Radio 4 « Crash Bang Wallace

Did Evan Davis call Owen Jones a Communist?

Mark Wallace | No Comments » Posted on October 02, 2012

The Today Programme is no stranger to unfortunate mis-pronunciations – as Jeremy Hunt found out to his cost.

Yesterday, they ran an interesting piece by Evan Davis exploring the unity or otherwise of the Labour Party, and asking what has happened to the hardline Labour Left. As part of the package, Evan interviewed the posterboy of the Angry Young Left, Owen Jones.

I’m sure Evan meant to introduce Owen as a “columnist”, but listening to the recording here, it does sound as though it came out slightly redder than that…

Richard Dawkins, the Pope of preachy atheism

Mark Wallace | 5 Comments » Posted on February 14, 2012

With today’s almighty row about secularism, atheism and religion, it seems like an opportune time to repost this article I wrote on why Richard Dawkins does atheism a gross dis-service by acting like a religious zealot.

Dawkins was on the Today Programme this morning, debating with Occupy-luvvy and former Chancellor of St Paul’s. With two of my least favourite public figures fighting against each other, it was a bit like the Iran/Iraq War, in that you rather wish they could both lose, but in the end it was wonderful to hear Fraser expose the absurdity of Dawkins’ illogical approach to attacking religious people. Listen here.

Don’t let Gordon be forgotten or forgiven

Mark Wallace | 16 Comments » Posted on May 23, 2011

Radio 4′s Desert Island Discs is a national institution. Since 1942, celebrities and famous figures from Debbie Harry to David Cameron have been nominating their eight music tracks that they would want to ake with them to a desert island.

As part of a new feature, the BBC are looking for people to nominate their eight discs, to produce a show of the nation’s favourite picks.

On the Today Programme this morning, Kirsty Young invited people to run a campaign if they wanted to. So here it is – in the spirit of remembering exactly what Gordon Brown did to our finances and our economy, overinflating an asset bubble, generating a financial crash, selling our gold at a massive loss, running the national debt up to crippling levels and more, let’s all nominate classic ’70s track “Gordon is a Moron” by Jilted John.

All you need to do is click here, type in the song and the artist along with your other favourite songs and you’ll have done your bit to ensure Gordon Brown is never forgotten or forgiven for what he did. Obviously, if you could send this suggestion on to your friends as well that’d be great.

In the meantime, here’s the song itself:

Finally, here’s the link again – go and nominate it now!

Ed who?

Mark Wallace | 2 Comments » Posted on May 04, 2011

John Humphrys must be a bit embarrassed by his Mili-mix-up on the Today programme this morning, ending his interview with the Labour leader by calling him “David Miliband”. But Humph shouldn’t be too worried – he was only channeling the general opinion that David is better than Ed Miliband.

For some galling proof, if you Google “miliband”, you get David first:

Even more galling for Ed must be the results if you do the same thing on Google Images:

Ed Miliband? Who?

How did John Humphrys get a free ad in The Archers?

Mark Wallace | 1 Comment » Posted on December 28, 2010

Ok, I’m coming out – I’m a fan of The Archers. Yes, the hurly burly of local scandal in rural Borsetshire conunes my Sunday mornings on a regular basis. To be honest, getting that off my chest makes me feel a while lot better.

One of the reasons I like it is that it’s a corner of the BBC which never makes me angry – unlike, say, Question Time which I’ve had to stop watching for the safety of my television screen.

But now it seems even The Archers is not a neutral zone. Last night’s episode had the characters discussing a local society dinner – which was a cue for a massive plug for John Humphrys’ lucrative after-dinner speaking service.

“Ooh, he’ll have a lot of interesting things to say,” one of them even waxed.

Isn’t against the BBC rules to advertise products or services? Or does that not count when giving a free editorial plug to one of their own staff?

The Giggle Loop and Jeremy…erm…Hunt

Mark Wallace | 1 Comment » Posted on December 06, 2010

Laughing on the radio is like laughing in church – you know you shouldn’t give in to the giggles, but that only makes it worse. Jim Naughtie had a brilliant one this morning, inadvertently turning Jeremy Hunt’s surname into a bad, bad word that makes David Cameron’s Twitter comment pale by comparison:

Perhaps the best thing about it was Naughtie’s desperate attempts to resist the giggles after dropping his bomb, before claiming it was a “coughing fit. Fans of the BBC’s old sitcom Coupling will know that this is known as the Giggle Loop.

My favourite attack of the Radio 4 Giggle Loop was suffered by Charlotte Green, when the bizarre sound of the oldest recording of a human voice clashed with a very sombre obituary:

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