We’ve all needed a laugh over the last year to get us through and two former Peterborough radio presenters who created a podcast to cheer us all up have just recorded their one hundredth episode.
Paul Stainton and Ronnie Barbour were popular broadcasters on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire for many years and their enduring friendship has seen them get together to recreate some of their on-air fun in the form of a weekly podcast called Total BS.
A year since they started entertaining people across the city, the cheeky old chaps have reached a major milestone recording their one hundredth podcast and are threatening to carry on!
The podcast takes a sideways look at the week’s news, in an effort to combat the misery of the lockdown, with as many cheap gags as possible.
“We do it for nothing,” says Paul. “Nobody would pay for this rubbish anyway.
“We felt when we started a year ago that people needed cheering up and we attempted to give them an escape from the constant doom and gloom of the radio and the TV. It’s also been an important escape for us too – being silly for half an hour every week is very important for everybody – never stop being silly folks, in fact I positively encourage it!”
Ronnie and Paul first met in 1994 and have been enjoying winding each other up ever since.
“We complement each other beautifully,” says Ronnie, “I’m funny and he’s not, so it kind of works. His ‘jokes’ are longer than a question from Robert Peston, but at least his heart is in the right place.
“The constant bombardment of doom and gloom on the TV and radio is not good for people’s mental health and if we can contribute in any way to brightening people’s days then we are happy.
“We have had so many incredible messages from people across Cambridgeshire who just need an escape from reality, after a difficult day working in a hospital or a long shift in a factory. We are just happy that we could make a few people smile and we will keep doing it for as long as it is needed.”
Going forward, the ageing duo are hopeful that fame will come knocking, or at the very least, notoriety.
Paul and Ronnie would ask anybody who smiles at their antics to donate anything they can to a local charity of their choice in these difficult times.
You can listen to their latest podcast here:
And they have a video version every week too: