I tuned in in the middle of Susan McReynolds's Spirit Moves on Radio One on Sunday. This was fortunate because nobody could have stayed tuned having heard the intro (which I heard when I listened back online). "Today is Holocaust Martyrs' Remembrance Day, " McReynolds intoned, and then something about our "collective consciousness". Horrendous. Forget the "Remembrance Day" rubbish . . . an international "Day" is always the laziest of hooks for a feature . . . and get straight into it. Once that was out of the way, they did get into it and it was smart, incisive talk on the subject of learning the grim lessons of history from an eclectic and expert panel, in which the South African ambassador, Priscilla Jana, shone.

The only shame was that Danny Morrison wasn't present in studio in Montrose but was contributing from Belfast. Guests have to be around a table for sparks to truly fly . . . sparks of anger or sparks of insight . . . and having one at a remove always dampens a discussion. Was budget a factor? The Late Late Show doesn't talk to people in their Belfast studio.

There was more smart history talk on Talking History on Newstalk, with Patrick Geoghegan and Lindsey Earner-Byrne. Geoghegan was once (and not so long ago) a precocious debater at UCD, who wore his intellect on his sleeve and wasn't afraid to rub it in your face. But he seems to have mellowed with age (he must be in his 20s at least by now) and has a fine radio voice and easy manner.

The latter is something David Norris could not be accused of on Newstalk on Sunday night. This was a repeat of his morning programme . . . but why the offputting announcement that it is a repeat? Why not have Norris record a fresh intro and edit that in for the repeat broadcast? Instead of an announcer telling us that the station couldn't be bothered making an extra hour's radio for the Sunday evening audience, we'd have David Norris telling us his programme was so good he thought he'd play it again. Which would be entirely in character. Rachel Allen was supposedly the guest but, for the most part, this was like one of those concept interviews where a person interviews themself. It could have been unbearable but Norris's delight in the sound of his own voice is infectious and it was difficult not to laugh along with him at his own jokes.

There were more good voices just after on Newstalk's new arts programme, The Snug. Roger Greene plays the straight man while Ulick O'Connor plays both Fool and Lear, sniping at Greene and then raving unchecked in magnificent soliloquies. On Sunday, they were talking about Oscar Wilde, for no apparent reason other than they like to talk about dead Irish writers.

Ulick talked to me recently for an article on the Abbey and concluded by dismissing me with the line, "The ignorance of people like you talking about theatre really annoys me." He regularly bats off his copresenter's comments or questions with similar derision. (Greene handles him with aplomb. ) Like Vincent Browne, he is an instinctive egalitarian: he is no respecter of status when it comes to condescension.

This is how late-night radio should be: idiosyncratic, intelligent and curmudgeonly. Wonderful.

Eithne Tynan is away