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 annoying loud chime that just blows out the speakers if I have the volume turned up to understand a guest that's speaking in a more soft voice.
That's a very rare assumption in modern media, when most mainstream things seemed to be aimed at some sort of lowest common denominator.
I've been listening to the podcast for years. I don't think the format counts as a 'discussion among experts'. It's more like Melvin asks prepared questions individually to each expert--a hub and spoke model. The experts rarely talk to or debate each other, although they often agree which each other. Melvin largely controls the narrative and direction, which I think works better. Guests do get to free-wheel at the end of the podcast, however.
Only the streaming options (iPlayer and Sounds) are geolocked
I used to follow topical comedy podcasts but they put a large delay in their publication cycle so they're no longer topical.
They also nag you to install the app. They seem often to just repeat the worst habits of commercial media.
I suspect this changes in next few years once they finally decide on what TV license reform looks like, especially given the large drop in TV License receipts, but for now anyone can access in UK/via VPN, license or not.
https://www.bbcselect.com/select-more/bbc-podcasts/
I believe it's currently Apple-exclusive, but if you enjoy BBC content, it's worth it.
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.
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
That's my memory of the event, that was a frustrating lunch walk.
I've never made the mistake of thinking that after a 45 minute episode of in our time on, say, Cyrus the Great, that I'm now in a position to write an essay on the man. I would assume that none M/NS/CS types don't make that mistake after listening to the episode on P vs NP.
Aside from being surprisingly fascinating, I thought the guests were excellent. IOT's academics can sometimes be bone dry (sometimes not a problem if the subject matter is good, but sometimes it can sink the episode), and in this episode all three guests were both energetic and articulate, and there was some good banter.
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.
Climate Change
Cryptography
Electrickery
The one about Shakespeare featuring Harold Bloom.
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/programmes/b006qykl/episodes/player
Some curated lists:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2Dw1c7rxs6DmyK0pMR...
IOT's format has a lot of statements, but not many questions. Bragg doesn't often say "hold on, what are the consequences of that?" (unless it's a prepared question designed to move us through the biography). Ironically, this lack of curiosity gets worse on subjects he understands well (the arts).
The unscripted chat afterwards is often the best bit. I could do with 10 minutes of on-script introduction and 50 minutes of experts discussing something they're passionate about.
The guests are often pretty eminent academics, feted in their field and used to being indulged. There have been some I know that very much enjoy the sound of their own voice as they tediously ramble for hours, bending any topic to their own pet themes, with colleagues and students obediently hanging on their words. Melvyn has the stature to get testy "Enough about his wife, you still haven't answered the question, get on with it!" and the Oxford emeritus professor complies.
The after show chat works because it's post-time-crunch. It's pressure release and reflection. If you do recruitment this is something to learn. You will have a much more valuable interaction after you have scraped off interviewee armour.
Most of the time I don’t care enough about each topic or what are passions of the experts are to listen to it.
Having an episode where someone prepared information so I can get acquainted with the topic but I don’t have to deal with forwarding some professor ranting about his pet peeve is huge amount of value.
If ever I feel there is a need for a deeper dive into a subject, there a thousand ways I can spend hours listening or watching someone drone on about it.
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.
I agree, I chose the wording "best of" rather than "typical" for that reason.
For instance, I regret the asinine tendency to provide "humourous" expositions of subjects in the various programmes co-chaired by second-rate comedians and apparently aimed at what low-expectations BBC execs feel young people can handle.
Excluding things like political things which wouldn't land the same to international listeners, my favourites are:
The Kitchen Cabinet You're Dead To Me Crowdscience Inside Science Just a Minute The Unbelievable Truth Nature Table Take Four Books Witness History Last Word Gardener's Question Time A Good Read (I wrote a blog post a while ago about scraping the books using LLMs to extract from the text of the descriptions: https://rpep.dev/posts/a-good-read-extracting-books-with-llm...)
just
like
this
> you may need a VPN outside the UK
Not that odd, really.
Brilliant series, can't recommend highly enough to anyone who's not encountered it.
Very reminiscent of Sir Patrick Moore presenting his final episodes of The Sky at Night. (Sadly missed).
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
I had, and I still have a lot of issues with understanding his accent. It's very hard for me to get what he's saying.
or here https://open.spotify.com/episode/5YjqWk1rqxANmNifyUW92B
or here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0092j0x (to download the mp3 file)
BBC Sounds not available outside of the UK anymore
I was watching the first episode of the new-ish BBC TV series Human last night and, although there was some interesting information in there, it was unbearably slow and overwrought - 20 minutes of interesting content stretched out to 60 minutes by overly dramatic speech and pointless visual interstitials with soaring music. Such a stark contrast in terms of information density if you watch the original big BBC documentary series like Life On Earth or Civilisation.
Not to take anything away from the content though. It's the sort of programme the licence fee was made for.
While he doesn't throw blackboard dusters at them, he prods and harumphs when the egos and waffle of dons has them momentarily forget they aren't doing this in class but broadcasting to the nation...
People might also enjoy "This Cultural Life" https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010fl4 More than 100 episodes already with some of the world's leading artists and creatives.
Looking through the archives, this one with Melvyn Bragg might be interesting as a way to start: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001q0kd
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.
The show has long and consistently had this weird tic where they must announce every analogy, or even non-analogy with 'as it were'.
"He was over the moon, as it were".
"He was very excited, as it were".
We know what analogies are! No disclaimer needed! And when it isn't one, even bloody more so!
Forgive my affectionate grumble. I've enjoyed the show for many years. Bragg is a unique talent, and will be hard to follow.
I'm still working through the back catalogue, been at it for years, I've listened to every episode from the start until about mid 2012. I'll finish it eventually!
I'm curious why you say this. He's a member of the British establishment now. Has he spoken on the topic, or ...?
https://www.braggoscope.com/explore
(Outside the UK, the "Listen" link doesn't work except for the most recent ~350 episodes. You'll need to get the program page link instead which is in the footer.)
Bragg has been a strong force in intellectual culture in the UK for many decades. I remember my Mum and Sister being upset by a trailer for The South Bank Show back in the early 1980s, and he was a prominent "elder statesman" figure of the media by then, really - so he's had very good run.
But to be honest, I am hoping we get somebody a little bit less frumpy and grumpy picking up the space he will inevitably leave behind. I just hope it's not closed down and we end up with more middling dross.
In this day and age it seems like people get a soap box and get to say whatever they want without interruption. Someone needs to keep things in order and he did a fantastic job curating the show.
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 said in a dismissive jokey way.
Bragg was particularly susceptible to this! In almost every episode* that touches on cosmology he would resort to a whimsical “gosh these numbers are too big for me!” or a “wow that’s going over my head!”. There’s one notorious episode on computer science** where he’s downright rude to the guests regarding complexity. Contrast with how he can barely contain himself when showing how much he knows about Horace or Napoleon or Brahms. (I contend that the virtue signalling exhibited by claiming “maths is too hard, leave it to the boffins!” is the opposite side of the same coin to showing off how much poetry and history one has memorized.)
Basicism is where, for example, black hole discussions always talk about spaghettification and then run out of steam before the interesting stuff. Any discussion of a complex topic will touch on the first handful of spectacular introductory facts and never get any further, all on the assumption that the listener has never encountered the topic before in their lives. I know the pigeon story about cosmic microwave background already: please elaborate on the latest anisotropy findings!
In Our Time is a fantastic listen, but brace yourself for a bit of eye-rolling at — and forgive me for paraphrasing Lord Bragg’s tone a little, here — the “omg stahp, nerd stuff makes my brain hurt!” schtick.
* Bragg seems to take things more seriously when Simon Schaffer is there. Carolin Crawford is part of the dream team as well. Both are exceptional science communicators.
** Another commenter points out this is the P vs NP episode: https://www.braggoscope.com/2015/11/05/p-v-np.html
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
I'm not sure whether someone with a background in arts or history would say the same about the other episodes.
For those who want something entirely outside the STEM-heavy HN sphere of interest, there is another great BBC podcast about social science: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_Allowed
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.
Which is fine, of course, everyone has preferences; but the contrast with the much more rote science episodes did make me a little sad.
similar issues are with non european cultural topics. You often get what i'd label wikipedia-depth
Frankly, I believe that instead of finding a new presenter, the BBC could be retire the whole series and its legend. Let the new presenter start a new series, even if the set-up remains the same (including having further discussions with a cup of tea after the radio time limit has ended)
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.
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!
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.
Related note: The Empire podcast w/ Anita Anand and William Dalrymple has been my latest favorite history podcast.
I interpret this as some kind of cute little power play by Melvin. Even if so, he definitely earned it, and if were the producer I would serve with pride.
And making broad connections across topics wasn't his style anyway. He's a legend but the show can totally go on without him, and it should.
