John Humphrys on the Today Programme

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I'm fed up to the back teeth with his persistent and irrelevant ego-parading interruptions of news items, reports and other presenters. Does anyone else feel that the man is a bumptious prick?

I've emailed the today programme team from this page

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/cgiemail/radio4/today/haveyoursay/contactus.txt

Text of email below:

John Humphrys' persistent and irrelevant interruptions of reports, presenters and news items are a huge irritation. They diminish the programme and detract from the items. My heart sinks nowadays when I turn the radio on and hear his voice. Please have a word with him.

Let's be quite clear - I'm all for his agressive interviewing of politicians. It's all the other pompous idiocy I can't stand.
 

Fnaar

Smutmaster General
Location
Thumberland
Can't stand his style... using archives to constantly (and usually unnecessarily) trip people up over something quite trivial, dressing his point up in impossible to follow convolutions:
"But you said, in 1996, that were the governement to implement a policy which gainsays the current changing stance on the need for stabilisation of the economy, that you wouldn't entertain the idea of not changing your stance on such moves. Is that not a U-turn of sorts?" and other such blah. Now listen to 5Live instead...
 

Paulus

Started young, and still going.
Location
Barnet,
I quite like his style. if a interviewee has changed tack over the course of time it is important to probe that person to find out why. Too many MP's in particular cannot do an interview without referring to the party line. Humphries tries to get behind that and find out what the person really thinks.
 
Humphrys is annoying, but not half so annoying as Carolyn Quinn.

She's so trivial and irrelevant, her 'jolly hockey sticks' style is so irritating.

She tries to do the Humphrys aggressive interviewing thing, but as soon as the interviewee goes outside her scripted questions she can't keep up, she just asks the scripted questions anyway, even if the interviewee has just answered them, or agreed the point, or let slip some unexpected revelation that ought to be jumped-on.
 
OP
OP
T
Location
Behind a desk
andy_wrx said:
Humphrys is annoying, but not half so annoying as Carolyn Quinn.

She's so trivial and irrelevant, her 'jolly hockey sticks' style is so irritating.

She tries to do the Humphrys aggressive interviewing thing, but as soon as the interviewee goes outside her scripted questions she can't keep up, she just asks the scripted questions anyway, even if the interviewee has just answered them, or agreed the point, or let slip some unexpected revelation that ought to be jumped-on.

That's true too - she's a lightweight and out of her depth most mornings.
 

goo_mason

Champion barbed-wire hurdler
Location
Leith, Edinburgh
andy_wrx said:
On the other hand I like Naughtie and Ed Stourton, Sarah Montague is OK.


Eddie Mair really p*sses me off on PM, where his stand-in is...Carolyn Quinn !

I like Eddie - he has a good line in dry, self-deprecating humour. I can't comment much on Humphreys et al as I'm out on the bike by the time they come on at 6am...

(I do still love that 'Bell End' clip from Today with Humphreys and the lexicographer though. I remember hearing that 'as it happened' and I almost fell to the floor in hysterics as it got more and more Viz-like...)
 

barq

Senior Member
Location
Birmingham, UK
I heard JH isn't nice to work with but I'm happy enough listening to him. I think one of the great things about R4 is the range of interview styles. If it were all done a la Humphrys then I'd get sick of it, but variety keeps it fresh.
 

Globalti

Legendary Member
Oh really! He's getting quite old; have some respect. He knows a lot, probably more than you anyway.
 

just jim

Guest
Anyone hear Humphries interviewing Paxman on his Edinburgh International Television festival lecture? Quite odd - like De Niro and Pacino appearing in the same scene for the first time ever in' Heat'.

I'd have thought it went against some kind of BBC guideline or sumpin.
 
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