From the day he accepted he was never going to be good looking, Thaao Dill was destined to be a radio star.

Thousands of people who wake up every weekday to the talented 24-year-old’s witty banter on Bermuda’s most popular radio station are no doubt glad he wasn’t hit with the handsome stick after all.

His mix of anecdotes, prank calls and refreshingly easy-going interviews with politicians have helped make Hott 1075 FM essential early-morning listening to many and turned Mr. Dill into a household name across the Island. In an interview with The Royal Gazette, the presenter tells how he was converted almost overnight from a swing voter into an out and proud Progressive Labour Party supporter following last year’s appointment of 25-year-old Davida Morris as a Senator.

But he says despite his allegiance, he has no immediate plans to follow Sen. Morris or former co-presenter Glenn Jones onto Premier Ewart Brown’s bandwagon should the country’s leader come knocking.

He also reveals that, of his many breakfast show guests, he digs Colonel David Burch the most, reckons Shadow Justice Minister John Barritt is great and — despite an on-air disagreement over race — doesn’t believe Opposition Leader Michael Dunkley is a jerk.

Meeting Mr. Dill for the first time is a bit of a surprise. He’s shorter than you might think and doesn’t exactly possess the sumo-sized frame you would expect of a man whose two nicknames are Fat and Fatface.

And for someone who comes across as self-assured beyond his years on the radio, he’s very quick to pick faults in himself.

“Initially, I wanted to be handsome,” he said. “Then I gave up on that and decided I would take advantage of the gifts that I have been given and talk to people without having visual contact with them.

“I’m a ball of insecurities, but I’m comfortable in my insecurities. It’s like Gary Coleman. He knows he’s three foot seven. I’m sure he doesn’t go into shoe shops asking for size 12 Reeboks. I’m sure he wishes he was taller, just as I wish I was smarter and more articulate.”

Smart and articulate or not, the energy Mr. Dill puts into the breakfast show cannot be questioned, and his hard work is paying off. “At best, when we get it right, it’s a really good conversation that the average person wants to participate in,” he said. “It’s a dialogue that connects everybody that has the show on.

“Worst case scenario: it’s me trying to make myself laugh for four hours. It’s a sweet gig. There’s nothing else I would rather do than figuring out how to be good at this.”

With a General Election around the corner, Mr. Dill hopes his programme approaches the political warfield in a different way to other media outlets.

“I think I have been able to normalise things a bit, take a little bit of the extremism out of the conversation,” he said.

“We don’t force the politicians to sum themselves up. We will stick them on the air for an hour and a half and let them engage directly with the people live, unfiltered. Good, real dialogue. Get some mutual understanding. Talk about politics the way regular people do.

“You will never hear me use the phrase ‘political football’. That’s the one I loathe. It’s absolutely meaningless. It fosters extra separation between people on the ground.”

In recent months, he says every Government Minister and “a heap” of Opposition members have sat in the hotseat.

“We wanted to shift away from the paradigm,” he explained. “You go to the Minister, then you go to the Shadow, then you go to the Minister, then the Shadow comes back. It’s not only dishonest, it’s counter-productive. It’s all smoke and mirrors.

“We only have an Opposition member on when absolutely they want to do so. I don’t think their opinions on Government actions are any more important than many regular listeners. Over the past few months, the Opposition are making very clear overtures that they want to come on the programme.”

But how have United Bermuda Party guests taken to being interviewed by a self-proclaimed PLP fan? “John Barritt was great,” he said. “He was the most honest out of everyone we have had on this show from the UBP on the state of racism in the country. He didn’t sugar-coat it. He didn’t try and pretend as though the past is just that. He recognised it’s a current, contemporary problem.”

When Mr. Dunkley took his turn on the show, however, he clashed with Mr. Dill after apparently suggesting he did not recognise race issues as a major problem. “His assessment of the state of things in the country racially is wrong. I told him: ‘I don’t think you get it’,” said Mr. Dill. “But I don’t think he’s a jerk. He’s a really, really nice fellow.”

While diplomatically claiming nobody has been a bad guest, Mr. Dill declares Senator David Burch as his favourite interviewee. “I dig him man!” he said. “He just doesn’t care about anything other than his job. He doesn’t care if people don’t like him, or necessarily understand him. He just really wants to get things accomplished.”

Asked what the Housing Minister had done to solve Bermuda’s much-maligned shortage of affordable homes, Mr. Dill replied: “I think it’s symptomatic of the economic position Bermuda has been in over the past 20 years or maybe more.

“We have too many people in the country. The reason for that is we have the business to justify their presence. “There is so much wealth and prices go through the roof. Creating affordable housing is extraordinarily difficult.”

He cited Government’s geared-to-income rent scheme as one project which should make a difference. One person who has appeared on the show four or five times is the Premier — a man who has repeatedly refused to face being interviewed by this newspaper’s political reporter.

“I feel bad,” is Mr. Dill’s stance on the issue. “He’s pretty easy to get for us. If we call and say, he will set up a time. I think he feels pretty comfortable talking to us.”

It could be argued that comfort stems from Mr. Dill’s stated backing for the PLP, but the presenter insists he’s not a dyed-in-the-wool supporter. Explaining his loyalty to the party, he said: “The appointment of the Senator Davida Morris was one of the most important things I have experienced as a young Bermudian. I have been an avowed cynic my whole life. I believe quite firmly in the inherent flaws of people. I never trust anybody to be able to be better than their instinct. I thought people were instinctively bad until a couple of years ago.

“When the Premier decided to put someone I remember from high school in the Senate, I thought all right, this is it!

“That does not mean by any stretch of the imagination I’m down with it forever. Joining the PLP was sort of symbolic.

“I thought maybe if I decided to get involved, it must motivate some other kids to think if that guy can do it so can they.”

He says both political parties have approached him in a “cursory sense” to seek his involvement. “They said they would like me to represent them publicly,” he said. “But I don’t know that I’m willing to stop being silly. I don’t want to not do this, I really don’t. “I want Bermuda to be a better place but I like my prank calls. Maybe when I have kids, settle down, I might get more committed to satisfy myself emotionally.”

Calling for The Royal Gazette to put its own political cards on the table, he said: “I’m not saying (editor) Bill Zuill votes UBP, I don’t know, but the vibe the community has got from the paper historically for better or worse is that it’s a mouthpiece of sorts for the Opposition.”

Mr. Dill is clearly a keen observer of his media rivals and on his studio desk lurks a copy of last Friday’s Mid Ocean News.

Like a fat man on a diet caught eating a cheeseburger, he makes the dubious claim it was the first time he’d ever bought one.

He’s a regular viewer of the Island’s blogs, and is frustrated by constant references — particularly from politics.bm’s Christian Dunleavy — to Bermuda’s “timid press”.

“People assume that the media here is softer than it should be, but I think that’s intellectually dishonest as a perception,” he argued.

“One: as a community Bermuda wants nothing more from its citizens than to be polite.

“The press speaking to people with a pickaxe and a shovel is not what Bermudians want. It completely goes against the ethos of people here.

“Two: the people that make these complaints are self-proclaimed pundits that wish they were reporters. They wish they had the opportunity to get in these situations but for whatever reason they’d rather just backseat drive an interview.

“I have asked questions that I know have annoyed the heck out of the Premier, (UBP chairman) Shawn Crockwell, Michael Dunkley. You can ask them, but you can’t force them to answer.

“Then they say the press are timid just because they haven’t answered. It’s wild, man.”

On Mr. Dunleavy’s blog, he added: “He never raises a smile. If you are doing schtick, admit it.”

Mr. Dill’s broadcasting career, which began as a teenager on a US college radio show and has also taken in stints at ZBM, is clearly going to go a long way.

His ultimate goal is to host his own show in America. If and when that happens, a big gap is going to be left behind.