The Education of Melvyn Bragg | Hacker News Reader

The Education of Melvyn Bragg

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68 pointsvijayr0227 comments

I love ‘In Our Time’ - it strikes a really good balance between being academic and accessible. The range of topics is so broad too that you find yourself learning about things you didn’t even know you wanted to learn about. For example, scrolling to a random point in the podcast feed, I see than in four weeks in Dec ‘18 there were episodes on the thirty years war, ‘Sir Gawain & The Green Knight’, the poor laws and Venus.

Bragg’s book ‘The Adventure of English’ is a good survey of the evolution of the English language too.

Bragg can be downright blunt when one of his guests is floating around some questiom he wants a concrete answer to. It's very helpful.

I'm so glad to see this here. Bragg has what appears to be the best job in the world to me.

It can also be annoying. Sometimes you want the guests to wander on interesting subjects.

'On our time' could benefit from being a podcast and not a radio show limited by time. They actually have, at the end of each podcasts, an additional chat session where Bragg asks the guests what they wanted to add to the conversation.

Sufficient space to say things cuts both ways. I see it all the time in scientific papers. Brevity forces you to say what you need without extra things, this can be efficent and even end up being very clear. But it is easy to screw up your explanation and lose the reader.

Conversely, having a lot of space means you can carefully introduce each idea leading towards the concept or story you wish to convey. But it is easy to waffle about things that are not actually important to the story and you lose the reader because they are confused about something they never even needed to know in order to get to the point.

I am glad In Our Time is restricted like this, because I find podcasts make it too easy to waffle and insert pointless sidelines that just distract from the story. Since podcasts way outnumber radio shows today, it's good to have a few things to counterbalance the mass of time-unlimited podcasts.

Very similar to In Our Time is another BBC radio programme called The Forum which explores world history, culture and ideas. Every week an eclectic topic is discussed with three experts in a lively, informative and stimulating discussion. Highly recommended:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004kln9/episodes/downloads

The sheer volume of radio content the BBC produces means there are many excellent podcasts/programmes that go undiscovered (the BBC's own search engine is terrible).

I hate In Our Time.

Bragg hosts these prominent topic experts, then spends more time enjoying the sound of his own voice than letting us listen to the experts. He interrupts them. He patronises them. He tells them all about their own specialist topic.

I mean, he usually isn't wrong; the programme has a team of researchers, and he's well-briefed. But he's not the expert - that'll be his guests. I would prefer it if he showed a bit of humility.

If he didn't interrupt, In Our Time would degenerate into an academic squabble with subject matter experts going on about abstruse and irrelevant minutia listeners aren't interested in.

Bragg's role is to ensure that the guests don't go down rabbit holes and that the program delivers an overview of a topic. He's the everyman, the listener stand-in. Plus, he is alert for academics who grind political axes or perform for their colleagues, not the general public. Many academics are profound experts on their topic, but terrible at communicating.

I agree with both of you. Bragg's job is necessary, but I think it could be done more skillfully and with a better tone. Bragg is often unnecessarily pompous, which I believe is a trait he picked up to disguise his humble origins.

He was elevated to The House Of Lords. I doubt that enhanced his humility.

I don't know anything about his humble origins, and I don't care about people's origins. He has a (rather weird, to my ear) northern accent, but being from the North doesn't make your origins 'humble'.

[Edit to add:] There's a word "chippy" that's used in England primarily to refer to Yorkshiremen. It suggests that Yorkshiremen all have a chip on their shoulder.

That's not my experience. Firstly, Northerners are much more accepted now than they were in my childhood; perhaps back then more Yorkshiremen were "chippy". Secondly, I've lived in Yorkshire, and I have never come across a sterotypical "chippy" Yorkshireman, except in TV dramas and comedies.

Chippy has nothing to do with people from Yorkshire. It refers to people who are overly defensive due to a sense of inferiority about their status or an imagined grievance. There are such people in Yorkshire, but there are such people everywhere.

I agree entirely. But the sterotype undoubtedly exists (or at least existed).

I think more than their own BBC researchers, Bragg uses the notes made by the guests themselves to guide the discussion, sort of like a circusmaster. The role necessarily comes with a bit of ego, actual or incidental.

I get what you mean though - I do IOT in phases, catching up on a few months worth before Bragg gets my back up a wee bit and I let the show lie fallow for a while.

"Well, I think the fascination of knowledge is an addiction. And I sometimes think the fascination of knowledge is the meaning of life. I really do. I mean, it saved me when I was a kid. It got me out of a really, really bad hole. And I’ve tried to keep out of it ever since."

> I forgot another rule, which is that we’re never knowingly relevant. It is very simple; it’s what it should be.

I never though about it that way, but it’s so true. There’s no cultural references. No talk about current affairs. The show is timeless and only new information on a topic can make it go stale.

What beautiful programming.

In Our Time is a wonderful podcast, always interesting content! Also, as an American, the pace of the show and way of speaking is itself interesting to me.

I love the no-nonsense, down-to-business way he starts every show:

“Hello. In 1896…”

Then you might enjoy this: http://pascalwyse.com/blog/2017/12/15/in-our-time-machine

Thank you, that is amazing. I just got to:

“Hello. Throughout history, people have taken drugs”

https://youtu.be/VdOr5FpLKR8

"And now it's time for In Our Time, the programme that just starts. The Byzantines..."

I’m completely unfamiliar with the other programmes, but that’s still pretty funny.

That's funny, although it's missing the one of the best bits about Radio 4: the Shipping Forecast. For some reason, I find the late (0040) and early morning (0520) shipping forcasts immensely familiar and comforting. It's been a part of my life since I was a small child getting up very early for school when I had no idea what Dogger, Forties, Cromarty and Rockall meant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxHa5KaMBcM

I find the duration constraint quite sad, to be honest. Would be fantastic to live in a world where Bragg's intellect and interview style would fuse with long format podcasts (forgive me e.g. Rogan) where the conversation would last up to 4 or 5 hours.

On the contrary, the strict time limit keeps it approachable.

I have neither the time nor the energy to listen to Rogan and guest go on endless tangents (recently it’s all been about obscure standup performances in the 90s) I don’t care about.

And when I do want more from Melvyn and his guests, there’s always a reading list to go with it.

I guess its a question of personal preference. I share your feelings on Rogan's endless (and mostly repetitive) tangents. But I'd love to spend hours listening to potential tangents with Bragg's erudite guests.

It's what Wikipedia is missing. Not only a brief summary of a topic, but, the opinion from the leading academics on a topic.

It's the academic opinions, not just the information, that is of interest. Without knowing much on an esoteric topic, being introduced to just the fact, doesn't help much. It's good to hear an expert say what points they think are the most important. That's why I like the show.

Did you ever get a turnip?

Every other week!

https://archive.is/sXJK8

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