I am, as I used to say many times, only 19 years of age.
As people around me grew old and got themselves stuck in a loop of only enjoying things that happened when they were actually 19 (even though, for some reason, they don’t keep watching the same 30 or so episodes of Coronation Street that were broadcast in the 1960s), and moaning about everything else, I remained as a constant 19 year old, enjoying most of what is new and exciting, alongside, well, the other 19 year olds of the day. Even today.
Although the old people take the piss out of me, I still listen to Radio 1, finding that it is the only place that plays new music, presented by human beings, flaws and all, instead of commercial radio automatons. I listen to and am excited by new music. Get over it. I hate oldies. Get over that. Radio 1 doesn’t play oldies. Every other radio station seems to. Even Kiss and Capital Xtra have great big chunks of oldies they call Kisstory and Reloaded respectively.
WTF (That ‘W’ standing unusually for ‘Why’) do Kiss and Capital Xtra play their oldies sweeps at exactly the same time? It’s as mysterious as BBC News and Sky News both doing sport half-hours at the same time or newspaper reviews at the same time. Why?
Anyway. From time to time Radio 1 has to shake itself like a dog that’s just gotten out of a river, and try to jettison off the over-30 year old clingons that really shouldn’t be listening. They do this by regularly culling presenters as they get too old to be in touch with ‘the kids of today’, and reinventing features and exploring bite-size and social meeja broadcasting to supplement or extend on the single radio broadcast stream. They’ve just had a notable dog shake, and it’s left some mumbling and moaning.
When a person gets too old for Radio 1 they don’t always go quietly. They can’t stand the presenters, they can’t stand the music, but they keep listening because to tune away would mean they were too old for Radio 1 and they don’t want to accept that.
Indeed, the commercial radio sector Borg (Borg being a central collective or ‘group’ that has now assimilated all the little independent radio stations into one single networked monotony of no creativity they call a ‘brand’) moan and complain when old people listen to Radio 1.
The rules of the Borg are that a person transitions from Radio 1 to the commercial sector, like to a currentish-music-with-oldies Capital style station, then from there to an oldies commercial station, then from there to Radio 2, and as they near death they transition to BBC Local Radio, which provides a God’s Waiting Room of programming from nearly dead presenters.
So, the commercial radio sector moan and start writing nasty things in newspapers, challenge the licence fee, stamp their feet and throw tantrums if the over-30 year old clingons are not removed from Radio 1. In that context I am a rebel. Maybe they will want to capture me and hypnotise me into compliance with their rules.
Or maybe the Borg should just produce a radio station that challenges Radio 1, full of new music presented by human beings.
Sigh. That ain’t going to happen is it?
England's England 