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“WELL, GOOD MORNING, we are live from the top of the tower looking out at drizzly, grey, beautiful London city and beyond.”
Ryan Tubridy made his return to the airwaves this morning with the inaugural episode of his new weekday radio show, simulcast across Virgin Radio in the United Kingdom and Q102 in Ireland between 10am and 1pm, Monday to Friday.
After beginning his new show with Pride (In The Name of Love) by U2, Tubridy spent the first few minutes explaining himself to English listeners who may be unfamiliar with his oeuvre.
He called himself a “political anorak,” a “bookworm,” and a “nerd” who loves Star Trek. He wasted little time before launching a broadside against the Amazon Kindle and opined about the importance of physical books, at one point saying: “I love the spines. They’re my friends.” Just in case anyone was worried that Ryan Tubridy would no longer be Ryan Tubridy after six months off air.
While doing his utmost to contextualise himself in the minds of his new listeners, Tubridy did not explain the circumstances that led to him taking up this new post. RTÉ’s secret payment scandal – which centred around undeclared payments to Tubridy to the tune of €345,000 between 2017 and 2022 – didn’t get a mention across Tubridy’s first three hours as a presenter since he last hosted his RTÉ show on 22 June last year.
It was immediately clear that the show’s simulcast across two countries will present a tricky landscape for Tubridy to navigate, for now at least. In the first 20 minutes alone, he found himself explaining The Late Late Show, Galway’s promenade, and the Phoenix Park (which he described as “Ireland’s version of Hyde Park”).
Cultural touchstones that are second nature to the Irish half of his audience are unlikely to land as well with English listeners, and one gets the sense that there is much more work to be done in order to bridge the gap.
It was a nervous start to life at a new station, to be sure. The 50-year-old stumbled a few times on the WhatsApp number that listeners could use to text in, and even told the audience that his producers had told him to slow down a little during the ad break. As Tubridy said himself, he’s the “new boy at a new school,” and the jitters certainly did not escape notice.
During the first hour, Tubridy evidenced his broadcaster credentials by giving a backstory of his friendship with Russell Crowe ahead of a phone interview with the Australian actor. Crowe’s intercession undeniably did some heavy-lifting for Tubridy, with the actor asking him what he’s reading (he’s reading JK Rowling’s crime series), helping out with in-jokes about how white Tubridy’s legs are, and reading out the entire menu of a dinner party he was hosting in the background. By the third hour, Tubridy was already replaying clips from the conversation with Crowe.
The first episode of The Ryan Tubridy Show 2.0 marked a departure from the RTÉ Radio 1 edition, more heavily punctuated by long music breaks and densely packed with audience text messages (one of which came from the son of Tubridy’s dentist).
With the exception of the chat with Crowe, however, Tubridy didn’t get the chance to zero in on any particularly topics of conversation. The Virgin Radio inbox was apparently so overburdened with text messages wishing Tubridy well that it was all he could do to riff on each individual text for a few moments each before moving on to the next song.
The vast majority of the texts Tubridy read out were from Irish listeners, leading him to tell Irish stories and throw out Irish place names. Maybe there is an audience for this in the UK, but one suspects that in a city with as strong an identity as London – a city teeming with its own news, culture and people to explore – the average listener might be mystified to hear their city boiled down to a few parks while Tubridy sings about how Galway is his favourite county in the world.
Unlike his former slot, there is less room here for Tubridy to impose his idiosyncratic style of hosting on proceedings, and yet he found a way. He managed to have a little argument with himself about whether a well-wisher who signed their name as Fran was a Francis or a Frances. He repeatedly alluded to his new running habit, specifying that he ran 6.7km in Regent’s Park just the other day. He did his awkward, weird voices. And of course, he managed to sneak in one story about a child referring to him as ‘The Toy Man’ and made the English audience aware of his passion for children’s literacy.
Despite the constraints of the new format, Ryan Tubridy remains decidedly Ryan Tubridy. Fans who have fallen for him over the last 20 years will undoubtedly be pleased to learn that his new role sees him deviating little from the style that has seen him through his long RTÉ career.
Whether it’s enough to win over the English audience, however, remains to be seen.
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Disappointing from TUI
I expect TUI to split now. IT lecturers were hammered with 2 extra lecturing hours, and voted overwhelmingly against the proposal. I suppose secondary school teachers voted for it, and that is how it was accepted. I will be leaving TUI, and I guess a lot of other lecturers will as well.
“Hammered with two extra lecturing hours” – what’s that total bring you to?
It isn’t so black and white. For a start only 57% of members voted. As a secondary school teacher I voted “no”, as did a lot of my colleagues. And that’s coming from someone who has a lot to benefit from the ‘yes’ vote, as I’m due my CID in September.
Pay parity is a massive problem for young teachers, and I don’t have a lot of faith in the government to stand by their “proposed” talks. For a start, the government have only promised that a yes vote will result in serious talks. They refuse to sign off on a solid deal without us agreeing to their terms first. To me, it’s blackmail. And along with my colleagues, we don’t like the feeling of being bullied the government.
To be honest, judging by our school and the amount of people who were converted to a no vote – we expected the No to win out. I’m disappointed by the result, but I’ll definitely be happy to get my CID.
18, and for new entrants 20. And if you think this is easy work, you are welcome to try.
Tadhg, leave TUI and join ASTI, there should really be only one secondary school teacher union.
The mix of lecturer and secondary teachers in TUI makes it fragmented with a split in its focus.
Eric, am I right saying that you can’t change Union during a dispute?
No I meant no disrespect. Some friends of mine who lecture are involved in a dispute themselves. They see themselves as teachers and just want to lecture but their institution are trying to get them to do more research. It seems like the skill sets are not necessarily easily matched and they feel there should be two roles. Interested on getting your own take on this though.
James, I have colleagues like that as well – it is not easy doing research on top of the 20 hours, and people give up. I don’t agree with the split between teachers and researchers. Research is supposed to inform your teaching and bring the students to the cutting edge in your area. ITs want to become more like universities, but with double the teaching load. At the end, it is the students who ate shortchanged.
I never heard of that, it may be true or not.
But TUI be accepting this vote are not in dispute.
I must admit this vote surprised me, I have a few friends in TUI schools and they claim new JC English is wishy washy with lots of extra paperwork.
TUI basically accept a 2% increase over 3 years. While the luas earned themselves 18.5% over the same period.
@Tadhg is correct about that, Eric.
I voted no as did a lot of my colleagues and we are second level. So disappointed with the result. Disappointed and shocked. This agreement does not deal with pay parity and I’m embarrassed that our Executive recommended a YES vote.
James – the SEC control “consistency in exams” – Many of us have fought long and hard against the infamous bell curve. As regards the points system – that is entirely manufactured, controlled and manipulated by the third level institutions not the teaching profession.
Btw Im not sure how you can claim “educated but not trained to their jobs” ??!
Only in Ireland would teachers get such a good deal on holidays, special days, 70% attendance and best of all Snow days.
Ah forget it mindfulness for some reason the teaching unions get so much support on these forums. Educated but not trained to their jobs. No way of measuring performance. “Consistency in exams” over actual learning. Rote learning over understanding. Points systems over aptitude. Shall we go on?
Wow lads. Some seriously well informed comments there.
Bit more informative than yours Eoin. Anything in there you want to dispute. All fact you will find.
Don’t mind James and Mindful. No feeding the trolls. Bitter over their career choice, it seems.
Extremely happy with my career choice but it appears you still don’t want to actually dispute anything in my comment.
Well tell me, how am I not “trained to my job”? That is a ridiculous comment. Unless you are in fact a teacher or lecturer, you wouldn’t have a clue how well trained I am. But I am very sorry that you don’t get 3 months holidays a year.
I’m fully aware of the avenues you take to become a teacher. And secondary school teachers are left with classes without supervision, monitoring, performance reviews, or training. You are just educated. And no your teachings practice does not constitute training as two visits to monitor you does not count as coaching.
Tell me more about how successful teachers around the world are monitored? Because the US teachers are scored based on their students performance and their system is in a heap. South Korea (and Japan) has a good system, but all of their students do their learning in night school and spend their “day-school” sleeping in class. Counter productive, right?
You do know Irish teachers are subject to assessment, through subject or whole school inspections?
What industry do you work in? How are you assessed? Because in my three careers, I’ve never come across a fair method of assessment.
Ah lads save your ire for the luas drivers, who should have been fired long ago and deserve nothing.
I have no problem paying Guards, teachers and nurses more money. It’s a tough and important job. But it needs to be affordable for the country, can’t go back to the ridiculous pay claims that bankrupted us and led us to go cap in hand to the Germans and Brits for a bailout.
I’ll row in behind that Fred. Best of luck in all our jobs tomorrow lads! Good night.
James. Do you spent 4 to 5 hrs in the evening preparing you next day’s work? I do. Do you spend your holidays rewriting schemes of work and putting mid-term plans in place? Do you go home and worry about people under your care that you feel are slipping? I do. Do you carry the awful responsibilty of having to get police inolved when a child is not quite ready to take the step, and later agonize whether you have done the right thing or not? Or maybe James, you just go home and don’t worry about work much till the next day. But I understand. Very few people who have not done this job have the ability to think what it must be like to carry a generation’s future in your hands. I went to school in the 70s, and if your comments refer to teachers of that era (pot luck if you got a good one) then I can understand. Those days and those teachers are gone. I love my job, but all these holidays you speak of are a figment of your imagination. Maybe a glimse of the past. My work never ends, but I truly love it and really care about my kids. This, however, does not mean I will be a doormat for governmental policy.
Soz about typos. Fingers like shovels.
Ian i absolutely have similar responsibilities in my current role. But the point is this. You are in the minority clearly in how you effectively you plan and hold yourself up to be a role model for your kids. The facts are we are not using best practice to educate our kids. Our education system in direct conflict with the psychology on learning on development. This is not opinion it’s a fact.
Wow good to know you’ve been to every classroom in the country. Any facts or studies to back up how the majority of teachers are poor educators? Actually any way of backing up any of your huge generalisations? No education system is perfect. All of them constantly change, but to have a go at teachers who are trying to work under a broken system is ridiculous. Also anyone that finishes their point with ‘fact’ and has stated zero facts is deluded.
Wow I’m shocked. A union that has actually accepted common sense. Junior cert reforms next hopefully.
Lolz, someone please put James in front of a room full of 30 teenagers for one hour and we’ll see if he still feels the same about teachers.
Why aren’t they campaigning to increase the number of men in the profession?
Oh wait, that only works one way.
No support for them !!
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