Mount I’ll Die On: Radio 4 Today’s show has been a bit boring since I left | John Humphrys

Meand seven years from me he stopped giving the Today program and start listening to Radio 3 instead. Or was the plan. On the first day it took about an hour. By the second day I had given up. I think it was inevitable. You can’t spend 61 years as fake news – more than half of them show the same program – and then just erase your memory and start a new life.

What you can do in myself – or, rather, you cannot do – is to turn into a “new” audience. How would a “new” audience describe him? I think if I were the editor of Lero, the word “pain in the arse” might come to mind. Having been talking to (and sometimes annoying) radio audiences for 33 years, I’m now the guy yelling at his radio station about how annoying the show is.

It’s not the fundamentals that make people uncomfortable – the three presenters are still as good as they come – it’s the things that defy the definition of IQ. In my new listening practice, IQ stands for “irritation quotient”, and is mainly related to the way the presenter speaks.

A good example would be Amol Rajan’s insistence on stressing, without fail, the definite article and the indefinite article in every sentence. In his country, “A“A bomb exploded in”THE” at Westminster Sorry to you, dear reader, if you haven’t seen it, but if you haven’t, I bet you will.

You will have seen the gratuitous compliments given by the host and guests to each other. Rare is the stranger who does not want to be loved by the interviewer. “Thank you so much for inviting me!” has become the standard. Where the correct answer should be: “On the contrary. Rather there is a race between the host and the guest. Again, some presenters are more at fault than others.”

And what do we mean that the presenters sometimes chat a little about the importance (or not) of an interview that one of them has just finished? As the discerning listener must have noticed, even some of the presenters appeared to be very uncomfortable. But not half of us who feel that Today’s listeners are strong enough to reach their own conclusions. That’s why they are Today’s listeners.

And I mean …………… it has become the most successful program in the history of broadcasting for a very good reason, you know? What I to do be aware that you, the discerning Guardian reader, can hear your teeth grinding as the presenter or, God forbid, even the occasional presenter or reporter will find it very difficult to get through an interview without… “I know…” maybe followed by “I mean…”

All of them? Almost always. Annoying? Seriously. But will I really die on this mountain? Maybe not. Then again… you know?

And if the big boss insists on reducing his budget so sometimes he has to use the TV report last night and be less “Today” and “Yesterday” – then Radio 3, I’m here!

But it survived (more or less) the BBC wounds, so let’s hope. I mean the audience can always suffer without it. You know…?

PS Grammar pedant that I am, this is not the mountain I will die on; that is the mountain on which I will die.