Beauty can sometimes be in the ear of the beholder

If we enjoy reading, it is likely that we have favourite writers, who may be novelists, authors of non-fiction or even journalists. Many of us can also identify writers we simply cannot stand. A particular fiction writer, though successful, may strike some as having a weakness for sensationalism; a prominent journalist's prose or pontification may leave others cold.

It is the same with the spoken word. What one listener hears as snappy or persuasive, another finds inelegant, unconvincing or insincere. In recent years, I have come to regard radio as an infinitely preferable medium to television for most subjects, from news and current affairs to discussion. I suppose sport would be an exception, but it sometimes seems better to do without pictures than to have to endure the shrill excesses of television commentators. It is not a merely apocryphal notion that some people actually prefer to watch football with the sound turned down, or while listening to radio commentary on the same match.

Perhaps it is cricket that brings out the best in radio commentators. I could mention many commentators and pundits whose work is a joy to hear, though the late Brian Johnston was in a master class of his own. As would be expected of a product of Eton College, his spoken English was stylish and authoritative; he gave the impression of deep knowledge, though his Oxford degree in history was fourth-class, so lowly an achievement that it was discontinued in the 1970s.

But the key feature of Mr Johnston's tone was its warmth. The world somehow felt better for its presence. A radio voice that reassures will surely please most people. Alistair Cooke, also no longer with us, brought the same quality to his long-running BBC series Letter from America. A friend made it his custom to rise early each Sunday to hear the programme while sitting in his conservatory before returning to bed with tea and the newspapers for a delayed lay-in.

From boyhood, I recall the smooth, friendly voices of certain disc jockeys, notably Johnny Walker on the pirate station Radio Caroline. Many years later in France, struggling to improve my French comprehension, I found Jacques Chirac's slow, precise speech, especially in presidential addresses, a useful learning tool; other British people living in France agreed with me. Inevitably, there are also radio voices - and sometimes the phrases presenters use - that cause deep irritation. The BBC presenter Sir Terence Wogan's easy blarney won him big audiences, but one listener told me the other day he found him "too pleased with himself".

And what about English-language radio in the UAE? Margaret Wynn-Jones, an Englishwoman living in Dubai, wrote recently to express annoyance at the music station, The Coast, for insisting on using "your" when reporting on weather or traffic conditions, as in "your traffic update" or "your weather". The habit is "spreading across the airwaves in the UAE like an extremely unpleasant rash", she reports. "I initially assumed it was a ploy to personalise these pieces of information. But in recent weeks it has spread to the only programme genuinely worth listening to, Dubai Eye's Business Breakfast. This week alone I have heard mention of 'your market forces', 'your cost of living index' and, even, 'your dollar/sterling exchange rate'."

She wonders whether this is peculiar to radio in the Emirates; it will not please her to learn that during her long absence from the UK, the device has also become commonplace there. I imagine it will be much the same throughout the English-speaking world. There may be no escape. What is more, there will be as many listeners who appreciate the implied chumminess, the very quality I detected in Brian Johnston's admittedly more eloquent cricket commentary, as those who deplore it. And this, with apologies to Margaret Wynn-Jones, has been your column today.

Colin Randall is a contributing editor to The National and may be contacted at crandall@thenational.ae