Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Steve Wright in the Afternoon

(Sleazy Man Blathering on your Radio)

JAMES says:

This one might be a bit of a rant, I’m afraid. I think I used to think that Steve Wright was quite cool, back when he was on Radio 1. Probably something to do with Arnie & the Terminators. Having recently been exposed to his show, this time on ‘adult’ radio 2, I feel ashamed for little 12 year old James, and if I could meet him a la ‘Disney’s the Kid’ I would be forced to shake some sense in to him, as much as it would hurt me. There are few people in the world I admire more than myself, but in this instance I readily admit I was a chump. But nowhere near as much of a chump as Steve Wright.

The radio DJs job is to play records and talk, in varying degrees, and while Steve’s musical taste is about as good as his face is attractive, I would gladly listen to Girls Aloud on constant repeat from 2 til 5 if it would save me from his ramblings. It’s like having the boring tedious person in the office who thinks his opinions are so great that every conversation has to be conducted in as high a voice as possible on the radio, only he’s surrounded by paid sycophants who have to pretend that everything he says is amusing or insightful, thus swelling his already formidable ego. He constantly reads out ‘Factoids’ that half the time are just rubbish gossip ,the other half old urban legends that everyone knows are made up. He thinks having an agony aunt pretending to be Elvis is so funny he should do it every week. He has an old lady on all the time. He does the kind of impressions that people who can’t do impressions do, all the time. He sleazes over his young female guests so much, I have found out for the first time the physical sensation of one’s skin crawling. He even has an astrology section.

All this could be forgiven if it wasn’t for the fact he is unbelievably stupid. His ‘Big Quiz’ is like the Richard and Judy quiz, only easier, and yet he still mispronounces most of it and gets the answers wrong. And when he tries to put one of his opinions across, it is so spectacularly ill-informed and just plain wrong that you want to give the radio a clip round the ear. And no-one does lazy clichés like Steve Wright does lazy clichés. For a couple of weeks his radio station was taken over by Mark Goodier, and it actually got better.

Now you might be wondering why even at this very minute I am listening to his show. It’s not as you might expect being inflicted on me in a work environment. I have the hallowed position of being in control of the radio at the moment. I could just change over. But if I changed over every time there was a DJ I didn’t like then there isn’t a radio station I could stay with all day, and forever changing is too much trouble. Therefore, for the sake of Wogan in the mornings and funny angry old people on Jeremy Vine’s call-in show I put up with Steve Wright. Until he just pushes me too far…

1.7/10

http://www.bbc.co.uk/feedback/ - Let’s get him fired!

4 comments:

  1. Was Steve Wright EVER funny? I was a similarly misguided child and seem to recall a fondness for the chap. Until that horrific day, scarred onto my childhood, when he was on Top of the Pops, and I saw his FREAKISH FACE.

    Gah!

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  2. Anonymous10:19 pm

    back when he was popular.. is he popular now? it seems so - what a shame... he used to rip off wholesale a show done by a 'radio west' (brizzle/ somerset) 'drive time' (don't you hate that term) dj who was genuinely funny.
    a shame i forget his name... he was not very good at holding his tounge though - & was on several warnings whn he came back from a travel report with the quip, "and that was [so&so]; living proof that oliver hardy domated to a sperm bank"
    he was replaced by bland, safe, boring djs
    boo!

    why has steve wright not retired????

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  3. Anonymous10:22 pm

    that was 'mooncat' btw - forgot to sign - silly me

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  4. It is the universal law of entropy. All things tend towards Blandness. Look at Coupling.

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