Changing direction, changing utterly

RadioReview: Isn't Pimp My Life (RTÉ Radio 1 Tuesday) a most peculiar title for an RTÉ Radio 1 series? I suppose it was inspired by the long-running MTV programme Pimp My Ride where cars, most a little flash to begin with, are given blinging makeovers making them, well, pimpworthy.

In that music station's schedule it's sandwiched between programmes called Cribs and Punk'd so it doesn't stand out too much. On RTÉ Radio 1 the first Pimp My Life was broadcast between a play in Irish, Fearacht Mozart, and Outside the Box, a programme about disability issues, so you could say it jumped out of Tuesday's listings. The idea is that during the course of the six-part series, presenter Richie Beirne will give his life a major overhaul, exploring new careers or maybe even fulfilling some long-held dreams.

To get the ball rolling he drags a half-finished manuscript for a novel from under the bed and phones Penguin Ireland to inquire about getting it published. The receptionist, a dead cert for the title of nicest receptionist in the world, manages to sound positive and encouraging and doesn't even threaten to call the gardaí when Beirne suggests that he'll come round in person with his dog-eared half-novel. Fancying himself as a stand-up comedian he sets about securing a gig at Dublin's Comedy Store and again it's all open arms stuff.

The programme faltered only when, in the name of job research, he spent rather a long time interviewing a guy who works as an in-store kitchen gadget demonstrator. For all the guy's patter, there just wasn't any way of making that particular career choice sound riveting. But above all, the programme is funny and light-hearted - something in short supply in the evening schedules, making it worth tuning in for the next five weeks to see if Beirne does find the right job.

There have already been several rows - of course - about the upcoming 1916 commemorations but the most entertaining was Dan Keating's take on the proceedings. A Kerry-based historian, Maurice O'Keefe, contacted Joe Duffy (Liveline, RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday) to complain that only one of the three known veterans of the War of Independence has been invited on to the VIP viewing stand on Dublin's O'Connell Street.

But before listeners had a minute to vent their outrage over this snub - this is a great programme for venting after all - one of these veterans, Dan Keating, was on the line. He's 104 "and a bit", as he says himself, and in the most forthright manner possible he let it be known that he has no interest in taking part in any way in the upcoming official event. "I regard what is going to happen there as something that doesn't represent the views of a lot of people," said the man for whom the expression die-hard republican could have been invented.

Keating railed against President Mary McAleese and Sean Kelly. "Sean T O'Kelly, ah that's ancient history, Dan," said Duffy, not quite keeping up with the speed of the 104-year-old's mind. He was referring to Sean Kelly, the president of the GAA who has, to Keating's fury, permitted rugby and soccer to be played in Croke Park. And no, when he turned 100 he didn't accept the President's cheque for €2,000 - "because she doesn't represent our views, she has nothing in common with us".

Jonathan Bates (The Poetry of History, BBC Radio 4, Sunday) has come up with a superb idea for a programme that mingles history and poetry and serves it up in an accessible, thought-provoking way. In a new four-part series Bates is examining historical events through the poetry they inspired and the first programme looked at WB Yeats's Easter 1916. In Theo Dorgan, Diarmaid Ferriter and Anne Enright he couldn't have had better guides to the poem, the place and the time. Leaving the GPO the four went to the yard in Kilmainham Gaol where the 16 were executed and Ferriter created powerful images of the 4am executions which went on for nine days and the white ribbons pinned to the men's chests so that the shooters would have a target to hit. "Was it here in the yard that the terrible beauty was born?" asked Bates, by then somewhat rhetorically.

The Englishman seemed amazed by just how distant the events of 1916 have been for most Irish people. Enright explained that as a teenager when she became interested in "one of the best stories in Irish history" she quizzed her granny about it. Her only comment on the bloody rising was that she couldn't get into Clerys to buy her vests. "They still sell a good vest, Clerys," said Enright. So all's not changed, changed utterly then, at least in the vest department.