COMETH the hour cometh the apology. And the corrections. And the clarifications.
I checked out of the Nolan Show some years ago because of the relentless negativity. I didn’t do it for the sake of my mental health, but I was gratified to find that mornings that began without that gulp-inducingly portentous intro and without the screeching of cats being thrown over a clothes line with their tails tied together are more pleasant and mind-kind by a factor of Jesus-how- tf-did-I-ever-stick-that?

Sad to report, I’ve fallen off the cross since Loyal Ulster decided that social cohesion here would best be helped by a re-enactment of the 1997 Battle of Drumcree. It’s not that surprising. I’ve been trying to cut down on the time I spend on social media platforms too, but since the Brethren decided that they’d had enough of that oul’ Portadown peace thing, the daily activity alert on my phone has changed to ‘Seriously: You need to put that thing down, pal.’

On Thursday morning past I was particularly hungry for information about the previous night’s refusal of Carla Lockhart and Jamie Bryson to accept a hazy Secretary of State proposal that for a brief and beautiful few hours threatened to deliver a DefCon 1 stand-down to Portadown. What I got instead between shortly after 9am and the news at 10am was a concentrated burst of confusion, apology and clarification that left me wondering what part of the Reithian mission statement of Inform, Educate and Entertain the Biggest Show in the Countryside was attempting to deliver.

Chatting with caller Harold about Michelle O’Neill’s decision to stand with residents of the Garvaghy Road on Sunday, Stephen remarked: “Equally there will be many, many nationalists who think that if you have a First Minister standing up and – what? – smirking and smiling and ‘So be it’ to, to, when asked a question if whether a police officer is going to knock her door.”

It was a jarring moment, to the extent that a confused and isolated synapse spark made me immediately look down at the car radio as if it had suddenly developed an Explain feature. Because I’d seen the previous evening’s Enda McClafferty interview with Michelle O’Neill on the Garvaghy Road that Stephen was talking about; I’d also seen an identical interview carried out by UTV’s Tracey Magee which also focused solely on the as-yet  untested claims of lawbreaking on the part of Michelle O’Neill.

I didn’t see Michelle smirking. I saw her smiling, because anybody who has watched Michelle talk for more than a nanosecond knows that she smiles often; some might say constantly. But I didn’t see a smirk. Neither did anybody I watched the news with. Neither did any of the people I spoke to about the interviews afterwards. Perhaps my distinctly average body language skills had deserted me. Perhaps my frontal lobe was too bashed-up by memories of what I saw at Garvaghy last time I was there 28 years ago.

Happily, my time at the FBI Behavioural Analysis Unit had not let me down. In short order Stephen directed us back to his chat with Harold.  “Maybe I overstepped the mark there saying smirking and smiling,” he said. “The point, the point, the point I was trying to make about Michelle O’Neill was this: She certainly, so I’ll withdraw that, she certainly did not seem distressed at the prospect of a police officer knocking her door.”

So in one breath he withdrew the allegation that Michelle was “smirking and smiling”, in the very next he drew upon the same powers of observation which had so signally failed him such a short time before to observe that the First Minister did not appear distressed during the Garvaghy interview. This seemed… odd. One of the reasons that party leaders are party leaders is that they don’t get distressed during interviews. I’ve never seen Michelle O’Neill distressed during an interview. Ditto Gavin Robinson. Ditto Claire Hanna. Ditto Jon Burrows. Ditto Jim Allister. And what would distressed look like? The back of the hand pressed to the forehead? Whimpering? Fainting?

Like the pro he is, Stephen set aside the setback and attempted to crack on, but clearly a certain discomfort lingered in the studio because it wasn’t long before he was back to the smirking and smiling thing. Had Stephen himself decided more clarity was required? Had his team behind the glass determined that more was required? Was it teamwork that brought him back to Michelle’s demeanour? Or had the Sinn Féin press office, whose attitude to the Nolan Show is that of the mongoose to the cobra, been on the blower? Who knows? 

“And I shouldn’t have said, I, I, I, eh, I, I apologise to Michelle O’Neill by, by suggesting she was smirking,” said the host, with all the confidence of an Orangeman addressing the Felons AGM. “I should not have said that. I withdraw that. But she was not, what I meant to say is, she did, she was not conveying any sense of distress when she was saying she chose proactively to be on that road with the residents blocking that parade.”

And back we were again at… odd. Stephen decided to add an apology to his withdrawal of the smirking crack, but not to the smiling crack because, as I say, Michelle did smile and does smile. A lot. But the lack of distress on the part of a woman who doesn’t do distress was again highlighted, as if the claimed absence of one thing mitigated the claimed presence of something else.

Did I say odd? It was positively discombobulating.

And on the show went. Again. On to caller Stephen, who presented to host Stephen the entirely familiar, mainstream and arguable contention that the DUP is vowing to die on the hill at Drumcree because it’s dying in the polls. Not least because of the legal and disciplinary travails of some of its best-known members.

“Their MPs,” said caller Stephen (no relative, I assume) with admirable conciseness, “are under investigation.”
Host Stephen was not having it; he wasn’t having it at all.

“No, no, no,” he insisted, delving deep into his inner headmaster. “Their MPs are not under investigation and we’re certainly not getting into accusations on a live radio programme. They’re not. Stephen, thank you.”

And with that, caller Stephen was gone, consigned to that glum and ignominious legion of Those Who Balls Up Live On Air. Except certain of us knew that poor Stephen didn’t belong there, because he hadn’t ballsed up, as we learned a few short minutes later, doubtless after another round of frantic tick-tacking between the host and the team behind the glass. 

“Let me just tidy up in terms of what that last caller was saying there,” said host Stephen, and I swear I could smell Mr Sheen seeping from the radio. “It is true that Jim Shannon is a DUP MP who is under investigation, but that is a live investigation and I do not want to talk about a live case, which I’m sure you will understand, on a live radio programme. So, it is true that he is under investigation, but we can’t talk about your investigation, anybody you know, anybody’s investigation, during a live radio programme. It’s inappropriate.”

If he was still listening, ex-caller Stephen no doubt had mixed feelings. He’d been vindicated, of course, but he’d lost his chance to be heard. He may have been gratified that his namesake had done the right thing, but he may also have welcomed the chance he never got to point out that it is perfectly possible to discuss the impact the DUP’s internal problems might have on its strategy without the sky falling in.

And on the show went. Again. But thoughts of the unfortunate Michelle and caller Stephen continued to hang heavy in the broadcast air and when host Stephen’s normally chipper voice went earnest again, wasn’t that the smell of furniture polish in my car again? This time, the matter requiring the feather duster was the idea, touched on without demur several times in the show, that Michelle O’Neill was about to have her door knocked by the PSNI. The subject again raised its head as Stephen talked with UUP leader Jon Burrows, but this time it was felt that it was time to resile from the suggestion that Michelle might answer the bell any day now to find it’s not the Amazon guy.

“And just, just, look, I know I’m getting into semantics here,” explained Stephen, “but just for the benefit of, of clarity for everyone, ahm, again it’s my understanding that given the level of the offence, it’s not a high-grade offence. It’s very, very important in Northern Ireland, ahm, that people have their say about it. But given the nature of the offence it’s my understanding that suspects would be written to or invited to come in for interview. It’s my understanding there will not be arrests and the police will not be out literally knocking on people’s doors, John.”

I don’t know what happened after that because when the 10am news rolled around I had decided that perhaps this wasn’t the best place for me to obtain the information that I was trying to obtain. Did Stephen manage to regain his equilibrium after what was by any standard a fraught first hour? More than likely, since he’s an experienced guy and being able to execute a deft Chumbawumba is a sine qua non of a career on live radio. But while Stephen doubtless saw the last half-hour through with admirable poise, the preceding segment ended any brief hope of a rapprochement between me, Stephen, his boogaloo phone-lines and his small but perfectly-formed guest rota.

This Garvaghy mularkey’s doing it to all of us, isn’t it? Throwing us back into dark places we don’t want to go, filling us with disappointment and anger. The good news is that the Radio High Court has ruled that I had no right to go back to the Nolan Show and has banned me from going there again.

And I won’t be appealing.