Photo right owned by Alotor (cc) Pat Kenny robbed me of part of my adulthood. I’m not saying I particularly looked forward to the period in my life when I would prefer to stay home on a Friday night but two kids later you go through phases where a bottle of wine and your feet up is ther perfect Friday night. Sadly there were also two nine month phases where the bottle of wine didn’t even feature. It would have been nice to have had compelling television to watch with that glass of wine but I was robbed by Plastic Pat. To be fair his impact was probably diluted by all the other chat shows that were on and no doubt fists were often shook from the direction of Montrose in the direction of the BBC and Jonathon Ross when all the good guests plumped for Wossy on Friday rather than Pat. How galling it must have been that Wossy is recorded on Thursday so many of them were probably actually available. Is it possible that Pat’s lack of sense of humour and disapproval of the celebrity machine preceded him?
Well a new era in light entertainment beckons for the Irish people with Pat’s announcement last Friday that he is retiring. Of course I didn’t watch it. I heard it on Twitter first but nothing would tempt me to watch it. Nothing. The only time I ever watched it since Pat came on board was for the Toy Show.I did it for the kids and the ideas!
Maybe in the future as I settle down with a bottle of wine I’ll look back at the early teens of the 21st century as the golden age of Friday night entertainment on RTÉ. To help us get there I have a wee poll below. I felt that a lot of male presenters’ name were being bandied about so, with a big obvious nod to positive discrimination, my choices are all Irish female television presenters. Have at ye!