Regrets (first in an occasional series)
I should have listened to more John Peel.

Now he's gone.

I'll admit I didn't like a great deal of the music he played, or the acts he discovered, and never got into the habit of listening to the exploration of British idiosyncracy that he seemed to enjoy so much in his later years.

But he had a brilliant ease and charisma as a broadcaster, enabling the listener to at least understand his passion and perspective, if not always agree with it. A colleague called him the champion of the unsigned and the unsung.

The words great and legendary are overused, especially at times of death. And maybe it's folly to use them for someone famed for playing records. But John Peel was so much more than a mere disc jockey, and in his field, few, if any, have ever been more worthy of the epithets.

I should have listened to him while I could.