Richard Ingrams
Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010
BBC
4.4 • 804 Ratings
🗓️ 3 August 2008
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kirsty Young's guest on Desert Island Discs this week is Richard Ingrams. Former editor and a founder of the satirical magazine Private Eye, he's one of the godfathers of contemporary British satire. Pseud's Corner, Dear Bill, and Colemanballs all originated with him at the helm. Now editor of The Oldie, he's still taking part in regular ideas meetings at Private Eye and says he wouldn't know what to do if he stopped working.
From a privileged and well-connected background he seemed an unlikely outsider, yet he's spent a lifetime pulling the rug from under the feet of the great and the good. It's often proved a risky route, bringing him into conflict with army recruiting sergeants, cabinet ministers and billionaire industrialists alike. One of four boys, his favourite childhood memories are of accompanying his mother on the piano while she played the violin. He met Willie Rushton at school when they worked on the school magazine and at Oxford he met Paul Foot and other Private Eye regulars contributing to more magazines - Parson's Pleasure and Mesopotamia.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: The Gloria from Mass in B Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: Teach yourself piano tuning Luxury: Grand piano.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy. |
| 0:05.4 | My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:10.7 | The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that. |
| 0:17.4 | With music on sounds, we offer collections and mixes for everything, from workouts to helping |
| 0:22.7 | you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all put together |
| 0:28.7 | by people who know their stuff. So if you want some expertly curated music in your life, |
| 0:34.9 | check out BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Krista Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. |
| 0:41.8 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:44.9 | The program was originally broadcast in 2008. |
| 1:06.8 | Music My castaway this week is Richard Ingrams. |
| 1:09.8 | As co-founder and former editor of Private Eye, |
| 1:13.0 | he is one of the godfathers of contemporary British satire. |
| 1:17.8 | Sudes Corner, dear Bill and Coleman Balls, all originated with him at the helm. |
| 1:22.5 | From a privileged and well-connected background, he seems an unlikely outsider. |
| 1:27.0 | Yet he spent a lifetime pulling the rug from under the feet of the Great and the Good. |
| 1:35.8 | It's often proved a risky route, bringing him into conflict with army recruiting sergeants, cabinet ministers and billionaire industrialists alike. |
| 1:42.8 | Now the editor of the oldie, he says that he wouldn't know what to do if he stopped working, that he is hooked on journalism. |
| 1:45.7 | You are in your early 70s now. You're still contributing to Private Eye. Yes, I have been since I gave up the ownership. I couldn't keep |
| 1:50.3 | away. Why? Why do you feel the need? Partly because I need the money, but I've always enjoyed |
| 1:54.7 | very much writing jokes with the people at Private Eye. And that goes on, and I'm part of it. |
| 2:00.4 | I'm not responsible for it |
| 2:01.6 | anymore. So that's great weight off my shoulder. I think of editors, at least the newspaper |
... |
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