The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
It is June 1944 and the Allies prepare for the landings in Normandy, taking the Germans by surprise, thanks to the work of the double agents working for the British secret service.
D-Day, 6 June 1944, the turning point of the Second World War, was a victory of arms. But it was also a triumph for a different kind of operation: one of deceit, aimed at convincing the Nazis that Calais and Norway, not Normandy, were the targets of the 150,000-strong invasion force. The deception involved every branch of Allied wartime intelligence - the Bletchley Park code-breakers, MI5, MI6, SOE, Scientific Intelligence, the FBI and the French Resistance. But at its heart was the 'Double Cross System', a team of double agents controlled by the secret Twenty Committee, so named because twenty in Roman numerals forms a double cross.
The key D-Day spies were just five in number, and one of the oddest military units ever assembled: a bisexual Peruvian playgirl, a tiny Polish fighter pilot, a Serbian seducer, a wildly imaginative Spaniard with a diploma in chicken farming, and a hysterical Frenchwoman whose obsessive love for her pet dog very nearly wrecked the entire deception. Their enterprise was saved from catastrophe by a shadowy sixth spy whose heroic sacrifice is here revealed for the first time. Under the direction of an eccentric but brilliant intelligence officer in tartan trousers, working from a smoky lair in St James's, these spies would weave a web of deception so intricate that it ensnared Hitler's army and helped to carry thousands of troops across the Channel in safety.
These double agents were, variously, brave, treacherous, fickle, greedy and inspired. They were not conventional warriors, but their masterpiece of deceit saved countless lives. Their codenames were Bronx, Brutus, Treasure, Tricycle and Garbo. This is their story.
Ben Macintyre is the bestselling author of Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat.
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Helen Mark visits the Berkshire site made famous by author Richard Adams in Watership Down . Development is now planned in Sandleford near Newbury .
A planning application to build 2,000 homes has met with opposition from the local community. However West Berkshire Council says it needs to build more due to a housing shortage.
To explore the issues and mark the 40th anniversary of the book’s publication Helen retraces the landscape that follows the Berkshire/Hampshire border.
Caz Graham investigates how the UK dairy industry compares internationally, from how farmers look after their cows to the price of a pint.
More than 13 billion litres of milk is produced in the UK each year making it now the ninth biggest dairy producer in the world and third biggest in Europe.
On the Shropshire Powys borders the Eyres family are turning their milk into artisan cheese. Caz explores the journey from liquid to produce. Over the last five years a third of European dairy farmers have left the industry; she asks why the family have chose to invest instead.
Farming Today This Week also explores the controversial European 'zero-grazing' dairying method and expanding markets here and overseas for whey, the liquid waste from cheese making. It's just one of many new dairy products being flogged across the world - from milk powders across the middle east to health supplement ingredients in sports drinks.
Presented by John Humphrys and Justin Webb. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Tamasin Day-Lewis, Aoife Mannix, David Gollancz, Wendy Neate, Moss Hills and the Inheritance tracks of Nicholas Parsons OBE
Richard Coles with food writer Tamasin Day-Lewis, David Gollancz, who discovered he's one of the 600 children fathered by a British scientist's sperm donations and Moss Hills, who's been on board two different ships as they've sunk. There's poetry from Aoife Mannix, a sound sculpture featuring the unforgettable sound of the iconic 2CV engine, Inheritance Tracks from Nicholas Parsons and news of what's thought to be the furthest flung highland games in the world.
John McCarthy meets the former debutante Meriel Larken who fell in love with Peru and rescued and restored a Victorian steam ship on Lake Titicaca. He is also joined by Chris Smith and Liz Peel who went by canoe through the Bolivian jungle in search of the village of Manchester; and Kung Fu expert Nick Hurst explains why he set off to Malaysia and China to spend time with his grandmaster Sugong.
It's been over seventy years since Friend Owl (in the film Bambi) identified a phenomenon that has been evident in nature since the earliest times. With the spring thaw, Bambi and Thumper are bewildered by the giddy skittishness of the creatures of the forest. Owl enlightens them...
"They're twitterpated! Nearly everybody gets twitterpated in the springtime ... you're walking along, minding your own business. You're looking neither to the left, nor to the right, when all of a sudden you run smack into a pretty face. Woo-woo! You begin to get weak in the knees. Your head's in a whirl ... You're knocked for a loop!" "Gosh, that's awful", says Thumper.
Young couples share their stories of falling in love in the springtime - Sandy and Alex are still students, head-over-heels and planning a life together; Jo and Amit were 'knocked for a loop' under a tree surrounded by squirrels and birds.
Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher traces the behaviour described by Friend Owl back to humanity's origins and finds evidence of its effect in our brain chemistry. Woodland ranger Simon Bateman, on a sunny spring morning, finds the promise of new life in the flora and fauna under his protection.
For both Labour and the Conservatives achieving an outright majority in the Westminster Parliament will require winning over many voters who have not previously supported their causes. In particular, both parties need to do more to win over voters among Britain's ethnic communities and especially voters with an Asian heritage.
Labour, shocked by its recent defeat in the Bradford West by-election, needs to reconnect with these voters it has too often taken for granted. The Conservatives, meanwhile, struggle to win greater support among aspirational Asian voters without whom it is unlikely to be able to govern on its own. And for the Liberal Democrats - who have no MPs from Britain's ethnic communities - maintaining a sizeable presence in the House of Commons will require stronger backing from Asian voters than they have won at previous elections.
With all the parties needing to connect, Mary Ann Sieghart visits Blackburn in Lancashire - a constituency similar to Bradford West and just forty miles away - to ask how our politicians are going to appeal better to voters from the United Kingdom's Asian communities. Can they exploit at a national level the successful campaigns individual MPs have run locally with their diverse electorates? What are the issues which matter And what changes will we be seeing in how the parties present themselves to voters as the battle to win votes hots up?
In discussion with Seema Malhotra, the Labour MP for Feltham & Heston; Paul Uppal, the Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South-West and Issan Ghazni, chairman of the Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats, she asks how well-placed the main UK parties are to address the issues Asian voters have at the forefront of their minds.
The BBC's foreign correspondents take a closer look at the stories behind the headlines.
Warnings over too-good-to-be true postage stamp offers on the internet, how the government's attempt to get more people back to work could backfire, when a tipple of fine wine might leave a nasty taste in your mouth - a listener tells how she is set to lose 180 thousand pounds after investing in fine wine and have you been left on hold? We hear from listeners who have waited hours on the phone to speak to HMRC advisers. Paul Lewis has the latest news from the world of personal finance.
A satirical review of the week's news, chaired by Sandi Toksvig. With Jeremy Hardy, Fred Macaulay, Jo Caulfield and Andrew Maxwell.
Edward Stourton chairs a live discussion of news and politics from Broadcasting House, in London with Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman; Secretary of State for Justice, Ken Clarke; Editor of Prospect Magazine, Bronwen Maddox and writer, Will Self.
Call Jonathan Dimbleby on 03700 100 444, email any.answers@bbc.co.uk or tweet #bbcaq. Issues discussed on Any Questions? include: Is Cameron's wish to remove sanctions from Burma premature? Should the government drop plans to cap charitable tax relief? Should politicians cry in public or show emotion? How would you feel if you were sent home from hospital in the middle of the night? Should cigarettes come in plain packets and would it make a health difference?
London, 1851. The world's largest diamond is on show at the Great Exhibition. And John Rayverne must find a way to steal it to save the people he loves.
1851: London buzzes with the wonders at The Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. To John Rayverne, housebreaker par excellence, it's harvest time as fine houses stand empty while the occupants attend the spectacle. But his activities have come to the notice of a Governor of the Bank of England, George Galloway. Galloway has Rayverne abducted In return for not to hand him over to the police - and in order to protect the people he cares about - Rayverne is forced to agree to the impossible. He must steal one of the Exhibition's most famous exhibits: the world's largest diamond, the Koh-i-Noor. Galloway professes idealistic reasons for the theft: he fears cutting the diamond to fit the centrepiece in the Queen's crown (where it has its place today) will degrade the priceless original. But the theft appears impossible. By day the gem is sealed in an iron cage, at night it sinks into a vault. Rayverne, hounded by the police, spends much time among the mechanical wonders of the Exhibition looking for the necessary technical inspiration to carry out the theft. But has he bitten off more than even he can chew?
Simon Bovey's impeccably researched work for Radio 4 has been extremely successful. His plays include 'Red in Tooth and Claw', ' The Iceman' - 'a murkily atmospheric Victorian thriller that keeps the shivers coming' (Daily Mail) and the very well received Sargasso. Simon is also a film maker. His most recent production The Un-gone has been optioned by Miramax.
Professor Robert Winston brings a scientist's ear to his passion for music, exploring the medical histories of great composers and how illness affected the music they wrote.
Mozart's health has fascinated observers for over two hundred years. The documents have examined to reveal every available medical detail. Any mention of a cough or an ache has been minutely analysed for evidence about the diseases he suffered and the mystery illness that killed him at the tender age of 35. But is this intense scrutiny is obscuring our picture of Mozart? Over 160 different causes of death, alone, have now been suggested. Professor Winston sifts through the morass of information and speculation to discover what Mozart's health can really tell us about the man and his music.
Navigating a good relationship as a grandparent; Elaine C Smith on what it's like to play Susan Boyle in the musical of her life; historian Bettany Hughes discusses the legacy of the divine Goddess; the use of experts in child protection; retirement and the argument for abolishing it; why one GP won't be having a smear test; moving back home with mum and dad in your twenties.
Presented by Jane Garvey.
Lee Mack, Jenny Agutter, Laura Gibson, Arthur Smith, Dominic Sandbrook and Nigel Wray
Clive stays in with stand up comedian and actor Lee Mack, as his gag packed, multi-award winning sitcom Not Going Out returns to BBC One. He rejoins regular cast members Tim Vine, Sally Breton and Katy Wix for more scrapes and sticky situations every Friday night.
She may be best known for her role in the The Railway Children but Jenny Agutter has starred in Logan's Run, Equus and An American Werewolf in London. Now she's joined forces with Bob Hoskins in her latest film, Outside Bet which is on general release now.
The seventies are the decade that shaped Britain today - so says Dominic Sandbrook, historian and presenter of BBC Two series The 70's. His series re-examines the decade as one of a housing boom, rising consumerism and conflict in the Middle East. His book Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain 1974-1979 accompanies the series.
Arthur Smith gets his kit on to talk to Nigel Wray, Chairman of Saracens Rugby Football Club and owner of possibly the largest sporting memorabilia collection in the world. Arthur gets to fondle WC Grace's last bat and (not that he needs it), uses the starter's megaphone from the 1908 Olympics. Nigel's collection has been brought together in a book 'A Sporting History' by David Norrie with all proceeds going to the Saracens Sport Foundation.
Last time Laura Gibson appeared on Loose Ends, she serenaded Andy Williams. This time Laura Gibson is back to perform the title track from her album 'La Grande' and her current single The Fire.
After North Korea's controversial rocket launch and celebrations to mark the centenary of the birth of the country's "Great Leader," David Torrance profiles the country's new young leader, Kim Jong-un. Little is known about him in this most secretive of states. But after the death of his father Kim Jong-Il late last year, he has begun to establish his authority in relation to North Korea's military and ruling communist party, and he has been confirmed this week in the most senior political office. He will also have to decide how far to seek rapprochement with the outside world. Has his education, partly in Switzerland, made him a new kind of North Korean leader?
Tom Sutcliffe and his guests, playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, novelist Kamila Shamsie, and writer and columnist David Aaronovitch review the week's cultural highlights.
David Suchet and Laurie Metcalf star in Anthony Page's production of Long Day's Journey Into Night at the Apollo Theatre in London. Eugene O'Neill described it as a play of "old sorrow, written tears and blood" and the family in this heavily autobiographical work are teetering on the verge of collapse due to various addictions and historical resentments.
Cabin in the Woods - written by Joss Whedon and directed by Drew Goddard - is a knowing horror film which sets out to subvert the well-worn tropes of the teen slasher movie genre. Five kids head off in a camper van to spend a weekend in a cabin in the woods...
Toni Morrison's latest novel - Home - tells the story of Frank Money, a damaged veteran of the Korean War who returns from fighting for his country to face the ubiquitous racism of 1950s America. Struggling with post traumatic stress, he sets out to rescue his sister and bring her back to the Georgia town which holds so many bitter memories for him.
Hans-Peter Feldman describes himself as a collector and his exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London contains many examples of the sets of objects that he has amassed, including colour postcards of the Eiffel Tower and photographs of women's knees cut out of magazines. One of his more recent works displays the contents of five women's handbags in glass cases.
Starlings is a new comedy drama series on Sky1, written by and starring Matt King and Steve Edge. The Starling family live in an overcrowded, multi-generational house just outside Matlock in Derbyshire and the first episode sees the arrival of two more family members.
Historian Prof Eric Hobsbawm is interviewed by Simon Schama about his work and his extraordinary life. With archive clips from Eric's previous TV and radio appearances.
by Mike Walker, inspired by Holinshed's Chronicles. The once-great England of Henry V is bankrupt and losing territory in France. The times call for a strong man who can unite the kingdom. Not the weak, idealistic Henry VI, pleading for peace and incapacitated by bouts of insanity. As the House of York grows in power, Queen Margaret is forced to take up arms to protect her royal line.
Henry VI... Al Weaver
York... Shaun Dooley
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.
Clive Anderson and guests discuss whether our planning law strikes the right balance between encouraging economic growth and the protection of human rights and the environment. Top lawyers and planning law experts examine concerns that the Government has tilted the playing field in favour of the interests of developers.
Planning law determines if our neighbour can build a single extension or whether a £33bn high speed rail network slicing through swathes of English countryside can go ahead. It controls where, and how many, houses are built, where gypsies can camp, and where wind farms or nuclear power stations are sited.
But does this law provide individuals and communities with enough protection from unwanted or un-needed development? Does the Government's proposed National Planning Policy Framework effectively give an automatic green light to development, opening up the prospect of a free-for-all for building on green field land and less restriction on the density of housing development? Or has the removal of regional planning authorities given too much power to the NIMBYs? Is the Government creating a chaotic planning framework in which only lawyers are likely to benefit?
Coming this week from Queen Mary, University of London, "The 3rd Degree" is a funny, lively and dynamic quiz show aimed at cultivating the next generation of Radio 4 listeners whilst delighting the current ones. It's recorded on location at a different University each week, and it pits three Undergraduates against three of their Professors in a genuinely original and fresh take on an academic quiz. Being a Radio 4 programme, it of course meets the most stringent standards of academic rigour - but with lots of facts and jokes thrown in for good measure.
Together with host Steve Punt, the show tours the (sometimes posh, sometimes murky, but always welcoming!) Union buildings, cafés and lecture halls of six universities across the UK.
The rounds vary between Specialist Subjects and General Knowledge, quickfire bell-and-buzzer rounds and the 'Highbrow & Lowbrow' round cunningly devised to test not only the students' knowledge of current affairs, history, languages and science, but also their Professors' awareness of television, film, and Lady Gaga... In addition, the Head-to-Head rounds, in which students take on their Professors in their own subjects, were particularly lively, and offered plenty of scope for mild embarrassment on both sides...
The resulting show is funny, fresh, and not a little bit surprising, with a truly varied range of scores, friendly rivalry, and moments where students wished they had more than just glanced at that reading list...
Peggy Reynolds explores one of the most iconic poems ever published. Over 160 years since its first appearance, it is still inspiring film makers, horror writers and theatre directors to produce their own interpretations. Yet many loathed the poem, including W.B Yeats who said it was insincere and vulgar. The poem granted its author instant fame, yet he spent most of his life in poverty. To try and capitalise on its success he wrote an essay about its composition, which many believe to imbued with an over inflated sense of mastery. The poet attracted nearly as much controversy as his poem. An inveterate gambler, alcoholic and occasional drug abuser, he was a philanderer whose most popular poems were about his devotion to a lost love. There's also a demonic bird involved. Need any more clues? Nevermore
With guests including the poet and falconer Helen Macdonald, Professor of English John Sutherland, the poet Jay Parini, the raven master at the Tower of London and occasional appearances by feathered friends, Peggy Reynolds unpicks Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven.
SUNDAY 15 APRIL 2012
SUN 00:00 Midnight News (b01fqt4l)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
SUN 00:30 Arthur Miller Short Stories (b01fhjlr)
Beavers
Directed by Martin Jarvis, award-winning American actor Hector Elizondo reads Miller's canny tale of a man trying to rid his pond of beavers. At first he's baffled by their behaviour. Miller uses the idea to examine the mystery of knowing (and perhaps understanding) another creature's motives. Perplexed, the man considers this enigma.
The conventional analysis is that beaver dam building has, as its purpose, the blocking of a small stream with a dam, in order to create a pond in which the beaver can build its lodge and raise its family, safe from predators.
But this fellow already has a deep pond in which to build its lodge. Indeed, it has already built one. So why does it need to stuff the overflow pipe, and thereby raise the pond level?Why is the beaver creating a pond where a perfect one already exists? Soon the man feels himself weakening before such absolute dedication.
He comes to a surprising conclusion which forces him to admire the beavers' complexity, to respect their intelligence - compared to his own doubting nature, his fractured convictions.
Producer: Martin Jarvis
A Jarvis and Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01fqt4n)
The latest shipping forecast.
SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01fqt4q)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01fqt4s)
The latest shipping forecast.
SUN 05:30 News Briefing (b01fqt4v)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (b01g4gbc)
The bells of St Bartholomew's Church, Smithfield, London.
SUN 05:45 Profile (b01g4f32)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 News Headlines (b01fqt4x)
The latest national and international news.
SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b01dmdmm)
Mindfulness
Mark Tully meditates on the art of being still, and the benefits of quiet contemplation, as medical science borrows from the practices of religious traditions.
He talks to Mark Williams, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford who teaches 'Mindfulness' techniques and whose research has shown that daily meditation can reduce the occurrence of severe depression at least as much as anti-depressants do.
Featuring music by Edward Elgar, Arvo Part and Jules Massenet, and words by Rainer Maria Rilke and Octavio Paz, this programme looks at how else regular contemplative sessions can enrich our lives in an increasingly busy world. For some it is a way of experiencing God, for others a means of coming to terms with their own failures, and for many it can produce profound changes in their lives.
As Mark Tully perceives, through the practice of Mindfulness people can drink from the well of religious insight whether they have a religious faith or not. He even accepts in the end that he should, perhaps, overcome his own reluctance to make the commitment that meditation requires, and curb the distractions that can make our minds rampage, 'like an untrained elephant'.
The readers are Emily Raymond and David Holt.
Producer: Adam Fowler
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (b01dmdmp)
Caz Graham visits a Cumbrian farmer who has struggled to make money with ice-cream and organic milk, and is now using Jersey cows and new grassland science to help make dairy farming pay.
Kevin Beaty farms in the shadow of the Cumbrian fells and takes grass farming very seriously. The Cumbrian climate is perfect for producing a lush green sward, and, inspired by techniques from New Zealand, he now manages to feed his cows nothing but the green stuff.
Presenter: Caz Graham Producer: Melvin Rickarby.
SUN 06:57 Weather (b01dmdmr)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 07:00 News and Papers (b01dmdmt)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 07:10 Sunday (b01g4gpd)
Jane Little with the religious and ethical news of the week. Moral arguments and perspectives on stories familiar and unfamiliar.
On the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic Jane Little talks to Rev Canon Huw Mosford who will be leading the memorial service on board the Balmoral which has followed the route of the Titanic over the last week.
On the 400th anniversary of the last man in England to be burnt at the stake for heresy we explore how the story still resonates. Jane talks to Dr Matthew Adams.
Rick Santorum, the uber-traditionalist Catholic bows out of the republican race but what does this mean for Mitt Romney, and will he now bring his faith into the race? Jane talks to our New York Correspondent Matt Wells.
And a look at how the Titanic Quarter Chaplain in Belfast is pioneering a new way of doing church. Mark McCleary reports.
As a tentative ceasefire takes hold in Syria Jane goes to meet members of Manchester's Syrian Community and finds out what they are doing to support their compatriots back home.
The row over the proposed cap on tax relief for charitable giving has grown all week. We explore the impact on faith based charities and the morality of giving incentives for donating. Trevor Barnes reports.
A row breaks out as a Christian group which believes that people can be cured from homosexuality is prevented from advertising on London buses. We discuss with Mike Davidson from Core Issues, Colin Coward, Director of Changing Attitudes and Rev Lynda Rose from Anglican Mainstream.
Series Producer: Amanda Hancox.
SUN 07:55 Radio 4 Appeal (b01g4gpg)
Remap
Quentin Cooper presents the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of the charity Remap.
Reg Charity: 1137666
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal, mark the back of the envelope Remap.
Give Online www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/appeal.
SUN 07:57 Weather (b01dmdn0)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 08:00 News and Papers (b01dmdn2)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (b01dmdn4)
The Risen Christ and the Gift of Unity
An Eastertide celebration of peace and reconciliation from Lichfield Cathedral on the 400th anniversary of the death in Lichfield of the Puritan Edward Wightman. Led by Canon Wealands Bell with Canon Pete Wilcox and the Lichfield Cathedral Chamber Choir directed by Martyn Rawles and accompanied by Oliver Walker. Producer: Stephen Shipley.
SUN 08:50 A Point of View (b01fjz3r)
Jubilee Celebrations
David Cannadine looks ahead to the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, reflecting on the history and significance of royal jubilees worldwide and, in particular, the celebrations for Queen Victoria. "Diamond jubilees... are very much a construction of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: both in terms of the grandiose ceremonials accompanying them, and also in terms of the narratives that have invariably been constructed to make some sort of sense of the six decades that are being commemorated."
Producer: Sheila Cook.
SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (b01dmdn6)
News and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (b01dmdn8)
For detailed synopsis, see daily episodes
Writer ..... Keri Davies
Director ..... Rosemary Watts
Editor ..... Vanessa Whitburn
Alistair Lloyd ..... Michael Lumsden
David Archer ..... Timothy Bentinck
Ruth Archer ..... Felicity Finch
Pip Archer ..... Helen Monks
Tony Archer ..... Colin Skipp
Pat Archer ..... Patricia Gallimore
Tom Archer ..... Tom Graham
Brian Aldridge ..... Charles Collingwood
Jennifer Aldridge ..... Angela Piper
Lilian Bellamy ..... Sunny Ormonde
Jolene Perks ..... Buffy Davis
Fallon Rogers ..... Joanna Van Kampen
Jamie Perks ..... Dan Ciotkowski
Edward Grundy ..... Barry Farrimond
Alice Carter ..... Hollie Chapman
Mike Tucker ..... Terry Molloy
Vicky Tucker ..... Rachel Atkins
Brenda Tucker ..... Amy Shindler
Robert Snell ..... Graham Blockey
Lynda Snell ..... Carole Boyd
Bert Fry ..... Eric Allan
Usha Franks ..... Souad Faress
Amy Franks ..... Jennifer Daley
Jim Lloyd ..... John Rowe
James Bellamy ..... Roger May
Leonie Snell ..... Jasmine Hyde
Iftikar Shah ..... Pal Aron.
SUN 11:15 The Reunion (b01dmdnb)
HMS Sheffield
Thirty years after the Falklands war, Sue MacGregor brings together six men from HMS Sheffield, hit by an Argentine missile on 4th May 1982, and sunk six days later.
The British Task Force had only just arrived in the disputed area of the South Atlantic. The company of HMS Sheffield, fresh from a six month tour of the Gulf, were just six days from home when they received the order to turn around and head South.
Few knew much about the Falkland Islands, and believed the dispute with Argentina would be solved before they even got there. But diplomacy failed and by 1st May hostilities had begun in earnest. Just three days later Sheffield was hit.
HMS Sheffield was one of three Type 42 destroyers, whose role was to protect the vital aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible from attack. That attack, when it came, was fast, low and devastating - an Exocet missile, fired from an Argentine Super-Etandard aircraft, locked on target, skimmed the waterline and hit Sheffield amidships, knocking out all her vital services. The crew had only a few seconds warning.
There was no explosion, just a rapid spread of thick, acrid smoke from a fire that raged uncontrollably for several days. Desperate attempts to fight the fire were in vain, and with the deck raging hot, and fire rapidly approaching the ship's own missile system, the order was given to abandon ship. Sheffield sank six days later, the first British warship to be lost in battle since World War Two.
In the hours that followed the survivors pieced together who was missing. Twenty men had died, some bravely staying at their posts, trying to restore vital services to the ship, others going back in to rescue others.
Producer: Deborah Dudgeon
Series Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 12:00 The Unbelievable Truth (b01fhrjr)
Series 9
Episode 2
David Mitchell hosts the panel game in which four comedians are encouraged to tell lies and compete against one another to see how many items of truth they're able to smuggle past their opponents.
John Finnemore, Henning Wehn, Danielle Ward and Tom Wrigglesworth are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as: Pandas, Football, China and Smoking.
The show is devised by Graeme Garden and Jon Naismith, the team behind Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.
Producer: Jon Naismith
A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (b01g4ks7)
The Fermentation Revival
Since ancient times humans have harnessed the power of microbes to preserve food and enhance its flavours. Rich and complex food cultures have developed that use this power in a process called fermentation - making pickles, breads, wines and much, much more.
Sheila Dillon joins Sandor Katz - author and 'fermentation revivalist' - to find out more about the wonders of fermentation as well as our very relationship with these microbes.
Producer: Rich Ward.
SUN 12:57 Weather (b01dmdnj)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (b01g4ks9)
The latest national and international news, including an in-depth look at events around the world. Email: wato@bbc.co.uk; twitter: #theworldthisweekend.
SUN 13:30 The Invention of... (b015c342)
Germany
The Thirty Years War
" Germany as we understand it, unified and strong, only came into existence a mere 140 years ago. Before then ? Well there was Bavaria and Prussia, Saxony, Baden Wurttemberg, Pomerania, Westfalia, Schleswig Holstein .this list is extremely long. And defining where one bit ended and the next began - well, it was utterly bewildering."
Misha Glenny presents a three part history of Germany before the world wars, revealing how weak and fragmented it used to be.
The series starts with the siege of Magdeburg of 1631, when a city the size of Paris was burnt to the ground. The events of the Thirty Years War hugely influenced later German nationalists, as Swedes, French, Danish, Spanish and huge numbers of Scottish mercenaries rampaged through the area we now call Germany.
"Germany was in many ways more sinned against than sinning," concludes contributor Simon Winder.
Misha Glenny is a former BBC central European correspondent and winner of a Sony gold. The producer is Miles Warde, who collaborated with Misha Glenny on previous series about the Alps, the Habsburgs and Garibaldi.
SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b01fjz33)
West Midlands
Chris Beardshaw, Pippa Greenwood and Bob Flowerdew answer your gardening queries from Beckminster Methodist Church. Eric Robson is in the chair.
We return to Matthew Wilson's garden for advice on building a child-friendly garden. Meanwhile Bunny Guinness demonstrates how to dog-proof your garden.
Questions addressed in the programme:
Why hasn't my damson tree fruited?
How to force plants into flower or hold them back?
Request for evergreen planting suggestions for a 30cm pot on a South-facing patio.
Suggestions included: Ilex crenata, Sempervivum or Houseleek
How to best maintain a mimosa.
I want to plant a fruit tree in my 30sq ft. garden. How long will it take to fruit?
Plant suggestions included: Beth pear tree, Concorde pear tree, Tomcot apricot tree, Pearl cot apricot tree.
My 30yr old whitebeam died undiagnosed. What can I plant in its place?
Why is my coriander bolting?
Produced by Howard Shannon
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 14:45 The Listening Project (b01g4ksc)
Omnibus
Fi Glover presents an Omnibus edition of Radio 4's series capturing the nation in conversation: today Mike talks to his adoptive son about how he rescued him as a baby from South Vietnam; Jayne talks to her mother Sally in Liverpool about their life together and the father she never knew; from London, Jamaican-born Monica discusses with her gay son Rikki how coming out as gay was difficult for her too; and in Stoke on Trent Marc discusses with his foster dad Colin about how he's managed to turn his life round after a very difficult beginning.
The Listening Project is a new initiative for Radio 4 that aims to offer a sort of snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Many of the long conversations are being archived by the British Library which they will use to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer Simon Elmes
(Repeat).
SUN 15:00 Classic Serial (b01dmdnz)
Plantagenet: Series 3
Richard III - The Three Brothers
by Mike Walker, inspired by Holinshed's Chronicles. Despite his rebellious brother Clarence, and the formidable dowager Queen Margaret, Edward IV manages to bring a modicum of stability to the kingdom of England. But discontent at the power of his wife and her family erupt into civil war after his death, and his brother Richard is forced to take increasingly drastic steps to uphold Plantagenet power.The final episode of the series.
Queen Elizabeth...Nancy Carroll
Edward 4th...Simon Bubb
Richard 3rd...Carl Prekopp
Clarence...Christopher Webster
Margaret...Aimee Ffion Edwards
Warwick...Gerard McDermott
Stafford...Adam Billington
Lewis...James Lailey
Bishop...Paul Moriarty
Directed by Jeremy Mortimer and Sasha Yevtushenko.
SUN 16:00 Open Book (b01g4ksh)
Turkish novelist Elif Shafak and the best of children's books
Mariella Frostrup talks to Elif Shafak about her latest book Honour, which highlights the issue of honour killings in the Kurdish Turkish community across two continents.
We've heard a lot about young adult fiction, but what about novels for younger children? The seven to twelve year old age range used to be regarded as The Golden Age for books, Open Book examines what's happening now.
Plus, more of the funny things people say in bookshops. This time round, book buyers get their revenge.
Producer: Andrea Kidd.
SUN 16:30 Adventures in Poetry (b01g4ksk)
Series 12
Dear Mr Lee
UA Fanthorpe's poem Dear Mr Lee is an engaging piece of ventriloquism, written in the voice of a school pupil who has been studying Laurie Lee's classic memoir, Cider With Rosie, in her English class. Fanthorpe has captured the enthusiasm and despair of adolescence, as the pupil confesses to 'Laurie' that she loves everything about his book, except the essays she's had to write about it. Part of the poem's success lies in the fact the Fanthorpe herself taught English for many years, and demonstrates an unusual empathy with a student struggling with the demands of the exam system and a rather tenuous grasp of literary criticism. Peggy Reynolds talks to Lee's biographer Valerie Grove, to UA Fanthorpe's partner Rosie Bailey, to poets Michael Rosen and Wendy Cope, to several of Fanthorpe's notable ex-students including MP Fiona MacTaggart, and to some current students of GCSE English and their inspiring teacher, who all bring their own enthusiasms to the poem.
Producer: Sara Davies.
SUN 17:00 France and Race: A Question of Identite (b01fhysd)
Julian Jackson explores the central issue in the current election campaign for the Presidency of France: race, religion and what it means today to be French.
Clichy-sous-Bois is a notorious Parisian ghetto. True, the wooded, gently rolling slopes of this borough to the north-east of the capital are stacked with residential blocks, yet there are no telltale burned-out blocks or abandoned lots. Clichy is kempt. It was though in this almost wholly immigrant community that the death in 2005 of two Muslim youths fleeing from police sparked some of the worst and most widespread race riots seen in Europe for generations.
There are today 5 million Muslims in France, the largest population in western Europe, largely as a result of the country's colonial past in north Africa. And their presence has increasingly since the 2005 riots been a central issue in French society. In 2009 the government instituted a national enquiry, with town-hall meetings and debates that resulted in much hand-wringing, over what it means today 'to be French', not least in the light of the country's ban on wearing the full Islamic veil in public.
Now there is widespread belief that with the far-right National Front led by the charismatic Marine le Pen, there may be a re-run of the 2002 shock elimination by the party of one of the main contenders in the first round of voting.
In this programme, Julian Jackson, Professor of modern French history at Queen Mary, University of London, visits Clichy and meets the men and women who are at the heart of the debate - Jean-Francois Copé, chief of Sarkozy's UMP, Harlem Désir, Socialist MP and founder of SOS Racism and Marine le Pen to discuss what being French is all about and how they reconcile the fraught arguments over race and religion.
Producer: Simon Elmes.
SUN 17:40 Profile (b01g4f32)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b01dmdp9)
The latest shipping forecast.
SUN 17:57 Weather (b01dmdpc)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01dmdpf)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (b01g4ksm)
Gerry Northam makes his selection from the past seven days of BBC Radio
This week's Pick Of The week with Gerry Northam includes a candid confession of persistent self-doubt from Alastair Campbell, the former powerhouse of Downing Street. There's comedy from Henning Wehn and Ed Reardon; drama from the streets of Liverpool where Judas Iscariot used to be burnt in effigy every Good Friday; refugees from the repressive regime in Uzbekistan which is forcibly sterilising its female population; and a dramatic recreation of the morse-code signals from the sinking Titanic just after she hit the iceberg a hundred years ago.
We gain a glimpse into the psyche of Hitler's Deputy, Rudolf Hess. And Woody Guthrie's daughter Nora finds some shocks in the songs he left unrecorded.
The Essay - Radio 3
Jack London's People of the Abyss - Radio 4
Today - Radio 4
The Public Philosopher - Radio 4
Titanic Town - Radio 4
Discovery - World Service
Ship of Dreams - Radio 4
Ed Reardon's Week - Radio 4
The Judas Burner - Radio 4
Front Row - Radio 4
Costing The Earth - Radio 4
Crossing Continents - Radio 4
The Psychiatrist and the Deputy Fuhrer - Radio 4
The Unbelievable Truth - Radio 4
Email: potw@bbc.co.uk or www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/potw
Producer: Cecile Wright.
SUN 19:00 The Archers (b01g4kyj)
David has been phoning around, warning farm watch members to be extra vigilant since the recent theft.
Meanwhile, Tony has slept in. Pat agrees with guilty Tom that Tony's feeling the strain a bit. She knows Tony won't admit it though, as he's been feeling useful again. Tom suggests that Tony eases back into milking gently. Tony reluctantly accepts this, volunteering to do more in the office.
Martin Sykes from the planning committee tells Pat that Brian's DVD has gone to every councillor on the committee. It's full of shots of cows outside in a field grazing, and sounds like gross misrepresentation. Pat's keen to see Ruth's copy. Tom suggests she speaks to Hattie Marshall (Borsetshire Against Factory Farming), who's going to speak at the meeting. Good thinking, says Pat.
Lynda's pleased that the B&B is booked up to next Sunday, until she and Robert get a distress call. Leonie has left James suddenly and is on her way to Ambridge Hall. It transpires Leonie has taken a week's leave, with her own flat occupied, and so could be around for a little while. Over tea, she's comforted by Lynda, and wonders why she always seems to pick the wrong men.
SUN 19:15 My Teenage Diary (b01gd7lz)
Series 2
Victoria Coren
Rufus Hound hosts this six-part comedy series in which celebrities are asked to revisit their teenage diaries and read them out in public for the very first time. This week, Victoria Coren.
Producer: Victoria Payne
A TalkbackThames production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 19:45 Jennifer Egan - Emerald City and Other Stories (b01dq53v)
One Piece
The next in our series of stories from 'Emerald City', the new collection by young American author Jennifer Egan, whose 'A Visit from the Goon Squad' went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and made her name as one of the best new writers to emerge in the past decade.
In today's story, 'One Piece', a young girl takes drastic action to put the broken pieces of her brother's life back together again.
The Abridger is Miranda Davies
The Producer is Justine Willett
Reader: Teresa Gallagher.
SUN 20:00 Feedback (b01fjz39)
Radio 4's forum for comments, queries, criticisms and congratulations. Presented by Roger Bolton, this is the place to air your views on the things you hear on BBC Radio.
The extension of World at One, changes to Saturday morning programmes and thoughts on the next Director General of the BBC - Gwyneth Williams, the controller of Radio 4 takes listeners' questions and gives her thoughts on what this summer holds for her network.
Making the unmissable... er... missable. Why were so many programmes not available on iPlayer last weekend and why had so many podcasts gone awol? Was everyone on holiday?
Young news junkies form a Feedback Listening Club to pick apart Radio 1's Newsbeat programme.
More tense discussion over use of the historic present on In Our Time, Midweek and The Long View.
Producers: Kate Taylor and Karen Pirie
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 20:30 Last Word (b01fjz37)
Fang Lizhi, Ferdinand Porsche, Miss Read, Bingu wa Mutharika, Derick Thomson
On Last Word this week:
Leading Chinese dissident, Fang Lizhi, who inspired the student protests that ended in Tiananmen Square.
The last of the dynasty - Ferdinand Porsche - designer of the iconic 911 sports car.
English author, Dora Saint - better known to her many fans as Miss Read.
President Bingu wa Mutharika, reformer turned autocrat whose death has been little mourned in Malawi.
And Derick Thomson, poet, publisher and champion of the Gaelic language.
SUN 21:00 Money Box (b01g4dnh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:00 on Saturday]
SUN 21:26 Radio 4 Appeal (b01g4gpg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:55 today]
SUN 21:30 In Business (b01fjx76)
French Lessons
As the EuroZone struggles for survival, France remains at the heart of Europe. Peter Day finds out how French business is faring in an era of huge European uncertainty.
Producer: Caroline Bayley.
SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (b01g4m5c)
Preview of the week's political agenda at Westminster with MPs, experts and commentators. Discussion of the issues politicians are grappling with in the corridors of power.
SUN 22:45 What the Papers Say (b01g4m5f)
Episode 99
Kevin Maguire of The Mirror analyses how the newspapers are covering the biggest stories in Westminster and beyond.
SUN 23:00 The Film Programme (b01fjx6p)
In a special edition of the programme, Matthew Sweet travels to Port Talbot in Wales to meet one of its most famous sons, Michael Sheen. He discusses The Gospel of Us, the film version of his biblical passion play performed amongst the local community last Easter. The actor also takes Matthew on a tour of the town that produced two other stars of the big screen - Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins.
SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b01dmdmm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:05 today]
MONDAY 16 APRIL 2012
MON 00:00 Midnight News (b01fqt62)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (b01fjtgv)
Rubbish - Civil Partnerships
We pay others to take away our household refuse from the front of our house whilst hoarding other junk in the attic. And while most of us wouldn't mind buying other people's discarded clothes in a charity shop, only a few are prepared to take even edible food from supermarket dumpsters. What hidden motives lurk behind our relationship with waste? Martin O'Brien, author of 'A Crisis of Waste?' and Jeff Ferrell, author of 'Empire of Scrounge', join Laurie to sift through the competing ways of understanding refuse.
Producer: Charlie Taylor.
MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (b01g4gbc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
05:43 on Sunday]
MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01fqt64)
The latest shipping forecast.
MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01fqt66)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01fqt68)
The latest shipping forecast.
MON 05:30 News Briefing (b01fqt6b)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01g5yxl)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Monsignor Tony Rogers.
MON 05:45 Farming Today (b01g5yxn)
Drought warnings for South West England and the Midlands as the dry weather continues to affect wildlife and farmers. Potato farmer Nick Bragg is urgently hoping for more rain in Somerset to improve his dry soil. And on the River Kennet a river keeper describes the damage to wildlife that the dry weather is causing.
And British tomatoes are reaching the supermarket shelves early this year. Dr Philip Morley from the Tomato Growers Association explains how this year's weather conditions could result in a bumper crop.
Presented by Caz Graham. Produced by Emma Weatherill.
MON 05:57 Weather (b01fqt6d)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
MON 06:00 Today (b01g5yxq)
Morning news and current affairs, presented by James Naughtie and Evan Davis, including:
07:30 Will Labour's proposal on party funding gain support?
07:50 Should parents of truant children have their benefits docked?
08:10 Is the government preparing for a compromise on the proposed charity tax relief cap?
MON 09:00 Start the Week (b01g5yxs)
China
Andrew Marr discusses the state of China with the authors Jonathan Fenby and Martin Jacques. Fenby attempts to draw together the whole of the China story to explore its global significance, but also its inner complexity and complexes. Martin Jacques has updated his bestseller, When China Rules the World, to argue that the country's impact will be as much political and cultural, as economic. But while China's finances make all the headlines, what of its literature? Ou Ning edits China's version of Granta magazine, showcasing the work of contemporary Chinese authors, but must tread a careful path to keep the right side of the censors. And the academic and translator Julia Lovell argues that to understand the new spirit of China, it's vital to read its often contrarian short fiction.
Producer: Katy Hickman.
MON 09:45 Book of the Week (b01g5yxv)
Besieged: Life Under Fire in a Sarajevo Street
Episode 1
To mark the twentieth anniversary of the start of the siege of Sarajevo the award winning journalist Barbara Demick revisits her evocative eyewitness account of how the residents of one street in the city endured three and half years of living in a warzone. Today, bellicosity is met with denial before harsh and terrifying realities kick in.
Besieged: Life Under Fire on a Sarajevo Street is the first UK publication of Barbara Demick's first book. To counter the effects of "compassion fatigue" the book began life as a series of articles evoking the daily lives of several families and how they endured years of deprivation, terror, and the loss of loved ones and friends. Her portrayal of Logavina Street's residents is at once intimate and vivid.
Barbara Demick's coverage of the war in Sarajevo won the George Polk Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Award. She is a foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times based in Beijing. In 2010 she won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea.
Read by Laurel Lefkow
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.
MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (b01g5yxx)
Laurie Metcalf
American actor Laurie Metcalf on taking to the London stage in a "Long Day's Journey into Night. The joys and pitfalls of being in an "open relationship". What impact will the Welfare Reform Act have on the relationships of disabled people? And Yasmeen Khan on her documentary "My Name is Not 'Hey baby'" which explores
new initiatives to counter cases of sexual harassment and assault
Producer Caroline Donne.
MON 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b01g5yxz)
Tomorrow the Catwalk
Episode 1
Katie is facing her release from prison after spending most of her life behind bars. Terry, a new warden at the prison, has been assigned to help her readjust to daily life on the outside. After a rocky start the two develop an unlikely friendship and, helped by her love of designing and making clothes for the inmates, Katie's confidence grows. Could these designs be her way out of the prison system, or her downfall?
Produced by Susan Roberts.
MON 11:00 Mind Changers (b01g5yy1)
Joseph Wolpe and Systematic Desensitization
When the South African psychiatrist, Joseph Wolpe, took up his post at Temple University in Philadelphia in 1965, he brought with him the treatment he'd developed for patients with phobias. Systematic Desensitization involved a lengthy process of relaxation and gradual exposure to the object of the phobia. It was known as Behaviour Therapy, with its concentration on learning a different response to a stimulus. It paid no attention to the patient's childhood or underlying psychological experiences and was thus a radical departure from the Freudian, psychoanalytic approach that was the established method of psychiatry in the US at the time. He brought about a sea change, which sees him regularly listed as one of the top twenty most influential psychologists of the 20th century.
Claudia Hammond visits Philadelphia to meet two of Joseph Wolpe's former colleagues, Michael Ascher and Allan Cristol to hear about the man and his work. At Temple University Medical School Professor William Dubin shows her Wolpe's portrait and discusses his legacy, while Dr Richard Heimberg, Director of the Adult Anxiety Clinic at Temple, reveals how Wolpe's form of therapy still influences what he does today.
In the UK, Elaine Caiger gets over her paralyzing fear of spiders at a course run by Anxiety UK which distils Wolpe's lengthy process into a matter of hours. And Paul Salkovskis, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Applied Science at the University of Bath, reflects on his worldwide impact.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
MON 11:30 Mr Blue Sky (b01dp51w)
Series 2
Sorry
In this week's episode, Harvey's cat Lucky has gone missing, but does her disappearance have anything to do with the book-burning neighbour (played by Simon Day)? Robbie develops a crush on an older woman and Jax rekindles her relationship with the builder Rakesh.
Harvey Easter (played by Mark Benton), 46, is the eternal optimist. He is able to see the good in every situation, the silver lining within every cloud, the bright side to every bit of bad news.
This, however, is his downfall. Someone for whom the glass is always half-full can be difficult to live with, as his wife of 19 years, Jacqui (played by Claire Skinner), knows all too well. Even as life deals Harvey and the Easter family a series of sadistic blows, Harvey looks on the positive side. It's pathological with him. The way Jax sees it, instead of dealing with the problems of their marriage and their teenage kids, Harvey's optimism is actually his way of avoiding engagement with the big issues.
Mr Blue Sky is about one man battling to remain positive in moments of crisis, and one woman battling to live with someone who has his head in the clouds.
Cast:
Harvey Easter ..... Mark Benton
Jacqui Easter ..... Claire Skinner
Charlie Easter ..... Rosamund Hanson
Robbie Easter ..... Tyger Drew Honey
Kill-R ..... Javone Prince
Rakesh Rathi ..... Navin Chowdhry
Dr Ray Marsh ..... Justin Edwards
Mr Leopold ..... Simon Day
Sean Calhoun .... Michael Legge
Written by Andrew Collins
Title Music Arrangement by Jim Bob
Producer/Director: Anna Madley
An Avalon Production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 12:00 You and Yours (b01g5yy5)
Free prescriptions for Paracetamol
Students in Nottingham are being charged £70 each for a parking permit when other residents are given three permits per household absolutely free.Find out why.
The Football League plans to consult on the use of artificial pitches in competitive games. Could this be the end of grass pitches in English football clubs?
In December, You & Yours heard from unemployed young people learning to build Apps for Facebook. But did these skills lead to jobs in the digital sector? We catch up with one of the former students.
The greenest games ever are put in jeopardy as Olympic ticket holders fail to organise their train travel. For more information visit http://www.nationalrailgamestravel.co.uk/ or
http://www.getaheadofthegames.com/
Plus a whole new way of learning - the students who will soon be able to rent e text-books.
And we will be speaking to the father of a German Olympic athlete who wants to park his camper van right next to the London 2012 Aquatic Centre where his daughter is competing.
For further information on the Anthony Nolan Trust please visit http://www.anthonynolan.org/
For more information on organising your train travel to the Olympics visit http://www.nationalrailgamestravel.co.uk/ or
http://www.getaheadofthegames.com/
Presenter: Julian Worricker
Producer: Olivia Skinner.
MON 12:57 Weather (b01fqt6g)
The latest weather forecast.
MON 13:00 World at One (b01g9950)
National and international news. Listeners can share their views via email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.
MON 13:45 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01dp526)
England Goes Global
Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, returns to Radio 4 with a new object-based history. Taking artefacts from William Shakespeare's time, he explores how Elizabethan and Jacobean playgoers made sense of the unstable and rapidly changing world in which they lived.
With old certainties shifting around them, in a time of political and religious unrest and economic expansion, Neil asks what the plays would have meant to the public when they were first performed. He uses carefully selected objects to explore the great issues of the day that preoccupied the public and helped shape the works, and he considers what they can reveal about the concerns and beliefs of Shakespearean England.
Programme 1. ENGLAND GOES GLOBAL - How Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the globe changed the way Shakespeare's audiences viewed the world and their country's place on it. For the first time, England was engaging with the whole world.
Producer: Paul Kobrak.
MON 14:00 The Archers (b01g4kyj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Sunday]
MON 14:15 Drama (b00x41n8)
Burned to Nothing
Matthew returns to Nigeria, the land of his birth. He has come to secure the release of his son who has become caught up in the politics of a land in turmoil; a land he has fallen in love with. By Rex Obano.
Matthew .... Lucian Msamati
The General .... Jude Akuwudike
Medina .... Lorraine Burroughs
Keith .... David Ajala
Sunday .... Obi Abili
Inenevwerha .... Gbemisola Ikumelo
Director: Femi Elufowoju, jr.
MON 15:00 The 3rd Degree (b01dp52g)
Series 2
University of Northampton
Coming this week from the University of Northampton, "The 3rd Degree" is a funny, lively and dynamic quiz show aimed at cultivating the next generation of Radio 4 listeners whilst delighting the current ones. It's recorded on location at a different University each week, and it pits three Undergraduates against three of their Professors in a genuinely original and fresh take on an academic quiz. Being a Radio 4 programme, it of course meets the most stringent standards of academic rigour - but with lots of facts and jokes thrown in for good measure.
Together with host Steve Punt, the show tours the (sometimes posh, sometimes murky, but always welcoming!) Union buildings, cafés and lecture halls of six universities across the UK.
The rounds vary between Specialist Subjects and General Knowledge, quickfire bell-and-buzzer rounds and the 'Highbrow & Lowbrow' round cunningly devised to test not only the students' knowledge of current affairs, history, languages and science, but also their Professors' awareness of television, film, and Lady Gaga... In addition, the Head-to-Head rounds, in which students take on their Professors in their own subjects, were particularly lively, and offered plenty of scope for mild embarrassment on both sides...
The resulting show is funny, fresh, and not a little bit surprising, with a truly varied range of scores, friendly rivalry, and moments where students wished they had more than just glanced at that reading list...
Producer: David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 15:30 The Food Programme (b01g4ks7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:32 on Sunday]
MON 16:00 Alton Towers: A Journey into Puginland (b01g5znt)
The Gothic ruin of Alton Towers now stands surrounded by a famous theme park. Hordes of families shriek past on rides like "The Hex", perhaps oblivious to the fact that it was once one of the architect Pugin's finest creations.
His magnificent interiors were a high point in the Nineteenth Century Gothic movement and a landmark of the English Catholic Revival. Built for his patron the Earl of Shrewsbury- one of the country's most important grandees- in its day the turreted towers and medieval interiors were more spectacular than anything Disney could have invented.
In the year of Pugin's bicentennial, Martin Ellis explores the ruins to discover fragments of the rich interiors which suggest its former greatness -sumptuous ceilings, huge stained glass windows and Gothic sculpture. He uncovers the story of the decline of a noble house, the loss of the dream of a return to Catholic England and the wholesale fall from fashion of the Gothic style. It's a sorry tale of legal wrangles, neglect and greed which led to the house being stripped of everything of value, including its roofs, and being left to the elements.
For generations the house has stood as an enigmatic and romantic ruin in the midst of the expanding theme park. It's been largely overlooked by cultural historians who have charted the return to fashion of Pugin as the eminent figure in the Gothic Revival. Yet now the building might be undergoing something of a renaissance at the hands of the theme park owners. Work is underway to stabilise and restore some key elements of Pugin's work.
The programme looks at the restoration work in progress and examines how Pugin's original vision can sit alongside the fantasies created for a theme park run by a commercial organisation. Does it offer a different model for conserving our heritage or do commerce and culture collide? And we explore more widely into " Pugin Land" for examples of his work from his brief but spectacular career, such as the church of St Giles in Cheadle and the Palace of Westminster which offer hints of the glory that was once Alton Towers.
Presenter: Martin Ellis.
MON 16:30 Beyond Belief (b01g5znw)
Monarchy
In today's "Beyond Belief" Ernie Rea and guests discuss the religious foundations and functions of monarchy.
Can monarchy be divorced from its religious underpinnings and, if not, what place does it have in a secular society? Is it a symbol of unity or division in multi cultural Britain?
Joining Ernie to discuss the Monarchy are Philip Blond, Director of Res Publica; Symon Hill, Associate Director of the Think Tank, Ekklesia; and the Rev Dr Judith Maltby, Reader in Church History at the University of Oxford.
MON 17:00 PM (b01g5zny)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.
MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01fqt6j)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 18:30 The Unbelievable Truth (b01g5zp0)
Series 9
Episode 3
David Mitchell hosts the panel game in which four comedians are encouraged to tell lies and compete against one another to see how many items of truth they're able to smuggle past their opponents.
Marcus Brigstocke, Miles Jupp, Susan Calman and Alan Davies are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as: Swimming, Bread, Hotels and Foxes.
The show is devised by Graeme Garden and Jon Naismith, the team behind Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.
Producer: Jon Naismith
A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 19:00 The Archers (b01g5zp2)
Back from Marrakech, Alan and Usha speculate about Amy's new man Carl, with Usha teasingly reassuring a worried Alan. At breakfast, Amy tells them her weekend away with Carl was wonderful. Usha and Alan are keen to meet Carl. So is Alice, whom Amy calls on to distract her from research work. Alan wonders why Amy's being so secretive.
Jennifer's peaceful swim is interrupted by an update from Lynda on the Leonie and James situation. Jennifer says that whilst she's not defending her nephew, she suspects Leonie's rather temperamental. It seems that their book has been abandoned. Jennifer wryly observes that every cloud has a silver lining.
Adam's going to steer clear of the district council planning meeting, as the committee remains undecided about the mega dairy. The opposers could have a good speaker in the form of the rather 'alternative' Hattie Marshall. Meanwhile, veteran councillor Esther Sutton has come out in favour of the dairy. Jenny wonders if the DVD persuaded her.
Brian learns from Bryn that the Environment Agency still hasn't submitted its report and assessment of the pollution risks. Brian thinks they're deliberately dragging their feet. But the planning committee could still turn it down. Brian's confident, but still not a hundred per cent sure.
MON 19:15 Front Row (b01g5zp4)
Sir Tim Rice and Pamela Stephenson
With Mark Lawson.
Sir Tim Rice, who last night received the Olivier Special Award for his contribution to theatre, reflects on his career, his relationship with Andrew Lloyd Webber and his new musical adaptation of From Here To Eternity.
Pamela Stephenson made her name as a comedy performer on Not the Nine O'Clock News. She moved on to train as a clinical psychologist and has used both experiences in a new Channel 4 documentary called The Fame Report. She explains her hypothesis that becoming famous is a mental trauma, and why her husband Billy Connolly found her stint on Strictly Come Dancing difficult.
After the success of the Danish TV drama The Killing, crime writer John Harvey reviews the latest Nordic noir to reach our screens: The Bridge centres on the discovery of a body halfway along the bridge linking Denmark and Sweden.
Producer Stephen Hughes.
MON 19:45 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01dp526)
[Repeat of broadcast at
13:45 today]
MON 20:00 The War over Syria (b01gcrhj)
The conflict in Syria is transfixing the Middle East. But it is transforming it too. Barbara Plett, the BBC's UN Correspondent, returns to her old patch in the Middle East to examine how the future of the Assads could also shape the future of the region. She charts the influence of neighbouring states over the conflict in Syria, with the Gulf States, especially Saudi Arabia and newly assertive Qatar supporting the rebels. Meanwhile Iran and its allied Lebanese force, Hezbollah, are firmly behind the Syrian regime. And there's likely to be an increasing role for the new Arab democracies.
This power play could spill over into direct conflict or continue to simmer behind the scenes - but its consequences could be dramatic, most directly by affecting Lebanon's fragile political balance. Barbara meets wounded Syrian men in Lebanon desperate to get back over the border to Syria to fight. Residents of Tripoli in Lebanon tell her they are already feeling the effects of heightened sectarian tensions. Could the fighting in Syria explode into a conflict that reshapes the Middle East?
Producer: Lucy Proctor.
MON 20:30 Crossing Continents (b01fjx63)
Forced Sterilisation in Uzbekistan
Natalia Antelava reports on Uzbekistan where women have become the new target of one of the most repressive regimes on earth. She uncovers evidence that women are being sterilised,often without their knowledge, in an effort by the government to control the population.
The programme speaks to victims and doctors and highlights the fear and paranoia that have made this such a difficult story to tell. Women have fled the country in order to escape the practice. Only a few brave Uzbeks have been willing to speak, often telling horrific stories the government don't want told.
Producer: Wesley Stephenson.
MON 21:00 Material World (b01fjx6r)
Gareth Mitchell examines Wednesday's Indonesian earthquake. Widespread damage was avoided as this huge 'horizontal strike' earthquake did not generate the giant tsunami waves which engulfed the region in 2004. Dr Richard Luckett from the British Geological Survey explains the differences between this and other earthquakes.
Much of the coverage of the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic has concentrated on the fate of the passengers, but the sinking also had an effect on global telecommunications. Morse code messages transmitted from the vessel using the then new telegraph technology alerted the world to the liner's fate. Confusion over how these messages were relayed, received and reacted to led to new legislation on safety at sea, and new international standards for telegraphy. Michael Hughes, author of a new book Titanic Calling, tells Gareth of the technological impact of the tragedy.
Can computers tell what you're thinking ? Perhaps not. However, new research suggests they may be better than humans at detecting the facial expressions that give away when someone is lying. US researchers 'trained' computers to detect subtle eye movements made while lying. Venu Govindaraju, of the Centre for Unified Biometrics and Sensors at the State University of New York in Buffalo, says the technique could be expanded to look at other facial expressions, as they all seem to change when we don't tell the truth.
And we hear from another of our So You Want To Be A Scientist finalists, on his experiment looking into how closely peoples' faces match their voices.
Producer: Julian Siddle.
MON 21:30 Start the Week (b01g5yxs)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
MON 21:58 Weather (b01fqt6n)
The latest weather forecast.
MON 22:00 The World Tonight (b01g5zp8)
The World Bank is due to announce its new boss - will the US finally relinquish its hold on the post?
The trial begins in Norway of Anders Breivik. How will the alleged serial killer respond to the media storm?
And we hear from Bristol about the campaign to bring more elected mayors to England's cities.
MON 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b01g5zpb)
The House on Paradise Street
Episode 1
1/10 Sofka Zinovieff's novel explores the long and tragic legacy of the Greek Civil War through a gripping story set in contemporary Athens. When Maud's Greek husband Nikitas dies in a mysterious car crash, Maud becomes curious about his family's troubled past. His mother, Antigone, now lives in Moscow, estranged from the family for nearly sixty years after abandoning her young son. Antigone has never been back to Greece, but now Maud needs to let her exiled mother-in-law know that her son is dead. Abridged by Sarah LeFanu
Readers: Lucy Briers and Ann Beach
Producer: Sara Davies.
MON 23:00 Word of Mouth (b01fhys0)
Academic stand-up and cognitive development
Chris Ledgard meets the academics doing stand-up comedy in a London pub; asks why foreign languages have to be so difficult, and discovers that jokes reach parts of the brain that other words cannot reach.
MON 23:30 Today in Parliament (b01g5zpd)
Sean Curran reports on events at Westminster.
Mps continue to debate the measures set out in the Chancellor George Osborne's budget.
Several of his proposals have proved controversial - most recently a proposal to cap tax relief on charitable donations.
Also on the programme the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, takes questions from MPs.
TUESDAY 17 APRIL 2012
TUE 00:00 Midnight News (b01fqt77)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
TUE 00:30 Book of the Week (b01g5yxv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Monday]
TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01fqt79)
The latest shipping forecast.
TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01fqt7c)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01fqt7f)
The latest shipping forecast.
TUE 05:30 News Briefing (b01fqt7h)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01gd647)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Monsignor Tony Rogers.
TUE 05:45 Farming Today (b01g5ztl)
Each day drought stricken rivers and streams are being replenished by millions of litres of water taken from aquifers deep down under the earth. Wessex Water says it's scheme will help promote wildlife and support stocks of trout and salmon.
And as the recent mild weather has extended the season for some British grown vegetables, Anna Hill visits a small family owned farm in Norfolk which specialises in seasonal produce to discover what veggies will be on the shelves a little earlier than usual.
This programme was presented by Anna Hill and produced in Birmingham by Angela Frain.
TUE 06:00 Today (b01g5ztn)
Morning news and current affairs, presented by James Naughtie and Evan Davis, including:
07:30 Should the Bahrain F1 go ahead?
07:50 Durham prison's drug problem.
08:10 Is fracking safe?
08:40 How Philip Gould found meaning in his final days.
TUE 09:00 The Public Philosopher (b01g5ztq)
Series 1
Should we bribe people to be healthy?
The eminent Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel brings his trademark style to a discussion on a current issue, questioning the thinking underlying a current controversy This week, he takes a provocative look at the controversial subject of incentivising good health.
Michael Sandel has been enthralling students at Harvard for years. These discussions - recorded in front of an audience at the London School of Economics - bring his trademark style to Radio 4. They're challenging, outspoken and interactive.
Sandel turns his attention to health and ponders whether the present constraints on the NHS leave us with no choice but to bribe people to be healthy. Profound moral questions lie behind paying people to lose weight, quit smoking or abandon alcohol. Michael Sandel weaves through these issues with the help of philosophers past and present.
Producer: Adele Armstrong.
TUE 09:45 Book of the Week (b01g5zts)
Besieged: Life Under Fire in a Sarajevo Street
Episode 2
To mark the twentieth anniversary of the start of the siege of Sarajevo the award winning journalist Barbara Demick revisits her evocative eyewitness account of how the residents of one street in the city endured three and half years of living in a warzone. Today, a death in one of the Logavina Street's families.
Read by Laurel Lefkow
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.
TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (b01g5ztv)
Mary Beard
Mary Beard talks about her new series Meet The Romans. Is "Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway"- re-released for its 20th Anniversary - a feminist classic? The smear campaign in Azerbaijan against investigative journalist Khadija Isamaylova, which she alleges began after she uncovered government corruption. And music from the Brodsky Quartet cellist, Jacqueline Thomas, who'll be talking about the difficulties and pleasures of playing with the same group of men for 40 years.
Producer Ruth Watts.
TUE 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b01gd0k8)
Tomorrow the Catwalk
Episode 2
Francesca Joseph's contemporary drama set in a women's prison. Katie is facing her release from prison after spending most of her life behind bars. Will she be able to cope with life on the outside?
Katie starts work on the Burnsides order, whilst Terry starts her rehabilitation.
Produced by Susan Roberts.
TUE 11:00 Nature (b01g60ft)
Series 6
Lamprey
In 1135 King Henry I died, allegedly of eating a "surfeit of lampreys" and the phrase has passed into our language, even though the vast of majority of us, and that includes many naturalists, have never seen a lamprey. We have three species in the British lsles and although they are classed as fishes, they are among the most primitive creatures with a backbone. They're survivors too: over 200 million years ago, lampreys looking very similar to those we see nowadays were clamping their suckers - lampreys don't have jaws - onto primitive fish and sucking their blood.
But as Brett Westwood finds out in Nature, nowadays we're giving these ancient survivors a challenge. Lampreys need clean waterways free of obstacles as two of our species migrate inland from the sea to breed in gravelly stretches of our rivers. They also spend up to 6 years as blind larvae buried in silt and so can be vulnerable to floods and water extraction.
On the River Ure in Yorkshire Brian Morland is monitoring river lampreys for the Environment Agency and he shows Brett his first blind lamprey larvae or ammocoetes. He also talks about the huge sea lampreys, a metre along and thick as a man's arm, which are being restricted by river blockages such as dams and weirs. But Paul Frears, a fisheries manager with the Environment Agency has lamprey's interests at heart and with funding from the European Water Framework Directive, can offer fresh hope to these weird and endlessly fascinating fish.
Producer: Brett Westwood
Editor: Julian Hector.
TUE 11:30 Balalaika Born Again (b01g61v9)
Pat Metheny or Paganini? Who is Alexey Arhipovskiy?
This is the story of the humble, three-stringed balalaika and the story of a maverick Russian virtuoso, Alexey, who wants to transform the balalaika's image; to show it is more than a piece of folksy soviet souvenir kitsch. Alexey has developed a beautiful new sound and a new repertoire for the balalaika, mixing a classical music sensibility with the temperament of prog rock. With his trusty manager, Mikhail, he wants to take the balalaika out of Russia and beyond the former Soviet borders. But can he take Russia out of the balalaika? Nick Baker travels to Moscow to meet him.
He finds a musical rebel and an intriguing character who combines both adult seriousness and childlike enthusiasm for an instrument once played only by peasants. At the Gnessian Musical Academy, Alexey's Professor recalls a gifted musical student who took his formal classical training and turned it into something else. He added his own spirited individualism, as well as some electronic effects.
In Dubrovnik, Croatia, Nick meets up with Alexey again as he prepares to perform at the Julian Rachlin and Friends Chamber Music Festival. He is virtually the only non-classical act on the bill. The festival is full of five star ex-Russian prodigies whose families left Russia in the 1980s and brought with them tried and tested classical music. What happens next?
Producer: Tamsin Hughes
A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 12:00 You and Yours (b01g61vc)
Call You and Yours: Can horse racing be made safer?
After Saturday's Grand National was marred by the deaths of two horses there are renewed calls for it to be banned or at least for dramatic changes to be introduced to make the sport safer. But can horse races like the Grand National ever be made safer? Can the sport retain its appeal....not just here but also abroad....if it's changed significantly? Or are big changes the only way to ensure the safety of those taking part - jockeys as well as horses? Would you agree with a call to ban it altogether?
We want to hear what you think ............especially if you're involved in horse racing or have particular expertise in the field of animal welfare.
03700 100 444 is the phone number - a call will cost you the same as dialling an 01 or an 02 number - you can e-mail via bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours, or you can text to 84844, and if you do that it will cost you your standard operator message rate and we may call you back on that number.
Presented by Julian Worricker
Produced by Maire Devine.
TUE 12:57 Weather (b01fqt7k)
The latest weather forecast.
TUE 13:00 World at One (b01g9j6f)
Abu Qatada arrested, Downing Street drops plans for a 'conservatory tax', continued questions about the death of Neil Heywood, and the latest from the Anders Breivik trial.
TUE 13:45 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01g61vf)
Communion and Conscience
Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, returns to Radio 4 with a new object-based history. Taking artefacts from William Shakespeare's time, he explores how Elizabethan and Jacobean playgoers made sense of the unstable and rapidly changing world in which they lived.
With old certainties shifting around them, in a time of political and religious unrest and economic expansion, Neil asks what the plays would have meant to the public when they were first performed. He uses carefully selected objects to explore the great issues of the day that preoccupied the public and helped shape the works, and he considers what they can reveal about the concerns and beliefs of Shakespearean England.
Programme 2. COMMUNION AND CONSCIENCE - The communion cup that Shakespeare may well have used sheds light on the dramatic religious changes that came in the aftermath of the Reformation
Producer: Paul Kobrak.
TUE 14:00 The Archers (b01g5zp2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Monday]
TUE 14:15 Drama (b012r99n)
DeLorean
Northern Ireland was a very dark place in the 1980's. A hunger strike was looming and street violence and tit for tat murders were an everyday occurrence but in a small corner of West Belfast something extraordinary was happening. In a factory in Dunmurry a unique new sports car was being built, a DMC 12, a style icon for the late twentieth century. For two years John DeLorean brought hope to communities flattened by the Troubles in Northern Ireland, where every other person was out of work and the unemployment rate was the highest in Western Europe. This is the story of that two year dream as seen through the eyes of key employees - including a union representative, an assembly line worker and a supervisor. Over 9,000 DMC's were produced during this period, cars which today still retain their cult status. The workforce put their heart and souls into this car plant believing that this was going to be the start of a better future, they too could 'live the dream.'
Glenn Patterson is one of Northern Ireland's leading contemporary novelists. He has also written various plays for radio and is co-writer on the feature film 'Good Vibrations' which is to shortly commence filming in Northern Ireland.
Cast
Liz - Michelle Fairley
Anto - Richard Dormer
T.C. - Rhys Dunlop
Al Benetar - Stuart Milligan
James Callaghan - Anton Lesser
Robert - Patrick Fitzsymons
Various Roles - Paul Kennedy
Producer - Clare Delargy
Director - Gemma McMullan
Writer - Glenn Patterson.
TUE 15:00 Making History (b01g61vk)
Helen Castor presents Radio 4's popular history programme in which listener's questions and research help offer new insights into the past.
Today: the brutality of war and revolution in Russia - but what was a man from the East Midlands doing there? Is the name "Wessex" as old as we think it is? Did Aztecs and North American Indians ever meet? And the serious politics that was behind fun and games in fifteenth century Scotland.
Join in by contacting the programme:
Email: making.history@bbc.co.uk
Write to Making History. BBC Radio 4. PO Box 3096. Brighton BN1 1PL
Join the conversation on our Facebook page or find out more from the Radio 4 website - www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/makinghistory
Producer: Nick Patrick
A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 15:30 Costing the Earth (b01g61vm)
Britain in Flames
Last spring huge swathes of the British countryside, from Dorset to the West Highlands erupted in flames. In the wake of a dry winter and drought orders across the south there's a real risk of another year of serious wildfires.
In 'Costing the Earth' Tom Heap investigates the causes of forest and moorland fire and the innovative ideas that could help us predict them, and fight them.
At Crowthorne Forest in Berkshire, site of the most destructive of 2011's fires he meets the young families evacuated from their homes who are now planting saplings that should prove to be more fire-resistant than their charred predecessors. In Northumbria he joins the local fire and rescue service for an exercise designed to test their speed and efficiency in the face of fire. And in the forests of South Wales he finds out why the region is the arson capital of the UK.
Producer: Alasdair Cross.
TUE 16:00 Word of Mouth (b01g61vp)
As the 100-day countdown to the Olympics begins, Chris Ledgard examines how trademark law can control the language of the games, and asks if word use can ever be effectively contained and controlled. He meets historians charting usage of the term "olympic" over centuries; talks to comedy producer Jon Plowman about the BBC mockumentary "Twenty Twelve", and discovers that one American university wants some words banned altogether.
TUE 16:30 Great Lives (b01g9c4w)
Series 27
Gertrude Stein
Gertude Stein, American poet, writer and art collector, lived most of her life in France. She was one of the first people to spot the genius of Picasso, Cezanne and Matisse, and she believed she was a genius too. Opinion on that score remains divided.
In Great Lives, Erin Pizzey chooses her because Stein inspired her to live a life without compromise. Since setting up the world's first refuge for battered women in 1971, Erin Pizzey has campaigned and written about domestic violence, publishing "Scream Quietly Or The Neighbours Will Hear" and her autobiography "This Way To The Revolution". Joining presenter Matthew Parris in the studio is Diana Souhami, author of "Gertrude and Alice".
The producer is Isobel Eaton.
TUE 17:00 PM (b01g61vt)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.
TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01fqt7m)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 18:30 Ed Reardon's Week (b01g61vw)
Series 8
It's a Nude Nude Nude Nude World
Ed Reardon leads us through the ups and down of his week, complete with his trusty companion, Elgar, and his never-ending capacity for scrimping and scraping at whatever scraps his agent, Ping, can offer him to keep body, mind and cat together.
Jaz Milvain asks Ed to curate a moving tribute to him and his work in film for the 'surprise' party that he's organising for his 60th birthday. Whilst Ed relishes the idea of a comedy 'roast' Jaz is looking for something more akin to a light sauté.
So it is that Ed tracks down Jaz's first masterwork, 'It's a Nude Nude Nude Nude World' to form the cornerstone of the tribute, not knowing that Fiona did a few day's work on it.
TUE 19:00 The Archers (b01g61vy)
It's the day of the district council planning meeting. Ruth's glad to get out, and avoid the lorries and cement as they lay the foundation for Brookfield's new slurry tank.
Pat meets Hattie Marshall and introduces her to Ruth. They clearly have lots of support. Brian and committee chair Kevin Townsend note this and expect hostility.
Hattie makes her statement, pointing out the threat to conventional dairy farmers. While highlighting environmental factors, including pollution, she says that cows will disappear from the countryside. It's fundamentally wrong to treat animals merely as economic units. As she fears accidental spillages into the river, Brian objects to this scaremongering.
Chief planning officer John Bagshaw recommends that the application should be approved, and Pat is disappointed when Esther Sutton supports it on economic and local employment grounds. Martin Sykes thinks she's been taken in by the hype and the DVD.
The highways officer is satisfied there won't be a significant increase in traffic, the building is an appropriate design, and there are no valid planning reasons for refusal. The committee votes to delegate the final decision to the chief planning officer in the light of the Environment Agency's report. Brian tells Radio Borsetshire he has every confidence there'll be a favourable outcome.
TUE 19:15 Front Row (b01g61w0)
Irvine Welsh; Bob Marley film; Orange Prize shortlist
With John Wilson.
Marley is a feature length documentary about the life and legacy of the reggae superstar Bob Marley. David Hepworth, who saw Bob Marley live in London in 1975, reflects on the unexpected history the film unearths.
Irvine Welsh discusses his prequel to Trainspotting, Skagboys. Mark Renton is set for university and an escape from working-class Edinburgh - but when his family falls apart and life in 1980s Britain gets too tough, heroin offers a different way out.
Novelist Joanna Trollope is chair of the judges for this year's Orange Prize for fiction, and she reveals the decisions behind this year's shortlist, which was announced today.
Simon Armitage discusses the Poetry Parnassus, an ambitious project to bring together poets from all the nations competing in the Olympics - and appeals for poets to come forward from the nations as yet unrepresented.
Producer Stephen Hughes.
TUE 19:45 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01g61vf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
13:45 today]
TUE 20:00 My Name Is Not 'Hey Baby' (b01g61w2)
In 2011 the Slutwalks which took place around the UK made headlines when women, carrying placards and shouting slogans, protested against the blaming of victims of rape and sexual assault rather than the perpetrators.
Yasmeen Khan meets the organiser of the London Slutwalk to see what impact it made, as well as young activists who are raising awareness of street harassment and encouraging women to raise their voices against it. At a Hollerback meeting students describe the verbal assaults which can build up from quasi-compliments to threatening physical assault, and how they can or should react.
The grey area between a flirtatious comment and unwanted attention is sometimes a fine one, and makes this area of sexuality difficult to deal with. Yasmeen talks to men and women about how they perceive it, and also to women in India, Sweden and New York about how a new generation is trying to make the rules of sexual engagement clearer.
The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister issued a statement on International Women's Day on March 8 this year stating that they 'are working towards signing the Council of Europe's Convention on Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence'. Vera Baird, QC, the chair of Labour's Commission on Women's Safety, talks about the way the judiciary have been influenced, and a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police's anti-rape Sapphire Unit describes how their specialist police officers now deal with victims of serious sexual assault.
Yasmeen Khan also asks how the sexualisation of society, in which advertising, the internet and pop music all play a part, has affected young teenagers, and what efforts are being made to counter their influence.
Producer: Olivia Landsberg
A Ladbroke Production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 20:40 In Touch (b01g61w4)
Peter White is joined by Kisten Hearn who is blind and Geoff Adams-Spink who is partially-sighted for the latest edition of Blindness 4 Beginners.
Today the team offers tips for keeping track of those essential personal belongings, which may also work in a new and unfamiliar environment.
Kirsten swears by the maxim, that there should be a place for everything and everything in its place.Geoff suggests bags with numerous compartments.
Both Kirsten and Geoff suggest asking sighted people for information and Geoff says that he never 'switches off ' when being taken somewhere new.
TUE 21:00 Inside Health (b01g61w6)
Whooping cough, maternal deaths, blushing, intestinal transit
Whooping cough is making a comeback - the latest figures show that there were more confirmed cases in the first 3 months of this year than there were in the whole of 2010. But the condition can only be monitored properly if GPs test for it - and it's estimated that up to 40% of persistent coughs in children could actually be down to whooping cough. Kamran Abassi who's Editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, explains how immunity wears off as we get older. The coughing can last for up to 3 months and is most serious in small babies. Up to 10 deaths are reported each year in the UK and antibiotics can be used to treat it.
In the UK all deaths in pregnancy and childbirth are recorded. Just 1 in 10,000 British women currently die - on average one woman every week. The information is held by the Maternal and Newborn Clinical Outcomes Review Programme - known as the Confidential Enquiry. Last year this clinical audit was effectively suspended after the process was put out to tender. Susan Bewley who's Professor of Complex Obstetrics at King's College, London explains why it's so important to keep such detailed information.
Blushing can become a vicious cycle - with those severely affected finding it impossible to lead a normal life. Some turn to psychological therapies. Dr Jennifer Wild from the Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma in Oxford says she sees a success rate of 90% in patients who opt for cognitive behavioural therapy. An operation called a sympathectomy - where the nerves are cut - can be carried out by surgeons like Alan Cameron, who works in Ipswich. He sees mixed results - with many experiencing side effects like increased sweating and sensitivity to light and sound.
Dr Margaret McCartney doesn't like it when doctors use euphemisms for our genitals. Children often use words like "twinkle" or "pee pee" instead of the correct anatomical terms. But whose blushes are they sparing - theirs or their parents?
An Inside Health listener emailed the programme to find out about what happens to the food he he eats - specifically how quickly peas pass through his gut into the loo. Neuro-gastroenterologist Anton Emmanuel from University College Hospital, London, demystifies gut transit times.
TUE 21:30 The Public Philosopher (b01g5ztq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
TUE 21:58 Weather (b01fqt7p)
The latest weather forecast.
TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (b01g61w8)
The Home Secretary tells MPs that Abu Qatada can be deported to Jordan after assurances were obtained that he will get a fair trial.
The US secret service is embroiled in a sex scandal, what will be the impact on their reputation?
And is is the drive to modernise China's buildings damaging its heritage?
All that and more with Robin Lustig at
10pm.
TUE 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b01g61wb)
The House on Paradise Street
Episode 2
2/10 Sofka Zinovieff's novel about an Englishwoman's quest to find out the origins of the bitter feud that has split her dead husband's family is set in contemporary Athens, but takes us back to the tragic events of the Greek Civil War in the 1940s. When Maud's husband Nikitas is killed in a mysterious car crash, his aunt Alexandra tells Maud she should contact his mother Antigone in Moscow. Antigone left Greece nearly sixty years ago, leaving Nikitas behind, and has never returned. Now she makes a momentous decision: she will go back for her son's funeral.
Abridged by Sarah LeFanu
Read by Ann Beach and Lucy Briers
Producer: Sara Davies.
TUE 23:00 Richard Herring's Objective (b00vkycj)
Series 1
Dolly the Sheep
Comedian Richard Herring reclaims those things we've grown to hate. In the final show of the series Richard reclaims Dolly the sheep as he examines why we are fearful and suspicious of the idea of cloning without really understanding it.
Richard talks to a genetics professor about how cloning works and what it was like to meet Dolly. Richard also asks science writer Dr Ben Goldacre whether evil scientists exist and whether he is allowed to clone Dr Who assistant Amy Pond.
The show was recorded in front of an audience.
Producer ..... Tilusha Ghelani.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.
TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (b01g61wv)
Susan Hulme with the day's top news stories from Westminster. The Home Secretary sets out her plans to deport the radical cleric Abu Qatada. The head of the Metropolitan Police takes questions from the Commons Home Affairs Committee. And the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill returns from the House of Lords.
WEDNESDAY 18 APRIL 2012
WED 00:00 Midnight News (b01fqt88)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
WED 00:30 Book of the Week (b01g5zts)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Tuesday]
WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01fqt8b)
The latest shipping forecast.
WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01fqt8d)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01fqt8g)
The latest shipping forecast.
WED 05:30 News Briefing (b01fqt8j)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01gd63x)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Monsignor Tony Rogers.
WED 05:45 Farming Today (b01g62nz)
70% of teenagers questioned for a new survey say horticulture's a career for underachievers, according to a new survey commissioned by the Royal Horticultural Society. The Society is launching a campaign to change the perception of horticulture among young people and their careers advisors. Dairy Crest is closing two of its factories, and has also lost a contract to sell milk to Tesco. And, why weather conditions on the other side of the globe have meant the splash of oilseed rape yellow across the British countryside is bigger this year.
Presenter: Anna Hill
Producer: Sarah Swadling.
WED 06:00 Today (b01g62p1)
Morning news and current affairs with James Naughtie and Evan Davis.
0653
For decades the Foreign Office claimed there were no detailed local records kept from the end of the British empire, but after a group of Kenyans brought a case against the government at the High Court, it admitted they did exist. Foreign Secretary William Hague said he wants to release as many files as possible, subject to legal exemptions, and they are being sent to the National Archives with the first tranche of nearly 9,000 records being released today. Sanchia Berg reports.
0712
The BBC has learned that in the last 24 hours, lawyers for the Libyan military commander Abdul Hakim Belhadj have served a legal claim on the former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw for his alleged role in Mr Belhadj's illegal rendition to Libya in 2004. Security correspondent Frank Gardner has the background to the story while Sapna Malik, a lawyer representing Abdul Hakim Belhadj, responds.
0743
Today is the 70th anniversary of the first US air raid on Japan in response to Pearl Harbor: the Doolittle Raid. Lt Col Edward J. Saylor, who was one of 80 crew members to take part in the 1942 bombing attack on Tokyo describes his experiences.
0810
In the first of a series of interviews with party leaders ahead of the 3 May local elections, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg talks to the Today programme's James Naughtie.
WED 09:00 Midweek (b01g62p3)
Dacre Stoker; Barry Briggs; Roberta Taylor and Peter Guinness; Richard La Trobe-Bateman
Libby Purves is joined by former Speedway star Barry Briggs, actors Roberta Taylor and Peter Guinness, author Dacre Stoker, and bridge designer Richard La Trobe-Batemen.
Dacre Stoker is the great grand-nephew of Bram Stoker, author of Dracula. A long-lost journal written by the young Bram Stoker was recently discovered in the attic of his great grandson. The notebook reveals some of Bram's private thoughts and his developing style before he wrote Dracula. Assisted by a team of Dracula scholars and historians, Dacre Stoker and Dr Elizabeth Miller have connected the dots between the contents of the notebook and Stoker's later work. 'The Lost Journal of Bram Stoker' is published by Robson Press.
Barry Briggs was one of the most accomplished and popular speedway riders of all time. Born in Christchurch, New Zealand, he came to the UK in the Fifties at 17 to pursue a speedway career and went on to win four World Championship titles. During his career 'Briggo' rode for top clubs including Wimbledon, Hull and Swindon, wowing crowds of 90,000. Along the way he taught Steve McQueen how to slide a speedway bike. His autobiography 'Wembley and Beyond - My Incredible Journey' is published by Sphere.
Roberta Taylor and Peter Guinness are actors who met whilst at drama school. This real life couple are performing together in the play Reunion by John Caine, playing a couple in their sixties who are in the throes of a life or death decision. Peter's character has motor neurone disease and wants to end his life; however if he is to end it, he needs the help of his wife, played by Roberta. The couple debate the issues around assisted dying in their small kitchen over the course of 24 hours. Reunion is at London's Jermyn Street Theatre.
Richard La Trobe-Bateman is a furniture maker who has now turned his skill and passion to designing bridges. He has built wooden bridges from the National Pinetum in Bedgebury to the Tassajara Monastery in California. His work is in public collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Crafts Council and Royal Society of the Arts. His latest exhibition, 'Making Triangles' is at the Crafts Study Centre, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham Surrey.
Producer: Paula McGinley.
WED 09:45 Book of the Week (b01g62p5)
Besieged: Life Under Fire in a Sarajevo Street
Episode 3
To mark the twentieth anniversary of the start of the siege of Sarajevo the award winning journalist Barbara Demick revists her evocative eyewitness account of how the residents of one street in the city endured three and half years of living in a warzone. Today's theme is about coming of an age in a warzone.
Read by Laurel Lefkow
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.
WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (b01g62p7)
Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John on her music and movies and her new career as a food writer. What do the latest unemployment figures mean for women? Flyweight boxer Nicola Adams on her hopes for an Olympic Gold. A celebration of screen icon Elizabeth Taylor and her jewels. And why Oxfam want us to stop hoarding our old bras and donate them to women in the developing world.
Producer Louise Corley.
Presenter Jenni Murray.
WED 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b01gd0ln)
Tomorrow the Catwalk
Episode 3
Francesca Joseph's contemporary drama set in a women's prison. Katie is facing her release from prison after spending most of her life behind bars. Will she be able to cope with life on the outside?
As Katie is drawn even further into Grant's plan and we learn more about her past and the reasons for her imprisonment.
Produced by Susan Roberts.
WED 11:00 Born in Bradford (b01g62pc)
Cot death and co-sleeping
Families have given blood samples, medical histories, details of their educational attainment, eating and parenting habits, family structures and incomes. As the first children to join the study start school, Winifred finds out how they have fared.
The research team is based at the Bradford Royal Infirmary and its work will provide solid evidence to help answer some of the great medical puzzles of our time: everything from why some people have heart disease and depression to what is driving the rises in incidence of diabetes, asthma and obesity. The findings on cot death are just about to be released, with results that will significantly modify the guidance to parents. Other studies soon to be released with assess how far a pregnant mother's diet affects her baby's health.
The city is ethnically diverse - more than half of the 6,000 babies born each year have a mother of Pakistani origin. Bradford also has the highest rate of genetic illness in Britain and this is due to genetic disorders passed on in cousin marriages. The research has demonstrated that two thirds of mothers of Pakistani origin in Bradford have husbands who are their first or second cousins - which significantly increases the risk of autosomal recessive conditions.
This is the third programme in a continuing series and a chance to see how life is unfolding for young optimistic mothers in sometimes troubled relationships and difficult circumstances. Winifred spoke to them four years ago and catches up with their stories again.
According to the Head of the study, Professor John Wright - an epidemiologist based at Bradford Royal Infirmary - the aim is to find out more about the causes of childhood illness in children from all cultures and classes as their lives unfold: "It's like a medical detective story really - trying to piece together the clues in people's lifestyles, their environments and their genetic make-up, as we try to determine whether someone falls sick or someone doesn't.".
WED 11:30 My First Planet (b01g62ph)
Series 1
Hairdresser from Space
Day 7 on the colony, and Mason stirs up an ethical nightmare involving a clone, a murder and some dreadlocks. Meanwhile, Archer the handyman attempts some repairs on his own head.
A sitcom set on a shiny new planet where we ask the question - if humankind were to colonize space, is it destined to succumb to self-interest, prejudice and infighting? (By the way, the answer's "yes". Sorry.)
Welcome to the colony. We're aware that having been in deep cryosleep for 73 years, you may be in need of some supplementary information.
Unfortunately, Burrows the leader of the colony has died on the voyage, so his Number 2, Brian (Nicholas Lyndhurst) is now in charge. He's a nice enough chap, but no alpha male, and his desire to sort things out with a nice friendly meeting infuriates the colony's Chief Physician Lillian (Vicki Pepperdine - "Getting On"), who'd really rather everyone was walking round in tight colour-coded tunics and saluting each other. She's also in charge of Project Adam, the plan to conceive and give birth to the first colony-born baby. Unfortunately, the two people hand-picked for this purpose - Carol and Richard - were rather fibbing about being a couple, just to get on the trip.
Add in an entirely unscrupulous Chief Scientist, Mason and also Archer, an idiot maintenance man who believes he's an "empath" rather than a plumber, and you're all set to answer the question - if humankind were to colonize space, is it destined to succumb to self-interest, prejudice and infighting? (By the way, the answer's "yes". Sorry.)
Written by Phil Whelans
Produced & directed by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 12:00 You and Yours (b01g62pk)
VAT on static caravans, the company who wants us to take a stroll and volunteers wanted to store nuclear waste...
Static holiday caravans are to be hit with VAT adding 20% to the cost; manufacturers and holiday parks say this will damage the industry and add to the cost of some UK holidays.
In Cumbria the first phase of consultations on whether the county should volunteer to store nuclear waste has drawn to a close. The government is asking for volunteers to solve problems of national importance and the best way to go about tackling problem like disposing of nuclear waste.
Two on-line legal services from the USA are preparing to launch in the UK. We already have home grown legal on-line services so why are they bothering and what will they be offering?
University Technical Colleges providing vocational training and qualifications in skills employers want are set for expansion in England. Currently there are two that have opened but its promoters plan to open 100 in the next five years. Who are they aimed at and why do we need them? The man behind their creation, Lord Kenneth Baker, will explain.
A Charity wants us to take a stroll in May. Living Streets say if we do not use our streets, communities suffer. The Great British Walking Challenge is urging the public to sign up and make a commitment to walk more often.
Research says call centre workers need more help taking care of their voices. Talking all day in noisy environments can damage voices and employers in the sector are being urged to be more proactive in providing help and advice to their employees about taking care of their voice.
WED 12:57 Weather (b01fqt8l)
The latest weather forecast.
WED 13:00 World at One (b01g9jr1)
Unemployment falls, and the PM admits he's had a 'tough month'. Plus the director of Public Prosecutions on the phone-hacking inquiry, and goodbye to Ceefax.
WED 13:45 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01drtc2)
Snacking through Shakespeare
Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, returns to Radio 4 with a new object-based history. Taking artefacts from William Shakespeare's time, he explores how Elizabethan and Jacobean playgoers made sense of the unstable and rapidly changing world in which they lived.
With old certainties shifting around them, in a time of political and religious unrest and economic expansion, Neil asks what the plays would have meant to the public when they were first performed. He uses carefully selected objects to explore the great issues of the day that preoccupied the public and helped shape the works, and he considers what they can reveal about the concerns and beliefs of Shakespearean England.
Programme 3. SNACKING THROUGH SHAKESPEARE - A luxury fork discovered on the site of the Rose theatre helps explain what people were nibbling on when they first heard: "Is this a dagger I see before me?"
Producer: Paul Kobrak.
WED 14:00 The Archers (b01g61vy)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Tuesday]
WED 14:15 Drama (b01g63vr)
Red and Blue
Behind Enemy Lines
By Philip Palmer
Troy is at war with Sparta in Bradley Shoreham's latest war game. A team of British Special Forces are about to face a challenge that will test them to the limit.
Bradley Shoreham . . . . . Tim Woodward
Tom . . . . . Ifan Meredith
Ricky . . . . . Warren Brown
Julie . . . . . Liz White
Andy . . . . . Don Gilet
Jim . . . . . Paddy Wallace
Directed by Sasha Yevtushenko.
WED 15:00 Money Box Live (b01g63vt)
Pensions
Financial phone-in with Vincent Duggleby.
WED 15:30 Inside Health (b01g61w6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (b01g63vw)
The High-life and the Row-life
What is the reality of life for a crack cocaine user in South London? Daniel Briggs new ethnography is a day to day observation of the people who use the drug, and their struggles to get the drug and also to get off it. He takes Laurie Taylor on an unsettling journey through violence and intimidation.
Also in the programme, eight men in a boat - but how to stop them from pulling in different directions? Anthony King tells Laurie about his research into how a Cambridge crew prepared for and won the Boat Race. He explains the factors which helped and hindered their attempt to establish a rowing rhythm, and discusses what this says about co-ordinating action in society at large.
Producer: Charlie Taylor.
WED 16:30 The Media Show (b01g63vy)
DPP Keir Starmer on public interest defence
Steve Hewlett questions Keir Starmer DPP on his new public interest defence guidelines. How much reassurance can journalists draw from them in their day to day work. Do they make it more or less likely that a jury would support investigative journalists even if they break the law?
How significant are this week's changes at the Johnston Press papers and the closure of Manchester's Channel M tv station? Some of the Johnston papers are going from daily to weekly and Channel M stopped work this week. Prof Tim Luckhurst is a former editor of the Johnston Press's paper The Scotsman and Ruth Spratt is former MD of Channel M and the Manchester Evening News and they discuss whether these are milestones on the way to a more secure future for local news - or not.
The Times leader on Monday called for this weekend's Formula 1 race in Bahrain to be cancelled. Ed Gorman, the paper's deputy news editor and former F1 correspondent looks at the PR drive behind the event and at calls on the media to boycott coverage.
And how does Simon Cowell come out of this week's serialisation of Tom Bower's unauthorised biography? Celebrity agent Jonathan Shalit gives his view.
The producer is Simon Tillotson.
WED 17:00 PM (b01g63w0)
Eddie Mair presents full coverage and analysis of the day's news.
WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01fqt8n)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 18:30 The Castle (b00t4q0l)
Series 3
The Snowballs of Hell
Hie ye The Castle, a rollicking sitcom set way back then, starring James Fleet ("The Vicar Of Dibley", "Four Weddings & A Funeral") and Neil Dudgeon ("Life Of Riley")
In this episode there's romance in the air for Charlotte as a vicious gang war breaks out in the Castle. Meanwhile, De Warenne discovers the fondue and declares martial law.
Cast:
Sir John Woodstock ....... James Fleet
Sir William De Warenne ....... Neil Dudgeon
Lady Anne Woodstock ........ Martha Howe-Douglas
Cardinal Duncan ........ Jonathan Kydd
Lady Charlotte ........ Ingrid Oliver
Master Henry Woodstock ........ Steven Kynman
Merlin ........ Lewis Macleod
Written by Kim Fuller & Paul Alexander
Music by Guy Jackson
Producer/Director: David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 19:00 The Archers (b01g637v)
Lynda and Lilian have a bit of a spat over their respective offspring splitting up, each blaming the other side for the problems. They agree to part before one of them says something they'll regret. Later Lilian confides in Peggy, who also speaks to Elona. Elona says she's happy in the village and making friends.
Lynda's keen to speak with Pat, to make sure they're prepared for all contingencies should the planning application for the mega dairy be granted. But Pat's not around. Peggy is amused by Tom's account of Lynda's visit. Peggy's concerned about Tony. Tom assures her that Tony's doing the occasional afternoon milking, with Pip doing two mornings. Tom is busy but managing.
Lilian's worried that the Hillside tenants left in a hurry. Brenda says she'll pop to the flat later and have a look at it.
She reports back that the soundproofing's good so noise from Jazzer upstairs wasn't the problem. But Jazzer says the tenants weren't very friendly, and they've left the flat in a bit of a state. It's a day's work, so Brenda suggests that Darrell does it. Later she mentions this to grateful Elona.
Tom tells Brenda about James and Leonie. He says it's sad, because they really deserved each other!
WED 19:15 Front Row (b01g63w2)
Stanley Booth; Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
With John Wilson.
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh reviews the film adaptation of the bestseller Salmon Fishing In The Yemen, about an unlikely scheme to introduce fly-fishing to the desert, which results in an equally unlikely love triangle.
Salmon Fishing is one of 17 films scheduled to be released in cinemas this week, an all-time high for an already overcrowded market. Box office analyst Charles Gant explains why the numbers are so great and if anybody is actually watching many of them.
Writer Stanley Booth travelled with The Rolling Stones as they toured the US in 1969, gaining unique access to the band. His account of what he saw has just been re-published, and he recalls the sometimes shocking events he witnessed, and also remembers the moment when he heard Otis Redding record (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay.
The Fontana Modern Masters series were as known for their covers as their content - colourful, geometric patterns that have acquired the status of art, with several being sold as prints in their own right. Now artist Jamie Shovlin has added his own contribution, by painting covers for books that were commissioned but, for some reason, never published.
And 100 days before the start of the Olympics, John talks to Damon Albarn ahead of a Front Row special with the musician, about his three separate contributions to the Cultural Olympiad.
Producer Ellie Bury.
WED 19:45 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01drtc2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
13:45 today]
WED 20:00 Unreliable Evidence (b01g63w4)
Television Cameras in Court
Clive Anderson and top judges and lawyers discuss controversial Government plans to relax the rules banning television cameras from our courts. While some legal experts are calling for justice to be seen to be done, others warn that the presence of cameras could 'pollute and corrupt' the process of justice.
Justice Minister Ken Clarke has announced his intention to initially allow judgments in the Court of Appeal to be broadcast, expanding this to the Crown Courts at a later stage. Despite pressure from broadcasters including the BBC, ITN and Sky, the Government has no immediate plans to allow filming of jurors, victims and witnesses.
Clive's guests include judges and lawyers with a wide range of views on the impact cameras would have on the trial process. Among them a Scottish Sheriff who has already allowed filming in his own court.
They discuss the arguments for and against allowing broadcasters unrestricted access to the courts 'from gavel to gavel'. What lessons can be learned from experience in other countries, such as in the OJ Simpson and Michael Jackson trials and the more recent Amanda Knox trial?
Would the presence of cameras dissuade people coming forward as witness, lower the esteem of the court or impede justice in any other way? Or is it time for justice to truly be seen to be done?
Producer: Brian King
An Above The Title production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 20:45 Four Thought (b01g63w6)
Series 3
Jules Evans: Socrates and Psychotherapy
Jules Evans, author of "Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations", explores what ancient Greek and Roman philosophy can tell modern society about wellbeing. He celebrates the link between modern psychotherapy and the wisdom of Socrates, the Stoics and other ancient philosophers but warns that the new politics of happiness is in danger of becoming illiberal.
Producer: Sheila Cook.
WED 21:00 Costing the Earth (b01g61vm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
15:30 on Tuesday]
WED 21:30 Midweek (b01g62p3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
WED 21:58 Weather (b01fqt8q)
The latest weather forecast.
WED 22:00 The World Tonight (b01g63w8)
Home Office in new row over Abu Qatada deportation
A special report from Ritula Shah in France ahead of the elections
A new study suggests there are ten different kinds of breast cancer.
WED 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b01g63wb)
The House on Paradise Street
Episode 3
Sofka Zinovieff's novel is set in contemporary Athens, but the story it tells takes us back to the bitter political divisions of post-war Greece. After Maud's Greek husband Nikitas dies in a mysterious car crash, she makes contact with his mother, Antigone, who has been living in exile in Moscow for nearly sixty years after abandoning Nikitas as a baby. Maud knows Nikitas has been researching the years of the Greek Civil War, and is becoming curious to know more about his family's troubled history.
Abridged by Sarah LeFanu.
Readers: Lucy Briers and Ann Beach
Producer: Sara Davies.
WED 23:00 The Music Teacher (b01drtfn)
Series 2
Episode 3
Richie Webb returns as multi-instrumentalist music teacher Nigel Penny.
Nigel is offered a reconciliation meeting with local youths after they have run riot in the Arts Centre. And asked to teach them three part harmony into the bargain.
Directed by Nick Walker
Audio production by Matt Katz
Written and produced by Richie Webb
A Top Dog Production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 23:15 The Cornwell Estate (b01fd4cp)
Series 2
Bob Crevice
Phil Cornwell brings six edgy comic characters to life in a new series of The Cornwell Estate, starring Tony Gardner (Fresh Meat), Roger Lloyd-Pack (Only Fools and Horses, Vicar of Dibley), Simon Greenall (Alan Partridge) Daisy Haggard (Psychoville) Ricky Champ (Him and Her, BBC3) Jill Halfpenny (Eastenders, Legally Blonde) and Cyril Nri.
Written by Andrew McGibbon and Phil Cornwell
Bob Crevice is an enthusiastic train driver living on the Cornwell estate. When he is suspended from duty after a medical, his career seems to be over.
Cast:
Bob Crevice ..... Phil Cornwell
James Colagh ..... Roger Lloyd Pack
Charlene Crevice ..... Kate Terence
Derek Vaulter ..... Paul Brennan
Created by Phil Cornwell and Andrew McGibbon.
Additional material by Nick Romero
Producer/Director: Andrew McGibbon
A Curtains For Radio Production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 23:30 Today in Parliament (b01g63wg)
Sean Curran reports from Westminster, where the Prime Minister defends last month's Budget.
David Cameron said the Budget would help make Britain competitive, but Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said it had been an "omnishambles".
MPs debate the details of the Finance Bill, which implements the Budget, with Ministers under pressure over the so-called "pasty tax" and the cut in the top rate of income tax.
And Britain's newest MP gets to ask the Prime Minister a question - two years after his parliamentary career was interrupted by the electorate.
THURSDAY 19 APRIL 2012
THU 00:00 Midnight News (b01fqt99)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
THU 00:30 Book of the Week (b01g62p5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Wednesday]
THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01fqt9c)
The latest shipping forecast.
THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01fqt9f)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01fqt9h)
The latest shipping forecast.
THU 05:30 News Briefing (b01fqt9k)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01gd63z)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Monsignor Tony Rogers.
THU 05:45 Farming Today (b01g9kg4)
Charlotte Smith hears British producers are warning changes in European Welfare rules will drive up the price of pork. But how much more humane are the new regulations? Sarah Swadling compares British pig standards with Per Lauresen's farm in Northern Jutland, Denmark.
Whilst some home-grown crops could be up to three weeks earlier than expected, Farming Today asks whether this produce will be appearing on UK supermarket shelves. Louise Welsh from Morrison's explains how flexible supermarket contracts can be when the weather changes what's available and when.
And Ruth Sanderson visits dairy farmer Gareth Grey in county Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, to hear how he's preparing for his first Open Farm Sunday.
Presented by Charlotte Smith. Produced by Clare Freeman in Birmingham.
THU 06:00 Today (b01g62t7)
Morning news and current affairs, presented by James Naughtie and John Humphrys, including:
07:40 Mass Observation, 75 years on.
07:50 Should the House of Lords move to Manchester?
08:10 Justice Secretary Ken Clarke on the deportation of Abu Qatada
08:20 Celebrate the creativity of Tourette's syndrome.
THU 09:00 In Our Time (b01g62w1)
Neoplatonism
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Neoplatonism, the school of thought founded in the 3rd century AD by the philosopher Plotinus. Born in Egypt, Plotinus was brought up in the Platonic tradition, studying and reinterpreting the works of the Greek thinker Plato. After he moved to Rome Plotinus became the most influential member of a group of thinkers dedicated to Platonic scholarship. The Neoplatonists - a term only coined in the nineteenth century - brought a new religious sensibility to bear on Plato's thought. They outlined a complex cosmology which linked the human with the divine, headed by a mysterious power which they called the One. Neoplatonism shaped early Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious scholarship, and remained a dominant force in European thought until the Renaissance. With:Angie HobbsAssociate Professor of Philosophy and Senior Fellow in the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of WarwickPeter AdamsonProfessor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at King's College LondonAnne SheppardProfessor of Ancient Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of LondonProducer: Thomas Morris.
THU 09:45 Book of the Week (b01g62x5)
Besieged: Life Under Fire in a Sarajevo Street
Episode 4
To mark the twentieth anniversary of the start of the siege of Sarajevo the award winning journalist Barbara Demick revisits her evocative eyewitness account of how the residents of one street in the city endured three and half years of living in a warzone. Today, a ceasefire and new causes of anguish.
Read by Laurel Lefkow
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.
THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (b01g62x7)
Darina Allen
Darina Allen will be Cooking the Perfect potato and caraway seed cakes from her recipe in her new Irish Traditional Cookery book. War widow Christina Schmid on finding love again nearly three years after her husband died defusing a Taliban bomb. Linda Kirkwood - the woman behind a women's drop in centre that helps victims of trauma - talks about the difficulties of social entrepreneurship. And Alexandra Shulman the editor of British Vogue on becoming a novelist.
Producer Jane Thurlow
Presenter Jenni Murray.
THU 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b01gd3fg)
Tomorrow the Catwalk
Episode 4
Francesca Joseph's contemporary drama set in a women's prison. Katie is facing her release from prison after spending most of her life behind bars. Will she be able to cope with life on the outside?
Terry takes Katie on her first trip to the countryside and the pair grow closer, but can he cope with her deceit over Grant?
Produced by Susan Roberts.
THU 11:00 Crossing Continents (b01g62zk)
The Pink Certificate
There's a Turkish saying that every man is born a soldier; and in Turkey every man is conscripted for military service of up to 15 months. There is no alternative to this; Turkey does not recognise the concept of conscientious objection. But one group of people are exempt - homosexuals. Their presence in the army is deemed damaging to morale and operational effectiveness. But the process by which homosexual men are asked to prove their sexual orientation is arbitrary and humiliating. Some are asked to provide pornographic photographs of themselves with their partners; others, photographs of themselves dressed as women. This is also a problem for the military psychiatrists who have to compromise their professionalism by "diagnosing" someone as homosexual, despite the fact that homosexuality is no longer regarded internationally as a medical disorder, although it once was. In "The Pink Certificate" Emre Azizlerli lifts the lid on the only country within the NATO military alliance to discriminate against homosexuals in this way. Among his interviewees are gay men who have been humiliated in various ways during the application process for exemption, as well as another man, who wanted to join the military despite his homosexuality and enjoyed a varied sex life during his period of service. Emre also meets a psychiatrist who discusses the ethical dilemma he faced while in the army and being asked to "diagnose" gay men, and a well-known conscientious objector who went to prison for his principles.
Producer: Tim Mansel.
THU 11:30 Alain-Fournier's Lost Estate (b01g632l)
A Childhood in Sologne
Julian Barnes and Hermione Lee travel to France in search of the places and people which inspired his novel of adolescent love Le Grand Meaulnes. Part 1: A Childhood in Sologne.
The village school where Fournier's father taught, the holidays he spent at his grandparents' cottage and the tumbledown house in the woods nearby fed the imagination of Henri Alban-Fournier. He drew on these locations when creating his only finished novel Le Grand Meaulnes, a simply written story of love and longing as an adventuring schoolboy discovers an almost mythical lost estate lived in by a young women, which the writer published under his pen name 'Alain-Fournier'. Auguste Meaulnes' fictional quest to retrace his steps and find the woman he dreams about echoes Fournier's own romantic obsession with a young woman he encountered briefly in Paris - whom he later traced using private detectives.
The novelist Julian Barnes and biographer Hermione Lee compare Le Grand Meaulnes to Dickens, Debussy's opera Pelleas and Melisande and F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and discuss the reputation of the novel in France today.
Producer: Robyn Read
Readings by Philip Franks from a translation by Frank Davison.
THU 12:00 You and Yours (b01g6337)
Consumer news with Winifred Robinson.
THU 12:57 Weather (b01fqt9m)
The latest weather forecast.
THU 13:00 World at One (b01g634s)
The Home Secretary is forced to explain to MPs the latest delay in efforts to deport Abu Qatada. What hopes for plans to reform the European Court of Human Rights? We speak to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe. Plus we discuss why the government has lost its reputation for competence and a GCHQ staffer's insight into the wartime battle against the Germans.
THU 13:45 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01g637c)
Life without Elizabeth
Radio 4 with a new object-based history. Taking artefacts from William Shakespeare's time, he explores how Elizabethan and Jacobean playgoers made sense of the unstable and rapidly changing world in which they lived.
With old certainties shifting around them, in a time of political and religious unrest and economic expansion, Neil asks what the plays would have meant to the public when they were first performed. He uses carefully selected objects to explore the great issues of the day that preoccupied the public and helped shape the works, and he considers what they can reveal about the concerns and beliefs of Shakespearean England.
Programme 4. LIFE WITHOUT ELIZABETH - Painted in 1571 to justify and celebrate Elizabeth I's position in the Tudor succession, by the 1590s, with no direct Tudor heir, this image had very different implications.
Producer: Paul Kobrak.
THU 14:00 The Archers (b01g637v)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Wednesday]
THU 14:15 Drama (b01gc3hb)
Katie Hims - Lilo
Childhood sweethearts meet up after nearly 20 years, wondering should they have stayed together? But a childhood act of violence somehow attracts and repels them in equal measure.
Starring Maxine Peake and Trystan Gravelle, Lilo is a play about love, loss and trying to make sense of the past.
Trystan and Simone haven't seen each other for eighteen years. They went to school together, grew up together and fell in love. It ended badly and then Trystan went off to university. To Trystan's disappointment Simone is still married, to his arch enemy no less. They even have kids. Trystan has no family but a successful career. They both claim to be happy. They both claim to have no regrets. But as the evening progresses they get down to the heart of the matter. Have they wasted the last eighteen years? Should they be together now? And how much did Simone's act of violence in the swimming pool, as a child, change the shape of both their lives? When the pub kicks them out they make their way to Trystan's hotel room. They have never slept together. Are they going to sleep together now?
We meet Trystan and Simone at 11, 18 and 36 and piece together the story of their friendship which seems to have foundered on an incident in the pool that completely alters the course of their lives.
Katie Hims writes for radio, stage and television. She has written on the BBC's long-running series Casualty as well as penning numerous radio plays, including her award winning debut, Earthquake Girl, which won the Richard Imison Award 1998, and an adaptation of the best selling novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Katie's series of three new afternoon plays for Radio 4 called Lost Property have just been broadcast. She is writing an original stage play for Clean Break Theatre Company.
Cast:
Simone ...... Maxine Peake
Trystan ..... Trystan Gravelle
Simone (11 yrs) ..... Shannon Flynn
Trystan (11 yrs) ..... Euan Brown
Sound Design by Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Melanie Harris
A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 15:00 Open Country (b01g63tv)
Herefordshire Churches
Where might you find the spot where Saint George killed the dragon and the oldest complete set of medieval bells? The answer lies in the Herefordshire countryside and in the history and legend attached to just some of the beautiful churches that can be found there. The Bishop of Hereford once said that 'The Diocese of Hereford is blessed with so many beautiful church buildings. Most of them stand at the centre of communities they have served for a thousand years or more."
Helen Mark travels around the Herefordshire countryside to meet some of the people involved with the churches that are still at the heart of of the rural communities that they serve. She finds out about their history and heritage, the legend and folklore, their past, their present and what the future holds for them.
Presenter: Helen Mark
Producer: Anne Marie Bullock.
THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (b01g4gpg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:55 on Sunday]
THU 15:30 Open Book (b01g4ksh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Sunday]
THU 16:00 The Film Programme (b01g63y4)
Francine Stock meets with Emily Blunt to talk about her new film, an adaptation of Paul Torday's best-seller, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
Director Kevin MacDonald makes the case for Bob Marley as one of the most important cultural icons of the 20th century.
Juliette Binoche talks about her new film, Elles, an exploration of modern day prostitution in Paris.
Producer: Craig Smith.
THU 16:30 Material World (b01g6444)
This week, new research number crunching millions of bits of data on breast cancer has allowed scientists to reclassify the disease into 10 different subtypes. They say this is a huge break though which will lead to new treatments and improve outcomes for women with the disease. The lead author of the Cancer Research UK study Carlos Caldas explains its impact.
The maths of politics. Stand up Mathematician Matt Parker and professor of theoretical physics Andrea Rapisarda look at the role mathematics plays in elections and the way politicians behave. Andrea argues political decisions would be improved if politicians were selected at random rather than elected, but Matt sees the mathematical flaw in electoral systems, which he likens to rolling a dice – one where the voters hardly ever get the outcome they wish for.
Its 40 years since British scientist Godfrey Hounsfield invented the CT scan. This multilayered use of x ray imagery has revolutionised the diagnosis of internal health problems and is used worldwide. We speak to Liz Beckmann, one of Godfrey Hounsfield’s former colleagues and the co author of a new book on his life and work, out this week; 'Godfrey Hounsfield: Intuitive Genius of CT'
And we continue our experiments for 'So You Want To Be A Scientist'...
THU 17:00 PM (b01g64c9)
Eddie Mair presents full coverage and analysis of the day's news.
THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01fqt9p)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 18:30 Alex Horne Presents The Horne Section (b01dsy7d)
Series 1
Isy Suttie
Comedian Alex Horne is joined by his own 5 piece jazz band for a brand new series of music and comedy. This time they make music on the subject of 'hard water'; shine a spotlight on the troubled life of the double bassist and reveal the haunting sound of the 'ocarina'. The band are joined by guest comedian Isy Suttie who persuades Alex to sing in a duet...
Producer .... Julia McKenzie.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.
THU 19:00 The Archers (b01g64jz)
Jill is going to help Lily make Elizabeth a French gateau, as a surprise for her birthday.
At the shop, Lynda reports that the Borchester Echo has quite a balanced piece on the dairy application. Lynda tells Ruth and Jill about Leonie and James, but it's all round the village anyway, thanks to Susan.
Over tea, Elizabeth tells Jill that business is down at Lower Loxley, but it could be a lot worse. And Lily's French has improved since her trip to Paris. She's enjoying winding Freddie up about eating horse (which she didn't actually do).
Leonie's making a nuisance of herself at Ambridge Hall. On Lynda's instruction, Robert talks to Leonie, who accuses him of caring more about the guests than about her. Robert asks her to observe some basic rules.
Lynda's adamant that Leonie can't just loaf about indefinitely. She tells a tearful Leonie to put her traumatic experience behind her, but Leonie feels that nobody wants her. Robert blames himself for leaving the family years ago. Then Leonie announces that she'd like her father to hire a van tomorrow so that she can collect her belongings from James's flat. She's going back to London to stay at her friend Maxine's.
THU 19:15 Front Row (b01g64k1)
David Suchet, BBC Proms 2012
With Mark Lawson.
Actor David Suchet discusses his role in a new production of Long Day's Journey Into Night and laments the passing of Poirot.
Roger Wright, controller of Radio 3, joins Mark to share a few highlights of this summer's BBC Proms concerts: Daniel Barenboim conducting his first ever Beethoven symphony cycle in London; operas including Nixon In China, Congolese musicians Staff Benda Bilili and Radio 4's Desert Island Discs celebrating its 70th birthday with a live prom; and this year's Children's Prom launches the audience into the wonderful world of Wallace and Gromit.
To celebrate the centenary of the British Board of Film Classification, The British Silent Film Festival is hosting an examination of the early days of film censorship. Bryony Dixon of the British Film Institute and Lucy Brett, education officer at the BBFC, tell Mark how and why censorship came about, what sort of person was hired as a sensor of silent films - and what sort of things they cut out.
Producer Rebecca Nicholson.
THU 19:45 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01g637c)
[Repeat of broadcast at
13:45 today]
THU 20:00 The Report (b01g64q1)
What Price Cheap Booze?
A new alcohol strategy for England unveiled by the Government will clamp down on cheap alcohol with the introduction of a minimum unit price. This unexpected u-turn, just months after the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, cast doubt on the legality of the plan, has delighted campaigners and follows the lead set in Scotland last year.
The proposals are now being trumpeted by the Home Office as a way to crack down on binge drinking and alcohol related violence, but how far will they go in reducing late night anti-social behaviour in town centres?
Andy Denwood investigates moves to reduce alcohol related crime.
Producer: Gail Champion.
THU 20:30 In Business (b01g64tv)
Dragon's Den
After 30 years of tearaway economic growth, there are fears that China may be rapidly slowing down, putting great strains on their economic system. Peter Day reports on the bursting of the great Chinese housing bubble and the pressures on private businesses and wonders if the Year of the Dragon is going be about hard times not traditional good fortune.
Producer: Julie Ball.
THU 21:00 Nature (b01g60ft)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:00 on Tuesday]
THU 21:30 In Our Time (b01g62w1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
THU 21:58 Weather (b01fqt9r)
The latest weather forecast.
THU 22:00 The World Tonight (b01g6589)
Robin Lustig presents national and international news and analysis.
THU 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b01g658w)
The House on Paradise Street
Episode 4
Sofka Zinovieff's novel is set in contemporary Athens, but the story it tells goes back to the bitter political divisions of the Greek Civil War. When Maud's Greek husband Nikitas dies in a mysterious car crash, his mother Antigone returns from Moscow, where she has been living in exile for nearly sixty years after abandoning Nikitas as a small child. Maud has become anxious to know more about her husband's troubled family history, and has decided that Antigone holds the key.
Abridged by Sarah LeFanu
Readers: Lucy Briers and Ann Beach
Producer: Sara Davies.
THU 23:00 Wireless Nights (b01g6592)
Series 1
Behind Closed Doors
Jarvis Cocker takes to the streets to peer through stained windows, cold steel bars and Japanese paper screens, to find out just what goes on Behind Closed Doors at night time.
He joins a lock-in where the time bell is never rung, and peers into the deepest recesses of a lock-in brain that belongs to Jack, reliving the night when the doors shut in his brain.
On his nocturnal sojourn Jarvis recalls old times, on the streets of post-industrial Sheffield, and shares the loneliness of the long sentenced prisoner who dreams of empty streets under a full moon.
Take a night walk with Jarvis Cocker; bring a torch. You might find yourself in a dark corner, but you've got a good guide.
Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
THU 23:30 Today in Parliament (b01g659s)
The Home Secretary insists radical cleric Abu Qatada's deportation case has "no right" to be referred to the European Court of Human Rights.
In a statement to the Commons, Theresa May tells MPs the three-month deadline for an appeal passed before the application was submitted.
Labour MPs attempt to block plans to freeze age-related tax allowances for pensioners.
And the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, answers MPs questions about his plans for constitutional reform, including moves to reshape the House of Lords.
Susan Hulme and team report on today's events in Parliament.
FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2012
FRI 00:00 Midnight News (b01fqtbb)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
FRI 00:30 Book of the Week (b01g62x5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Thursday]
FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01fqtbd)
The latest shipping forecast.
FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01fqtbg)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01fqtbj)
The latest shipping forecast.
FRI 05:30 News Briefing (b01fqtbl)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01gd641)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Monsignor Tony Rogers.
FRI 05:45 Farming Today (b01g65gj)
The first vines are being planted in a groundbreaking trial of seedless grapes at East Malling in Kent. Charlotte Smith hears from the editor of the Fresh Produce Journal who thinks that the UK should be growing more fruit, which might mean building more glasshouses or polytunnels. The RSPCA is restarting its monitoring of live exports at Ramsgate. Caz Graham learns about a project to prevent flash floods by making the land more absorbent. And welfare conditions for young pigs on Danish farms.
Presenter: Charlotte Smith
Producer: Sarah Swadling.
FRI 06:00 Today (b01g65gl)
Morning news and current affairs, presented by John Humphrys and Sarah Montague, including:
07:30 Should the UK give more money to the IMF?
07:50 Can the government control internet pornography?
08:10 Baby Jayden's parents describe their quest for justice.
08:20 How much influence do dictator's wives have?
FRI 09:00 The Reunion (b01dmdnb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 on Sunday]
FRI 09:45 Book of the Week (b01g65gn)
Besieged: Life Under Fire in a Sarajevo Street
Episode 5
To mark the twentieth anniversary of the start of the siege of Sarajevo the award winning journalist Barbara Demick revisits her evocative eyewitness account of how the residents of one street in the city endured three and half years of living in a warzone. Today, hostilities end, and twenty years on we find out how life has changed on Logavina Street.
Read by Laurel Lefkow
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.
FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (b01g65gq)
Presented by Jenni Murray.
It's been a turbulent year in French politics ever since last May when Dominic Strauss Kahn, the favourite to challenge Nicholas Sarkozy for the next Presidency, became immersed in a sex scandal which then ruled him out him from entering the race. As the French go to the polls for the first round of voting this Sunday, how much has the rumbling DSK affair reshaped the contest and influenced how French women will use their vote?
Beatrix Potter is usually associated with her characters like Peter Rabbit and Mrs Tiggy-winkle. But when she wasn't writing her stories, she was carrying out ground-breaking research into fungi and on Friday, April 20th there's a special event to mark this.
Last year, Ren Harvieu was set to release her debut album when a life threatening injury changed everything. Doctors weren't sure she'd survive but now less than a year later, she's releasing that album and we hear her sing live.
FRI 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b01gd3fj)
Tomorrow the Catwalk
Episode 5
Francesca Joseph's contemporary drama set in a women's prison. Katie is facing her release from prison after spending most of her life behind bars. Will she be able to cope with life on the outside?
Terry confronts Grant over the Burnsides' order and Katie's release date is looming.
Produced by Susan Roberts.
FRI 11:00 The Ice Mountain (b01g65gs)
This haunting soundscape follows the journey of a fictional iceberg as it travels south into the North Atlantic after calving from a glacier in Greenland. One hundred years ago RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic, and more than 1500 people died as a result of this collision. As a result, the International Ice Patrol (I.C.P.) was formed to monitors the ice conditions near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and warn mariners of the dangers that icebergs present to safe navigation. Since the formation of the I.C.P. no ship which has heeded their warnings has struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Narrated by Adjoa Andoh and with sound recordings by Chris Watson, the ICE MOUNTAIN follows the journey of an iceberg; from creation to destruction and recalls the events which led up to the sinking of RMS Titanic. Each spring, huge numbers of icebergs set off on a 'one way migration' south. How far they travel and in which direction depends on their size, shape, wind direction and strength, currents and tides. During their journey the most astonishing groans, creaks and growls can be heard as they heat up in the sun, crack and melt or roll around in the waves. Writer and broadcaster Tony Soper describes how birds including Glaucous gulls and Kittiwakes, will use them as places to roost and fish. This in turn will attract killer whales which feed on small fish like Capelin. But for mariners, icebergs are to be avoided. One of the most dangerous aspects is that most of the body of the berg is below the surface. About 1/10th is above water and the rest below. "There's nothing, almost nothing you can do to control its behaviour, to determine what it's going to do, and it is just a force of nature."
Producer Sarah Blunt.
FRI 11:30 Another Case of Milton Jones (b00r7n2p)
Series 4
Brilliant Mathematician
Milton Jones bestrides the globe as an expert in his field, with no ability whatsoever.
Milton is a mathematical whiz-kid who gets tied up in knots and rings trying to solve the equation of the mysteriously disappearing geniuses.
With Tom Goodman-Hill, Lucy Montgomery, Ben Willbond.
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 12:00 You and Yours (b01g65gv)
Sir Andrew Motion on his latest ebook and the website bringing a new twist to group buying
The coach company that left football fans stranded hundreds of miles away from the matches they were supposed to be watching.
Winifred Robinson speaks to Sir Andrew Motion about his latest ebook which matches music and sound effects to the text that you read.
The landscape gardeners who feel they are being victimised by water companies
Plus what makes a successful theme park?
And the website bringing a new twist to group buying.
Producer: Joe Kent.
FRI 12:52 The Listening Project (b01g65gx)
Gender and Identity: Michelle and Cilla
Fi Glover introduces Michelle from Humberside, chatting about being a transsexual and her life as a woman with her best friend, Cilla.
The Listening Project offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Many of the long conversations are being archived by the British Library which they will use to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer Simon Elmes.
FRI 12:57 Weather (b01fqtbn)
The latest weather forecast.
FRI 13:00 World at One (b01g9fl0)
Conservative backbenchers are threatening to revolt over government plans to reform the House of Lords. After reports of a stormy meeting at Westminster, we hear from one MP calling for change in the Government's plans.
Practice sessions are taking place for this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix, despite concerns over unrest. Opposition demonstrations are planned - here the Labour leader Ed Milband calls for the race to be cancelled. And a reminder of the renowned guitar playing skills of Bert Weedon, who's died aged 91.
FRI 13:45 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01g65gz)
Swordplay and Swagger
Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, continues his new object-based history. Taking artefacts from William Shakespeare's time, he explores how Elizabethan and Jacobean playgoers made sense of the unstable and rapidly changing world in which they lived.
With old certainties shifting around them, in a time of political and religious unrest and economic expansion, Neil asks what the plays would have meant to the public when they were first performed. He uses carefully selected objects to explore the great issues of the day that preoccupied the public and helped shape the works, and he considers what they can reveal about the concerns and beliefs of Shakespearean England.
Programme 5. SWORDPLAY AND SWAGGER - The essential accoutrements of any self-respecting gentleman illustrate the extent of violence in Elizabethan London - both onstage and off.
Producer: Paul Kobrak.
FRI 14:00 The Archers (b01g64jz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Thursday]
FRI 14:15 Drama (b01g65h1)
My One and Only
by Dawn King. A dark thriller about obsessive love and modern technology.
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b01g65h3)
Cannock Wood, Staffordshire
The panel visit a gardening group near Rugeley for some gardening trouble-shooting. In addition, Anne Swithinbank explores the power of climbers in the garden, Alan Titchmarsh explains the appeal of working as a professional gardener as part of National Gardening Week.
Questions addressed in the programme are:
Why does my compost bin become soggy and smelly?
My Cordyline has produced off-shoots at the base. What should I do?
My rhubarb crop died of at one end of the garden but not the other, why?
I need to cut back my cyclamen but don't want to damage it. Help!
Does the panel advise growing fruit trees parallel to a giant conifer hedge?Will the conifer roots threaten my trees?
Plant suggestions included: Sea Buckthorn, 'Stella' cherries or 'Morello' cherries
Would you recommend saving and sowing my sweet pea seeds?
Why are my daffodils coming up blind?
Which plant will add the 'Wow' factor to the house I'm trying to sell. Plant suggestions included: Nigella or Calendula bedding plants, Or runner beans!
Produced by Robert Abel & Amy Racs
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 15:45 Made in Bristol (b01g65h5)
Series 2
Hood
A man walks through the city late at night. He hears footsteps, sees a figure behind him. It's dark, he's alone, and there's only one way this can end. Edson Burton has written a gripping, atmospheric story that explores the power of sound to drive the imagination.
Edson Burton is a poet, playwright, performer, storyteller and historian who has written five plays for BBC radio. Last Autumn a theatrical staging of his first poetry collection, Seasoned, opened in Bristol on the same night as his new play, Raising Kamila.
Producer: Sara Davies.
FRI 16:00 Last Word (b01g65h7)
Bert Weedon, Mike Wallace, Judy Egerton, Jack Tramiel and Ahmed Ben Bella
Matthew Bannister on
The man who taught the world to play guitar - Bert Weedon
The American TV correspondent Mike Wallace who founded 60 Minutes and interviewed the famous and influential.
The art historian Judy Egerton who wrote the definitive work on George Stubbs and enjoyed a gossip with her friend Alan Bennett. He pays tribute.
The Algerian freedom fighter and then President Ahmed Ben Bella.
And the businessman Jack Tramiel, a holocaust survivor who developed the pioneering Commodore computer.
FRI 16:30 More or Less (b01g65h9)
How many species are going extinct?
First of a new series.
It's been claimed that we are experiencing the greatest wave of extinction since the disappearance of the dinosaurs. "Every hour," says the Convention on Biological Diversity, "three species disappear. Every day up to 150 species are lost." We explain why it's impossible to know whether those numbers are even remotely accurate.
A listener asks whether it's true that more British tourists die in Thailand than in any other tourist destination. We get the answer (which - for those who're short of time - is "no").
North Korea is in the news thanks to its recent failure to launch a long-range rocket - an embarrassment for its new leader, Kim Jong-un. What was supposed to be a symbol of power has become a symbol of impotence. But a claim has been doing the rounds which is as resonant as any misfiring missile: that North Koreans are much shorter than their South Korean neighbours. It turns out it's true - and for tragic reasons.
Is it really the case that, as one newspaper headline put it, "Blobby Bobbies of Scotland Lard - Three Quarters of male Met Staff are overweight"?
Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Richard Knight.
FRI 16:55 The Listening Project (b01g65hc)
Compulsion: Barbara and Becky
Fi Glover presents Radio 4's series capturing the nation in conversation. Barbara talks to her best friend Becky about her obsessive condition of hair-pulling and how it's deeply affected her life. There's a final visit to the Listening Project tonight at 11
55pm.
The Listening Project is a new initiative for Radio 4 that aims to offer a sort of snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Many of the long conversations are being archived by the British Library which they will use to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer Simon Elmes.
FRI 17:00 PM (b01g65hf)
Carolyn Quinn presents coverage and analysis of the day's news.
FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01fqtbq)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 18:30 The News Quiz (b01g65l0)
Series 77
Episode 3
A satirical review of the week's news, chaired by Sandi Toksvig. Featuring Jeremy Hardy, Rebecca Front and Andy Hamilton.
Produced by Sam Bryant.
FRI 19:00 The Archers (b01g65l2)
Alan and Usha ask about the famous Carl, but Amy's evasive and says introducing him is a big step. Usha advises Alan to ease off and stay patient.
Later, Amy and Carl enjoy a chat over lunch at Jaxx about the joys of village life. To Amy's horror, Usha walks in. Carl insists she joins them, and is polite and chatty. Usha reports back that Carl's a perfect gentleman, who seems just as smitten with Amy as she is with him. So Alan concedes that he's very happy for Amy.
Jennifer tells Brian that Alice's dissertation research will prevent her and Chris coming for lunch on Sunday. They're interrupted by a call from the consultant Bryn. The Environment Agency is asking for information which frustrated Brian asserts he's already given.
Jennifer recounts Robert's experience with Leonie and the van. According to Lilian, he ended up as referee as Leonie was laying claim to everything she and James had bought for James's flat. But Brian is distracted. He's waiting anxiously for an email regarding the outcome of the planning application. He can't understand what's taking the EA so long. If he can't go to the next board meeting with the permission in place, he'll just have to resign as chairman.
FRI 19:15 Front Row (b01g65l4)
Barbara Windsor, Cillian Murphy and Enda Walsh
With Mark Lawson.
Barbara Windsor reflects on her career, as she receives a lifetime achievement award at the Bradford International Film Festival. Long before her best-known roles in the Carry On films and as Peggy Mitchell in EastEnders, she worked with Joan Littlewood at Theatre Royal, Stratford East and was nominated for awards for her performances in Sparrers Can't Sing and Oh, What A Lovely War!
Playwright Enda Walsh and actor Cillian Murphy first collaborated on the acclaimed play Disco Pigs in 1996. Both have gone on to forge successful careers in theatre and film, and have re-united for Misterman, a one-man play at the National Theatre. They reflect on how they've both changed over time, and why it is impossible to be a celebrity in Ireland.
Timothy Mo's new novel is called Pure - which is also the title of Andrew Miller's recent prize-winning novel . And the new biography of Simon Cowell is called Sweet Revenge, a title found on a number of romantic novels. Professor John Sutherland reflects on some of the most frequently used titles in literary history.
Producer Erin Riley.
FRI 19:45 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01g65gz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
13:45 today]
FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (b01g65tg)
Coventry
The BBC's political editor, Nick Robinson, chairs a panel discussion of news and politics from Ash Green School and Arts College, Coventry, with International Development Minister, Alan Duncan; Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Caroline Flint; barrister, professor and international law expert, Philippe Sands; and editor of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson.
Producer: Victoria Wakely.
FRI 20:50 A Point of View (b01g65tj)
Challenging Intellect
Will Self says we should embrace the intellectual challenge of "difficult" books and art, and value works which are more taxing than our increasingly low-brow popular culture. "The most disturbing result of this retreat from the difficult is to be found in arts and humanities education, where the traditional set texts are now chopped up into boneless nuggets of McKnowledge, and students are encouraged to do their research - such as it is - on the web."
Producer: Sheila Cook.
FRI 21:00 Friday Drama (b00tmtnf)
Siege
Peter and Veronica Pleasance are residents of Skylarks Residential Home for the Elderly. They haven't spoken to their high-flying son - Managing Director of Trixel Technologies - for over twenty years. When one of his employees, Oludayo Akano is kidnapped in Nigeria, son Jerome Akano decides it is time for some action.
Along with his friends Damien (trying to make a name for himself as an activist) and Chalky (along for the ride), they attack the residential home in order to hold Peter and Veronica Pleasance ransom in the name of Akano.
Siege - which came from an idea by writer Francesca Joseph, was developed through a series of improvisation workshops with the cast, who provided the dialogue for the piece.
This fast-moving tragi-comic piece hurtles towards a surprising climax.
Siege by Francesca Joseph, improvised by the cast.
Peter ..... Karl Johnson
Veronica ..... Marlene Sidaway
Jack ..... David Hargreaves
Leo ..... Peter Martin
Tracy ..... Christine Brennan
Jerome ..... Nathan Stewart-Jarrett
Damien ..... Danny Dalton
Chalky ..... Stefan Gumbs
PC Singh ..... Muzz Khan
Director Susan Roberts.
FRI 21:58 Weather (b01fqtbs)
The latest weather forecast.
FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (b01g65tl)
Ritula Shah is in Bordeaux as last minute campaigning for Sunday's presidential election takes place
Demonstrations in Manama; should Bahrain host the Grand Prix?
And why the Vatican has fallen out with an order of nuns in the US
The World Tonight with Ritula Shah in France and Samira Ahmed in London.
FRI 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b01g65tn)
The House on Paradise Street
Episode 5
Sofka Zinovieff's novel is set in contemporary Athens, but its story goes back to the bitter political divisions in post-war Greece. When Maud's Greek husband, Nikitas, is killed in a car crash, his mother Antigone decides to go back to Athens after nearly sixty years of exile in Moscow. As she and Maud begin to warm to each other, she opens up to Maud about the events of the Nazi occupation that lay at the heart of the family's troubled history.
Readers: Lucy Briers and Ann Beach
Producer: Sara Davies.
FRI 23:00 Great Lives (b01g9c4w)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 on Tuesday]
FRI 23:30 Today in Parliament (b01ghgyw)
Mark D'Arcy reports on events at Westminster.
FRI 23:55 The Listening Project (b01g65tq)
Growing old: Joan and Jim
Fi Glover presents Radio 4's series capturing the nation in conversation. Tonight Joan and Jim from Northern Ireland discuss growing old together, and the end of life. And you can hear an omnibus edition of all today's conversations, plus an extra encounter, on Sunday at
2.45pm.
The Listening Project is a new initiative for Radio 4 that aims to offer a sort of snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Many of the long conversations are being archived by the British Library which they will use to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer Simon Elmes.