Either I’m the Flash, or the Stairway to Heaven never ends

FORGIVE the intrusion, but I have a question for you. First, though, I need to explain a little bit about my typical Sunday routine.

Generally speaking, I tend to kickstart the day by listening to John Bowman’s excellent weekly trawl through the Montrose radio vaults on RTÉ Radio 1. Afterwards, I usually keep an ear on Sunday Miscellany, even though it has a tendency to stray too far into the realms of folksiness for my tastes.

By the time I start bracing myself to write this column, I will have invariably switched to RTÉ Gold, the digital station specialising in the sounds of yesteryear.

The banter from the DJs is of the Smashie and Nicey variety, but the music selection is usually pretty good. But I occasionally wonder if the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.

Some time around 10.30am yesterday, one of the DJs put on Led Zeppelin’s woeful Stairway To Heaven.

Barely an hour later, however, whoever had replaced him played it again.

I turned the volume down completely on the second occasion, but when I went to turn it back up some time later, the ludicrous Robert Plant was still warbling away.

Given that I had managed to do a week’s ironing, drink four cups of tea, take a bath, walk around the block twice and watch an entire boxset of Deadwood in the meantime, you can probably guess what my question is: just how long exactly does Stairway To Heaven drag on for?