Charlie Bird went on Liveline today.
He’s pissed-off with some of the criticism his trip to the Antarctic has caused.
But not half as pissed-off as Joe Duffy.
Psychiatrists call it projecting.
Joe Duffy: “Which review over the weekend upset you most Charlie?”
Charlie Bird: “To be honest, Joe, the truth is that everybody’s entitled to their opinion and that’s the way. I’ve got to take it on the chin. If the reviewers don’t like it that’s the way it is. I could be a hypocrite sitting here ‘oh I don’t’ care what they say’ but all people who do programmes, who put themselves out there, would like to get a nice review. Sometimes you get a review that’s nice; other times you don’t.”
Duffy: “So to come back to my question, Charlie, which one upset you most?”
Bird: “Eh, I mean, to be honest Joe I didn’t read them all. I saw some of the headlines. I mean, heh heh. In terms of eh, it’s hard to say. I mean, Joe, I wasn’t, you know parsing, analysing them. The reviewers are entitled to their say in the programme. The viewers, Joe, are also entitled to their view of the programme and as far as I’m concerned the response which I’ve got from the viewing public has been fantastic.”
Duffy: “And the numbers, and the numbers have been fantastic.”
[Later…]
Duffy: “I know you’ve spoken about the nosebleed but do you… I’m, I’m, again I think, given the uniformity of the – and it is a personal, they are personalised attacks on you and the fact… Do you think people say ‘did he make up the nosebleed thing or the nosebleed thing was just a little knock he got when he was blowing his nose and it lasted for three minutes’. Do you think they realise the seriousness of it?”
Bird: “Joe, I don’t know. It doesn’t, in a sense, Joe, it doesn’t matter. People’s views of the programme, and they fall into two categories. They fall into the category of the reviewers. and they make up their minds, and in one sense that’s what it is. You get criticism, you have to say, ‘right’.”
Duffy: OK, well, I, I, I’d…”
Bird: “I mean, Joe, if you don’t like it you don’t like it but when you’re doing programmes.”
Duffy: “But Charlie, but Charlie, there’s fair and accurate criticism and there’s unfair criticism.”
Bird: “Mm, yeah. But Joe, if I were to start taking issue with every critic and every –”
Duffy: “OK, well then don’t.”
[Later…]
Duffy: “Charlie went out over Christmas. He got these inexplicable nosebleeds which required – nothing to do with the cold by the way – which required an operation under general anesthetic. I mean, think that would have put some – some journalists especially – I think that would have put some of them off, to say the least, and they would have headed home. A full operation, general anesthetic and he still goes out and proceeds.”
[Even later…]
Duffy: “I still think that the fact that the five critics – Eoin Murphy in the News of the World, Bernice Harrison in the Irish Times, John Boland in the Irish Independent, Emmanuel Kehoe in the Sunday Business Post, Liam Fay in the Sunday Times – are all saying essentially the same thing, and not one of them is available to come on and say it to your face. but anyway, that’s the world we live in. I know and they’re entitled to that and let them have a go. Let them have a go at me.”
Listen to full show here.