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BBC Radio 5 live once had the nickname "BBC Radio Bloke" because it concentrated on News and Sport and the nature of it presenters mainly being from the male members of society. This was addressed by the BBC by the introduction of more female presenters, but it seems we are going to see a return to the past and it once again "BBC Radio Bloke" but with a slight change in name to "Radio Northern Bloke" if the management get their way.
The BBC have announced that both Victoria Derbyshire and Shelagh Fogarty the result of which will mean the station it will have only one weekly programme fronted solely by a woman, on Friday afternoon single one hour show presented by Eleanor Oldroyd. The changes will be taking part later this year but a date hasn't been given yet, but such a move will upset the female listeners of the show and is likely to cause a bit of a stir in the national press. The also seems be talk that the 5 live management are trying ensure that all new talent joining the station must live in the north-west of England, something that not all members of the broadcasting team do since the station moved from London three years ago.
Victoria Derbyshire leaving as she put it herself has had “brilliant opportunity too good to turn down.” and insisted she had left 5 Live of her own accord. At first it was thought that she could be replacing Jeremy Paxman on BBC2 late evening news programme Newsnight which has been looking for new faces for the show to bring new life into the old BBC workhorse. Later this was denied by the BBC and since then she has been linked with a to ITV, She described her departure as “huge wrench to leave 5 Live where listeners and I have shared so many experiences, and I would like to thank them enormously for trusting me”. Not if sure the mornings will be the same without her on the show.
Shelagh Fogarty is leaving her afternoon show at the end of the year. She said that “At 5 Live I’ve had some of the happiest times and richest experiences of my working life, covering the fundamentals of life in Britain and presenting programmes from amazing places around the world. I’m very sad to be leaving but it’s definitely time to do so.”. Before going to say that she is going to spend the summer "exploring a number of opportunities, before deciding what’s next’. The radio rumour mill suggests one of the reasons for Shelagh leaving the show is the commute due to the move to Salford three years ago, and that might more to do with the move than being pushed of the station.
Also leaving the show is the popular figure of Richard Bacon whose style of broadcasting the station is sure to miss. He has been a corner stone of the afternoon schedule for quite a while and before he started appearing on the television. He said the following when the news was announced “5 Live has been a spectacular place to work, I’ve got nothing but good things to say about it. It’s been a hugely important part of my career and life, and I’ll always be grateful, and a listener, to 5 Live. After seven years, it’s time to have different adventures, many of which will still be at the BBC.”. According to reports we will thankfully be seeing more of him the television as a result of the change.
It is expected 5 Live will unveil a new daytime schedule with two three-hour shows, running between 10am and 1pm, and 1pm and 4pm. Tony Livesey has been tipped for a prominent new role on the station, as has Dan Walker, presenter of BBC1’s Football Focus, a familiar voice as the presenter of 5 Live Sport. Finally Adrian Chiles is to have an expanded BBC Radio 5 Live presenting role as part of the talk station’s biggest schedule shakeup for years.
I know I will miss all three presenters after the leave the station that I have listened to on and off years when driving or just doing stuff around the house. Personally I think the move from London was a bad one, but this is even worse. We need more women on stations like Radio 5 live not less and replacing them with men is just a bad move all-round and one that it appears the BBC trust agrees with.
It is that day again people send Fathers Day cards to their Dad's. To be honest it not a day that fills me with joy at the moment, although once it was one of the best times of the year for me, but that has long gone.
Now it is just another day, yes I will get cards, just two of them out of three, but it not the same, I miss seeing my children together and having fun and times they once had in the early days when Lucy was really small. If fact the last Fathers Day card I got from Lucy was back 2011. A blue and white one that had pride of place on the mantelpiece for a couple of weeks after, it was next to her picture in the frame she got me the year before.
Lucy moving away from Rutland was a massive blow to me, no more so than it is now I reliant on the Bus to get me about. I can't say how much not seeing her affects me from day to day. I love all my children equally and not having them here together is always going to one of my biggest regrets in life. It just hurts so much and I know I missing out on so much too. I just wish I could have given the family life that all children need. It is what I hoped for when I came to Rutland so long ago now and something that never happened. To say I miss little, her hugs and cuddles, and today her fathers day card is underestimate of how I feel.
With Emily growing up so fast and her mother moving into the area, things haven't been the same with her. In fact I miss my Emily, the old one that worked hard at school and was kind and thoughtful. It is like she can do what she likes now and she can get away with it, but maybe that is just part of the teenage years but she has always need firm boundaries and these she isn't given now. Thank the Lord, Catherine is sensible and now working hard and catching her sister up at school and was there to day to say "Happy Fathers Day, Dad".
I was at a bus stop in Melton when I learned of the death of Rik Mayall and I can say it was quite a shock to know someone so iconic had died at such a relatively young age. He is someone that defined a style of comedy that will go on passed his death and into the future.
Like a lot of people that watched in 1980's television he will be first remembered for his comic acting in the "Comic Strip Presents..." and especially the "Young Ones" which he co wrote with Ben Elton and Lise Mayer. A friend of mind at the time went to see an episode of the "Young Ones" being filmed and at the time described it as the funniest and most chaotic thing she had ever seen. The actors would deviate from their lines and go off on one long improvisation which was so funny that nobody wanted it to end. What marvelous television those out takes would make today if they didn't get wiped.
One of the roles I loved him that was a beautifully observed characterture of the right wing of the Conservative party in the ITV programme the "New Statesman". In this programme he played Alan B'Stard, a selfish, greedy, dishonest, devious, lecherous, sadistic, ultra-right-wing Conservative backbencher. Whatever crises and scandals swirled around the evil B'Stard, he would always come up smelling of roses. The running joke throughout the series was that, despite his extreme good looks and how easy it was for him to pursue his constant womanising, B'Stard was very under-endowed and suffered from premature ejaculation, and disappointed ever woman he slept with including his wife who was having constant affairs. It was a classic of it age well written and well acted all round, not just by Rik Mayall.
Of course he will also be remembered by many for the role of Richie in the BBC comedy "Bottom" in which he co-stared and co-wrote with his best friend Adrian Edmondson. They played two flatmates who live in Hammersmith, London, who are crude, perverted lunatics with no jobs, very little money, who spend their time concocting desperate schemes to acquire sex, attacking each other violently, and getting into dodgy situations. It takes the idea of slap stick comedy to the extreme with heads being crushed in fridge doors, fingers being cut off, penises set on fire, legs being chainsawed off, forks shoved in eyes, and pencils forced up noses, to name just a few. Yet again another master piece of its time.
I know personally that he influenced my acting and I can remember doing improvisations at the West Yorkshire Playhouse with larger than life characters based on his acting style in programmes like "Bottom" and a "New Statesman" in particular. I can see why he enjoyed his acting, it required lots of energy and a quick mind to pull off what he did and make it funny. It was all over the top and lived on the edge of what people would find socially acceptable and shocking. Like a large cartoon on what he saw and observed of life.
Like many I will miss not
having him about on this planet, and over the years he has given me
many laughs to the point of crying. Like always my heart goes
out to his family and his friends and all that met and worked with this
great man.
It is that time of the year again and we start off with a new summer series of Big Brother on Channel 5. It seems amazing that we have reached Big Brother 15 when a lot of people thought that show would end at Big Brother 11 when Channel 4 decided they would stop airing the show. Here are the pictures of the new house.
As always I will be watching the show, the only series I missed was Big Brother 4 when I spent a year without a television. It will be a long summer not just for the viewers but for the house mates too with the shows final on 15th August some two months and ten days after they went into the house. Then we will have a new series of the celebrity show to look forward too.
You can't have missed this wonderful Irish Comic on television over the years in shows like "The Apprentice: You're Fired!" and of course "Mock the Week" which believe it or not has now been going for over 9 years, with the new series starting 12th June 2014 (A date to pencil in your dairy).
Mock the Week is topical celebrity panel game which is based around improvised topical stand-up comedy based around stories and headlines in the news, which was created by the makers of "Whose Line is it Anyway?". It can at best be hilariously funny and at worse keep you chuckling from the start of the show until the end, with Dara Ó Briain being the perfect and funny host of the show. For a topical game show it is up there with the best you can find on British television at the moment.
By all accounts Dara Ó Briain, as well as being a presenter is a fine live comedian by all accounts and attracts the intellectual audience with his smart nerdy observational style and quick thinking. From the reviews I have read and what people have said I know I would enjoy his live shows. He certainly is someone I would love to see the stage, something I miss from the past caused having children and then when I came to Rutland children and no babysitter.
In recent years the show has taken a bit of flack in the press, with some comedians claiming it is scripted, however if it is or not is irrelevant as long as it makes you laugh. Lets hope it isn't unlucky series 13 and after the new series there will be more commissioned by the BBC, presented arguably by Britain's favorite Irishman.
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