Characters

As heard on The Thursday Triangle. Every Thursday at 9 pm on Rugby Hospital Radio.*

*The UK's greatest patient-oriented hospital radio service.

Sid Reign

Phil & Ben are often visited in the studio by the dodgy weatherman Sid Reign, who provides a live "forecast". Little is known about Sid, except that he describes himself as an 'organic meteorologist'. His weather forecasts are prepared using only natural methods. The exact process is a secret known only to Sid himself, but the main element is seaweed. Sid recently returned to the Thursday Triangle after a few months hiatus. He was accepted back despite a problematic history plagued by late arrivals, inaccurate predictions and one unfortunate episode when he managed to fall out of the studio window. Ben was disappointed (but not surprised) to discover that Sid's body odour did not improve during his time away.

Frank Whyne

A regular caller to the Thursday Triangle, Frank Whyne phones in to contribute the weekly 'History Feature', in which he enlightens the hospital audience on anniversaries of historical happenings that occur on the day.

For the rest of the week, Frank spends most of his time cultivating his allotment patch and retreating from the modern world in his shed. He frequently enters (and wins) marrow-growing competitions.

Although he takes pride in his gardening, it seems that things for him are never as good as they used to be. When asked if he was excited about being mentioned on the Men In Glasses Website, he replied, "Website? Website? In my day lad, the only kind of webs we 'ad was cobwebs!" Asked if he knew what the Internet was, he declared "We didn't 'ave 'Internet' or whatever you call it in my day. We 'ad fishing nets though - that were great, fishing". He also declined the chance to send Phil & Ben an e-mail: "E-mail! In my day lad we 'ad females! Females lad! We'd be out and about 'at town chasing young women, not sittin' indoors on computers writing e-mails!"

T.O. Ryman

Mr Ryman often phones up during the Thursday Triangle to discuss the goings on in the Borough of Rugby and read out stories from the local papers. A close scrutiniser of public life, Mr Ryman uses every opportunity he can to express his often forthright views.

The man who has been described as "Britain's most opinionated, pedantic, po-faced pensioner" (and whose initials stand for Tarquin Oswald) lives in Farrite Way in Rugby with Mrs Ryman and his gun dog Enoch. A staunch patriot, Mr Ryman raises and lowers the union flag on a pole at the bottom of his garden every day. He laments "the slipping of standards in every aspect of our society nowadays". However, he admits to rather liking Phil & Ben, as "they have a bit of gumption about them, not like most of those good-for-nothing young layabouts these days".

He also has a soft spot for Rugby Hospital Radio. "They visited me to ask for a request and played me some beautiful classical music whilst I was in hospital," he explains, "I enjoyed it so much that I decided to pay to have hospital radio piped directly to my home. I believe I am the only member of the public to have the facility". Indeed he is and this explains how he is able to hear the programme.

Mr Ryman refused to allow his likeness to appear on this site. "You don't know what warped minds are looking on that Internet thing", he says.

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