Radio Review

The day before, the talk had been of jellied eels, but on yesterday's BBC Radio Lincolnshire Breakfast Show, host Rod Whiting had rather more pressing issues to deal with. "Lincolnshire rocks!," he cried at 7am, referring to the earthquake that had centered on the county overnight. Whiting, or "Rodders" as everyone calls him, had a lightness of tone to his commentary. "Are we all done shaking around now?" he asked. "Holy Moly! I knew I shouldn't have had that brussels sprout."

This tone was fine, because nobody had been hurt and there was no evidence of serious damage. So the show became a place for local listeners to swap stories as they awoke from a scary night. The details were often delightful. One listener emailed in to say that their dog was "huffy" because he thought that they, rather than the quake, had propelled him off their bed. Another listener knew something was up because "the cat flap was going". Keeping on the animal theme, Rodders recalled looking out of his window after the tremor. "I could just hear the birds singing at 1am this morning," he said. It was local radio at its finest: a little silly round the edges, but extremely useful.