The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rt Revd David Walker, Bishop of Manchester.
Farmers affected by the recent floods will be able to apply for grants of up to £35,000. This is phase two of the government's £10-million Farming Recovery Fund. However there has been criticism over the amount of red tape to negotiate the application process in phase one. Farming Today speaks to the Minister for Flooding, Dan Rogerson, to find out what changes will be made to make it easier for farmers in this next phase.
New research shows that feeding dairy cows an oilseed supplement could reduce the amount of saturated fat in their milk by more than a quarter. Over the past three years scientists from the University of Reading have carried out some of their research for this project on a number of dairy farms in the South West. Professor Ian Givens tells Farming Today what difference this could make for the future.
And Farming Today continues to explore protected food name status - who's got it, who hasn't and what it means for food producers. Sausage producers in Lincolnshire have been working for around six years to try and gain protected geographical status for the Lincolnshire sausage, but their bid has been rejected in the past.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Kate Humble presents the green woodpecker. The maniacal laughing call, or 'yaffle', of a green woodpecker was supposed to herald rain, hence its old country name of 'rain bird'. You can hear their yodelling calls in woods, parks, heaths and large gardens throughout most of the UK. Altough green woodpeckers do nest in trees they spend a lot of their time on the ground, probing lawns and meadows for their main food, ants and their pupae.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Libby Purves meets former athlete Sir Roger Bannister; professor of cybernetics Kevin Warwick; actor Rachael Stirling and writer Diana Darke.
Kevin Warwick is a professor of cybernetics and deputy vice-chancellor for research at the University of Coventry. Since 1998 he has been implanting computer chips into his body, some directly communicating with his nervous system. He was dubbed the world's first cyborg when he had a silicon chip implanted in his arm and is currently attempting to get ethical approval to have a chip implanted into his brain.
Sir Roger Bannister CBE is a former Olympic athlete who is best-known for being the first person to run the mile in under four minutes in 1954. In his new autobiography, Twin Tracks, Sir Roger tells the full story of the dedication and talent that led to his unprecedented achievement and of his professional life as a distinguished doctor and neurologist. Twin Tracks is published by Biteback.
Diana Darke is a writer and translator who has specialised in the Middle East for over 30 years. In 2005 she bought and restored a house in the heart of Damascus. In September 2012, as fighting intensified and millions were forced to flee their homes, she offered her house as a sanctuary to Syrian friends. Up to 40 people continue to find refuge there today. My House in Damascus: An Inside View of the Syrian Revolution is published by Haus Publishing.
Actor Rachael Stirling is currently starring in Mike Bartlett's new play, An Intervention, about two friends who make very different decisions in life. Her acting credits range from The Bletchley Circle and Tipping the Velvet on television to theatre productions The Recruiting Officer and An Ideal Husband. Intervention is at the Watford Palace Theatre.
An essential tool kit for understanding the modern world, by the Director of London's Design Museum, Deyan Sudjic.
Not a dictionary, though it attempts to tell you all you need know about everything from Authenticity to Zips. It's not an autobiography either, though it does offer a revealing and highly personal inside view of contemporary culture.
It's about what makes a Warhol a genuine fake, the creation of national identities, the mania to collect. It's also about the world seen from the rear view mirror of Grand Theft Auto V, and digital ornament and why we value imperfection. It's about drinking a bruisingly dry martini in Adolf Loos' American bar in Vienna, and about Hitchcock's film sets. It's about fashion and technology, about politics and art.
Born in London, Deyan Sudjic studied architecture in Edinburgh, edited Domus in Milan, was the director of the Venice architecture biennale, and a curator in Glasgow, Istanbul and Copenhagen. He's the author of The Language of Things and The Edifice Complex.
G is for Grand Theft Auto and how its creator might be the modern Charles Dickens. H is for Habitat: how Conran changed British homes and IKEA made everyone's house look the same. Deyan Sudjic considers both.
G is for Grand Theft Auto, a new artform, and how Conran and Ikea have transformed domesticity. Deyan Sudjic considers both.
Samantha Asumadu on why she wants to change what she calls the "ubiquity of whiteness" she sees in the medias and promote more women of different ethnic backgrounds - with different skin colours, body types, views, experiences, and opinions. She's joined by writer Sunny Singh to discuss.
We talk about how bullying can affect academic success with Liam Hackett from charity, Ditch the Label and Lesley Rose. Our archive interview this week is Stella Rimington, the first female DG of MI5. Professor Christopher Andrew, the Official Historian to MI5 tells us about the role of women in spying.
Dr Sos Eltis, Fellow of English at Oxford University and expert in Victorian literature on Arthur Wing Pinero's play The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith. And the curator at Leeds Castle, Tori Reeve, tells us about her job.
Clary embarks upon a dangerous liaison and Edward's financial situation worsens.
Narrator ..... Penelope Wilton
Last year Radio 4 dramatised the four novels that made up The Cazalet Chronicles. The novels gave a vivid insight into lives, hopes and loves of three generations during the Second World War and beyond.
Later that year, age 90, Elizabeth Jane Howard wrote, a fifth and final novel in the saga, All Change. Sadly Elizabeth Jane died in January but was delighted that the BBC were to dramatise her final novel.
The Cazalets tells the story of an upper-middle class family of the type prominent in England prior to WW2. It is now 1956 and the family must learn how to live in a very different type of world.
The three brothers, Hugh, Edward and Rupert, run the family timber firm that their father started.
Their sister, Rachel, has spent her life looking after their parents in Sussex, but now their mother has died she may finally have time to spend with her best friend and lover, Sid, (Margot Sidney).
Hugh is now Chairman of the firm. After a long time on his own following the death of his wife, Sibyl, he has remarried, his secretary, Jemima, who is a war widow. They have a daughter of their own, Laura.
Polly, Hugh's daughter by Sibyl, has married into the aristocracy and become Lady Fakenham, but she and her husband spend all their time attempting to find ways to pay for the crumbling family Estate.
Edward has left his wife, Villy, for his mistress, Diana. But since marrying, Diana, he finds it hard to recapture the joy of their affair.
Louise, his daughter by Villy, is now divorced from Michael Hadleigh and is sharing a flat with her old school friend, Stella. Her relationship with Villy is still fraught, but she and her father are now on good terms.
Rupert lives with his second wife, Zoe and their children. He hates working for the family firm and is envious of his old friend, Archie, who married his daughter, Clary, and still manages to make a living from painting. Clary is a writer, but is finding it increasingly hard to write and bring up a family.
Martin Amis said of Elizabeth Jane Howard, "She is, with Iris Murdoch, the most interesting woman writer of her generation. An instinctivist, like Muriel Spark, she has a freakish and poetic eye, and a penetrating sanity.".
Go to any changing room across the country on a Saturday afternoon and you'll see them - the mother/daughter couples. 'What about this one?' 'No it's horrible!' Tetchy, or outright furious, they fight over the clothing racks. And yet, shopping is the number one fantasy of mother/daughter togetherness, a girly dream which can never be realised. So strong is the dream that some pregnant women even say it's why they want their baby to be a girl - 'It will be lovely to have someone to go shopping with'!
This programme gathers reports from tills and changing rooms across the country, to explore the relationship between the generations, between dreams and reality. It follows the mothers and daughters across a whole lifetime: from young girls fighting to wear clothes which are far too adult, through young women choosing their wedding dresses, to older women taking their elderly mothers shopping.
It explores the depth of the mother/daughter relationship, and the way they influence each other, constructing a personality for each other - 'Even now that she's died, I hear her voice in my head, saying 'I always said you look good in red, give us a twirl - oh you look lovely!'
This programme is a collaboration with Woman's Hour; we asked listeners to invite us to go with them on significant shopping trips across the country.
Produced by Kim Normanton and Elizabeth Burke.
Vera is consumed with jealousy, because Ginny has won a literary prize and is going to be photographed for the front cover of Vanity Fair by acclaimed Society photographer Manta Ray. To make matters worse, Venus is getting a teeny crush on Ginny. So, when Ginny asks for style advice in advance of her photographic session, Vera's suggestions have an edge of mockery.
Vera, wracked with torment, breaks the habit of a lifetime and unburdens herself to Mrs Gosling. But of course Mrs Gosling's life has been an endless struggle to suppress her jealousy of her employers' wealth and privilege. Even a chance encounter with Sigmund Void on Hampstead Heath fails to shake Vera from her melancholic mood. In the end it falls to Henry and Lionel to try to boost Vera's confidence.
The Energy Secretary, Ed Davey, talks about the potential of collective switching.
More listeners have contacted You & Yours about problems with their student grant or loan being withdrawn part way through a degree course.
Readers of Good Housekeeping have taken part in a consumer test of sex toys for women.
The Property Ombudsman explains an increase in complaints, and why letting agents in England will have to sign up to a redress service.
Listener David Betts is trying to get a refund from his energy company because his account is in credit by hundreds of pounds.
And many people have accidentally used websites that charge a fee for filling out official forms such as passport and driving licence applications. Google is trying out a solution.
John Waite investigates why dozens of farmers from across the UK say they face ruin after borrowing money from a Somerset based finance company. The high-interest loans came with the promise that cheaper finance would follow. But when that promise failed to materialise, farmers were left with a spiralling debt that could never be repaid. Many have seen their land repossessed and sold off at auction. Some have been left homeless. Face the Facts reveals that the man behind the company has a history of failed businesses, running up large debts and personal bankruptcy. In 2010 he managed to form a partnership with a £20 million investment scheme backed by some of Britain's biggest pension funds.
National and international news. Listeners can share their views via email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.
The myth of the North has been honed by writers, painters, comedians and filmmakers - too many to mention. Martin Wainwright takes a few examples - from the paintings of L.S. Lowry to BBC 1's Last Tango in Halifax - to illustrate how the North has been represented in British culture over the twentieth century.
Are today's writers and artists helping to dispel or entrench the myth? Speaking to television writer Sally Wainwright and poet Helen Mort, Martin asks what a Northern identity might mean in the 21st century.
Other contributors include music journalist Paul Morley, film critic Matthew Sweet and historian Charlotte Wildman.
Dr Jay Stark is working on a vaccine for a virus that is raging through Britain. But only key workers can receive the vaccine, so the whole operation has to remain top secret. Jay is one of the lucky ones. But what happens if a loved one falls ill? A dystopian thriller about repairing a lost love.
Andy Walker has written two Afternoon Dramas THE MAN WHO JUMPED FROM SPACE ('An extraordinary story', The Independent. 'Exemplar. filmic.', The Stage) and A SECOND TO MIDNIGHT (2x60'). Currently Andy is developing 'MAIDS with writer/director Nirpol Bhogal (Misfits) for television.
The loss of a loved one brings many difficult emotions and practical tasks. If you're an executor of the will you'll be responsible for administering the estate, collecting in all the money, paying any debts and distributing what is left to the beneficiaries.
If you need help with Probate, we'll have a team of specialists in the studio ready with advice.
Julia Abrey, Partner & Head of Elder Law, Withers.
Austin Lafferty, Austin Lafferty Solicitors & Past President of the Law Society of Scotland.
on Wednesday or e-mail moneybox@bbc.co.uk now. Standard geographic charges apply.
Gardens of the British Working Class - the historian, Margaret Willes, considers the remarkable feats of cultivation by the working class in Britain, even if the land they planted and loved was not their own: From lush gardens nurtured outside crumbling workers' cottages to 'green' miracles achieved in blackened yards. In doing so, she reveals the ingenious ways in which determined workers transformed drab surroundings. She's joined by Lisa Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University, who has explored the ways in which struggles over classed and gendered tastes are played out in our gardens.
Also, 'Why England Fails At Football' - a sociological account of our international 'shame' from Anthony King, Professor of Sociology at the University of Exeter
The Oscar Pistorius trial has grabbed TV audiences around the world. Three remote controlled cameras in the court room have provided compellingly dramatic fodder for rolling news channels right around the world. The footage is broadcast by a TV channel set up specifically for the trial - which persuaded the courts to allow cameras in for the first time. George Mazarakis, the head of the Channel, talks to Laura Kuenssberg about why he campaigned for access and the BBC's Legal Correspondent Clive Coleman explains why similar coverage couldn't be shown here.
Until recently, the Sunday tabloids had been relatively unscathed by consumers' changing habits and preferences. However, the latest newspaper latest circulation figures show they're finally being hit. Last month the average weekend red top circulation fell nearly twelve percent - sliding now, far faster than the circulation of their broadsheet rivals. Douglas McCabe from Enders Analysis explains why.
The BBC Trust has announced for the first time a full review of how programmes are commissioned. Some within the commercial sector are calling for programme output to be shared equally between in-house and independents, while others are calling for BBC in house programme guarantees, which currently stands at 50 per cent for TV and 80 per cent for radio, to be abolished altogether. Those against the move argue that if this was to happen then the smaller independents would lose out. So should the BBC alter or axe in house production guarantees and full open up the system open it up to competition? John McVay, Chief Executive of PACT and Pat Younge, the BBC's former Chief Creative Officer discuss.
Susan Calman explores issues on which she has strong opinions. This week, she explains why she is an evangelist for embracing the broadest possible spectrum of cultural pursuits, and why intellectual snobbery is the one thing that makes her angry enough to HULK SMASH in public.
It's a lovely day and David and Ruth take the family to the Borchester Country Show. There are stalls and events and Jill takes the boys to the pig roast. David confesses this was actually Jill's idea. He wants to be sure that Ruth's happy having Jill around. Ruth just wishes they'd thought of it sooner. They enjoy the quality family time and agree it's best to make the most of their boys while they can.
Kirsty's delighted when Alice introduces her to the Shire horse Cranford Crystal, as well as the Borchester haywain that 'Cranny' will pull to carry Kirsty and her bridesmaids to the church.
Alice asks Tom about his plans for the afternoon. He mustn't come near the house. Kirsty thinks she hears a skylark. Joe Grundy said that 'when the lark flies high, fair weather is nigh'. Tom jokes that he has a great weather app on his phone.
Adding the finishing touches to Kirsty's dress, Helen and Alice agree Tom will be totally blown away.
As the sun sets, Tom and Kirsty hear a skylark singing high in the sky. Kirsty's happy at the good weather omen.
Kirsty Lang discusses a new film adaptation of John Banville's Man Booker prize winning novel The Sea. With Rachel Cooke.
House of Cards writer Keith Huff talks about his play A Steady Rain. A hit on Broadway in 2009 starring Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman, it receives its UK premiere at the Theatre Royal Bath.
Is it ok to steal a Banksy? Lawyer Karen Sanig, from Mischon de Reya, offers legal advice.
Poet Patience Agbabi on her new collection Telling Tales, an updating of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, with the pilgrims travelling on a Routemaster bus.
And TV critic Boyd Hilton reviews Trying Again, the new sitcom from Thick of It duo Chris Addison and Simon Blackwell, about a couple stuggling after an affair.
In a new series of thought-provoking debates, Claire Bolderson looks at something another country does well, or differently, and asks whether it could work here.
Re-offending, or recidivism rates, are difficult to compare from country to country because of different methodologies and metrics. However, it's clear that rates in the UK are amongst the highest in Western Europe, and worryingly high amongst criminals who have been released from prison. As prisons reach full capacity, the cycle of crime, punishment and re-offending needs to be broken. Norway might provide a solution, since it boasts a re-offending rate of 20%, the lowest in Western Europe.
Prisons appear to play a different role in Norway - less about punishment and more a place of rehabilitation. One in particular - Bastoy, an open prison on an island south of Oslo, where only 16% of released prisoners re-offend - has received widespread international attention. How far is its success attributable to the environment or a more humane philosophy? Guards are trained in criminology and psychology, and inmates enjoy a lifestyle described by critics as being like a "holiday camp" (despite the fact it is cheaper to run than most Norwegian prisons).
Has the interim Ukrainian government operation to assert control against pro-Russian protesters in the east of the country ground to a halt? A special report from Moldova's Russian-speaking breakaway region of Transnistria on whether they want to join Moscow. And can China manage to reform its economy and avoid a crash? With Ritula Shah.
We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or to keep alive those who only live now in the telling.
19-year-old Ruth Swain is lying in her childhood home in the small Irish village of Faha in the attic room at the top of the stairs in the bed which her father had to construct in situ and which turned out to be as much boat as bed. She has Something Wrong with her, having collapsed during her fresher year at Trinity in Dublin, and finds herself bedbound in the attic room beneath the rain, in the margins between this world and the next.
Ruth is in search of her father. To understand the father she has lost. To find him Ruth journeys through the ancestry of the curious Swain family - from the Reverend Swain her great-grandfather, to her grandfather Abraham to her father Virgil – and in doing so discovers an enchanting story of pole-vaulting, soldiering, stubbornness, leaping salmon, poetry, the pursuit of the Impossible Standard, and the wild rain-sodden history of fourteen acres of the worst farming land in Ireland. Above all, Ruth embarks on a journey through books. Three thousand, nine hundred and fifty-eight books to be precise, which are piled high and line the walls of her attic room. As Ruth searches for her father in their pages, her story becomes a vital, witty and poignant celebration of imagination, books, love and the healing power of storytelling.
Niall Williams is also the author of bestselling novels including As It is In Heaven, The Fall of the Light, Only Say the Word and Four Letters of Love.
The only factually accurate comedy about the history of space exploration looks at the forgotten and unacknowedged greats of astronomy, the men and (mainly) women who advanced our undestanding of the stars but never quite received the fame they deserved. People such as 18th Century disabled genius Caroline Herschel who polished lenses with dung and discovered new stars; and human computer Henrietta Swann Leavitt who taught Hubble a method for working out the distances between the stars and narrowly missed out on a Nobel prize when it turned out she had died some years earlier.
Starring Helen Keen, Peter Serafinowicz and Susy Kane.
Everyone craves a place where their mind and body are not applied to a particular task. The nearest faraway place. Somewhere for drifting and lighting upon strange thoughts which don't have to be shooed into context, but which can be followed like balloons escaping onto the air. Late at night, in the dark and in a bunk bed, your tired mind can wander.
This is the nearest faraway place for Patrick Marber and Peter Curran. Here they endeavour to get the heart of things in an entertainingly vague and indirect way. This is not the place for typical male banter.
From under the bed clothes they play each other music from The Residents and Gerry Rafferty, archive of JG Ballard and Virginia Woolf. Life, death, work and family are their slightly warped conversational currency.
PETER CURRAN is a publisher, writer and documentary maker. A former carpenter, his work ranges from directing films about culture in Africa, America and Brazil to writing and presenting numerous Arts and culture programmes for both radio and television.
PATRICK MARBER co-wrote and performed in On The Hour and Knowing Me, Knowing You..with Alan Partridge. His plays include Dealer's Choice, After Miss Julie, Closer and Don Juan in Soho. Marber also wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for the film Notes on a Scandal.
Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, interior designer, fine artist and broadcaster, chooses some of his best-loved pieces of writing to present to the audience at the BBC Radio Theatre, with the help of actors Geoffrey Whitehead and Sian Thomas.
Readings are from The Lady of Shalott by Tennyson, The Golden Ass by Apuleius, The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, Hints on Household Taste by Charles L Eastlake and My Week with Marilyn by Colin Clark.
THURSDAY 17 APRIL 2014
THU 00:00 Midnight News (b040h2ml)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
THU 00:30 Book of the Week (b040r18n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Wednesday]
THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b040h2mn)
The latest shipping forecast.
THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b040h2mq)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b040h2ms)
The latest shipping forecast.
THU 05:30 News Briefing (b040h2mv)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b040ljsc)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rt Revd David Walker, Bishop of Manchester.
THU 05:45 Farming Today (b040ljsf)
GM trials, Deer farming, Protected regional foods
Field trials of a GM crop which produces Omega 3s identical to fish oils will go ahead in Hertfordshire. Scientists at Rothamsted Research have inserted genes from algae into the Camelina plant. They hope it will provide a more sustainable alternative to fishmeal, for feeding farmed fish. GM Freeze argues the modified Camelina crop is not needed.
Also in the programme: the Scottish Government's push to increase the number of deer farms, to meet the growing demand for venison.
Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Sarah Swadling.
THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03zrc9l)
Hoopoe
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Kate Humble presents the hoopoe. The hoopoe, a salmon-coloured bird with a long curved bill and a black-tipped crest, which it can spread like a fan when excited, is so outrageously exotic that its call reminds us of the Mediterranean. Several hoopoes arrive in the UK each spring and autumn. These are usually birds which have overshot their migration routes and almost certainly won't find a mate here, though they do breed very occasionally.
THU 06:00 Today (b040llv8)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
THU 09:00 In Our Time (b040llvb)
The Domesday Book
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Domesday Book, a vast survey of the land and property of much of England and Wales completed in 1086. Twenty years after the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror sent officials to most of his new territories to compile a list of land holdings and to gather information about settlements, the people who lived there and even their farm animals. Almost without parallel in European history, the resulting document was of immense importance for many centuries, and remains a central source for medieval historians.
With:
Stephen Baxter
Reader in Medieval History at Kings College London
Elisabeth van Houts
Honorary Professor of Medieval European History at the University of Cambridge
David Bates
Professorial Fellow in Medieval History at the University of East Anglia
Producer: Thomas Morris.
THU 09:45 Book of the Week (b040qxf4)
B is for Bauhaus: An A-Z of the Modern World
Episode 4
An essential tool kit for understanding the modern world, by the Director of London's Design Museum, Deyan Sudjic.
Not a dictionary, though it attempts to tell you all you need know about everything from Authenticity to Zips. It's not an autobiography either, though it does offer a revealing and highly personal inside view of contemporary culture.
It's about what makes a Warhol a genuine fake, the creation of national identities, the mania to collect. It's also about the world seen from the rear view mirror of Grand Theft Auto V, and digital ornament and why we value imperfection. It's about drinking a bruisingly dry martini in Adolf Loo's American bar in Vienna, and about Hitchcock's film sets. It's about fashion and technology, about politics and art.
Born in London, Deyan Sudjic studied architecture in Edinburgh, edited Domus in Milan, was the director of the Venice architecture biennale, and a curator in Glasgow, Istanbul and Copenhagen. He's the author of The Language of Things and The Edifice Complex.
Episode 4:
K is for Kitchens and how they were once at the frontline of class warfare. N is for National Identity and the way it is somehow provisional and yet also utterly compelling. Deyan Sudjic considers both.
K is for kitchens and class warfare and N is for national identity and its complexities. Deyan Sudjic considers both.
Read by Deyan Sudjic
Abridged by Polly Coles
Produced by Clive Brill
A Pacificus Production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (b040llvd)
Single women seeking IVF; Marrying the same man again; Feminism and the tweenager
Single women no longer wait for Mr Right to start a family. The number of single women having IVF and Donor Insemination has doubled in the last five years in the UK. According to recent figures released by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. We look at why more women are choosing to start a family without a partner and the implications for them and their children.
Hilary Mantel, Liz Taylor and Dionne Warwick all married the same person twice. What makes somebody say I do, again, to the same person for a second time?
An estimated 100 girls, aged 16-18, have been abducted from a boarding school in Chibok, Borno in north-eastern Nigeria. The kidnappers are believed to be from the Islamist group, Boko Haram. In an increasingly bloody uprising in this area, is this group targeting more and more women as a way of gaining further control in the region?
A study of the 1901 census reveals that many Victorian women not only held down regular jobs, but were often the family breadwinner. We look at the stereotype of the Victorian woman and how the commonly held assumption that most women gave up work at marriage and devoted their lives to raising her family and keep house - isn't entirely accurate.
Plus why at 19 years old, 'Girl Talk' magazine is, in the words of its editor, 'going feminist'. But what does this mean for young readers? And has feminism become mainstream for the 'tweenager'?
Presented by Jenni Murray
Studio Producer Nicola Swords.
THU 10:45 The Cazalets (b040llvg)
All Change
Episode 9
by Elizabeth Jane Howard
Dramatised by Lin Coghlan
The family timber firm faces ruin.
Narrator ..... Penelope Wilton
Directed by Sally Avens
Last year Radio 4 dramatised the four novels that made up The Cazalet Chronicles. The novels gave a vivid insight into lives, hopes and loves of three generations during the Second World War and beyond.
Later that year, age 90, Elizabeth Jane Howard wrote, a fifth and final novel in the saga, All Change. Sadly Elizabeth Jane died in January but was delighted that the BBC were to dramatise her final novel.
The Cazalets tells the story of an upper-middle class family of the type prominent in England prior to WW2. It is now 1956 and the family must learn how to live in a very different type of world.
The three brothers, Hugh, Edward and Rupert, run the family timber firm that their father started.
Their sister, Rachel, has spent her life looking after their parents in Sussex, but now their mother has died she may finally have time to spend with her best friend and lover, Sid, (Margot Sidney).
Hugh is now Chairman of the firm. After a long time on his own following the death of his wife, Sibyl, he has remarried, his secretary, Jemima, who is a war widow. They have a daughter of their own, Laura.
Polly, Hugh's daughter by Sibyl, has married into the aristocracy and become Lady Fakenham, but she and her husband spend all their time attempting to find ways to pay for the crumbling family Estate.
Edward has left his wife, Villy, for his mistress, Diana. But since marrying, Diana, he finds it hard to recapture the joy of their affair.
Louise, his daughter by Villy, is now divorced from Michael Hadleigh and is sharing a flat with her old schoofriend, Stella. Her relationship with Villy is still fraught, but she and her father are now on good terms.
Rupert lives with his second wife, Zoe and their children. He hates working for the family firm and is envious of his old friend, Archie, who married his daughter, Clary, and still manages to make a living from painting. Clary is a writer, but is finding it increasingly hard to write and bring up a family.
The first four Cazalet Novels have sold over a million copies.
Martin Amis said of Elizabeth Jane Howard, "She is, with Iris Murdoch, the most interesting woman writer of her generation. An instinctivist, like Muriel Spark, she has a freakish and poetic eye, and a penetrating sanity.".
THU 11:00 Crossing Continents (b040llvj)
India: Press for Sale
India's election campaign is under way with more than 800 million voters going to the polls. But questions are being asked about the news media which will inform their choices. For several years, Indian newspapers have been dogged by the scandal of "paid news" in which apparently genuine news articles turn out to be paid-for content, aimed at manipulating public opinion. In this edition of Crossing Continents, the BBC's Shilpa Kannan - herself an Indian citizen - investigates the phenomenon, it's origins, growth and implications. As she discovers, the Indian newspaper industry in particular may be uniquely susceptible to this kind of problem. However, tackling it is likely to be difficult. Some argue that it is now impossible to believe anything is printed in good faith. As one veteran journalist despairs: "When there's so much money to be made by doing fake journalism, why do real journalism?".
THU 11:30 Tacita Dean: Save This Language (b040llzm)
Leading British artist, Tacita Dean takes listeners with her on a mission to save a language. Not the kind that is spoken in a remote community, but an artistic one - photochemical film. She travels to UNESCO in Paris, to the Department of Intangible Cultural Heritage, to persuade the world's heritage keepers to act fast or lose what she considers the most important form of artistic expression of the 20th century.
As photochemical film heads for extinction, superceded by digital technologies, Tacita makes a compelling case for why we should do all we can to keep it alive.
"What I love most about film is the spontaneity and the blindness. When I made FILM for Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, everything was filmed inside the camera - different shapes, objects and architecture were effectively stencilled with light onto the emulsion, which was put through the camera multiple times. I couldn't see what I was doing so when I saw the results it was full of both miracle and disappointment. Some things far exceeded what I could have done deliberately, and that is the point - digital is too deliberate a medium for me, too intended. It's like working with the lights on the whole time and I am someone who craves the darkness too, and by that I mean I solicit the chance and the accident.
"This is one of many unintended losses that has happened with the transition from film to digital, but it is what I love the most in film and cinema - the in-between things, the things we don't imagine that just happen."
With film makers and artists including Ken Loach, John Smith, Ben Rivers, Iain Softley, Robbie Ryan and Guillermo Navarro.
Producer: Kate Bland
A Cast Iron production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 12:00 You and Yours (b040llzp)
Ghost gazumping, Pre-pay energy meters, Super-rats
We'll hear how ghost-gazumping, where vendors come back and ask for more money for their property because demand in the housing market is inflating prices, is hitting first-time buyers.
Also, why do people on pre-paid energy meters seem to pay more for the service?
And why are some rats not susceptible to poison?
THU 12:57 Weather (b040h2mx)
The latest weather forecast.
THU 13:00 World at One (b040h2mz)
Bloodshed in Mariupol as a Ukrainian guardpost comes under attack from Russian separatists.
In Moscow Vladimir Putin defends his policy towards Ukraine in a marathon media appearance. Bridget Kendall gives Shaun Ley her reading of the President's message to foreign ministers from all sides of the conflict meeting in Geneva.
The Food Standards Agency reveals that 40% of dinners in restaurants and street outlets described as lamb are adulterated.
We ask why it's taken so long since the horsemeat scandal to get to grips with food fraud.
We assess the influence on Labour of social policy philosopher and 'compassion' critic, Richard Sennett.
And Security Correspondent , Frank Gardner talks to the latest migrants to 'Londonistan', the exiled Muslim Brotherhood.
THU 13:45 Martin Wainwright's Myth of the North (b03ymhnh)
Episode 4
The North has always been an outward-looking and open-minded place, as Martin Wainwright will show. And today, immigrant communities are playing an important part in regenerating cities.
Martin travels to Sheffield, recently associated with tensions between immigrant communities, but - in fact - a very long established haven for newcomers. Martin will find out why the first 'City of Sanctuary' still lives up to its name.
And how have newcomers helped to shape the image of the North? Originally from Ukraine, the novelist Marina Lewycka has now been a Sheffielder for much of her life. Many of her novels have Northern characters and settings. She speaks to us about her identity as a Northerner and how it influences her writing.
And in Manchester, Martin meets Peter Kalu, artistic director of the writers' development organisation Commonword. Together they discuss how Northern writers from ethnic minority backgrounds have represented the North in literature.
Producer: Isabel Sutton
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 14:00 The Archers (b040j3y0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Wednesday]
THU 14:15 The Interrogation (b040lncv)
Series 3
Colin
by Roy Williams, with Kenneth Cranham and Alex Lanipekun. The story of Colin.
Colin's wife and daughter have been brutally attacked in their home, but no-one seems to have broken in. When the truth finally comes out, even Max is taken aback.
Directed by Mary Peate
Original music by David Pickvance.
THU 15:00 Open Country (b040lnd2)
Heritage Cotton Mills, Derbyshire
Helen Mark visits the Derwent Valley, an area dotted with old, looming cotton mill structures to discover what the future holds for these 'industrial giants' of the landscape.
At the turn of the 19th Century, Britain was world leader in cotton manufacturing and home to the largest industrial complexes on the planet. The last spinning machines closed in 2003 and the UK now produces zero amount of cotton, but the awesome brick structures still tower over the Derbyshire Countryside. Stretching 15 miles down the river valley from Matlock Bath to Derby, the Derwent Valley World Heritage Site contains a fascinating series of historic mill complexes, including some of the world's first 'modern' factories. But how can these structures remain relevant rather than redundant? Visiting Cromford Mills, The Belper River Gardens and the beautiful natural landscape that surrounds these giant structures, Helen meets the people whose passion keeps this history alive.
THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (b040h47x)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:55 on Sunday]
THU 15:30 Open Book (b040h5nz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Sunday]
THU 16:00 The Film Programme (b040lnlc)
James Dean remembered; Whales in cinema; Steven Knight on Locke
With Antonia Quirke.
Film and theatre director Sir Richard Eyre reveals how he fell in love with James Dean at first sight.
Steven Knight discusses his new thriller, Locke, which is set entirely in a car driving down the M6.
Philip Hoare, author of the award-winning Leviathan, reflects upon the representation of the whale in cinema, from Free Willy to Moby Dick,via Orca The Killer Whale
Sound editor Richard Hymns talks about the challenges of making a film without any dialogue in All Is Lost, starring Robert Redford as a yachtsman who is marooned at sea.
Presenter: Antonia Quirke
Producer: Stephen Hughes.
THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (b040lnlf)
Sperm and egg; Dogs; Automatic Facebook; Invasive species
How sperm recognises the egg
The discovery of a protein on mammalian sperm almost a decade ago, sparked the search for the corresponding receptor on the egg. Now researchers in the UK have found this receptor in mouse egg cells. They propose to call it Juno, after the Roman Goddess of fertility and marriage. The finding indicates that these two proteins need to interact for normal fertilisation to occur. And in humans, it could lead to early screening of couple to decide which appropriate fertility treatment they require.
Dogs as clinical models
Dogs play an important companion role in society, but man's best friend can suffer from hundreds of different diseases. Surprisingly, many of these are very similar to human diseases, including cancer and autoimmune conditions. Research into a range of naturally occurring canine conditions has the potential to lead to some ground-breaking medical advances and improve human health.
Automatic Facebook
Keeping up with your online social network of 'friends' on Facebook can sometimes be time consuming and arduous. Now artificial intelligence expert, Boris Galitsky, has invented a robot to do the bulk of his social interactions online. But how realistic is it? And does it fool his cyber pals?
Artistic brains feedback
Last week we ran an item showing that researchers have found that artists' brains were structurally different from those of non-artists. This sparked a lot of listener feedback and debate on what is the difference between being an artist and being creative? Is it nature or nurture, or both? We attempt to get your points across!
Invasive Alien Species
The European Parliament has approved new legislation which hopes to contain the spread of invasive species of plants and animals in Europe. It has proposed bans on the possession, transport, selling or growing of restricted species. The list, which includes plants like Japanese knotweed and Himalayan balsam and animals like the "killer" shrimp, which can wreak havoc when they spread, was restricted to just 50 species. But now it will be open-ended, so when new alien invasive species arise, they can be dealt with more easily. But in the UK, what constitutes an 'alien' species and how do you decide whether it's invasive? And what about all the 'alien' plants we already grow in our gardens?
Producer: Fiona Roberts.
THU 17:00 PM (b040lnlh)
PM at
5pm- Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b040h2n1)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 18:30 Cabin Pressure (b01pzv5r)
Series 4
Vaduz
Episode 3:
It's a bad time for Carolyn to take a holiday as the crew of MJN Air have to face a real live King and a mythical fax machine.
Cabin Pressure is a sitcom about the wing and a prayer world of a tiny, one plane, charter airline staffed by two pilots: one on his way down, and one who was never up to start with. Whether they're flying squaddies to Hamburg, metal sheets to Mozambique or an oil exec's cat to Abu Dhabi, no job is too small but many, many jobs are too difficult.
Written by John Finnemore
Produced and directed by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 19:00 The Archers (b040lpdb)
Charlie asks Adam for his field diary again. He can't see much sign of cultivation and reminds Adam that timeliness is everything. At the pub, Charlie follows evasive Adam into the Ploughman's. As it's a dryish night, Adam could have someone out working now. Peeved Adam declines the offer of a drink, as he has an early start tomorrow.
Kenton has bought a huge Easter egg for Jolene. Jolene's unimpressed by the hot-cross buns he's bought, so Fallon steps in to bake some.
Fallon has her eye on a plant stand as she rummages in a skip. She's surprised when PC Burns creeps up on her and gives her a talk about theft. Dropping the formalities, Burns asks Fallon if he can buy her a drink. He'd like to get to know the woman behind the criminal. Over a drink, Fallon is less defensive as they chat.
Afterwards, Burns helps Fallon deliver the hot cross buns and plant stand to the Bull. He asks if he should give her a call sometime. Fallon thanks him for his help but she's going to be busy getting ready for the cake bake.
THU 19:15 Front Row (b040lpdd)
Martin Freeman, star of The Hobbit, talks about acting in sub zero temperatures for his latest role in the television adaptation of cult Coen brothers film Fargo. And from the snow to the stage: he discusses his next project - playing Richard III.
Singer-songwriter Paolo Nutini is a platinum selling artist who's now released his third album. He talks to John about his journey from 'New Shoes' to this darker, more serious work. He reveals the influence of his opera loving Italian grandfather on his career and performs for Front Row in the studio.
Glasgow artist Andy Scott talks about his largest creation yet- two giant horse heads based on the mythical Celtic creatures Kelpies. The sculptures, which are in Falkirk's new Helix park, are being unveiled and illuminated as part of an inaugural festival dedicated to conservationist John Muir.
The latest film from cult Swedish director Lukas Moodysson is a coming-of-age drama about three young girls in Stockholm in 1982. Klara, Bobo and Hedwig are ignored by their parents and seen as misfits by everyone else - so they decide to form a punk band.
Presenter: John Wilson
Producer: Nicola Holloway.
THU 19:45 The Cazalets (b040llvg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
THU 20:00 The Report (b040lpgx)
Maria Miller's Expenses
The MPs' expenses debacle has claimed a cabinet minister victim - 5 years after the initial revelations about abuse of parliamentary allowances. Reporter Melanie Abbott investigates the story behind Maria Miller's resignation as culture secretary.
Producer: Anna Meisel.
THU 20:30 In Business (b040lpgz)
Has the book a future?
Orange Shortlisted Kamila Shamsie discusses her latest novel A God in Every Stone
International publishing is in the throes of an upheaval it has not faced since the advent of the paperback in the 1930s. Giant publishers are merging to get even bigger in order to square up to new digital media giants. From the London Book Fair Peter Day asks a basic question: Can books survive, and if so, how?
Producer: Kent DePinto.
THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (b040lnlf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
THU 21:30 In Our Time (b040llvb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
THU 21:58 Weather (b040h2n3)
The latest weather forecast.
THU 22:00 The World Tonight (b040lprq)
Peace in our time: Russia, the USA and the EU agree a deal to ease tensions in Ukraine.
Not much was expected from high-level four-way talks between Russia, Ukraine, the US and the EU in Geneva - but it seems that a genuine compromise may have been reached. One that could stop a descent into civil war in eastern Ukraine. The task of monitoring the deal on the ground goes to Europe's Organisation for Security and Cooperation. The OSCE's Secretary General, Lamberto Zannier, talks to the World Tonight about the task ahead.
Do you remember Rob Ford? He's the Mayor of Toronto... the one caught on film smoking crack cocaine and making threats to kill. He's launched his re-election campaign. We assess his chances.
The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, says the atmosphere at Prime Minister's Question Time is making some Mps, especially women, avoid the occasion altogether. We ask two women - one an MP, one a journalist - what they think.
Our reporter, Andrew Hosken, reports from Gagauzia, a small autonomous region of Moldova which has been watching events in Ukraine with interest. Most of its inhabitants are Russian speakers and many desire closer ties with their former Soviet master.
And Mike Wooldridge reports from Kashmir, where Indians have been casting their ballots in the biggest day of voting in the country's general election, which is taking place over a number of weeks. The ruling Congress Party is pitted against the main opposition BJP, with the BJP widely favoured to win. It makes it likely that Narendra Modi will be the next Prime Minister of India. He has a hardline reputation and is seen by critics as anti-Muslim. That means the results will be watched very closely in the OTHER part of Kashmir, that's administered by Pakistan.
THU 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b040lprs)
History of the Rain
Episode 4
We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or to keep alive those who only live now in the telling.
19-year-old Ruth Swain is lying in her childhood home in the small Irish village of Faha in the attic room at the top of the stairs in the bed which her father had to construct in situ and which turned out to be as much boat as bed. She has Something Wrong with her, having collapsed during her fresher year at Trinity in Dublin, and finds herself bedbound in the attic room beneath the rain, in the margins between this world and the next.
Ruth is in search of her father. To understand the father she has lost. To find him Ruth journeys through the ancestry of the curious Swain family - from the Reverend Swain her great-grandfather, to her grandfather Abraham to her father Virgil – and in doing so discovers an enchanting story of pole-vaulting, soldiering, stubbornness, leaping salmon, poetry, the pursuit of the Impossible Standard, and the wild rain-sodden history of fourteen acres of the worst farming land in Ireland. Above all, Ruth embarks on a journey through books. Three thousand, nine hundred and fifty-eight books to be precise, which are piled high and line the walls of her attic room. As Ruth searches for her father in their pages, her story becomes a vital, witty and poignant celebration of imagination, books, love and the healing power of storytelling.
Niall Williams is also the author of bestselling novels including As It is In Heaven, The Fall of the Light, Only Say the Word and Four Letters of Love.
Abridged by Doreen Estall
Read by Ailish Symons
Producer: Heather Larmour
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.
THU 23:00 A Short Gentleman (b018xt55)
Episode 1
Robert sails through all his exams, but finding a girlfriend is more testing.
Hugh Bonneville stars as Robert Purcell, QC, a perfect specimen of the British Establishment, who applies faultless legal logic to his disastrous personal life.
Jon Canter's comic novel adapted by Robin Brooks.
Father ...... James Hayes
Mother ...... Nichola McAuliffe
Young Robert ...... Josef Lindsay
Pilkington ...... Ewan Bailey
Ticky Moxon-Smith ...... Katherine Jakeways
Judy Page ...... Tracy Wiles
Alan Temperley ...... Gerard McDermott
'Brilliant, but for God's sake don't let this book fall into the hands of any women - if they find out what we're really like we'll never hear the end of it.' Charlie Higson
'A witty, accomplished, and highly entertaining warning about the folly of ambition.' Mail on Sunday
'Elegantly written, civilised and genuinely funny.' The Scotsman
'Robert is infectious. You might just catch yourself bringing his loathsome logic to your own domestic dilemmas.' Time Out.
Jon Canter read Law at Cambridge, where he was President of Footlights, then worked as an advertising copywriter before becoming a radio and TV scriptwriter. His comic novels include Seeds of Greatness, A Short Gentleman and Worth.
Director: Jonquil Painting.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in From January 2012.
THU 23:30 With Great Pleasure (b03vdfyf)
AS Byatt
Booker Prize-winning novelist AS Byatt presents a selection of her favourite pieces of poetry and prose, at her home in London, with the help of her chosen actor Peter Eyre. Her choices include Beatrix Potter, Coleridge, Shakespeare, John Donne, Emily Dickinson, Alice Oswald and Terry Pratchett.
She talks about her life among books and how reading has been a passion from early childhood.
Producer Beth O'Dea.
FRIDAY 18 APRIL 2014
FRI 00:00 Midnight News (b040h2p3)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
FRI 00:30 Book of the Week (b040qxf4)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Thursday]
FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b040h2p5)
The latest shipping forecast.
FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b040h2p7)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b040h2p9)
The latest shipping forecast.
FRI 05:30 News Briefing (b040h2pc)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b040lqdk)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rt Revd David Walker, Bishop of Manchester.
FRI 05:45 Farming Today (b040lqdm)
Protected food names
The system for protecting regional food specialities in the EU has been running since 1996, and hundreds of food names have been awarded special protected status. The most famous are probably Champagne and Parma Ham, but there is also a steadily growing list of UK foods with protection - 62 to date, although France and Italy each have more than 200. There are three levels of status: PDO (Protected Designation of Origin), PGI (Protected Geographical Indication), and TSG (Traditional Speciality Guaranteed). Farming Today explores what these different designations mean, what's involved in getting them, and whether they're worth the effort.
Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Emma Campbell.
FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03zrccd)
Little Owl
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Kate Humble presents the little owl. Little owls really are little, about as long as a starling but much stockier with a short tail and rounded wings. If you disturb one it will bound off low over the ground before swinging up onto a telegraph pole or gatepost where it bobs up and down, glaring at you fiercely through large yellow and black eyes. Today, you can hear the yelps of the birds and their musical spring song across the fields and parks of much of England and Wales.
FRI 06:00 Today (b040lthb)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
FRI 09:00 The Reunion (b040h53l)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 on Sunday]
FRI 09:45 Book of the Week (b040qxkl)
B is for Bauhaus: An A-Z of the Modern World
Episode 5
An essential tool kit for understanding the modern world, by the Director of London's Design Museum, Deyan Sudjic.
Not a dictionary, though it attempts to tell you all you need know about everything from Authenticity to Zips. It's not an autobiography either, though it does offer a revealing and highly personal inside view of contemporary culture.
It's about what makes a Warhol a genuine fake, the creation of national identities, the mania to collect. It's also about the world seen from the rear view mirror of Grand Theft Auto V, and digital ornament and why we value imperfection. It's about drinking a bruisingly dry martini in Adolf Loo's American bar in Vienna, and about Hitchcock's film sets. It's about fashion and technology, about politics and art.
Born in London, Deyan Sudjic studied architecture in Edinburgh, edited Domus in Milan, was the director of the Venice architecture biennale, and a curator in Glasgow, Istanbul and Copenhagen. He's the author of The Language of Things and The Edifice Complex.
Episode 5:
W is for War and whether design collections are really the place for weapons? Y asks is Youtube really so democratic? Z is for Zip and how in the thirties it was the height of modernity. Deyan Sudjic considers them all.
W is for War: are museums the place for weapons? Y is for Youtube and Z is for Zip.
Deyan Sudjic considers t
Read by Deyan Sudjic
Abridged by Polly Coles
Produced by Clive Brill
A Pacificus Production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (b040lthd)
Menopause in the workplace
Do women who suffer from menopausal symptoms in the workplace suffer discrimination? What can and should be done to help?
And the Women's Super League kicks off this week with an exciting two divisions instead of just one. We speak to Kelly Simmons of the FA and player and commentator Sue Smith.
Following on from the Radio 4 documentary Shopping with Mum, we explore what it is like to shop with dad when mum is not around.
Jayne Monkhouse OBE is stepping away from her national role as equality advisor to the Police Federation - what has changed since she took up her post and what still needs to be done for women in the police?
And a new novel, Bodies of Light, about the pioneering generation of first female doctors.
FRI 10:45 The Cazalets (b040lthg)
All Change
Episode 10
by Elizabeth Jane Howard
dramatised by Lin Coghlan.
The family spend one last Christmas together at Home Place.
Directed by Sally Avens
Last year Radio 4 dramatised the four novels that made up The Cazalet Chronicles. The novels gave a vivid insight into lives, hopes and loves of three generations during the Second World War and beyond.
Later that year, age 90, Elizabeth Jane Howard wrote, a fifth and final novel in the saga, All Change. Sadly Elizabeth Jane died in January but was delighted that the BBC were to dramatise her final novel.
The Cazalets tells the story of an upper-middle class family of the type prominent in England prior to WW2. It is now 1956 and the family must learn how to live in a very different type of world.
The three brothers, Hugh, Edward and Rupert, run the family timber firm that their father started.
Their sister, Rachel, has spent her life looking after their parents in Sussex, but now their mother has died she may finally have time to spend with her best friend and lover, Sid, (Margot Sidney).
Hugh is now Chairman of the firm. After a long time on his own following the death of his wife, Sibyl, he has remarried, his secretary, Jemima, who is a war widow. They have a daughter of their own, Laura.
Polly, Hugh's daughter by Sibyl, has married into the aristocracy and become Lady Fakenham, but she and her husband spend all their time attempting to find ways to pay for the crumbling family Estate.
Edward has left his wife, Villy, for his mistress, Diana. But since marrying, Diana, he finds it hard to recapture the joy of their affair.
Louise, his daughter by Villy, is now divorced from Michael Hadleigh and is sharing a flat with her old schoofriend, Stella. Her relationship with Villy is still fraught, but she and her father are now on good terms.
Rupert lives with his second wife, Zoe and their children. He hates working for the family firm and is envious of his old friend, Archie, who married his daughter, Clary, and still manages to make a living from painting. Clary is a writer, but is finding it increasingly hard to write and bring up a family.
The first four Cazalet Novels have sold over a million copies.
Martin Amis said of Elizabeth Jane Howard, "She is, with Iris Murdoch, the most interesting woman writer of her generation. An instinctivist, like Muriel Spark, she has a freakish and poetic eye, and a penetrating sanity."
Producer Sally Avens.
FRI 11:00 Caribbean Domino Club (b040lthj)
Benjamin Zephaniah explores the passion, community and history of Britain's high-octane Caribbean domino clubs, where each table is a stage and every game tells a story.
The mesmerising sound of dominoes being shuffled keeps many players at the table into the small hours.
Benjamin visits his home town of Birmingham to find out how the dominoes scene has changed since his father taught him to play, and learns how the "bones" have been the soundtrack to centuries of Caribbean history, a thread linking slave plantations to south London bus stations.
Amid the high-decibel action of the Anglo-Caribbean Domino League Final, clubs from all over the UK battle it out in a fierce showdown of mind games, table slamming and dramatic winning poses.
Benjamin hears stories of some of the nation's finest players – Black Hat, The Enforcer, Lady Sassy, Big C, Virgo, The Screamer – and finds out how the "sweet sound of the shuffle" plays on their subconscious, long after the slamming and cheering have died down.
Featuring:
Kenneth Ward
Earl John
Kingsley Douglas
Errol Richards
Carlton Witter
Mervin Stuart
Janet Francis
Gary Lewis
Austin Agard
Rudi Page
Millicent Wilks
Clive Milanese
Donald Douglas
Felix Whittley
Vida Tucker.
Thanks to: Anita Witter, Kingsley Douglas, Norris Mckenzie and the Anglo-Caribbean Domino League.
Producer: Cicely Fell
Executive producer: Lyn Champion
A Redlight production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in April 2014.
FRI 11:30 Hobby Bobbies (b036wfzx)
Series 1
Dangerous Driving
Our heroes decide to act on dangerous driving in the town - starting with their wheel-spinning American colleague, Jermain.
Britain's longest serving PCSO is paired with the laziest in Dave Lamb's sitcom. (Dave is the voice of TV's Come Dine With Me)
Geoff............................Richie Webb
Nigel............................ Nick Walker
The Guv....................... Sinead Keenan
Jermain.........................Leon Herbert
Bernie...........................Chris Emmett
Producer: Steve Doherty
A Top Dog production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 12:00 You and Yours (b040lthl)
McKenzie Friend, Holiday insurance, 4D scans
Cuts to Legal Aid mean more people are representing themselves in court. If you can't afford a lawyer then maybe a McKenzie Friend can help.
Illness is the biggest cause of holiday cancellation and if you don't take out insurance when you book you could lose a lot of money no matter how unfortunate your circumstances.
If you are told you are going to lose your sight it's not just medical help you'll need but emotional support and practical advice too. The RNIB are concerned that half of all eye clinics don't offer such a service.
How our terrible climate has led UK sports clothes manufacturers to become world beaters in all-weather clothing.
Shops that offer 4D scans of unborn children allowing you to see your unborn child in Technicolor and from all angles are proliferating on the high street. Radiographers are concerned.
What obligations does a football club have to its fans and season ticket holders.
Publicans and drinkers campaign for a liberalisation of licensing laws in Northern Ireland.
FRI 12:52 The Listening Project (b040lthn)
Phyliss and Freda - Trains and Tears
Fi Glover introduces a conversation between WW2 evacuees, reflecting on the pain of their childhood experience and wondering how their mothers could have chosen to send them away, proving once more that it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that 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. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used 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: Marya Burgess.
FRI 12:57 Weather (b040h2pf)
The latest weather forecast.
FRI 13:00 World at One (b040h2pk)
News and analysis presented by Shaun Ley.
FRI 13:45 Martin Wainwright's Myth of the North (b03ymj8g)
Episode 5
In the final instalment of Martin Wainwright's campaign to bust the damaging myth of the North, he heads to the North-East - the only region of the UK with a positive balance of trade. The future of the car industry, green technology, and the off-shore energy sector are his focus.
In Newcastle, Peterlee and Sedgefield, he meets business leaders, scientists and entrepreneurs who are helping to ensure the future of Britain's advanced manufacturing sector.
The programme includes economist Bridget Rosewell, business leaders Arnab Basu, Geoff Turnbull, and Harry Bradbury, and chief executive of the North-East Local Economic Partnership Edward Twiddy.
Producer: Isabel Sutton
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 14:00 The Archers (b040lpdb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Thursday]
FRI 14:15 Drama (b0196v3q)
You Drive Me Crazy
Once he loved powering down the motorway; now the very thought brings on a cold sweat. Paul Dodgson's play reflects on living with his newly-acquired fear of driving. Looking back on the cars in his life to try and trace the source of his anxiety, he remembers being 'Prince of the back seat' at six years old in his parents' half timbered Morris Traveller. Then, as a teenager, he couldn't wait for his 17th birthday and the chance to get behind the wheel of the family's Austin Princess himself. Later, as a young man in his thirties, he fell in love with his red MG Midget - enjoying nothing more than belting down country lanes blasting music way too loud. Then, something changed, and a fear began to take hold, a fear that would suddenly skew his vision, make the road seem to slide away, and his heart beat violently in his chest - a fear that quickly turned into a debilitating terror. Paul Dodgson writes and narrates his own story of living with driving anxiety disorder.
A BBC Cymru/Wales production, directed by Kate McAll.
FRI 15:00 Good Friday Meditation (b040lwrs)
Archbishop John Sentamu offers a personal meditation upon the crucifixion of Christ through the sounds, stories and situations he finds as he walks around the historic city of York, on this the most solemn day of the Christian year. As well as the people he encounters, prayer, and readings from the passion narrative with powerful music for Good Friday, all help to tell the story.
His focus is to see the events of that day through the power of the mob, both then and now. Throughout Jesus' final hours, crowds play a significant role in the story. A crowd is led by Judas to the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest his friend. Hours later, given the opportunity to release Jesus, a crowd instead bays for his blood. And, as Jesus journeys through the streets with his cross, the Roman guard is there to hold the people back as emotions soar.
An angry crowd needs a victim, one who is different, somehow deficient or offensive, untouchable. Such situations resonate with the victimised and marginalised around the world today, including some whom the Archbishop himself has sought to defend here in the UK, and in parts of Africa.
Crowds have always had the power to draw bystanders into a maelstrom of destructive behaviour. As he travels around York, Archbishop Sentamu explores the story of Clifford's Tower which, in 1190, was the scene of one of the medieval period's most notorious pogroms in the UK when 150 Jews were massacred.
Producer: Simon Vivian.
FRI 15:30 Witness (b040hx68)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:30 on Tuesday]
FRI 15:45 Sailors' Knots (b01k1n52)
The Head of the Family
Written by W.W. Jacobs.
Published in 1909, Sailors' Knots is an anthology of comic stories set around London and the Thames Estuary at the turn of the last century. The 'knots' are the various mix-ups that occur between sailors on shore leave and the local residents. The tales are great fun, full of entertaining characters (with names like Silas Winch, Sam Small and Ginger Dick) and often deal with marital spats, misunderstandings, and rascals getting their just rewards.
Mark Williams reads the last in the series when, in a case of mistaken identity, a young sailor becomes part of a family he's never met before.
W.W. Jacobs is best know for his horror story, The Monkey's Paw (1902), but the majority of his writing is comic. He was born in Wapping in 1863, where his father was wharf manager at the South Devon Wharf at Lower East Smithfield, and his early observation of merchant ships and the behaviour of their crews informed his many humorous tales.
Mark Williams is well-known as one of the stars of BBC TV's The Fast Show ("Suits you, sir..!!") and for the role of Ron Weasley's father in the Harry Potter films.
Abridged by Roy Apps
Producer: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 16:00 Last Word (b040lwrv)
Gabriel García Márquez, Edna Doré, Richard Hoggart, Gerardo D'Ambrosio, John Shirley-Quirk
Julian Worricker on
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Nobel prize-winning Colombian author, best known for 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'.
The television, stage and film actress, Edna Doré, who played Mo Butcher in 'Eastenders'.
Richard Hoggart, writer and cultural commentator, whose book 'The Uses of Literacy' was regarded as hugely influential in the immediate post-war era.
Gerardo D'Ambrosio, the magistrate, who led investigations into terror attacks, financial malpractice and systematic corruption in his native Italy.
John Shirley-Quirk, the bass-baritone singer whose talents proved an inspiration to Benjamin Britten.
FRI 16:30 Feedback (b040lwrx)
It's the most popular programme on Radio 4 by far, the flagship Radio 4 news programme, which begins the day for more than seven million listeners. No programme attracts more correspondence from Feedback listeners than Today.
This week Feedback puts some of that correspondence to Jamie Angus, who's been Editor of the programme for almost nine months. In his first radio interview, Jamie deals with listener complaints including an interview in which presenter Evan Davis continually interrupted politician Iain Duncan Smith, a Today item with the victim of an acid attack, and the question of balance on climate change. He also sets out his vision for Today.
The BBC iPlayer App is a popular device for radio listeners wanting to 'tune in' on the move, via their tablets and phones. But recent changes to the way it works have left many Feedback listeners unhappy. One of them is Nick Gilbody. He took up Feedback's invitation to come to London and meet Roger Bolton, as well as the man responsible for making sure the app is coming up to scratch, Andrew Scott, General Manager of Radio - BBC Future Media. But does the encounter solve his problems, and leave him a satisfied Feedback customer?
We'll also be travelling to Emmanuel Church in Didsbury near Manchester, to meet the team who produce the world's longest-running daily non-news radio show. The Daily Service has brought Christian worship to BBC listeners since 1928. We hear from the singers, the presenter and producer who decide on the themes for worship, and the music at the programme's heart.
Producer: Lizz Pearson
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 16:55 The Listening Project (b040qj5l)
Jeremy and Jessica - Life Goes On
Fi Glover introduces a conversation between a father and his daughter, who is determined not to let Type 1 diabetes get in the way of living her life to the full, proving again that it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that 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. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used 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: Marya Burgess.
FRI 17:00 PM (b040qj5n)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.
FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b040h2pm)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 18:30 The Now Show (b040lwrz)
Series 43
Episode 1
Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis are joined by special guest Elis James for a comic romp through the week's news. With Mitch Benn, Pippa Evans and Jon Holmes.
Written by the cast with additional material from Jon Hunter and Carrie Quinlan. Produced by Alexandra Smith/ m.
FRI 19:00 The Archers (b040lws1)
Chris impresses as Jesus in the passion play. Alice is forced into wedding planner mode as she watches him, dealing with a minor problem regarding Cathridge Hall and reassuring anxious Kirsty.
Jazzer has his eye on Alisha, a nice girl who's a regular at St Stephens and who is helping with costumes for the play. He's keen to put on a good show for her today. With Dan, he gets in to his role as a barbaric soldier. But Jazzer's disappointed to realise that Alisha and Dan are meeting up later. He's left to drown his sorrows.
Dan enjoyed his time with the King's Royal Hussars and wishes he could have stayed on longer.
Shula and Alistair sit Dan down to talk things through. Shula explains that they're worried that Dan is rushing. She offers to give him an assistant manager role at the stables, but scathing Dan has made his plans to start at Sandhurst in just two weeks.
Alice is so proud of Chris and takes a 'selfie' with him which she shows to Peggy. Peggy also enjoys a few photos of Kirsty from her wedding makeover. Peggy's full of compliments. Kirsty becomes overwhelmed at how lucky she feels to be joining the Archer family. Peggy tells her Tom is a very lucky man.
FRI 19:15 Front Row (b040lws3)
The Biblical Epic
Kirsty Lang presents a Front Row special celebrating the big screen's love affair with the Biblical epic.
It's a genre that defined the golden age of Hollywood, but it's undergoing something of a resurrection in 2014 thanks to the release of Darren Aronofsky's Noah starring Russell Crowe, a film soon to be joined in cinemas by Ridley Scott's Exodus, and the long awaited prequel to The Passion of The Christ - Mary. And whilst general audiences seem hungry for the bible on screen, churches across America are showing Son of God, a faithful retelling of the life of Jesus Christ. In the company of Hollywood's hottest directors, Life of Brian's Michael Palin, and the British actor who played Jesus Christ himself, join Kirsty as she sets off on her own pilgrimage in search of the roots of the biblical epic.
Presenter: Kirsty Lang
Producer: Craig Smith.
FRI 19:45 The Cazalets (b040lthg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (b040lws5)
Nicky Morgan MP, David Lammy MP, Fiona Hyslop MSP, Lord Newby
Nick Robinson presents political debate & discussion from the BBC Radio Theatre in London with Treasury Minister and Minister for Women Nicky Morgan MP, Fiona Hyslop MSP, the Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs in the Scottish Government, Labour MP David Lammy, and the Government's Deputy Chief Whip in the House of Lords, Lord Newby.
FRI 20:50 A Point of View (b040lws7)
Travel Writing Giants
William Dalrymple celebrates the writing of Peter Matthiessen who died this month, comparing him with another of his favourite travel writers, Patrick Leigh Fermor. "Both were footloose scholars who left their studies and libraries to walk in the wild places of the world, erudite and bookish wanderers, scrambling through remote mountains, notebooks in hand, rucksacks full of good books on their shoulders."
Producer: Sheila Cook.
FRI 21:00 Friday Drama (b040yvdq)
The Testament of This Day
A new radio play written and directed by Edward Bond, one of our greatest living playwrights, who turns 80 this year. In true Bond style, this confronting and disturbing drama connects with realities of our lives and societies. A young man embarks on two journeys, He is in control of only one. He soon discovers there is no going back, from either. An arresting drama about the world today.
As one of the most important and prolific post-war playwrights, Edward Bond has been at the forefront of radical, political and influential drama for over 50 years. He is one of the most produced playwrights in Europe. He was born in London in 1934. He had virtually no formal education and left school at 15. The Royal Court Theatre staged Saved in 1965. The play created a national scandal, which was instrumental in the abolition of censorship of the English stage, and established Bond as a major British playwright. He has written more than 50 plays, including Lear, The Sea, Bingo, The Woman, Restoration, The War Plays and 'The Paris Pentad' (Coffee, Crime of the Twenty-first Century, Born, People, Innocence). Many of these have attained the status of radical classics.
The Testament Of This Day is Edward Bond's third original radio drama, the previous two, also for Radio 4, Chair, and Existence having both become stage versions that have been translated and performed in many countries. Bond has found a passion and a new voice in the writing of original radio dramas, produced through his long term collaboration with radio drama producer Turan Ali.
Producer - Turan Ali
Writer and Director - Edward Bond
A Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 4
Overflow and notes:
Edward Bond has also written poetry as well as texts for the cinema and opera, and a large body of theoretical work on drama. He also works as a director (often of his own work), including this radio drama, his radio directing debut.
FRI 21:58 Weather (b040h2pr)
The latest weather forecast.
FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (b040lwsc)
A prominent dissident republican has been shot dead in west Belfast. Tommy Crossan was once a senior figure in the Continuity IRA. It is believed he had been expelled from the group some years ago after falling out with other dissidents. The Sinn Fein Mayor of Belfast tells the World Tonight it is shameful that 'thugs and criminals' can bring death to the streets of the city. He urged everyone to work with the police to remove the gunmen responsible.
In eastern Ukraine, protestors are still occupying an administrative building in Donetsk. The citizens of the self-declared People's Republic of Donetsk insist they are not bound by Thursday's Geneva agreement. We hear from Ukraine's interim foreign minister, who says he is optimistic of a peaceful outcome.
A museum exhibition in Amsterdam has embroiled the Dutch in a diplomatic tug-of-war between Moscow and Kiev. It features a treasure trove of ancient artefacts found in Crimea. It was loaned to the Dutch by Ukraine.... but now the Russians say the exhibits are theirs and should be returned to Moscow.
He's been called the "invisible candidate", but Abdelaziz Bouteflika has just been re-elected for a fourth term as Algeria's president. Opposition leaders have called the elections a massive fraud.
And should Britain have entered the First World War? Our reporter Paul Moss hears two contrasting views on whether there was a genuine reason for Britain to enter the conflict after Germany invaded Belgium.
With Philippa Thomas.
FRI 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b040lwwb)
History of the Rain
Episode 5
We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or to keep alive those who only live now in the telling.
19-year-old Ruth Swain is lying in her childhood home in the small Irish village of Faha in the attic room at the top of the stairs in the bed which her father had to construct in situ and which turned out to be as much boat as bed. She has Something Wrong with her, having collapsed during her fresher year at Trinity in Dublin, and finds herself bedbound in the attic room beneath the rain, in the margins between this world and the next.
Ruth is in search of her father. To understand the father she has lost. To find him Ruth journeys through the ancestry of the curious Swain family - from the Reverend Swain her great-grandfather, to her grandfather Abraham to her father Virgil – and in doing so discovers an enchanting story of pole-vaulting, soldiering, stubbornness, leaping salmon, poetry, the pursuit of the Impossible Standard, and the wild rain-sodden history of fourteen acres of the worst farming land in Ireland. Above all, Ruth embarks on a journey through books. Three thousand, nine hundred and fifty-eight books to be precise, which are piled high and line the walls of her attic room. As Ruth searches for her father in their pages, her story becomes a vital, witty and poignant celebration of imagination, books, love and the healing power of storytelling.
Niall Williams is also the author of bestselling novels including As It is In Heaven, The Fall of the Light, Only Say the Word and Four Letters of Love.
Abridged by Doreen Estall
Read by Ailish Symons
Producer: Heather Larmour
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.
FRI 23:00 Great Lives (b040hy59)
Series 33
Sir Mark Walport on Sir Hans Sloane
Sir Mark Walport, the government's Chief Scientific Advisor champions the life of Sir Hans Sloane, founder of the British Museum. Along with expert Marjorie Caygill they tell Matthew Parris why they think Sloane is the mother and father of all collectors.
Producer : Perminder Khatkar.
FRI 23:27 With Great Pleasure (b007tck8)
Tony Benn
Veteran politician Tony Benn presents some of the pieces of prose and poetry that have helped shape his personal philosophy, including the words of Mahatma Ghandi, Dwight D Eisenhower, Oscar Wilde and John Bunyan.
Readers: Saffron Burrows, Jim Findley and Carl Prekopp.
Producer: Christine Hall
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.
FRI 23:55 The Listening Project (b040qj5q)
Faraz and Ahmed - Great Expectations
Fi Glover introduces two friends who love film, but feel under pressure from their Muslim families to follow more conventional careers in medicine or law, proving again that it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that 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. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used 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: Marya Burgess.