Radio insomnia

It’s 2.43 a.m. Unable to sleep, you reach out into the night for company: literally. Out goes your arm, towards the radio on the bedside table, and you grope for the ‘on’ button. You bring the radio close to you: a hard, cold, rectangular cuddly toy with an aerial instead of ears, and you turn the volume down as low as you can so that it won’t wake your sleeping companion, if you have one. When a radio is this close to your eyes, you see two of each of its parts.

If Radio 4 is your daytime listening, you’ll find yourself in World Service Land at this time of the night.  The first sentence you’ll hear will be something like, ‘The group is believed to have carried out a number of attacks in northern Nigeria.’ Or, ‘Sierra Leone is in the grip of an epidemic.’ Or, ‘The sticks were half-covered in blood: they’d been used to beat the people to death.’

The reason you’re wide awake in the first place is because you’re an anxious type. This kind of stuff doesn’t help. As you listen, your whole body goes rigid with the horror of it. Unless, that is, you’re the kind of insomniac who is actually soothed by the thought that your own life could be worse.

‘People are having a terrible time in Africa, right now, but it’s not me: I’m just worried about where on earth I put those insurance documents, so I’ll just turn over and get some sleep.’

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How many of us, as we listen to  ‘Sailing By’, with its consoling-but-sad ascending and descending scales, wait with dread for the rallentando at the end, because that means that the end of the Radio 4 day is in sight? If ‘Dogger, Fisher, German Bight’, followed by a lovely presenter wishing us a peaceful night, followed by the drumroll of the National Anthem, don’t get us to sleep, we’ll be thrust into the world of Radio 4’s brash and harsh sister station for four whole hours.

Should insomniacs switch to Five Live and listen to Up All Night instead? Perhaps.