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Ever since the arrival of breakfast TV in the 80s, Britain's been awash with lightweight narrowcasters who in a properly ordered society would be confined to the women's weekly magazines. Which is why Lorraine Kelly's such a national treasure - cos she's genuinely good, even though she occupies the same space as the homely airheads we normally have to endure. She does TV and print journalism, but the best of her broadcasting work was her mid-90s show on Talk Radio, which was like a magazine programme, celebrating - as often as she was allowed - space travel and pop music. It was also just about the only place on the populist media where you could find an introduction to existential philosophy, which is part of the reason why radio critics, who seldom venture beyond the BBC, rated her so highly. Honestly, it was good stuff. Which didn't stop it disappearing in 1998 when Kelvin McKenzie took over the station, and decided that football was the future. Ho hum. In terms of our current subject, Lorraine is relevant because she - like the rest of us - grew up in the 70s, and she loved music. As a girl in Glasgow, she obviously hated the Bay City Rollers, and she wasn't too keen on Donny Osmond or David Cassidy either: 'Who would want to be with a guy who was prettier than you?' What she liked was the tougher end of pop: Slade, Sweet (the first gig she went to was Sweet at the Glasgow Apollo) and, above all, David Bowie. Bowie was her mainman: she was a huge fan, saw the Spiders at the Apollo, painted the cover of Aladdin Sane on her bedroom wall, and still talks lovingly of The Man Who Sold The World. She was also quite fond of Alice Cooper, in an amused kind of way, but - like all of us - worries about her past is catching up with her. Because now she's a mother, and when I spoke to her, she had a three-year-old daughter: 'God knows what she'll be into, but I cannot say to her, "Look at the state of that." Because I liked Alice Cooper. I don't have a come-back.' click for photo |
Eddie Amoo |