Tut Tut
There's really no knowing what a radio phone-in audience will bite on. During today's Not the Nolan Show, they could have called to respond to the in Belfast on Saturday night, or the government's to spend £3.3m replacing paramilitary murals in Protestant areas across Northern Ireland, or the terrific progress being made by little following a life-saving bone-marrow transplant, or even that nasty at last night's football World Cup final when France captain Zinedine Zidane was sent off for headbutting Marco Materazzi (only to subsequently win the Golden Ball for the World Cup's best player).
But, no. Our listeners became preoccupied instead with whether I had properly pronounced , the name of the motorised rickshaws that are now competing for the taxi business in Brighton. Should I have said 'tuck-tuck' or 'took-took'? The listeners texted and called to challenge and counter-challenge. Eventually, we thought we'd get Dominic Ponniah, executive director of TucTuc Ltd, the company behind the new scheme in Brighton, to end the confusion and tell us how he pronounces it. He says, 'took-took'; but then we'd listeners who've been on holidays in Sri Lanka, Thailand and India calling to tell Mr Ponniah that he is mispronouncing the name of his own company. If that came as a surprise to the executive director of TucTuc Ltd, he took (or tuck) it all in his stride with very good grace.
The best comment of the morning came from Sharon. I had asked Joel Taggart, our sports correspondent, what Marco Materazzi could have said to have provoked ZZ into what is now surely the most famous headbutt in football history. Joel thought Materazzi might have commented on the France captain's follically-challenged status. Sharon disagreed: she thought Materazzi had told Zidane that Billy Piper was leaving Dr Who.
Comments
Zidane's career will be a contradiction. He was awarded the Cup's Best Player after receiving a red card for head butting his opponent. There may be a future football player watching all of this in the World Cup and learn that violence is justifiable [a shame].
I would like to change my mind after I found out that maybe Zidane was an object of a racist attack. Maybe it was his way of zero tolerance for racism.
If I'd phoned in it'd be about the hear, there and everywhere posters. There's one opposite a pub in N'ards and I'm sure the patrons leaving that establishment if they're able to see the poster would look at it and wonder "What exactly was I drinking?" ;-)