Rewind radio: Radioplayer; Ken Bruce; Jeremy Vine – review Radio 2's April fool was so effective it was hard to tell when the joking was over

Rob Brydon: 'the most brilliantly subtle impression'. Photograph: Richard Saker

Radioplayer was launched this week. I'd tootle a trumpet, but showing off isn't Radioplayer's point, it being one of those online services that's so user-friendly it's as though it's always been there. All you need to know is that, from now on, if you Google Radio 4, or Absolute, or Capital, what you'll hear comes via Radioplayer. And that once you're using it, you can save your favourite stations and use its search engine to find others.



Radioplayer has been 18 months in the making and is slick, discreet and impressive. No doubt it will be adopted by every UK radio broadcaster station out there. A success, then – but a success with one major flaw (for those used to YouTube and Spotify). You can't really search by artist yet. I typed in "Justin Bieber" and "Adele" and got links for Justin Webb on the Today programme and Radio 3's Late Junction with Adel Salameh... Still, having met the head of Radioplayer, Michael Hill, I have no doubt that this will be rectified soon. That man is a radio ninja.

Radio 2's Ken Bruce is not, I must admit, my regular morning listen, but on Friday, he seemed a changed man. "You're a heavy drinker, is that right?" he said to a caller. "Sorry, you're a campaigner for real ale." Hmm. Ken turned out not to be Ken, but Rob Brydon doing the most brilliantly subtle impression. Gradually, gradually, throughout the programme, people caught on; though I have friends who are regular Ken Bruce listeners and they genuinely didn't notice, just thought Ken was having a funny turn. "Is he drunk?" wondered one. "Why is he singing?" tweeted another. A listener texted in to ask "Ken" if he was as happy at home as on the radio. "Ah no," he said. "I think the doctor described it as 'bipolar'… When I get home, I stare at the wall a lot of the time and play PopMaster with the cushions. Hello, Red Cushion." A proper, properly funny April fool.

Unfortunately, it made everything else afterwards seem like a mickey-take as well. And Ken was followed by Jeremy Vine. As regular readers may know, I have been worried about Jeremy recently: if you compare him with his previous incarnation as a Newsnight/Panorama presenter, it's as though he's been subject to nightly brain-washing by the Daily Mail. Post-Ken, he went straight into an item on speed cameras and I really didn't know if it was a joke or not.

Anyway, all this week, Jeremy has been discussing parenting, and there were some moving testimonies from callers. However, one of Jeremy's parenting "experts" was ex-copper Peter Bleksley. (Weirdly, he was also on Radio 4's The Reunion about the Brixton riots last month.) Perhaps he was an amazing policeman, but his parenting tips were a little brusque. "You have to stop the isolation in the first place," he said to a mother whose teenage daughter was shutting her bedroom door in her face. "Make listening to music a collective thing." Oh yes, that'll work. Gather round the gramophone, everyone, Nan's about to drop Jessie J!