Accelerating change

Once presenters get their feet under the studio table at Today on Radio 4, the only thing they're really frightened of is the pips. Their deep-rooted love of their own voices, the compelling chiaroscuro of their insights and asides, their absolute self-assurance that a perfectly honed question will occur to them as an interview progresses, means, day after day, that the 6.30, 7.30, and 8.30 news summaries are, as guides to what's happening when, as useless as a Southern Rail indicator board.

The current pandemic end feature, "The Show Must Go On", is designed to let the public hear things live that should have been performed in public, and have now been cancelled. Yet day after day, Today presenters, in particular Webb and Kearney, proceed towards the nine o'clock pips, bumbling and blustering like giant windblowers, propelling the hapless performers, like Icarus, ever closer to the sun. They offer just one more question without caring about the answer or the consequence.

The consequence is that the performance lasts, in general, less than a minute, and in general, is faded away by studio managers, just before one can hear any meaningful or memorable music phrase.  So professional.