Sunday 18 July 2010

Men's Hour: Amateur Hour


I've just wasted an hour of my life listening to Men's Hour - Radio 5's new magazine programme for men.
Its announcement had caused much commentary in the papers along the lines of "the last thing we need is more Radio Bloke".
I rarely listen to Radio 5 - but/because it does sound like 24 Hour Radio Bloke.
70% of its audience are men - The Men's Hour was preceded by seven and a half hours (!) of Live Golf.
The Guardian pointed out there had already been a men's magazine programme on Radio 4 in 1993, The Locker Room.
You'd think someone on The Guardian would have remembered they once announced Radio 4 was starting a male version of Woman's Hour - as their April Fool's Day joke.
Men's Hour was "devised and presented" by Tim Samuels - who disconcertingly speaks like he's doing an impression of Morrissey.
His guests were that SAS bloke, Andy McNab, and that gay bloke, Louie Spence from off Pineapple Dance Studios.
"For the first show, yah, I think it would be really great if we could get like the most macho man we can think of and pair him up with someone who's just like some uber-queen..."
The show was every bit as unimaginative as its choice of guests.
We were told it was "post-Loaded... the era of the lad mag is over". This was an hour for new men - who are "willing to talk, emote and say what's on our minds."
I was half-expecting every comment to be followed with; "Thanks for sharing that with us, Malcolm."
They talked a lot of balls - metaphorically and literally. Topics of a testicular nature came up at least four times; from infidelity to fertility.
Tim Samuels always seemed to be trying to make a point he couldn't quite grasp.
There was a segment called Thought For The Gay - my sides! - about gay men and football. Zzzzzzzzzzzz...
Mark Ronson came on - he's got a new single out - and said he thought he'd learned a lot because he was "brought up by women".
Umm, almost all men are, Mark.
After half an hour I was watching the clock, slowly dragging its way round, thinking; "I care even less about what you've got to say about this subject than I do about the subject itself."
I only perked up for another (predictable) segment entitled (predictably) Token Woman - because the first token woman was Jenni Murray from Woman's Hour.
A fatal mistake - just hearing Jenni's voice reminded me I'll be listening to Women's Hour again all next week, and how I'll never tune into Men's Hour again.
If you want something done properly...

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