Saturday, March 5, 2011

Rewind radio: On the Ropes; Porn Again; Liberty, Fraternity, Anarchy ? review

Max and Jacqui got down and dirty but it was the French punks who were truly sexy

On the Ropes (R4) | iPlayer

Porn Again (5Live) | iPlayer

Liberty Fraternity Anarchy ? Le Punk Francais (R4) | iPlayer

Feeling a bit fruity, listeners? Bored with all that vanilla radio, presenters droning on about the economy or pop music? Well, how about some dirty talk instead? With, um? Max Mosley and Jacqui Smith. What do you mean, you've got a headache? On Tuesday Mosley talked S&M with John Humphrys for On the Ropes. It was, of course, Mosley's penchant for dom and sub that got him entangled with the ropes in the first place, though he seemed remarkably unbothered about that. "I wouldn't really call it an orgy," he mused, about his time spent with five S&M prostitutes, exposed by the News of the World. "It was more like a party? We had a cup of tea." Humphrys, excellent as ever, pushed him about the effect of the scandal upon his wife. "It certainly hasn't made us happier than we were," conceded Mosley, who was there to make a point about privacy, not sex. Articulate and unrepentant, he wants the law changed so that every subject of an expos� must be told about it before the newspaper goes to print.

The reason why Jacqui Smith was on 5Live, "investigating" porn (Porn Again, Thurs), was rather more complicated. Obviously, having lost her seat in the last election (her fate sealed by her creative approach to expenses), she needs to earn some money. But it's notable that it wasn't MPs' expenses that she was asked to investigate, but porn.

The link? Her husband claimed for two pay-per-view porn films. Where was he in this documentary? She spent an hour talking to those affected by pornography, and left him out? That conversation was surely the heart of the subject and yet we never even heard him squeak.

Porn is a perennial documentary topic, and the presenter is, nine times out of 10, not an expert but a bumbling amateur ("What are those people actually doing? Oh."). Jacqui was no exception, revealing that she'd never seen any porn ever, possibly the most shocking fact in the show.

Still, she proved a good interviewer, if giggly, and she clearly put in the work. Unfortunately, her conclusion was bananas ? she suddenly threw in that she thought the porn industry should fund sex education classes ? and the whole programme moved the debate on not one jot. Plus, it whiffed of exploitation. Not of those in the porn industry but of naive, tittering Jacqui.

So let us move to something really sexy, shall we? Liberty, Fraternity, Anarchy ? Le Punk Francais was about the French influence on punk rock. Andrew Hussey, an expert with a nice knack of drawing people out, established that the singer from Parisian group Stinky Toys was the first to wear clothes with safety pins, that a record shop in Les Halles had a stronger, earlier connection with New York than anyone from London, and that Malcolm McLaren and Tony Wilson both magpied their situationist slogans from visits to Paris in the early to mid-70s. Revolution, situationism and spiky guitars, all in a French accent: verrrrry hot.


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