You can’t turn the TV on the last few days without being bombarded with news of how the BBC is somehow imploding as a result of some journalist allegedly using journalistic licence to sex-up a news story about an allegedly sexed-up government dossier.
So - instead of watching my usual late-evening BBC News 24 slot the other night - I decided to go online and check out the Digital Audio Broadcast of the BBC Asian Network being streamed over the web. I have never listened to this radio station before - but I had seen it advertised quite heavily a few months ago. So I picked randomly on the audio-stream of a weekday daytime show being presented by a lady called Sonia Deol. And what a bizarre radio show. It made me wonder whether all daytime radio is like this - or whether the banality was characteristic of this specific radio station, or perhaps this particular presenter.
The show was a phone-in show - where members of the public are invited to phone in to discuss a particular topic - where the topic of this particular show on this particular day was “religious education” within the Asian community. The presenter has three people on the phone: Shana from Birmingham, Kam from Birmingham, and Saleem from Leicester. The presenter Sonia has a cold - and is being accompanied in the studio by some guest called Alan I think. The conversation starts with the colour of cars and whether people talk to their cars. I couldn’t help but laugh at Kam’s strong Birmingham accent as he describes hilariously how he talks to his car. It’s fascinating how the people phoning in interact with each other. Kam is really boisterous and assertive, Shana is really quiet and kind of disapproves of Kam’s assertiveness. Saleem seems to not really be paying attention - and at one point doesn’t really know which radio station he’s calling into. Kam offers an interesting cure to Sonia’s cold - and then the conversation eventually moves on to religious education. Click here to listen to these hilarious few minutes of the show.
Riveting stuff.
ps - if you’re reading this Annie Mole (seriously big Eastenders fan): as it happens - the same Sonia Deol will apparently be joined by Eastenders star Pooja Shah on Monday at 11am. If you’re at work at that time you can always catch up with later - the audio streams are kept for each show for one day: click on “Listen Live” and then select previous shows.
Posted by jag at January 31, 2004 12:35 PMHi Jag, coming here after a long time, was kinda busy.……The queensbury Panorama thing was awesome.……really nice.….gives a peek-a-boo to the neighbourhood u live in (I guess) Is it Southhall by any chance? Coz i see lot of indian/asian names of the shops thr..Vishal, Mohindur etc..Neways me listening to the radio piece as I am typing this.….Quite amusing!
Posted by: Shobha on February 1, 2004 02:17 PMHi Shobha - hey glad to see you back! Thx for comment re Queensbury. Actually I live in an adjacent neighbourhood to Queensbury - which is called Kingsbury. Southall is actually several miles further away to the West from where I am. But there are Indian neighbourhoods all over London. For example - Southall is mostly Punjabis - Harrow/Wembley/Kingsbury/Queensbury (which is where I am) is mostly Gujurati (and Sri Lankan), East London (Ilford) and South london (Tooting) is mostly Indian-Muslim/Pakistani etc. but you can guarantee that is at least one or two Indian shops in every London neighbourhood!
Posted by: Jag on February 1, 2004 02:26 PM