The fabulous Baker boy

Louis Barfe salutes the departing hero of breakfast time anti-DJing, Danny Baker

The best breakfast show just left town. Hours after winning DJ of the Year at the Sony Radio Academy Awards, BBC London's Danny Baker (aka 'the Candyman') announced on-air that he'd be leaving at the end of the month to write a film script. Given the early starts, we should be grateful he lasted three years.

The award is curious, though. Baker deserved a Sony, but he's not really a disc jockey. He said as much when accepting the gong. Even when he did music shows at Radio 1, GLR and Virgin, he was an anti-DJ. He sorted through CDs with the microphone open, mumbling about being convinced he'd brought something with him. The only jingles he had were sober but surreal ("Danny Baker - BBC Governors up to their knees in hookers and gin"), the antithesis of the lush harmonies and cheery vacuity that usually prevail.

The breakfast show (6am-9am weekdays - while stocks last) has been a speech programme - apart from Baker's own karaoke singing and the odd music clip - and a very good one at that. The Candyman can't be allowed to take all the credit, though, being aided greatly by dry-witted sports reporter Mark O'Donnell (who once responded superbly to an item about Enoch Powell with "You've got to hand it to the old, dead racist"), the rather wonderful New Jersey-born lesbian impresario Amy Lamé (who sometimes rescued interviews when Baker was bored) and put-upon financial expert David Kuo.

Anyway, with Baker gone, who will take over? Vanessa Feltz and cabbie manqué Jon Gaunt (please, God, no) are both in the frame, but a doubled audience isn't something you just piss away.

A suggestion: Chris Evans isn't doing much, apart from some very good bank holiday stand-ins on Radio 2. Like Baker, many can't stand him (everyone has a right to be wrong), but I think it's a crying shame that such an inventive broadcaster should be on the sidelines, however self-inflicted.

Returning briefly to jingles, if you remember delights like "It's the happy, happy sound [Insert DJ's name here in a voice that sounds as though the speaker is being goosed with a bastard file]...of Radio 1!", you'll appreciate Don't Touch That Dial (BBC Radio 4, tonight, 11.30pm), a history of the genre. I hope it mentions my favourite, from late 1960s Radio 1, consisting of a Texan choir singing, "Go! BBC! Powerpack!" Whatever that means.