I LOVE THE SMELL OF RADIO IN THE MORNING

Smell is the most evocative sense. If the eyes are the windows of the soul, the nose is the catflap of the imagination. 

If I could show you a photograph of you, opening a Christmas present when you were five years old, you might say, "I remember that teddy bear. I had him until he fell apart." But if you suddenly smell the particular fragrance of that new teddy bear as you unwrapped it, mingled with pine scent of the Christmas tree and the Terry's Chocolate Orange you'd been eating since dawn - WHAM. A flood of memory engulfs you. You're there, on that Christmas day, living through the moment again. Which is not always a good thing, especially if you didn't want a stuffed bear, you wanted a puppy. The Christmas moment you relive so vividly may be infused with boiling resentment, simmering Brussels sprouts and hot, salt tears.

Why does an aroma have the power to create an experience so completely? One answer may be neurobiological. The amygdala, a part of the brain involved in processing emotions, is located close to the top of the nose. And it's next to the hippocampus, which plays a big part in the function of memory. If you want to find out how inadequately I've summarised this, you can read a proper scientific article about it here. But whatever the process, smell stimulates the imagination in a unique way. The stimulus engages us and we do most of the work, and this investment makes us participants rather than observers.

Now, I'm not suggesting that we listen to radio through our noses. Although I'm not ruling it out, either. I had a cousin who claimed to get better radio reception through the fillings in his teeth than from any external apparatus. But in addition to what he identified as episodes of The Archers, he also heard other voices in his head which probably weren't being broadcast by the BBC, especially the ones explaining that the best way to save the souls of sinners was to expose himself to them on the bus.

But it's what radio doesn't do, as much as what it does, that makes it such a powerful medium. And for me, the process of listening to radio has affinities with the sense of smell. A radio drama, for example, can create a whole world. You may be hearing nothing more than a voice and a couple of sound effects coming out of a small, tinny speaker, but they can transport you to distant places and times, and conjure landscapes that are real even if they're fantastical. They can take you inside the mind of a character, plunge you into the thick of dramatic action, engage your most profound feelings, and generally juice up the parts of your imagination no other medium can reach so effectively.

Here's an example. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams was a big, cult success that eventually appeared in many formats. But here's the crucial trajectory:

• It began as a brilliant radio series
• It was adapted into a mediocre TV series
• It then became a lousy film

The more money they spent, the worse it got. The radio series was a wonderful journey through a sci-fi multiverse that existed entirely inside your mind. But the physical actuality of television curtailed the boundless possibilities of your imagination, and defined every person, place and artefact as this, rather than whatever my mind's eye can see. The film version simply went to more elaborate lengths to disappoint you. The playfulness of the radio series depended in part on the kind of surreal paradox that is killed stone dead if you start taking it literally. The mind can entertain two contradictory ideas at once, but most television can only manage one, and less than that in the case of Top Gear. As for film, most mainstream movies are now pure spectacle: hyperactive kinetic distractions from meaningful experience. Radio stimulates the imagination, spectacle replaces it.

And for a performer radio is a dream. You don't have to wear makeup or a costume, or even any clothes at all. Not many people know that most of the classical music presenters on BBC Radio 3 work in the nude. Very sensitive listeners can detect an erotic charge during programme handovers, when presenters may brush against each other on their way in and out of the studio, and an added frisson of passion to discussions of Debussy when invited guests enjoy the relaxed attitude to clothing. Meanwhile, the great advantage of acting on radio is that you can give a misleading impression of your appearance. I've done some radio acting, as well as writing and presenting, and when people meet me they're often surprised by how tall they are.

Talking of the BBC, it's a fact that while there are good independent stations out there, the UK radio airwaves are dominated by the corporation. I don't know if that dominance is fair, but I love BBC radio too much to care. It's utterly unique, and is so valuable that to dismantle or diminish it would be an act of national insanity even more deranged than the effort to destroy the NHS, the other shining beacon of British civilisation that's revered, like the BBC, everywhere in the world except for the front benches of the House of Commons and the foam-flecked editorials of the right wing press. Everyone else thinks BBC radio is a priceless jewel in world culture. Of course, it's not perfect. Like the rest of the BBC it has a top-heavy management structure that's as obsessed with itself as it is with the quality of programming.

A typical BBC management training exercise

Mao Zedong spoke of Permanent Revolution, and BBC management, fixated on endless assessments, visions, reviews and indicators, is perpetually revolving around itself like a vast troupe of bureaucratic dervishes attempting to whirl themselves into a posture from which they can inspect their own performance in a delirium of auto-proctology. However, the BBC is huge, complex organisation and it's much easier to criticise it from the outside than it must be to improve it from the inside. 

Likewise my personal dissatisfactions. As a listener I don't always like the content, and as a writer I'm sometimes frustrated by the commissioning process. Naturally, both these problems would be fixed simultaneously if they simply broadcast my stuff all the time. But these are quibbles, really, about the occasional fallibility of the priesthood in the church at which I worship. I use the religious analogy very deliberately. For me, radio at its best can be a transcendent experience. And it's a lot of fun, too. But if you think about the way that something as simple as a sound coming out of a box can draw you into infinite worlds of endless possibility, what is that if not a kind of miracle? Let's be grateful for it.

Meanwhile, I'm running a radio writing workshop in April. I won't promise miracles, just an instructive celebration of what, for writers, can be the most creative medium of all. Details HERE.