Today, Woman's Hour, In Our Time
Radio 4

A quick word about the high-horsing on Radio 4. This morning, Justin Webb (Today, 22 March, 6am) opened his interview with the perfectly pleasant writer of a superhero movie with: "There's a lot of swearing in this film." It was followed by: "To whom does it appeal? If you are over 15 . . . what sort of person would . . . get something out of it?"

Then there was Jenni Murray (Woman's Hour, 10 March, 10am) speaking to the author of the sex blog Girl with a One-Track Mind, and behaving as though the interviewee had not, as it sounded, just arrived with a small basket of nasturtiums after successfully presenting a picturesque half-profile to the young men hanging around Broadcasting House, but was, in fact, about to straddle Jenni's rugby-playing son right there in the studio. (And just check the way Murray says: "And now, the Woman's Hour drama." It's like an anvil falling on your head.)

I don't mind a good bitch (clearly), but this low-level disdain can really cast a pall. I mean, it's not like anyone's doing it well enough. It's not like you listen to Webb taking on the superhero peddler and think: "Everything about Justin Webb's voice suggests an awesome accumulation of put-downs; a whole vinegary hinterland of data on how the world gets made into what it is. This dude would rumble me in an instant." You just think: "Justin's being a stiff again."

Anyway, there I was, working with my friend Jonathan, with In Our Time (18 March, 9am) on in the background, when a contributor said that Edvard Munch used to leave his paintings out in the yard to be rained on, because paintings, Munch thought, ought to learn to "fend for themselves", and Melvyn - an especially sly sneerer (there are times when Bragg says "putting all that aside for now" in his "you're really going off-piste" voice to some poor academic, and it just makes me feel incredibly . . . sad, and think of a worn-out old dog: you know, the ones the colour of lager that gaze into the traffic) - didn't even grunt! "But that's brilliant about Munch!" I said. "That's a totally brilliant fact!" And Jonathan just said: "Listen, sunshine, Munch was fucking nuts."

It was followed by a suspiciously large number of things that pissed Jonathan off that day - Frank Lampard's Wikipedia page, for starters, specifically the bit where it says that "Lampard is reported to have an IQ of over 150, putting him in the 0.1 per cent of the United Kingdom that rivals Carol Vorderman". And then, when I produced a bar of Green & Blacks from my handbag, Jonathan even said: "I really hate it when you do that." "Do what?" "Intellectualise chocolate."

I blame Melvyn and Justin and Jenni for all this . . . disgruntalism, which is only going to get worse as the election approaches, when every presenter in the history of the universe manages to forget that they, too, yes, even they - representatives of a nation who would far rather determine the election with a pie-eating contest - will have to schlep down to some church hall and stand in a queue until someone basically turns up at Downing Street. I feel sorry for all the prime ministerial hopefuls. I mean, they're only looking for a job.