Radio 4 and the Present Tense

"It's 1806, and Beethoven is writing his 4th Piano Concerto".



Now there's a phrase guaranteed to make me seethe. 
Sentences like that are frequently imposed on us by the BBC.
"NO!" I tell them, "It's 25 past 9 in the morning and Beethoven finished writing his 4th Piano Concerto 206 years ago at least. I have a CD of the complete work right here." 

On Radio 4 they ruin nearly every interesting programme that I want to hear, by insisting on using the present tense when talking about events of the distant past. It irritates me so sorely that I HAVE to switch the wireless off, however much I would like to hear about Beethoven.

Melvyn Bragg (Lord) makes a radio series called In Our Time in which he gets eminent academics from Oxford etc. to talk to the listeners as though to a bunch of pre-schoolers. If you write in and complain they

i) make fun of you, and

ii) say they have to use the present tense to make the history sound more vibrant and immediate.

I take this as a major insult to my intellect (such as it is).

The other reason they should not do it, is that it causes them to be unable to make it clear what they mean when describing a sequence of events - in order to stick to their daft present-tense guns they have to have everything happening at once. Eg. They would have us believe that Beethoven is writing the 4th Piano Concerto NOW! AS WE GO TO AIR! despite the fact it is (apparently) also 1815 and he is taking over custody of his nephew, and it is 1792 as well and he's studying counterpoint with Haydn. Amazing since at the same time he is additionally in his grave where he has lain for 1.86 centuries dead, may his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed by the mercy of God rest in peace Amen.

 

Beethoven. What a dude.

 

Donald Macleod on Radio 3 manages perfectly well to present Composer of the Week without recourse to pretending it's all taking place while he speaks and as such I shall continue to get my Beethoven-related information from him not Lord M Bragg. I suggest Lord M Bragg listens to a few of those broadcasts and reflects on the fact that it is possible to make an engaging, understandable programme without any need  to patronise the listeners by implying that they are all half-witted toddlers with attention spans of approx. 1 attosecond.

 

 

 

Finally, as any fule kno, Julius Caesar said not "venio, video, vinco," but "veni, vidi, vici" using quite correctly the perfect tense.

If he were to be interviewed on In Our Time for a programme about his war with Pharnaces II of Pontus (a typical subject for In Our Time) would they tell him to say "I come, I see, I conquer"? - presumably whilst chewing gum and punching the air? They wouldn't dare. J Caesar would have no truck with such nonsense and if Lord Bragg tried to force the point he would find he'd been fed to the lions and rightly so.

And that pun of Gen. Napier's about peccavi meaning "I have Sindh" wouldn't have worked on M Bragg's watch either. "Pecco"? I'm sinning? They'd have thought he'd lost it, bigtime,* not conquered Sindh as he meant.

 

 

 

 *to "lose it bigtime" means to take leave of one's senses.

Scene: British War Office.
An underling enters.
Underling : "Sir, a telegram from General Napier, sir."
Prime Minister (reads telegram, looks puzzled) : "What the devil?... 'Pecco'? Feller's gorn stark mad!"
Underling : "It means 'I'm sinning,' sir. It may be in code."
Prime Minister : "Not if I know young Napier... I wonder what the rascal's up to, heh! Heh!... (his face falls) Good God, m'daughter's out there... Order him shot - effective immediately."