RadioReview: Before The Recruits (Wednesday, RTÉ Radio 1) came on air there was one of those "listeners might find some of the language offensive" announcements.
But as it was a programme about young men in the military, most people would probably have expected the odd swear word, so maybe the announcement was a bit unnecessary.
But boy, could we have done with the same warning before Dr Bill Tormey's contribution on Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1, Wednesday). The State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, has disagreed with the findings of her predecessor concerning the death of Brian Murphy during a fracas outside a Dublin nightclub and Tormey has taken it upon himself to get involved in the controversy.
He is "seriously critical" of Cassidy's findings - even though, as the interviewer, John Murray, kept reminding him, his assessment is based only on media reports. The State Pathologist had access to all the files; Dr Tormey, an experienced pathologist, had a few newspaper clippings. Pressed on exactly why he decided to air his opinion publicly, he said "it was in the interest of honesty and public discourse" while acknowledging, with a breezy bluntness for which hospital consultants are rather famous, "the case is dead, it will not be reopened".
So far so merely irritating as is the way of all self-serving sounding interviewees, but then Dr Tormey was asked what he thought of Dr Cassidy. It was at this point that in the interest of blood-pressure management I would have liked to have had some class of a listener warning. "She's vivacious, attractive," said Tormey of one of our top scientists, "she's very good and she operates in this kind of Gothic frightening world of forensic pathology." The interviewer wisely left that one unchallenged.
But back to the Army and a documentary that followed four would-be soldiers as they went through four months of basic training. It is apparently the first time the Army has allowed a broadcaster in to record the process and the programme-maker Liam Nolan did appear to have good access to the barracks.
There's a high attrition rate. Of the 40 people who signed up, only 27 stayed on after the basic training. Of Nolan's foursome it wasn't too difficult to spot the two who wouldn't make it, particularly the bloke who complained from day one about "having to take orders all the time", being shouted at and having to get up early. He rather innocently thought he'd be able to do his own thing, and then there was the whole business of having to make your own bed when your mammy normally does it - all of which suggests the Army needs to rewrite its recruitment advertisements.
By the end of what turned out to be a rather repetitive documentary with some puzzling production choices - the whispering into the microphone presumably to add drama; and the male-only line up, where were the female recruits? - the Army press office, thanked in the programme's credits, wouldn't have had anything to be concerned about.
"Mom and apple pie" the expression often used as shorthand for unassailable wholesomeness could be updated by tagging on the words "Fair Trade". The organisation set up 18 years ago to ensure a better deal for coffee producers in Mexico is now a global brand that comes with a feel-good factor. Mark Ashurst (Helping Ourselves, BBC Radio 4, Tuesday) explored just why western consumers are so keen on Fair Trade that it is has become one of the most successful consumer brands of modern times. In Britain, consumption of Fair Trade products - which now include a wide range of foods and cotton - has grown by 50 per cent in the last year and global mega brands, from Starbucks to McDonald's, want its logo on their products.
He travelled to Mexico to see how coffee-bean farmers benefit from getting a fair price and how having more control has turned them from being victims of globalisation into players.
It's not all rosy - coffee prices are high and some producers question the value of having to go through the process of getting Fair Trade certification when they'd get a good rate anyway. Economists have also questioned the model, saying that in many cases it's basically a subsidy given to producers so it's not a sustainable model in the long run.
There's also the suspicion, as one commentator put it, that Fair Trade "is a fig leaf for large corporations, a way for them to appear to be doing good. Companies like fair trade because the public likes Fair Trade." Its growth, the programme concluded, is because it gives consumers "a sense of virtue, it's about us feeling good, a sort of reparation, of making amends for all the consumption".
Endless potential for growth, so.
