Radio Review: Noel O'Flynn may as well have come straight out and said "look sonny, don't you know who pays your wages?", such was the bully-boy tone in the final moments of his interview with Cian McCormack (Morning Ireland, RTÉ Radio 1 Wednesday).
The reporter had phoned O'Flynn, a Fianna Fáil TD and chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, in Argentina to find out why four TDs had taken themselves off to South America on a 12-day fact-finding mission.
It sounded as relevant as sending a group off to Mount Everest to see what might be done with the Sugar Loaf.
They were in Argentina to look at two ports.
"But what exactly are you looking for?" asked McCormack, twice. "They're huge ports, exporting a lot of commodities from Argentina, we want to obviously look at how they do their business, how they apply themselves," said O'Flynn over a background din that sounded rather convivial.
McCormack was polite enough not to direct O'Flynn to the relevant issue of National Geographic or even to question why it took four TDs to bring back the information - wouldn't one armed with a notebook and a biro be able to report back?
He didn't get much of an explanation about the Chile leg of the trip either - in fact O'Flynn seemed so well informed about salmon farming in that South American country already that the reporter reasonably wondered what more could be learned by going there.
The softly-softly interview style was non-confrontational, which made it all the more shocking when O'Flynn suddenly turned on him. Obviously tired of pesky questions about value for taxpayers' money, O'Flynn took the opportunity to remind the reporter that his Oireachtas committee also covers communications.
"We will," he said, soon be "inviting your authority, the RTÉ Authority, and your senior management to review your year's work". He meant the station as whole, not the poor reporter's work. O'Flynn's response to questions had all the hallmarks of a naked and fantastically inappropriate power-trip. Richard Downes or Cathal Mac Coille wouldn't have let him away with it. McCormack battled on.
"Will the trip be money well spent?" he asked. "It will be money well spent in the same way as when we gave you your licence fee increase, it was money well spent," said O'Flynn, going from salmon farming to the licence fee in one breathtaking leap. It was an extraordinary performance by a politician.
You don't have to stand on an Argentinian quayside to get an idea of the deep water we'd be in if, through the carrot of the licence fee, politicians thought they could routinely beat off difficult questions.
The sky didn't fall in on Raidió na Gaeltachta on Monday when popsongs with English lyrics were played for the first time on the station. Having only Leaving Cert Irish, which at this distance means little more than being able to translate Fir and Mna (a helpful skill but not much to show for 12 years' of compulsory Irish), I usually tune in to RnaG only on Sundays for Ben Ó Faoláin's An Taobh Tuathail. It's an eclectic world music programme and not being able to understand the DJ's links doesn't spoil the enjoyment - it might even enhance it; there's nothing like world music to bring out the anorak in a DJ. So for all I know, Ó Faoláin might be banging on about why music from the Yangtze province is superior to that coming from Sichuan, but blissful ignorance makes for simple, musical enjoyment.
This week, thanks to RnaG, I was able to understand a lot more Irish, such as "ceol le Destiny's Child" and "na Cranberries" while listening to Anocht FM. It's what RTÉ calls "a new radio service for younger listeners" and basically means the evening schedule on RnaG is now dominated by music including a new, two-hour programme called Gael Slí which plays English language pop songs - presumably in an attempt to, ahem, "get down with the kids".
RTÉ already offers excellent music content in John Kelly's The Mystery Train (RTÉ Radio 1, Mon-Thurs), and Jenny Huston's The Waiting Room (RTÉ 2FM, Mon-Thurs) - a far more interesting music mix than the jarring Anocht playlist of pop songs as gaeilge (think of those dreadful Eurovision contenders in the days when at least one Irish language song was mandatory), and pop songs as bearla. Gael Slí replaces the station's playback slot so it represents another shunting of talk radio to make way for pop music.
Surely Irish won't die out any faster if licence-payers' money isn't spent so that a tiny audience can hear a song from Oasis introduced as from their "album nua". But I'm not as expert on the licence fee as Noel O'Flynn and his well-travelled hombres.
