Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 167 posts

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#151

Post by mongol »

curious_cat_163 wrote: post #146

That makes me sad. I will miss his voice. I loved how he interrupted his guests and kept them honest and on point. I loved the casual offer for tea/coffee at the end. I would love how it had this encore bit at the end, sometimes! This podcast chose its listeners and kept it real. Thanks to everyone who makes it possible. Hope they get a fitting replacement for Melvyn and keep it going!

Sometimes I have felt his interruptions to be kind of rude, and have almost sensed an air of irritation by the interrupted guest. But I am not a native English speaker so may have misinterpreted it.

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#153

Post by sandspar »

mongol wrote: post #151
curious_cat_163 wrote: post #146

That makes me sad. I will miss his voice. I loved how he interrupted his guests and kept them honest and on point. I loved the casual offer for tea/coffee at the end. I would love how it had this encore bit at the end, sometimes! This podcast chose its listeners and kept it real. Thanks to everyone who makes it possible. Hope they get a fitting replacement for Melvyn and keep it going!

Sometimes I have felt his interruptions to be kind of rude, and have almost sensed an air of irritation by the interrupted guest. But I am not a native English speaker so may have misinterpreted it.

The best interviewers are OK with irritating their guests. An interview guest generally has some conversational line or script that they plan to use. A good host has to break them out of that script - otherwise every interview with that guest will sound the same.

For example, take Demis Hassabis' recent interview with Lex Friedman. Friedman wanted to talk about cellular automata; Hassabis wanted to talk about Gemini AI. Friedman asked questions about cellular automata, Hassabis signalled that he wanted to use his prepared script about AI, Friedman ignored Habbis' signals and continued to ask about cellular automata. The end result is that Lex Friedman listeners get to hear Demis Hassabis talk about cellular automata for 10 minutes - a unique side of Demis Hassabis' mind that you couldn't hear anywhere else. Friedman eventually relented and let Hassabis talk about AI.

(I'm not saying that Friedman is the best interviewer, but he's good. All good interviewers do this: Howard Stern, David Letterman, Charlie Rose, Dick Cavett, etc.)

Basically you have to squeeze your guest to get juice out of them.

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#154

Post by opan »

zenoprax wrote: post #101
walthamstow wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very nice! I'd also want to run a script to remove the BBC Sounds ident at the start The audio is so much better when it begins with " Hello, 400 years ago in the Sahel region of Africa..."

Those introductions are iconic! There is no delay and no doubt about what is about to happen. I have the full back catalogue downloaded but never considered that I'd need to start trimming. Audacity? Are there automations possible?

If the timing is consistent, maybe ffmpeg can trim the first n seconds off all the files.

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#155

Post by pragmatic »

atombender wrote: post #142
avian wrote: post #16

In Our Time has been my favorite podcast to listen. It made me appreciate how well moderated a discussion among experts can be and how poorly most moderators on other radio programs or conference panels do their jobs. My complaint with In Our Time is that BBC started inserting the "this program is supported by ads outside of the U.K." ads in the middle of the discussions. The ads start and end with an extremely annoy…

If you pay for Spotify and listens there, this removes the ads.

It does not.

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#156

Post by pragmatic »

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

Crocodiles

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#158

Post by jimnotgym »

OskarS wrote: post #57
stevoski wrote: post #56

You could see this coming with his voice weakening over the years. It’s nice that he was able to continue for as long as he did. My weekly dose of highbrow-ness from the UK: 1. In Our Time 2. University Challenge I highly recommend the back catalog In Our Time if you want some good brain fodder on an amazingly wide range of subjects.

If you want to add to that list, check out Only Connect on the BBC. Best quiz show for smart people in the world.

I must not be smart, because I can't stand Victoria Coren-Mitchell. As annoying as her husband, but without being hilariously funny at the same time. About as insufferable as her brother too..

Re: Melvyn Bragg steps down from presenting In Our Time

#159

Post by mkfs »

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

The Taiping Rebellion
Post reply on HN