mystery deepens

[Tom Roche]

John Peel has, for almost 2 decades, done a fresh BBCWS half-hour 52 weeks a year. And I can count maybe 5 times in 18-ish years when a rerun has been aired, and I'll bet some of those were due to BBCWS scheduling goof-ups or the like. The show feeds 3 times each Friday, to Europe and the Americas, on SW and RealAudio.  Only once has a substitute voice done the show, and it was a woman I'd not heard before, and she said Peel would be back next week, and he was - this may have been when Pig had the brain surgery.

Friday's (yesterday's) show, which would have been recorded mid-week 10 or so days before, was a normal show, although Peel did introduce himself at the top as "beleaguered John Peel."

(Track listings available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/johnpeel/tracks.htm )

But at the end of the show the continuity announcer came on and said that next week's show would be hosted by Steve Lamacq.

There was an early feed of that show which could be heard quite weakly this evening on the BBC Africa Service (at 2230 GMT Saturdays on 15400, good luck.) It just finished airing, and Lamacq indeed hosted it, playng 8 or so Peel-esque tracks. (If Peel were to have done this show it would have been recorded mid week this week.)

What was bothersome was that, as far as I could tell through the static, Lamacq made no mention of Peel, i.e. no mention of him being a substution, no mention if Peel (or Lamacq for that matter) would do the show next week. Just This is the BBCWS and I'm Steve Lamacq and here's the new one from Elastica. This I believe was Lamacq's first appearance ever on BBCWS.

Of course if the reason, whenever it is revealed, turns out to be something minor, we will likely get 4 Radio Times columns and 3 Home Truths explaing it in detail. Lets hope.

Still, it is bothersome.


Tom Roche
Atlanta