Melvyn Bragg meets Misha Glenny

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0:30It all starts with a subscription to bbc.com. Find out more at bbc.com slash unlimited. Hello, it's Melvin Bragg here. On Christmas Eve, I had the pleasure of being guest editor on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. And for this, I spoke to my successor on In Our Time, Misha Glenny. We thought you might like to hear this, so here it is. Our discussion was led by the Today presenter, Justin Webb. Melvin, let's begin with the eternal appeal. I mean, it's kind of obvious place to begin, but it is an important place to begin. Why is it that this incredible thing, this cultural event and this hugely important event in so many people's lives, not just in Britain, around the world?

1:12Why? What is it that took off? I think what took off is curiosity. I think one of the most striking characteristics that we have is curiosity. That's one thing. People want to know stuff. and when you're listening in pubs and that, people are talking about what they know to each other. And secondly, I think that a lot of us, me included, had a very patchy education. And when things come up about almost anything to do with science, I'm more interested in anything else because they didn't teach it at my school. They skimmed through, you know. So it's those two things. And then because of the way we, I was about to say constructed, because of the way we put together.

2:00It was interesting to go from one thing to another, to another, to another. And then we decided that was one of the principles. We would go from talking about ancient China to talking about my favorite opening by any scientist, which is a billion, billion light years away. And then he followed that. There's that. And the other thing is that we hit on something that I wanted to do when I was doing Start of the Week but we didn't do enough which is we only basically only talked to academics and it became their program and they listened to it each other listened to it and it became their program and the next thing is is that they we then said they have to be teaching academics so they're used to talking to people like me who doesn't know anything and that is almost 100 % kept.

2:55They teach, they finish in this studio and they go back to their universities or colleges and they teach. And those four things came together. Also, there's a vacuum. People were bouncing on academics once or twice but we were consistently talking to academics about stuff they knew more than anybody else to somebody who knew nothing at all. What would you add to that? I would add to that. There's anything to be added to that. There is something to be added, and that's Melvin himself. Because, Melvin, if you think about it, I mean, the format is really quite straightforward. It's not, you know, there aren't too many bells and whistles to it.

3:34It's three academics talking about stuff that they know about. Why does it work? Well, that's where you came in, because you create in every episode, and I've listened to a lot of them now, a really comprehensible arc, a story whereby you come into a subject that you know nothing about and 45 minutes later or whatever it is, you go away thinking, I've always wondered what that is about and now at least I understand the basics of it. An example of that for you? Plate tectonics. I can remember when I was listening to it, it was about sort of 10, 15 years ago, I was rushing, I was making breakfast and I had to get out.

4:21And I was listening to this stuff about plate tectonics and I just dropped everything and sat down. Including the plates. Including the plates. Sat down and listened to it. And when at the end, because it starts off with, you know, huge sort of rocks sliding underneath each other and everything. But by the end, there is this revelatory explanation that without plate tectonics, there is no life. And that it's at the very, it's the most fundamental level. I knew nothing about it, and I have never forgotten it. Now, does it differ when you're doing a subject that you do know something about to when you're doing something, I assume, with plate tectonics?

5:06When you don't, you're starting really from scratch. How does it affect you? Has it affected you when you've been doing your research? Well, I try harder when I don't know anything, but I also enjoy it more. And also the people who are in that realm are extremely good talkers, and they're very used to doing things concisely and helping you to move on. They're quite generous to each other as well, really. That's interesting. More generous than in the arts, perhaps. Yes, on the whole. Yeah, I think they're very generous. But I do notice, Melvin, I mean, again, I'm listening very closely to these programs now, that when somebody is rabbiting on a bit too long, you always find the right moment to come in and say, absolutely fascinating, but let's move on.

5:54But it's really important because otherwise they'd just be rabbiting on for 40 minutes. What's the skill of doing that? then? Well, everybody who comes on the program now, the academics, we're talking about very, very bright people. They generally know each other. They don't want to steal time from each other. And they got the hang of it. And you can tell really, by waving a finger, it's your turn now. And they go that way. It's very, very rarely that anybody wants to filibust it. They see it as what it is, a conversation. It's more than a conversation, it's an investigation. between three people who really know what they're talking about and don't begrudge other people talking as well.

6:38They often say, oh, he knows a bit more about that than I do. And so it's always a shared investigation. I think that's what people like. Also, there's no plugging at all. I said we have no plugging and we have no plugging. And I think that's a big thing. You also don't tell me as the listener how I should think differently about my previous thoughts, prejudices, etc. In other words, there's no sort of... You go to a museum now and there'll be some set of contexts written for you that you should think of decolonising or whatever the thing is that you're meant to be thinking about. You don't do that, do you?

7:18You've never done it. No. Why not? I just want to stick to the subject, and that's quite enough to do. and when you're surrounded by people who know as much as these people do. So they want to pass this information on. And it's curiosity, we're all curious, but it's the teaching thing, I think, that was the key to it. So, Misha, how does it change now? Well, first of all, I want to say try stepping into these boots. This is going to be really difficult. Melvin is the programme, the programme is Melvin. There's no getting away from that. I am hugely honored to be taking this role on, but I don't want to go in and smash up the China, as it were.

8:04I want to do what Melvin has been doing very well, I mean, brilliantly for so many years. And I need to get my feet under the table. Now, it may be that there are certain areas, I'm thinking particularly of some aspects of European literature, South American history, possibly, where I've done work in the past that I would like to bring up. I mean, I'm going through all of the episodes to see what you've done and what you haven't done. Ah, what he's missed. Exactly. That will be a difficult task, I suspect. It is a difficult task because there are so many. but I think there'll be a slightly more European focus but I don't want to forget the rest of the world either but I love the science programmes I find the science programmes for exactly the same reason as you did I now confess I got an unclassified in my O-level physics and I've been struggling to overcome that fact ever since so this is very useful Lord Carrington used to say, when asked about scientific matters, former foreign secretary, of course, in early Thatcher government, used to say, I went to school before science was invented, my dear.

9:19Which I always thought was a rather good thing to say. Now, tell us more. The first time I met you, Misha, we were in a hotel in Bosnia under mortar fire and you were broadcasting in German. So you are a man of many talents. Tell us about the way in which you've gone from there to here. Well, I was at the BBC as the Central Europe correspondent, which is when you met me, based in Vienna. But I've been obsessed by Eastern Europe in particular and the communist world ever since my teens. So to be the BBC Central Europe correspondent in 1989, when you have the biggest foreign story since the Second World War, was a dream.

10:04I mean, what can I say? I knew Havel, I knew Vawensa, I knew all these people and had done for 10 years or so. So when they were forming the new governments, I knew who was in the government before they'd even thought of it. It was fantastic. But after that came the wars in Yugoslavia. And one of the things I picked up on during the wars in Yugoslavia was the fact that organized crime played an absolutely critical role in the atrocities in that war. And it was that study of organized crime which made me realize there's a lot more going on in the world than just the Balkans. I'd spent too much time in the Balkans by then.

10:48And so I embarked on going around the world studying organized crime by talking to a lot of bad people and one or two good people as well. And that is really was my in our time experience of going to places and doing things that I'd never come across before. And it just expanded my whole understanding of how the world works. And that's the kind of thing that I get from listening to the program. There's always something that you either never quite understood or never even knew about. What's your advice to him, Melvin, as he starts? I think follow what you really want to do. There's so much information out there.

11:32And so many people are good at reciting it. And so many people who send in contributions. We have hundreds of lists saying, you should do this, you should do that, you should do the other. And one of the things about bumping into people on the heat or whatever it is, you haven't done this, you haven't done that. Do you take their advice? Sometimes. It seems to have taken off in its own way. From the beginning, I wanted it to be eclectic. Melvin, why do you think it's so popular with younger audiences? because in terms of BBC programmes, it's one of the top for the under-35s. I have to come back to what I said at the start, really.

12:14The people who are talking about it are teachers, and they come in here, these small studios, and they know they've got to get a move on, they know they've got to cut it short, they know they can't wander on forever, and so they have to cut their cloth. And I think they all think it's, as I do, it's an absolute delight. and the archive that we have now is phenomenal. Incredible. It is a phenomenal archive. It's probably the greatest archive in the world, cultural archive. It's an interesting point you make about the appeal to young people because one of the things we sort of try sometimes to convince ourselves, it seems to me, is that everything intellectually is going down the tubes, basically, that we are not the people we once were, that we've lost our ability to cope with things that challenge us, that we don't read lengthy things anymore, that we don't do this, we don't do that.

13:10And actually, in a sense, this is the opposite, isn't it? And it's telling us a very different story about ourselves and particularly the young. It is, Justin. And for the last three and a half years, I've been running an institute in Vienna called the Institute for Human Sciences, which is an advanced research centre. And we get younger fellows, fellows in their 20s who are either doing their doctorates or have just finished their doctorates. And their scholarship is phenomenal. I mean, way ahead of anything I ever managed to achieve academically or intellectually. Absolutely terrific. And we get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of applications to come and study in that institute.

13:57And so I see this on the ground that there is still an intellectual ferment, even though we know that all of our brains are being turned to mush by social media and so on. We are still learning and we are still curious. And holding steady. I mean, there is around the place at the moment an epidemic of incompetence. but on this program that we've been doing a program which you will happily take over there's none of that allowed because the other people on the program just shake their heads you can't say that that doesn't work you can't do that it is down to them and down to the fact that I go back to the beginning of what we were all talking about I think that we are a curious species they want to know what's around the corner what's on the moon?

14:48Why is this happening? Why is this happening? I think that's the biggest drive, I think. I mean, maybe you're wrong. But Melvin, you also, you of course, point out legendarily that you are never knowingly relevant in this programme. And yet, when I listen to these programmes, you're right, on the surface, it's not knowingly relevant at all. But underneath, at the back of your mind, your ideas are percolating and you can't help but wonder how that relates to your own experience or something that's going on at the moment. So it's never knowingly relevant, but it often is relevant. Yes, that's the way knowledge works.

15:30A very good moment at which to finish. Misha, Melvin, thank you both. It's been a great privilege to present in our time for so many years and I'm delighted that Misha will be taking on the role. His first programme will be available on Radio 4 and on BBC Sounds on the 15th of January. I wish Misha the programme and you, our listeners, around the world, every success. Hi, it's India here. I'm very excited to bring you the return of child. So we've been on the journey of an embryo all the way to a baby's first birthday. And now we are going to enter the explosive life of the toddler. because this is the perfect place to unpick the very complicated world of emotions, the emotions that affect us all.

16:20So come with us as over eight episodes, we fall through the abundant and dizzying world of happiness, descend into the depths of fear and the gendered and dangerous world of anger, and then crawl, wobble and bounce our way through awe, love, anxiety and surprise. From BBC Radio 4, this is Child with me, India Rackerson. Listen first on BBC Sounds.

16:48True crime meets history with a twist in a new series of Lady Killers. Join me as we travel back in time to investigate the most astonishing lady killers of the 19th and 20th centuries. We visit the scene of the crime and we delve deep into their lives to ask, how did they do it? Why did they do it? What drove them to it? Watch Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley on BBC.com. It all starts with a subscription to BBC.com. Find out more at BBC.com slash unlimited.