More sad news this morning - this time about bon vivant and raconteur Dai Llewellyn, who died yesterday at the age of 62. Dai was a regular contributor to the Talk Radio UK Breakfast Show back in the mid-90’s and in those heady days of supposed shock-jockery, I always looked forward to him appearing in the studio to stir up another hornets’ nest on whatever topical issue had happened to catch his eye.
Having more than a passing interest in talk radio myself, it’s particularly sad to see a commercial speech station go to the wall but on Christmas Eve, Edinburgh’s Talk107 will shut up shop and hand its licence back to Ofcom after less than 3 years on air. Now without wanting to pick over the bones and second guess as to precisely what went wrong, I think it’s safe to assume that in the end the sums just didn’t add up. And in commercial radio ultimately, only money talks.
I was sorry to hear that Alex Dyke is set to leave Isle of Wight Radio in January after 15 years with the station. His bright, enthusiastic and sometimes jagged style of broadcasting may not be to everyone’s taste - a bit like Marmite - but there’s no doubt that his presence on the local airwaves has made him as much a part of island life as The Needles.
Many of my chums might tell you otherwise, but I’m not really a tekkie and certainly not an early-adopter of the latest gadgets and gizmos. But the one recent innovation that really has changed my life is my Wi-Fi radio. Currys were banging them out at half-price a while back, before anyone was really interested in the whole concept. And at around 35 quid, I thought it was worth a punt. I wasn’t disappointed.