"You couldn't help forming the impression that Hook was actually sitting on Garret's lap, perhaps being chucked under the chin" Eithne Tyan

Nothing would do the Ray D'Arcy Show on Tuesday but to locate Alan O'Brien, the heckler who chewed out Pat Kenny on RTE's The Frontline the previous evening. I imagine no placard was left unturned in Dublin city till he was found.

Of course, under normal circumstances, your typical incoherent, homespun militant turns up on Liveline, but given O'Brien's feelings about RTE, and his specific belief that Joe Duffy should "go back into social work", that was unlikely. Instead he found a home on Today FM, where Ray D'Arcy didn't know what to do with him. He couldn't laugh at him, and he couldn't get him to laugh at himself, and so he was at a loss.

O'Brien revealed that he was a member of the Zeitgeist Movement, that he was a fan of Fianna Fáil pre-Charlie Haughey, that he was once a pastor in a fundamentalist Christian church, and that he had been hospitalised with bipolar disorder and was on disability benefit.

This last was enough to incense at least half of D'Arcy's listeners, among whom, it seems, claiming €600,000 a year from the state is all very well, but claiming €200 a week from the state is really the limit. "How dare he attack Pat Kenny when he has been on welfare sponging off taxpayers' money?" said one texter. (Reader, there are times when the duty of reviewing this kind of radio is really not worth the stupendous salary that goes with the job.)

O'Brien also revealed that, as he was leaving the studio, two RTE security guards said, "Fair play to you". D'Arcy had a good laugh at that, finally; he'd been longing for one.

O'Brien's attitude might have been a lesson to George Hook on the previous day's Right Hook (Newstalk), during his love-in with former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald. So taken was he with "Dr FitzGerald's" thesis that we are "grossly undertaxed", that the two were like one man. You couldn't help forming the impression, eventually, that Hook was actually sitting on Garret's lap, perhaps being chucked under the chin by the elder statesman, or even having his belly tickled.

"Does Dr Fitzgerald believe that everyone should pay tax, even the low-paid?" wondered one listener, to which Hook replied, adding a note of triumph to his habitual mucous drawl: "That is exactly what he believes." That evening's The Frontline might have been instructive for Hook, had he watched it. He might have realised that it's not the principle of paying tax that people object to; it's what the bastards do with it that rankles.

On to something lighter and more fragrant, more crisp and fresh and airy and altogether more apple-flavoured: Darina Allen was on Wednesday's Woman's Hour, (BBC Radio 4) promoting her new book, which envisages a future in which we all make soda bread every day.

"It's made literally in minutes," she said. "You wouldn't have found your car keys and be out to the shop." This may well be true, especially for those of us who take so long to find our car keys that there would be enough time for Jesus to feed the 5,000 the hard way.

Darina was making apple fritters during the programme, and what with the racket of sizzling in the background, and presenter Jenni Murray's endless fretting that they would burn, the interview was all over the place. "Just keep an eyes on those fritters," warned Murray.

"No, it's okay. I am. I am. I'm used to multi-tasking, don't worry," answered Allen.

Later, Murray instructed her to keep talking while she herself polished off the cooked fritters, and Darina happily obliged, being Capability Allen. That ugly business with Darina's husband and the child pornography was not discussed, perhaps because of an agreement reached before­hand, or because Darina gamely filled up all the airtime chatting about chickens and what have you, or because, in a great leap forward in the social consciousness, she is no longer held responsible for what her old man does.

Finally, a word of praise about the latest delivery of whimsy in yesterday's Curious Ear series (RTE Radio One), The Neighbours at 52. Ronan Kelly drew a line, literally, between Enniscorthy and Berlin, for no better reason than that they are both at 52º and 30 minutes north.

Kelly spoke to people going about their business on Weafer Street, Enniscorthy, including a Romanian couple on their day off and a man who had just lost his job. At Rahel-Varnhagen Promenade, around the corner from Checkpoint Charlie, he met a group of graffiti artists and a social worker. As always with The Curious Ear, you begin by thinking, with a scowl, "This is utterly pointless". Then, after a few minutes, you find yourself thinking, with a small, satisfied smile, "This is utterly ­pointless".

etynan@tribune.ie