This is not news. In fact, all I’m doing, before Euro 2008 is over in an explosion of German/Spanish tickertape and balloons, is confirming what you already know: that Danny Baker should be on BBC radio every night, all year round, doing whatever the hell he wishes. His 606 phone-in show on Five Live – one programme left! Sunday, 10pm – has been a must-download podcast for me. Eloquent, fast-paced, avuncular, self-mythologising, quicksilver, obtuse, it’s particularly entertaining for an every-two-years football fan (not something I’d like to admit to Danny in person, as it takes some explaining to a dyed-in -the-wool proper fan), as it spins off at wild tangents, such as how David Bowie is connected to Euro 2008 (German manager called Low, German player called “V2” Schneider, BBC lost sound and vision during the Germany-Turkey semi-final etc.), stories about people missing televised matches due to unusual circumstances, who the managers resemble (Raymond Domenech = Freddie Garrity), and onwards, ever onwards. Danny always has been a radio natural, and certainly football is his metier, but it’s not about trainspotting, it’s about passion and it’s about people, and that’s so inclusive. I really must get into his BBC London afternoon show on the iPlayer. I feel bad for taking him for granted, he’s truly one of a kind.
I used to work under Danny Kelly at Q, as I’m sure you know, and Baker loomed large over our office without even entering it, so pervasive was his influence on our Danny in terms of language and attitude. We all called the Internet “CB radio for the 90s” because that’s what Baker called it – wrongly as it turned out, but he’s that persuasive! We also adopted his trick of reducing well known phrase to their initial letters, such as “adding I to I” for “adding insult to injury”, a phrase he used on 606 on Wednesday. The “GLW” was also lodged in the vernacular for “good lady wife” and for all I know, still is at Q. I’m sure there’s something bad to say about him for BBC-style balance (he called the BBC “the old girl” the other night), but I don’t know what it is*. We’re running up the black flag, spitting on our hands … I don’t know what that means, but he just said it on BBC London. I’m expecting someone to tell me I should download his podcasts too. Hats in the air – another bit of antique doggerel he popularised in the mid-90s – for The Bakertollah, as our dear leader called him.
*Actually, I know what it is: he’s exhausting.
Never Knowingly Underwhelmed 
I don’t have anything to add really. Absolutely spot on. He’s a joy to listen to. For those of us who enjoy football all year round 606 with Tim Lovejoy is going to sound very very poorly in comparison.DW x
Could not agree more with you, Andrew, Danny Baker has always been fantastic on the radio or on the telly; he is such a natural raconteur and wit, and wonderful phrases fall from his lips. Could never understand why they didn’t give him the Fighting Talk gig after Johnny Vaughan left (another person I absolutely love on radio and tv). Imagine how fantastic Fighting Talk with Danny Baker would have been. I still dream that one day …… My favourite phrase of Danny’s, which he uses regularly, is “Don’t let daylight in on magic”. Sure it’s not an original from him but I always associate it with him, like he is some sort of Oscar Wilde or Mark Twain that should be quoted at every opportunity.Mary-Ann
It comes from British essayist and journalist Walter Bagehot, that lovely quote. Guess what, it was a regular exclamation from Danny Kelly at Q, where I picked up on it. I use it all the time now. Baker has his tentacles in us all.
I caught him on Wednesday night for the first time in years and you are right – a National Treasure probably without the deserved recognition.AnonoNick
There’s little Baker does that isn’t Radio gold. He’s completely rejuvenated a very tired and totally becalmed show and turned it into the best 60 minutes of Radio currently available anywhere. There’s many a time when I wish he wouldn’t actually take calls as this interrupts his flights of whimsy and remarkable turn of phrase.The snail’s on the thorn, the lark’s on the wing.God’s in his kingdom and all is rih=ght with the world.
Wholeheartedly agree. Danny is definitely “any good” on the radio.My mp3 player is full of with Baker goodness and I never tire of listening to him. Would certainly like to see him given another regular football show to bring some fun back to what is becoming a sport which is taking itself a bit too seriously these days.
Good call.Danny Baker remains outstanding. For a long time, I resented that he was only broadcasting on BBC London, but the Listen Again/iPlayer service makes that irrelevant.
I used to love his short lived TV chat show ‘After All’, complete with Mark Kermode’s house band playing Beatles songs. Put him back on the telly I say.Davec
I remember when I used to listen to Danny Baker’s breakfast show on Radio 5. The proper Radio 5, that is, not the ‘live’ one. Although it was live, so I am not sure what the BBC were thinking there.Thanks to the wonders of modern technology I was also able to listen on the bus using my walkman with built-in radio. And kids today think listening to podcasts on their iPods is clever. I was already doing that in the 1990s, like some kind of futuristic figure sent back in time and forced to make use of primitive technologies. Now I just need to catch myself a whale.Anyway, as I do not like soccer I have no idea what Baker is up to these days. But he used to be very good though.
I haven’t heard him for years and I’ve only heard the last two shows but it’s as fresh as it ever was. He’s a genius of radio. Although I don’t know the full story the BBC don’t appear to value genius properly, or those of us who do (the two Dannys made possibly my all-time favourite radio shows) (funnily enough he put my childhood diary in print when he used my contribution to a show for a half-page piece in the Times, so clearly a genius). To be honest now and then I’ll find him a bit abrasive but then I remember what he’s doing – waking you up.
Well done everyone, the Baker is fantastic, so under rated by people who just remember him from some poor choices of TV programmes in the nineties (although he still insists that ‘Pets win prizes’ is one of thebest thing he’s ever done. If you can still find them, there are some great podcasts that he did last year – try and find the Baker and Kelly one where they replace all the word to Bohemian Rhapsody with the names of footballers, it might not sound it but it is one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.Oliver.
For God’s sake, someone/anyone get Danny out of the local radio hell where he is currently bemired!And get Danny Kelly on there alongside him too, preferably with traffic reports from David Kuo.
Andrew- totally share your enthusiasm for DB ‘and all who sail in him’. However, I get the strong impression his views (and mine, as it happens) on subjects like homeopathy, astrology, ‘you are what you eat’ etc may differ sharply from your own?
You’ve pretty much summed up the Bakermeister. His BBC London show is outstanding. The 12 podcasts of him and Danny Kelly are a joy to behold. And much of his All day Breakfast Show is still out there.There really is no-one like him.He just never stops. Other broadcasters may sit back,but he keeps pushing the boundaries of phone ins. I love him.I have seen nothing of the football this year, but know exactly what’s important thanks to Danny’s 606. Get him back on National Radio. Now.I’ve followed him around the airwaves from the proper Radio Five, GLR (London Live 94.9,BBC LDN, etc) Radio One, Virgin and even, against my own princples, Talk Radio. He is to be treasured. Would you like to borrow my old Warhole style Danny Baker t-shirt?From the Radio One days?B.I.T.D. I wore it to a Hole concert in Glasgow, and it was the only time I have ever been complimented on a t-shirt by Security.”We’re answering the phones manually…That’s once a year”
I don’t know what Danny’s views are on homeopathy but I’m not surprised to hear that they are similar to the consensus. It doesn’t worry me one bit. I have long since stopped dreaming of a world in which other people share my views on certain issues. It’s irrelevant to the subject at hand, which is Danny’s impeccable broadcasting skills – and I’m really not sure why you brought it up. I disagreed with Charlton Heston’s views on gun control but loved him in Planet Of The Apes. See?
I remember Danny Baker asking Virgin listeners years ago to ring in if they have never done something that seemed a prerequisite within society. Someone phoned in to say they’ve never had a cup of coffee before. She tried a cup live on air and said “that’s disgusting” and Danny cued up ambulance siren or Casualty’s theme tune or something like that. Either way, class that had you as the listener interested in topics he would bring up.machine levine
Neville Hall Interlude. I shall never use ‘half time’ again. If you don’t know what I’m on about then you’ve not been listening.
No offence- I realise my previous post may have been out of place in an otherwise celebratory thread. Anyway, another memory of DB was when he played the fantastic ‘And your bird can sing’ (a typically obscure Fabs choice) and said ‘just how good were the Beatles?’ I also liked how he never had any truck with the whole Guilty Pleasures thing, and in fact was one of the first to actively criticise it. Even, shock horror, playing Phil Collins on occasion without explanation or apology!
No, let’s NOT see Baker on telly again. Telly dilutes his intellect and fanatstic wit, whereas the medium of wireless only enhances it. My Radio Five Danny Baker T-shirt, which I was sent for getting an answer wrong, remains one of my proudest posessions!
I’d like to add that the Kelly/Baker combination worked fantastically well when they had their own page in the football section of The Times a few years ago.I agree that Baker isn’t quite the same on TV as he is on the radio, although it would still be nice to see him on there from time to time.
Danny Baker is a legend. I used to listen to his Breakfast Show on GLR/BBC London on my train journey to work and the whole “treehouse” thing was pure radio gold. My favourite quote of his was along the lines of time is too short so don’t waste it – “there are many waterfalls to see and not enough summers to see them in”. Genius.
Absolutely love everything Danny Baker does, a broadcasting genius.I remember seeing the documentary on Matthew Bannister’s reign at Radio One, where the hairy corn flake DLT was replaced with Danny Baker. Adrian Just was interviewed and said he phoned DLT up when Danny Baker’s first Radio One (or was it One FM at the time?) show and said “Are you listening to this sh*t? I’ve got to go on after this and lift the nation” (or something similar). Shows how out of touch the likes of DLT and Adrian Just were – idiots!I know for certain that if I could run my own Fantasy Radio Station who I would have on it and it wouldn’t be Adrian Just playing comedy records and fading down the punchline so he can deliver it himself!!