Ask Miltant Ginger

It's time for our regular question and answer column - answering the queries that have been entered into search engines and have sent the reader to this blog.

Should people with a nut allergy eat Honey Nut Cheerios?

The answer to this question is: 'No.' Followed by 'What?!?'

Or, even, answering that question with another question: 'Are you retarded?'

The stuff people enter into search engines boggles the mind sometimes. Was this a legitimate question?

Did somebody with a nut allergy really wonder if it was okay to eat honey nut cheerios? Which, it would be safe to assume, contain nuts. Otherwise they'd be breaching the Trade Descriptions Act!

Good grief! It's idiots like this that force us to print instructions on toothpicks!

More to the point, it's idiots like this that force us to write 'May Contain Nuts' on packets of peanuts (leading to the response: 'Well, I should bloody well hope so!')

So, to answer this question: "You know what, chum? Why don't you go ahead and pour yourself a big bowl of honey nut cheerios and dig right in?"

It would be nice to see Darwin's Theory of 'Survival of the Fittest' in action just to prove the conservatives wrong on creationism.

What does it mean when a New Jersey resident has Pennsylvania Plates on their car?

Well, it could mean that their car is registered in Pennsylvania!

People can live and work in New Jersey, but still keep their auto insured and registered at an address over in the Keystone State. I had two friends who lived in New York, but kept Pa. plates on their cars because the insurance was so much cheaper.

But, just as likely, it's owned by an illegal alien who's got hold of a set of Pa. plates so he can drive about without being pulled over by the local cops.

Where I live, in an almost entirely Spanish neighbourhood, a significant number of cars have battered plates from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland and even Texas. They're all driven by illegal aliens (and mysteriously, the local cops do nothing about it.)

In either event, I'd recommend keeping your distance from cars with out of state plates. If somebody's living and working in Jersey, but have their car registered elsewhere, insurance companies often refuse to pony up if they have an accident.

If you get into a smash with an illegal driver, on the other hand, they'll normally speed away from the scene of an accident just as fast as their piece-of-shit cars will let them.

What does Quantum of Solace mean?

As I explained in this post, the Quantum of Solace is a reference to a short story written by Ian Fleming and first published in his anthology For Your Eyes Only.

The Quantum of Solace is the almost immeasurable spark of love and compassion one person has for another. They say that the opposite of love isn't hate, but indifference. If that quantum of solace is extinguished, the relationship is over.

James Bond himself, British actor Daniel Craig, perhaps explains it better than I can: "Ian Fleming says that if you don't have a quantum of solace in your relationship then the relationship is over. It's that spark of niceness in a relationship that if you don't have you might as well give up."

Quantum of Solace is also the name of the upcoming James Bond movie, set for release this November.

What does the nickname Simon James and Hill mean?

Simon James and Hill are two talented radio presenters I've had a bit of an antagonistic relationship with ever since they took the helm of Original 106's breakfast show.

I suggested that they weren't right for that audience - and the bosses at Original clearly agreed with me, since my old colleague Pat Sissons soon took over the coveted Breakfast show.

But the boys are talented - and swiftly got got promoted to breakfast show presenters on Keerang! radio, following smug git Tim Shaw's well overdue dismissal. Their rambunctious antics make them a perfect match for the popular rock-radio's audience.

As for the nickname? Simon James and Hill is the duo of Simon James and James 'Hill' Burrell. It's a cute moniker that has lots of people asking; 'are Simon, James and Hill three distinct people?' Or, as I once thought; 'are there two Simons, James and Hill?'

Whatever the reason for their nickname, you can read more about the breakfast boys here.

Original Sin

Original 106 spent a million pounds marketing their new radio station.

They had television adverts during Coronation Street. Huge billboards across Portsmouth and Southampton. The back of the buses proudly declared: "Original 106. For people that [sic] have got something going on upstairs."

They broadcast to a potential audience of over a million listeners. They have Sony award winners Simon James and Hill heading up their breakfast show. And they've been selling advertising with the warm, rich promise of 10% of Hampshire's radio market.

Today, on the day the Radio Audience Joint Research figures come out (telling people exactly who listens to what station) the boys at Original were brave enough to release this preemptive advert in the Southern Daily Echo and The Portsmouth News.

Yet when the figures came in, did they match Original's expectations?

Sadly not. Not by a long shot.

Compared to their rivals, Power FM, Ocean and Wave 105 - all of whom deliver almost 200 to 300 thousand listeners per week - Original sailed in with a disappointing 27,000 weekly listeners. Less even than Southampton's local football station, The Saint.

It was shocking. Made worse by the fact that their determined and able sales team had been out selling packages on the expectation of five times that market share. If the boys at Original 106 think they're disappointed by this showing, I imagine it's nothing to what their advertisers are feeling. They've been paying Wave 105 prices for Saint listening figures.

A while ago, I predicated the fate of Original 106. I even had a bit of banter with radio legend Simon James about it. You can read my predictions here.

I'd never expected anything quite like this!

I think it's down to a variety of factors. Their obscure track listing confuses and infuriates the listeners. Some of their presenters are sophomoric, whereas Simon James and Hill, the headliners of Original 106, are irreverent and unpredictable. Original 106 wanted to deliver something different - but the reason most commercial radio stations sound the same is because listeners don't want anything different.

They just want the music they love and as few commercials as possible, with none of that Smashy and Nicey crap (at least nobody could accuse Simon James & Hill of being cheesy.)

That being said, I don't think Original 106's poor showing can entirely be blamed on their slightly queer choice of output. As much as we in the radio industry love to boast about how much more accurate RAJAR figures are in comparison to press 'readership' (generated by multiplying sales by some arbitrary number) the truth is that neither method really gives a fair indication of who's tuning (or reading) in.

RAJAR diaries are complicated little buggers. Given that the average reader doesn't necessarily know who they're listening to at any given time (we had plenty of listeners at WinFM who rang in thinking they were tuned to Wave) it's pretty fair to say Original might have reached a lot more listeners than RAJAR claims they did.

Nobody knows for sure. And when it comes to calculating costs, none of the agencies are going to care. Original 106 is going to take a pretty big hit over these RAJAR figures, but at least they have one thought to sustain them as they struggle through the next few months.

The only way is up.

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In reference to their advert - from a starting point of 0 listeners, a gain of 27,000 DOES make Original 106 the fastest growing radio station in the south. It's very pedantic, but it doesn't make it a lie.