Interview technique

There is something uniquely humiliating about interview transcripts. I would like to believe that it is the lack of punctuation — even skilled audio typists are unable to punctuate at all, so far as I can see. But maybe it is just the quite extraordinary incoherence of my thought processes. I mean, while I am talking, I hear a backspace key at work so it never occurs to me that a question comes out like this:

And they, they you they, they don’t I think listen to Radio 4 in the quick peaceful July evenings, but who knows? Yeah and it’s all on the internet yes I had a, anyway. Sorry but no, but Ben I’d just, just not, not, not a policy question at all erm, what are you currently working on?

Now what I heard, when I was actually saying that, was something like this:

The conservatives don’t, I think, listen to Radio 4 in the quick quiet peaceful July evenings, but who knows? Yeah and Tt’s all on the internet yes I had a, anyway. Sorry but no, but Ben, I’d just, just not, not, like to ask something that is not a policy question at all: erm, what are you currently working on?

The joke is that this awful flat-footed rambling technique doesn’t reduce my victim to numbed silence; at least it doesn’t always do so. Sometimes the poor thing is so embarrassed she starts talking sense to cover up for me:

BL: Erm, I’m currently working on examining how erm, rewarding experiences which elevate glucocorticoid levels affect adult neurogenesis; so there’s this paradoxical relationship erm, that’s been reported in the literature: whereas running which is generally considered positive or rewarding, animals will erm press a bar to gain access to a running wheel. Erm, but at the same time, that experience elevates stress hormone levels but we see an increase in adult neurogenesis in that situation. So we’re looking at other erm, rewarding experiences that also elevate glucocorticoid levels erm, to determine if there is a similar kind of relationship.
ACB: Which ones in particular, I mean how do you give a rat a good time?
BL: Erm, well dare I say like you give a human a good time. We’re actually examining sexual experience …

And so, magically, a fragment of usable radio emerges.