Summer special – celebrity Q&A
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 22 August 2024
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What tips would you give a government minister ahead of a Today programme interview? What was the best advice you got when you first became a Today presenter? And how do you get up so early?
In this special summer edition of The Today Podcast, Amol and Nick take on questions from some invited guests and friends of the podcast, including the queen of the high street Mary Portas, historian Greg Jenner, TV’s Kirstie Allsopp, Peaky Blinders creator Stephen Knight, journalist Helen Lewis and comedian Angela Barnes.
You too can put a question to Amol and Nick. Get in touch by sending us a message or voice note to WhatsApp to +44 330 123 4346 or you can email us Today@bbc.co.uk
Episodes of The Today Podcast with Amol and Nick land first on BBC Sounds. Get Amol and Nick's take on the biggest stories and get insights from behind the scenes at the UK’s biggest and most influential radio news programme.
The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson, both presenters of BBC Radio 4’s Today. Amol was the BBC’s media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he’s also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC’s political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV’s political editor.
You can listen to the latest episode of The Today Podcast any time on your smart speaker by saying “Smart Speaker, ask BBC Sounds to play The Today Podcast.”
The senior producer is Tom Smithard, the producer is Hatty Nash, research and digital production from Joe Wilkinson. The editor is Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths. Technical production from Jack Graysmark.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We get it. Life is busy. You want to keep up with the news, but there's just too much going on. |
| 0:06.9 | Which is where Newscast comes in. We do the work, and when you're ready to dig deeper into the day's news, you just pop us into your ears. |
| 0:14.8 | It does mean we have to put in the hard work, though. |
| 0:17.5 | Listen to Newscast every day on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:24.8 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:30.5 | Hi, it's Nick. And it's a mole and we have absolutely loved, genuinely loved, getting so many messages from you, our lovely listeners, and answering all your wonderful questions. Thank you so much for all |
| 0:35.9 | the voice notes, emails, texts that you sent in. This week we're doing something slightly different in that we're answering questions from some celebrity friends of the podcast. That is guests who've appeared on this podcast to contribute their moment of the week. And to be a friend of the podcast, it's like part of the honour system. It's like you've entered the establishment in there, but podcasting land. |
| 0:55.6 | There is no honour greater. |
| 0:59.9 | Let us be honest than doing the moment of the week on the Today podcast. |
| 1:03.5 | But they've got some quite tickly questions for us here. |
| 1:04.7 | These are not easy. |
| 1:07.9 | These are not just like, thank you, friend. |
| 1:09.3 | What do you think about this? |
| 1:23.4 | Anyway, let's do it. Okay, let's get straight into our first question. |
| 1:25.6 | This is from a fellow giant of the podcasting world. |
| 1:29.4 | Hi Nick, hi, I'm all. It's Greg Jenner here, historian, podcaster, that sort of thing. |
| 1:34.0 | The question I get asked a lot is how will our era be known to future generations, future historians? |
| 1:40.6 | I have a sort of theory on this, but I'd love to know your perspective because you're both more politically engaged and you've got your finger on the pulse. |
| 1:48.7 | How will this time, this era, get labeled in the future? Thank you very much. Bye. |
| 1:55.1 | Good God, Greg. That is a difficult one to start with. Oh, that's the easiest for me. |
| 2:00.1 | Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got, I've got, I've got, I've got a few. But it depends whether you mean this era in Britain, this era globally. Greg's thinking global. Greg's a big brain. He's thinking global history. So this is what follows, as it were, the Cold War, the space age, the digital age. What's this age? Well, since you ask, Greg, since you asked Nick. |
| 2:18.5 | He doesn't want a thesis, by the way. No, no, he wants back two of three words. I keep this very short. |
... |
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