It all began with Desert Island Discs. I’m having slightly ‘racist’ (elitist (?)) thoughts about Lauren Laverne, if I’m honest. Let’s just say she’s no Roy Plomley. Such intrusive thoughts even led me to question the rationale behind inviting Emily Eavis to present her eight of the best. A particularly dreary selection I thought. That says something - I’m not quite sure what. Oh dear, that’s another mean thing to say. I am a bad person.
Monkey Brains wrote a little earlier: "I heard Gillian Reynolds, the grand dame of Radio reviewers on Desert Island Discs criticising the BBC for allowing politicised presenters to identify with certain political positions. The BBC can't dismiss her view can they? Well they can, but not so easily as with us plebs."
Well, here a transcript of that part of the discussion. I wonder exactly which BBC political presenters she had in mind?
Kirsty Young: Let's talk a little bit Gillian Reynolds then, a little bit more, about the trade, the profession if you will, of the critic. You've described podcasts as "ready meals, dinners for one" - what a great little phrase! Could you just explain a bit of that? What do you mean?
Gillian Reynolds: I'm mildly resistant to the podcast because there are a lot of people now whose business it is to say, "This is the saving of audio". It's not the saving of audio. It's just audio branching out.
Kirsty Young: You did a podcast for a while at the Telegraph. Did you enjoy it?
Gillian Reynolds: We did a six-week thing. Nobody encouraged us, and they dropped without notice and without acknowledgement. But I am delighted to say that my co-presenter then, Pete Norton, is now head of podcasting at the Telegraph, so maybe their ideas are changing. Maybe I was slightly ahead of the wave.
Kirsty Young: I mean, they are hugely popular, aren't they? And people download podcasts in their tens of millions.
Gillian Reynolds: Tens of millions, yes. Worldwide too.
Kirsty Young: Yes indeed. And also people can say things that they wouldn't say in front of a live mike, that they wouldn't be allowed to make the edit on Radio 4. In a way that's kind of the joy of them. The stays are off, if you will.
Gillian Reynolds: The stays are off. Now, there are good things about that - people can talk about their anorexia or their sexual problems or their problems with their frightful mother and so on - that's really good. And it is a new forum, it's more personal and will find its own audience. The slightly dangerous thing I think for the BBC is that you've got political presenters who are meant to maintain steadfast independence of any political viewpoint occasionally seeming to nudge into one shade or opinion or another, and I think that's actually quite dangerous. And I think someone ought to have a serious think about it before they get too carried away.
At the risk of continuing to make this blog more about '...and any other matters that take our fancy' than 'Is the BBC biased?', my Twitter feed tells me that BBC Radio 4 is asking which five Desert Island Discs guests have chosen songs by the Sex Pistols.
The answer is: Hanif Kureishi, Kathy Burke, Noel Gallagher, Paul Whitehouse and Ricky Gervais.
My favourite classical composer, Sibelius, has been chosen by about 72 guests for example, including: Diana Dors, Arthur C Clarke, George Cole, John Thaw, Kevin Whately, Sir Fred Hoyle, John Barry, Joanna Lumley, Robert Hardy, Richard Leakey, Brian Blessed, Peter Sallis, Michael Portillo, Sir William Walton, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Sir Michael Marmot, Armando Iannucci, Penelope Wilton and Joss Ackland.
And Diana Dors chose two Sibelius pieces.
So in honour of Diana Dors, here's my Desert Island Disc Sibelius choice (though it wasn't one of hers):
When we first launched this blog we said we wouldn't try to be topical, always reacting to the latest news. In that spirit, I intend to go back to where I left off and bang on about last Sunday on Radio 4.
Broadly put, the station's early morning to mid afternoon' sweep of current affairs programmes - from Sunday at 7.10 to Broadcasting House at 9.00 and The World This Weekend at 1.00, combined with 'topical' editions of Desert Island Discs and The Food Programme - made for a very striking sequence, especially as regards the BBC's post-Referendum coverage.
Sunday's post-Referendum coverage was wholly negative. It focused on the apparent steep rise in racist hate crimes since the result came in. Voices from the affected minority communities were heard from, expressing concern and fear. The two interviewees who discussed the issue - Bishop Richard Atkinson near the start of the programme and Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin at the end of the programme - both linked these crimes to the tone of the (Leave) campaign.
Broadcasting Housewas mostly negative too. The early stages of the programme were dominated by a post-Referendum political discussion between (strongly pro-Remain) Edwina Currie and (strongly pro-Remain) Shirley Williams. Both were downcast about the result (especially Baroness Williams) and pretty acid about the political fallout. And the final stages of the programmewere dominated by the wistful reflections of (strongly pro-Remain) Lord (Peter) Hennessey, who didn't want us to leave the EU. Ah, but here's the BBC's 'impartiality get-out clause!: One of the three paper reviewers was (strongly pro-Leave) Ruth Lea. So 'that makes it all right then'!
Desert Island Discs, recorded post-Referendum, featured the US ambassador to the UK, Matthew Barzun. Ambassador Barzun defended his president's 'back of the queue' comment (in support of Remain) and repeated the Obama administration's reasons for opposing Brexit - namely that Brexit wouldn't be a good thing.
The World This Weekend, with Mark Mardell, started out on a strongly anti-Brexit footing. First, Mark went to speak to the protesters on the the March for Europe - which, by reckoning, aren't the majority 52% (obviously), or even the minority 48%. They are the 0.17%. Why should TWTW have indulged them, and led with them?
Then came a near-quarter-of-an-hour interview with Tony Blair, who put both the anti-Brexit and the 'this referendum result could be overturned' cases. Mark Mardell began by asking him, "Who now speaks for that 48% who voted Remain?"
After him came a surprisingly short interview with Suzanne Evans of UKIP, It lasted three minutes. Mark began by asking her (and then asked her again) whether, as Mr Blair said. we should vote again if the public mood changes (as, he said, her side would have also said if they'd lost).
Now, of course, the question arises: Is using Tony Blair to advance a position really helpful to that side? I can well imagine hordes of BLiar-haters listening to that interview and hearing nothing but variations on 'I hate that man' humming around their heads throughout the entire interview.
Later playwright (pro-Remain) David Hare, spitting mad about the Brexit vote, and House of Cards author (pro-Leave) Lord Dobbs, barely expressing a view on that subject, discussed post-Brexit politics.
There were some vague shades of grey there, but the tendency on the whole was clear - and in the anti-Brexit direction.
Given that I seem to be on a bit of a mission at the moment about Feedback, I think I ought to post something about what was discussed on the rest of this week's programme.
Three other subjects were covered.
The first concerned the BBC's science reporting. Roger Bolton said that many Radio 4 listeners felt that the station's dedication to science programmes has improved under its present BBC supremo but some listeners still worry about its science reporting (specifically on current affairs programmes), worrying about how sensationalist it can sometimes seem (they say).
A listener's voice was heard praising Justin Webb for getting it about right during a Today interview about whether tobacco use might be correlated to psychosis before Roger interviewed the BBC's health correspondent Jane Draper.
She said that she thinks long and hard before selecting a science-based health story to go with, She doesn't just read the press releases but the actual scientific papers, if they appear in reputable places like the BMJ or The Lancet. If they sound newsworthy to her she reports them.
The second subject concerned a short series of Radio 4's One to Onefeaturing Selina Scott. The three programmes focused on ghosts. Selina thinks her house is haunted because her cheerful dogs freaked out over something (yes, really).
In the course of the three programmes, she talked to a ghost-believing Anglican priest (who carries out 'home blessings' for people who think they've got a ghost), a Muslim who believes in djinns and a sceptical 'ghostbuster'.
A whole chorus of ghost-denying rationalist, science-loving Radio 4 listeners descended upon her like a pack of reasonable-but-annoyed spectral hounds.
I know quite a few people who believe in ghosts (including a family member who claims to have seen one more than once). I don't myself believe in ghosts, at all. I think ghosts are purely phantoms of the imagination - and possibly signs of worrying emotional and mental issues (if genuinely believed in rather than faked).
However, the onslaught of the Feedback listenership was so strident as to make me wonder about the fairness of excluding licence-fee-paying believers in ghosts from the nation's airwaves - or demanding, if the BBC deigns to indulge them in their fantasies, that the BBC must subject them to a fiercely debunking interrogation on every occasion (as some Feedback listeners clearly wanted).
I really don't know the answer to that. I'm still working on it, for some reason - and please feel free to advise me here.
The BBC high-up interviewed about it felt that the BBC had got it about right, of course.
The third subject concerned Noel Gallagher's appearance on Desert Island Discs. One Radio 4 listener objected, saying the programme was pandering to a non-Radio 4 audience. (She sounded far too posh to say, "Radio 4, you're twisting my melon, man".) Roger Bolton lined up loads of other Radio 4 listeners who loved it, loved it, loved it.
Actually, I loved it too. I completely missed the 1990s, pop-wise, so Oasis largely passed me by, leaving me (by the end of the decade) feeling like that 1980s judge who asked, "And who, pray, is Bruce Springsteen?"
So I was coming at Noel Gallagher from a fairly uninformed starting point. I rather took to him (to my great surprise).
He said a lot of very interesting things. And his choice of music clearly wasn't just for show either (and somewhat surprising).
Though the colour scheme and layout of our blog may not change very much (which gives Sue cause for concern, as she's got much better visual taste than me and would very much like to improve its somewhat make-do-and-mend look), the second part of the blog's title does vary from time to time.
As you may (or may not) have noticed, it now reads "...and any other matters that take our fancy", thus freeing us forever from having to peg every post to the theme of BBC bias and allowing us to bang on about any old random stuff that crosses our minds.
This post, therefore, will contain (a) a recipe for making lemonade, (b) a beginner's guide to Tantric Sex, and (c) the complete listings for ITV One for the next three months.
Or maybe not.
Actually, after he's been confirmed as suffering from pneumonia, this is going to be a must-read post about the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and his recent appearance on Desert Island Discs. ('Did you like that 'must-read'? As if!)
I like Justin Welby. He's the first A.B.of.C. I've ever really taken to and, despite my occasional fallings-out with him, I remain a fan.
(I feel a bit like George Herbert there: "I STRUCK the laptop and cried, “No more, Justin;/I'm getting bored./What, shall I ever sigh and whinge/About your comments about foodbanks?/But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild/At every word,/Methought I heard one calling "Craig, stop ranting",/And I replied, ‘Yeah, whatever!’")
He's a nice, bright-eyed archbishop - the Anglican Church's answer to his near namesake on Today, Justin Webb. (The two could easily be swapped). He's also quite wise, and highly likeable and well-intentioned. Plus, he wears his liturgical vestments well, and, surprisingly, believes in God.
He does the good old C of E proud, and though he doesn't denounce some of the things I'd really like him to denounce, I'll still forgive him.
The format of Desert Island Discs, as we've discussed here before, is infallible (something Archbishops of Canterbury have never claimed to be).
The choices of music were clearly those of a man who doesn't live and breathe music for music's sake (unlike myself). He admitted at the start that he's incapable of remembering music, however much he enjoys it, and that he'd got a colleague to help him remember what he liked in order to choose his eight records. (That would never happen with me.)
The pieces chosen evoked family, his church career, places and events. His final choice of just one record to survive - a piece of (to my ears unremarkable) contemporary evangelical music - was characteristic.
Still, they managed to be very revealing. His first choice, In the Jungle (The Lion Sleeps Tonight), for example, reflects a family in-joke. When they play a highly competitive card game with others and they start losing, Justin begins singing. The aim is to put the others off. (Being competitive myself, I might well try that out when we next play Trivial Pursuit). Fancy, an A.B.of.C. engaging in one-upmanship! (Would Jesus have approved?)
We learned many other interesting things.
His parents had their wedding at 11 Downing Street, his mother's uncle being R.A.B. Butler. His mother had worked for Winston Churchill for six years and he himself remembers Winston as an old man. Winston cried, and he cried, then they had a cup of tea. His mother said Winston cried quite a lot.
His parents divorced when he was 3 years old. His father manufactured whisky for a while and aspired to be a Conservative politician (or "Tory politician", as Kirsty instinctively put it) but became an alcoholic - something Justin realised when he was around 12 years old. He recalled his father spending one Christmas Day in bed and himself staring out of the window, feeling hungry. "A grim, grim day", he called it.
He attended Eton, where they went to church twice a day. He doesn't remember much about that, except the headmaster falling out of the pulpit. (He got caught in his own microphone and squawked slightly.)
He got a C in History, a D in English and and E in French, and yet still got into Trinity College, Cambridge. He's said he's still not quite sure how, but admitted he'd got a second chance - another exam (purely on History, his favourite subject), and knuckled down to pass it.
He loved Cambridge, and met his wife, Caroline, there. His moment of conversion came there too.
After leaving Cambridge, he took a job in the oil industry and lived in Paris.
In was in 1983, on his first day back in England, that his first-born daughter, Joanna, died, aged seven-months-old, in a car crash. (This was the most moving part of the programme. I came very close to tears at this point). Having talked to many, many others since, his advice on reaching the yearly anniversary of her death is: "Attack the day so that it won't attack you" - i.e. remember, commemorate.
In 1989, he left the oil industry and began a theology degree at Durham. Asked for his feelings about working in the oil industry, he said he enjoyed it. He was working with people he liked (which makes me like him even more).
He was Dean of Liverpool, and recalled the Hillsborough anniversaries (not that they talk about it much there). He described Liverpool as "this amazing, wonderful, poor, battered, thrusting, lively, humorous city".
As for the strange fact that he'd barely been a bishop for six months before becoming A.B.of.C, he said that he still feels as if he's not up to the task most of the time, describing that feeling as "imposter syndrome", and as for his faults he said, "I find it very easy to be lazy. I have a butterfly mind".
Kirsty Young did her thing. She's very good at it.
Of course, she's BBC through-and-through, so we got this kind of question from time to time:
Let's talk for a moment about same-sex marriage. You yourself have spoken against same-sex marriage. What do you think it is about homosexual relationships that should make them, in the Church's eyes, inferior, less equal, not open to the same opportunities that you afford all the other brethren?
Kirsty didn't, however, refrain from asking him the familiar, age-old questions, such as about what eternity is and why God allows suffering to happen.
Archbishop Justin didn't answer them to my satisfaction (as a atheist/would-be believer), sometimes taking the C of E's equivalent of the U.S. Fifth Amendment, sometimes moving into poetic, visionary language, sometimes just saying that we should focus on Christ, dying for us on the cross. However much I might like it to do so (and I really would like it to do so) and however much I might appreciate the effort, that sort of thing just cannot persuade me at the moment.
Finally, there was BBC connection in one of his musical choices - a piece written for his investiture as A.B.of.C. by Radio 3 Private Passions presenter Michael Berkeley. Private Passions is Radio 3's answer to Desert Island Discs. The piece, Listen, Listen, Oh my Child, has shades of John Tavener's popular The Lamb but with a very catchy, upbeat chorus.
The show itself — invented in 1942 by Roy Plomley, who presented it for a mere 43 years — is a national institution. In its gentle, droll and panoramic way it provides a window into British culture. Plomley wrote in his original submission to the BBC that castaways would include “dance-band leaders, actors, members of the Brains Trust, film stars, writers, child prodigies, ballet dancers and all sorts of people”.
Its wide sweep of guests from all walks of public life, including many who are distinguished in their own field but are relatively unknown to the general public, has introduced listeners to whole areas of knowledge and fresh cultural worlds they are delighted to discover.
With its ability to educate, inform and entertain, Desert Island Discs is arguably the one show that defines the BBC, remaining faithful like no other to its core principles and retaining its original format.
The Today programme on Radio 4, which started in 1957, has changed in format, style and content. TV’s Question Time, which started in 1979, did not originally include so much audience participation and certainly no comedian on the panel. As for The Archers, which started in 1951, its attempt to reflect politically correct reality has made its storylines as likely as a cowpat in Islington.
Yet Desert Island Discs remains unchanged. No such show today would supply the mythical island with the Bible and Shakespeare. In that way it is an island in itself, resisting the rising seas of I’m a Celebrity, Big Brother and other such cultural effluent.
Its genius is that it allows each of us to fantasise about our own eight discs and being on our own desert island, alone and thrown on our own resources. Would we master our circumstances or allow them to master us? Are we survivors or expirers?
As in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Desert Island Discs enchants us with its isle full of noises “that give delight and hurt not”, and on which we delight to dream.
GUESTS on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs are actually abandoned on a remote Pacific atoll, the BBC has revealed.
Most of the 19,000 previously uninhabited rocky outcrops in the Pacific now have heavily-bearded media personalities on them, waving desperately at planes passing overhead and cursing their agents.Since 1942 the broadcaster has marooned thousands of celebrity guests on tiny islands with just eight pieces of music for comfort.
A BBC spokesman said: “The show would be pretty pointless if we didn’t actually plan to subject the guest to a lifetime of unendurable isolation.
“It would be little more than a string of interminable anecdotes from people you’ve barely heard of.
“I can only imagine that most of them perished a long time ago, but at least they had the likes of Spandau Ballet to provide a soundtrack to their arduous and ultimately futile daily battle for survival.
“Sometimes I’m haunted by their confused, fearful expressions when they’re bundled on to a plane at the end of the show, but as a Radio 4 producer you become immune to looks of quiet desperation.”
As you may have noticed, this hasn't been a particularly busy week of blogging here at Is the BBC biased?. It's not that there's been nothing to write about, rather the reverse: There's been far too much to write about.
For starters, there's the news from Iraq, where a small band of medieval-minded Muslim fanatics have attempted to seize control of the Iraqi Midlands, and there's the news from England, where a small band of medieval-minded Muslim fanatics have attempted to seize control of the country's second city.
On the Iraq story, I'm not going to be disingenuous here. I think the range and quality of the BBC's coverage has been impressive. So many interesting experts have been invited into the BBC's studios this week that I actually feel properly informed for once - though, of course, I'm not expert enough to tell whether they really are right or merely if they sounded right).
Also, having listened to and watched a lot of BBC coverage this week, I know what I've heard and I really have heard a dazzling variety of voices - defenders and critics of the al-Maliki government, defenders and critics of President Obama, defenders and critics of George W. Bush, defenders and critics of Tony Blair, pro-and-anti-Saudi voices, pro-and-anti-Iranian voices, etc.
As for 'angles', well, yes, some programmes have 'pushed' one particular angle at me (such as this morning's Broadcasting House which concentrated its criticism on President Bush and Mr al-Maliki), but those have been balanced by other programmes which either (a) 'pushed' a contrasting angle at me (such as today's The World This Weekend where President Obama's policy came under fire) or (b) 'pushed' a variety of contrasting angles at me (as on last week's editions of Newsnight, where various experts, two U.S. Republicans, two U.S. Democrats, a former UK ambassador to Iraq, a former head of the U.N., a Conservative MP, a Blair advisor, an ex-Labour left-winger, an Iraqi government supporter, an Iraqi government critic (and former PM), and an FT journalist were all brought in to give their widely differing views).
In all honesty, I really cannot fault it. Can you? (Please say if you disagree).
On the 'Trojan Horse' story though, I believe that Monday's BBC News at Six coverage was deeply biased (especially Reeta Chakrabarti's report) - and argued so in an earlier post.
Then, blow me down with a feather, on the following night's News at Six the BBC didn't just not bury the story, no, they actually took it forward, reporting that the claims of an Islamic plot (confirmed by Ofsted), were supported by evidence that something similar has been happening in schools in Bradford. [Alan at Biased BBC spotted this too, joking that it showed that the BBC "has started its own Islamophobic witch hunt".]
Newsnight's coverage was, I believe, rather too mired in BBC (PC?) caution on the one hand [with Chris Cook's reports continuing to resolutely downplay the story] and sensationalism on the other [with Emily Maitlis getting carried away with the programme's 'scoop' in getting Sir Michael Wilshaw of Ofsted to criticise Michael Gove then refusing to be straightforward when reporting Sir Michael's retraction of those criticisms - despite her BBC colleague, Jon Manel, unearthing for The World at Onewhat seemed to me conclusive prove that Michael rather than Sir Michael was remembering events correctly] - both trajectories tending toward taking the story away from its main focus and onto 'Westminster Bubble' matters instead.
As we've written here before, the BBC's 'Trojan Horse' coverage has been a real curate's egg. They've done some decent investigations of their own on this, and they've done some serious downplaying and deflection too. You might take that as a sign of their impartiality, or that they are beginning to see the light. I suspect it's also a sign of their utter confusion.
Most unusually for me, I even watched part of this morning's The Big Questions, which asked "Should the British stop tolerating intolerance?"
The guest list was largely familiar, predictable even, but it can't be faulted for variety. It included Ajmal Mansoor, Adnan Rashid and Myriam Francois-Cerrah [see-no-evil-hear-no-evil Muslims], Maajid Nawaz [a see-some-evil-hear-see-evil Muslim], Kevin Friery [an atheist], Peter Hitchens [a right-wing contrarian who takes an indulgent line on Islamic extremism], Douglas Murray [a right-wing contrarian who doesn't take an indulgent line on Islamic extremism], Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner [a liberal Jew] and Daniel Hannan [a liberty-loving Tory MEP], among others.
I also watched The Andrew Marr Showall the way though. A Middle East expert critical of Tony Blair and the editor of The Sun reviewed the papers. [I was shocked to learn that I didn't know who the editor of The Sun is. Victoria Newton was a new name to me]. Then came John Reid (Blairite ex-minister), actress Kathleen Turner, Tony Blair (Blairite ex-prime minister) and Sajid Javid (Conservative).
The world of Twitter exploded in rage at the mere presence of Tony Blair. Some also moaned about the BBC inviting a Murdoch Empire editor on. Accusations of bias inevitably poured in: Andrew Marr was too soft on Tony Blair. Andrew Marr was too soft on John Reid. Andrew Marr was too soft on Sajid Javid. Well, frankly, the Andrew Marr of today is not the Andrew Marr of five years ago. He's a kinder and gentler interviewer these days. He's soft on everyone...
....which at least gives us a chance to hear the views being expressed. I much prefer this way of interviewing, generally-speaking - unless the interviewee is being blatantly evasive [or if I really dislike the interviewee!]. It's much preferable to the relentless attack-attack-attack style of interviewing that too often topples over into being too unthinking and inflexible. [Mishal Husain's interviews on Today this past week have occasionally fallen into that trap].
What's next? Well there's also been Desert Island Discswith "Palestinian author and human rights activist" Raja Shehadeh and Kirsty Young making sympathetic noises as he told his passive-aggressive, embittered account of his personal experiences [h/t Sue] followed by Edward Stourton on The World This Weekendbeing oh-so-impartial in giving half of his report to the Israelis and half to the Palestinians but giving the 'woes' of the Palestinians a noticeably more sympathetic hearing, and the final word. If I may quote my friend Sue here:
So, even as the Trojan Horse rumbles on and the Islamist uprising rapidly spreads throughout the entire planet, the reality of the Palestinians' rejectionist attitude to peace with Israel remains a mystery to the pundits at the BBC.
In other news tonight, the Islamists of ISIS in Iraq have posted photos of what they say are huge numbers of massacred soldiers, the Islamists of Hamas are in the frame for kidnapping three teenage boys, at least nine people have been killed in an Islamist suicide bombing in Baghdad, Islamist suicide bombers have attacked checkpoints in Benghazi in Libya, the Islamist regime in Sudan has been accused by America of bombing schools and hospitals in two of its states, Islamists have attacked a coastal town in Kenya, Somali Islamists have rounded up 100 women and ordered them to comply with Islamic dress code or risk being whipped, a Christian teacher in Egypt has been jailed for six months for insulting Islam, al-Qaeda has released a video calling for jihad against India, etc, etc.
So, following through on the spirit of the previous post, what did the BBC do for me this past week?
Well, it gave me an episode of Natureon Radio 4, Bewitched by Dragonflies, which made me want to sit by the semi-stagnant waters at the end of the falling stair of locks at the end of the sadly-blocked-off segment of Lancaster Canal (over the road from the Longlands Hotel at Tewitfield, near Carnforth, should you fancy a visit) in order to re-watch the dragonflies I saw there - so large and so in-yer-face yet so beautiful. (I also saw an owl there, for good measure, in broad daylight).
The programme, a beautifully-constructed parade of voices, featured dragonfly enthusiasts and scientists, and was so full of fascinating facts about dragonflies that I'm quite sure I failed to take them all in - though, pausing, I can certainly remember certain things, such as the contrast between hawkers (which behave like hawks and follow and swoop on prey) and darters (which sit on things like reeds and then leap upwards at passing prey) for example.
I didn't know I wanted to know so much about dragonflies.
The enthusiast, Ruary Mackenzie Dodds, was so vivid and poetic in his descriptions that the British dragonfly population should seriously consider making him their ambassador to the world.
He was wonderful, and so were the two scientists - biologist Robin Wootton, who made a very good case that the dragonfly's motion was comparable to that of a helicopter's, only much better, and PhD student Milly Sharkey who discovered that larval dragonflies are able to see (and exploit to their advantage) polarized light (useful in murky water).
Then there was Tuesday's The Life Scientific, in which Jim Al-Khalili interviewed forensic anthropologist Sue Black.
She's a deeply likeable woman, whose line of work takes her to places most of us just couldn't face going to, in so many ways.
She loves anatomy, and described the contrast between the many bones of a child and the far fewer bones of an adult, and the challenge of tracking those bones as they develop in a growing child. She also described her early experiences of working in (and learning from) a butcher's shop.
She went on to describe her experiences of investigation and identifying corpses in Kosovo, and I don't think I've ever heard anything so powerful as this on the radio before.
She was, as seems to be her nature, so matter-of-fact yet so humane in her description of her work there. As well as her main role, she also acted as 'mum' to the others there, including to the British soldiers, some of whom found themselves overwhelmed by what they were witnessing - such as the soldier who imagined his own daughter's face on the body of the corpse of a two-year old Kosovan girl (shot in the fields by Serbs) and broke down in response. He was then hidden by colleagues behind a row of boots before Sue Black cottoned on to what they were doing and went to the soldier and allowed him to cry on her shoulder, thus helping him to see that it wasn't his daughter and that he shouldn't feel guilty about the girl lying in front of him. That's the kind of story you don't forget in a while.
Also wonderful - and not dissimilar in the scientific field of its subject - was the episode of Desert Island Discs with Professor Hugh Montgomery, an intensive care specialist who, besides his intensive care work, also managed to find time to discover the 'ACE fitness gene', climb Everest, run extreme marathons, write children's books, break the world record for playing the piano underwater and, as a youngster, swim and investigate the wreck of the Mary Rose. Among other things.
What a man - and what an engaging man too! (He did claim that he couldn't change a plug though - not that I entirely believe him there).
His motivation?
Well, his father "used to say the worms will get you" and he was, probably as a result, conscious of the inevitability of death from childhood. Still, he didn't despair at that; instead he drew inspiration from it:
"I've learnt that life can end randomly and pointlessly at any time. I don't want to be on my death bed and think 'damn! I wish I'd learnt to paint and write songs'"
He told of how patients with terminal diseases really can survive longer by refusing to give in and told the touching story of a patient who seemed to be hanging on to life because he didn't want to let him down.
His taste in music was interesting too. He chose one of my favourite songs, Kate Bush's The Man with the Child in his Eyes. That shows taste.
Still, whether Kirsty Young should have allowed him a fish-spearing kit as his luxury item is highly debatable. Tut, tut. Rules are rules after all.
