The grumpy thread

[Lord Sterling]

I'm a "Unity FM" bloke for obvious reasons, sometimes Radio 4 will come on, particularly if 'The Archers' are on and I'm in the car at that moment.

 

I gave up listening to "popular" radio, even Classic FM doesn't hold the same listening pleasure it once did. I get enough of these "popular" radio stations invading my air space in various workplaces I work at, playing thier repeated crap and talking excitedly about the same crappy so-called "reality/talent" show coming on TV. Thankfully, new office doesn't have crap radio played by boring people.

 

Today I took the Tablet out with me and plugged it up to the new stereo. Great tunes to be had anytime I wanted, but it was a pretty difficult thing to place, it slipped about on the seats which caused the cheap AUX wire to unplug. I think sticking a few tunes on some USB might be best the answer.

[dollywobbler]

I barely listen to the radio and my wife hates shopping. WIN!

[HillmanImp]

I listen to Radio 6 if I have DAB as the presenters seem to have free reign on what they play there don't they so you actually get music that someone has taken time to listen to and enjoy, even if its not to your particular taste, rather than the drivel that has been paid for in backhanders and drugs to the people who pick the music that is to be played on the other radio stations. There is generally some thought and passion in what they are playing.

 

If I can get t'interweb radio I listen to Illinois Street Lounge on Soma FM which is just brilliant. 

 

http://somafm.com/illstreet/

[Negative Creep]

I never listen to the radio unless the football's on or I'm at work, but Absolute 90's is pretty good. The absolute worst has to be Capital, which just plays music to mug people on your council estate to

[155V6]

^Couldn't agree more,hadn't listened to Capital for about 20 years until I started a new job a couple of years ago.Young workmate used to have it on,it was like all the worst bits of Kiss,Radio 1,& Heart in one place.Thankfully he changed his taste & we don't have it any more 

[quicksilver]

Radio stations are like cars in that all modern ones seem to be shit. Round here we used to have a couple of proper local independent stations and I listened to Horizon which was very focused on Milton Keynes. That all went to shit though when it and all the other independents were gobbled up by Heart and amalgamated into a huge mass called Heart Home Counties that covers everywhere from Corby down to Watford. They had the cheek to use 'more music variety' as a slogan while all of their DJs seemed to play the same set playlist and I remember one song that was literally played at the same time every single day - James Morrison & Nelly Furtado's 'Broken Strings' is still etched deeply into my memory even now because of that. They also gave that awful Emma Bunton a presenting slot where all she does is talk about herself and how great her life is, then nominated her for a best DJ award

 

The only reason I continued to listen was for the travel news as it covered the grid roads in MK but then they fucked that up too by expanding the area and only covering major routes. The travel woman clearly didn't have a clue what she was on about and started spouting gibberish like 'the High Street in Milton Keynes is closed'. At that point I decided they had nothing to offer and switched off and that was 5 years ago! Apart from the occasional Ken Bruce I haven't listened to the radio since and just play CDs all the time.

[cobblers]

Any journey in our lasses car is spent with her almost constantly changing the radio station. A wank song will come on Radio 2, so she'll click over to smooth FM or some bollocks and it'll be adverts or presenter drivel, so click over to any other station to catch the back end of a good song, then more drivel. Back to radio 2 for some more drivel, then a mediocre song and the cycle repeats. It's infuriating.

 

Personally I think radio is a completely lost cause to me so I don't even bother plugging the aerial in any of my cars, and haven't done for about ten years.

The Modern came with a DAB stereo also installed, so I thought I would give 6Music a try on the way home from buying it, but obviously the A38/M1 must be a secluded extreme place as I'd only get about ten seconds of garbled noises at a time before the signal dropped completely for a few minutes. When I got home I just peeled the aerial off the windscreen and cut the wire to get it all out of the way.

[gordonbennet]

I used to be  radio 2 buff, but since they elbowed Jimmy Young out cos he wasn't so young any more the stations gradually gone to rat shit, except for one or two gems.

 

Three stations i enjoy, are Magic, Smooth (best of the bunch) and Jack (Oxford through to Bristol).

 

Round here it's Heart which is about as bad as it gets, with adverts presumably designed to sell to those only on day release.

[oldcars]

None of my radios work and i have a cd stuck in the Kia so i get the same songs over and over and over. Could be worse.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I have this theory about Radio DJs , if you'd shag em they sound shit. Don't know if this works for those on the other bus ,but from a hetero viewpoint it's pretty accurate- Zoe Ball,Sara Cox, Jo Whiley ,Fearne Cotton definitely would but sound awful.

[RobT]

..even Classic FM doesn't hold the same listening pleasure it once did.

 

Polluted by adverts, especially during the day, and I stopped listening to it before Christmas as it was just a constant stream of carols and Christmas related dirge.  OK he's a pompous twat, but David Mellor is still worth a listen to, as he actually knows something about classical music.

[Craig the Princess]

I have this theory about Radio DJs , if you'd shag em they sound shit. Don't know if this works for those on the other bus ,but from a hetero viewpoint it's pretty accurate- Zoe Ball,Sara Cox, Jo Whiley ,Fearne Cotton definitely would but sound awful.

Lauren Laverne must be the exception to this rule, could listen to her all day.

[hennabm]

Radio 4 FTW!

I used to be R2 listener but Vine,Wright,Evans and the fat one in the morning turned me off. The only one I can stomach is Mayo.

Apart from him I'm on 4.

[Skizzer]

Radio-wise I mostly have Radio 4 on too, but when my urge to shout at it for smugness gets too much I also have a couple of tapes of Annie Nightingale's Radio 1 show that I recorded in about 1986, which are GR12.

[dave21478]

French radio makes me want to swerve into oncoming traffic.

All stations are plagued by commercials and for some reason, they are all very shouty. The voice actors in the ads are all literally shouting at you to buy whatever shit they are promoting - Who ever thought that would be a good way to attract me as a customer?

 

The music? oh God....the music. France, being French, unsurprisingly has some laws in place that are xenophobic and against the idea of freedoms....basically its obligatory for all French radio to broadcast a minimum of 40% French origin music. Have you ever heard French music? its fucking terrible. Yeah, there are some good* classics* but since they are obliged to fill up at least 40% of air time with French stuff, there are hundreds of bands and singers springing up and getting air time just to fill this quota all churning out the same type of saccharine simpering pish. And then there is the rise of French hiphop - Jesus Wept, thats bad. Old Skool classic American hip hop - I like a bit of that, but modern US stuff annoys me - its all nigga nigga nigga bitch nigga nigga. The French stuff actually offends me - not because of the lyrics but just because it is so fucking bad that it physically hurts to listen to it.

The remaining air time after the adverts is filled up with UK or US stuff, and the problem is that they have incredibly short playlists. RTL2 is the local version of Radio 2 in UK, and they have an unhealthy obsession with U2 and Genesis. Switch it on and it will either be some French pretty boy whinging about something or U2. They occasionally latch onto another song and literally play the fuck out of it. These days its Fine Young Cannibals - Drives me Crazy. An ok tune, but when the fuckers are playing it on every station 10 times a day, it gets a bit much. Not so long ago it was Midnight Oil singing Beds are Burning. When was the last time you heard that on UK radio? 1994? well here not so long ago it was getting played literally every 25 minutes.

 

Thank Christ for head units with USB slots!

[Skizzer]

^ Agreed re French radio, except for the patches of France that get Radio Nova which I used to like when I spent a lot of time in Montpelier and still sometimes listen to sur L'Internet (novaplanet.fr).  Sometimes that's shit too, mind.

[Sloth in a bowl]

32Gb, £10, room for hundreds of CDs, problem solved

 

http://www.memorybits.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=23303

 

[purplebargeken]

Radio Verulam has a female presenter called Elspeth Jackman. She is an older woman but has a hell of a voice. Her photo does not match her voice in any way, shape or form.

[Louise2cv]

Flat tyre on bike. THE WORLD WANTS ME TO BE FAT!

 

(* I was driven to eat the biscuits by uncontrollable supernatural forces, obviously. ).

[mercrocker]

^^^Mine does that, but only when I get on it.....

[fordperv]

Why worry its only flat at the bottom

[DVee8]

Lauren Laverne must be the exception to this rule, could listen to her all day.

I use to knock around with her when we were younger.In the same crowed that drank in the same boozers and watched the same bands

[Angrydicky]

Polluted by adverts, especially during the day, and I stopped listening to it before Christmas as it was just a constant stream of carols and Christmas related dirge.  OK he's a pompous twat, but David Mellor is still worth a listen to, as he actually knows something about classical music.

This. I love Classic FM and always listen to it at work, but there are far too many adverts, and yes the carols did get tiring. It's quite rare for me because I don't hate any of the presenters on it. Even Alan Titchmarsh, Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen, Aled Jones and so on. David Mellor is very good and so is John Suchet. 

 

One I keep meaning to start listening to is Planet Rock radio, but I'm terribly behind the times and don't understand digital DAB radio.

[MrDuke]

 

 

Vindictive bastard 'depression' seems to be back with a vengeance. If it could just fuck off for ONE WEEK and give me some breathing space....

[ruffgeezer]

Take some exercise if you can MrDuke, and try and achieve a small goal (even if it is just doing the washing up!) With me, positive actions seem to lend well to positive thoughts.

 

I had a particularly bleak episode one night on the way in from the pub, when I got in I took the dog out for a walk, came in cleaned up the kitchen and sanded some plaster down, it was in the small hours before I went to bed but my head was in a much better mood afterwards.

[Pillock]

 

 

One I keep meaning to start listening to is Planet Rock radio, but I'm terribly behind the times and don't understand digital DAB radio.

TeamRock is Planet Rock without the adverts. And perhaps a bit more modern stuff, but I much prefer it for the lack of endless British Gas advets.

[Cheggers]

Tapatalk - Another great app "upgraded" to the point of being almost unusable...it used to be really easy to use so why the hell mess with it??

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Fucking trains. Buy a train ticket online. Get stuck in traffic on the way to the station, thus missing the train. Ticket office tell me I need to buy another ticket as this one is not valid for the next train, despite both trains costing the same to travel on. WANKERS!!! I decide to chance it as I have nowt to lose playing dumb with the ticket inspector on the train. It works fortunately thanks to his good nature. The fucking rail system in this country is such a massive clusterfuck. All transport ministers of the last 20 years just need shooting.

[Pillock]

Tapatalk - Another great app "upgraded" to the point of being almost unusable...it used to be really easy to use so why the hell mess with it??

They broke the sub-forum menu on the last but one update, meaning the open and events forums on here were completely inaccessible. Took a week for a new version.

 

I persevere as I don't like the mobile site much, but Tapatalk is crap compared to what it was - simple and easy.

[Richard]

I tried Tapatalk a couple of years ago but had it uninstalled within a couple of hours. My preferred way to access the forum is the full site on Opera Mini, which is the only mobile browser I've found that gives a usable view.