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The Surgery

Kelly Osbourne
  • Posted at 12:16pm
  • 06 February 2008
  • by SarahDempster-RT
  • 3 comments

Reader, I am ill. A chest infection has punched me to the carpet and left me wheezing like a dying balloon. From my new, sickly vantage point (on the couch, under a blanket that smells - as blankets invariably do - like biscuits), the world has developed a distinctly wobbly hue.

And nothing has proved more discombobulating than radio. What was once a garden of sonic delights is now a tangled window box of befuddlement. Ever tried listening to the radio after a week spent ingesting high-strength powdered flu drinks? Well, don't. It's awful. Everything sounds either really far away or as if it's being pumped directly into your temporal lobe and, from the gentlest jingle to the most raucous breakfast show, it all appears to consist entirely of pneumatic drills, cowbells, laughter and rain.

The results can be genuinely horrific. Last weekend, for example, I drifted off during the first part of Paul Gambaccini's And the Academy Award Goes to… (Saturdays, 10:30am, BBC Radio 4) only to awake, minutes later, in a feverish panic, convinced the thin-lipped American had somehow managed to wriggle under my biscuit-blanket and was being thin-lipped and American in the vicinity of my right armpit. (He hadn't. I had merely rolled onto a half-empty bottle of Highland Spring. Still, like I said: horrific).

This week, then, to avoid further confusion, I've plonked for a show that promises unequivocal simplicity, directness and - best of all - a hearty dollop of old-fashioned sympathy. To The Surgery (Sundays, 10:00pm, BBC Radio 1) then, an "emotional advice" phone-in featuring Kelly Osbourne, an American psychotherapist called Andrea and a bloke called Aled.

Ah, advice shows. No matter how posh and/or grown-up the proceedings, they always end up sounding like something that's tumbled out of Jackie magazine, circa 1974. Behind every query about mortgages and golf techniques lurks the spirit of 15-year-old Debbie from Leeds, asking if it's true you can get pregnant by looking at pictures of David Essex after midnight.

And The Surgery is more Debbie-from-Leeds than most. It's probably the most teenage-y show on radio. Here's the set-up: young callers phone in with their loosely themed dilemmas (last week was "a body image special", a topic that prompted calls on bullying, weight issues, depression and - Dear Cathy and Claire! - ginger hair); Tiggerish Kelly responds with a similar, Kelly-related confession ("I have stretch marks too!" etc); patient Aled delivers a volley of heartfelt platitudes and Kelly interrupts with something else about Kelly before big, sensible Andrea steps in with the science bit. It's a bit like listening to a bunch of emo kids discussing how, like, totally random their lives are with a really cool teacher, yeah? At the back of a bus? And yet still, like, really good?

Because for all its like-totally teen chat, The Surgery is a show that makes its listeners feel not just welcome, but understood. It's a cuddle made from kilohertz, hormones and lollipop sticks. Everyone leaves with a wad of practical self-help suggestions and the reassurance that no matter how miserable, fat or ginger they are, they're still, y'know, special.

Charmed by its air of we're-in-this-together magnanimity, I even toyed with the idea of texting in with my own body-related predicament (wot shd i do cuz ma lungz feel like burst cabbagez yeh? LOL). Until I realised I'd only set off Radio 1's Hopeless Old Duffer detectors and find my ailing behind ejected from the on-air angst party before I'd even had the chance to order a Lemsip on ice. Which would be, like, so embarrassing?

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Comments

  • Posted on 07 February 2008
  • at 3:40pm
  • by SpursFan

Once upon a time, in the 19th century, the effect of alcohol was such a social corrosive that ordinary people banded together to start a temperance movement, and hundreds of thousands took the pledge.

Apparently they thought drunkenness was bad for the individual and for society.

What odd people our grandparents were. How we laugh at them now...

  • Posted on 07 February 2008
  • at 3:30pm
  • by SarahDempster-RT
Thanks for being, like, nice SpursFan? And takin the time 2 right in yeh? Very clever link too - much appreciated. On a similar "we're all going to Hell in a tartan shopping trolley" tip, here's a video clip (video? Is there even such a thing anymore?) of a typical night out in my home town. Heart-warming stuff, no? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLTrNShpjNY
  • Posted on 07 February 2008
  • at 1:32pm
  • by SpursFan

Blimey - sounds terrible. Get well soon, Sarah.

Meantime, you sound like you need a laugh. Try this like, totally aMAZing music:

It should give you a giggle, anyway.

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