Hoons take over Radio 4

Unexpected discussion of South African 'spinning' craze takes over the airwaves on the Today programme

By Dan Trent / Monday, 15 April 2013 / Loading comments

Radio 4's Today programme at 6:45am on a Monday morning isn't necessarily the first place you'd expect to hear about the latest hooning craze. But instead of John Humphrys harrumphing his way through an interview with an unfortunate junior minister we had engines ba-ba-ba-baaaaaaaping off the rev limiter, squealing tyres and an excitable reporter enjoying a first hand introduction to the South African craze for spinning.

Sandwiched between more regular fare (stories on the Venezuelan election and coke snorting football hooligans), the story explained spinning's roots as a gangland funeral ritual with dark roots in the infamous South African car jacking culture. All with a hearty bit of product placement for BMW as the wheels of choice for the participants in both activities. The car of choice - the E30 3 Series, known to Spinners as the box shape - is at the heart of the activity, described as 'motorsport' by Today but probably some way off FIA recognition. More's the pity. The idea of Vettel swapping his trademark finger in the air victory salute for setting his car up into a donut in parc ferme and back-flipping over it as it rotates would certainly liven things up.

This is during, not after, the action...

Still, there was a good news element to all this, spinning having been apparently reclaimed from its dark roots and now cited as a force for good bringing communities together and turning its back on gangland heritage. Indeed, the so-called '

king of spin

' Magesh earns his daily crust as a school bus driver. And his wife Patience is a traffic officer.

You'll be able to listen again to the report on iPlayer in due course (skip to about 40min in) and chuckle at the thought of Radio 4 listeners expecting their daily dose of current affairs instead having to put up with five minutes of howling straight-sixes and squealing tyres over their cornflakes and coffee.

And in keeping with presenter Evan Davies' advice to check out some online videos to get the full spinning experience we'll do our own PH take on public service broadcasting and provide you the means to do exactly that. Likewise the PH classifieds, where wannabe spinners can find their own box shape from a few hundred quid upwards.

[Sources: vprometropolis via Youtube, BBC Radio4 via iPlayer, Radio 4 Todayprogramme, NBC Photoblog]