Comments on: Humphrey Lyttelton: The Pope of Radio 4 http://speechification.com/2008/04/26/humphrey-lyttelton-the-pope-of-radio-4/ Sun, 20 Jul 2008 14:43:02 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: nick s http://speechification.com/2008/04/26/humphrey-lyttelton-the-pope-of-radio-4/#comment-1863 nick s Sat, 03 May 2008 06:21:57 +0000 http://speechification.com/?p=243#comment-1863 One thing Humph was always able to air -- amazingly, really, but as Pope, he was infallible -- was the inner voice of the Radio 4 listener when it came to passing judgement on the network. He could joke about 'Quote, Unquote' being insufferably smug, so that everyone who wonders just why Nigel Rees and his god-awful mates never go away could celebrate: "It's not just me!" (Remembering Humph, I also can't help thinking about Debbie Barham, whose sensibility was attuned to the idiosyncracies and distinctions of the networks: she knew the difference between a Huddlines joke and a Week Ending joke. Humph, too, knew what R2 was for, and what R4 was for, even if the controllers weren't always so sure.) One thing Humph was always able to air — amazingly, really, but as Pope, he was infallible — was the inner voice of the Radio 4 listener when it came to passing judgement on the network. He could joke about ‘Quote, Unquote’ being insufferably smug, so that everyone who wonders just why Nigel Rees and his god-awful mates never go away could celebrate: “It’s not just me!”

(Remembering Humph, I also can’t help thinking about Debbie Barham, whose sensibility was attuned to the idiosyncracies and distinctions of the networks: she knew the difference between a Huddlines joke and a Week Ending joke. Humph, too, knew what R2 was for, and what R4 was for, even if the controllers weren’t always so sure.)

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