Glad to be a plus one at the announcement of the nominees for the first Ilse Schwepke prize for Women’s Travel Writing. Winner to be announced in Frankfurt on 17th October. Feeling: uxorious. Hoping: victorious.

’It‘s difficult to watch other people when they’re watching you’ - the late Robert Redford, to Melvyn in 1976 www.bbc.co.uk/videos/c98d9...

One observation: in German media, a celebration of the culture of conversation in UK academia and what flows from that.

Another. Endlessly amazed by our listeners www.faz.net/aktuell/feui...

Lots of thoughts when reading tributes to In Our Time in other languages www.sueddeutsche.de/medien/melvy...

Thank you @brandyjensen.bsky.social

I see I’ve written ‘Wednesday’ as if that’s not yesterday 🙄. One of those weeks where so much happens that an hour seems like a day. Oh well. I’m passing on any messages so thanks for emailing them or posting them here (or elsewhere)

So many tributes to Melvyn since Wednesday and I was especially moved by Esther Rantzen and her reference to Joni Mitchell and Big Yellow Taxi (Don't it always seem to go/ That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone?) but not for the obvious reason.

Slightly short of words today but happy to echo this from John who, with Teresa and Phil, slipped in under the wire for what turned out to be a fitting close. Great edition www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

On a ferry across the Baltic and saw this retro French ad for constipation remedies (underneath the children’s burgers) and something in it immediately reminded me of a very brief encounter with Jane Birkin many years ago

My co-worker this afternoon

To celebrate I've updated my Dewey Decimal Classification of the series to include the latest episodes: feelinglistless.blogspot.com/2022/02/cata...

Thanks for including us in your list @dockterman.bsky.social it means a lot

Time + of all time + in our time = time to listen time.com/collections/...

Oh, all civil-looking, but you just know they were on the Luther Insulter just as you were offering tea or coffee. ergofabulous.org/luther/?

We no longer have the shorter repeats on Thursday evenings but a full repeat on Sunday. Can’t say I miss taking 14 minutes out of a 42 minute discussion and doing that to a tight deadline, though I did like the echo effect

If you missed our episode of In Our Time on civility (and can't wait for the rebroadcasts tonight and Sunday), you can catch the extended version on BBC Sounds here. I won't spoiler you on my tea or coffee order save to say that I was delighted it was the same as Melvyn's.

An honor and a pleasure to meet @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social at last and to talk about the slipperiest of topics, civility!

DPIR's ‪@tmbejan.bsky.social joins Melvyn Bragg and guests on BBC Radio4's In Our Time to discuss ideas around our understanding of the meaning of civility: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

From Hobbes to Locke to Rawls: ideas on enduring the value of (the best kind of) civility in public and private conversations www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Was amazing to be part of BBC R4's In Our Time talking about all things Dragon 🐲 If you want to know more about the Chinese zodiac, rain dragons, and The Dragon Boat Festival, you can listen online! 🐉 #inourtime #herebedragons #BBCRadio4

And delighted to be reminded of this by Uccello which I think was on the cover of the Fanthorpe collection and which I often see in part, in passing, on the Charing Cross Bakerloo platform www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/pa...

Also delighted to recall Not My Best Side from Ursula Fanthorpe www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/not-my... (which I recited at a verse reading competition at school)

Since Eliane suggested we discuss dragons I’ve been seeing them everywhere (and wondering how many saints killed dragons other than George) - this one was in Mulhouse www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Tomorrow: here be dragons! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... produced by Eliane

NEW: Eight exceptional individuals whose achievements have made lasting contributions to the world were recognised today with honorary degrees at Oxford University’s Encaenia. More information ⬇️ www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-06...

Where Melvyn is, today www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-04...

Currently on BBC Sounds: Melvyn Bragg & guests – Michael Boardman & Rhiannon Purdie of @uniofstandrews.bsky.social, & Steve Boardman of @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social – discuss John Barbour's c.1375 epic, the earliest surviving poem in Older Scots 3/3 #medievalsky www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Dr Juliette Wood will (once again) be a guest on In Our Time on BBC Radio 4. Juliette has specialist knowledge of folklore and mythology and will be discussing dragons on 26 June. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... @cuhistarchrel.bsky.social @cuengcommphilos.bsky.social

With the choir filling the middle of the cathedral of La Seo and with this organ, I wish I could have stayed longer and heard the full effect

Looking up at the ceiling of La Seo, Zaragoza

Looking across the Ebro to El Pilar, Zaragoza

St John’s eve in Zaragoza (c6 months to/from Christmas) with people committing to paper whatever they’d like to leave behind and then joyfully burning it 🔥

Zaragoza evening

Lots of regional variations in NZ, notably Kate Sheppard, who led the campaign for women's suffrage, in the streets around parliament. (Other examples: kapa haka for the Te Matatini Festival & Sheila Williams with her dog Raven, carnival queen in 1933, in the aftermath of the Napier Earthquake)

Two editions meeting in one Throne Room ceiling - Catherine of Aragon from earlier this year and Dragons coming up this week

If pressed to name a favourite ‘cross now’ sign, it would be this one seen today

Tomorrow we’ll be discussing Robert the Bruce and the earliest poem written in Older Scots or, as the author John Barbour called it, ‘English’ (one of our guests commented that a nation’s main language was once a dialect with an army) www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Delighted to announce my new podcast series History’s Heroes is launching today on BBC Sounds and wherever you get your podcasts. Also coming to BBC Radio 4 later this year! Episode 1 is Saving Face With Harold Gillies Episode 2 is Katharine Hepburn: Queen of the Screen

Started the morning with evolution of lungs then did some breathing exercises for flute and then this crops up. There’s something in the air

Link to the program, which aired this morning! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

If you're curious about lungs, and why birds and us mammals breathe differently, and why bird-style lungs helped dinosaurs become so big... Have a listen to the latest In Our Time on BBC Radio4, as @emilyrayfield.bsky.social , Jonathan Codd & I converse with the legendary Melvyn Bragg! Link⤵️

I have a soft spot for topics like these (when so many pennies drop in my mind). So that’s why we hiccup! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Chastening experience: using ‘gift horse in the mouth’ and ‘pig in a poke’ in normal conversation with teens and they look at me as if I’m Chaucer

Found these growing wild in my garden and all of a sudden I’m thinking of Victor Sjöström driving down to Lund #Smultronstället (and yes, this was delicious and sweet)

Also come here to see the deer 🦌

Site of Eisenhower’s office. This place helps me remember what’s possible and what can change

And that marker of the former headquarters of Supreme Command for D-Day is so easy to miss (at the end of the fallen branch, bottom left)

“This is the site of the north west corner of C Block Camp Griffiss C Block was the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force”