The company my radio offers me isn't a luxury - it's an essential

From Botswana to Bradford, there is distinct comfort to be had in a news bulletin, a weather report, some light music, and a phone-in

A radio won't solve your problems but, with it, you'll never be facing them alone.

Whenever the phrase “first-world problem” appears in relation to one of life’s minor hiccups, I recall a sniffy think-piece I read that claimed that the phrase itself was problematic. And not just that - it was belittling, reductive and probably racist. Yes, you may believe that referring to your first-world malaise caused by a wonky Friday night pub seat marks you out as self-aware. Wrong. It suggests you think that the people of Equatorial Guinea are so emotionally sterile they’ve never been a bit narked by being stuck with the crap chair.

Almost all problems can be related to by almost everyone, was the thrust of the diatribe. It’s a theory I mull over often, although I tested its boundaries to the limit this week when my new mobile phone arrived – a rose-gold iPhone 6 Extra that is beautiful, sleek, shimmery and whip-fast, but also marginally too big to hold in one hand and take a decent selfie.

Surely, this falls into the first-world, get-a-sodding-grip category? Would, I wonder, villagers in remote Angola nod sagely to themselves saying, “It must be so hard for Grace. She spent 138,000 kwanza on that phone, but she’s not looking her best on Instagram. She looks boss-eyed in photos. We worry for her personal brand.”

No, I feel they would not. They would more likely think I was a pampered Western imbecile. Although in fact I do believe they would empathise - once we got chatting – with the actual reason I needed to upgrade that phone. My old, much-pawed antique iPhone was knackered, glitchy and had therefore stopped streaming radio reliably. I was radio-less. And I love radio. Perhaps “love” doesn’t really cover my relationship with it. It is more a dependency, and especially so over the past 17 years of working freelance from an otherwise silent home office.

OK, silent aside from scrounging pets, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Yodel delivery drivers using me as adrop-off point. But from dawn until the small hours I stream iPlayer radio. Robert Elms on BBC London gives way to mid-afternoon documentaries on Radio 4, then on to 4 Extra for some archive comedy. It is not a first-, second- or third-world problem to yearn for the warm burble of company. Over almost every square mile of the planet, human beings like being informed, made to laugh, and less on their own.

From Botswana to Bradford there is distinct comfort to be had in a news bulletin, a weather report, some light music and then a phone-in in which local busybodies can discuss traffic-calming measures. In Carlisle, where I grew up in the 1980s, one of the radio highlights was BBC Radio Cumbria’s “lamb bank”, where farmers could exchange orphaned lambs for a motherly ewe. This, interspersed with Rick Astley’s 'Never Gonna Give You Up' and an exciting chance to win tickets to the Sands Centre Rollerdisco.

Forty years later, media bigwigs talk gravely of the fractured media marketplace in which we are distracted by Twitter, Sky on demand, Netflix and those YouTube vlogs featuring gormless Surrey teenagers - but the need for radio remains. The excellent Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge, now on its second series, plays with this idea beautifully. Alan’s media stock may be at an all-time low. He may well be egocentric, uncool and, at times, an idiot. But to listeners on North Norfolk Digital he is “their idiot” and they have grown rather fond of him.

With all this in mind, I’ve been nerdily excited about two new launches - Virgin Radio and Talk Radio. It’s peculiar that as everything else in my media landscape changes, two old-school radio stations have bloomed, featuring styles of show not much different from the 1980s when Mike Reid and Kid Jensen ruled. Yes, we might listen via apps nowadays, and re-listen on demand if we like. And we can text in our messages and there may even be a Best Bits podcast. But the basic principles of radio are here - roughly understandable in every corner of the world.

We want a breakfast show host who’s ever-so slightly wacky, and a drive-time buddy to keep us company on the way home. We want a late-night phone-in staffed by an errant DJ with a hectoring tone who lures night creatures into the open. Iain Lee’s new show on Talk Radio from 10pm-1am is very good.

We want someone on hand in case of disaster who can judge the mood, shift the tone, and simply talk, talk and carry on talking. We want 'I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues' by Elton John, followed by a slightly volatile discussion about cyclists. We want somewhere to discuss our first-, second- and third-world problems. On radio you will rarely get them solved, but you’ll never feel truly alone.