oh yeh gaunty?

I think I’m going to stop listening to John Gaunt on Talksport. I tend to listen in only because it runs through from the early morning Brazil show which is also quite reactionary but in a harmless/well-intentioned sort of way. JG’s more aggressively opinionated as I’ve said recently and it’s not to my taste. But this morning I heard him make a mess of some pronunciation and it made me smile.

It’s not exactly rib-tickling stuff; it’s more how he dealt with the situation that amused me. Firstly he gave out details of this phone-in competition from Dulux paints inviting the listeners to say who painted Sunflowers a)Paul Cezanne or b) Vincent van Goch. I didn’t say it was a stretching competition – this is Talksport after all – but it was a tad more challenging than the normal ‘who scored 3 goals for England in the ’66 World Cup? a) Geoff Hurst b)Randolph Hearst c)Patty Hearst’ kind of level.

Anyway JG mangled Cezanne’s name and wasn’t too hot on VvG either. Then he repeated it as he must have had a whisper from his producer over the correct pronunciation. He got it right of course the second time. That’s ok we all make mistakes. But within 15 minutes there was another bloody phone-in competition about a Frenchman appearing in the World Cup. I didn’t quite catch the question but the answer options were a) William Gallas or b) Laurent Blanc, which he distinctly pronounced Blank as in w*nk. Trust me he did it quite naturally and without a moment’s fore-thought. Within minutes he was reading out an e-mail from a listener reminding him it was pronounced ‘Blon’.

What does Gaunty do? Laugh off his genuine mistake (that would be 2nd mistake of course)? No, he tries to make out it was a deliberate joke on his part. No it wasn’t. I don’t really care but I hate it when people just can’t admit they got something wrong. I bet he was a lying little bugger as a kid. He was slightly annoyed by now that his mis-pronunciations (sorry deliberate attempts at humour) had been picked up and e-mailer and the next 2 blokes who called through were swiftly switched off the the airwaves, as they attempted to disagree with the not-so-jaunty Gaunty, with a dismissive ‘Go Away’.

The topic of conversation was also swiftly moved to ‘do northern girls look after themselves better than southern ones?’ as he cited Bet Lynch as a good example. Eh?..he must have been joking now because nobody with even poor eyesight could describe La Lynch as a well-preserved babe could they? A survivor possibly, but I too saw her interview with Piers Morgan the other night – I really need to get out more – and I just thought she looked like some has-been old drag artist. Oh yes very stimulating stuff. What a topic for a national radio station.

I switched off at this point. I couldn’t really tell if I was more annoyed at his shallowness, his pretence at humour, lack of honesty or because for two days he’s been going on and on about Coventry’s bloody win against the kids that Man U put out in the two-bob cup. Whatever, it’s been more like Talkcrap radio and I’m desperate for change. Is it just me?

pp

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