John Humphrys
John Humphrys
Desmond John Humphrys is an award-winning Welsh broadcaster. From 1981 to 1987 he was the main presenter for the Nine O'Clock News, the flagship BBC news television programme, and since 1987 he has been a presenter on the award-winning BBC Radio 4 programme, Today. He presents the programme with Justin Webb, Nick Robinson, Mishal Husain and Sarah Montague. Since 2003 he has been the host of the BBC Two television quiz show Mastermind...
discover government leave ministers sorts
When ministers leave government we discover that there are all sorts of things they said in government that they did not actually believe,
arguing politics
It contributes to it. What do you think politics is, if not arguing about principles?
birds compared everywhere readily seasons species wildlife
Birds are really the only wildlife that's readily available. They're everywhere you look, and different species come and go as the seasons change, compared to most mammals.
bit tough
The show's every bit as tough as it used to be.
anywhere decent fields good means northwest open stand trees
Anywhere with a decent stand of trees can be great, and we still actually have open fields in Northwest Arkansas, so you have a good assortment of habitat, which means a good assortment of birds.
causing houston problems
So he was let out, went to Houston and started causing problems there.
affection fact nobody obviously sorts
In fact nobody has ever complained about the sorts of things I say because it is done with affection and is obviously light-hearted,
bit castro good invite mean palace seem suggested
I suggested it was a bit mean not to invite Fidel Castro to the Palace because he's 80 as well and she didn't seem to think it was a very good idea.
cynical television today
The good television of today is probably better than the best television of the old days. The bad television of today is worse. It is not only bad, it is damaging, meretricious, seedy and cynical.
journalist proven reports
It is no good saying we [journalists] must report only what is true because what is true cannot always be proven.
real television radio
It is largely on television and radio that real probing of what politicians are up to has to happen.
views years people
The BBC has tended over the years to be broadly liberal as opposed to broadly conservative for all sorts of perfectly understandable reasons. The sort of people we've recruited - the best and the brightest - tended to come from universities and backgrounds where they're more likely to hold broadly liberal views than conservative.
years vocabulary messages
It is the relentless onward march of the texters, the SMS (Short Message Service) vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours 800 years ago. They are destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary. And they must be stopped.
children punctuation-marks daddy
If the semicolon is one of the neglected children in the family of punctuation marks these days, told to stay in its room and entertain itself, because mummy and daddy are busy, the apostrophe is the abused victim.