Radio Review Bernice HarrisonThe summer stand-in season is in full swing - and, as there's no sign of an actual summer, it's all a bit disorientating.
It's certainly loyalty-testing. Is Today FM worth the tune-in these mornings when Tom Dunne is in the chair instead of Ray D'Arcy? Well, not for me it isn't, although having long tuned out of regular listening to Drivetime (RTÉ Radio 1), I stuck with it this week because Keelin Shanley, more usually seen on Prime Time, is in Mary Wilson's chair. The boys in shiny suits in the corporate jungle know well that if you must have a holiday replacement, you should make sure it's someone who's dire - the last thing you want to be is shown up. Wilson must have been sick the day they gave that lesson.
Shanley settled into the demanding seat as if it was made for her; she's from the same head-girl mould as Wilson but she's got a lighter touch, is far more conversational - a must for a drivetime slot when commuters are trapped in their cars and in no mood for a sharp-toned lecture, and, crucially, sounds like she's having a good time.
Even with all that, the programme is a difficult listen because editorially it's a plodding hotchpotch of dull regular items and is way too sports-heavy and full of numbing repetition, all within a rigid, predictable structure. Why, for example, on Wednesday, the day the stamp duty changes were announced, was the business item a long, formulaic one about those changes when Shanley had already covered the same ground, thoroughly and with a bit of a spark, a few minutes earlier? Why also does the programme presenter give a long, detailed list of the news headlines as an introduction to the newsreader who then proceeds to read out - well, guess what - the news headlines?
What Shanley does, though, is give Wilson some ammo: it's not just down to the presenter. The fractured structure of Drivetime seems designed to give listeners as many opportunities as possible to switch off, which is exactly what they're doing. The most recent research figures showed audience increases for both Matt Cooper on Today FM and George Hook on Newstalk and that has to be because RTÉ's offering is such a plodding mess.
Since the election, Drivetime has been starting 30 minutes earlier in an effort to go head-to-head with the two other national stations whose drivetime programmes start at 4.30pm. It sounds like more of a cosmetic tweak than the radical surgery the programme needs.
Other notable summer stand-ins include Tom McGurk who has been in for Pat Kenny since the first week of May when Kenny signed off his programme with the rather open-ended "until the next time". Well, when? July, August, September? Take a bow whoever was on Kenny's side negotiating that work contract.
McGurk seems happiest when covering the more serious items and not so sure when the subject strays into pop culture. And his music choices need to be dragged into this century.
A more unexpected stand-in is novelist Joe O'Connor who was in the Pet Sounds (Today FM) studio this week for Tom Dunne and he wisely opted to play his music choices - more mainstream than Dunne's - and not fill the airtime with talk.
As for RTÉ's Drivetime, hopefully when the summer is over (that's assuming it's going to start) and the powers that be tackle the key teatime slot, not everything will be ditched. Listening this week for the first time in ages reminded me that Olivia O'Leary's audio column (Tuesday) is a masterclass in the genre. In "Planet Bertie" she deftly painted a chilling portrait of the Taoiseach.
All public face and no private life, despised by backbenchers who he ignores, schmoozing his enemies not his friends and shadowed by "Bertie's human surplus" Cyprian Brady, who's always at this side like a human manifestation of his beloved St Luke's constituency office. O'Leary describes the Taoiseach as the ultimate public man; almost constantly in make-up, taking lessons from an acting coach to get his tongue round dose pesky ts and hs.
"You can't," she says, "imagine Brian Cowen doing that sort of thing." When he eventually hands over the reins to Cowen she sees Ahern heading for a job in Europe.
"Planet Bertie may be globalised. One way or another, he'll be out there. Why? because that's what outsiders do."