Because I’m a bit of a political junkie, it always puzzles me when a respected presenter of factual, ‘serious’ programming chooses to move to what seems to me a less worthy form of broadcasting, such as playing records on the radio. It always seems like a demotion.
Jeremy Vine was demoted from Newsnight to Radio 2 more than six years ago now, and in the long gap between my last blog post and this (of which more later), I finally came across his show on Radio 2. I can’t remember the exact circumstances, but I must have been either driving or baking cakes (I don’t normally put the radio on otherwise), and there must surely have been some dire stuff on Radios 4, 5 and LBC.
Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to find that he still talks to the occasional politician, and still makes the odd political comment. On the day in question, the political topic of the day was the threatened closure of Tata Steel’s Redcar plant. One of this country’s last big steelworks was about to close, and Vine’s response was to play XTC’s 1979 song Making Plans for Nigel.
XTC were the first band I ever went to see live. The Damned were the second. This dates me somewhat. But anyway, why did Jeremy Vine play that particular sound of my teenage years? Because it contains a line that goes:
We’re only making plans for Nigel
He has his future in British Steel.
In other words, back in 1979, having a job in British Steel was a metaphor for steady, boring, dependable employment. Those who joined, like Nigel, in the late 70s or early 80s, would no doubt have been made redundant years ago, or fairly recently if they’d had the good fortune to have been posted to Redcar.
Well, Jeremy, I still don’t approve of your own career decision (the one which involved swapping Newsnight for a spot of disc-spinning), but you made your point well.
Meanwhile at Ascot Business Training…
Recent publicity for our Mini-MBA programme has led to a great deal of new work. No complaints here, but it means we’ve had to (temporarily) close our books to new students. For details of this suspension and of the publicity in question, feel free to browse the website. You can even join our mailing list, which will ensure you’re the first to know when we’re in a position to re-open the course to new applicants.
