer - actually wanted to see yellow wee wee on their telly. Call it prudery of the most hypocritical kind but I'm in favour of the blue liquid, and of that woman and her tight underwear shutting up.
If I didn't have this column for a bit of a rant I'd have to call Joe, because Liveline (RTÉ Radio 1) is back with a vengeance, turning up two gems this week: a major security problem with money transfers through Western Union that must have that company's executives quaking, and a caller-driven investigation into the truth or otherwise behind the bestselling Don't Ever Tell: Kathy's Story - A True Tale of a Childhood Destroyed by Neglect and Fear. Written by Kathy O'Beirne and her ghostwriter Michael Sheridan, it purports to tell her story of extreme abuse while growing up in a Magdalene laundry. It didn't make much of a ripple here but more than 300,000 readers in Britain lapped it up. The religious order that she claimed so wronged her issued a statement saying it had employed an independent archivist who could not find any record of her ever having been under their care. Sheridan, who is splitting the royalties 50/50, tried to brush away that argument with "it wouldn't be the first time a religious order lied" - a shameful, poor defence that withered against the legion of calls led by Kathy's brother, who piled doubts on her story. It and the Western Union piece went on for days - the acid test for a successful Liveline item and something that Derek "I'm the finest" Davis never quite managed all summer.
Reporter Philip Boucher-Hayes began what promises to be a productive consumer slot on Tuesdays (Today with Pat Kenny, RTÉ Radio 1) with a thorough investigation into what sounds like a right rip-off by Eircom's 11818 international directory service. The gist of it is that there are several countries the company can't get numbers for, but if you ask for a number in that country the operator goes through a quite profitable (for the company) attempt at connection. Adding to the drama was how Boucher-Hayes kept the tape running when Eircom's bullish communications guy put a stop to his interview with a clearly uncomfortable Eircom manager. A whistleblower - his voice digitally altered so that it made him sound disturbingly like Darth Vader - brought the story to Boucher-Hayes, and while it's not Enron (that whisteblower, Sherron Watkins, featured as the first guest in an interesting new series, The Choice on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday) it did give listeners something to fume over.
Getting worked up is something Val Joyce simply doesn't do. He lost his much-loved, always eccentric Late Date radio slot to John Creedon in the new shake-up and he was a guest on Marian Finucane on Saturday (RTÉ Radio 1). Steering clear of anything controversial - jumped or pushed, retired or up for another gig? - Finucane, who weirdly had never met Joyce before, kept it light with various phone-in tributes. Horse trainer Jim Bolger said it best when he described Joyce as "the most horizontal owner I have - he doesn't do excitement".
