John Peel in the daytime

It's not clear whose idea it was but for a week in April 1993 Jakki Brambles was away from her lunchtime Radio 1 show and deputising for her was John Peel, "the bloke who comes on your radio late at night and plays you records by lots of sulky Belgians". Peel does the normal daytime DJ stuff of course: chart rundowns, travel news, weather forecasts and talking over the ends of records, all with a heavy dose of irony. "Hello fans, it's gorgeous pouting John Peel sitting in for Jakki Brambles and bringing you two and a quarter hours of top tunes for all the family." But Jakki's regular listeners were in for something of a musical education. For in amongst the pop tunes of the day - Madonna, Go West, Sybil, Sub Sub etc - were some Peel favourites - The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Undertones, The Fall and PJ Harvey - together with slabs of reggae, rockabilly, world music, techno and boogie-woogie. Peel seems convinced that his daytime listeners won't be aware of his evening show, explaining how the recorded sessions work. At the same time when he plays mainstream hits by the Human League or the Jam he could always brag that he played them first. But he doesn't.
When Peel signs off with "I've thoroughly enjoyed myself" I'm not convinced he meant it. After his one week in the daylight the experiment is not repeated. This is a taste of the show from Monday 5 April 1993. Note how listeners were sending "faxes". Who on earth had a fax machine at home? One can only assume listeners were "borrowing" the work's machine. You can read more about this show and, of course, all the regular Peel programmes in David Cavanagh's excellent book Good Night and Good Riddance.