Course you do.
My Friday night began normally enough - Assassins Creed on the XBox, Hall and Oates greatest hits on Spotify, a nice glass of iced water on the go (don't tell me I don't know how to live) - when a tweet popped up on the eyePad which caught my eye...
I quite like Lynsey Hooper, she knows her stuff and seems like a cool cat, and I've been an on/off talkSPORT listener for years.
So, as 10pm edged closer, I had a decision to make. Could I really abandon "Kiss on My List" for somebody called Terry Tibbs?
I decided that the answer was "yes" - a decision which will go down in history alongside boarding the Titanic or that time I drank a glass of port on the night I started taking Citalopram as the worst choices EVER made.
Because "Talk To Me", hosted by 'Terry Tibbs', his 'son' Lionel, and featuring poor old Lynsey Hooper as "the studio guest", was the worst radio programme I have listened to in my 28 years of being on this planet.
You may think I'm joking. Or exaggerating. I am not.
I've been listening to talkSPORT for decades, and I've experienced the good (Hawksbee & Jacobs, the late Mike Dickin, James Whale, Ian Collins), the bad (Rushden & Glendenning, Patrick Kinghorn, Ronnie Irani) and the downright bizarre (Champagne and Roses with Gerald Harper, George Galloway), yet nothing in those latter two categories comes anywhere close to this.
Nothing on ANY other radio station comes anywhere close to this, either.
So, let me tell you all about it. 'Terry Tibbs', apparently, is an alter ego of somebody called Kayvan Novak, who, apparently, fronted a comedy show called 'Fonejacker'. No, me neither. Novak was born and educated in London, so naturally he supports Liverpool.
The show begins with Tibbs, in a rather bizarre accent I can't really place, rambling on about Slovakian chewing gum, or something. Ordinarily I'd have already switched off by now, but I soon begin to realise that this is so extraordinarily shit I can't. I literally can't.
Throughout the show 'Lionel', with an increasing hint of utter despair in his voice, beseeches the listeners to call/text/tweet/email into the show - anything to give them some material to work with.
Nobody does. The only calls are plants - presumably Novak's mates, or members of the production crew - who engage Tibbs and Lionel in bizarre conversations which tick precisely none of the boxes that constitute good radio.
20 minutes in they bring in Lynsey, like a Wulfrunian lamb to the slaughter. So far we've had precisely 0.00% of the billed "Terry Tibbs hosts the nation's funniest football phone-in", but I'm optimistic that that will soon change.
It doesn't.
Lynsey Hooper is well known for co-creating "The Offside Rule"podcast, which is a podcast specifically created to make neanderthal men understand that women like football too, and they get it, and their opinions should be treated with respect.
As such, Tibbs and Lionel pick up on the pioneering work Hooper has done in this field, by barraging her with questions about her private life, such as which footballers she fancies, and whether a player has ever tried it on with her.
As you can imagine this is fascinating stuff, which Lynsey plays along with gamely until the "lads" ask her what her relationship status is. "I don't know if I want to say that" she quietly replies, and if you listen closely you can actually begin to hear the will to live swiftly leaving her body as she does so.
More hilarious bants swiftly follow as Tibbs screeches the "O" in newsreader Lisa O'Sullivan's name in an faux-orgasmic way whilst she's on air, chalking up another victory for misogyny in the process.
Do I need to go on? During the two hours(!) this pile of excrement is on air, the sole highlight - and I use that term loosely - is the occasions when Novak's cod accent keeps on fading, transforming him from an Arabian-esque ranting cleric to, amusingly, sounding peculiarly like Bob Mills.
Into the second hour we go, and at this point, a Twitter search for "talksport terry" brings a smile to my face:
(There were more, but you get the picture)
After a crude impersonation of the Chinese segway rider who felled Usain Bolt the other day - so you can add racism to the list of everything that's wrong with this show - I begin to notice something. Lynsey has disappeared. Where has she gone?
From 11pm to the time I finally gave up on this shit sandwich - 11:43pm - Lynsey is AWOL. "She was only booked from 10-11pm" I consider, a logical conclusion that still doesn't stop me fantasising about her exiting the studio and coming back with a Kalashnikov, 16 rounds of ammo, and a severe loss of temper.
I'm not going to go on. I won't even mention the toe-curling phone interview with an American "naked life coach" or something. Remember folks - this is "the nation's funniest football phone-in"!
Instead, here's a link to the whole sordid, depressing, amateurish, embarrassing, shameful, putrid affair: http://talksport.com/radio/listen-again/1440795600#
Listen to that, and whilst you do so, remember - this is a national radio station with over 3 million listeners.
To conclude, you might be wondering why I care. Why do I care so much about a terrible radio programme on at 10pm on a Friday night when every normal person is out clubbing, and why do I care so much to ramble on about it for god-knows-how-many-words.
My answer is a simple one. Think about all the talented radio presenters out there, on local radio stations, who work their fucking arses off to hone their craft in front of 17 listeners and a small dog called Kevin. They'd give their right arm to present on talkSPORT - even at 10pm on a Friday - to host a show which could be informative and entertaining.
Instead, talkSPORT serve us this pile of cold sick. Shame on them, and shame on me for listening to it.
