Radio 5 Review

September is the kindest month in many ways. The air carries a welcome hint of chill, one knows one has seen off the heat and discomfort of summer once again, although some 15 years ago it represented the end of the cycling season for me and another year gone, and one feels like writing a poem about it. One still might but, as sometimes happens, one finds one has written the poem one had in mind already.

But, one thing to celebrate among many is the return of the Greatest Living Englishman (okay, essay question, discuss), Danny Baker, to national Radio Five - I'm old-fashioned and don't call it 'Five Live' because not all of it is- on Saturday mornings.

Sacked a number of times by the BBC and possibly sundry other places, Radio 5 simply isn't good enough without him and the sad efforts of others to emulate his style (like Ian Payne) show how much the broadcasting genius gene is something inborn that cannot be studied and learnt. He almost accidentally invented 6-0-6, which at its very beginning was a sports phone-in but it soon became obvious that football was all that most people wanted to talk about and, so that's what he did. But the laborious calls from fans of this-or-that Rovers, Athletic or Thistle on their passion for the game, the mistakes of the ref or their need for a new left back soon led him to more spontaneous subject matter and nowadays football is the loosest of themes on his show. Remarkably, and indicatively, it was David Mellor who first took over 6-0-6, all workmanlike rent-an-opinion and heavy-breathing, who was then given an award for the show which only goes to demonstrate how this country is run and what prizes are worth.

Baker threw away more wit and wisdom in a moment than Mellor, or most of his successors in that chair, could muster if they'd had all night to think it up. Most brilliantly, in olden days, he muttered in passing, after Alan Dicks resigned as Fulham manager, 'and there went the best terrace chant in the league'. When given the Saturday lunchtime slot with friend and duelling partner, Danny Kelly, I used to have to delay my essential long-distance training rides on bicycle just to hear another half hour.

Last Saturday's return was no more than a re-hash of last season, keeping the Sausage Sandwich Game and several old themes while still loading the show with more new ideas every week than two hours could expect to hold but he is a fine interviewer and gets some engaging guests for the post-10 o'clock chat. On this occasion it was only the scriptwriters of Birds of a Feather, who turn out to be much more interesting than you'd think. But guests with the status of Stephen Fry, Elton John and all that crowd of comedic panel game players from television willingly turn up, the only disappointment last year being Paul Weller. Not interesting, not much good and a small blot on an otherwise great list. I do believe he could spar with Jesus Christ except he said he had bad hands.

Otherwise, of a sporting weekend, it's only really the subversively clever Colin Murray that saves us from the gloom of Claridge, Motson, Green and all the rest of them who have still not discovered that sport is now an over-priced soap opera that doesn't deserve to be treated with any kind of seriousness. On the almost equally welcome back Fighting Talk, it is always good to hear that some of these otherwise professionally dour commentators can have a laugh, like when Jennie Bond stopped being royal correspondant and went on game shows. The broadcasting monster has become so weird to those of us brought up under Reithian values that we might yet see the hapless host of Have I Got News for You, Boris de Blah Blah de Pfeiffl Johnson, become Prime Minister.

The tea-time Drive broadcast gets the likeable, old curmudgeon, Peter Allen, back in September, too. Thank heavens that some people in the BBC still care about getting things right even if they don't know it for themselves. He was slow to identify a Spoonerism this evening but the audience are good enough not only to put him right, in their hundreds, but then supply plenty of great examples. The combined talent of the listeners is obviously in excess of the poor, beleaguered presenters and, having run through a story of a schoolboy in Northern Ireland who had discovered a bomb but was now enjoying his tea of a battered sausage, one wiseacre texted in to ask which was likely to be most injurious to health, the unexploded bomb or the battered sausage.

Tony Livesey has gradually felt his way into Richard Bacon's highly self-referential late night spot so that one now misses Tony as much as one first missed Richard if he isn't there; Dotun Adebayo is an informed and comfortable through-the-night host with an alarming willingness to sing horribly. But it's a terrible shame that Nicky Campbell tries to show off his learning so willingly while falling into the same, old trap of fancying his female co-host like mad without being able to hide it, like a radio version of Adrian Chiles before the fact.

And, finally, Stephen Nolan's sensationalist, over-wrought, late night weekend interviews with any 'human interest' story, its drawing out of every possible strand of tabloid emotion, have only been outdone by his haranguing of the Labour Party leadership candidates in the last week, in which he has been consistently rude and over-bearing, and, quite honestly, made me have more sympathy for each candidate in turn when I wasn't really sure I liked any of them in the first place.

So, I'm glad of the Proms, some Radio 4, when it can lift itself out of its home counties, Open University, comfort zone, and even some local radio or Dale's Pick of the Pops when I need to escape Radio 5's worst excesses but, on the whole, it's doing a fine job. Why they can't get Danny Kelly in, I don't know, but that's why the one-press button to change channels on the digital radio was invented. On some idyllic island, I expect they are programmed to retune to 5 when Baker, Allen or Murphy come on and find you your next best channel when Stephen Nolan, Alan Green or Nicky Campbell show up. But science hasn't got that far yet. All it has done so far is teach us not to switch the telly on unless you really want to.