Pod Insights In Our Time Welcoming Misha Glenny About this episode Misha Glenny introduces himself to you ahead of his first episode on 15th January, answering some questions from producer Simon Tillotson and sharing what's coming up in the first few weeks.
In Our Time is a BBC Studios production
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
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2:18 Speaker 04 Simon, welcome.
2:19 Speaker 05 Well, no, you're welcome. Tell everybody who you are.
2:23 Speaker 04 So, my name is Misha Glenny and I am the new presenter of In Our Time. I have to say, I have to pinch myself sometimes when I tell people that I'm the new presenter of In Our Time because certainly from my perspective, this is the best job in radio. There's nothing to compare with it.
2:42 Speaker 05 And you know where you're sitting, don't you?
2:44 Speaker 04 I do. I'm sitting in the studio where Melvyn Bragg himself broadcast almost all of the over 1,000 episodes of this programme hitherto. I'm very grateful to Melvin's support, by the way. I've talked to him since I was appointed. He was incredibly supportive and he gave me his blessing when it was announced that I was taking on this job. So, I'm very grateful to him.
3:12 Speaker 05 Okay, I'm going to ask, why do you think you're the right person for this role?
3:16 Speaker 04 Well, you'll have to ask other people for that, but it may be to do with my background. I have a humanities degree in drama. I was a BBC foreign correspondent for many years covering the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and then the fall of Yugoslavia. And after that, I wrote a variety of books, including A Big History of the Modern Balkans. I wrote a book about the favelas of Brazil. And more recently, I've been looking a lot at technology and science. I wrote a book on hacking. So, I've been following scientific innovation,
3:57 Speaker 04 developments in technology in particular, very closely. So, I think it might have to do with that cross-disciplinary interest and ability that I may have. I can only presume.
4:10 Speaker 05 It sounds like you're very busy already, so why do you want this role?
4:16 Speaker 04 I'm dropping things in order to take this role on because there is nothing better. Look, every week, I come into the studio and it'll be a different subject. It could be plate tectonics, it could be the rise of Adolf Hitler, it could be dragons. Um. It could be anything under the sun, really. And over the space of a week, I do a deep dive into that subject. And then I am privileged to quiz three great experts, academics, who always really know their stuff on this. So that the key points of a subject are highlighted, but put together in a form which makes them comprehensible.
4:58 Speaker 04 Because one thing we never want to do on In Our Time is dumb down. At the end of the programme, after forty eight or fifty minutes, whatever it is, I am much the wiser and I hope that I will be able to bring the listeners along with me so they too will be much the wiser. Because I see myself as being the voice of the listener in the studio, surrounded by this extraordinary body of knowledge.
5:26 Speaker 05 I've got my own answer to this, but I wondered, why does it matter to In Our Time that it's not simply you talking, doing your research, but you've got three really great people in the room with you?
5:37 Speaker 04 Well, because there's not much I can learn in a week compared to a lifetime of the three guests uh around me. Um. And what's interesting for me is when those guests who are all steeped in a subject actually disagree about something.
5:54 Speaker 05 Okay.
5:55 Speaker 04 And with that, we can have a creative, civilised conversation, dispute, argument, so that we come out all the wiser. And in fact, that interestingly, that relates to the first topic that I'll be dealing with on In Our Time, On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, because John Stuart Mill argues early on that there is no monopoly on truth and you always get closer to the truth if you listen to different opinions. So we'll be listening to different opinions, but ones which are expressed in a civilised and constructive fashion, I hope.
6:33 Speaker 05 What else is coming up after that?
6:35 Speaker 04 Well, after John Stuart Mill, we've got the Mariana Trench, which is of course the deepest point of the ocean. Kilometers deeper than Mount Everest is high. Then, of course, we've got the Roman arena.
6:49 Speaker 05 Yeah.
6:49 Speaker 04 Which is great fun because it's all about lions and gladiators and Russell Crowe. Well, actually, we don't mention Russell Crowe. But it's really fascinating to hear actually what Hollywood got right and what Hollywood got wrong about the Roman arena. But the thing that really struck me about that subject is these games lasted for over five hundred years. That's half of a millennium of people beating the hell out of each other and being devoured or by lions or killing leopards and baboons.
7:27 Speaker 05 So when can people listen?
7:28 Speaker 04 So people can start listening to the new series of In Our Time, first on BBC Sounds, with our first episode available on Thursday, the fifteenth of January. Please join me then.
7:41 Speaker 05 Very good. Do you want a tea or coffee?
7:44 Speaker 04 It'll be a tea for me, thank you, Simon.
7:48 Speaker 03 Just put your headphones on and immerse yourself in a gripping thriller.
7:52 Speaker 06 A guy you've never seen before offers you ten grand to look after an envelope and you take it. Are you crazy?
7:58 Speaker 03 A chilling mystery.
7:59 Speaker 07 The old lady, there, can't you see her?
8:03 Speaker 03 A heart-stopping adventure. I'm going to kiss you now. I'm Kim Cattrall and you can hear me in Limelight from BBC Radio Four, where drama serials take centre stage.
8:14 Speaker 02 I know that it wasn't an accident. They were murdered, weren't they?
8:18 Speaker 03 Search for Limelight on BBC Sounds.
8:21 Speaker 02 Are you scared?
8:25 Speaker 00 Sometimes we all need an extra helping hand, especially with a tricky business problem you've been putting off. Claude is the AI for just that. It's the collaborator that understands your entire workflow and thinks with you, not for you. And Claude isn't just for quick questions. Hand it a whole task, like turning a folder of scattered notes into a report, and it does the work. And hands back something finished that you can open and edit. Claude can now draft a doc or deck right in front of you. And Claude Design now lives right inside Claude. Describe the website or prototype you're picturing. Attach your design system and it comes back in your own design language, ready to edit right on the canvas. It works with your files and the tools you already use, like Gmail and Slack.
9:10 Speaker 00 And whether you're debugging code at midnight, building a financial model, or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at claude.ai/solve. That's claude.ai/solve. And check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all of the features mentioned in today's episode. claude.ai/solve.
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