AT AN early stage in Punt and Dennis: Route masters (Radio 4, Tuesdays), one of our eponymous presenters admits: “I don’t really understand what I’m dealing with.” It is an admission not merely of inadequacy, but of complacency; for he does not then defer to somebody who does understand, but instead goes on to wing it.
Having finally disposed of The Now Show on the scrapheap of worn-out topical comedy, Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis have been given a slot in the congenial mid-afternoon, where there is responsibility — perhaps even a requirement — to raise only a chuckle. The platform for their charms is a show in which they, plus guest, must connect apparently random topics to form an intellectual journey — on this occasion, from chaos theory to Anne Boleyn.
The result is a trip through Wikipedia, curated by three nice guys and fuelled by carbon-neutral banter. It has the advantage of being extremely cheap radio; but when Punt — or was it Dennis? — made the fanciful assertion that the Grand Canyon reminded him of the gradual erosion of standards in contemporary media, one wondered whether it was provoked by a degree of professional self-awareness.
Perhaps this sort of programme, like the podcast that I reviewed two weeks ago (Radio, 4 October), could eventually be made by AI, which, as we heard in Witness History (World Service, Monday of last week), started back in 1966. The programme told the fascinating story of ELIZA, a system invented by Joseph Weizenbaum to have simple conversations with the sentient. Weizenbaum liked to think of himself as being as much a psychiatrist as a computer scientist, and his first venture involved tricking party guests into believing that his device could give accurate yes or no answers to any question, when, in fact, he was using techniques familiar to fortune-tellers.
ELIZA was only a little more honest, repeating back the problem put to it, in the form of a question. The strategy, well-known to psychoanalysts, confects a sense of engagement and intimacy which was captivating, and many hundreds of people poured out their hearts to witless ELIZA. As Adam Curtis, quoted here, asserts: “In an age of individualism, what makes people feel safe is having themselves reflected back at them.”
After a career in the political headlights, the attractions to MPs of podcast-land are evident: the chance — for Rory Stewart, Ed Balls, et al. to indulge their fundamentalist centrism, or, for Tim Farron, his centrist fundamentalism. A Mucky Business with Tim Farron (Premier Radio, Tuesdays) is one of that network’s more high-profile productions, and it is worth a listen, not least amid the paucity of broadcast content engaging with politics from a religious stance.
Last week’s episode featured an interview with Professor Stephen Schneck, the newly appointed chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. It is a vast brief, extending to all regions where faith is seen as a dangerous alternative authority to that of the State.