Listeners to Essex FM at the start of this week were surprised to hear a message that morning presenter Martin Day, plus studio cohort Su Harrison had been taken off-air after comments about boy scouts in a recent show.

Within a few hours, listeners started springing up on Facebook trying to “Save Martin and Su”, but the whole story was in fact, a publicity stunt, presumably to hide the fact that the pair were taking a few days off, and in the hope of getting some media attention.

Seems Essex FM got what it bargained for – the badly-timed stunt clashed with the Jonathan Ross / Russell Brand / Andrews Sachs controversy, and, according to the Evening Echo, as “an unauthorised publicity stunt”. Parent company Global Radio is apparently launching an internal enquiry, and the pair returned to the station on Thursday.

For more on the story, see the Evening Echo Story, where you’ll find over 40 comments, mostly indicating that Southend Radio’s done rather well out of this.

Also, see the following story: Martin and Su’s jobs are safe

Silence is golden – and it’s about to be enforced on c2c.

For a while now, c2c has been running one in four of its train carriages as a "Quiet Zone", where mobile phones and other electronic devices are banned – but this is tricky to enforce, and sometimes scowls from fellow travellers just doesn’t work…

Soon, c2c will be making use of new technology on the Southend to Fenchurch Street line to block mobile phone signals.

Windows on the quiet carriages will be coated with a special film that will let light, but not RF radio frequencies, in and out of the carriage.

c2c says that this is in response to customer demand for a quieter trip, and a better option that trying to police a "keep quiet" policy on its train services.