In Our Time

I wish more of the radio was like In Our Time - to me it shows Radio 4 at it's best. Every week, Melvyn Bragg picks a subject on which pontification is to occur and then invites 2 or 3 incredibly intelligent people who know lots about it to come along and basically tell him about it. There's no arguements, there's no point scoring. Even when he picks people on different sides of whatever the topic is, it never gets heated. It's just your opportunity to add a little bit of erudition to your day. This morning they were discussing the concept of the hero; where it had come from, how it's changed, a kind of historical/philosophical look at the general concept. This series has also included "Infinity - a brief history", "Aging the Earth - a journey in geological time", "Cryptography - secret history of ciphers and codes", "Lamark and Natural Selection - the Lamarkian heresy" and tonnes more interesting sounding titles. It's not thought provoking exactly, it's not about raising issues, but it's fascinating. I wish it was on every monring.