EXPERTS. We can’t get enough of them these days. Michael Gove’s Brexity soundbite about us not needing them anymore, which, loath as I am to be fair to him, has always been misquoted (his complaint was about experts who consistently got things wrong, which obviously doesn’t apply to Gove’s own predictions about Brexit at all, no siree) is no longer relevant these days.

No sooner had the government “got Brexit done” (I accept experts might quibble over this particular soundbite) than a pandemic came along, and we were desperate for experts again.

And no sooner does the pandemic go away (if it truly has), than a European war breaks out and broadcasters are scrambling to find academics and authors who know their Urals from their Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyis (and yes, of course, I had to look that up).

Their contributions were, inevitably, far from cheerful. On Monday morning on 5 Live, Adrian Chiles ended up talking to Dr Nick Ritchie, senior lecturer in international security at the University of York about what a limited nuclear strike might look like.

“It’s an oxymoron, really, to talk about limited nuclear war,” Dr Ritchie admitted. “The level of violence would be beyond anything we had experienced ... beyond that which we experienced in World War Two.”

We’re not there yet, he added. But the fact that he was even discussing it was enough to ruin my day, quite frankly.

Later on 5 Live Drive former Ukrainian Eurovision winner Ruslana turned up to give an impassioned monologue. Tony Livesey couldn’t get a word in. “Putin’s war is a war against civilisation,” she said as he tried.

“We are ready to be killed,” she added at the end. That’s as chilling a statement as any, said by a Eurovision winner or not, about where we are right now.

What to listen to in between doom-scrolling? How about some Radio 4 comedy?

Who said that was another oxymoron? Actually, it might have been me. I’m as guilty as anyone of making grand sweeping statements about Radio 4’s attempts at humour and then quite enjoying it when I actually tune in (unless it’s a comedy panel show, of course. Goes without saying).

The return of Jan Etherington’s third age sitcom Conversations from a Long Marriage (Radio 4, Wednesday) had me sniggering a couple of times. That’s partly down to the delivery of its stars Joanna Lumley and the glorious Roger Allam, who spark off each other rather delightfully. But it was also down to Etherington’s one-liners.

Admittedly, the odd one or two of them might, like the programme’s stars, have been around the block a time or two. “Come upstairs and make love to me,” Lumley said to her radio husband at one point. “It will have to be one or the other,” he replied.

Etherington had the good grace to acknowledge it was not an original joke. But it still made me giggle.

Conversations … is a cosy, comfy listen perhaps. Even so, it’s rather sweet to find a comedy that can imagine an older couple still in love and still able to fancy each other, despite all the worry creaking bones and love handles.

Listen Out For: 6 Music’s 20th Birthday, Friday. The BBC radio station has a day of celebration planned marking 20 years to the day when Phill Jupitus played the first record on the station, Burn Baby Burn by Ash (still an utter banger). The favourite radio destination for wannabe hipster dads and mums everywhere. And mine too. Read into that what you will.