[mdh]

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.

[open-source-ux]

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).

[DubiousPusher]

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.

[skywal_l]

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.

[ImaCake]

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.

[denton-scratch]

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.

[Veen]

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.

[barrkel]

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.

[denton-scratch]

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.

[Veen]

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.

[denton-scratch]

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

[detritus]

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.