The week in radio: The end of the pier show hits the airwaves

If you tuned into Radio 4 this week you might have heard a voice saying: "BBC, World Service." It was confusing. What was he talking about? Had the frequencies changed all over again? The voice continued, imperious and a little scratchy. "This is London. Where you are isn't. You can tell by the flies, and the lack of discipline. For goodness sake cover yourselves up and listen".

The penny dropped: it was summer, and the end-of-the-pier mentality had upped sticks and moved into Broadcasting House with four new ideas. Dan and Nick: The Wildebeest Years (R4, not WS) was strong on parodies of the familiar and rich in false inflection, as in "And now for the Radio Foreplay - I'm sorry I'll read that again". It became very silly and slightly out of control, particularly when Robert Robinson Crusoe was discovered hosting "Brain of Treasure Island', but so what, it was good cheering stuff to hear on a warm Wednesday evening.

As were The Nualas (R4) on Tuesdays, three uppity Irish girls who sing witty songs in close harmony. Their show seemed to have been recorded live in cabaret, and the patter between the numbers was pretty thin, depending on a generous audience and a desperate manager called Seamus acting more Oirish and smutty than Paddy McGinty's goat. But the songs were tremendous. I particularly liked the passionate approach to a bus conductor "Man in the Blue Slacks" which was full of such pleasing couplets as "I knew, beneath your navy terylene, you had the manhood of early Steve McQueen". No, you're right, it doesn't look much on the page, but it sounded grand a capella.

And it was much better than anything expressed by Bradley Walsh, aka Trev, the King of the Road (R2). This six-part sitcom concerned a bleedin' taxi-driver given to the incessant, profoundly stupid hectoring of his unfortunate bleedin' fares. He's a fascist know-all, and you'd be much better off on a bus (especially if you live down the Nualas' way). He shouts drab abuse at anyone who tries to hail him. This week's guest celebrity was Su Pollard, surreally wanting a lift home after the Woman of the Year lunch. In a neat own-goal, one of Trev's first remarks condemned "the crap you hear on the radio these days".

The best place for a laugh was inside The Very World of Milton Jones (R4), late on Thursdays. This man is seriously funny. He offers you an idea and leaves you to work it out while he's away with the next, but there is no frantic, love-me-do showing-off. A series of preposterous puns ran through the show like a streaker at Lord's, to which the punch- line is "Milton's Paradise Lost": it started with losing a Bounty bar through a grating, moved on to mislaying a couple of fluffy cubes he'd intended to hang from his car mirror and concluded triumphantly with the disappearance of a talking bird inside some frozen water.

Are you there yet? Or would you prefer the words of a film-producer: "We're working on a scene with Joseph Heller about Catch 22 but we can't get sponsorship until we've got a script and we can't get a script until we've got sponsorship". There are three Thursdays to go: don't miss him.

Chastity, continency and karate

"Give me chastity and continency" prayed St Augustine, "but do not give it yet." Every Catholic has toyed with saving repentance for the death- bed, whilst recognising the risky nature of such procrastination. Seamus Mulholland was a bouncer and bodyguard in Belfast: chaste and continent he was not. One Sunday morning in 1977, he awoke beside a pretty girl whose name he didn't know. He thought about the night before, decided that his life was going nowhere unless it was jail and, you could say, repented.

He is now a priest - a Franciscan friar - and a Sixth Dan in karate. His was the first and most memorable of the week's Diaries of Today (R4). God knows how he found the time to write it. Besides his ministry he teaches theology, Franciscan spirituality and the martial arts and he has just prepared a university course on courtly love and literature. Listening to his gentle voice, you realised that the theme of his life is courtesy: it pervades his existence - even suffusing his karate which, he says, is built on discipline, etiquette and respect. Perhaps he'd like to run the BBC?

Resolve restored by lavatory paper

When David Hempleman Adams set off for the South Pole he took Margaret Thatcher's book with him, for two reasons. The fattest paperback he could find, it would occupy him for longest - and he doesn't carry lavatory paper. Halfway there, disheartened and contemplating packing it in, he reached for a page and stopped as he read the words of her Ladyship's father, to the effect that any fool could start something but finishing was harder.

The explorer tucked that page into his pocket and soldiered on: the rest of the book lasted him just as far as the Pole. He told the story to Sue Lawley on Desert Island Discs before choosing a saxophone for his luxury and, rather disappointingly, Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingstone Seagull to read. Or whatever.

His discs: "Moon Over Bourbon Street", Sting

"Scenes From an Italian Restaurant", Billy Joel

"Don't Give Up", Peter Gabriel

"Moondance", Van Morrison

"Toreador's Song", Bizet

"Dreams", The Cranberries

"Bitter Sweet Symphony", The Verve

"Manha de Carneval", Stan Getz