Radio Review/Bernice Harrison: What was the point in getting Col James Hickey's elderly parents on the phone on Monday's Morning Ireland (RTÉ1).
Chicago-born Hickey is the commander of the regiment that finally captured Saddam Hussein, and he is second-generation Irish, but what could the folks back home possibly add to the story - except perhaps to show up our pathetic (and endless) need to establish an Irish connection and bask in reflected glory. It wasn't as if the story didn't have other potential news angles.
Anyway, the pair - dad from Co Clare 50 years ago, mum from Co Mayo - sounded tentative and tired (well, it probably was an ungodly hour in Chicago) and David Hanly went through the motions: are you proud of your son (doh!), do you think the invasion of Iraq was justified (that would be a no comment, David).
Much more of a coup was getting the colonel himself on the line on Five Seven Live (RTÉ1, Tuesday) and after the schoolyard triumphalist language of the press conference announcing the capture ("we got him"), Col James Hickey was refreshingly low-key and straightforward. His regiment has carried out 500 raids, of which "at least a dozen" were specifically to hunt out Saddam ("13th time lucky really", chipped in Rachel English, using that little-known expression). It is apparently normal practice to chuck in grenades during such raids so, yes, it was true that the young soldier who first peered into the hole that Saddam was hiding in was about pull the pin out when beardy himself surrendered with "I am Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq; I am willing to negotiate". The young soldier, according to his commander, replied: "President Bush sends his regards."
Hollywood scriptwriters are probably already considering the dramatic possibilities of that very scene (Colin Farrell as the grenade-wielding jug-head, Burt Reynolds as Saddam) because, as Barry Norman revealed in the first of a four-part radio series (BBC Radio 2, Tuesday), the only thing Hollywood is interested in these days is big-budget action movies and young audiences. For him the 1990s was Hollywood's worst decade, with wall-to-wall "mindless blockbusters." The average age of cinema-goers is 12 to 25 and the market has narrowed in terms of audience, so budgets have gone up while content is dumbed down.
"The Godfather or Raging Bull would never be made now," said director Alan Parker, not bothering to hide his frustration.
For generations, Barry Norman is the movie reviewer, even though his interviews have always been on the kiss-up side, but then, in this PR-driven age, that goes with the territory for a lot of movie hacks. After years in the business, the line-up on this radio series showed that he's got one hell of a little black book. Contributions came from players such as Christopher Lee, Dan Aykroyd, Samuel L. Jackson, Ian McKellen, William Goldman and the National Enquirer's Mike "gossip is another name for news" Walker. There's a saying in Hollywood that an A-list person is someone who can trace their ancestry all the way back to their fathers, but director Joel Schumacher, who cast Colin Farrell in Phone Booth, tried to answer Norman's question on what makes an A-list star. It's not looks, he said, because hundreds of lookers get off the bus in Hollywood every day; it's not talent, "though Farrell has enormous talent".
"I have to defer to Miss Piggy on this one," said Schumacher with mock-gravity. "Some pigs have it and some pigs don't."
Worth tuning in next week for part two of the series.
On Marian Finucane (RTÉ1, weekdays), they were busy whipping up Christmas hysteria. Tuesday, it was gift advice of the "men love gadgets" variety; Thursday, food ("people want to learn about stuffing") - all the while making the whole festive period sound like the sort of operation Col James Hickey is a dab hand at. On Wednesday, Tony Bates was in studio with advice on festive coping skills. As he was never introduced (oh, we all know each other in radio land) it was left to the listener to assume that he is something in the psychology line. (I Googled him later - Dr Bates is a clinical psychologist). He turned out to be a rare thing - someone willing to give advice without telling you that there is only one way to solve the problem. Research this week showed that 64 per cent of Dubliners dread Christmas (which means that 36 per cent are making a heck of a lot of noise about it), but people are genuinely under stress at Christmas, he said, because there's so much pressure to be happier than you normally are. We've all had horrible Christmases but don't assume that it'll be the same this year ("we never step in the same river twice"). There was more: "lower the goal-posts", "settle for a little bit less", "more is not necessarily better" - nice manageable pop-psychology soundbites. And why not. Happy Christmas.