Terry Wogan
Terry Wogan
Sir Michael Terence Wogan, KBE, DL, known popularly as Terry Wogan, or Sir Terry, was a radio and television broadcaster from Ireland who worked for the BBC in the UK for most of his career. Before he retired in 2009, his BBC Radio 2 weekday breakfast programme Wake Up to Wogan had eight million regular listeners, making him the most listened-to radio broadcaster in Europe...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionRadio Host
Date of Birth3 August 1938
CityLimerick, Ireland
CountryIreland
I don't think there's a public in the world who respond like the British to a call for charity.
The BBC knew I was successful from early on, but they weren't sure why, and they still aren't sure. What I do has been unconventional from the beginning, so they've never been sure. It just works. It just does.
All of us are private to ourselves. Nobody ever really knows anybody else. Everybody in the world keeps something to themselves.
All reality TV shows are a triumph of voyeurism. They choose contestants who are ill-suited and slightly freakish.
It's only a matter of time before it all starts to fall apart, before things start to fall off. Short legs, long body. The kind of person who in the Middle Ages would come up over the hill on his horse, and they'd say, 'Get Wogan,' and I'd be there with my shield, the first to die.
I try to swim for 30 minutes and walk for 30 minutes, because if I don't, my finely honed body will slip into its old ways.
A television chat show is light entertainment, so it is trivial by its very nature. It is hardly the place to get people to reveal their innermost thoughts. Then it becomes sensationalism, and you lower yourself to the level of the popular newspapers.
I suppose I should make a little apology to Cyndi - although I'm not taking the blame for this - because I was the one who did say Cyndi had won.
The culture now in television is that the presenter calls the financial and, increasingly, the creative shots. It is comparable to what happened in Hollywood 15 or so years ago
People who are successful should never forget that its 90 per cent luck. Youve got to be an eejit to be an egomaniac. I had my glory years - Blankety Blank, the talk show, when I was winning every award going.
"I'm glad there's been so much laughter in the audience tonight." "But they're not laughing with you. They're laughing at you."
Sadly, I cant avoid being 75. Like many people of my age, we are all heading towards the grim reaper, and I am clinging on. I just to have to sharpen my fingernails a little so that I can hang on for longer!
Jamie Oliver's lunch is soup, half a papaya with lime, ciabatta with mozzarella and prosciutto. The dear boy is not sharing the same planet as the rest of us. Is this lunacy supposed to be a practical suggestion for a harassed housewife trying to drag her children off to school?
Television contracts the imagination and radio expands it.