UKC

As I understand it Melvin is the ultimate bluffer. He is given a paragraph or two to read as an intro and has a list of observations/points to talk about.

He can be good as the discussion coordinator and prompter, but I don't think he knows how many quarters there are in 4 or remember who looked after the young Henry VI.

My points are not that everyone should, just that I think he does not retain much.

I still like the program a lot. I put that down to the production team and the voice in his ear.

EDIT: forgot the question: Does his style work for you?

In reply to lowersharpnose:

From time to time you can spot that Melvyn is out of his depth, usually when a question prompts some contemptuous silence and he struggles to re-phrase. But his task is to facilitate, at which he is very adept, and it is only when he tries to look clever that difficulties arise. He's more intelligent than 99.9% of the population so I think we should cut him some slack. I'm absolutely certain he knows more than anyone in my circle which includes a number of senior academics. And in any case, the ability to appear learned on unfamiliar territory is prized at his alma mater and has stood him in very good stead in a glittering career.

The show itself unfortunately is often more boring than it should be.

In reply to lowersharpnose:

I'm sure he'a a smart cookie, but I think my opinion of him and the programme exactly mirrors yours. At times, the latter can feel very disjointed, with no natural flow to the content or discussion, but comes over as random qu.s plucked from nowhere in particular.

And to answer your question: no, not particularly.

In reply to lowersharpnose:
It's a great programme and I think he does a good job, as a non specialist, in stimulating some excellent discussions on a very wide range of subjects. As for retention, he's in his mid 70s - hope I can sound as coherent and intelligent at that age!
.

I always enjoy listening anyway

In reply to lowersharpnose:

I think he plays the part of the intelligent layman very well.

Podcast archives are a millennium wonder. Along with astronomycast et al, IOT can be stimulating, keeping my mind awake and alert on a long car journey, or gently soporific enough to ease me into the land of nod in my own bed, or in a tent at a noisy music festival or in the wilds of nowhere.

In reply to lowersharpnose:

I think it depends on the issue, most things historical or cultural I feel he has an incredibly wide and strong grasp - really rather impressively so considering the academics he is interviewing will have spent much of their careers doing that very specific era, or issue, or event. On natural sciences he is less in his element I reckon, but still does his intelligent layman asking sensible questions quite well.

I find I end up with loads of IOTs backed up on iPod as you really need to commit to listening to them to get the most out of it. I often end up listening to a bunch of them together when I'm out on my own doing something like a long bike ride. I've had some very pleasant over night bikepacking trips through the Finnish forests where Melvyn and guests have kept me company via one ear bud and I get home having done a couple of hundred kms of riding, camped on a lake shore and learnt about the moon, the great wall of China, the medieval university and some Greek battle!

In reply to TobyA:

If I was on a desert Island I think a huge stack of those programmes would keep me sane.

In reply to wercat:


A couple of years ago I drove alone more than 5000 miles from Edinburgh to Lofoten and back. What kept me sane was a huge stack of podcasts of In Our Time and Desert Island Discs!

In reply to lowersharpnose:
You may be right about the bluffing (in fact you must be, given the breadth of topics), but I think he does it very well. The archive is a wonderful resource.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Add audio from The Sky at Night and it would be bliss

In reply to lowersharpnose:

I thought that was kind of the point of the programme? He's asking the intelligent/dumb questions we'd want to ask if we had the experts in front of us. Success of the prog depends an awful lot on how engaging the guests are - some are just not built for radio, but some are a joy to hear and make me proud that people actually know so much about stuff so odd.

That said I think it's probably better when he's bluffing less hard and on more comfortable ground, just because there's more of a natural flow.

In reply to SteveRi:

Yes, you are right. I do like In Our Time and Melvyn does it very well.

In reply to lowersharpnose:

....likewise, and I'm not sure he tries to bluff that hard on science (there's a topic - the public acceptability ignorance of science basics but not arts). But I am very impressed by his (apparent) interest and enthusiasm for science generally. You can't say the same of much other mainstream media stuff (though for some reason I think of Ian McEwan who clearly also has got interested later in life in getting science into his work.)