A perfect encapsulation of the In Our Time experience. Hearing Melvyn Bragg failing to understand quantum mechanics is one my favourite things. He does it two or three times a year.
There are 10 types of people in the world, but there is only one Melvyn
The podcast is the great civiliser of the modern journey to work: consume as you commune as you commute. The career-minded IT Pro, isolated and ear-shelled up like Mildred Montag in Fahrenheit 451, can simultaneously CPD up the latest tech while elbowing down the carriage to be near the woman who, having stowed her iPad in its …
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Wednesday 28th March 2018 09:09 GMT x 7
to be honest, the program would be much more enjoyable if Bragg kept his mouth shut. Or if he wasn't there at all. His random injections of speech seem only to exist to justify his pay cheque by proving he was awake during the recording
Bring back James Burke - he would be a much better interrogator
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Wednesday 28th March 2018 09:49 GMT fedoraman
If you press litmus paper to Jim Al-Khalili, does it go blue?
There are some truly wonderful episodes of IoT, it is always a favourite to listen to. And, I might add, Inside Health, Inside Science, Material World, Costing the Earth, All in the Mind, A History of the World, The Bottom Line. Best of all - The Life Scientific.
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Wednesday 28th March 2018 15:42 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: If you press litmus paper to Jim Al-Khalili, does it go blue?
More or Less is brilliant.
I love the fact that they explained government spending cuts and unemployment during the recent recession via the medium of making members of the Trumpton Fire Brigade redundent.
Then when prosititution got included in GDP figures it was back to Trumpton to find out what the ex-fireman was doing now that he'd found a new job...
I believe it was the piece on Cambridge Analytica that had many a Reg commentard outing themselves as Radio 4 listeners. Then this. It's almost like El Reg knows...
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Wednesday 28th March 2018 11:48 GMT JeffyPoooh
Re: Not great for car radio
Terry noted that radio shows "always seem to begin....a few minutes before I start a car journey or end a few minutes after I get out."
It's 2018 and humans have still not coordinated the timing of radio shows and employment (and thus commuting) schedules.
e.g. 7:59am, pull into the parking lot, "And now, the BBC News....", switch off car and enter work.
e.g. 5:01pm, walk out to car, turn on car and radio, "...and that was the BBC News."
As the Doomsday Asteroid streaks across the sky, many of us will be caught unawares.
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Wednesday 28th March 2018 16:11 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Letter from American
And no, I'm not talking about The Proclaimers.
Alistair Cooke's. Radio 4 have put many/all (well nearly 1,000) of the things online. I think the later ones are a bit less impressive, though I still liked them. But as an interesting piece of commentary on US 20th Century history, many of them are great. After the first few hundred you might notice him repeating the odd story, but given he'd been doing the damned things for 40 years by that point (and had never heard of a podcast) I'd happily forgive him.
The Media Show is a good podcast too. But I'm still getting used to the new host, since Steve Richards died.
Oh, and on the subject of podcasts. Mike Duncan's 'History of Rome' and then 'Revolutions' are truly brilliant. Although the first few start a bit shakily - given he'd never cast his pod before.
And my new favourite is David Crowther's 'The History of England'. He started with the Romans, and is now up to Henry VIII - but he's been slowing down. Hard to do ten years in a single podcast, when there is so much more information. Though I believe he prefers to call them shedcasts.
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Wednesday 28th March 2018 19:32 GMT Len
Melvyn Bragg in his fiery lair on the roof of the Tate
There was a comedy drama podcast some time ago where the protagonist was someone wishing to join the intellectual elite (or at the very least able to understand the Times Crossword) and their journey through life from a young age to achieve this.
The big reveal and climax of the show is that it is all just theatre, there are no solutions to the Times Crossword (people just use them as a kind of shibboleth and pretend to solve them) most versions of high art are not understood by anyone and the evil genius behind the whole charade is Melvyn Bragg who, as some kind of end boss, resides in a fiery lair on the roof of the Tate.
I wish I could remember who it was by...
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Monday 2nd April 2018 21:45 GMT Jonathan Richards 1
In Our Time, and repeated at a later time
The morning broadcast is actually live, and so it often has the features that Verity describes, with lurches of logic and certain academics trying to hog the microphone. I listen to these on morning drives, and then often hear the evening repeat. The latter has had the benefit of attention from the editing suite, and often there are entire segments that have been shifted so that things make more sense, and fluffs have been taken out. I guess the polished versions are the ones that make it onto iPlayer and the podcast platforms.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
