Melvyn Bragg is a higher being. He is erudite, cogent, neutral, and direct. He is an expositor with few equals. I am addicted to ‘In Our Time,’ his weekly podcast from BBC4. It is a feast for the mind each week. He handles the panel discussion with three specialists with a deceptive ease, striving always to get them to drop the academic caution, the polyglot speak, qualifications that swamp the main point, and communicate to the educated listener who would like to be informed.
Some of these qualities can be seen in the ABC-Television interview he did recently in Sydney in the link below.
Compare him to the aggressive, simple-minded journalist who interviews him. Her goal is to trip him up into yet another slang-off at the Murdoch press, as if the ABC was ever short of them. When that fails she loses interest until another slang off at religion from the ever full arsenal of clichés that pass for journalism. Spirituality is evidently unknown there.
Along the way, by implication, he gives her a lesson in interviewing, help the subject say what he has to say. Point not taken, I should imagine.
As a result only about half the interview concerns the subject that brought Bragg to the interview. Thus do ABC journalist grind their own axes on the public dole.
www.abc.net.au
Lord Melvyn Bragg of Wigton is a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction. We first encountered him with his masterly “The Adventure of English.” There is a book, but it is boring compared to the film, so find the DVD. We loved the recitations.
Dress sense was not his strong point in this film.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Adventure-English-Remarkable-Language-REGION/dp/B004X2PEKW/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1332465289&sr=1-1
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