Interesting Pieces Of Trivia Acquired From Wikipedia VII

As someone who has spent a fair amount of time behind a microphone, I am always looking at ways to become a better broadcaster. After all, we all know what can happen once you stop caring about the quality of your radio work! Next thing you know, you’re questioning underage girls about their sex lives and making jokes about concentration camps. Not good!

So the other day, I began trawling Wikipedia and reading the profiles of several BBC broadcasters. After all, if anyone knows about quality broadcasting, it’s the Beeb. And since I’m heading over to ol’ Blighty in three weeks and will probably be spending quite a bit of time outside BBC offices with a sign around my neck saying “Will press buttons/massage Terry Wogan for food”, I figured getting to know the BBC’s most successful radio types was a smart idea.

Which led me to the Wikipedia page of one Sarah Kennedy. Tell me this doesn’t sound like the most amazing/terrible broadcaster in history? I am obsessed. I think I want to be her when I grow up (without the Enoch Powell worship).

She is notorious for talking over the start or end of records, relaying anecdotes that seemingly have no point or punchline, an obsession with cats, the constant use of pre-recorded sound effects, and the use of the suffix “-ingtons” at the end of names or other words give the show its atmosphere. She also regularly refers to the BBC Pips as the “pippingtons” either just before or just after they are played, and usually manages to “crash the pips” by getting the timing of the show so wrong that the records she plays overlap the time signal. She has a loyal fanbase, among whom she is known as Bunty Bagshaw (an allusion to the Joyce Grenfell or Arthur Marshall type of ‘jolly-hockey-sticks’ girls’ boarding school character). She often tells listeners about her holiday activities, as well as life in her country and London houses. She always ends the show (somewhat morbidly) with her trademark phrase “Re-group tomorrow, if spared.”

She has often championed more peculiar records, including:

* Christmas perennial “The Dawn Patrol Choirboy”, a rendition of an obscure Christmas carol by an out-of-tune treble.
* “Big Panty Woman” by The Barefoot Man, a calypso skit about the larger, non-surgically enhanced lady, and its follow-up, “Fake Boobies”.
* “Mein Kleiner Grüner Kaktus” by German wind band Palast Orchester.
* “Don’t Stick Stickers on My Paper Knickers”, a comedy record made by girl group X Certificate.

Her reworking of English words is a distinctive element of the show. She changes names as follows: “The Eaglingtons” (Eagles), “The Kinkingtons” (The Kinks), “Sainsbugs” (Sainsbury’s), “Colleag-wees” (colleagues), “supermercado” (supermarkets as in Spain), “busticles”/”chesticles” (breasts), etc. She frequently reads out the expression “SWs to you” from listeners who write in. “SWs” is shorthand for “Love the show” (as in the oft-quoted phrase by Steve Wright on his programmes, hence the use of his initials). Many listeners write in to ask what “SWs” actually means, but she rarely explains it.

Kennedy is said to have been the first person to use the term ‘white van man’ in 1997[7], and was made the honorary president of the first Ford Transit Owners Club in 2005 to mark her contribution to the van industry.

She is affectionately known as TBW (That Bloody Woman) by TOGs (aka Terry (Wogan’s) Old Geezers).

She has denied harbouring racist viewpoints following comments she made on air which some listeners found offensive and racist.

In October 2007 she was reprimanded after joking that she had almost run over a black pedestrian because she couldn’t see him in the dark. The BBC later apologised for the comment.

She has previously opined that black men dominate athletics because they are accustomed to being pursued by lions.

She was also “spoken to” by BBC bosses after she praised Enoch Powell during a show in July 2009, describing Powell as “the best prime minister this country never had”.

I mean, seriously – what the fuck?! Astounding.

MORE: Sarah Kennedy on Wikipedia