Talk:In Our Time (radio series)

MP3s mentioned in the article
The MP3s files that are mentioned in the article under the section Archive are not available anymore if I'm not mistaken. Can anyone confirm this?
 * The mp3 files are no longer officially available. Most BBC podcasts are only available for seven days. I think that section ought to be removed.--Jojas (talk) 21:24, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Presenter
Is Melvyn out of his depth? Everyone listening will already know the dull points he always seems so keen to have brought up. Why not just let the experts engage in strenuous argument? There must be space on the digital airwaves for 45min of that a week.
 * Your comments might be more suited to the Radio Four or In Our Time message boards
 * I think you misunderstand the premise of the programme. Melvyn is usually out as much out of his depth as many of his listeners. He brings up the points in his notes to steer the contributors to expound on the subject for the benefit of the listeners. Jojas 14:38, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Heh heh! Yes, he can be discomfited outside his literary/philosophical comfort zone. It doesn't make much difference with scientific topics because he's so much in awe of them, but with history he can be a little tetchy if his assumptions are challenged. BTLizard 01:13, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

That's my favourite bit when Melvyn is tetchy. Klynchk (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:35, 24 February 2012 (UTC).

Contributors and other programme details
I have just added the contributor details for latest editions of the programme (Mars, Jesuits) so the entries are consistents with those for previous programes. However, I do question the inclusion of this information because:
 * The contributors are listed on the archive pages for each edition on the BBC In Our Time website.
 * Including them is making this article very long. When I edited the introduction I noticed a warning message about the size of the article.Programme details that I think should be included, and I may do this if I have time, are the transmission date and subject theme (i.e.Science, History, Culture, Religion, Philosphy - the sections used in the archive) -- Jojas 14:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The BBC pages does not contain links to any bios of the participants, and few links to relevant external web sites. The split between several categories, making this list the only complete combined directory of the streams. I use this page instead of the BBC's when I want to a IOT programme to listen to. --H@r@ld 23:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That is a point that had not occured to me. However this article is getting rather long. I wonder whether it might work better by having the details of the participants listed seperately? Several of guests have contributed to more than one programme. It would take a lot of work to produce.Jojas 22:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
 * In other articles, whene there are long programme listings, these are usually spun of into a sperate article. That would probably help here although the warning that comes about article length is only for editors to be aware that it may be becoming cumbersome. In this respect, the onus (and I'm guessing here) is up to the curent active editors to decide. Candy 11:36, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Better looking program listing?
How about something like this?

I can generate this table with perl scripts (I've just written some to put full titles, dates, synopsyes and credits into my MP3 collection of In Our Time), so it's no trouble re-building the whole thing. The only part that needs human effort is the "topic" section, as it would be guessed from the title (e.g. the topic for the second entry would be guessed as "History of Optics", not "Optics". Also, the experts wikilinks wouldn't necessarily be correct.

Would the people who edit this page agree with me rebuilding the list of programmes like this? 62.31.67.29 12:24, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, perhaps this is more readable:

In this case, the external link is on the broadcast date rather than the programme title. To me, that makes the title easier to read. What do you think? 62.31.67.29 12:27, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I think it is a very good design, and it incorporates the broadcast date. I like the idea of using the broadcast date as the external link (which would allow the programme title to be an internal link) but it might not fit it with the style guidelines. Jojas 14:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * To go with it there would have to be a separate list of the contributors.Something like this (but with links added):

Jojas 14:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The Broadcast date/Title/Topic/Experts design looks much better!
 * Go ahead, but please keep the title and affiliation of the experts (at least) as hidden text like . Otherwise it would be hard to look up if a wikilink correct. The broadcast date is a redundant column  H@r@ld 15:39, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the feedback. I will add a table like so:

I'll also generate a seperate list of experts. I really think this list should go on another page, however. "List of In Our Time experts" or such, as this page is very long because of the multiple listing of experts and their credentials. I think the average reader would be satisfied just with the statement that each programme has experts on the topic, and wiki-links for each expert per programme. However, there will be plenty of experts who don't have wiki pages, and some whose wiki page is not them. So a list of experts with credentials will be necessary to fix that, and to act as a reference for those experts not notable enough to have their own entry on wikipedia. The experts listing proposed above looks perfect for that task. 62.31.67.29 17:03, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I had started working on creating the list of experts myself. Initally manual with the intention writing a Perl script to do the whole thing but lacked the boldness to go further and make such major change. However separating the contributor programme list seems the best way to break this article up into more managable sections.
 * The mark-3 version of the table is an improvement. The "topic" column was really repeating the information in the title. I would make some suggestions for refinement.

Jojas 18:19, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * "Contributors" seems a better term than "Experts" to me, especially if this becomes a separate page. It could be considered more neutral but either way the description of someone as an "expert" is open to dispute but "contributor" is not and is the term used on the IOT website.
 * Include the archive category in table (ie Science or History, Religion, Culture, Philosphy)
 * Group the programmes (that is break up the table) by season rather than year.

First draft of the new tables
Here's the first draft of the perl script. It works on a downloaded copy of all the inourtime R4 website. As you can see, it does parse the full details (including the contributors and their credentials), but I have yet to make something that lists the contributors in a seperate table. 62.31.67.29 16:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

{| class="collapsible collapsed" ! Perl script use strict; use HTML::TreeBuilder; binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'; binmode STDERR, ':utf8';
 * 1) !&#47;usr&#47;bin&#47;perl -w
 * 2) this software is released to the public domain and may be used by anyone for any purpose

my @months = qw(0 January February March April May June July August September October November December); my %files;

for my $category (qw(science religion philosophy history culture)) { open (FH, '&lt;:encoding(iso-8859-1)', "inourtime_$category.shtml") || die "topic $category - $!"; my $category_data = join '', &lt;FH&gt;; close FH; my $category_printable = $category; $category_printable =~ s&#47;^(.)&#47;\U$1&#47;;

while ($category_data =~ m{"(inourtime_\d{8}\.shtml)"&#91;^&gt;&#93;*&gt;(.*?)&lt;&#47;a&gt;}isg) { my ($file, $name) = ($1, $2);

if (exists $files{$file}) { $files{$file}-&gt;{Category} .= ", $category_printable"; next; }

$name =~ s&#47;&amp;#160;&#47; &#47;g; $name =~ s&#47;&lt;\&#47;?b&gt;&#47;&#47;g; $name =~ s&#47;&amp;amp;&#47;and&#47;g; $name =~ s&#47;Sensation-&#47;Sensation -&#47;; $name =~ s&#47;\s*$&#47;&#47;g;

my $title = $name; if ($title =~ &#47; - &#47;) { if ($title =~ &#47;The &#47;) { $title =~ s&#47;^The (.*?) - &#47;The &#91;&#91;$1&#93;&#93; - &#47;; }     else { $title =~ s&#47;^(.*?) - &#47;&#91;&#91;$1&#93;&#93; - &#47;; }   }    else { $title = "&#91;&#91;$name&#93;&#93;"; }

if ($file =~ &#47;inourtime_(\d{4})(\d\d)(\d\d)&#47;) { my $date = sprintf "%s %d, %04d", $months&#91;$2&#93;, $3, $1; open (FH, '&lt;:encoding(iso-8859-1)', $file) || die "$file - $!"; my $content = join '', &lt;FH&gt;; close FH;

my $t = new HTML::TreeBuilder; my $image = undef; if ($content =~ m{&lt;!--\s*this weeks programme information\s*--&gt;(.*)&lt;!--\s*this weeks programme information ends\s*--&gt;}s) { $t-&gt;parse($1); $image = $t-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;1&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;0&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;4&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;0&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;0&#93;-&gt;attr('src'); $content = $t-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;1&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;0&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;6&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;0&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;0&#93;-&gt;as_HTML; }     elsif ($content =~ m{&lt;!--\s*Promo 2 image and text row\s*--&gt;(.*)&lt;!--\s*end embedd Promo 2 table\s*--&gt;}s) { $t-&gt;parse($1); $image = $t-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;1&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;0&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;0&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;1&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;0&#93;-&gt;attr('src'); $content = $t-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;1&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;0&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;0&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;1&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;1&#93;-&gt;content-&gt;&#91;0&#93;-&gt;as_HTML; }     else { die "$file failed"; }

$_ = $content; s{^&lt;font size=2&gt;}{}; s{^(&lt;strong&gt;&amp;copy;&lt;&#47;strong&gt;Getty Images&#47;Hulton.Archive|Courtesy of Getty (archive|Images))}{}; s{^(\s*(&lt;br&gt;)*)*}{}; s{^&lt;a\s.*?&lt;&#47;a&gt;\.?}{}; s{^(\s*(&lt;br&gt;)*)*}{}; s{^(&lt;strong&gt;.*?&lt;&#47;strong&gt;|&lt;b&gt;.*?&lt;&#47;b&gt;)}{}; s{^(\s*(&lt;br&gt;)*)*}{}; s{, 9 May 2002\.}{}; s{^&lt;a .*?&lt;&#47;a&gt;}{}; s{^(\.|&lt;strong&gt;.*?&lt;&#47;strong&gt;)}{}; s{^(\s*(&lt;br&gt;)*)*}{}; s{^&lt;a .*?&lt;&#47;a&gt;}{}; s{^(\.|&lt;strong&gt;.*?&lt;&#47;strong&gt;)}{}; s{^(\s*(&lt;br&gt;)*)*}{}; s{^spanning over.*?&lt;&#47;a&gt;}{}; s{^this edition.*?&lt;br&gt;}{}; s{&lt;b&gt;&lt;a.*?&lt;&#47;a&gt;&lt;&#47;b&gt;}{}; s{&lt;em&gt;(\.|&lt;br&gt;)*\s*&lt;&#47;em&gt;}{}; s{^(\s*(&lt;br&gt;)*)*}{};

s{&amp;(#147|#148|ldquo|quot|rdquo);}{"}g;     s{&amp;(#39|#145|#146|lsquo|rsquo);}{'}g;      s{&amp;(#150|ndash);}{-}g;      s{&amp;eacute;}{\xE9}g;      s{&amp;iacute;}{\xED}g;      s{&amp;hellip;}{...}g;      s{&amp;amp;}{and}g;

s{&lt;strong&gt;|&lt;&#47;strong&gt;|&lt;b&gt;|&lt;&#47;b&gt;|&lt;i&gt;|&lt;&#47;i&gt;|&lt;em&gt;|&lt;&#47;em&gt;|&lt;i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"&gt;}{}g;

my @contribs; if ($file eq 'inourtime_20020606.shtml') { s{ &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; With us to.*}{}; @contribs = ( 'Richard Sorabji, Gresham Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College',                     'Ruth Padel, poet and author of In and Out of the Mind: Tragic Images of Self and Body',                      'Martin Palmer, Theologian and Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture' ); }     elsif ($file eq 'inourtime_20020314.shtml') { s{&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Guests&lt;br&gt;.*}{}; @contribs = ( 'Peter Harvey, Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Sunderland',                     'Kate Crosby, Lecturer in Buddhist Studies, SOAS',                      'Mahinda Deagallee, Lecturer in the Study of Religions, Bath Spa University College and a Buddhist Monk from the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka.' ); }     elsif ($file eq 'inourtime_20070222.shtml') { s{ &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; Amongst others.*}{}; @contribs = ( "William Hague, Wilberforce's biographer",                     'Zoe Laidlaw, historian from Royal Holloway, University of London',                      'Anne Stott, historian from Birkbeck College, London',                      'Vanessa Salter, Keeper of Social History at the Wilberforce House Museum',                      'Madge Dresser, from the University of the West of England',                      'Alison Lewis, guide on the William Wilberforce tour',                      'John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister' ); }     elsif ($file eq 'inourtime_20020328.shtml') { s{&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Guests&lt;br&gt;.*}{}; @contribs = ( 'Emma Barker, Lecturer in Art History at The Open University',                     'Thomas Healy, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Birkbeck University of London',                      'Tim Blanning, Professor of Modern European History at the University of Cambridge and author of The Culture of Power and The Power of Culture' ); }     elsif ($file eq 'inourtime_20020221.shtml') { s{&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Guests&lt;br&gt;.*}{}; @contribs = ( 'Barry Cunliffe, Professor of European Archaeology at Oxford University and author of Facing The Ocean',                     'Alistair Moffat, Writer and Historian and author of The Sea Kingdoms - The Story of Celtic Britain and Ireland',                      'Miranda Aldhouse Green, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Wales and author of Dying for the Gods' ); }     elsif (m{^(.*)&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;\s*(Contributors|Guests):?\s*&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;\s*(.*?)\s*&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;\s*(.*?)\s*&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;\s*(.*?)\s*((&lt;br&gt;){2,}|&lt;&#47;font&gt;)}) { $_ = $1;       @contribs = ($3, $4, $5); $contribs&#91;0&#93; =~ s{(\s*(&lt;br&gt;)*)*$}{}g; $contribs&#91;1&#93; =~ s{(\s*(&lt;br&gt;)*)*$}{}g; $contribs&#91;2&#93; =~ s{(\s*(&lt;br&gt;)*)*$}{}g; }     elsif (m{^(.*)&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;\s*Guests:?\s*&lt;br&gt;\s*(.*?)\s*&lt;br&gt;\s*(.*?)\s*&lt;br&gt;\s*(.*?)\s*&lt;br&gt;}) { $_ = $1;       @contribs = ($2, $3, $4); }     else { die "$file not parsable"; }     $content = $_;

@contribs = map { s{^A N Wilson}{A.N. Wilson}; if (m{^(.+?)\s*&lt;br&gt;\s*(.+)}) { &#91;$1, $2&#93; } elsif (m{^(.+?)\s*,\s*(.+)}) { &#91;$1, $2&#93; } else { die "can't parse contrib '$_' in $file" } } @contribs;

$files{$file} = { Link =&gt; "http:&#47;&#47;www.bbc.co.uk&#47;radio4&#47;history&#47;inourtime&#47;$file", Category =&gt; $category_printable, Name =&gt; $name, Title =&gt; $title, Date =&gt; $date, Content =&gt; $content, Contribs =&gt; \@contribs };   }  } }

my @files_sorted = sort {$b cmp $a} keys %files;

my %contribs; my %seasons = ( $files_sorted&#91;0&#93;           =&gt; '2007-2006',  'inourtime_20060713.shtml' =&gt; '2006-2005',  'inourtime_20050714.shtml' =&gt; '2005-2004',  'inourtime_20040624.shtml' =&gt; '2004-2003',  'inourtime_20030717.shtml' =&gt; '2003-2002',  'inourtime_20020711.shtml' =&gt; '2002' );

Tabulation expert needed
I tried to update the table - sorry about the errors I made here  - if any one knows how we can get the entry for Simon Bolivarin the table neatly, I shall be appreciative.Many thanks, ~

my $open = 0; for my $file (@files_sorted) { if (exists $seasons{$file}) { print "|}\n" if $open; $open = 1; print "=== $seasons{$file} ===\n"; print "{| class=\"wikitable\"\n|-\n"; print "! Broadcast date !! Title !! Category !! Contributors\n|-\n"; } my $ref = $files{$file}; print "| &#91;$ref-&gt;{Link} $ref-&gt;{Date}&#93; || $ref-&gt;{Title} || $ref-&gt;{Category} || ". join(', ', map {if ($_-&gt;&#91;0&#93; =~ &#47;^Dr (.*)&#47;) {"Dr &#91;&#91;$1&#93;&#93;"} else {"&#91;&#91;$_-&gt;&#91;0&#93;&#93;&#93;"}} @{$ref-&gt;{Contribs}} ). "\n|-\n";

for (@{$ref-&gt;{Contribs}}) { my ($name, $qual) = ($_-&gt;&#91;0&#93;, $_-&gt;&#91;1&#93;); $contribs{$_-&gt;&#91;0&#93;} = {} unless exists $contribs{$_-&gt;&#91;0&#93;}; $contribs{$_-&gt;&#91;0&#93;}-&gt;{$_-&gt;&#91;1&#93;} = 1; } } print "|}\n" if $open;

print "==Contributors==\n"; print "{| class=\"wikitable\"\n|-\n"; print "! Contributor !! Qualifications\n|-\n"; for my $name (sort {$a =~ &#47;^(Dr )?(.*?)\s+(.*)&#47;; my ($af,$as) = ($2,$3);                   $b =~ &#47;^(Dr )?(.*?)\s+(.*)&#47;; my ($bf,$bs) = ($2,$3);                    ($as cmp $bs) || ($af cmp $bf)} keys %contribs) { if ($name =~ &#47;^Dr (.*)&#47;) { print "| Dr &#91;&#91;$1&#93;&#93; ||"; } else { print "| &#91;&#91;$name&#93;&#93; ||"; } print join("&lt;br&gt;", keys %{$contribs{$name}}). "\n|-\n"; } print "|}\n";
 * }

62.31.67.29 16:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The effort is to be commended but I don't think this level of detail will be of interest to most people wanting to discuss the article. I suggest you register with a username and put most of this on one of your user page or a subpages. You could try out the drafts. A user name is easier to remember than an IP address that might change.Jojas 17:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The first draft looks good but needs some refining but I can't quite identify quite how. In this more compact view perhaps the sub-title could be omitted? Jojas 17:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Two other points having looked at the listing more closely:
 * -This is a subjective editorial point. William Wilburforce is a special case. I would not, and orginally did not, include the contributors as it was in documentary rather than discussion format.
 * -There are a few programmes, such as the Spanish Inquisition, which come under two archive categories.

Jojas 17:39, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's it all imported in the new format. Each contributor only appears once, they only have one set of (unified) qualifications, every link is disambiguated and pointing at the right place. It's broken up by "season" rather than year. Every title has a link to the subject(s) within Wikipedia. It should be easy enough to maintain this for new programs. I do have a few points still to decide on, though. 85.210.17.30 13:34, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Do we need the "Category" column? What use does it serve? It's an arbitrary delimitation, only there as part of how the In Our Time website is organised. It should be obvious from the topic what the "category" is. I don't think it imparts useful information. Should we get rid of it?
 * Should we break out the episodes, contributors, or both into a new article?
 * Should we remove contributors that have their own wiki articles? I've noticed that many of the contributor credentials/qualifications/biographies are out of date, and I think that contributors with wiki articles already makes their appearance on the list redundant. I'd also rather see effort put into creating wiki articles for these contributors rather than maintaining a huge contributor list. The ideal situation would be that all contributors have wiki links, thus to see information about them, one clicks on their name in the programme list.
 * Should we clip the subtitles of programmes? It might appear more aesthetically pleasing. But in many cases, programmes don't make sense unless they have their subtitles. And, for example, all the subtitles in 2003/2002 are nice and short. Should we only clip long subtitles that would otherwise make sense?

another bold change
I'm not sure if everyone will like it or not. I removed the contributor list entirely, and replaced every contributor who doesn't already have a wiki page with a footnote. That way, one can click on a contributor name if they have a wiki page, or click on the footnote link to get a short description. The short description also includes the redlink, so anyone interested can start writing a new wiki page for that person. What do you think? 85.210.17.30 14:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Transcripts of "In Our Time" BBC programmes
I have done forty-one transcripts of the current series of "In our time", that is all the programmes in this series. I have put a lot of work to do this, and do not know if there is a question of copyright in case I would publish them on Wikipedia. I have provided the transcripts with links if there is some important information or if somebody would like to get to know something more about particular points.

I think that even the most keen listeners can find some information in the transcripts she/he missed while listening to the programmes. So, I think, that there is a point in making them. I prepared all transcripts as Microsoft Word documents. How can I publish them now on Wikipedia, where should I send the Word files? Please provide me with an e-mail if you are interested in publishing them in Wikipedia.

--DarekS 20:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The inclusion of or links to transcripts not cleared by the BBC would be a breach of the BBC's copyrights and they can not, therefore, be included on WP. B1atv 13:19, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Update needed
On April 25 2008, this article indicated that the "next programme" would be on materialism. In fact, the next programme will be on the Enclosures Act. That on materialism has already been broadcast as it was first broadcast on April 24 2008. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:38, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikilink
At last I have managed to rectify the wikilink to Anthony O'Hear. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 22:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Guide to format for Programme List entries
An example of a entry in the Programme List table which is annotated using comments.

! Broadcast date !! Title!! Contributors

 

|-

 |   16 October 2008

 |   Vitalism - the spark of life

 |   Patricia Fara, Andrew Mendelsohn, Pietro Corsi

 

|-

(Note: The Broadcast Date is also used an external link to the programmes webpage in the archive on the IOT website. The url/weblink to the webpage for any programme will be  http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_yyyymmdd.shtml , where 'yyyymmdd' is the date of broadcast.)

The result will should appear like this:

--Jojas (talk) 14:57, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

List of programmes/episodes, infobox expansion
I just finished adding the infobox and other changes to the article. I think it makes sense for the list of IOT episodes to be in its own article, following examples already created in Category:Lists of radio series episodes. It would also be useful for others to review and expand the information in the infobox: an image and an episode count are the most obvious additions. Thanks. 68.167.252.11 (talk) 22:02, 3 January 2009 (UTC).

Whale now broadcast
The programme on the whale has now been broadcast (May 21 2009) and the next programme will be on

St. Paul and his influence on Christianity, so this can be updated. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:13, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Excellent - commendation is due
Excellent! The programme on the Augustan age was broadcast on June 11 2009, and is already down there, with details of next programme.This page is now getting updated a lot more regularly than was once the case - so commendation is due to those seeing to these updates. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:33, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

And some further commendations
I see that already, as the programme has began a new series in the autumn of 2009, it has already been updated - so, to continue where I left off with my last comment, a million thanks to all those who worked hard to update this article! Keep up the good work, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:15, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Article Split
I may regret this but I have copied the List of Programmes section into a new article to create a separate article (List of In Our Time programmes). Consequentally this section has been reduced to a minimum and the Contributers section, which was simply a the list of references from the Programme List also moved to the new article and deleted from this page. --Jojas (talk) 16:47, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The split was a good thing to do. Doing that prompted me to work on the main article. 72.244.207.68 (talk) 10:39, 9 November 2009 (UTC). P.S. To expand the list of episodes even further, look here These few dozen  timeshighereducation.co.uk refs suggest that it wasn't always the case that there were three academics brought in as guests.  72.244.207.68 (talk) 11:00, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Merge list of episodes with this article?
This article is already out of date - the last programme as of 6 December was on the silk road. The list is more up-to-date - why do we not go back to merging the list of episodes with this article? This used to be part of the article, and if we went back to this, it would stop the article getting out-dated. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:38, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The list of episodes is long enough that IMHO it is better to keep them separate. But you're right about the update issue:  it doesn't make sense to have to update both articles.  After the changes I just made, in the future, only List of In Our Time programmes will need to be updated as to what the last programme was.  66.167.48.179 (talk) 20:47, 17 December 2009 (UTC).

Free Will not 500th episode?
According to the episode list (List of In Our Time programmes) Free Will (10/03/2011) appears to be the 501st episode, rather than the 500th, as all the publicity claimed. Or is one of the broadcast episodes retrospectively no longer counted, for some reason? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.110.152.201 (talk) 23:28, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Explained here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.110.205.184 (talk) 01:08, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * So is that to say that the 8 Mar 2004 episode The Roman Empire's Decline and Fall is a rebroadcast of the 5 Apr 2001 episode The Roman Empire's Collapse in the 5th century, and this is the source of the confusion? Span (talk) 07:44, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Apologies
Apologies if when I put in information about the article taking a summer break after early July, it seemed to much of a repetition of what had been said earlier. Feel free to re-structure the article accordingly if you can see how it could be made a little less repetitive. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:26, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Information on the programme being repeated
The article says that the programme is broadcast at 9 a.m. on a Thursday, but does not point out that it gets repeated at 9: 30 on a Thursday evening. I did try to put this information in, but for some strange reason, some one else deleted it. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:49, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Reference to Wikipedia on Candlemas 2012
The article on the Kama Sutra, broadcast on Candlemas 2012. said that the Kama Sutra was rather like Wikipedia. Wikipedians may like to note this - even if the reaction of Melvyn Bragg was "Oh dear". ACEOREVIVED (talk) 00:36, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Note about programme length
The note in the sidebar says that the programme lasts 45 minutes. should it not add that this is only the morning edition, the programme gets repeated at 9 :30 p.m. when it lasts only thirty minutes? By the way I am User: ACEOREVIVED - I was off line for a long time, but now appear to be back on Wikipedia. I shall leave other Wikipedians to decide whether that is good or bad. 78.150.103.94 (talk) 06:21, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

BLAR
I've WP:BLARed the List of In Our Time programmes because I think it doesn't pass WP:NLIST and the article violated both WP:LINKFARM and WP:EL. If you disagree with my assessment feel free to revert my edit. TipsyElephant (talk) 16:59, 11 February 2023 (UTC)