Wake up! Wake up!

There's a subtle click and the blue light illuminates the pre-dawn, winter darkness. The final twenty seconds of a song play out and fade to near silence, Hrrrm, your waking mind stirs into action, that song was quite good, I wonder... then "It's FIVE THIRTY and you're listening to 105.4 Century FM". Jesus no, anything but that fucking awful montage of "morning songs..."

Wake up, wake up...(King in a Catholic style)... Every morning...(there's a halo hanging from the corner of my girlfriend's four-post bed)... Wake up, it's a beautiful morning...(the sun's shining for your eyes)... Here comes the sun...(little darling)... plus that other indecipherable one - what the fuck is that?

Why do they do that? As if waking up at 5.30am isn't punishment enough without inflicting that on us poor bastards.

"Hello and good morning, this is Darren Proctor on 105.4 Century FM and I can tell you we've got a chilly one this morning - you're going to have to defrost your car..." IT'S DE-ICE, YOU THICK BASTARD! "...Coming up in the next half hour, we've got Salty with the sport and traffic and music from Madonna, Inner City, Robbie and Ronan. But first, here's the news headlines with Vicky."

"Good morning, the headlines today. A gang in Manchester are being questioned after nintey grammes' worth of heroin was seized...."

Ninety grammes' worth? Grammes' WORTH??? Surely you mean ninety grammes???

"Family and friends of George Best are still at his bedside...."

Ah fuck off!

You get up to have a wee and make your coffee in order to escape the insanity. And now you know what puts me in such a pleasant mood each day.

So why do I listen? Well, it's a case of better the devil you know. You get used the extent to which a particular breakfast show gets right on your tits, so you can be prepared - God forbid, you'll switch one day and come across a station that does wind-ups ("You're dead right, love!"). So you stick to the same thing because the one Robbie Williams track each hour is quite enough for anyone. Plus they're a North West-based station that covers local things that might help you on your journey to work (or give you enough evidence to persuade you to go back to bed). In all fairness, that show is actually OK and the presenters are quite good, if a little thick at times.


A winning formula
I'm sure breakfast shows on the radio have the same formula the world over: a front man and a couple of his mates (man and woman) banter through the latest "issues", TV and celebrity gossip and throw in a bit of news, sport and weather - oh and some music if you're lucky. They generally talk about inane crap that you'd want to throttle a colleague for engaging you about.

Today's heated subject was "What's the difference between cottage pie and shepherd's pie? One's lamb, one's beef, but which way is it? Drop us a text or give us a bell if you know." - you'd think one of the dishes' names might be a clue. But no, people texted in to tell them "I don't know". Some bint even phoned in to say "Hiya, the difference between shepherd's and cottage pie? I don't know! Hee hee hee". Now, I'm ashamed to admit it, but I couldn't take any more. I hadn't had any caffeine, I was very tired, very grumpy and my blood pressure was rising. I sent a text message to the station: "Shepherd's pie is lamb, hence the name. It's not really that difficult."

Please forgive me.

But of course, the fucking radio station has won. The reason they do this is to wind people up so that they feel forced to send text messages at the super premium rate. It's a revenue-generating exercise and they excel at it.


"Hiya, can you say hello..."
People who phone in to radio stations are complete fucktards. They have no social skills and are incapable of stringing words together to form coherent sentences. They are generally quite autistic too.

DP "So, Derek, what are you doing up at this time?"

Derek "Oh, you know"

DP "No, I don't know. You up for work? Getting the kids ready for school?"

Derek: "Work, yeah"

DP: "And so, what do you do?"

Derek: "Taxi - you know, airport run and that"

Fuck's sake. Why do these people phone in when they've got no intention of communicating in a meaningful manner? Is a Six O'Clock Club certificate and some free teabags really worth it?


Going national
I can't stomach the national radio stations; the presenters are incredibly big-headed, believing they're the most important thing in broadcasting history. They are just very boring nobodies who enjoy the sound of their own voices, who think their opinions matter. On top of the usual formula for breakfast show radio, the result is unbearable.


"You should try Radio Four"
You should try stopping being such a pretentious wanker. Radio Four is the UK's high-brow radio station, presented by stuck up nobs. Radio Four's idea of a fun breakfast is news, news and more news, in voices that sound like the school teacher from Charlie Brown. Radio Four does news, documentaries, the odd decent comedy, drama, shipping forecast. Radio Four does not do music, it does "Look at me, aren't I clever, using big words that you don't understand?" radio and it makes me sick.

Worse than Radio Four though are its listeners, who only listen so that they can come to work and say "Did you hear on Radio Four this morning,... blah, blah, blah?". These people read The Guardian.

Perhaps my problem with Radio Four and The Guardian isn't their respective contents, but rather the utterly unbearable people who listen and read?

Of course, some people will defend this shit with their lives.