Sunday Brunch With Mike
Two Lochs Radio, 106
and 106.6FM
“It’s such a dire day at the moment, it’s unbelievable. I imagine you’re going to stay in but if you’re still in your PJs, remember it’s actually probably not the time you thought it was.”
DJ Mike is manning Two Lochs Radio at 11am on clocks-back Sunday, with the St Jude’s Day storm brewing. He squints, Magoo-like, at the darkening loch. “Has anyone thought about my quiz yet?” On the community broadcaster for the Wester Ross area in the Highlands, Mike gets unnecessarily anxious about feedback or requests.
Undirected, his music can range bewilderingly from rap to “The Ballad of Frank Spencer” but there is little doubting his tact. “Nobody’s come in with an answer yet,” he says, transmitting with great delicacy only a millisecond of umbrage. “So here are the questions again: what 2002 novel by Alice Sebold is the story of a teenage girl who after being murdered watches from heaven as her family and friends struggle to move on with their lives, while she comes to terms with her own death? And, the Aberdeen terrier is better known as what kind of dog?” I suck my pencil. This is absolutely my kind of quiz.
TLR is ten years old this month. Now followed by over 2,000 listeners in the region and several hundred online across the world, it forever conveys a sense that all fences can be mended with a cup of instant around the table, while also remaining a very serious little operation, running all the necessary local notices and magnificently inclusive updates concerning the various trials of its listeners. One time I switched on to find a lady in despair looking at a ruined pie dish. “I don’t know what to suggest, Glenys,” said one of the station’s 38 volunteer presenters. “But I definitely think you should take it back. Pyrex is supposed to be unbreakable.”
At last, a text to the studio! It’s Doreen, requesting “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”. Mike pauses. One senses that: a) he knows Doreen and everyone at Doreen’s house, and that this presents a major problem because b) he is keenly aware the lyrics to “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” are written to sound sad but are in fact unconscionably violent and bitter (“You hardly talk to me when I walk through the door at the end of the day/you just roll over and turn out the light”).
Bringing Barbra Streisand – she of the terrifyingly manicured nails – into a marital dispute? Now that is violent. Mike blanches. “Dennis,” he says quietly, cutting to the chase. “I think the message is very, very clear. You’re going to have get your finger out and get some flowers.”
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