RadioReview: Listening to the China's World (BBC World Service, daily) programmes this week, I wondered whether I shouldn't be taking a hint from all those helpful and efficient young Chinese people working in my local Spar.
While they're here learning English, shouldn't I be beavering away getting the basics of Cantonese - the future, the series suggested strongly, is Chinese.
This week the BBC - both TV and radio - had a China theme and the World Service did what the station does best: it sent local reporters to far-flung parts of the world to find out the situation. It was a slightly paranoia-inducing picture - with China going around the globe like a great big Dyson, sucking up the best each country has to offer to feed the enormous demands of its own population.
The first programme came from Kazakhstan, one of the largest independent states to emerge from the break-up of the Soviet Union. So oil-rich that it is nicknamed the new Kuwait, its neighbour China has been quick to spot the potential with the Chinese National Petroleum company buying up oil fields and starting construction on one of the world's largest pipelines to bring the oil home. But such is the Chinese presence in their country that many Kazakhs fear they will soon be subsumed by their neighbour. Local people reported seeing maps where Kazakhstan is referred to as a province of China.
On Tuesday, the series focused on Argentina where, according to one Greenpeace activist, there's now a "tsunami of soya". The restoration of the South American country's fortunes since its economic collapse in 2001 has been attributed to China's demand for soya, with Argentina now providing 30 per cent of China's needs. To meet that demand, the country has re-engineered its farming practices, with massive negative social and environmental impacts. The third programme, on Wednesday, went to Sierra Leone where Chinese investment in a holiday resort has topped €200 million, the largest foreign investment ever made in the world's poorest country. And that's before the fascinating series turned its attention to the familiar features of Chinese domination: cheap clothing imports and industrial relocation from high-cost Europe to low-cost China.
These global economics seemed far from the business of selling newspapers on this little island, but Times Roman, Times Modern (RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday) was a diverting and lively programme. The six-part series got off to a spectacularly dull start, but from the second programme it has picked up beyond recognition and consistently delivered an insightful and entertaining look at how newspapers work. This week's programme looked at the role marketing plays in newspaper sales, and things have moved a long way since the Evening Press's famous "Spot the ball" competition - though how anyone figured out where the ball could be on those grainy pictures is anyone's guess.
"We brought the free CD to the Irish marketplace" said Paul Drury, editor of Ireland on Sunday, in a tone that suggested a boast instead of a sheepish apology for all those hopeless cardboard-sleeved compilations. Though, having confused Charles Kennedy with Michael Howard while recounting the famous Jeremy Paxman interview in my review last week, I'm in no position to suggest anyone else offers sheepish apologies. The CDs worked for that newspaper but they're on the way out because, as Orlaith Blaney of advertising agency McCann Erickson pointed out: "the market became confused because on a given Sunday, three or four newspapers were giving [a CD] away". Record companies hate them because they're seen as devaluing the music.
However, there are exceptions to that rule. Having baulked at paying €75 for a ticket to hear soul man Al Green playing live in Dublin this summer, I found Paul Sexton's The Reverend Al Green, (BBC Radio 2, Wednesday) nearly made up for the disappointment of the stratospheric ticket price. Green, whose conversion from quintessential 1970s soul Lothario, singing the sexiest songs ever, to pastor of his own Christian church in Memphis, is legendary. He's now recording secular music again because, he says, "the congregation is starting to say: 'there is nothing wrong with love and happiness. What are we being saved for, the bad times?'" There was a satisfying smack of authenticity to the first programme in this four-part series, with Sexton travelling to Memphis to interview Green and his long-time producer Willie Mitchell at the celebrated Royal Studios, using the microphone at which they made their classic recordings such as Let's Stay Together and Tired of Being Alone.
A homegrown legend is Larry Gogan who last night was given a well-deserved IRMA award for his lifetime contribution to broadcasting. He was the subject of a tribute feature on Morning Ireland (RTÉ1, Thursday). "He's a giant among Irish broadcasters," said Terry Wogan, "and he'd be a giant anywhere." Hear, hear.