Millie Week 36, Mon 13 - Sat 18 May 1991

This weeks prop is the phone.

0898 numbers in those days were 'premium rate services', which is as good a euphemism as as for sex lines I suppose.

Brian Shark is an amalgam of two radio hosts who were the nearest thing we had to shock jocks in the 1990s.

Brian Hayes worked for LBC, and was famed for his short temper with people who called and then just spouted received opinion. He was on a crusade against lazy thinking. In that way he was actually the exact opposite of todays talk show hosts, who will mercilessly punish anyone who calls in with ideas that disagree with their own narrow opinions. James Whale, on the other hand, was a harbinger of exactly that kind of radio host. He's mellowed over the years, but is no less populist.  

The ten second delay allowed the phone-in host time to deploy the profanity button if anyone swore on air.

The final strip was a private joke - just me saying hello to my friends at the time. But it was also a jab at the kind of people who would ring up the station and reel out an endless list of names on air, inevitably closing with 'and anyone else that knows me.'

So that would be me then.