I mourn loss of my morning pals

IT would be fair to say that I'm not a morning person. Which is why it's always been vital that the voices which wake me up – if the kids haven't done so already – should not make me want to throw the radio alarm clock out the window. Pre-breakfast rage is not a pretty sight.

But "aggravating" and "radio personality" are words which seem to be inextricably linked. Ever since Chris Evans took over the Radio 1 morning show with his brain-damagingly irritating "posse" I've abandoned that station. How I longed for the return of Simon Mayo. Chris Moyles? Don't make me laugh . . . he certainly doesn't.

So like so many others – given their listening figures – I re-tuned to Radio 2 and the soothing Irish lilt of Terry Wogan. That relationship didn't last long. There just wasn't enough get up and go in either of us. And given my lack of lumbago I felt unqualified to be a TOG.

Radio 4 was tried and turned off (too much self-satisfied smugness of both presenters and politicians to cope with first thing), Radio 5 Live was next on the dial and did for a while (in fact Nicky Campbell's show improved greatly after the patronising Victoria Derbyshire went to the mid-morning slot).

And so it was that eventually I tuned into Forth, a station which I had last listened to regularly when Jay Crawford was the big name in Forth Street. I had given it a listen when Darren Adam and Diane Lester presented the morning show, but their conversations became just too self-absorbed for constant listening.

Real Radio was too "weegie" and XFM? It only seemed to have two CDs to play. So once more I turned the dial and a couple of years ago I discovered Boogie in the Morning. Now it is true that Andrew "Boogie" Bouglass can be incredibly dozy at times (I'm assuming it's an act), but there was always his team of Jill McLaren and Dave "Dingo" Konov to counteract his stupidest notions.

And while they may well have annoyed the hell out of other people (my husband for one on some mornings), for me the threesome clicked, and in the main sent me to work with a smile on my face.

Yet now that's all over and my hunt will have to begin again. As of next week, Jill and Dingo are being replaced by Forth 2's Arlene Stuart, who I'm sure is a fine broadcaster and a nice person (as well as being a mother, her apparent qualification for the shift), but quite how she'll rub along with Boogie . . . well let's say my hopes are not high.

Radio is a cutthroat business, especially as broadcasters are employed on freelance contracts. You're only as successful as your listener figures. But when you have a recipe which works – and which attracts award nominations – then why change the ingredients?

Of course, the long-term aim might be to axe Boogie altogether and alter the whole tone of the morning show, but just how many more listeners or advertisers that would garner is open to debate. It could even be that the plan is to scrap the AM station altogether given that the FM channel is much more popular.

More disturbing though is the shift to broadcast programmes on the 97.3 wavelength from outside the Edinburgh, Lothians and Fife area. Forth listeners will now listen to the same evening show as listeners of Northsound One, Radio Borders, Tay FM and Clyde One.

Indeed on Sunday the top 40 (although I'm sure it's called something much more youthful now) was completely London-centric – even the competitions involved winning tickets for West End shows. Great interactivity for Lothian listeners.

Not that you'd not know any of this from the station's website though – photos of Boogie and Jill are still plastered all over its pages. Similarly, those who have forked out for the latest in the legendary Boogie on the Boat excursions to Amsterdam have not been told that they will no longer be joined by Jill and Dingo.

Perhaps Forth's new boss, Duncan Campbell, thinks we're all still half asleep in the morning and won't notice the difference. I wonder if he'll notice it when the next Rajar figures are out.

I'll give Boogie and Arlene a chance, but just to prepare myself for disappointment I've found a new station – Birdsong. At least there you'll know when the stars are going to be axed . . . there'll be a sound of a shotgun being cocked first.

Get smart
CAB drivers have been told to dress more smartly to give a better impression to visitors to Edinburgh. No longer will T-shirts, jeans and tracksuits be suitable attire for sitting behind the wheel of a taxi all day. I think the council should go one step further and demand full-scale black tie for night-time drivers so that those passengers flitting between theatre and cocktail during the Festival are made to feel they're being appropriately transported.

Mind you I think most regular customers – that's the people who actually live here – would just like it if taxi drivers were a bit more pleasant.

Leading ladies
THE fuss being made over John McCain's decision to appoint a little-known female, Sarah Palin, as his running mate in the American presidential elections made me wonder why there was so little fanfare when a woman became leader of Edinburgh City Council.

Ok, it's on a much smaller scale than being a heartbeat away from becoming the "Leader of the Free World", but Jenny Dawe probably had about as much experience as Palin has when she suddenly ended up running the city. And she's not done too bad a jo . . . oh, wait a minute. Now I understand.