News about Melvyn Bragg

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Why didn't the Princess of Wales accompany William on his trip to New York? Kate, a clumsy foreign traveller, has been out of the country for just two weeks this year, a short trip to watch England play Argentina in Marseille and the Crown Prince of Jordan's wedding. There had been high hopes at the FCO that Kate would not only visit more overseas but also bring the children. George has been to Australia and New Zealand, and Charlotte has been accompanied in Canada, Poland, and Germany, but it appears that education and routine are now more important than providing the FCO with some 'panda diplomacy.'

The 83-year-old radio veteran (left) has wondered if license fee payers are getting value for their money from the BBC ahead of the 1000th episode, which is due to air out on Thursday. According to statistics collected by audience measurement body Barb, Match of the Day, hosted by Lineker (right), attracts about 3 million viewers on Saturday and around 2.5 million on Sunday. In Our Times, weekly listening figures in excess of 2 million people are reported, and it is also one of the BBC's most downloaded weekly podcasts globally.

CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: Where was the trigger warning? After all, supermarkets must now cover tobacco products out of shutters due to the fear of insecure people seeing 20 Bensons. And, as a theatre in London produced a play about Groucho Marx last year, audiences were alerted by email to the danger of seeing an actor with 'a prop cigar.' Nevertheless, viewers of David Hockney: A Celebration (Sky Arts) were confronted with an alert by the spectacle of the world's best living artist chatting, while smoking cigarettes. He was also unrepentant, which was worrying. 'Smoking doesn't matter,' he told Melvyn Bragg. Some people can smoke while others can't.' It's just these bossy people, I think. There are just too many.'

On a visit to a Norfolk nature reserve, Mark Shadbolt, 62, was with cocker spaniel Luna when the wild charged them and sank its jaws into the pet repeatedly. Vanessa, a terrified husband, was then confronted with a walking stick, only for the pig to assault her husband before the terrified couple managed to flee, clutching their pets.

Melvyn Bragg is one of Britain's most popular cultural icons. He is the antidote to dumbing down, a defender against philistinism. He contributed to our civilisation for decades by his artistic ingenuity, intellectual capability, and awesome curiosity. The 83-year-old peer, who has been involved with the BBC for more than six decades, has appeared on over 1,000 episodes of the erudite Radio 4 history series In Our Time. It's this background that makes his attack on the BBC's portrayal of the white working class so shocking this week. In an interview with the Radio Times, he said that the BBC often portrays such people as'miserable, broke, or in despair, with the result that their achievements and views are ignored.

Lord Bragg, 83, the son of a publican who grew up in Carlisle, wrote: "I did a book called Back In The Day," was about my background - the working class. I wanted them to be represented. They've always been underestimated. The BBC is likely to blame for this because if they are unhappy on their book readings and such, they only want working class people, but 70% of the population has come from the same background as mine. They are greatly underrepresented. "They worked so hard," I want to say. And yet they came out of the mines. They came from factories. And what did they do? They gave rise to a large society. That was unnoticed. These people are [portrayed] as either miserable, broke, or in despair. It wasn't like that, and it didn't have to be like that.'

Giles Wood and Mary Killen, better known as Channel 4's eccentric married couple, have entertained us for eight years, becoming national treasures in the process. The couple, who have lived in a run-down thatched cottage in rural Wiltshire for the past 30 years, now give a realistic glimpse of their village life away from the television screen. The reality-show favorites talk about how they cope with nosy neighbors and over-cheery dog-walkers, as well as why they both love and hate going shopping in the countryside.

If Cabinet Secretary Simon Case be compelled to lay down on his WhatsApp sword, his insider recollections would have journalists clamouring at his door. His memories from July 2018, when he unexpectedly appointed Prince William's personal secretary following the Harry and Meghan wedding, will be of particular concern. As the Sussexes fell out of love with the rest of the royals, he had a ringside seat. When bullying charges against Meghan were levelled by and against him, he was also front of house.

EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: This is an honor that would have made Margo Leadbetter, the social-climbing snob she appeared on the classic sitcom The Good Life, inordinately proud: Yesterday, Dame Penelope Keith (left) represented King Charles at the funeral of one of his favorite entertainers, Kit Hesketh-Harvey (inset). The dame, 82, who appeared in To The Manor Borning, accompanied the mourners at the actors' church, St Paul's in London. Hesketh-Harvey, who died suddenly last month at the age of 65, was a cabaret singer, lyricist, and pantomime baddie. He used to perform for King Charles, but Rollo's son, who died yesterday, reads a letter from the monarch describing his father's funeral.

Dawson's highly readable memoir of their illicit love affair, written by John le Carré and Suleika Dawson (half his age), is both a blockbuster and highly readable. In the meantime, you'll feel as though you're living in the suburbs of Bath, when you read Justin Webb's evocative memoir of his strange upbringing as an only child. Anne Glenconner, who is 90 and reveling in her late-life success, takes us on a journey through her life - author, daughter, wife, hostessess, mother, lady-in-waiting, and good friend, throwing a new light on it all.