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Simon Garfield: The Nation's Favourite – The True Adventures of Radio 1 (Faber)

Andy Beckett, London Review of Books, 15 April 1999

RADIO 1 USED to sound like Surrey to me. Perhaps it was the disc jockeys they used in those days, with their creamy car-dealer's voices and their discreetly tabloid opinions; or the on-air pub quizzes and snooker, where female contestants were flirted with and spoken to slowly; or the endless suburban doze of the afternoon programmes; or the sense, if you cared about pop music, that the records played were nothing but restaurant muzak to the DJs – to be talked over, cut short, looped repeatedly, forgotten about.

Total word count of piece: 2514

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