Radio
Something must be done . . .
Michael Vestey
What a silly old windbag Robert Redford has become. The Hollywood actor appeared on Broadcasting House on Radio Four last Sunday and managed to make George W. Bush sound like Bob Hope at his wittiest. He was waffling on about the American environmental Left's dismay and outrage that the Bush administration should decide that, if Americans aren't to wear loincloths, eat by candlelight and travel to work on mules, something will have to be done about increasing energy and power supplies.
This interview by Eddie Mair was truly dreadful; everything an interview shouldn't be. Redford was allowed to ramble on through his own syntactical morass with barely a challenge. It sounded as if it lasted for three hours down a telephone line but was more like a hefty 15 minutes. Mair mildly pointed out that when he was last in California people were worried about the rolling blackouts and the price of petrol so how would Redford counter these arguments?
The great environmental poseur, still resentful at the defeat of Al Gore. then showed his true colours: 'We all had to sit there and watch how the Supreme Court behaved in our country in the selection process and a lot of people who were knowledgeable about the roles of the Supreme Court, supposed to be the arbiter above politics and we saw, never before we'd seen a body that was supposed to be above that so politicised (sic). I think that scared a lot of people and the result of that was this administration coming into office with a mindset that is not only mean-spirited, incredibly ignorant but set 30 to 40 years ago (sic) at a time when the world is changing so fast, technology is moving so quickly, the world is shrinking, resources are shrinking and it's happening so fast that if we don't get leadership in place pretty soon that knows how to balance for the future there won't be a lot so I think they are playing hardball right now . ' and so on and so on.
Hasn't Redford noticed in his life of preening before the camera that these judges are always political appointments? Mair allowed this rubbish to continue and nowhere asked how the US economy was to maintain itself without an adequate supply of power. I can only imagine the programme was so pleased to have hooked such a well-known name that all the normal rules of interviewing were abandoned. Mair might also have asked the ludicrous Redford how he intended to get to work in the morning; by horse-drawn cart, perhaps? Leaving the stretch-limo in the garage.
Enough of the witless Redford. A far greater man than he was sparkling on Radio Four last weekend: Henry Blofeld on Test Match Special on long wave. Yes, one felt summer had arrived the moment one heard his fruity tones, even if the weather suggested the opposite. The commentary box comes alive when Blowers arrives at the microphone whatever's happening on the field, in this case, of course, the exciting Test Match between England and Pakistan at Lords. Blowers is heavily into ornithology: 'A rather vigorous pigeon flies over my left and the score remains on two hundred and thirty for three.' Nor do aeroplanes escape his attention though sometimes these might be disguised as birds: 'There's a duck-like creature, I think it's a cormorant, flying over there to that galaxy of cranes ... ' To laughter behind him, he adds, 'They're all having a go at me, there's an aeroplane, it isn't a jumbo jet, it's rather a medium-paced aeroplane.' 'A rather blasé seagull flies towards us, it gives the impression of having seen it all before.'
Blowers continues the tradition of humour in the box that the late Brian Johnston instigated. In my view it performs a very useful function. It serves to paint a word picture of the ground in its entirety, the crowds, activity off the field as well as on it, and it amuses listeners, particularly those not simultaneously watching the brilliant Channel 4 coverage of cricket. Blowers's skill is to provide colour to a one-dimensional medium. I had feared after Johnston's death and the departure of Fred Trueman and Trevor Bailey that TMS might not be the same. Although I still miss them. TMS is just as good as ever. Jonathan Agnew and Christopher MartinJenkins are always fluent and stimulating and quite often display a light humour, Agnew wondering, as he did last Sunday, how the announcer Andy Rushton managed to get through the shipping forecast while hearing on his headphones that a busty streaker had launched herself onto the field during play.
Post-Bailey and Trueman, Vic Marks, the former Pakistan leg spinner Abdul Qadir, and Graham Gooch all provide informed and knowledgeable pundity, Bill Frindall his lugubrious statistical accuracy and View From The Boundary, the Saturday lunchtime interview, is never boring. It was the great Lord Tebbit's turn and just when one thought the former 'Cabinet minister had mellowed he came up with a wonderful Prescottian left jab. After saying how much he had admired Jim Callaghan and his wife
Audrey he wondered how such a lovely couple could have produced Baroness Jay, their daughter. So much for genetics, he mused.
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