Today's show 09/03/12

I owe you an apology Jeremy. For years I have been saying that your programme does not change anything, but yesterday I think it did, and I thank valued blog reader Stonyground for bringing this to my attention. You DID try to make a difference yesterday when you highlighted the case of the terminally-ill father looking for his son, and your tweet yesterday (Regarding Jason Protano on today's show @BBCRadio2, he has made contact with his dying father and has asked for privacy now for them all) confirms that you were successful. Well done!

I apologise sincerely for my oversight and congratulate you on a successful outcome to this particular story. I hope that it gives you great satisfaction, and rightly so. Please do not let this be a one-off occurrence.

As a result of this story, my blog had a lot of hits yesterday and a number of comments were left. A number of these were of the "Get a life" and "Haven't you got anything better to do?" type, but I publish these anyway and attempt to answer the commenter as best I can. I did delete one comment yesterday but only because it contained offensive language. I hope that these comments do not reflect the type of listener that your show attracts, but I find it interesting that not one person has ever taken me to task for my ramblings and said "No, you are wrong, the Jeremy Vine Show is great because...". I would love that to happen and would happily make the necessary arrangements for any subsequent discussion and reasoned argument to take place, provided it does not just descend in to a personalised exchange of insults.

And on today's menu...

 

1) HOSTAGES - Two engineers taken hostage in Nigeria die as a rescue attempt led by the British military fails. We look at the special forces operation and the risks contractors face when they work in certain parts of the world : This is a real shame, and my sympathy goes to the families and friends of the two engineers. I also have some sympathy for those who had to take the "should we/shouldn't we" decision over the rescue operation. It cannot have been easy, and the consequences of their decision must be weighing heavily today. I am reminded of Operation Eagle Claw back in 1980 when President Carter authorised an attempt to rescue 50-odd Amercan hostages from the US Embassy in Tehran, and which resulted in the deaths of several US servicemen. Again, not an easy decision to take, and even harder when it goes horribly wrong, although the hostages were released eventually. A good friend of mine is a marine security officer whose job it is to protect ships from attack by Somalian pirates. He doesn't talk about it much but he has told me that he fully understands the risks involved and realises that he could be kidnapped - or worse - during an attack. I admire what he does and the way he handles the threats, but I think I'll stay in North Wales. Next...

2) STEALING - A woman steals more than two thousand pounds from the charity shop where she was a volunteer. Find out more in this article from the Warrington Guardian : Convicted by her own stupidity. Good. Next...

3) SACKING - A special on how a sacking should be carried out? Was yours a textbook operation or did it make a bad situation even worse? : I've never been sacked. Next...

 

4) TERRY - And we catch up with Terry Walton on the programme allotment : You asked on Ken's show, "Does he really need a barrel full of soil to grow potatoes?". Yes Jeremy, he does. My wife is the gardener in this household and she does exactly this.

 

Have a great weekend!