LATE NIGHT HATE

Reading about Johnny Vaughan’s morning escapades made me think about the radio horrors I experience at night driving home from work, namely ‘Late Night Love’. Now most ‘local’ radio stations aren’t local (a rant saved for another time I feel), but owned by some company which spew out the same stuff in all parts of the country with subtle differences, a ‘Coventry’ overlaid on a ‘Plymouth’ spoken over a ‘Nottingham’. Because of this, Graham Torrington aka the ‘doctor of love’ (apparently, but does he have a PhD?) appears to exist everywhere in the entire country at the same time, trying to resolve people’s tangled love lives. And the problems, like the problems in every problem page, in every agony aunt’s column throughout the land, are the same, week in and week out.

The problems and dedications are inane enough, but the thing, the only thing that stops me always turning over to John Peel, is Graham’s attitude to it all. He hates these people, and hates giving the same advice out, advice which is usually as inane as the questions – ‘Janine, it’s clear your marriage is falling apart. I’m going to put Whitney Houston on for you, because I’m sure there’s someone out there who will always love you’. There is anger and frustration there, simmering under the barely disguised patronisation. I await the day when he finally snaps.