Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

The real BBC radio scandal

Let me tell you about something I heard on the radio today - on the state-funded BBC, for heaven's sake! - that offended me much more than anything ever broadcast by Brand, Moyles, Clarkson or any of the others.

It was the Victoria Derbyshire programme on Radio Five Live. News of snow falling across the country - cold weather in a cold country, wowsers! - had prompted our fearless presenter to ask people to ring up - fair enough - or send in photos.

Yes. You read that right. Send in photos.

To a cunting radio programme.

There then followed the most surreal thing I've ever heard on the radio. Derbyshire then went on to describe the photos on radio - "Yes, this one's of a snowman, and he's kind of sitting there..." - it was the pits! The absolute ruddy pits of hell. It was like an Australian film I remember seeing a few years ago where a blind guy gets his carer to take photographs and then describe them to him in little braille dymo labels on the back. And she rearranges his furniture while he's asleep, just to piss him off.

Yes yes, I know, I know what it's all about really, it's about the 'multi-platform approach' and getting people to go and visit the bloody website instead of listening to the radio. But I was in my car. How the jiggery-pokery was I meant to go and look on the website? Look, if I've turned on the radio and started listening to a radio programme, I want to listen to the ruddy radio, I don't want to go and do something else. I've had the good grace and kindness to listen to your sodding emission and you're telling me like Chris Tarrant you don't want to give me that, you want to give me this instead! I don't want that, I want what I wanted to do in the bastard first place! It's like going into Tescos to buy a bag of sprouts but on the front of the sprouts is a label saying "Actually why not have a bunch of carrots instead?" - why not just bloody give me what I want, rather than offering me some spurious extra 'multi-platform' shite.

This goes for newspapers as well, forever trying to make me go on their fucking websites instead of reading the paper - look, I can't take my clunky old steam-powered PC into the bog, so I'll take your paper instead, shall I? That is what I've actually paid money for in the first place, isn't it? Why can't I just do that? Why must you tell me the bloody website is so much better than what I want to do? Why can't you just leave me in peace, you bastards? If I want to use the internet, I'll use the internet, and if I want a paper, I'll buy a paper, and if I want to listen to the radio, I'll listen to the radio, and if I want to buy a tin of baked beans I'll buy a tin of baked beans - I won't go on to your exciting bakedbeans.com website to try and look at a picture of beans, rather than putting the beans on my toast. It's not the fucking same, do you understand?

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