Welcoming Misha Glenny

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:05Speaker 01

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• 2:18Speaker 04

  Simon, welcome.

• 2:19Speaker 05

  Well, no, you're welcome. Tell everybody who you are.

• 2:23Speaker 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.

• 2:42Speaker 05

  And you know where you're sitting, don't you?

• 2:44Speaker 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.

• 3:12Speaker 05

  Okay, I'm going to ask, why do you think you're the right person for this role?

• 3:16Speaker 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,

• 3:57Speaker 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.

• 4:10Speaker 05

  It sounds like you're very busy already, so why do you want this role?

• 4:16Speaker 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.

• 4:58Speaker 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.

• 5:26Speaker 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?

• 5:37Speaker 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.

• 5:54Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 5:55Speaker 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.

• 6:33Speaker 05

  What else is coming up after that?

• 6:35Speaker 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.

• 6:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 6:49Speaker 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.

• 7:27Speaker 05

  So when can people listen?

• 7:28Speaker 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.

• 7:41Speaker 05

  Very good. Do you want a tea or coffee?

• 7:44Speaker 04

  It'll be a tea for me, thank you, Simon.

• 7:48Speaker 03

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  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.

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• 8:25Speaker 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.

• 9:10Speaker 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.