King of the Mountains

Unless you’ve been living in a tree for the past month or so you’ll probably have noticed the furore over two BBC Radio 2 presenters and an ill-judged prank phone call. The furore is almost entirely a media witch-hunt on the part of tabloid journalists who smelled blood and decided to whip their readership into a frenzy.

While is is disturbing that people can be so easily manipulated, there is also another point to be made. The vast majority of complaints came from people who did not hear the broadcast.

In other words, they physically could not have been directly offended by it. They’ve pursed their little lips and turned their narrow little minds against it because of what they read in a tabloid.

The lack of independent thought or indeed any other cerebral activity in this country is very worrying indeed. People complain loudly about swearing in a programme that was clearly flagged as containing such in TV listings and in a message before the broadcast. So I can only assume that either they are stupid, or they actually like being offended.

The latter seems quite likely, although the former has much to recommend it. There seems to be a worrying subset of people who are only happy if they can be pompous, self-righteous little nuisances. These would be the same people who informed on their neighbours in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. They want to control what you see, hear, and read. 

Well to be quite honest, I am offended by them. Nobody is forced to watch or listen, they can easily change channels. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it. But don’t you dare try to tell me what I can and can’t watch or listen to. I’ll make that decision myself. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be anyone to complain to about tiny-minded idiots… 

The above gibberish is, allegedly, CB radio at its finest. However, in over a year of owning such a device I have yet to hear anyone I know using the slang.

I was born a bit too late for the great CB craze of the ’80s, so reading about it on the internet is a bit of a history lesson. I bought a radio in order to keep in contact with the rest of the group on off road excursions, and as we only go in small groups we can recognise each other by voice. We’ve never developed strange handles like Rubber Duck or Green Goblin simply because we don’t need them. Plus I’d have a hard time keeping a straight face while sending messages like "Rubber Duck, coming in your back door" which I believe means "I’m catching you up".

The general opinion seems to be that mobile phones have killed CB, along with cheap walkie-talkies using the PMR 446 standard. As the licence fee for CB was repealed a while ago, this leaves those of us adopting it in a very good position. We have an autonomous communications system with no call charges and the ability to make conference calls. We have plenty of free channels due to the fact that there are few other users on the air. Most importantly, while a mobile phone ceases to function in rural areas due to the lack of cells our radios can work quite happily. 

Plus we get to make innuendo about the 9ft whip or the big red Thunderpole. Can’t do that with a mobile phone…