A Moncrieff mystery of time

RADIO REVIEW:THERE HAVE BEEN more nips and tucks on Newstalk 106-108 this week. Moncrieff(weekdays) has been extended, making it one of the few three-hour talk shows on radio. Sean Moncrieff is a talented presenter who has a following for his constant stream of inane trivia and authors plugging their quirky books, but it can be hard going. He will need to beef up the show to sustain it for that long.

Starting on Wednesday, his show runs from 1.30pm to 4.30pm. A midweek time switch? No wonder listeners were left confused. One texter said: “Are you going to change the music to the show? Damo did.” Moncrieff responded, “Just because Damo did? If Damo jumped off a cliff would you want me to do that as well? Okay, don’t answer that question.”

The listener was referring to Damien Kiberd, who will continue to present Lunchtime(weekdays) but only from noon until 1pm. From 1pm the Cork-based reporter Jonathan Healy will continue the show for its final half-hour. There are plenty of shows that would make sense being based in Cork, but the politics-heavy lunchtime news is not one of them.

All of this kerfuffle is enough to make you switch to Seán O'Rourke on News at One(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) and be done with it.

Moncrieff was pondering a profound question from another listener on Wednesday. “Can you tell if a person is right-handed or left-handed based on the size of their feet?” And we’ll leave him there.

Earlier that day Kiberd was reminding listeners to tune in to Healy after 1pm for his “rapid-fire” news programme. (The newstalk.ie website called Healy “fast-paced”.) That means they squeeze more items into the half-hour and Healy probably speaks a lot faster than he does in real life.

Kiberd interviewed David Cantwell of the Hooke MacDonald estate agency about the sale of 20 apartments at Booterstown Wood, in south Dublin, which was developed by the now-nationalised Irish Nationwide Building Society. “They had originally intended to develop their own headquarters there,” Cantwell said. Two-bedroom apartments are selling for about half their original price. It’s good news for at least 20 people. Probably not so good for the rest of us.

There is a three o'clock slump on afternoon radio and an opening for something exciting. In the meantime we have Mooney(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), which is still going strong on a diet of hot air and senseless guffawing.

On Tuesday Derek Mooney paid tribute to Ruth Buchanan, presenter of Playback(RTÉ Radio 1, Saturdays), who is retiring after today's show. Buchanan probably has one of the most beautiful speaking voices on radio. "Whenever I do an item on dogs they always get on Playback," Brenda Donohue said. Mooney added, "She still fits into the denim. She's a size eight!" Do RTÉ presenters really sit around hoping they'll be chosen for Playback?

Christopher Biggins reminisced about his TV career, which includes roles in Porridgeand Poldark. He also played Nero in I, Claudius. But Mooney loves a bit of reality-TV action, so he wanted to talk about I'm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!, which he won, way back in 2007.

Unlike Newstalk's Lunchtime, T he John Murray Show(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) is badly in need of a new theme song. On Tuesday Murray spoke to Buchanan about her retirement. She has been presenting Playbacksince 1998. "For the next few years, if I live that long, I'll be able to listen to radio to enjoy it."

She picked out some of her favourite moments on RTÉ radio over the past 12 years. The first clip she chose was a face-off between George Lee and Seán O'Rourke on News at Oneat the time Lee entered politics as a candidate for Fine Gael.

“I know my mind,” Lee said, “I know my character and I know my personality. I don’t need you or anybody else in RTÉ to tell me what my future is.” Weirdly, his future was back in RTÉ, as it turned out.

“I’d say George is sorry he left Fine Gael now,” Buchanan said. “He might have been the next Minister for Finance.” If Lee himself believed that, he probably would have stayed in Leinster House.

Buchanan also chose a 2002 clip of Roy Keane leaving the Republic of Ireland soccer team over training conditions in Saipan. “Is it too much to ask for a training pitch?” Keane said, “I don’t think so.” Buchanan didn’t think so either.