Long gone are the days when all you had in your car by way of potential audio entertainment was a manually tuned MW/LW radio and a cassette player that chewed your C90 to bits every coupe of miles. My current car – which is nothing special, not by any means – has a FM and Digital radio, a CD player, an auxiliary port for my iPod and it will also play any music I have stored on my phone via Bluetooth. Clever, innit?

Not that it matters because, whenever my lad and wife are in the car, all I get to listen to is Capital FM, which they bop and sing along to whilst constantly telling me how old and uncool I am for not knowing who Flo Rida is or any of the words to any of his songs.

So, it’s really only when travelling to and from work that I get to listen to my own choices in the car. Yet, even with the huge choice of music available to me, I rarely listen to anything other than Talksport. I am a bit of a sports nut, so it’s a good way to catch up on the headlines and news of yesterday’s events. However, it’s a bit of a double-edged sword as the whole thing just winds me up form beginning to end. Here’s why…

Presenters – With the odd exception, the presenters are so wooden it’s not true. Given that, in most cases, their previous day job was being an actual sports person, I suppose that can be forgiven to some extent. They did at least get rid of the worst ever in Ronnie Irani but Darren Gough is still there, as is Ray Parlour. Both of them can be quite entertaining and illuminating at times, though it would really help if someone taught them how to actually speak English. And as for Adrian Durham… well, more of him later.

Pundits – This may just be my perception but it seems to me that Talksport seem to get the bottom of the barrel when it comes to so-called experts giving their opinions, ie the ones who aren’t good enough to get a gig with the Beeb or Sky. Credit where it’s due though, that Stan Collymore is relatively articulate and intelligent, though what he has to say, and the way he says it in that nauseating Staffordshire/Black Country twang grates like nobody’s business. And don’t get me started on that oafish fool, The Moose. He should simply not be allowed anywhere near a microphone.

Adverts – I wonder if people who are involved in making radio adverts aspire to make television adverts because they are definitely the poor relation. Maybe it’s because you can’t fast-forward through the radio ads like you can on TV that makes them more annoying but they are all, with very few exceptions, bobbins and unfunny. And is there some law that says they have to be voice-overed by a Yorkshireman, because every single one seems to feature either Sean Bean or Ralph Ineson?

News readers – Although Talksport is predominantly a sports radio station, they do try to cover some real news too, so they have people who present the ‘real’ news. In the mornings, which is when I tune in most often, they tend to have one of two women trotting out the news from the ‘front pages’, usually either Sandy Warr or Robyn Schonhofer. And what a pair of condescending snobs they both are with ideas well above their relatively lowly station – pun intended. See my earlier comment about gigs with the Beeb and Sky.

Callers – Ah, the life-blood of talk radio, the callers! What would it be without them? Well, much better, probably. Adrian Durham is the most obnoxious, arrogant know-nowt who has never played the game of football, yet pontificates on all football-related topics as if he is a 100-cap veteran. The only thing more annoying than Durham – because, to be fair, he is clearly a wind-up merchant – are the stupid, gullible callers who clearly have too much time on their hands if they can waste time phoning in and arguing the toss with the annoying prat. The vast majority that fall for this see to seem to be Scousers and Gooners. I really should just turn it off, but it’s like watching a car crash. I can’t help persevering with it.

See you on Radio 2 – Griff