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Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#41

Post by GJim »

gorgoiler wrote: post #30

I love this programme and have listened to it since its inception. My goodness though is it guilty of reinforcing two quite negative parts of British media culture to which I am quite sensitive: let’s call them boffinphobia and basicism . Boffinphobia is where an otherwise interesting scientific topic gets downplayed by a programme or news presenter as being too difficult for them to understand, and in particular sai…

> I know the pigeon story about cosmic microwave background already: please elaborate on the......

We know that story, but many non-scientists don't.

The genius of In Our Time is genuine academic discussions accessible to the lay man. I found the In Our Time discussions on ancient Greece and the arts fascinating, despite these being two subjects I have no background in and know sweet FA about.

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#42

Post by geokon »

gorgoiler wrote: post #30

I love this programme and have listened to it since its inception. My goodness though is it guilty of reinforcing two quite negative parts of British media culture to which I am quite sensitive: let’s call them boffinphobia and basicism . Boffinphobia is where an otherwise interesting scientific topic gets downplayed by a programme or news presenter as being too difficult for them to understand, and in particular sai…

yep, i skip those episodes

similar issues are with non european cultural topics. You often get what i'd label wikipedia-depth

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#43

Post by pncnmnp »

benrutter wrote: post #12

I looked, and there's more than 1000 available episodes of IOT on the BBC, they're all (at least every one I've heard) brilliant. I'm curious if anyone here has any particular favourites? I remember really enjoying the Plankton episode because it took me the classic IOT route of "That doesn't sound interesting, but I'll give it a listen" to looking up all the reading list. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001r1t5

I recently listened to the episode on The Antikythera Mechanism and found it quite fun - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0024x0g

Also, I wanted to mention something interesting - back when LLM-driven applications were just emerging, someone posted on Hacker News about how they categorized In Our Time episodes using the Dewey Decimal System with LLMs. Cool stuff - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35073603

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#44

Post by geokon »

specproc wrote: post #4

Ach, very sad. Like Paxman on University Challenge, he was clearly finding it harder and harder towards the end. I hope he's alright, it'd be a tough one to let go of, I can't imagine a better show to present. Brilliant series, can't recommend highly enough to anyone who's not encountered it.

i wouldnt be surprized if hes been gently pushed out. unfortunately the clarity of his voice has noticeably worsened.

listen to a 10+ year old episode and he sounds much clearer

as a native speaker its all fine and intelligeable, but for anyone ESL it'd be challenging bc its so much mumbling now

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#45

Post by amiga386 »

gorgoiler wrote: post #30

I love this programme and have listened to it since its inception. My goodness though is it guilty of reinforcing two quite negative parts of British media culture to which I am quite sensitive: let’s call them boffinphobia and basicism . Boffinphobia is where an otherwise interesting scientific topic gets downplayed by a programme or news presenter as being too difficult for them to understand, and in particular sai…

In Our Time is meant to be a brief tour of basically every topic in arts, science, philosophy, etc. And yes, Melvyn has been an arts presenter for decades (his The South Bank Show started in 1978), science is not his forte.

Perhaps you'd prefer The Life Scientific with Jim Al-Kalili? More than 10 years of him interviewing scientists and covering their careers and discoveries: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015sqc7

Alternatively, The Infinite Monkey Cage is more comedic and science themed than In Our Time, with two scientists and one idiot for every topic: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snr0w

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#46

Post by gnat »

benrutter wrote: post #12

I looked, and there's more than 1000 available episodes of IOT on the BBC, they're all (at least every one I've heard) brilliant. I'm curious if anyone here has any particular favourites? I remember really enjoying the Plankton episode because it took me the classic IOT route of "That doesn't sound interesting, but I'll give it a listen" to looking up all the reading list. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001r1t5

Calendar was brilliant. I think it was the first time I fully appreciated the misery of the human mind in the face of various orbit periods that aren't simple integer ratios of one another. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00548m9

Great Fire of London too. Pepys burying his cheese! https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ft63q

Politeness. Social barriers were coming down, you were interacting with people of different rank, how do you not get into a swordfight? Also, the letter from the wife complaining about her husband! https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y29m

I think they did all the big interesting things in history and then struggled with a lot of minor events that were hard to find interesting angles on.

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#47

Post by calpaterson »

mellosouls wrote: post #35

Its odd that when places like HN or Reddit ask for favourite podcasts the amazing resources of BBC radio (that precede all modern internet podcasts and the best of which still wipe the floor with most of them) are often forgotten. In Our Time represents the best of the form, and the BBC, and that's significantly down to the excellence of Bragg. The archive (you may need a VPN outside the UK): https://www.bbc.co.uk/pr…

> the amazing resources of BBC radio (that precede all modern internet podcasts and the best of which still wipe the floor with most of them) are often forgotten

I don't know, there are some definite bright spots like IOT but the typical output of Radio 4 is definitely not massively in advance of the big podcasts. The Rest Is History/Politics are clearly hugely popular inside the UK and basically constitute "the competition" for your average R4 listener.

I actually think that the podcast model is a big threat for traditional radio. Podcasts are much more lucrative for the makers, the reach is as-big (or bigger) and you don't have to negotiate with the government like R4 does.

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#48

Post by zeristor »

Is it just me?

At the end of each podcast there's the outro when they ask if Melvyn and his guests would like tea of coffee.

This keeps throwing me back to the bit at the end of episodes of Bod, when the Frog conductor is asked which flavour milk shake he'd like.

Once having itemised all of the contents of Thunderbird 4's pods over time, I have had an inkling to use some Machine learning system to gather the drinks options from each In Our Time.

Water has cropped up?

Perhaps I place too close attention to it.

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#49

Post by dghf »

arethuza wrote: post #39
mellosouls wrote: post #35

Its odd that when places like HN or Reddit ask for favourite podcasts the amazing resources of BBC radio (that precede all modern internet podcasts and the best of which still wipe the floor with most of them) are often forgotten. In Our Time represents the best of the form, and the BBC, and that's significantly down to the excellence of Bragg. The archive (you may need a VPN outside the UK): https://www.bbc.co.uk/pr…

I always thought it was appropriate that the UK nuclear deterrence fleet apparently would check for Radio 4 still being broadcast to check whether civilisation as we know it (at least in these damp isles) has ended. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort

I believe that to be precise they check for the Today programme, the Radio 4 current-affairs slot where Cabinet ministers go to get monstered.

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#50

Post by rwmj »

writebetterc wrote: post #29
benrutter wrote: post #12

I looked, and there's more than 1000 available episodes of IOT on the BBC, they're all (at least every one I've heard) brilliant. I'm curious if anyone here has any particular favourites? I remember really enjoying the Plankton episode because it took me the classic IOT route of "That doesn't sound interesting, but I'll give it a listen" to looking up all the reading list. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001r1t5

I'll do the opposite: The P vs NP episode is aboslutely horrid. Probably the first and last time that they had any informatics people on the show. One major issue is that the experts didn't explain what we mean by "hard". Melvyn thought, as normal people do, that 'hard problem' means you've gotta be real clever to solve it, not that it takes a lot of steps to solve (and how the number of steps increases as the proble…

IOT is great, but there's a distinct lack of computer subjects which has always seemed like a big omission. There are multiple episodes on obscure medieval people, but not a single one on Open Source Software, for example.
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