Whilst editing the Make Life Work podcast, tidying up conversations to make the stories flow more naturally, I’ve come to realise I’ve adopted a process I’ve affectionately termed The Nicholas Parsons Technique.

It’s in memory of the host of BBC Radio 4’s Just A Minute, Nicholas Parsons, who sadly passed away earlier this year. He’s a national treasure of entertainment and broadcasting, spanning five decades of radio and more. His presence in media will be lost but he left behind many legacies.

The game show is based on three principles;

constant narrative on a given subject for 60 seconds without hesitation, repetition or deviation.

As I’ve been slicing and splicing the conversations I’ve had for the podcast, I’ve fell into a rhythm of cropping out any repetitions (such as stuttering), hesitations (like “ums“, “errs” and long pauses) and deviations (conversation that goes off track, either topically or break in tech).

I don’t know if this is an industry standard that is called something else but, after listening to some of the show archives and observing my habits during post-production, it felt only fair to share it with the world, with a gentle hat-tip to the absolute legend who is Nicholas Parsons. #RIP