Skips

If I were somewhat more sensitive I would say that my faith in humanity has been shattered - shattered! Last night was one of those nothing-on-the-telly-and-I-don't-feel-like-putting-on-a-CD sort of times, so the inevitable response was to put on Classic FM. We heard something that turned out to be Delius's piano concerto, and as the presenter (David Mellor, as it happens) was telling us about it... his voice skipped. Like a scratched CD. And then suddenly music started playing, and it skipped like a scratched CD for a moment, and then everything went back to normal. And after that piece of music had ended, David Mellor didn't say oops, sorry about that track skipping because he wasn't bloody there, was he? The program was recorded earlier.
I don't know why I should have been naively thinking that radio shows such as this one should be live. After all, surely David Mellor has better things to be doing on a Sunday evening than sitting in a radio studio for a couple of hours. I think the thing is that the show is presented in a manner that attempts the appearance of being live. This is the sort of illusion that doesn't work quite so well on television, but when it's just one voice speaking between pieces of music it's rather easier to fake.
Christ, I've now just realised that I'm naively thinking that there is some two-hour period in which David Mellor records an entire radio show. He presumably just comes in at his convenience, records whatever script he needs to read from, and some producer puts it together with the music for later broadcast.
What a lazy fucker. I hate him.