DIARY: Calling on Howard Stern for a nasty and real radio feud

It did seem that radio personalities at Singapore station MediaCorp had forgotten that the fight's outside with the rival station rather than inside among themselves.

So for about a week, listeners had MediaCorp's star breakfast hosts Glenn Ong and the Flying Dutchman, aka Mark Van Cuylenberg, exchanging insults kindergarten-style on air over - get this - a car park space.

Laugh if you want but remember this is tiny Singapore, car park space is in short supply in this car-mad city. And well ... it's the little things that people here get hot and bothered about. Ong with his Perfect Ten 98.7 co-host "brudder" Rod Monteiro called the Dutchman's Class 95 FM breakfast trio "piranhas in Amazon 95". Ouch.

The Dutchman's partners Margaret Lim and Vernon A responded with equally explosive personal insults - the pair laughed at Ong's preference for singlets, trimmed armpit hair and tattoos. Double ouch.

But where were the really nasty comebacks a la Howard Stern, the US radio jock, who made his career hurling vitriol at office mates, advertisers and even his audience.

Remember this is Singapore and the gloves rarely come off. Even so if was enough to get callers pricking up their ears, playing mediators or pot-stirrer. Some suggested ways for the two to kiss and make up or to report on the other side's latest verbal attacks.

The war of words led to a public telling off of the two on Friday by MediaCorp's management, calling them an embarrassment to the company.

They were told to resolve the issue once and for all in public on Tuesday at noon. That was April 1! MediaCorp said they cooked up the elaborate April Fool's joke to promote the morning programmes on the two channels.

Or did they? The venom in the feud sure sounded real. If there wasn't any genuine mutual dislike between those two, we'd say, 'sign them up as stars for the MediaCorp small screen'.