BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. Savings, credit cards, carfinance reclaiming, insurance, investing, power of attorney, decision, indecision, analysis, paralysis. Analysis, analysis. Don't panic. The Martin Lewis podcast is twice weekly, helping you navigate our complex consumer world. I'll walk you through a big money saving topic step by step. Then in question time, you set the agenda and ask whatever's on your mind. Would you rather be locked in an empty shopping centre for the thousand snakes or just one gorilla? Within reason. The Martin Lewis podcast. Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello, it's Melbourne Brack here. On Christmas Eve, I had the pleasure of being guest editor on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. And for this, I spoke to my successor on an out-time Misha Glenny. We thought you might like to hear this, so here it is. Our discussion was led by the Today presenter, Justin Webb. Melbourne. We just begin with the eternal appeal. I mean, it's kind of obvious place to begin, but it is an important place to begin. Why is it that this incredible thing, this cultural event and this hugely important event in so many people's lives, not just in Britain and around the world? Why? What is it that took off? I think what took off is curiosity. I think one of the most striking characteristics that we have is curiosity. I think people want to know stuff. And when you're listening to pubs and that people are talking about what they know to each other. And secondly, I think that a lot of us, me included, had a very patchy education. And when things come up about, and almost anything to do with science, I'm more interested than anything else, because I didn't teach it at my school. I just came through, you know. So it's those two things. And then because of the way we... I forgot to say it constructed. Because of the way we put together. It was interesting to go from one thing to another to another to another. And then we decided that was one of the principles we would go from talking about, ancient China, to talking about my favourite opening, by any scientist, which is a billion, billion light years away. And then he followed that. There's that. And the other thing is that we hit on something that I... Pell and I wanted to do in when I was doing science the week, but we didn't do enough, which is we only basically only talk to academics. And it became their programme. And they listened to it each other, listened to it. And it became their programme. And the next thing is to finish this. He said, we then said, they have to be teaching academics. So they used to talk to people like me who doesn't know anything. And that is almost a hundred percent kept. They teach, they finish in this studio, and they go back to their universities and colleges and they teach. And those four things came together. Also, there's a vacuum. People were bouncing on academics once or twice, but we were consistently talking to academics about stuff they knew more than anybody else, to somebody who knew nothing at all. Well, what would you add to that? I would add to that. There's anything to be added to that. There is something to be added, and that's melvin' himself. Because melvin, if you think about it, I mean, the format is really quite straightforward. It's not, you know, there aren't too many bells and whistles to it. It's three academics talking about stuff that they know about. Why does it work? Well, that's where you came in, because you create in every episode, and I've listened to a lot of them now, a really comprehensible arc, a story whereby you come into a subject that you know nothing about, and 45 minutes later, or whatever it is, you go away thinking, I've always wondered what that is about, and now, at least, I understand the basics of it. An example of that for you? Ah, plate tectonics. I just, I can remember when I was listening to it, it was about sort of 10, 15 years ago, so I was rushing, I was making breakfast, and I had to get out, and I was listening to this stuff about plate tectonics, and I just dropped everything and sat down. You're doing the plate. Including the plates. sat down and listened to it, and when at the end, because it starts off with, you know, huge sort of rock sliding underneath each other and everything, but by the end, there is this revelatory explanation that without plate tectonics, there is no life. And that it's at the very, it's the most fundamental level, and you're nothing about it, and I have never forgotten it. Now, but do you, does it differ when you're doing a subject that you do know something about, to when you're doing something, I assume with plate tectonics, when you don't, you're starting really from scratch. How does it affect you? Has it affected you when you've been doing your research? Well, I try harder when I don't know anything, but I also enjoy it more. And also the people who are in that realm are extremely good talkers, and they're very used to doing things concisely and helping you to move on. They're quite generous to each other as well, really. That's interesting. More generous than in the art. Yes, on the whole. Yeah, I think they're very generous, but I do notice, well, I mean, again, I'm listening very closely to these programs now, that when somebody is rabbating on a bit too long, you always find the right moment to come in and say absolutely fascinating, but let's move on. Good. That's, but it's really important because otherwise, they'd just be rabbating on for 40 minutes or so. What's the skill of doing that then? Well, everybody who comes on the program now, the academics, we're talking about very, very bright people. They generally know each other. They don't want to steal time from each other, and they've got the hang of it, and you can tell, really, my waving a finger, it's your turn now, and they go that way. It's very, very well that anybody wants to fill a busted. They see it as what it is, our conversation. It's more than a conversation, an investigation between three people who really know what they're talking about, and don't begrudge other people, talking as well. They often say, he knows a bit more about that than I do. And so it's always a shared investigation. I think that's what people like. Also, there's no plugging at all. I said, we have no plugging, and we have no plugging. And I think that's a big thing. You also don't tell me as the listener how I should think differently about my previous thoughts, prejudices, et cetera. In other words, there's no sort of, you go to a museum now and there'll be some set of contexts written for you that you should think of decolonizing or whatever the thing is that you're meant to be thinking about. You don't do that. Do you? You've never done it. Why not? I just want to stick to the subject, and that's quite enough to do. And when you've surrounded by people who know as much as these people do, so they want to pass this information on. And it's curiosity. We're all curious, but it's the teaching thing, I think, that was the key to it. So, Misha, how does it change now? Well, first of all, I want to say, try stepping into these boots. This is going to be really difficult. Melvin isn't the programme, the programme is Melvin. There's no getting away from that. I am hugely honoured to be taking this role on, but I don't want to go in and smash up the China, as it were. I want to do what Melvin has been doing very well, I mean, brilliantly, for so many years. And I need to get my feet under the table. Now, it may be that there's certain areas I'm thinking particularly of some aspects of European literature, South American history, possibly, where I've done work in the past that I would like to bring up. I mean, I'm going through all of the episodes to see what you've done from what you've done. Ah, what he's missed, exactly. That will be a difficult task, that was back. Yeah, yeah. It is a difficult task because there is so many. But I think there'll be a slightly more European focus, but I don't want to forget the rest of the world either. But I love the science programmes. I find the science programmes, for exactly the same reason as you did. I now confess I got an unclassified in my O-level physics and I've been struggling to overcome that. Can I chop up a shiver? So this is very useful. Lord Carrington used to say, when asked about scientific matters from a foreign secretary, of course, in an early FATURE government, used to say, I went to school before science was invented, my dear. Which I always thought was a rather good thing to say. Now, tell us more, the first time I met you, Misha, we were in a hotel in Bosnia, under mortar fire, and you were broadcasting in German. You are a man of many talents. Tell us about the way in which you've gone from there to here. Well, I was at the BBC as the Central Europe correspondent, which is when you met me, based in Vienna, but I'd been obsessed by Eastern Europe in particular and the Communist world ever since my teens. So to be the BBC Central Europe correspondent in 1989, when you have the biggest foreign story since the Second World War, was a dream. I mean, what can I say? I knew Havill, I knew Vamensa, I knew all these people and had done for 10 years or so. So when they were forming the new governments, I knew who was in the government before they'd even thought of it. It was fantastic. But after that came the wars in Yugoslavia. And one of the things I picked up on during the wars in Yugoslavia was the fact that organized crime played an absolutely critical role in the atrocities in that war. And it was that study of organized crime, which made me realize there's a lot more going on in the world than just the Balkans. I'd spent too much time in the Balkans by then. And so I embarked on going around the world studying organized crime by talking to a lot of bad people, and one or two good people as well. And that is really was my in our time experience of going to places and doing things that I'd never come across before. And it just expanded my whole understanding of how the world works. And that's the kind of thing that I get from listening to the program. There's always something that you either never quite understood or never even knew about. What's your advice to him, in health and as he starts? I think follow what you really want to do. There's so much information out there. And so many people are good at reciting it. And so many people who send in contributions. We have hundreds of lists saying, you should do this, you should do that, you should do the other. And one of these about bumping into people on the heath or whatever it is, you haven't done this, you haven't done that. Do you take that advice? Sometimes. It seems to have taken it taken off in its own way from the beginning. And we wanted it to be eclectic. And sorry. Why do you think it's so popular with younger audiences? Because in terms of BBC programs, it's one of the top for the under 35s. I have to come back to what I said at the start, really. The people who are talking about it are teachers. And they come in here, these small studios. And they know they've got to get a move on. They know they've got to cut it short. They know they can't wander on forever. And so they have to cut their cloth. And I think they all think it's as much as I do. It's absolutely light. And the archive that we have now is phenomenal. Incredible. It is a phenomenal archive. It's probably the greatest archive in the world, cultural archive. It's an interesting point you make about the appeal to young people. Because one of the things we sort of try sometimes to convince ourselves, it seems to me, is that everything intellectually is going down the tubes, basically, that we are not the people we once were, that we've lost our ability to cope with things, that challenge us, that we don't read, lengthy things anymore, we don't do this, we don't do that. And actually, in a sense, this is the opposite, isn't it? And it's telling us a very different story about ourselves and particularly the young. It is just in. And for the last three and a half years, I've been running an institute in Vienna, called the Institute for Human Sciences, which is an advanced research center. And we get younger fellows, fellows in their 20s who are either doing their doctorates or have just finished their doctorates. And their scholarship is phenomenal. I mean, way ahead of anything I ever managed to achieve academically or intellectually, absolutely terrific. And we get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of applications to come and study in that institute. And so I see this on the ground that there is still an intellectual ferment even though we know that all of our brains are being turned to mush by social media and so on. We are still learning and we are still curious. I'm holding steady. I mean, there is around the pleasure at the moment, the epidemic of incompetence. But on this program, if we've been doing a program which you happily take over, there's not another loud, because the other people on the program just shake their heads and you can't say that. That doesn't work. You can't do that. Exactly. It is down to them and down to the fact that I go back to the beginning of what we're all talking about. I think that we are the curious species. They want to know what's around the corner, what's on the moon. Why is this happening? Why is this happening? I think that's the biggest drive. I think, I mean, maybe wrong. But Melvin, you also, you of course, point out, legendarily, that you are never knowingly relevant in this program. And yet, when I listen to these programs, you're right on the surface. It's not knowingly relevant at all. But underneath that, the back of your mind, your ideas are percolating and you can't help, but wonder how that relates to your own experience or something that's going on at the moment. So it's never knowingly relevant, but it often is relevant. Yes, that's the way my knowledge works. A very good moment at which to finish, Misha Melvin, thank you, mate. It's been a great privilege to present in our time for so many years and I'm delighted that Misha will be taking on the role. His first program will be available on Radio 4 and on BBC Sounds on the 15th of January. I wish Misha the program and you are listeners around the world every success. Hi, it's India here. I'm very excited to bring you the return of child. So we've been on the journey of an embryo all the way to a baby's first birthday and now we are going to enter the explosive life of the toddler because this is the perfect place to unpick the very complicated world of emotions, the emotions that affect us all. So come with us as over eight episodes we fall through the abundant and dizzying world of happiness descend into the depths of fear and the gendered and dangerous world of anger and then crawl, wobble and bounce our way through all love, anxiety and surprise. From BBC Radio 4, this is Child with me, Indiraacuson. Listen first on BBC Sounds.
