The Radio 4 Blog Feed

Feedback: Presenters' views about the BBC

2014-04-04T10:20:39+00:00

Should BBC presenters be allowed to express their views about the future of the BBC and in particular of the licence fee?

BBC Broadcasting House

Nick Ross is only the latest of a significant number to opine. And he would doubtless argue that he has every right to do so since:

He is a freelance who is not on the staff of the Corporation (like me)
The Corporation is supposed to stand for free speech and not for the censorship of debate
His primary loyalty is to public service broadcasting not to the organisation which is designed to deliver it

However presenters like John Humphrys are now on the staff. Should they be silent?

It is required of them that they do not publically express their views on controversial subjects since that would affect the audience’s view of their handing of such subjects on air, and interviewees, particularly politicians, would not be slow to claim that the presenter’s personal bias was evident in the questions asked.

John Humphrys

Nonetheless some presenters like John Humphrys do publically express their views on the BBC and some would argue this is to the Corporation’s credit.

The Today presenter defends the comments he made about the BBC in a recent interview.

What other organisation would tolerate such openness or insubordination?

Mind you, if I was the Director General Tony Hall, trying to mastermind Charter Renewal and the licence fee negotiations in the face of some vitriolic and self-interested media criticism, I would not be best pleased.

You will be relieved to know that you do not have to suffer my views on the BBC’s future, as presenting Feedback does mean I have to remain neutral, however I will try and say something controversial on the issue.

It is this. Don’t take too much notice of what presenters say because most don’t know much about the issues involved.

I speak as someone who has been on both sides of the fence, a former BBC executive (dispensed with in politically sensitive times) as well as a presenter.

The latter are primarily performers, preoccupied with the content of the programmes they are presenting. If they have a strong journalistic background they probably think most management is a waste of time and see its representatives as roadblocks to be driven around.

Many know little, and care less, about budgets, training and other issues. So don’t pay too much attention to them, or me.

BBC executives are, of course, self-interested when discussing the future of the organisation that feeds and clothes them, but many do care passionately about the BBC and public service broadcasting. Some presenters are just self-centred.

Having said that (you see I am BBC to the core of my being and have to present the other side and, some would say, climb back on the fence), Nick Ross is one of the most interesting and thoughtful broadcasters around!

Enough of these esoteric issues, as Bill Clinton might have said, it’s the programmes, stupid! The Controller of Radio 4 said she wanted to introduce anarchy into Radio 4 through the so-called Character Invasion. This week on Feedback we asked her commissioning editor for drama, Jeremy Howe, all about it. Here is our feature:

Feedback hears from listeners and Radio 4's commissioning editor for drama, Jeremy Howe.

In the next few weeks, the Radio 4 controller, the editor of The Archers and the editor of Today are all coming onto Feedback. So please let me know what you want me to ask on your behalf. I am your highly paid servant. (I jest.)

Roger Bolton

Listen to Feedback

Woman's Hour - Guest Presenters in August 2013

2013-07-29T15:07:20+00:00

Editor's note: Alice Feinstein, Editor of Radio 4's Woman's Hour, discusses the three guest presenters on Woman's Hour over August 2013. Woman's Hour is available to listen to online or to download and keep

Woman's Hour - Guest Presenters in August

Mondays will sound a bit different on Woman's Hour this August. Beginning on 5th August, we'll have three guest presenters – Victoria Derbyshire, Kirstie Allsopp and Kate Mosse – keeping Jane's seat warm while she is occupied with Radio 4's new Summer Nights series. Jane will return to her Monday duties at the end of the month for a special bank holiday collaboration with our colleagues on 5live's Men's Hour, before normal service resumes in September.

Our guest presenters will each address an issue they feel passionately about. Victoria Derbyshire will investigate the most challenging of topics as she finds out how it feels for a mother to discover that her partner is a paedophile and has abused her child. She will speak to women who have lived through such a harrowing experience, asking how they coped with the trauma of the disclosure and the lasting impact on their lives.

Kirstie Allsopp will embark on a personal journey to investigate how women are prepared for childbirth. She will look at the role of antenatal courses, the NCT, midwives and doctors, and will talk to mothers and experts from across the spectrum of opinion about idealism, interference and safety. How many women get the birth they want and how are their expectations managed?

On 19th August, Kate Mosse – founder of the Orange Prize for Fiction – will take a look at the publishing industry today. One of the guests she will be talking to is Ursula Mackenzie, chief executive of Little Brown Book Group and one of the Woman's Hour Power Listers. Together they will discuss reviewing, book prizes and how to get published in this digital age, as well as offering suggestions for the best summer reading.

At the end of the month, Jane will return for a special bank holiday edition of Woman's Hour in which she will team up with Tim Samuels from 5live's Men's Hour to explore the experience and politics of online dating, and its impact on our lives and love. The programme will be broadcast on both networks at the same time. It's a second date for Woman's Hour and Men's Hour, as we got together last year to discuss the secrets that people keep from their partners, friends and colleagues. Make sure to listen in to the on-air chemistry to get a male and a female perspective on the minefield that is dating in the modern world.

I hope you enjoy the special programmes we have lined up for you in August.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites

Beyond Belief - dealing with serious issues in a serious way

2011-01-19T13:34:17+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006s6p6

I gave up my day job as Head of Religious Broadcasting at the Beeb in January 2001 and began presenting Beyond Belief in January 2002. It was just three months after 9/11 and the events of that day gave it a context: All of a sudden everyone was interested in world religions. Britain woke up to the fact that most of the world takes faith seriously, sometimes deadly seriously.

Even now, nearly nine years on, I have a spring in my step on the morning of a recording because I know I am likely to learn something new. The best programmes are nearly always the ones that hit a tender spot. How does Islam treat women? Why is the Yemen such a hotspot? In a programme on suicide, from the current series, we ask "do people have the right to take their own life?"

The best contributors are the ones who have strong convictions - most of my guests do, because their faith, or lack of it, is at the heart of who they are - but they are prepared to engage with opposing views. I'm very proud of the fact that no-one has ever completely lost it on Beyond Belief.

The big letdown occurs when a contributor expresses strong convictions on the phone and then ducks away when we get on air - and yes it happens quite often! Nothing annoys me more. Some of our contributors have a natural tendency to glance over their shoulders at their constituencies to try to make sure they are following a party line. The opposite can sometimes occur too: guests who allow fellow panellists to make their points unchallenged. Sometimes, once in the studio, contributors forget that they represent a constituency of the audience, and, in a bid to be polite, fail to stand up to opposing views. In such cases we have been known to stop the recording and remind all the gusts of their role and the importance of their contribution to the programme.

Religion is by nature contentious. As far as I'm concerned no series is complete unless we've annoyed a few people by raising sensitive subjects which they would rather keep hidden. People who agree to take part respect the programme; they understand that we are trying to deal with serious issues in a serious way.

I've been very lucky in my producers, all of them women. We sit down at the start of a run and draw up a potential list of subjects. It always changes because the programme reacts to current events. I like to think that Beyond Belief tackles subjects that no other programme on Radio 4 addresses. When we started out, Helen Boaden who was then Controller of Radio 4, said she thought that we would have exhausted the subject matter after one series. She was gracious enough to admit that she was wrong. 240 programmes on, we're still going strong.

Ernie Rea is presenter of Beyond Belief

The next episode of Beyond Belief - about Ayodhya - is on Radio 4 at 1630 on Monday. Listen to the programme archive (over 100 programmes are available) on the Radio 4 web site.
The picture, 'My other religion...' is by Tim Duckett. Some rights reserved.

Sue MacGregor steps down from A Good Read

2010-12-03T11:13:21+00:00

A few weeks ago, at the Bristol Old Vic, Sue MacGregor announced to the audience that this was to be her final programme as the regular presenter of A Good Read. Our guest reviewers were the acclaimed actor Timothy West, who has a strong connection with the theatre and with Bristol, and the best selling novelist Amanda Craig. But, for many in the audience, the chance to see a Radio 4 legend in the flesh and watch an edition of a Radio 4 favourite being made was their main reason for being there. The demand for tickets exceeded the capacity of the theatre. That edition was broadcast on Radio 4 this week and, not surprisingly, listeners have been in touch with us expressing both their regret that Sue is stepping down from the programme and their concern that she is leaving Radio 4 (definitely not true) and asking who could possibly fill her shoes?

Here in Bristol, where A Good Read has been made for more than 30 years, we're also sad that Sue has decided to finish this particular chapter of her long and illustrious career. I'm glad to say we will still be working with her on other programmes for Radio 4. In fact we're making a programme with her right now about the legendary broadcaster John Freeman and, of course, she still presents her superb series "The Reunion" but we also understand, better than most, why she has called it a day.

Sue holds the record for being the longest serving presenter on the programme. Seven years. She narrowly beats Edward Blishen who presented A Good Read between 1990 and 1996. Over that period she has read and reviewed around 500 books from cover to cover. That works out at roughly 70 books a year. How many of us, in our time pressured lives, get through more than one book a week? Another challenge for the presenter of A Good Read is that, for each programme, there is a personal book choice to make. At the beginning this isn't too difficult. If, like Sue, you are a genuine lover of books, titles come thick and fast. But, by the fifth year, it starts getting harder. You can't, of course, choose any title that has been featured in previous programmes and, faced with a reading list that never diminishes, finding time to read books for personal pleasure becomes impossible. You become a reading machine. I remember Sue telling me that the concept of holiday reading was a distant memory as she was voraciously devouring books to see if they were good enough to recommend to Radio 4 listeners. Sue did find 150 original titles for her own personal choices which is a feat in itself. And, like the consummate professional she is, it sounded effortless.

A Good Read is a special programme and guests are happy to come on to talk about their own choices and curious to read what others have picked. Lord Carrington, Prue Leith, Fay Weldon, Jo Brand, Nick Horby, P D James, Sir Roy Strong, Jon Snow and Sir Digby Jones are just some of the people who have appeared on the programme while Sue has been presenting. They enjoy it because the programme is driven, at its core, by a personal passion for books and a basic need in most of us to talk about something we love. Of course, at times, not everybody agrees but fervent differences of opinion make for compelling radio.

The programme began in Bristol in 1979 so, in effect, A Good Read was the first popular broadcasting book club long before anyone had even heard of Oprah Winfrey or Richard and Judy. Listeners often write to tell us how they've discovered their own personal all-time favourite through a recommendation on the programme. There was an extraordinary reaction from listeners when Josephine Hart presented Bernard Schlink's novel 'The Reader' as her choice back in September 2003. Sue and her guests have dissected and discussed all genres - biography, historical novels, fiction, romance, crime, graphic novels and even self-help manuals. As long as the books are still in print, widely available and in paperback then they are eligible for review on A Good Read.

Sue MacGregor has been a wonderful ambassador for the programme and A Good Read has flourished with her at its helm over the last seven years. Her intelligence, warmth and genuine enthusiasm for books could be heard in every programme. Her preparation was meticulous. No short-cuts or skim reading for Sue. She read every book properly. Her ability to chair each discussion with authority and inquisitiveness but always putting listeners first is what makes her one of our best broadcasters. So who can follow her? Well, for us, the search has begun but we intend to take our time to get it right. Ultimately A Good Read is about wonderful writers and wonderful books and conveying the passion we share for them.

Clare McGinn is Editor of Audio & Music Production at BBC Bristol

Listen to Sue MacGregor's final edition of A Good Read on the Radio 4 web site.

Upsetting people on Today

2010-11-12T13:55:14+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006slnx

Which Today programme presenter reportedly said he wants to "upset" more people?

Dead easy.

John Humphrys surely?

Well, no actually.

Step forward Mr Nice-Guy himself, the ever courteous Justin Webb, widely admired by many Feedback listeners for the way he doesn't interrupt every few seconds. Naturally he appreciates the admiration but he's gone public in his admission to up the ante with harder interviews and interruptions.

In Feedback this week I ruthlessly cross examine Mr Webb about this apparent change of heart, interrupting him frequently and insisting he answers my questions. I also put to him some of the embarrassing emails from listeners who were delighted when the Today programme was taken off-air as a result of the recent National Union of Journalists' strike and replaced by birdsong from The Wash.

How did Mr Webb respond to my aggressive questioning? Did he fight fire with fire? Do you care about interviewing style?

Roger Bolton is the ever so polite and inoffensive presenter of Feedback.

Listen again to this week's Feedback, produced by Karen Pirie, get in touch with Feedback, find out how to join the listener panel or subscribe to the podcast on the Feedback web page.
Feedback is now on Twitter. Follow @BBCFeedback.
Justin asserted that he'd like to upset more people in an interview with James Robinson in The Guardian. Gillian Reynolds in The Telegraph was one of those who enjoyed a morning without Today.
The picture shows Justin presenting Today with Sarah Montague

Simon Schama on taking over A Point of View

2010-03-12T17:20:45+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qng8

Sheila Cook is producer of Radio 4's weekly personal essay slot - A Point of View. Simon Schama takes over this evening for a 10-week run of the short programme that's been filling the gap left by Alistair Cook's America.

Simon and Sheila stayed on in the studio after Monday's recording to record this fascinating interview - exclusively for the blog. On what's different about writing for radio, Simon says:

This is more 'organised stream of conciousness', which is a danger really because Schama's consciousness is intensely disorganised most of the time but what you lose in formality I hope that everyone - including me - will gain in fun.

On the programme's legacy:

Alistair Cook... was amazingly good at discovering what seemed to be an incidental anecdote and then bolting it to a major theme that connects us all. If I can manage that with even a fragment of his genius for putting things together then I'll be happy.

And on possible themes for later essays, he warns us to expect some sport (although probably not baseball, which he's covered before) and teases us:

I'm sort of besottedly interested in singer-songwriter kind of pop music. It just may be that there's something interesting to talk about there. Who knows?

Listen to the interview:

Steve Bowbrick is editor of the Radio 4 blog

The picture shows Simon and Clive James (another A Point of View presenter) in about 1970. It was taken by Mike Payne. Thanks to Clive James for permission to use it. There are some pictures taken in the studio here and a picture taken using my old-fashioned instant camera here.
The first of Simon Schama's ten programmes is transmitted at 2050 tonight and repeated on Sunday morning at 0850. You can listen again after transmission on the Radio 4 web site.
Listen to previous programmes by Clive James and Lisa Jardine on the A Point of View web site.

Justin Webb on his first Today appearance

2009-08-27T12:47:29+00:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8223000/8223750.stm

Justin Webb, until recently the BBC's North America Editor, arrived in the Today studio this morning for his first appearance as a permanent presenter of the programme (he's filled in once or twice in the past). We asked Chris Vallance to talk to Justin - exclusively for the Radio 4 blog - about his first appearance and about the benefits of working with John Humphrys.

Chris started by asking how it had gone:

As is customary, John and Justin reviewed the programme immediately after transmission. Watch their review here and listen to the programme again here.
Justin will read the My News section of iPM to be broadcast this Saturday at 1730 (subscribe to the iPM podcast).
Chris Vallance recorded an interview with a game theorist and an Archers scriptwriter for the blog back in April.
The Guardian reviewed Justin's first appearance and the Twittersphere enjoyed his use of the word 'recrudescence' in an item about football hooligans.
For another item - about encouraging people to cycle to work - Justin took to the road.

Quentin Cooper's week

2009-08-14T14:10:30+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qyyb

Editor's note: Quentin sent me this update to his blog post this morning - SB.

Look, the thing about blogs is they're the almost unedited brain-to-webpage outpourings of whoever writes them and although I thought "Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan" which is one of the most fun in the series, unfortunately I typed an extra "I" which made it Star Trek III which, as any fule know, is pretty rubbish. My error was not noticed until blog-readers started pointing it out. I am suffused with shame..."

Now read on:

Swine flu has arrived in Dubrovnik. Two passengers on a cruise ship are showing symptoms. So how should the authorities respond? The press - including me - are summoned to a large meeting to hear what's been decided: 30,000 face masks will be made available (Dubrovnik has a population of only around 40,000); curfew will be enforced; all gatherings including football matches to mass are cancelled. Although not - as I point out through barely-suppressed laughter - this one. Clearly the press are expendable.

As you might have guessed - this was an exercise (it worked as a trick opening for Star Trek III so I thought it was worth trying for a Radio 4 blog post). The bad news was that I was watching scientists from across Europe make a right pig's ear out of trying to deal with a simulated swine flu scenario, suggesting a strategy that would have turned a small-scale problem into a full blown panic.

The good news was that this was taking place in the real Dubrovnik, a stunningly beautiful city I'd last been in before the 1991 siege and which is now back looking better than ever. I'm mentioning this not only because I've hugely enjoyed being at these science communication workshops in Croatia attempting to explain the workings of the media, but because I think some Radio 4 listeners imagine that for once-a-week programmes like mine, presenters are kept in a freezer between shows, thawed out just before transmission and returned there as soon as we are off air.

Material World takes up roughly half my week - preparing, researching, scripting and coming up with puns most but not all of which never get past my producer. The rest of the time I'm usually running around between conferences, other (lesser) programmes and the odd bit of more exotic work like these Dubrovnik workshops.

This was something aimed at senior figures who were supposedly already fairly media-savvy. Many were - but what I found alarming was how there remain some people high-up in science and science policy who are adamantly antediluvian in their thinking that it's entirely the public's own fault if they don't understand scientific issues or can't work out what a scientist is waffling on about. During our mock press conference on the swine flu outbreak one of them protested that "this isn't about science communication, this is about thinking on your feet" - as if helping science reach people doesn't involve responding to people and situations.

This is something which used to be a minor passion and that I'm now - including right now - at the risk of becoming a major bore about: I fervently believe that science shapes all our lives, that everyone has the right to at least a basic grasp of how, and that if you can help people past their prejudices that science is boring and/or incomprehensible, there's myriad fascinating and life-enhancing stories to tell. So it really gets my goat and other metaphorical livestock when I run into those - like one or two of the scientists in Dubrovnik - who blame the media, the public and everyone but themselves for a lack of wider scientific appreciation.

As I said - I can bore about this at length, so best leave it there even though this has been a big part of my week, like it is most weeks. That aside - apart from the continuing strange sensation of being a Manchester City supporter on the edge of a new season where the mountain of cash is overshadowed only by the mountain of expectations - I'm in recovery from 6 weeks of the 'visualisation' of Material World.

In case you missed it - and the vast majority did because it's a radio programme usually listened to via radios - this was a pilot scheme to give added visual content to for anyone hearing us live via their computer. Some people loved it, some hated it, and some liked it but found it got in the way of all the other things they usually do while hearing us live via their computer. That mixed response aside, the main focus seemed to be my physical appearance. There was a lot of guidance on my terrible posture, comments pro and anti my lively gesticulations (I wave my hands more when broadcasting than in real life, discuss), and - despite having my photo on the website - widespread disappointment at what I look like. My favourite was the backhanded compliment that came in during the final week of visualisation: "Quentin's not at all like I imagined. Great voice though".

Quentin Cooper is presenter of Material World

The next edition of Material World is on Radio 4 at 1630 tomorrow. It's a live programme. The programme archive is here and the podcast is here.

Sheila Dillon's week

2009-07-24T17:05:23+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/ffa/2009/introduction/

Lunch yesterday at one of London's poshest restaurants - not, as many people think, what I normally spend my life doing, but a chance for me to eavesdrop on a meeting about the future of Slow Food UK. In Italy Slow Food is a powerful political force, in the UK it's been a lot less than that which has greatly aggravated SF's founder Carlo Petrini. The result is UK Slow Food has a new chief exec, American-Italian dynamo Catherine Gazzoli, hot from the UN, ready to do some shaking up and convince us class-ridden, good-food-wary Brits that food matters. I think Catherine could easily outperform Tony Blair in the Middle East, but changing the food culture of the British Isles is an altogether harder task.

Lots of compliments at the meeting about our Food & Film programme two Sundays ago. The food world is a bit like the entertainment industry - you were wonderful darling - so I don't take compliments too seriously, but that was a programme I'm particularly proud to have presented. One of the Food Programme's brilliant producers understood that it would cast a new light on our food system if we looked at it just through the eyes of film makers, both here and abroad. We're living through a golden age of documentary making - documentaries that are being watched in cinemas, village and church halls all over the world (while fewer and fewer are appearing on our television screens. Something wrong somewhere).

Making the programme I interviewed Nick Francis, who with his brother Marc directed Black Gold, a documentary about the coffee business. I met them first with producer Rebecca Moore when The Food Programme went to Cancun to cover the World Trade Organisation meeting. Nick and Marc were there following the coffee story, documenting the relationship between developing countries and global decision-making on "free trade". The Cancun scenes in Black Gold are some of the most powerful in the whole film. Since the film was released in 2007 the issues it highlighted have taken over the brothers' lives.

And the film has been screened all over Africa and the Americas, spelling out for all to see a world where a cappuccino costs around £2.50 but the Ethiopian farmer who produced the beans - generally agreed to be the finest on the planet - will get perhaps 5p a kilo. And as the film tells us one kilo of coffee beans makes about 80 cups of coffee. The arithmetic isn't difficult. This is one of the reasons Ethiopian farmers and their families are going hungry, need food aid and are getting out of coffee growing. Insane? As we say at the Food Programme - understand food and you're a long way on the road to understanding the way the world works.

Meanwhile we're gearing up in this little corner of the open plan on the 6th floor at Broadcasting House for this year's Radio 4 Food & Farming Awards - the 10th. A decade since Prince Charles handed out the first gongs.

Gearing up seems the right expression... adjusting the criteria for each award, appointing the judging panel (Chair, Raymond Blanc, plus Alex James, Rose Prince, Mark Hix, Simon Parkes, Lord Haskins, for starters), constructing the trails for Radio 4, setting up the website to take in nominations, starting a filing system for each of the nine categories, getting the help of a smart young intern for a couple of weeks. And then wondering how the hell the producers are going to cope with organising the judging, and recording, with at least one judge, at each place, on each short-list - 24 sites in all and if other years are a guide they'll be scattered from the Orkneys to the Scillies--all the while continuing to turn out The Food Programme every week. Every year it seems overwhelming, every year it's exhaustingly fascinating.

Sheila Dillon is presenter of The Food Programme

Make a nomination for the 2009 Food & Farming Awards.
Some photographs of Sheila Dillon and producer Rebecca Moore in the studio on 23 July 2009.
Paul Levy's blog post about the changes at Slow Food UK in The Guardian.
The Financial Times reports on a plan by Ethiopian migrants to market Fair Trade coffee in the UK.
The Guardian's special report on WTO Cancun.

Robin Lustig's week

2009-07-17T15:22:06+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldtonight

Editor's note: We're trying something new. Every Friday afternoon during the Summer we're going to publish a diary post from an important Radio 4 personality. We're starting with Robin Lustig, presenter of The World Tonight since 1989. If you'd like to hear from a particular Radio 4 personality (a presenter, a programme maker or even a senior manager), leave a comment and we'll see what we can do.

One of the many good things about working for The World Tonight is that you get weekends off. And as someone who spent more than a decade working on a Sunday newspaper, I still find the notion of a two-day weekend a wonderful novelty.

But when I travel, it's different. After a hard week at the studio coal-face (six programmes in five days since you ask, three at the World Service and three at The World Tonight), I was up on Saturday morning for the 10-hour flight to Mexico.

The following day, Sunday, we were straight off into the countryside to start collecting material. I love travelling, and will always leap at the chance to shove my passport into my pocket and head off to some distant location. So I don't really resent the occasional missed weekends (well, not too much, anyway).

When I started as a reporter, long before the days of mobile phones or laptop computers, I was taught that the first thing you had to do when you went out on an assignment was find a public phone box that worked, so that you could phone in your story.

The 21st century broadcaster's equivalent when you're overseas is find a location from which your satellite dish can transmit a signal. More often than not, you end up on the roof of your hotel.

But our Mexico City hotelier wasn't keen on letting us on to his roof - and his car park, which is the usual Plan B, had high walls round it - so we started touring city centre hotels to find one with a roof or a balcony facing in the right direction. Eventually, mission accomplished: sound engineer Jacques Sweeney pronounced himself satisfied; producer Beth McLeod negotiated a special cheap deal on behalf of licence fee-payers, and we were ready to roll.

We do a lot of "multi-platform content delivery" these days. Which means we blog, we write for News Online, and we even pop up on other people's programmes. So after a week of scurrying about for The World Tonight, and a quick chat with nice Mr Humphrys on the The Today programme, we were up at 5am the following Sunday to contribute first to The World This Weekend on Radio 4, and then immediately afterwards to Newshour on the World Service. The joys of working west of the Greenwich meridian meant we were done by 8am, and were able to take a few hours' break to visit the stunning Aztec ruins at Teotihuacan, an hour's drive from Mexico City. (The pictures are in The World Tonight Flickr group here).

I love coming home, of course, but I don't much like 10-hour overnight flights (yes, of course, in Economy). So I was perhaps just slightly grumpy when the BA pilot informed us that it had been raining at Heathrow (rain? In July? Who would have thought it?), and that the airport was in a bit of a mess. We parked about a mile away from Terminal 5 and waited first for the steps and then for the bus to carry us back to civilisation. But I mustn't grumble: I wasn't due back on air till the next day - and I did have a weekend off to look forward to. Jet lag? Don't know the meaning of the word.

Robin wrote a series of posts for The World Tonight blog from his trip to Mexico.
The World Tonight's home page and Robin's World Tonight blog.
Robin's BBC Press Office biography.