Look at the Twitter feed (@OC) of Christian O'Connell, the much-garlanded Absolute Radio breakfast host, and you'll find its backdrop is the poster for his sporadic stand-up "tour", with the obligatory quotes from the Observer ("hilarious") and Guardian ("furiously funny"). What he may not have reckoned with, though, is that the provenance of such praise can now be easily identified, and it only takes a few clicks to discover that neither seems to concern his abilities as a comic. Far from describing O'Connell at all, indeed, the "hilarious" appears to come from a 2008 radio review mentioning one of his sidekicks dressing up in drag; while the Guardian quote is from sepia-tinted 2005 and evoked his style as a DJ on Xfm, when he was younger and hungrier a touch tragically, though some might find it endearing, it's about him almost 10 years ago.
Further examples of "Real W1A" were not hard to find last week, as if toilers in New Broadcasting House are using the sitcom as a kind of manual rather than a wake-up call. There was the timing of the news of the axing of BBC4's (formerly BBC2's) The Review Show, just two days after director general Tony Hall summoned the media to rejoice as he announced a raft of initiatives amounting to "the biggest arts push for a generation". And Monkey hears of an in-house seminar where the World Service was being discussed, and "amoebas" squishy shapes mapping its performance according to various criteria were used in a presentation to demonstrate its value. To be fair, though, the insider audience made clear they found the amoebas baffling (in W1A such surrealism would have been treated as perfectly normal), and suggested they should be renamed butterflies "before it goes public". Reported by guardian.co.uk 11 minutes ago.
Further examples of "Real W1A" were not hard to find last week, as if toilers in New Broadcasting House are using the sitcom as a kind of manual rather than a wake-up call. There was the timing of the news of the axing of BBC4's (formerly BBC2's) The Review Show, just two days after director general Tony Hall summoned the media to rejoice as he announced a raft of initiatives amounting to "the biggest arts push for a generation". And Monkey hears of an in-house seminar where the World Service was being discussed, and "amoebas" squishy shapes mapping its performance according to various criteria were used in a presentation to demonstrate its value. To be fair, though, the insider audience made clear they found the amoebas baffling (in W1A such surrealism would have been treated as perfectly normal), and suggested they should be renamed butterflies "before it goes public". Reported by guardian.co.uk 11 minutes ago.