Open line to the little things in life

LAST Sunday I did the second most pleasurable thing you can do in bed after sleeping. I listened to Ralph Pixton. This is a recent addiction and one I can see there is no point in trying to kick.

Like all good things in life, alcohol, cigarettes and Inspector Morse, the Ralph Pixton show, Open Line Plus as it has been renamed by the thrusting young things at Radio 3, is a profligate waste of time. But like all good things in life it has an appeal that is insidious. Three weeks and I am already planning weekends around Ralph.

There is something about his considered syntax that transports me back to Radio 4 in Britain. Wet Sunday mornings, Earl Grey tea, The Observer and the kind of terminal lethargy that comes only with practice.

BFBS gets close with The Archers, but BFBS does not penetrate the darkness around Kornhill, where radio waves get lost for weeks in concrete and are dissipated by the effort of trying to find their way out.

Ralph Pixton is Lorna Workman without the ambition, hired by RTHK to deal authoritatively yet decently with people who have matters of state on their mind. If our continuing decline in moral standards has been keeping you awake at night, Ralph is your man. If you are confused over where you stand on the Court of Final Appeal bill - and the Government is, so there is no reason why you shouldn't be - call Ralph.

If you are irritated by the standard of English-language television and newspapers, or by the changeable nature of the weather, Ralph will lend you his shell-like ear. He is the only man in Hong Kong capable of finding out why the sun shone yesterday, but not the day before.

There are an infinite number of topics that might be preying on your mind. Strange then, that everyone chooses to discuss only two; buses and taxis.