Radio gaga

What is it about French radio stations? In fact, I don't think it's so much French radio stations as commercial stations.

For anyone who is used to the BBC, foreign commercial radio can come as a surprise. Not just because of the quality, but also because of the repetition.

No matter which station we choose - and we vary our listening in the office between RTL2, NRJ and Paris' very own Voltage - we get the same songs over and over again.

RTL2 will give us a guaranteed five Phil Collins songs and at least two from the Police during the day (heaven help us). NRJ plays current pop, while Voltage promises 'Don't Speak' at least once an hour. God bless Gwen Stefani, I do love her little Harajuku self, but it's a bit much.

All three have playlists that seem to be no more than 20 songs long.

It makes for real groundhog day listening, but it does have its advantages...

For example, I can sing you the full verse and chorus of at least three Pussycat Dolls songs. Not something I'd have been able to do without having them drummed into my head every hour, on the hour. Now I just need to work on the moves.

Also, between me and Debbie, we've invented new words (dirty ones, natch) to 'If I was a boy' from Beyoncé - a song that needed cheering up, if ever I heard one. We can also do the uh-huh bits in the chorus of Womanizer, which is nice.

And don't even get me started on Lady Gaga and her Poker Face. All I'll say is 'words and moves, baby'.

BBC Radio 2, the UK's number one, does indeed have a playlist. But it's a pretty big playlist and there's rarely more than a handful of songs that you'll hear more than a couple of times a day.

But then, French radio does have things in common with the Beeb. Whilst it's not in the same league as her royal holiness Sally Traffic, here in Paris Voltage radio do manage to keep us informed every 30 minutes of the kilometrage of traffic jams currently in the Île de France.

They also tell us when someone has hurled themselves under a métro train - which throws the network into chaos and which disrupts the journey home for millions of people. Unfortunately this happens all too often.

And at the moment, they are providing us with regular updates on what to expect from tomorrow's national strike, thus making sure that at least half the workforce have an excuse for not bothering to come into work tomorrow.

Now that's what I call public service broadcasting!