Read this: 17/11/2023 Radio 4 Feedback

BBC sounds music Radio podcasts hello the ceremony of remembrance from the Cenotaph is boys very nature a sombre affair listening now on the radio apart of a longline hearing.

This is exactly the same time on Sundays back through our families history and now did Radio 4 get the tone right this song location was utterly ruined my commentary about the emotional power and moving quality of the Lament from Dido and aeneas by talking over incessantly presenter of Paddy O'Connell is here to answer the critics also Lucy proctors.

That was a mad is proving to be an interesting series on an issue that long-forgotten radio 4S 10-part series unravel.

Histories of BSC went on well with most listeners, but didn't spend too much time on unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and such a pity that Lucy chose his wife over some serious evidence-based conclusions and challenge the presenter and producer Lucy Proctor explains the thinking behind the series and a mother and daughter are in a box this week to listen to Kirsty Young young again.

It is a bit of a distraction.

It's like a sleight of hand when bonds are falling on Gaza and all the rest of it that we should be listening to celebrity biographies the more from Sarah and Ruby later, but first the BBC has been broadcasting the ceremony of remembrance from the Cenotaph since 1920 and that is why we come this morning to this other memorial stone and Whitehall the Cenotaph in the 11th month on the nearest Sunday to the 11th day and as the 11th hour.

Over the years the coverage has been presented by a long list of broadcasting luminaries including Wynford Vaughan Thomas Tom Fleming and the number of Dimbleby the last four services have been presented by Paddy O'Connell who's often when hosting Radio 4 Broadcasting House the challenges of getting the light the art of silence and his connections to the armed forces.

I'm the son of a Roman commander who landed at D-Day and of a Wren who worked at the park.

I am often leading battlefield tours.

I fundraise for military charities and it's you know in the face of it a very big honour.

I think it's something that can be easily improved by listening to the people who listen to it.

So it's great to be on feedback because I love to hear the people who are on the radio owner.

Listen to things that can go better so it's a very big privilege, but it's also appreciative in people's ears.

So you know it's good to hear the brickbats and bouquets about such an event start with the book a because Fiona godlee.

Got in touch.

I listen to the Cenotaph ceremony on Sunday on Radio 4 rather than watching as had previously done.

That was really deeply moved the music of course wonderful delivery is voices familiar from broadcasting house and has a comforting tone and Lightness of touch which prevented the coverage from sounding Morgan Secrets is it can when presenting the sort of occasion he also feel personal themselves and to us as listeners around the world.

I really appreciated all the additional background information that radio allows including some well measured and slightly write comments about the disproportionate number of Prime Ministers taking out to lay received the speed and content and delivery exact.

Thank you and Congratulations I wonder how much background do you and the team do to make sure that you know as much as you possibly can about the service well.

I think it's very dimension.

It's a team production.

So if the owner has heard information.

She liked that information which has been discussed with me and provided to me by my cock is led by Catherine Longworth so the preparation begins for 3 weeks before information didn't come out of my head made up it comes because it's been good to me by the team and also the authorities provide us the Ministry of Defense and department of Culture media and sport provide us with information.

So yes, it's good to know that some of the information is relevant.

We give it all so Fiona's hearing things which I'm a filtering and it's good that she enjoyed the work done by the people which was filtered through me know.

I'd like to put the comments given to us by Steve killer.

In the past men's just Tom Fleming David Dimbleby and Eric Robson ever guided us through the service and sadly jolly old Paddy simply lacks the gravitas.

I feel to do it.

Maybe the consummate master of lightweight Frost and bring some serious stuff with lighthearted interludes on Broadcasting House programme, but there's no way he should be taking us to a service such as it is intended to be moving and reflective the line of time to remember those who have given life and limb for their country Paddy sadly is more suited give us an opportunity to get the weight of the bearskin when I listen to the radio iPhone views, just as strong as Steve so you know I feel sorry that Steve didn't feel that I lived up to the people down there forever.

I shall be there on it forever either, but you know the weight of a basking is one-and-a-half pounds and the weight of of of

Veteran of the second world war is known to me because I I carry his coffin he fought alongside my father so I mean there's many different ways to talk personally about it, but Steve is quite right to write to you with Chris's and that's what feedbacks for talking here about tone and of course the tone is is so important does the head of Radio 4 or some similar sit down with you and say right Paddy let's talk about how to do this or when they invite you to take on this role.

Do you they assume that you know what the time should be? How does that work in the course of the service with green advance as a team when we would think it's appropriate to speak at all.

So that's a decision taken by very experienced people people who make the call evensong Radio 3 or make the Sunday service on Radio 4 people who are well used to making solemn services, so we look at what's up? What's going to?

And we work out you know he start from position of not speaking and then we work out what point should we so inevitably we the first thing is, when is it appropriate to speak all the sort of skeleton parts of the Script I would write long before hand and and give to my colleagues for improvement and review so the tone of the of the shoulders of the event.

I would have considered before hand and ask for advice before and so there's a difference between the material prepared and the difference in the material conjure up in the moment so it in terms of the tone.

It's a mixture of words which has said which you have considered in advance and words which you are speaking to the action and procedures of events in front of you.

Encroaching on the bonds of Big Ben as 11 rosemary rose has been in contact to complain about you talking over another part of the service the atmosphere at this occasion actually ruined by commentary about the emotional power and moving quality of Elementary Dido and aeneas by talking over it incessantly my opportunity for reflection and destroyed by the same sense to handling.

This is left me with feelings of disappointment exasperation and incredulity at the lack of sensitivity David Cameron Theresa May Boris Johnson and Elizabeth trust the number alone is a tilt to turn in politics around down around what this is an unchanged service that you were talking over.

The service she wants to hear well.

I think the first thing it would be you know sorry I mean there are 13 pieces of music played before the service and we never speak over 10 of them.

What happens as you approach the moment as your discussing the 11:00 moment when the nation comes Silence is that all the the Gathering of the constitutional clan we have the clerical possession we have the political possession and we have the procession led by The King and you know with respect to Rosemary in the past everyone who attempted to bring this event to radio will have said when the king arrives and also when the prime minister arrives, so I mean I think the thing to say is that it's a service that was it's been placed the Brits 1930 we know what's coming up.

We don't speak over any of it until as we approach.

We come up to 11.

It's

Job to tell the people listening the listeners which often included me who's coming onto the stage who's coming on to this hallowed Arena who would I if I was watching who would I see come out 00? It's the king.

There is advice and information that it's our job to give and it can sound I imagine that you're competing with beautiful music which myself I love so say to Rosemary you know if you are if you send me your suggestion.

Do you know we can we can pass very hard-working team and so this being feedback with rightly talking about what should have been done better or what was appreciated, but if you do go back to what it it's for the silence.

It's for the king to lead the service which is all covered without any interruption Paddy O'Connell there.

Kirsty Young recently return to Radio 4 with a new series at the titled young again in which he asked celebrities would advice they give their younger selves guests of include Jada Pinkett Smith and Daniel kaluuya as one of supermodel Linda Evangelista well in Keeping with the cross-generational theme we put a mother and daughter in a box box to give us a personal take on the series.

I'm Sarah and I live just outside Glasgow and I'm a TV producer and the mother of Ruby and I'm Ruby and I live in Ibrox and I work in community development and I'm serious or what conversations would you have with your younger self? How do you reflect on the big decisions you've made? What have you learnt from your life so far?

A really phenomenal A good interviewer and she's so warm and funny it felt very like you sitting beside them in your living room or something yeah, that was quite into my hands like yeah, even if it wasn't you information about like new things were being revealed about the people that she was interviewing in the Linda Evangelista one.

I sorted vaguely remember to she was and that she was a model and stuff, but I didn't really know much more and the whole conversation went into I think about the sort of a me to think about her to think that I was married to him.

When all of this was happening is crazy.

Horrifying his name wasn't even mentioned and I assumed about what you might know about it, but maybe that's just maybe I'm just old and that's just a thing to do that everybody just

Shuffle my phone listening anyway, but I started doing it because I didn't know who you was not to be told everything in a voice-over about what you're about to hear and who somebody is and what you need to know yeah.

It's quite strange anyway.

I mean I listen to a lot of podcast but it's mostly true so yeah, I'm definitely more used to like or like news podcast as well, so I'm definitely you some more like structured and stylize and I think that the structure there's like you said before it felt like you were sitting in a conversation with someone and yeah, I don't know anything about Linda Evangelista anything before but I thought that actually feel quite engaging to be listening to this interview with someone especially we're the Assumption is that you do know who she is and about her life and kind of piecing it together from what from the questions are being asked.

Change voice she's definitely leave the conversation the way uh-huh I mean it makes you think about what you say to your younger self or you're still young as it doesn't count I can remember what Daniel kaluuya said and it was all about I mean he's young anyway, but he was saying he thinks the secret to life is all about being authentic and he said this brilliant crazy said he was never put off by doing anything is like stratospheric rise and he said if I don't do it somebody else will do you feel the pressure that you feel almost too much of being the man of the moment so consistently in some respects in some respects I do.

Swear I realise if it's not us then who I wish they live like your tongue out Daniel kaluuya.

I thought it was it was interesting to hear that kind of no matter how old you are.

You're always going to have stuff that you want to say to younger self you from last year.

You know I was thinking talking to my younger self about saving more money.

Oh my god.

That's exactly what I thought about think it's pretty universal is note I think everybody I think all the interviewees across the series had really similar similar on me.

That's why things like those sort of podcast relate to you because we all are human and we all have those feelings of kind of regretting things that we would have done differently and they're all really similar things on then you there love better you know.

More eccentric make better connections in your life be better with money by you know whatever it's all the same with all the same.

It's quite good to hear other people say it even though you're lying the famous.

You don't really care about when you get to feel like your part that intimate conversation when celebrity culture makes you feel like you don't have access to those people it feels like an inside skip delivered right to you.

I guess but then I guess also maybe we've been conditioned to feel like we should care about that more when you can probably go on Linda Evangelista Instagram and see what she's doing and what she's thinking without having someone mediated.

I think that it is a bit of a distraction.

It's like a sleight of hand.

Bombs are falling on Gaza and all the rest of it that we should be no sterling about listening to celebrity biographies of them things that are more serious.

I don't know that's my fleece in so cute.

Thanks to mother and daughter Sarah Barclay and Ruby Kelly know if you take part in or vauxbox.

Please do get in touch you can send us an email.

It's feedback at bbc.co.uk you can leave us a voice message on 03333440541 messages on social media at BBC R4 feedback describe them to some extent and if so, they gone mad infectious brain disorder called BSC that rampage through Britain's farms that lead to a cold.

The cows and then kills humans started with confusion depression mood change the time of suspicion was a mad professor because are mad is a 10-part series 4 Radio 4 which takes a long hard look at the BSE crisis of the 80s and 90s lovers considerably recall years of paranoia and political Fallout from the affair during which over 4 million cows were slaughtered and 178 people died from the human equivalent of BSC in the course of the series the presenter and producer Lucy Proctor attempts to tackle a number of unanswered questions, she's been telling me why she thought that was a good time to revisit the issue when covid happened and all of the Fallout that we've had from covid it did really reminds me of that time.

I thought that there was value.

In looking at mad cow disease the BSE crisis from the position that were in now 2030 years later and seeing what parallel is there might be what lessons we might and also just the interesting question of what happens when science can't give you all the answers which is what I realised that happened if you go into the podcast and there was of course a lot of coverage at the time there were a lot of documentaries on her that Panorama focused on this and the story at the time often lead the news including government enquiry.

I wonder did you want to find it any new evidence or do you just feel that the podcast gives you a very different way to tell the story.

I think one of the things that's really striking about the mad cow disease crisis.

How strongly at touched people's lives so it touched everybody's live but for some people that defined their lives.

1988 my Andrew was 5 years of age, so everytime I read a memo or find a mould another Discovery it's like a death toll from my Android thinking he was just started school.

He was enjoying sailing.

He was living a lovely life of a 5-year old boy and he is life with slowly ticking away.

Obviously if you lost a child that would be the defining thing of your life for many of the kind of would be scientists or hobbyists.

It's become something that they've become quite impressed with so it was something that really touched people's lives and I think the nice thing about a podcast or podcast series is that you can really get into some of that some of the things that little bit beyond what the news is interested in at the time or even now more money about listeners even those who were familiar with the story at the time especially those I've really enjoyed hearing it all pull together and and the context that.

Able to provide I wanted to let the BBC know how much I've been enjoying the 1:45 radio.

These past few weeks as a mad is proving to be an intro long-forgotten bring out so much contacts that I was unfamiliar with Henry Jones absolutely amazing add me saying what the hell too many times to count festival.

Thank you to Kat and Henry for those comments.

I think that's been the reaction of quite a lot of people is you know I didn't really realise that all of the things that happened and when I first started looking into the story.

I knew it was interesting which is obviously what I wanted to do it, but I didn't know all of these interesting bits of context and interesting kind of side stories that have happened and the other thing that people have said on liners how to sterling some of the

I think that's got an interesting part of the whole story is you know kind of lifting the lid on how things are made people always interested in those kinds of things especially when it comes to Fore Street burger then causes and it just come out I said what do you mean straight burger? Didn't do this.

What causes and he just shut up.

I wanted to put to Harvey Bradshaws question he said that he was a regulator and so was involved to some extent in the BSC issue a family series excellent up the last few episodes descended into its own Madness moving from science to Auntie science and conspiracy theories had no evidence to support them and should not have equal alongside series scientists and the fascinating experience of top civil servants, who such a pity that Lucy chose is Passover some serious evidence-based.

Illusions and challenges in particular, I would like to have heard more about how we learn lessons in communicating uncertainty and risk couple of points there firstly they were quite a few people who were interviewed to you said yourself won't scientists but indeed what kind of citizen scientists still campaigners and some of them relatively outlandish theories about BSC I wonder does Harvey have a point that they were given equal weight to the science.

Yeah.

I think he has an interesting question thanks for the little something that we really careful about when we are making the series so we had lots of conversations editorially with my editor Richard Fenton Smith and with other people in the BBC because of course you do need to be careful about how much weight you give different theories.

I think that we were quite careful.

I hope that we were quite careful in r script in the way that we presented people.

Quite clear who is a mainstream scientist? What's the consensus opinion on this and who were the self-taught scientist? You know we will call them that and as Harvey says in his question call Mark hippie farmer in a self-taught scientist that these people were there at the time and they did gain influence and I was interested to find out why people thought the way that they did and how is there is game traction another thing just to note is that my starting point for a lot of the podcast was the BSE enquiry which was published in 2000.

It was a 3-year long public enquiry.

It's a good public enquiry Child by Lord Phillips and they did look at these theories so Mark Paddy's Theory is a guy he thought that pesticides might be behind the BSE crisis.

They look quite carefully at his theories and they concluded that he didn't have the evidence to support his claim about BSC but that he was making some interesting points and they wanted to do more research you.

Is yourself the parallels with covid and we had Marianna spring on feedback who spent quite a lot of time BBC time and he did banking conspiracy theorists around covered weekly on who is someone who you say yourself in the podcast has non evidence-based beliefs and doesn't believe that covid is a virus.

She then also talks about she believes that vs.

Indeed wasn't caused by cars, but was caused by pesticides.

I wonder if you feel like she got quite a lot of our time and wasn't really challenged because there isn't a scientist is there a willing to backup these claims challenge her so we challenged a weekly only challenge Richard priest.

He's also in the episode on their theories around covid and also quite clear and they didn't have the evidence to back up the claims that they were making so with the quite definitive about that.

We say there is no whistleblowers.

There's no members.

There's no evidence with.

Therefore it remains a conspiracy, but what I'm interested in my journalism is why people think the way that they think so the thing with Joe and Richard Jo Wheatley and which is the what they're pointing to are some unanswered questions and although they join the dots in a way that you can't back up with the science.

There are still these understood question so there's always a reason why people believe in conspiracy theories.

There's always a reason why people looked outside of mainstream science well.

It's not answering their questions.

He might join the dots in a non-scientific way on an evidence-based way, I still think that the reasons that they think things are interesting and worth looking hi, I'm out from Stowmarket Suffolk recent listen to the Lucy Proctor podcast the cows and bad back to back wow such an informative podcast.

Please, could you cover the photo Mouse candle 2001 your own cover mass of cover-ups, so do you have any plans for another animal based podcast thanks.

I do not have any specific plans at the moment for another animal-based podcast but I have had quite a lot of emails from people pointing to various overtime so we'll see what thank you to Lucy Proctor and all episodes of the Kaiser mad are available on BBC signs well.

That's it for feedback for this week for me and all the team.

Thank you so much for listening and for giving us your feedback to buy hello.

This is Marian Keyes podcast you might like for BBC Radio 4 on BBC sounds called now you're asking each week.

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About life love cats for the lack of anything really and to play a worldly wisdom in a way which we hope will have but also hopefully entertain join us now you're asking on BBC sounds, can you?