Mini rant

I'm sorry, but it being a thursday morning and the start of a new series of 'In Our Time' on Radio 4 here in Blighty, I have had to leave the radio because of prolonged exposure to one of the little irritations that bother me almost daily, and have come here to irritate you instead.

It drives me nuts when historians constantly refer to the past in the present tense. There, I've said it (again).

I'll give you an example: "Napoleon has moved into the palace of Versailles, from where he plans his operations."

I'm sorry, but as any school kid can tell you, Napoleon has been dead for quite a while now. You - as historians - should know this better than anyone. The sentence should be spoken like this: 'Napoleon had moved into the palace of Versailles, from where he planned his operations'. Now go away and write it out one hundred times.

I can only think that - right now - the thousands of university students that are being taught by history professors are also being drilled in the abuse of the language until it becomes second nature never to refer to the past in it's own tense, under threat of ostracization or low grades.

Why do they do it? I have a feeling it must have started with some stupid history teacher who tried to make history more appealing - more alive - to a bunch of disinterested brats, and then may have been taken up by some media historian who tried to up his ratings by trying to make us disinterested adult brats sit up and take notice as he blathered on (sorry, I mean 'blathers on') about some event of 1000 years ago as if it were going on in the street right now.

The arch twat, bodice-ripper novelist and media bully, Melvyn 'Lord' Bragg, has been known to chastise highly respected female historians on his program for not playing the game, and the unforgivable result is the same as a bad meal at a good restaurant: all the ingredients are of top quality, but have been totally ruined by a crap chef.

They only made Bragg a 'lord' to get rid of him on his erstwhile monday slot (it was forbidden for members of the aristocracy to host that particular politically biased program) and replace him with the wonderful Andrew Marr, but what did he do? He created his own history program which is bursting at the seams trying to contain his bloated ego, and the studio space is too cramped to allow for anyone else's educated opinion to be aired at the same time as Bragg's ill-educated ones.

Bragg is also an untouchable media mogul who owns his own production companies, so it was easy peasy for him to bully some BBC executive into spending hundreds of thousands of pounds a year by commissioning his turgid thursday offering.

Right. The bloody thing is over now. It's safe to go back into the kitchen.