In the second of our series Johnny Dee listens to The Alan Brazil Breakfast Show a show lacking a lot of things ? including Alan Brazil
? BBC Radio 5 Live
? The battle of breakfast radio
The Alan Brazil Breakfast Show was missing a rather large element when I tuned in at 6am ? Alan Brazil. The rotund Glaswegian ex-footballer turned radio shouter was on holiday. This was a blow as I was looking forward to reporting on Brazil's indignant rants, counting how many times he called someone a "tube" and totting up the many references to his enjoyment of alcohol. Brazil's replacement was the more sober Ian Danter ? a man whose Brummie accent oozes with the mellow assurance of a man who has endured decades of late-night phone-in shows ? surviving a four-hour breakfast show would be a breeze. Alas the personality vacuum of regular co-host Ronnie Irani made for a deathly dull combination. Irani was not his usual self because he'd stayed up all night watching Rory McIlroy win his first major golf tournament.
"I've had three hours sleep to be fair," he told us (why do sport people always say "to be fair?"). "But I'm buzzing."
If this was Irani buzzing God knows what he's like when he's feeling a bit low. Or maybe he was referring to the fly that had "been in the studio all weekend" he managed to swat two hours into the show.
"Andy Murray would be proud of that shot," laughed Danter.
Killing flies aside the former England cricketer sounded as if he could barely stay awake until the end of his sentence whenever he and Danter's banter turned to Andy Murray's chances at Wimbledon, although TO BE FAIR I couldn't either.
Brazil wasn't the only ingredient missing from The Alan Brazil Breakfast Show, the other absentee was the football season. They can waffle as much as they like about golf, cricket or tennis but the truth is the only sport that fires up presenters and callers on TalkSport is football.
In the absence of the Premier League season, Danter focused instead on the failure of the England Under-21 team to progress at the European Championship tournament after losing to the Czech Republic last night. Numerous tabloid journalists, coaches, experts and Gareth Southgate were grilled throughout the morning attempting to pinpoint why our youngsters had failed. Was it the coach? The wages? The FA? Parents? By 9am it had become a national disgrace. However in whipping up some rather lacklustre hysteria in order to inspire some calls and texts, the fact that England's Under-17 team had also played last night at a youth World Cup tournament in Mexico and won in great style was utterly overlooked.
That victory was mentioned briefly by a sports newsman who went by the name The Moose. Maybe he's called The Moose because he lacks the basic communication skills of a human. Instead words vomit out of his mouth incoherently at rapid speed in a random jumble ? "England crushed out", "Wimbledon Murray starts today". Even that though was preferable to TalkSport's constant commercial breaks all of which follow the comedy song format so successfully employed by the Trainline's re-animation of Black Lace.
"Choo choo choo" Please make it stop. Please.
TalkSport add to the woe with a few comedy jingles of their own, including one for the excellently named Sam Matterface ? who was no doubt given a job at the station just so they could do a jingle based on Joe Dolce's 1980 hit Shaddap You Face. At the end of the day, to be fair, I was glad when it was all over.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/jun/20/breakfast-radio-battle-talksport
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