RTE Radio

So there we were, one afternoon a few months ago, me and Ned out in his car coming back from doing a callout, he’s driving, I’m fiddling with the radio trying to find some station that wasn’t playing shite music or waffling on about footballers and/or immigrants…

And then we found it, the gem on the dial, “Talk to Joe” on RTE Radio One.

I’ve been hooked ever since.

We get it on the Long Wave in the UK, 252 if anyone cares to find it, do it, you’ll not regret the move especially the 1.45 to 3pm slot when all the nutters in Ireland ring Joe in the studio and talk about any old bollax, its fascinating and not just because of the beautiful accents.

Yesterday I had an hour or so’s drive to a job and hit the RTE button to find that the whole of Ireland was in mourning, a mourning with a great anger attached for apparently Ireland, the country that almost owns the Eurovision Song Contest by default, has failed to qualify through the semi final this year and will not be appearing in the main bollax of a competition on Saturday night.

They failed to qualify because they entered a turkey into the Eurovision Song Contest.

No, I don’t mean a turkey of a song, I mean a real turkey, a turkey called Dustin who can sing, of sorts, but who was thrashed into almost last place by the traditional line-up of the very last scrapings out of the very bottom of the barrel of entertainment in each European country.

The whole of Ireland was up in arms and “Talk to Joe” was over-run by “disgusted of Limerick” and “disgraced of Cork”, people were ringing in abosolutely spitting feathers, turkey feather no less at the decision by someone in authority to enter a turkey as Irelands representative in this annual prestigious shown-all-over-Europe TV marathon of complete and utter shite.

I nearly rang Joe myself but I’m not sure whether they’ll accept calls from outside the country, you see I didn’t see Dustin the Turkey’s entry nor would Joe play the song but a very brave lady who was in the studio confessed to being on the panel of judges who had rated Dustin as one of the six on the shortlist of Irish contenders from an initial entry of 41 songsters (how bad do you have to be to finish behind a turkey in a singing competition) and then having given full and final consideration to the six contenders had placed Dustin at the top of the list.

Even Johnny Logan rang in to complain at her.

But an hour long discussion on Dustin the Turkey is fairly standard stuff for “Talk to Joe”, two weeks ago when I was listening he had someone ring in from one of Dublins major thoroughfares to tell him how disgraceful it was that a Polish shop on that street was selling guns, right there in the shop window.

Joe thought this was unbelieveable but within the minute a restaurantuer from that street was on the phone to tell Joe that he was stood outside the very same shop and yes, there in the window was an AK47 rifle and several handguns, for sale at 200 euros each. Upon closer examination it was apparent that they were replica guns that fired small ball bearings using compressed air and while they were chatting the man on the phone went insdie the shop, and still speaking to Joe asked the shop owner what he thought he was doing selling guns in his shop window.

After a healthy exchange of views and with Joe prompting some questions on the legality of selling guns in the high street the man on the phone informed Joe that another man, a much bigger man had just come out of the back of the shop and was now approaching him and that he thought it might be best to leave right now, at that moment you could clearly hear in the background a very irate Irishman exclaiming that he had “better get the fekk out of my shop” and “I’ve been fekking trading here for ten fekking year and who the fekk are you on the phone to, is it the guard ?”

I almost had to stop the car to stop laughing as poor old Joe int he studio instructed his man on the spot to leave the shop as quickly as possible, then when he was outside he asked “well what did you think of that then Joe, he was a little profain wasn’t he ?” to which Joe agreed as we all listened to the sound of running footsteps as the man on the spot told Joe that he was being chased down the street now.

Then, as if this wasn’t enough entertainment, another man rang in to speak to Joe to tell him that he was listening to the whole thing and was on the other side of the road watching and he’d go to the assistance of Joe’s man on the spot, “yes, you go help him out ” Joe insisted obviously wondering if the RTE insurance policy extended to people who randomly phoned into a call show and then got involved in a shoot-out in the street with Polish gangsters.

Its hilarious, its like Father Ted presenting Craggy Island Radio.

And then in the middle of all of this the newsreader interrupts with the news read entirely in Gaelic, but this isn’t Gaelic like it is in Wales, Gaelic with 50% of the words being filled in with English ones, this is proper Gaelic (I assume its called Gaelic anyway), a proper language that you can’t understand not one word of but sounds to the untrained ear just exactly like a mix of German and a Scandinavian language.

Wonderful stuff, I recommend it to the house.