[Boiler]

I can't think of anything more middle class than Saturday Live meself...

[Andy McDandy]

There used to be a travel program after Saturday Live, hosted by Sandi Toksvig. Each week was about the same - some north London person telling everyone about what an amaaaazing time they'd had on their recent trip to somewhere that wasn't quite as off the beaten track as they thought, followed by Sandi and her guests musing on the availability and necessity of bottled water if visiting Keswick.

[Boiler]

Programme, please - program is what you do to a computer

Are you thinking about Excess Baggage?

[youngian]

I can't think of anything more middle class than Saturday Live meself...

That slot used to occupied by Home Truths with John Peel. WTF was he thinking? Incomprehensible bollocks based on dreary middle class anecdotes from listeners.

[Andy McDandy]

Programme, please - program is what you do to a computer

Are you thinking about Excess Baggage?

Yes! That was it!

Anyway, Saturday Live. Gods, I hated that programme, but I was living for a while with my mother who loved it. There would always be a poet on board who'd do a poem based on the events of the week, and it would always sound exactly the same. Then a bit about something funny in the news spun out to ridiculous lengths - the sort of thing Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris were nailing in On the Hour with It's Your Region back in 1990 or so. I once listened to an interview with someone from the pagan police association, which could have been interesting, but was just Fi Glover asking the poor plod over and over again about naked dancing.

And yeah, the "Thankyou" bit...

[youngian]

Starmer seems to very suited to radio interviews. Listening to this one on Times Radio today which he conducts with flying colours

[youngian]

Lovely story from a caller on LBC this morning who walked from Iran some years back and crossed the Channel in a tub to seek asylum (he said the Channel crossing was the easy bit). He’s now running a successful business and loves his adopted country that save his life with all his heart. Its not an unusual story or attitude from a refugee but the highlight of the call was hearing Nick Ferrari squirming. This bloke had just pissed on the invasion crisis narrative he’d set for his show. Good call in every sense.

[Oblomov]

Blairite centrist melt James O'Brien is on the warpath today about A-level results, it's magnificent to behold.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

[KevS]

A magnificent diatribe.

[Abernathy]

A wee confession : lately, I've begun to listen to "Heart 70's" when the talk radio inanities of R4 and LBC have me biting my fist.

It's great - no DJ's, minimal commercials, just track after brilliant track of music from about 45 years ago. I find myself cranking up the volume, especially drivin'. Heart 80's and Heart 90's are also available.

The musical generation gap does exist. I find Radio 1 unlistenable (but have done so for about 40 years), and sometimes even Radio 2 is full of dross. I thought it was mythical, but it's there.

[mr angry manchester]

I like Heart 70s too. Radio 1 I last listened to when Tony Blackburn was on it.

[davidjay]

I can't listen to Heart, or Smooth, or anything like that on principle. They've taken the place of local stations for local people, which to me is what radio should be about.

[mr angry manchester]

Wonder if Royston Vasey still has a local radio station?

[KevS]

Funnily enough, I was just reading how Swansea Sound, one of the first batch of ILR stations to be launched has now been swallowed up by something called Greatest Hits Radio, so the good folk of the Mumbles can now expect to hear Rule The World by Take That and Natalie Imbruglia's Torn seven times a day.

These networks are just dreadful soul destroying banality. Bereft of any individuality. When I was growing up, our local ILR station was another one of the first batch: Radio Orwell.

It was committed to Suffolk, and they made a huge variety of shows during the week along with usual chart stuff: Country and Western, folk, classical, reggae, disco, and the legendary Headbangers Ball.

As time went on, they changed their name to SGR, which to be fair was the initials of Suffolk Group Radio, the holding company of both Orwell and Saxon Radio, so there was still the link. But the standard of programming dropped like a stone, as they ditched most of the specialist shows to pump out chart pap all the time.

Then came Heart to take over, and that was that. Destroyed.

But their loss has been the gain of BBC Radio Suffolk, which has a wide variety of programming, highlights new local bands and music for an hour or two on a Saturday night, and is the first port of call if there's any disruption in the area, because obviously they're based in Ipswich.

Quite how Heart Suffolk are supposed to be able to establish wether the B1078 at Ashbocking is blocked during snowfall when they're actually broadcasting from Birmingham is beyond me...