The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
As a boy, Richard Kerridge found refuge in the wilderness of suburban England whose reptilian inhabitants were wondrously untameable. His often troubled and turbulent relationship with his father formed the backdrop to his adventures with neighbourhood friends as they scoured local parks and streams for newts, frogs, toads, lizards, and the ultimate prize - snakes.
What might it be like to be cold blooded, to sleep through the winter, to shed your skin, and taste wafting chemicals on your tongue? Do toads feel a sense of danger as the wheels of a car approach ? What exactly is an 'alien' species?
Kerridge has continued to ask these questions during a lifetime of fascinated study and countless expeditions.
Weaving startling nuggets of research (e.g. fewer than 5% of toads reach adulthood) with elements of history and folklore, the author has also created his personal emotional map of a lifelong relationship with these often unloved and overlooked creatures.
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at
Radio 4's daily prayer and reflection with the Rev Neil Gardner of Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Snowdonia's slate once roofed the world, employing thousands of workers across scores of mines in North Wales. But that was in its heyday, in Victorian times. Today, whilst the industry still exists, it employs just 350 people.
Helen Mark finds out what's become of the abandoned slate quarries and caverns today. Some are now places of leisure, with zip wires above ground, trampolines in underground slate caverns, and with scuba diving opportunities in flooded quarries, but others, as Helen discovers at Dorothea mine, are rapidly being reclaimed by nature.
You'd be forgiven for thinking, after all that glorious sunshine, the British countryside would be alive with the rumble of combine harvesters and the chugging of tractors loaded with grain. At least that's what Caz Graham had in mind for this harvest edition of Farming Today This Week.
Caz meets Richard Reeves, a tenant on the Tatton Park estate in Cheshire. He grows 750 acres of wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape and sells his grain locally for animal feed.
Hampered by the wet weather and unable to get to work in the fields, Richard takes the opportunity to discuss global wheat prices, the impact of a strong pound on exports, the quality of this year's crop and the pros and cons of being an arable farmer in one of the rainiest parts of Britain. He also shares his concerns about the National Trust's long term vision for his land - to be taken out of food production and returned to parkland.
We also feature a series of reports on the UK harvest, from the first apples of the season to an update on black grass.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Thought for the Day and Weather.
Richard Coles and Suzy Klein are joined by the actress and writer Maureen Lipman, artist John Dolan who was saved from homelessness by his dog George, and Alison Trim who received a memorable musical 50th birthday present. John McCarthy meets Level 42's Mark King and his mother Bridget on the Isle of Wight, twins Billy and Bob Seago explain how passing and failing the 11 plus affected their relationship, Allan and Margot Wells reflect on working together and their long association with the Commonwealth Games, and Erasure's Andy Bell shares his Inheritance Tracks.
Maureen Lipman stars in Daytona at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, until 23 August.
John Dolan's exhibition, John and George, is at the Howard Griffin Gallery London E1, until 17 August. John and George The Dog Who Changed My Life by John Dolan is published by Random House.
Andy Bell inherits Blondie's '(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear' and he passes on 'Moments Of Pleasure' by Kate Bush. Andy Bell: Is Torsten the Bareback Saint at Assembly Venue 1, George Street, Edinburgh, from 6-16 August.
In 1943, in a small wood in the village of Hagley, the body a woman was found inside a Wych elm tree. She had been put in feet first, alive or just recently dead. The police issued a good photo fit but, despite extensive enquiries, a match could not be found and no one reported her missing.
Punt hunts first for the files and then for the body. But things are not where they should be. He heads into those unsettling woods, rustles up tangled leads, and ends up barking up the occasional wrong tree.
He tracks down the 101-year-old forensic biologist on the case and investigates witchcraft and spying in his attempt to separate conspiracy from the truth.
And Professor Norman Fenton, expert witness in major criminal trails, subjects Punt's findings to analysis, building a unique model especially for the programme.
Hair has always held us captive: a symbol of strength and vitality, or of sexual attraction and youth. But what are its molecular secrets? And what are we learning about those other mysterious filaments, the hair-like cilia strands attached to almost every living cell?
Bridget Kendall brings together three people whose work explores why these slender threads are essential to life. The medical geneticist Philip Beales explains why cilia disorders can affect memory and learning, Professor Ralf Paus, a leading hair loss researcher, reveals fresh insights into the role of neurohormones in promoting hair growth, and the artist Adeline de Monseignat shows her beautiful but disturbing sculptures, which suggest hair and fur aren't really a stack of dead cells, but somehow still alive.
Despatches by reporters around the world. In this edition, Chris Morris, who was in Gaza twenty years ago, returns to chronicle how things 'have got worse, much worse'. Claudia Hammond, in Cyprus, on the latest attempts to find out what happened to those who went missing decades ago during fighting between the island's Greek and Turkish communities. Tim Mansel is in Sierra Leone amid growing alarm over the spread of the Ebola virus in west Africa. Why a seagull observed in Vatican City could be a disturbing omen for peace - that's from Alan Johnston and Petroc Trelawny finds out where the newly-weds like to go in Guangzhou, one of China's fastest-developing cities.
With official statistics showing UK house prices up almost 10% over the past year, the Governor of the Bank of England has described rising property prices as the greatest threat to economic recovery. But are fears of a property bubble justified?
In the first of a four part series, Michael Robinson travels across the UK to ask what's going on in the British housing market.
In the South West he finds estate agents with almost nothing to sell while buyers snap up houses within days of their coming onto the market. In the North-West where houses are far cheaper, first time buyers are struggling to compete with a new army of buy-to let landlords. And in Northern Ireland, where prices are now low enough for first time buyers to get a foot onto the ladder, he also meets some of the casualties of one of the biggest property crashes in UK history.
Uh-oh - Marcus Brigstocke has been put in charge of a thing! Each week, Marcus finds he's volunteered to be in charge of a big old thing and each week he starts out by thinking "Well, it can't be that difficult, surely?" and ends up with "Oh - turns out it's utterly difficult and complicated. Who knew...?"
This week, Marcus Brigstocke has got himself elected as a Member of the European Parliament. So it's off to Brussels to meet Europe's finest parliamentary minds and also UKIP.
Along the way he'll be examining the history of the EU, its legislative structure, the democratic burden that must be shouldered to promulgate a more humane society and why so many UKIP members wear yellow trousers.
Helping him to publish the answers in up to 31 languages will be Rufus Jones (W1A, Holy Flying Circus), William Andrews (Sorry I've Got No Head) and Margaret Cabourn-Smith (Miranda)
The show is produced by Marcus's long-standing accomplice, David Tyler who also produces Marcus appearances as the inimitable as Giles Wemmbley Hogg - as well as Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation, Cabin Pressure, Thanks A Lot, Milton Jones!, Kevin Eldon Will See You Now, Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive, The Castle, The 3rd Degree, The 99p Challenge, My First Planet, Radio Active and Bigipedia.
Written by Marcus Brigstocke, Jeremy Salsby, Toby Davies, Nick Doody, Steve Punt and Dan Tetsell.
Edward Stourton presents political debate and discussion from Turner Contemporary in Margate in Kent, with Spectator columnist Rod Liddle, classicist and broadcaster Mary Beard, former head of the British Army Richard Dannatt, and Editor at Large of Country Life magazine and Ramsgate resident Clive Aslet.
The conflict in Gaza. Do sanctions work? Is there anything individuals can do that would make a difference? Have we learnt anything from history?
Presented by Anita Anand.
By James Maw and Tim Sullivan. Rob Brydon is ventriloquist Peter Brough and his doll Archie Andrews in a new play that tells the true story behind one of the most successful radio shows of all time. With Fenella Woolgar as Peggy Brough.
The 1950s BBC Radio show Educating Archie - with 16 million listeners - catapulted the ventriloquist Peter Brough from suburban obscurity to the heights of high society. The Royal Family were fans. His show introduced the world to Eric Sykes (writer), Tony Hancock (Archie's Tutor), Max Bygraves (another tutor) and Julie Andrews (Archie's girlfriend).
After eight years on radio, Educating Archie transferred to television. And yet, one day in 1961, Peter Brough locked the dummy in a suitcase and left him on the top of a wardrobe for forty years until, six years after the ventriloquist's death, Archie Andrews was put up for auction.
His Master's Voice tells the true story of what went wrong in the world of Archie Andrews and Peter Brough.
Rastafari is Jamaica's most famous export. Alongside Bob Marley - the world's most recognised Rastafarian - this cultural and spiritual movement is the enduring global image of the Caribbean island. For better or worse, the red, green and gold colours, dreadlocks, reggae music and marijuana are all closely associated with Jamaica. But what role has this spiritual movement had in forming Jamaica's soul and identity?
Presented by political commentator and educator Kingslee Daley, this series examines how Rastafari turned from an ostracised religious sect into a global phenomenon. Kingslee is better known as Akala, a British poet, rapper and founder of the Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company. Born in London he was brought up immersed in Rasta culture by his Jamaican father. In these two half hour programmes, Akala travels to Jamaica to discover the cultural and sociological significance of his spiritual heritage.
Rastafari first came to prominence in 1930s Jamaica, emerging from the civil rights struggle during British colonial rule. It's a complicated synergy of the Old Testament and the teachings of pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey who predicted in the 1920s that "a black king shall be crowned in Africa" ushering in a "day of deliverance." When the Ethiopian prince Ras Tafari - who was also known as Haile Selassie I - became Emperor in 1930, the descendants of slaves in Jamaica took this as proof that Garvey's prophecy had come true. The fact that Selassie was also a pan-Africanist with black empowerment philosophies of his own only further cemented their belief. Many Rastafari believe Selassie to be the second coming of Jesus, a black Christ. But whatever the theologies surrounding Rastafari, its importance for Jamaica and for the Jamaican diaspora has gone way beyond religion.
In this final part of the series, Akala explores Rastafari's global impact after the explosion of Jamaica's Roots Reggae scene in the 1970s. The music provided a vehicle for spreading the message of Rastafari around the world, not least through the songs of musical icons like Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Burning Spear. For young Jamaican immigrants growing up in a racist environment of 1970s London - such as Akala's father - Rastafari provided a connection back to their lost Jamaican and African heritage. Akala also visits the Bobo Hill Rasta camp in Kingston to discover modern life as a Rasta and explores whether this spiritual and cultural movement still has relevance today.
Contributors include dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, Professor Carolyn Cooper from the University of the West Indies, Italian Rastafarian Alborosie and the residents of the Bobo Hill Rastafari village in Kingston, Jamaica.
The Scottish Referendum; Are women really still making up their minds? Should we be treating attacks on prostitutes as hate crimes? The pressure on young sports women to look a certain way - how much support is there for athletes with eating disorders? Plus, the growing popularity of Street Dance, and how to Cook the Perfect Daily Dal.
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First World War. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak
Nikki Bedi, Kevin Eldon, Julian Ovenden, Jon Culshaw, Louise Wener, Arthur Smith, Slow Club, Samantha Crain
Nikki's aboard the Big Train with comedy actor Kevin Eldon, whose book 'My Prefect Cousin' charts the rollercoaster ride of cousin Paul Hamilton's life dedicated to verse.
Former Sleeper front woman Louise Wener tells Nikki about channelling her experience of the music industry into Radio 4 drama series 'Queens of Noise'. It tells the story of Velveteens, an all-girl band desperate to make it in the days before the digital revolution changed the music business forever.
Arthur Smith meets Tony Blair and Obi-Wan Kenobi...or, more accurately, impressionist Jon Culshaw, back on Radio 4's 'Dead Ringers' with a new cast of characters. No one's safe from the merciless parodies, as the show takes down every programme, institution and politician we hold dear.
Julian Ovenden takes a break from playing aristocrat Charles Blake in 'Downton Abbey' to star in 'My Night With Reg'; a funny and bittersweet comedy, set in the summer of 1985 against the backdrop of the mounting AIDS crisis.
With music from Slow Club, who perform 'The Pieces' from their album 'Complete Surrender' and Samantha Crain who plays 'For The Miner' from her album 'Kid Face'
Becky Milligan profiles Poland's foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, a one-time teenage rebel, Oxford networker, daring reporter - and now a key voice in the Ukraine crisis and an important force in European politics.
Gillian Anderson Streetcar, Mood Indigo film, Secret Cinema, Philip Hensher, Gomorrah on TV
Gillian Anderson returns to London's West End theatre, playing Blanche Dubois in Tennessee Williams' 1948 play A Streetcar Named Desire.
Michel Gondry's Mood Indigo is one of his typically fantastical films, starring Audrey Tatou as a young woman who discovers a flower is growing inside her lungs. Packed full of extraordinary images, is it a collection of moments or a good film?
Secret Cinema is the new immersive form of cinema, staged in unconventional settings, encouraging the audience to dress up in clothing appropriate to the movie, their latest production is the 1985 classic Back To The Future. It can be expensive to stage and attend, but is it worth it?
Philip Hensher's new novel The Emperor Waltz threads together several stories from different times and locations, dealing with how an idea gains a hold in wider society.
A new Italian TV drama series - Gomorrah - looks at the mafia. It's been an enormous hit in Italy but has this once-toxic subject matter become less controversial nowadays or does it still shock viewers?
Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Natalie Haynes, Susannah Clapp and Patrick Gale. the producer is Oliver Jones.
The war between the United States and Vietnam cost over 58,000 American and more than one million Vietnamese lives. It left one country physically devastated and the other socially splintered. It began, President Lyndon Johnson told the world, with an "unprovoked attack" on American ships on the night of August 4, 1964.
What we know today is that the incident that was reported to have taken place in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam didn't ever happen. Yet three days later it was cited as the justification for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which authorised "the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression."
The Gulf of Tonkin was the crucial turning point. In 1960 there were 900 American troops in Vietnam - by the end of 1965 there were nearly 200,000.
Journalist and historian D D Guttenplan explores these dramatic events through archive recordings and new interviews with the key players, bringing all the evidence together for the first time. Taped White House phone calls transport us back to that day - we'll listen in on President Johnson as he discusses the situation with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and hear the situation unfold through conversations between key military personnel.
Daniel Ellsberg remembers being in the Pentagon receiving reports of the incident on the day, and Jim Stockdale tells us how his father was flying above the USS Maddox when the attack supposedly happened.
Rose Tremain's gripping dramatisation, starring Ian McKellen, of Balzac's tragic novel revolving around Grandet, an ageing vine farmer, and his innocent young daughter Eugenie.
Monsieur Grandet, who has amassed a considerable fortune, is a miser who feigns poverty and runs his household along miserably frugal lines. All changes with the arrival of Eugenie's handsome 22-year-old cousin, Charles Grandet, from Paris. Charles has brought with him a shocking letter from his father, Guillaume, who has committed suicide. He has placed his debts and the care of his son into his brother's hands. It is a fatal decision, with ruinous consequences for the whole family.
Eugenie Grandet is considered by many to be the strongest novel in Balzac's magnificent series, The Human Comedy. It pits a young naive girl against the father she has worshipped and this defiance sets us on course for the playing out of a heart-rending tragedy. Like King Lear, Grandet is a man who deeply loves the daughter who has defied him. He has no other child, no hope, no future but her. But in Balzac's 'human comedy' the tragic and the comic exist side by side and this fruitful conjunction blossoms in Rose Tremain's enthralling adaptation.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.
Modern medicine has succeeded in treating many of the diseases that kill us and, as a result, people are living longer.
However, as we get older and become more frail decisions have to be made about when to treat the ailments that crop up.
This becomes particularly challenging when a person can't make the decision for themselves, like those with advanced dementia.
Jean is in her eighties and is getting increasingly frail. Each ailment brings another admission to hospital. When should a treatment be given that will prolong her life, and when should it be withheld so that nature can take its course?
Tom Sutcliffe is in the chair and the teams from Scotland and the South of England are in the spotlight, as the contest of cryptic connections reaches the penultimate match of the series.
Roddy Lumsden and Val McDermid play for Scotland, while Marcel Berlins and Fred Housego represent the South of England. Last time these teams encountered one another the Scots won convincingly, so the pressure is on the Southerners to turn the tables if they're to achieve a respectable finish on the RBQ league table for 2014.
As usual a knowledge of literature, history, music, geography, the natural world and popular culture will all be helpful to the teams in unravelling the programme's trademark convoluted puzzles. Some of the best are drawn from the mailbag of suggestions received from RBQ listeners in recent months.
Jarvis Cocker uncovers the hidden treasure Betjeman's Banana Blush - an album made by Sir John Betjeman in 1974. The LP featured the then Poet Laureate reading twelve poems while accompanied by music composed by Jim Parker.
Betjeman's Banana Blush was released on the progressive rock label Charisma - the home of Genesis, Lindisfarne and Van Der Graf Generator - and tracks from it were regularly featured on John Peel's Radio 1 programme. A Shropshire Lad was named single of the week by New Musical Express and the paper featured an interview with the poet.
For those reasons, the album reached an audience beyond Sir John's usual readers. Suggs from Madness fell in love with the LP: 'I first heard the album in 1979. We'd be listening to Syd Barrett, The Clash...and then Banana Blush would go on. It seemed equally psychedelic in its own strange way. I fell in love with it straight away.' Suggs chose 'On A Portrait Of A Deaf Man' from the album as one of his Desert Island Discs.
Before working on the album, Jim Parker had been a member of Doggerel Bank, writing music to accompany the poems of William Bealby-Wright. Following Betjeman's Banana Blush, he wrote award-winning scores for TV series and films, including Miss Marple, Moll Flanders, Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War.
His compositions provide perfect settings for Sir John's poems, which range in subject matter from the charming innocence of Indoor Games Near Newbury to the deeply moving 'A Child Ill'. In the programme, Jim plays piano and explains how the album was made.
SUNDAY 03 AUGUST 2014
SUN 00:00 Midnight News (b04c97m5)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
SUN 00:30 The Food of Love (b01kr7qp)
Scotch Broth
In this series of monologues exploring the link between food and memory, powerful domestic dramas gradually unfold through the preparation of a special recipe.
In the final story in the series, by Aminatta Forna, a man struggles to cook for a young child, after a terrible loss...
Aminatta Forna was born in Glasgow, raised in Sierra Leone and Britain and also spent periods of her childhood in Iran, Thailand and Zambia. She is the award-winning author of two novels: 'The Memory of Love and Ancestor Stones', and a memoir 'The Devil that Danced on the Water'.
Read by: Hugh Quarshie
Producer: Justine Willett.
SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04c97m7)
The latest shipping forecast.
SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04c97m9)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at
5.20am.
SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04c97mc)
The latest shipping forecast.
SUN 05:30 News Briefing (b04c97mf)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (b04c9nms)
Cathedral of the Transfiguration
The bells of the Cathedral of the Transfiguration.
SUN 05:45 Profile (b04c9kyv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 News Headlines (b04c97mh)
The latest national and international news.
SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b04c9p7f)
DNA and the Divine
CORRECTION: Please note that, in this programme, Joseph Addison's Spacious Firmament on High is referred to as a hymn. However, the music used is, in fact, a setting of the poem as an anthem by Bernard Rose.
In this week's edition, Mark Tully considers whether the discovery of DNA is evidence for or against the existence of God.
He discusses DNA with the Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University, Alister McGrath, who welcomes the debate between theists and atheists and believes the truth lies between the two sides of the argument.
Together, they question whether genetic codes could have come about randomly, and why a loving God might create something that can transmit pain and disease between generations.
The programme looks at how evolving Christian theology can accommodate new scientific discoveries, and warns against too much faith in DNA to answer the big questions about God, or about ourselves.
Featuring music from Haydn, Michael Nyman, Gregory W Brown and Bernard Rose.
The readers are Cyril Nri, Frank Stirling and Michael Symmons Roberts.
Producer: Adam Fowler
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 06:35 Living World (b04c9p7h)
Turks and Caicos Islands: The Rock Iguana
The Living World is a natural history strand that revels in rich encounter, immersion in the natural world and warm, enthusiastic story telling.
Some of the Caribbean's most spectacular wildlife can be surprisingly easy to find. A short boat ride from the main island of Turks and Caicos brings you to the flat, limestone island of Little Water Cay. Within moments of stepping onshore you can be pretty sure of finding something large, shimmering and spectacular at your feet. These dinosaur-like creatures are the Turks and Caicos Rock Iguana, endemic to these islands and to one location in the nearby Bahamas.
Mark Parrish is a marine biologist who runs a local eco-tourism business. He tells Tom Heap about the problems facing this critically endangered species, particularly the tendency of feral cats to predate on the young lizards. Cats have been spotted crossing onto the island but the warden Alex Williams is determined to keep the local population safe. He takes Tom to see Rocky, the dominant male, his harem of mates and the young challenger to his crown.
Presented by Tom Heap
Produced by Alasdair Cross.
SUN 06:57 Weather (b04c97mk)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 07:00 News and Papers (b04c97mm)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 07:10 Sunday (b04c9s09)
Middle East crisis; Rowan Williams; Star Wars
As the Middle East crisis intensifies, Matt Wells reports from New York on the US Government's response to the conflict. We also get the perspective of the British Jewry and British Palestinians who have families in Gaza.
HSBC wrote to a number of Muslim organisations in the UK this week informing them that their accounts will be closed. We examine why a bank might take a decision to close an account, and how a charity might fall foul of the rules.
In the first of two exclusive reports for Sunday, Dr Rowan Williams, Chair of Christian Aid and former Archbishop of Canterbury, reports on the desperate situation he found in South Sudan when he visited the country this week.
Concluding our series exploring the views of faith groups at the outbreak of World War One, June Osborne, the Dean of Salisbury, looks at the Church of England's response to the war. The Rev Laurence Whitley, Minister of Glasgow Cathedral, looks ahead to the Centenary Commonwealth Service taking place in Scotland and tells the story of the four Anderson Brothers who lost their lives during the Great War.
As the UK plays host to the cast and crew of the latest Star Wars instalment, we explore the theology of the blockbuster movie with David Wilkinson, author of 'The Power of the Force: The Spirituality of the Star Wars Movies'
Producers:
Dan Tierney
Carmel Lonergan
Series Producer:
Amanda Hancox
Contributors:
Rev Laurence Whitley
David Wilkinson
Jehangir Malik
Tom Keatinge.
SUN 07:55 Radio 4 Appeal (b04c9s0c)
GardenAfrica
Monty Don presents The Radio 4 Appeal for GardenAfrica, an international NGO working with Africa's smallholder farmers.
Registered Charity No 1141093
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal, mark the back of the envelope 'GardenAfrica'.
SUN 07:57 Weather (b04c97mp)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 08:00 News and Papers (b04c97mr)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (b04c9s0f)
Where Poppies Grow
General Lord Dannatt, former Chief of the General Staff and present Constable of the Tower of London, preaches at a service in Holy Trinity Church Dartford marking the centenary of the outbreak of World War 1. As part of the commemoration, the Royal British Legion are planting a million poppies in and around Dartford. The service is led by the Vicar of Holy Trinity, the Revd Martin Henwood and the music is directed by George Richford. Producer: Stephen Shipley.
SUN 08:48 A Point of View (b04bs0mk)
The Changing Nature of Utopias
Will Self reflects on what the changing nature of utopias says about us, from Thomas More's sixteenth century Utopia to the recent TV series of the same name. The utopias and dystopias of the past offer a range of different futuristic scenarios but, argues Will Self, they actually all have one thing in common: they're about each writer's present, not future. The late 19th century saw something of a craze in the publication of utopian fiction. Many novels were implicitly optimistic in that they imagined better futures, and some even spurred political movements as was the case with Edward Bellamy's 'Looking Backward 2000-1887'. But nowadays, at a time of man-made global warming, this optimism has dissipated, and our utopias are reduced to fairytales of the non-human, or involve less environmentally destructive species like fictional apes. Where we do imagine a human future, such as in the current TV series, it looks suspiciously dated.
Producer: Arlene Gregorius.
SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b02tws57)
Cirl Bunting
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the cirl bunting.
Cirl buntings are related to yellowhammers and look rather like them, but the male cirl bunting has a black throat and a greenish chest-band.
Their rattling song may evoke memories of warm dry hillsides in France or Italy. Cirl buntings are Mediterranean bird s more at home in olive groves than chilly English hedgerows. Here at the north-western edge of their range, most of our cirl buntings live near the coast in south Devon where they breed in hedgerows on farmland .
SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (b04c9xcb)
Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (b04c9xcd)
For programme synopsis, see daily episodes.
Writer ..... Keri Davies
Director ..... Peter Leslie Wild
Editor ..... Sean O'Connor.
SUN 11:15 Desert Island Discs (b04c9xcg)
Guy Garvey
Guy Garvey, musician and frontman of Elbow, is interviewed by Kirsty Young for Desert island Discs.
Front man of the group "Elbow" his voice and lyrics have helped the band win pretty much every music prize going ... headlining Glastonbury too, and playing at the closing ceremony of the London Olympics. Yet his image is that of an everyday, low key, unassuming bloke ... except that he isn't, he's penning and performing songs filled with intimacy, optimism and lyricism, that strike a chord with millions of fans.
For a long while his devotees were well versed in the art of delayed gratification - Elbow's debut album was released 11 years after the band members first made music together.
He writes his songs in his journal and has been keeping a diary since he was 14. Maybe it was the peace and calm of the blank page that first appealed - one of 7 kids he says he was brought up "in a house full of women that were singing, shouting, arguing, fighting over the bathroom. I'm ruined by these women, spoilt rotten".
SUN 12:00 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b04bn28f)
Series 61
Episode 5
The godfather of all panel shows pays a visit to Bradford's St George's Hall. Old-timers Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by Andy Hamilton, with Jack Dee in the chair. Colin Sell accompanies on the piano.
Producer - Jon Naismith.
SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (b04c9xcj)
Problems with Poultry?
Is the poultry industry fit for purpose? As our consumption of chicken increases and UK poultry production intensifies, Dan Saladino looks at the modern poultry industry.
Two recent events have brought the production of chicken into sharp focus. The first is an investigation by the Guardian's Special Correspondent Felicity Lawrence into allegations of hygiene failings at major production plants.
It was a serious claim as poultry production is already under scrutiny because of the presence of campylobacter in most chicken, a bacteria that can cause food poisoning.
The report triggered a call by the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, for checks on two factories. The company involved strongly denied any problems had taken place, subsequent checks by the Food Standards Agency found no breaches and the plants were given the all clear. However the episode brought poultry production under national scrutiny.
Dan is given full access to the production line of one of the plants involved. Based in Scunthorpe it's the largest poultry slaughter house in the UK and is owned by the largest supermarket chicken supplier 2 Sisters. They explain how our chicken is produced and what kind of measures are in place to reduce levels of campylobacter.
The second story that brought poultry to renewed national attention was a recent decision by the Food Standards Agency on its plans to publish data revealing which supermarkets had the highest levels of campylobacter in their supply chains. In March it was announced that the agency was pushing ahead with "steely determination" to publish the names and levels of the bacteria. In July that decision was reversed and that data might not be available for another year. Dan asks the Food Standards Agency why consumers won't be getting this information as soon as possible.
SUN 12:57 Weather (b04c97my)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (b04c9xcl)
Shaun Ley presents national and international news, including an in-depth look at events around the world. Email: wato@bbc.co.uk; twitter: #theworldthisweekend.
SUN 13:30 Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen's Primary Colours (b044h9bh)
Episode 1
In collaboration with the National Gallery in London whose summer show is about the history and theory of COLOUR, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen looks beneath the surface of our colour-saturated world to investigate what we're actually looking at when we see red, yellow and blue.
In the first programme he returns to a period when most people were dressed in drab dye stuffs, derived from plants, and painters had to work hard to source mineral pigments for paint.
Deep in the National Gallery, he visits senior conservator Jill Dunkerton to discuss how she goes about restoring pictures from the early Renaissance. What does she substitute for the original lapis lazuli blue found so often in pictures of the Madonna? Any why was this colour so prized by artists of this period?
Victoria Finlay has travelled the world in search of the sources of coloured minerals. She tells of searching for lapis in Afghanistan and the cochineal beetle (source for red dye) in Mexico. These were the exotic lands from which the early ingredients for pigments came.
Laurence takes his explorations forward in time to the nineteenth century when the science of colour was becoming properly understood. Professor Martin Kemp explains how the Impressionists began to imitate the effects of light reflecting off coloured surfaces onto the eye.
Ella Hendriks is a curator at the Van Gogh museum and she's in charge of preserving the colours in his paintings. She explains that the colours in his paintings are completely different to how they looked originally.
One of Laurence's final contributors is Professor Anya Hurlbert, who researches our perceptions of colour. She's interested in how we explain the way our brains can identify colours despite dramatic differences in lighting.
The programmes visit the Matisse exhibition in London, the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, and the churches of Florence. As Laurence discovers, colour is much more slippery and complicated than you might think.
Producer: Susan Marling, Isabel Sutton
A Just Radio production
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.
SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b04bryz3)
Shropshire
Peter Gibbs hosts the horticultural panel programme from Shropshire. Chris Beardshaw, Bob Flowerdew and Bunny Guinness join him to answer the audience's questions.
Produced by Howard Shannon
Assistant Producer: Darby Dorras
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
This week's questions and answers:
Q. How should I prune and train two dwarf Cherry trees (Summer Sun and Sweet Heart varieties) to keep them within the bounds of a fruit cage?
A. Plant the trees at an angle rather than straight up. Instead of pruning, weave the branches downwards. Or try draping the branches by tying a log to weigh them down.
Q. Is it best to leave cut grass to mulch?
A. Grass clippings are high in nitrogen and so it's good to use them around the garden. Leaving the grass will improve the tilth but can encourage weeds and thatch buildup.
Q. Are there any varieties of Raspberries that don't take over?
A. Most varieties that yield a good crop will be invasive so find an area of the garden where you don't have to worry about them taking over, for example, in a thin sliver of soil between paving and a wall where they cannot spread. You could also try planting them in containers. Tulameen is a very tasty variety.
Q. Is there anything I can plant beneath my hundred-year-old Yew Tree?
A. Try putting in a statue - this will attract the Ivy, or plant annual bedding plants in containers and put them beneath the tree. Along the periphery of the canopy you could grow Cyclamen, Iris Foetidissima, Holly, Ruscus (Witches' Broom), Euphorbia Robbiae, Ground Elder or Pachysandra (Japanese Spurge).
Q. What is the best way to move two large Rosa Rugosa shrubs?
A. Take cuttings in the autumn and start again in the new location. The old plants will not like being moved. Or if you really did want to move them, do so in August/ September. Prune them hard and then dig them out, cut around some of the stubborn root and replant them.
Q. Do the panel have any suggestions for encouraging wildlife in the garden?
A. You can make habitats within the garden to encourage all sorts of wildlife: a wet area, a pile of twigs, a hedge, a pond etc. Multi-stem trees are fantastic for encouraging wildlife. Plant wild seed mixes on bare soil.
Q. How can I best disguise a fence? One side faces northeast, the other southwest.
A. For the northeast facing side try a Hedera (Ivy), Hydrangea petiolaris, or a Schizophragma hydrangeoides. You could put in buttresses to change the look of the fence. You could put hanging baskets on the posts of the fence and plant in Petunias or Nasturtiums.
Q. What do the panel have in their gardens that cannot be described as either beautiful or functional?
A. Bob has a defunct lawnmower in his. Chris says that everything in his garden is a work in progress and he sees the beauty of potential and functionality in everything. Bunny has got rid of a Leylandii hedge that was neither beautiful of functional.
SUN 14:45 The Listening Project (b04c9xcn)
Sunday Omnibus
For 40 years Iby kept secret the fact that she'd been held in Auschwitz - she didn't even tell her husband. She finally told someone 30 years ago and one of the conversations introduced by Fi Glover is with that friend; the other is with her granddaughter. Since Iby finally revealed her secret, she has gone on to tell her story to more than 20,000 people, most of them school children, in her determination that the horrors of the Holocaust should never be repeated. And, in a departure for The Listening Project, Iby reads the powerful poem she wrote in her pursuit of this aim.
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.
SUN 15:00 Classic Serial (b04c9xcq)
Honoré de Balzac - Eugenie Grandet
Episode 2
The final part of Rose Tremain's gripping dramatisation of Balzac's Eugenie Grandet, starring Ian McKellen as Eugenie's miserly father and Alison Pettit as his lovelorn daughter.
Monsieur Grandet, who has amassed a considerable fortune, is a miser who feigns poverty and runs his household along miserably frugal lines. All changes with the arrival of Eugenie's handsome 22-year-old cousin, Charles Grandet, from Paris. Charles has brought with him a shocking letter from his father, Guillaume, who has committed suicide. He has placed his debts and the care of his son into his brother's hands. It is a fatal decision, with ruinous consequences for the whole family.
Eugenie Grandet is considered by many to be the strongest novel in Balzac's magnificent series, The Human Comedy. It pits a young naive girl against the father she has worshipped and this defiance sets us on course for the playing out of a heart-rending tragedy. Like King Lear, Grandet is a man who deeply loves the daughter who has defied him. He has no other child, no hope, no future but her. But in Balzac's 'human comedy' the tragic and the comic exist side by side and this fruitful conjunction blossoms in Rose Tremain's enthralling adaptation.
Cello and Treble Recorder: Alison Baldwin
Original Music: Lucinda Mason Brown
Produced and directed by Gordon House
A Goldhawk Essential production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 16:00 Bookclub (b04c9xcs)
Sadie Jones - The Outcast
With James Naughtie. Sadie Jones talks about her novel The Outcast which won the Costa First Novel award in 2008.
The book is about a boy called Lewis - his childhood and adolescence - as he grows up in the stultifying world of the home counties in the late forties and fifties. It's a tale of drunkenness, violence and a fair amount of sex, set amongst the well-brought-up professional classes. It is also a love story.
Sadie says : There's something fascinating about the 50s, the cataclysm of the war and the 60s. We all think about this explosion of freedom, but caught in between it was ten years of breath held and that fascinated me.
August's Bookclub : A Question of Loyalties by Allan Massie (1989)
Presenter : James Naughtie
Interviewed Guest : Sadie Jones
Producer : Dymphna Flynn.
SUN 16:27 Poetry Postcards (b04c9xcv)
A chance to hear some of the best poems from BBC Scotland's Poetry Postcards series, inviting a poet from each participating nation and territory to send a poem to Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games.
Razia Iqbal discusses the common themes arising from the collection with four of the participating poets: Sasenarine Persaud from Guyana; Nigerian journalist and poet Tolu Ogunlesi; Toni Stuart, a performance poet from South Africa; and Trinidadian Vahni Capildeo.
SUN 16:55 1914: Day by Day (b04c9xcx)
3rd August
The British Foreign Secretary speaks in favour of war at the House of Commons.
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First World War. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Margaret Macmillan is Professor of International History at Oxford University.
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak
Jane Whittenshaw
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Russell Finch
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 17:00 Trick or Trust (b04brlq0)
How much does an understanding of evolutionary biology influence policy-makers at the sharp end of government? Quite a lot, according to Times columnist and former Downing Street advisor, Daniel Finkelstein. He's seen how the latest scientific research into our genes and how we behave sheds light on the delicate interplay of trust, reciprocity and deception in human affairs. Now he explores how that could shape political decision-making on issues like welfare reform, immigration and what should be done about bankers' pay.
SUN 17:40 Profile (b04c9kyv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b04c97n0)
The latest shipping forecast.
SUN 17:57 Weather (b04c97n2)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04c97n4)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (b04c9xcz)
This week the wonders of the Natural world with aftershave for bees and the once in a lizards lifetime trick the reptile can do to put off predators.
Rob Drydon stars as Peter Brough the ventriloquist whose famous puppet Archie took over his life, and those master mimics Dead Ringers return to radio after seven years.
Professor Brian Cox has a go at rewriting comic history with Stephen Fry and Jenny Éclair uses airplane turbulence as a metaphor for a bumpy marriage.
Sheila McClennon asks you to fasten your seatbelts, make sure your seats are in the upright position and join her for Pick of the Week.
Sketchorama (Radio 4, 30th June)
Plants from Roots to Riches (Radio 4, 30th June)
Book of the Week: Cold Blood (Radio 4, All-Week)
Saturday Drama: His Master's Voice (Radio 4, 2nd August)
Little Lifetimes (Radio 4, 30th July)
Inside the Ethics Committee (Radio 4, 31st July)
You and Yours (Radio 4, All-Week)
BBC Proms 2014: Prom 19 (part 1): Strauss and Elgar (Radio 3, 31st July)
The Infinite Monkey Cage (Radio 4, 28th July)
Dead Ringers (Radio 4, 30th July)
Empire Café: The Business of Tea (Radio 4, 27th July)
Playing the Skyline (Radio 4, 28th July).
SUN 19:00 The Archers (b04c9xd1)
Hard up Ed wants to buy Emma a dress for her birthday. He's grateful when Susan and Neil offer to treat him and Emma to dinner. Mike and Vicky are looking tired.
Susan's desperate about not being invited to Jennifer's kitchen-warming party. Weary Neil says just go round and ask.
Pat and Tony plan to go to the talk on Tuesday about new road. Pat teases Tony over his love for the new bull. Proud Tony's thinks Otto's worth every penny.
Jennifer tells Adam not to let Charlie bully him, although Adam admits the combine disaster was his fault.
Susan visits Jennifer ('casual like') under the pretence of seeing the new kitchen. When she finally challenges Jennifer, Susan realises that Adam gave Ed the invitation. Delighted but playing it cool, Susan agrees to check her diary. She may be free to attend...
Rich is grateful for his birthday card and cash. Pat delights in telling Tony how grown up he sounded on the phone. They're touched that he's dropped the nickname Rich and is now known as Johnny.
Ed desperately hopes to get some work from Adam, but Adam brings him down to earth. Charlie simply won't have him back on the payroll.
SUN 19:15 John Shuttleworth's Lounge Music (b04c9xd3)
Series 1
Leee John of Imagination
Aspiring singer/songwriter John Shuttleworth has been posting audio cassettes of his "finest songs to date" to pop stars throughout the land, in the hope that someone would record his material. But all to no avail.
However, the BBC has very kindly given John a series and asked him to invite pop stars to bring their music to his Sheffield home. So it is that Chas and Dave, Heaven 17, Toyah Willcox and Leee John find themselves in John's lounge having tea with wife Mary, being flirted with by Mary's friend Joan and hassled by John's agent Ken Worthington, as they try and perform not only one their greatest hits but more importantly, one of John's.
It's the last show in the series this week but John is feeling a little stressed despite the fact all the jingles are recorded. John's final guest is Leee John from Imagination who's a very busy man involved with charity work, singing, acting and making a documentary - and John is worried that Leee is doing too much and should take things a bit easy. Maybe they could take a trip to the reservoir to check the levels as that's a very relaxing thing to do?
But Leee has been working since the age of 13 and is still full of energy so he's ready to sing one of John's songs, and indeed one of his own. As Leee prepares to sing Body Talk, John settles down to listen and by the end of it feels quite relaxed. But things get tense once more as Ken tries one last desperate attempt to woo a star to his stable. Will Leee be interested? And will Ken finally get to present the item Ken in the Konservatory?
Also, there are top tips on the telephone from Anita Harris.
Written and Performed by Graham Fellows with special guests Leee John and Anita Harris.
Producer: Dawn Ellis
A Chic Ken production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 19:45 The Empire Cafe (b04c9yq8)
The Ginger MacIntosh Clan of Saint Kitts
Jackie Kay continues our series of three brand new stories recorded in front of a Glasgow audience at The Empire Cafe in Glasgow. Each of our authors will be turning their attention to some of the products of Empire and the Atlantic slave trade at this commonwealth themed cafe and literary venue. The Empire Cafe is opening specially for the Games period and is run by award winning thriller writer Louise Welsh. Each story will focus on one product of Empire.
Jackie Kay has chosen ginger, playfully weaving in connections between Scotland and the Caribbean in a story set in Saint Kitts.
Leading Scottish writer Jackie Kay grew up in Glasgow. Her award-winning memoir Red Dust traced her journey to meet her Nigerian birth father. Her recent short story collection Reality Reality is published by Pan Macmillan.
Jackie Kay, Fred D'Aguiar and Kei Miller will be reading at the Empire Cafe in the Briggait in Glasgow's Merchant City (where the merchants would have kept look out for their ships docking with goods from the commonwealth and sent an assistant running to greet them).
Produced by Allegra McIlroy.
SUN 20:00 Feedback (b04bs0ls)
Listeners' views on the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continue to dominate our inbox. There are allegations of bias on both sides - the BBC coverage is accused of being too pro-Palestinian and too pro-Israeli. But how easy is it to accurately report the conflict on the ground from within Gaza? Roger Bolton speaks to the BBC's chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet.
Also this week, should history stay in the past? John Humphrys and Melvyn Bragg have gone head-to-head over the use of the present tense to describe historical events. Matthew Parris, who presents Radio 4's long-running biographical series Great Lives, was among the first to criticise this seemingly modern fad. But is it actually a new thing? And can it be an effective tool for bringing the past to life? Matthew gives his view.
And Roger joins the gardeners of Cumbria on board the M V Teal on Windermere for a special recording of Gardeners' Question Time. The chairman, Eric Robson, is celebrating 20 years of presiding over the gardening queries of the nation, but what's in his garden? And how do the panel of Bob Flowerdew, Pippa Greenwood, and Bunny Guinness prepare for any question that the audience might throw at them? Find out how an audience of 150 gardeners, perhaps more used to being close to the earth, take to the water. You can hear the special edition of Gardeners' Question Time on Friday 8th August at
15.00 and repeated on Sunday 10th August at
14.00 on BBC Radio 4.
Finally, are Sandi Toksvig and her News Quiz panel taking up raving? The problems with the BBC iPlayer continue.
Producer: Katherine Godfrey.
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 20:30 Last Word (b04bs0ll)
Sir Richard MacCormac, Eileen Ford, Nigel Ryan, Zohra Sehgal, Frank Mumford
Matthew Bannister on
The architect Sir Richard MacCormac, who gave a human face to modernism and fell out with the BBC over the creation of its new London headquarters.
Eileen Ford, who set up the Ford Modelling Agency, managing stars like Lauren Hutton, Christy Turlington and Elle Macpherson.
Nigel Ryan, editor during the glory days of ITN in the 60s and 70s, who also promoted the careers of women journalists.
The actress Zohra Seghal, known as "the grand old lady of Indian cinema."
And Frank Mumford who toured Europe with a show featuring his own handmade glamorous puppets.
SUN 21:00 Face the Facts (b04brjzz)
Prostitution: Red Light? Green Light?
John Waite investigates the varying approaches to street prostitution across the UK - from open tolerance in some areas to zero tolerance in others. Eight years ago five women were murdered in Ipswich while working as prostitutes. It was a wake-up call for how the sex industry is policed across the country. But with critics now saying that policing tactics contributed to yet another murder of a prostitute in London recently - what has really changed?
Producer: Paul Waters
Research: Craig Lewis
Editor: Gavin Poncia.
SUN 21:26 Radio 4 Appeal (b04c9s0c)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:55 today]
SUN 21:30 In Business (b04brtgb)
Deep Thoughts
It sounds abstruse, but clever people argue that commercial companies have a lot to learn from great philosophers and the academics who spend their lives studying them.
Peter Day meets some of the business people inspired and influenced by highbrow philosophy.
Produced by David Edmonds.
SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (b04cb057)
Weekly political discussion and analysis with MPs, experts and commentators.
SUN 22:45 What the Papers Say (b04cb059)
Iain Martin of the Telegraph looks at how newspapers covered the week's big stories.
SUN 23:00 1914: Day by Day (b04cb1p7)
1914: Day by Day - Omnibus
Episode 5
Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on Serbia threatens to drag the rest of Europe into a war. The British government is split on whether to intervene.
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First World War. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Margaret Macmillan is Professor of International History at Oxford University.
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak
Jane Whittenshaw
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Russell Finch
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b04c9p7f)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:05 today]
MONDAY 04 AUGUST 2014
MON 00:00 Midnight News (b04c97p4)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (b04brn4l)
Non-Networking Graduates; Race and Consumption
Race & consumption - Laurie Taylor talks to Ben Pitcher, Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster, about the ways in which racial meaning is produced in everyday acts of consumption. From the depiction of 'red Indians' by children's authors to the wearing of Bob Marley T shirts and the enthusiasm for 'ethnic' street food; our ideas of race are made and re-made across the terrain of contemporary culture. They're joined by Lola Young, Crossbench Peer and former Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Middlesex. Also, Jessica Abrahams, graduate student at the University of Cardiff, explores working class students' refusal to use networks and contacts as a route to career advancement.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (b04c9nms)
[Repeat of broadcast at
05:43 on Sunday]
MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04c97p6)
The latest shipping forecast.
MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04c97p8)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04c97pb)
The latest shipping forecast.
MON 05:30 News Briefing (b04c97pd)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04d0rv9)
Radio 4's daily prayer and reflection with the Rev Neil Gardner of Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh.
MON 05:45 Farming Today (b04cb2w6)
Choosy bees, First World War, Scottish sheep support
Sheep farmers in Scotland's harshest landscapes will get extra EU money from next year. NFU Scotland argues that the payment is needed to prevent further abandonment of grazing in the hills.
On the centenary of the First World War being declared, we begin a week exploring the impact on British farming and the countryside.
And, an insight into just how bumblebees pick and choose the flowers they feed from.
Presented by Caz Graham and produced by Sarah Swadling.
MON 05:56 Weather (b04c97pg)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b0378xcd)
Icterine Warbler
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Michaela Strachan presents the icterine warbler. Icterine Warblers are fluent mimics and include phrases of other species in their song. Their name, icterine, is derived from ikteros, the ancient Greek word for jaundice and describes the bird's spring plumage...yellowish beneath and olive brown on top.
MON 06:00 Today (b04cb5sf)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.
MON 09:00 Fry's English Delight (b04cb5sh)
Series 7
Magic
Language and magic have a mysterious relationship, which is probed in this programme by Stephen Fry. It's a beguiling, secret world in which magicians and psychologists feel equally at home. The common factor - nobody knows exactly how either works.
Derren Brown, illusionist and mentalist, is Stephen's guest. He describes how the idea of magic features in his work, how the art of persuasion is akin to magic, and how some people are more susceptible than others to this mysterious - largely verbal - art. Derren also exerts an amazing power over Stephen, despite them being two hundred miles apart. And he does it using words alone.
From a psychological and neuro-scientific angle, Dr Steven Pinker examines the idea that language itself is a form of magic and the use of words give us the power to change our perception of reality.
And we venture into the coven of Davenport's Magic Shop to meet some young Harry Potters trying out their stage patter. Magic Circle Vice President Richard Penrose leads us to a safe containing the first ever glossary of magic terminology -The Discovery of Witchcraft - and utters some magic words he then refuses to explain.
Folklorist Juliette Wood offers some theories as to the origins of taboo words like Hocus Pocus and Abracadabra. Philip Pullman talks about the magical effect of poetry. And Stephen himself conjures another poetic figure from history, the great Magus Prospero from Shakespeare's The Tempest, to demonstrate Shakespeare's use of magical language to create new worlds.
Producer: Sarah Cuddon
A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 09:30 World Agony (b04cb5sk)
Egypt
Irma Kurtz, Cosmopolitan magazine's Agony Aunt for over 40 years, talks to a different agony aunt from around the world for each programme in this series.
She speaks to Aunts from America, India, Australia, Egypt and South Africa, and reflects on the universal and contrasting problems that occur in their particular society. These Aunts, many of whom have dramatic personal lives themselves, offer advice in newspaper columns, on radio phone-ins and on-line.
Irma draws on her ample experience to offer a useful perspective on their approach to problem solving. Together they discuss the problems specific to their communities and listeners hear examples of some of the letters they receive and the advice given.
Programme 5: Youssra el-Sharkawy, Egypt.
Youssra el-Sharkawy had an advice column in The Egyptian Gazette, an English speaking newspaper. Agony Aunts are usually older than the people who write to them, but Youssra is young - only 27 years old. Her career as an agony aunt began when she joined an all-women theatre troupe and became drawn into helping her fellow actors with their problems. Her correspondents tend to be young and idealistic and Youssra deals with their concerns with a rational and mature approach. The revolutionary events in Egypt mean that some of the women who write to her are alone and depressed. She talks to Irma about the position of women in her country and her frustration at being a free-thinking woman in a country where many women are far from liberation.
Produced by Ronni Davis
A White Pebble Media production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 09:45 Book of the Week (b04cb5sm)
In Montmartre
Episode 1
Author Sue Roe's account, abridged by Katrin Williams, describes how Pablo Picasso and other artists found this Paris quarter irresistible when arriving in the early 1900's:
1. He turns up with his Catalan friend Casagemas during the World Fair and quickly feels at home, painting the scene and carousing in such notorious watering holes as the 'Zut'.
Producer Duncan Minshull.
MON 09:58 World War I Centenary Commonwealth Service (b04cb5sp)
James Naughtie commentates live with guest Colin MacKay from Glasgow Cathedral where the Commonwealth Service marks the beginning of the centenary commemorations, attended by HRH The Duke of Rothesay and Commonwealth Heads of State.
MON 11:00 Woman's Hour (b04cb5sr)
Home Front; Kay Mellor; Women's Rugby World Cup
Behind the scenes of Radio 4's new WW1 drama Home Front and the lesser told stories of the war's impact on the lives of women far away from the trenches, the latest movement against feminism - is it having an impact? Teen pregnancy as seen through the eyes of scriptwriter and actress Kay Mellor, and with the Women's Rugby World Cup underway in Paris, we look at the favourites and the competition.
Presenter: Emma Barnett.
Producer: Anne Peacock.
MON 11:45 15 Minute Drama (b04cb617)
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Episode 1
The last series of Hattie Naylor's adaptation.
It's a tense time in the Pepys household. As we know from the last nine years of his diary, Sam has often had dalliances with other women, unbeknown to his wife Elizabeth. Her ignorance of his behaviour came to an abrupt end last October when she walked in on him in a compromising position with the maid, Debs Willet. This discovery has put a huge strain on their marriage. Almost deranged by suspicion and jealousy, Elizabeth forbids Sam to leave the house unless he is accompanied at all times by their servant, Will. It's not all bad, however, as she's used Sam's guilt to make him give her a bigger clothing allowance.
Theme music: Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May, words by Robert Herrick and music by William Lawes, sung by Bethany Hughes. Lute, baroque guitar and theorbo played by David Miller. Violin and viol by Annika Gray, and recorders by Alice Baxter.
Historical consultant: Liza Picard
Sound by Nigel Lewis
Production Co-Ordinator: Willa King
A BBC/Cymru Wales production, directed by Kate McAll.
MON 12:00 Home Front (b03thbcj)
4 August 1914 - Kitty Wilson (Season 1 start)
The first season of an epic drama series set in Great War Britain exactly one hundred days before its original broadcast on BBC Radio 4. In this first episode, as Britain waits for Germany's response to their ultimatum, in Folkestone, Kitty Wilson has a deadline of her own.
Written by: Katie Hims
Music: Matthew Strachan
Directed by Editor: Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Home Front is a ground-breaking new Radio Four radio drama - its biggest ever at around 600 episodes - set in Britain during the Great War, playing a central role in the BBC's comprehensive offering to mark the centenaries of World War One.
An enthralling fiction, set against a backdrop of fact. Each episode is set a hundred years to the day before broadcast, and follows one character's day. Together they create a mosaic of experience from a wide cross-section of British society, and a playful treasure hunt, with at least one historical truth hidden in each story.
Season One is set in Folkestone, a fashionable Edwardian seaside resort that quickly became one of the hubs of the military machine, and close enough to France to hear the fighting. Future seasons will be set in Newcastle and Devon, telling the major stories of wartime Britain.
Marking major and minor events of the time, Home Front charts the strategies that ordinary people found for managing life in wartime, and how, together, they ensured that the Home Front didn't break down.
MON 12:15 You and Yours (b04cb9gr)
Telephone bank scams, Night-time economy, Smart meters
Winifred Robinson asks if its time for the banks to reimburse the victims of telephone scams.
You and Yours begins its series on the night time economy with an important question: How many people work beyond the nine to five? We'll be telling you why it matters.
And why, when it comes to buying goods from Ebay, it can sometimes be a good thing if your spelling isn't up to scratch.
MON 12:57 Weather (b04c97pj)
The latest weather forecast.
MON 13:00 World at One (b04cb9gt)
Martha Kearney presents national and international news.
MON 13:45 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04cb9gw)
Towards the Light
The Nobel prize for Chemistry was awarded to German scientist Richard Willstatter in 1915 for his analysis of the green plant pigment chlorophyll. It marked a significant moment in the long history of piecing together the many elements that contribute to photosynthesis - the process by which plants draw in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and together with light and water can generate their own glucose and release oxygen back into the air. The limits of this process were now clear
Kathy Willis hears from historian Jim Endersby about defining moments in photosynthesis' long history and from Kew's Head of Conservation Biotechnology about how artificially elevating levels of carbon dioxide in the air,a technique long developed by horticulturists to produce bigger fruit and vegetable crops, is now having dramatic effects on successful reintroduction of cultivated endangered plants back into the wild.
And as scientists understand the different methods that plants use to photosynthesise, Kathy Willis hears from Oxford plant scientist Jane Langdale who's part of a network of international scientists who are attempting to mend a fundamental flaw in the process of photosynthesis which could improve future rice yields by 50%
Producer Adrian Washbourne.
MON 14:00 The Archers (b04c9xd1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Sunday]
MON 14:15 Drama (b04cb9gy)
Close Call
With Apollo 11 about to land on the moon, the Watts family have finally installed their first telephone, little realising how much their lives will change with its arrival. The phone sits in the hallway, witnessing the activities of the house, listening to the family's secret loves, fears and joys.
The writer Sarah Weatherall captures the excitement of using a phone for the first time, in the days before mobiles and texts, and when no conversation was private.
Directed by Anne Bunting.
MON 15:00 Round Britain Quiz (b04cb9h0)
(12/12)
If you sprinkled some sweetness onto a Cambridge tutor, a computer network and a little bit, to which places would it take you?
The final match of the 2014 series pits Northern Ireland against Wales, with Tom Sutcliffe in the chair. Today's result is crucial to the final Round Britain Quiz rankings for this year, with Northern Ireland set to be the overall series winners if they win today.
Polly Devlin and Brian Feeney play for Northern Ireland, opposite Myfanwy Alexander and David Edwards for Wales. They'll need all the arcane and apparently-unconnected snippets of knowledge they can muster, in order to make any sense of the cryptic questions. You can play along by looking at the questions on the Round Britain Quiz pages of the Radio 4 website.
This week's final match, by Round Britain Quiz tradition, is made up entirely of questions suggested by listeners in recent months.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
MON 15:30 The Food Programme (b04c9xcj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:32 on Sunday]
MON 16:00 The Art of the Nation (b04cb9h2)
Fathers and Sons
Most of the nation's greatest works of art are in our museums and galleries, but there are also thousands of significant works - some valuable, some not - in homes across the country.
BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz discovers extraordinary stories behind the art-works on our domestic walls or shelves, and the tales they tell about our nation - an unwritten biography charting ups and downs, highs and lows.
In this edition, Will looks at art passed from fathers to sons. Many art-works - and the tales behind them - are handed down in this way, and the programme includes the story of how Luke, son of celebrated artist Mark Gertler, began to understand his father's life through the art he now owns.
Producer Neil George.
MON 16:30 The Infinite Monkey Cage (b04cbbld)
Series 10
Before the Big Bang
Brian Cox and Robin Ince transport the cage of infinite proportions, for the first of 2 programmes from the Edinburgh Festival. They are joined on stage by cosmologists Carlos Frenk and Faye Dowker and actor and comedian Ben Miller and comedian and fellow physics PhD alumnus Richard Vranch.
MON 16:55 1914: Day by Day (b04cbblg)
4th August
Britain declares war on Germany.
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First World War. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Margaret Macmillan is Professor of International History at Oxford University.
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak
Jane Whittenshaw
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Russell Finch
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 17:00 PM (b04cbblj)
Eddie Mair presents coverage and analysis of the day's news.
MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04c97pl)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 18:30 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b04cbbll)
Series 61
Episode 6
Back for a second week at Bradford's St George's Hall, regulars Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by Andy Hamilton, with Jack Dee in the chair. Piano accompaniment is provided by Colin Sell.
Producer - Jon Naismith.
MON 19:00 The Archers (b04cbbln)
Alan leads a brief service of remembrance at the war memorial, before the later church service to commemorate the outbreak of WW1. Peggy finds it very moving and shares her memories. Everyone seemed to know someone who'd gone to fight.
Alan drives Peggy into Borchester. They bump into Ed who has clearly just visited a pawn shop. Embarrassed Ed asks Alan not to say anything about his 'temporary shortfall'.
Emma and Susan are having a makeover for Emma's birthday. Ed feels he has let Emma down but Emma really doesn't care. She's chuffed to be asked by Fallon to bake for her tea tent at Loxfest. Fallon wants a team of local bakers. Jill's happy to help out a bit as well, although Shula says not to overdo it.
Emma's touched that Ed has bought her a present, having caught him trying to wrap it. He insists she's not to worry about how he got the money.
At a moving service at St Stephens, nervous Jill steels herself to read the poem Futility by Wilfrid Owen. Then the cathedral school choir sings Keep the Home Fires Burning.
MON 19:15 Front Row (b04cbblq)
Welcome to New York; DBC Pierre, The Tallis Scholars
Samira Ahmed talks to author DBC Pierre, reviews the film Welcome to New York starring Gerard Depardieu, and discusses the world premiere of John Tavener's Requiem Fragments.
MON 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04cb617)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:45 today]
MON 20:00 Document (b04cbbls)
The Saur Death List of Afghanistan
David Loyn investigates how a lost document is helping Afghanistan come to terms with its painful past.
It revolves around the lesser known moment when Afghanistan began to fall apart: 1978, two years before the Soviet invasion. Lesser known, partly because the world wasn't really paying attention but also because evidence of state murder and disappearance was covered up after the co-called Saur Revolution. That is, until now. A war crimes trial in the Netherlands has unearthed a list of 5000 prisoners detained, tortured and killed by the radical communist regime in 1978 / 79.
This 'Death List' has less than half the total number of people unaccounted for during that period but it has finally given families of the disappeared confirmation of the fate of their loved ones and allowed them to mourn. The reverberations of this are being felt strongly in Afghanistan. This story is told through the eyes of a remarkable survivor of these purges whose name is on the list of the dead.
This 'Death List' leads us to the issue of justice and accountability for war crimes in Afghanistan, not just from 1978 but over the following three decades. Post 9/11 the West dealt with warlords whose very poor human rights records went unquestioned and many of them now hold powerful government positions in Afghanistan. It raises the question: when will the country be able to face the crimes of its recent past and bring the perpetrators to justice? It's a question on the lips of many ordinary Afghans.
Producer Neil McCarthy.
MON 20:30 Crossing Continents (b04brrj6)
Fearless Women in Turkish Kurdistan
For decades, Turkey's Kurds have been struggling against a state that used to deny their very existence as a separate people. In the low level war between the Turkish military and the militant Kurdish group, the PKK, both side have been accused of atrocities. In the 29 years of fighting up to last year's ceasefire, at least 40,000 people died and hundreds of villages were destroyed. But now, just when Kurds in neighbouring Iraq are considering establishing an independent state, and many believe the chaos in Syria will change borders across the region, Kurds in Turkey are increasingly reconciled to remaining within existing frontiers. As Turkey pursues peace talks with the PKK, the militant movement's supporters talk of changing society, not borders. And already, they've initiated some radical experiments.
Pro-PKK towns and villages across eastern Turkey are now each governed by two co-mayors, male and female, and the new system has propelled many dynamic young women into power in regions that were once socially conservative. One is a survivor of domestic violence determined to use her position to encourage other women to speak up about what until now has been a taboo subject. She's not just the first woman mayor of her town, but also the first woman ever to get a divorce there. Tim Whewell travels to the region to meet her and other social reformers, and discover why so many of Turkey's Kurds say they have turned their back on nationalism, and want to express their identity in ways they say are more modern.
Producers: Charlotte Pritchard and Guney Yildiz.
MON 21:00 Shared Planet (b04bnd0v)
National Parks
The term National Park can be applied to different types of areas depending on where they are situated, some have more protection for wildlife than others. In the United States the traditional National Parks such as Yellowstone or Yosemite enjoy a high level of protection with many restrictions on what people can do. Contrast that with British National Parks which are working landscapes with villages, farms and even industry.
In this week's Shared Planet Monty Don looks at where wildlife fits into this complex mix of wilderness and human activity. In reality how do these much-loved protected areas work for wildlife? Beautiful scenery does not necessarily equal abundant wildlife. And in more human centred National parks, do our needs override those of animals and plants. In the Cairngorms National park plans are underway to build 15000 houses and Loch Lomond has given the go ahead for a gold mine. Join Monty Don to explore the relationship between wildlife and National Parks.
Produced by Mary Colwell.
MON 21:30 Fry's English Delight (b04cb5sh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
MON 21:58 Weather (b04c97pn)
The latest weather forecast.
MON 22:00 The World Tonight (b04cbg36)
World Tonight Special including the Centenary Vigil
David Eades presents a special hour-long edition of The World Tonight from the Imperial War Museum, looking back with historians at how Britain entered the First World War and real time reporting of the last hours before London's ultimatum to Berlin to withdraw from Belgium expired.
The programme includes coverage of the candlelit vigil from Westminster Abbey with Mike Wooldridge.
MON 23:02 Word of Mouth (b04bng0x)
Newspeak
One of the most terrifying ideas in George Orwell's dystopian fantasy, "1984" is an entirely artificial language which the State plans to impose on the people in order, not only to control what they say, but what they think.
The premise of "Newspeak" is to pare down the English language - or Oldspeak - so that only words that are essential in both a utilitarian and an ideological sense remain.
The idea is that this will make dissenting ideas - "thoughtcrime" in Newspeak - literally impossible.
But could it work?
In Word of Mouth this week Chris Chris Ledgard tries to work out if New speak could happen here and whether, by taking away words, the government could also take away thoughts.
He gets to grips with the question of whether language determines thoughts as Orwell's invention supposes. He also finds out whether the most extreme totalitarian regimes like North Korea have attempted language control on the scale of Newspeak?
Many would argue that much political and corporate language as well as political correctness amounts to a creeping Newspeak in modern life but are we really that malleable or does the popularity of satires that mock that kind of jargon suggest Orwell was too pessimistic. We can spot attempts to impose phoney and manipulative language on to us and we ward it off with mockery.
Interviewees include: Jean Seaton, Professor of Media History at the University of Westminster and Director of the Orwell Prize, D.J Taylor, author of "Orwell - the Life" and John Morton, writer and director of the BBC mock documentary comedies, "Twenty Twelve" and "W1A".
MON 23:30 With Great Pleasure (b048nlfj)
Pauline Black
Pauline Black, actor, writer and lead singer with ska band the Selecter chooses her favourite words of music, prose and poetry including works by Maya Angelou, Billie Holiday, Barack Obama and Joni Mitchell. These are the pieces that helped shape her identity as a young black woman growing up with adoptive parents in Essex in the 1950s, a place she describes as 'hardly a seething hotbed of multiculturalism'.
Ray Shell reads The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes
Claire Benedict reads from Passing by Nella Larsen
Pauline Black sings Little Green by Joni Mitchell
Claire Benedict reads Still I Rise by Maya Angelou and an excerpt from The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Pauline Black sings Strange Fruit
Ray Shell reads an extract from Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama
Claire Benedict reads from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
Producer: Maggie Ayre.
TUESDAY 05 AUGUST 2014
TUE 00:00 Midnight News (b04c97qf)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
TUE 00:30 Book of the Week (b04cb5sm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Monday]
TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04c97qh)
The latest shipping forecast.
TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04c97qk)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04c97qm)
The latest shipping forecast.
TUE 05:30 News Briefing (b04c97qp)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04d0s0x)
Radio 4's daily prayer and reflection with the Rev Neil Gardner of Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh.
TUE 05:45 Farming Today (b04cbnn2)
Farm fires, Co-op sale, Angry Scottish farmers
There has been an increase in fires on farms this harvest time. Tim Price from NFU Mutual says it's the worst situation they've seen in five years. The hot weather has left much of the countryside like tinder, where fires can set off by the smallest of sparks.
The Co-op farms have been sold to the Wellcome Trust, after months searching for a buyer. Co-op's farm manager tells Farming Today that there is relief on the farms that their future now seems secure. Peter Pereira Gray from the Wellcome Trust says they have taken the business on as a long-term investment and won't be selling it off any time soon.
It's almost eight weeks since Defra announced what farmers can grow under the new environmental element of the Common Agricultural Policy. But it's up to the devolved governments to decide how the new rules are implemented. In Scotland, cereal farmers are still waiting for information that will determine which crops they can put into the ground as soon as the fields are clear after harvest. Andrew Moir from NFU Scotland tells Sybil Ruscoe they haven't been given clarity on what they can plant, and that time is running up. Scottish Rural Affairs Minister Richard Lockhead says he understands their concerns, but wants to take time to get the detail right.
Presented by Sybil Ruscoe and produced by Ruth Sanderson.
TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b0378xj7)
Northern Wheatear
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Michaela Strachan presents the northern wheatear. With their black masks, white bellies, apricot chests and grey backs, male wheatears are colourful companions on a hill walk. The birds you see in autumn may have come from as far as Greenland or Arctic Canada. They pass through the British Isles and twice a year many of them travel over 11,000 kilometres between Africa and the Arctic. It's one of the longest regular journeys made by any perching bird.
TUE 06:00 Today (b04cbnn4)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.
TUE 09:00 A Law Unto Themselves (b04cbnn6)
Gareth Peirce
Helena Kennedy talks to solicitor Gareth Peirce who has been described by one of her own clients as specialising in representing pariahs of society.
During a career spanning nearly 40 years she has been at the heart of many of Britain's fiercest legal controversies. She has helped free convicted Irish bombers such as the Birmingham Six and Guilford Four, secured the release of Guantanamo Bay detainees, and for years thwarted government attempts to deport the Muslim preacher Abu Qatada.
Opinions about her tend to be polarised. For many she is an indefatigable fighter for human rights, defender of the underdog and campaigner against miscarriages of justice. Others see her actions as a threat to national security - making Britain appear a "safe haven for terrorists".
Her other high profile clients have included Julian Assange and the family of Jean Charles de Menezes who had been shot dead by police at Stockwell tube station.
Gareth Peirce discusses her role in uncovering some of the biggest miscarriages of justice in the country's legal history, and explains why she has devoted her life to defending those whom she believes have no voice in society.
Producer: Brian King
An Above The Title production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 09:30 Witness (b04cbv9d)
The Death of Frida Kahlo
On July 13 1954, the celebrated Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, died at the age of 47. Married to the famous mural painter, Diego Rivera, Kahlo was best known for her vivid and often brutal self-portraits depicting different episodes in her tragic life. Witness hears from 90-year-old art critic Raquel Tibol, a friend of Kahlo's, and the veteran Mexican journalist, Elena Poniatowska.
TUE 09:45 Book of the Week (b04cs839)
In Montmartre
Episode 2
Author Sue Roe's account, abridged by Katrin Williams, describes how Pablo Picasso and other artists found this Paris quarter irresistible when arriving in the early 1900's:
2. Picasso must sell his work to survive and he meets up with some remarkable dealers. Also the alluring Fernande, his new muse and lover..
Producer Duncan Minshull.
TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (b04cbv9g)
Jacqueline Bisset; Contraceptive pill and mood swings; Crowdfunding
Millions of women use the contraceptive pill at some point in their lifetime. For many it's a liberation. For some, taking the 'wrong' pill can be disastrous when it comes to mood swings. Emma Barnett explores women's hormonal make up and how it interacts with the birth control pill. Jacqueline Bisset talks about her role in the new film, Welcome to New York; Why is crowdfunding proving successful for women? Woman's Hour finds out what this relatively novel way of financing a new business idea, a creative project or a 'not for profit' enterprise has to offer; Dido Harding has been the CEO of Talk Talk Group for just over four years; she's the only woman to appear on both our 2013 Powerlist and on the 2014 Game Changers list. Emma talks to her about how she's working with other providers and government to promote a safer experience online. Last year JoAnne Chesimard, best known as civil rights activist Assata Shakurm, became the FBI's most wanted woman. In 1977 she was given life for the murder of a New Jersey state trooper. Two years after her conviction she escaped and fled to Cuba where she received political asylum. Her autobiography has just been reissued. Journalist Tshepo Mokoena joins Emma in the studio.
TUE 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b04cbv9j)
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Episode 2
Elizabeth engages a new maid but Sam is dismayed to find she is ugly with small pox scars upon her face and very large hands. Elizabeth's fury at his deceit of her has abated and the household is more peaceful now, though Sam is still unable to venture abroad without Will, their servant, as his 'guard'. Then one day in April, while working at Whitehall, he spots Debs Willet, his former maid and lover. Unable to contain his feelings, he manoeuvres Will out of the way and chases after her, finding her in the chapel below-stairs. When he goes home after this brief encounter, he hardly dares to speak to Elizabeth for fear of giving himself away. Adapted by Hattie Naylor
Theme music: Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May, words by Robert Herrick and music by William Lawes, sung by Bethany Hughes. Lute, baroque guitar and theorbo played by David Miller. Violin and viol by Annika Gray, and recorders by Alice Baxter.
Historical consultant: Liza Picard
Sound by Nigel Lewis
Production Co-Ordinator: Willa King
A BBC/Cymru Wales production, directed by Kate McAll.
TUE 11:00 The Listeners (b04cc1sq)
Series 2
Episode 1
Listening is about more than hearing as we discover from people who 'listen for a living'. In the first of three fascinating programmes we meet four individuals who all listen to languages and words. Mark Turin is an anthropologist whose work includes the documentation of oral languages. "It's very hard to make sense of a language which you've never heard before if you don't see it written down and don't know where the word breaks are." explains Mark. There are about 7000 languages spoken on earth today and some estimates suggest that 2 languages become extinct every month, so when Mark visited Nepal to study Thangmi; an oral language for which there was no written documentation, he had to really learn to listen to understand words and meaning. Carine Kennedy had to learn a foreign language when at the age of 5 she went to school in England, having been brought up in a French-speaking family. Today she is a Conference Interpreter working in both French and Italian. She describes interpreting as "listening but also understanding what the person is saying. You're almost one step ahead of them". For Baroness Helena Kennedy QC listening "is the activity of hearing combined with the search for meaning or hidden meaning", and in court she "listens hard to what might be beyond what is being said" and describes herself as having "quite good antennae for this". Like Helena, Mark Milton, founder of Education 4 Peace, a Swiss foundation dedicated to advocating and supporting emotional health programmes in schools and sports also traces his ability to listen back to childhood, and he fervently believes we should be teaching children how to listen because of the benefits which it can bring to society " ...its an essential value to the human being".
TUE 11:30 All You Need Is Lab - How Science And Technology Inspired Innovation In Music (b03v9np1)
Musician and songwriter Midge Ure looks at the many ways scientific and technological innovation have stimulated creativity in pop music.
From the invention of the steel guitar string, through the tape recorder and the synthesiser, to the drum machine and Autotune, musicians have always embraced the latest ideas and adapted or distorted them to produce new sounds.
Musicians Anne Dudley (Art of Noise) and Thomas Dolby join music journalist David Hepworth and blues researcher Tom Attah, exploring how the laboratory has informed and inspired the studio.
Midge demonstrates what you can achieve with just a laptop these days - but laments the passing of an age of invention in popular music.
Featured music includes:
The Beatles
Chopin
Thomas Dolby
Robert Johnson
Muddy Waters
Little Walter
Charlie Christian
Les Paul and Mary Ford
The Tornados
The Small Faces
Queen
The Sweet
Stevie Wonder
Band Aid
Art of Noise
Donna Summer
Fat Boy Slim
Cher
Daft Punk
Nick Clegg
Producer: Trevor Dann
A Trevor Dann production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.
TUE 12:00 Home Front (b04cc1ss)
5 August 1914 - Gabriel Graham
The first season of an epic drama series set in Great War Britain exactly one hundred days before its original broadcast on BBC Radio 4. In this episode, Folkestone has woken up to new responsibilities as a part of the war machine.
Written by: Katie Hims
Music: Matthew Strachan
Directed by Editor: Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
TUE 12:15 You and Yours (b04cc1sz)
Call You and Yours: Can you retire?
On Call You and Yours we're asking if you'll be able to retire? The post war baby boom generation had it good, and according to a study by the Future Lab the "superboomers" had it even better. The Over 50s make up a third of the population and if you believe the statistics they're wealthier and healthier than ever. One in five over 50s are self employed, they've got disposable cash and they're spending it on technology, fashion and leisure.
Ros Altmann, the government's Older Workers' Champion thinks all this longevity and vigour means we need to rethink retirement. It should no longer be a cliff from which we fall into inactivity, it should be a gradual wind down - so we can slow the pace rather than stop.
So have you thrown your retirement plans out of the window?
It may be your choice - or you may have no say - have your pension and savings fallen short of the cost of living? Or are you crossing dates off the calendar and yearning for the day you can bin the season ticket and call it a day.
Whatever age you are, tell us if you think you'll be able to retire.
The phone number to call is 03700 100 444 from
10am tomorrow.
E-mail you and yours at BBC dot CO dot UK.
Or you can text 84844.
(Tweet using the hashtag you and yours.).
TUE 12:57 Weather (b04c97qr)
The latest weather forecast.
TUE 13:00 World at One (b04cc1ww)
Martha Kearney presents national and international news.
TUE 13:45 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04cc1wy)
Multiple Genes
In 1903 a cluster of evening primrose in an abandoned potato field outside the Dutch town of Hilversum caught the eye of German botanist Hugo de Vries. Its huge blooms and large leaves appeared to suggest the sudden development of a new species. Around the same time in Kew Gardens a mysterious primula hybrid appeared. The new discipline of plant genetics soon revealed that this curious trick was being driven by multiplication of chromosomes inside the plant cell nucleus.
Professor Kathy Willis examines this phenomenon - known as polyploidy ( "multiple forms") - and how insights into this peculiarity can contribute to the evolutionary success of plants. It may also hold the answer to one of the botanical world's greatest mysteries - why so soon after appearing in the fossil record did the flowering plants suddenly explode into the bewildering range of species we see today.
With contributions from historian Jim Endersby, Keeper of Kew's Jodrell Lab Mark Chase, and Jodrell Laboratory geneticist Illia Leitch.
Producer Adrian Washbourne.
TUE 14:00 The Archers (b04cbbln)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Monday]
TUE 14:15 Drama (b00hv3j0)
The Sensitive
A Possession
Alastair Jessiman's third play about a Glasgow psychic who uses his gifts to help police investigations. When Thomas Soutar agrees to help in the search for a music student who has been missing for a year, he becomes obsessed by the missing girl in ways that he had not expected.
Directed by Bruce Young.
TUE 15:00 Making History (b04cc7ck)
Tom Holland is joined by Dr Lucy Robinson from the University of Sussex and Professor Justin Champion from Royal Holloway University of London who has recently been elected President of the Historical Association.
Helen Castor visits the National Gallery to look at the beautiful 14th century Wilton Diptych, one of two pairings featuring King Richard II. Helen is joined by Curator Susan Foister and Dr Jenny Stratford to explore whether a monarch under pressure and in need of a strong, kingly image, gave rise to our earliest examples of royal portrait.
On the day that Scottish Higher results are published (and a little more than a week before A Levels) we hear from academics at Edgehill University and the University of Roehampton who are working on using social media and on-line activities to help bridge the gap between studying history at school and university.
Down on the Solent, Dr Sam Willis meets up with members of Subterranea Brtiannica who are celebrating 40 years of exploring underground history with a visit to a Palmerston Fort near Portsmouth.
Contact the programme by emailing making.history@bbc.co.uk, or writing to Making History, BBC Radio 4, PO Box 3096. Brighton BN1 1PL.
Producer: Nick Patrick
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 15:30 Heal Thyself: A History of Self-Help (b04cc7cm)
Happier
Robin Ince explores our fascination with the self-help shelf. From Socrates to Sam Smiles, Marcus Aurelius to Men are from Mars, can this $13 billion industry really make us all richer, happier and more productive? And what is it about the 21st century that has made it bigger than ever before?
Episode 1/3
From the earliest recorded times, philosophers and writers have offered living advice to their readers. Much of ancient Stoic thinking reads a lot like a modern set of rules for a better life.
A lot of the more famous Stoics we know of were writing at the same time as the very early Christians, and there are some parallels.
What Christianity added into the mix was the idea of the personal narrative, the evangelical moment of conversion. The style of these short biographies became a mainstay of much modern self-help. I was unhappy, now I am am content. I was poor, now I am a rich businessman. You can be too.
Subsequently, this mode of writing and publishing spread over into other lifestyle areas such as food and well-being, paralleled by the continued use of the classical consolatio diatribe. Thus further setting the genre into the western European consciousness, Elizabeth I personally wrote an English translation of Boethius' Consolations in Philosophy.
TUE 16:00 Word of Mouth (b04cc7cp)
How the Telephone Rewired Us
Chris Ledgard looks at how the invention of the telephone changed society, rewired the way we speak to one another and explores the idea that the phone as a single entity is disappearing.
With many people unaware or forgetting how much its invention changed the world Chris uses the book 'The History of the Telephone' written in 1910 by Herbert Casson to trace the impact and assess early opinion of what one journalist called "an invention of the devil" up to present day, where the device in our pockets is no longer regarded as a phone.
He's joined by Professor Will Stewart from the Institution of Engineering, discusses the telephone in movies with Professor Jeffrey Richards, learns about phone etiquette from Manager of Debretts James Field and makes a call to Bernard Cribbins to discuss the Buzby advertising campaign of the seventies.
Producer: Stephen Garner.
TUE 16:30 Great Lives (b04cc7cr)
Series 34
Jonathan Meades on Edward Burra
Writer Jonathan Meades nominates the English artist Edward Burra, who died in 1976, for "great life" status, arguing that he deserves to be better known.
Burra painted sailors, drinkers and prostitutes in Toulon; jazz musicians in Harlem; surreal wartime pictures of soldiers in terrifying bird masks; and, in his later years, landscapes in which anthropomorphic and malevolent machines bite chunks out of the countryside. Disabled with rheumatoid arthritis from an early age, Burra barely went to school and so escaped the Edwardian upper class upbringing that would otherwise have been his destiny. At once camp yet apparently celibate, Burra was intensely private and disliked talking about either himself or art - or, as he called it, "fart".
Matthew Parris chairs the discussion, and is joined by Burra's biographer Jane Stevenson.
Producer: Jolyon Jenkins
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.
TUE 16:55 1914: Day by Day (b04cc7kf)
5th August
Advertisements in British newspapers urge the public to enlist in the army.
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First World War. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Margaret Macmillan is Professor of International History at Oxford University.
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak
Jane Whittenshaw
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Russell Finch
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 17:00 PM (b04cc7kh)
Eddie Mair presents coverage and analysis of the day's news.
TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04c97qt)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 18:30 Meet David Sedaris (b03jysr6)
Series 4
Episode 1
One of the world's funniest storytellers is back on BBC Radio 4 doing what he does best.
There are two stories, this week: "The Happy Place", dealing with the ups and downs of a colonoscopy; and "The Shadow of Your Smile", about how the right lighting can make us all look good.
Producer: Steve Doherty
A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 19:00 The Archers (b04cc7yc)
Keen to get out of the house for a bit, Neil's happy to help David out this afternoon. The Brookfield wheat is due to be cut this week. They discuss how Ed broke Home Farm's combine.
Neil and David agree that they need to keep the pressure up on the community about the new road, so they're off to the roadshow in the village hall later. Apparently helpful, Lynda befriends the council's speaker Gary Stevens. She extracts some information about the latest plans for the road. Stevens clearly has an agenda to sell people on the supposed benefits of Route B, while playing down the disadvantages.
Lynda also hands out SAVE leaflets. There's heated debate about the different route options. Ruth picks her moment to mention the rare Brown Hairstreak butterfly, which has been discovered on the route.
Charlie tries to manipulate the conversation and ends up leaving. On his way out, there's a crash. He's nearly hit by a brick, thrown by some teenage kids. Shaken Charlie vows to punish the culprit, whoever it is.
TUE 19:15 Front Row (b04cc7yf)
Christina Hendricks; Sinead O'Connor; Spectra
In tonight's Front Row, Christina Hendricks talks about working with Philip Seymour Hoffman on one of his last roles, in the film God's Pocket - and Sinead O'Connor discusses her latest album, her dramatic new image, and whether she still likes Nothing Compares 2 U.
Also in the programme: the artist behind spectra - the giant light-beam which appeared at dusk in London yesterday - and art critic William Feaver chooses paintings which evoke summer.
Presenter: Kirsty Lang
Producer: Rebecca Nicholson.
TUE 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04cbv9j)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
TUE 20:00 The Business Covenant (b04cc7yh)
The financial crisis of 2008, exorbitant pay deals for bankers and business executives and high energy bills have all contributed to a collapse in the public's trust of big business.
Lord Digby Jones, former head of the employers' organisation the CBI and then a trade minister in the last government, examines whether the relationship between business, government and society has been fractured beyond repair. He asks if the answer might be a "Business Covenant" - a deal outlining business's obligations to society and what business can expect from Government in return.
Through interviews with business leaders and politicians he examines the case for a formalised deal for business. Could that restore trust in the companies that create the wealth on which the country depends?
Producer: Caroline Bayley
Editor: Richard Knight.
TUE 20:40 In Touch (b04cc7yk)
Changes to blind people's lives since the first World War; Blind veterans
Peter White is joined by Dr Fred Reid to reflect on the comparisons between the social and educational changes which have occurred in the lives of blind people, since the start of World War I.
Tom Walker talks to Blind Veteran's UK archivist Robert Baker about the history of the charity and also to veteran Joe Cousineau, who was blinded in 2000, about the way the charity has helped rehabilitate him.
TUE 21:00 Inside Health (b04cc7ym)
HIV and MS; Black skin and cancer; Iron overload; Losing your sense of smell
Dr Mark Porter finds out about the latest research investigating why people with HIV very rarely get multiple sclerosis. What does it mean for the cause of MS and possible future treatments? Also in the programme how much is black skin at reduced risk of skin cancer from exposure to the sun? Why iron overload can often go undiagnosed and the training for the nose that can help recover a lost sense of smell.
TUE 21:30 A Law Unto Themselves (b04cbnn6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (b04cccl9)
Scotland decides: the first televised referendum debate.
Baroness Warsi resigns from Cabinet over Gaza policy.
Eight year old treasure seekers.
With Carolyn Quinn.
TUE 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04ccdql)
Pierre et Jean
Episode 1
Guy de Maupassant's compelling short novel, abridged in 4 parts by Penny Leicester, follows family rivalries in the seaport of Le Havre:
1. On a fishing trip all is happy with the Roland clan.
Then returning home, a revelation..
Reader Carl Prekopp
Producer Duncan Minshull.
TUE 23:00 The Infinite Monkey Cage (b04cbbld)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 on Monday]
TUE 23:30 With Great Pleasure (b0499j2p)
Heidi Thomas at the Hay Festival
"Do you think because I am poor, obscure, plain and little I am soulless and heartless?" cries Jane Eyre to Mr Rochester in one of Heidi Thomas's favourite books, and Heidi uses this rallying cry for the oppressed and under-estimated as a motif for her choice of readings in With Great Pleasure. She is joined onstage at the Hay Festival by Nicholas Farrell and Sylvestra Le Touzel, who read a wide selection including poetry, Bills of Mortality, novels and social history.
Heidi's interest in the small, the uncelebrated life has informed much of her work, from her television adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford to her current work, the massively successful Call the Midwife.
Producer Christine Hall.
WEDNESDAY 06 AUGUST 2014
WED 00:00 Midnight News (b04c97rk)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
WED 00:30 Book of the Week (b04cs839)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Tuesday]
WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04c97rm)
The latest shipping forecast.
WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04c97rp)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04c97rr)
The latest shipping forecast.
WED 05:30 News Briefing (b04c97rt)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04d0w2w)
Radio 4's daily prayer and reflection with the Rev Neil Gardner of Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh.
WED 05:45 Farming Today (b04cf3hc)
Dairy price drop, Land prices, Oilseed
The second fall in global milk prices in a month has triggered concern in the dairy industry. Dairy analyst Ian Potter says that this sort of extreme volatility will mean a rocky road ahead for farmers over the coming winter.
Meanwhile farmland prices are rising. Jeremy Blackburn from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors says that the land is in high demand from investors and farmers alike.
At this time of year fields across much of England are bright yellow, with oil seed rape. It's a much rarer sight in Northern Ireland, but the Harnett family in County Down switched from growing flax to oilseed rape ten years ago. Recently they celebrated a milestone, producing their millionth bottle of rapeseed oil. BBC Radio Ulster's Nicola Weir meet them.
And Farming Today continues its look at farming during World War One, with a report about the Women's Land Army. It was formed in 1917 to provide labour on farms when the men went off to fight. By 1918, up to 260,000 women are reported to have worked as farm labourers.
Presented by Felicity Jones. Produced by Ruth Sanderson.
WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b0378xjw)
White Stork
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Michaela Strachan presents the white stork. White Storks are annual visitors in small numbers to the UK, mainly in spring and summer when migrating birds overshoot their Continental nesting areas and wander around our countryside. They used to breed here, most famously documented on St Giles's cathedral in Edinburgh in 1415 and who knows, they may well breed here in the future.
WED 06:00 Today (b04cf5ps)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.
WED 09:00 The Long View (b04cf5pv)
Jonathan Freedland looks at the boom in coffee shops now and in the 17th century.
The first coffee shop opened in London in 1652 and before long business was booming. As social hubs where people came to catch up on the latest news, customers flocked to get their daily fix of caffeine. But by the end of the 17th century, tastes were changing and tea started to overtake coffee as the nation's favourite drink.
Jonathan looks at the lessons for today's coffee shops with guests including food critic Jay Rayner. Actor Mark Aiken who played one half of the Gold Blend couple provides the historical readings.
Producer: Laurence Grissell.
WED 09:30 Publishing Lives (b03bsb9m)
Series 1
Geoffrey Faber
Geoffrey Faber was a brilliant middleman. He sought out the best new poetry and prose. And he hired a young American banker named T.S. Eliot - not just a poet of genius, but also a gifted publisher. Together, Eliot and Faber built one of the most influential literary lists of the twentieth century.
Faber was a classical scholar, a fellow of All Souls and a member of the Yorkshire brewing family Strong & Co. In 1924, bored with beer, he went into partnership with an Oxford friend, Maurice Gwyer, as a publisher. Gwyer already specialised in medical books and journals, but Faber had other ideas. Within five years he turned a company that published 'The Nursing Mirror' and the 'Hospital Newsletter' into one that hosted Siegfried Sassoon, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot.
He championed the notion that Faber & Faber had a responsibility to the world to preserve the best in literature and encouraged enterprises that were not always commercial. Yet it was show business that saved the company when T.S. Eliot's 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats' became a hit musical.
In a landscape increasingly dominated by giant media empires, Faber & Faber remains one of the last great independent publishing houses in the UK. As the digital revolution shakes traditional publishing to its foundations, the firm is exploring new ways of presenting its authors, including Eliot, for a new generation of readers.
Robert meets Geoffrey's grandson Toby Faber, and literary and publishing experts, to explore Geoffrey Faber's life and the future of publishing in Britain.
Produced by Melissa FitzGerald
A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 09:45 Book of the Week (b04cs869)
In Montmartre
Episode 3
Author Sue Roe's account, abridged by Katrin Williams, describes how Pablo Picasso and other artists found this Paris quarter irresistible when arriving in the 1900's:
3. Picasso works in the vicinity of other artists such as Derain and Vlaminck. And also Matisse. The two of them are like chalk and cheese!
Producer Duncan Minshull.
WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (b04cf5px)
Playful parenting; Marilyn French; Sex discrimination cases; Sexual identity; Maria Aberg
How to be a playful parent with Julia Deering and Wendy Russell. Classic archive of Marilyn French on her novel The Woman's Room. Why has there been an 80% drop in sex discrimination cases being brought to tribunal in the last year? Maria Aberg on her new production of The White Devil, part of the RSC's Roaring Girls season. Rosie Garland and Jayne Headon-Meldrum on changing sexual identity. Presented by Jenni Murray.
Presenter: Jenni Murray
Producer: Eleanor Garland.
WED 10:41 15 Minute Drama (b04cf5pz)
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Episode 3
Sam and Elizabeth go out in their newly varnished coach for the May Day Parade where their liveries of serge, horses' manes tied with red ribbon, and green reins attract admiring glances. Meanwhile, Sam's eyes continue to cause him pain when writing in candlelight. He tries out a new vizard with a tube fastened to it in the hope that it will ease the discomfort but to no avail. He petitions the King to allow him two or three months off from work so that he can go abroad to rest. Elizabeth surprises Sam by telling him that she intends to keep a journal of their travels. Sam has secretly been keeping a diary for nearly ten years now but at the end of May, he has to come to a very difficult decision about whether to continue.
Adapted by Hattie Naylor
Theme music: Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May, words by Robert Herrick and music by William Lawes, sung by Bethany Hughes. Lute, baroque guitar and theorbo played by David Miller. Violin and viol by Annika Gray, and recorders by Alice Baxter.
Historical consultant: Liza Picard
Sound by Nigel Lewis
Production Co-Ordinator: Willa King
A BBC/Cymru Wales production, directed by Kate McAll.
WED 10:56 The Listening Project (b04d8lgs)
Anthea and Ramarni - A Better School
Fi Glover introduces a conversation between a mother and son. The 12 year old's IQ is higher than that of Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates, and his mother is concerned that the local school cannot meet his needs, yet he wants to stay put.
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.
WED 11:00 The Radio 4 Psalter (b04cf5q1)
Michael Symmons Roberts describes the beauty of Psalters and sets out to make his own for radio.
The classic medieval Psalter was an often highly illustrated collection of the Psalms, sometimes placed together with other religious texts and tracts and surrounded by visual and textual references to local life. These texts played a extremely important role at the centre of community worship - a value illustrated by the fact that in 2013, the Bay Psalm Book, the Psalter created by early European settlers in America, sold at auction for over fourteen million dollars and became the most expensive book in history.
For Michael Symmons Roberts, Psalters have played a highly prominent role in his recent career. Inspired by the drysalter store he kept noticing in Macclesfield where he lives, he went in search of the Macclesfield Psalter - a classic of the type - only to find out it in fact had nothing to do with the town. Undeterred, he set about writing his most recent collection based on the idea of 150 poems each with fifteen lines, following the Psalter model. That book, Drysalter, has now won numerous prizes.
Still though, Michael is keen to offer up a new Psalter for radio, rooted in his home town using the voices of people there to read Psalms that will frame expert commentary from the likes of Professor Diarmaid Macculloch and Susan Gillingham.
Following the tradition that saw Psalters provide inspiration for people to respond in the margins, Michael will also commission a new piece of music inspired by the Psalms, as well as a drawing from prize winning illustrator Chris Riddel - all with a view to illustrating the profound beauty of the Psalms and the Psalters that housed them.
Producer: Geoff Bird
A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 11:30 The Gobetweenies (b01kt6qy)
Series 2
Episode 3
Mark Bonnar and Sarah Alexander star in Marcella Evaristi's comedy of shared parenting.
Mimi and Joe are determined to be the best kind of divorced parents, supportive and as good as any traditional set up. Mimi has even salvaged her ex's best suit from the charity shop where it was meanly dumped by Joe's most recent ex-wife. But Joe keeps getting misdirected post from the fetish shop across the road and Mimi cannot keep her prying fingers away from a big fat intriguing parcel.
Meanwhile their daughter Lucy has discovered an ethical way of eating that does not involve putting Quorn in her mouth - because her hero Mark Zuckerberg has said eating meat is not immoral if you catch your own dinner. So Lucy is going to steal a chicken. From a back garden in Highgate. It's a brilliant plan, especially since she has told her brother Tom he is saving the chicken bound for a battery farm.
But what are all those funny handcuffs doing on her dad's sitting room floor?
Director: Marilyn Imrie
Producer: Gordon Kennedy
An Absolutely Production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 12:00 Home Front (b04cf9gv)
6 August 1914 - Jimmy Macknade
The first season of an epic drama series set in Great War Britain exactly one hundred days before its original broadcast on BBC Radio 4. In this episode, in all the excitement of war, two seven year old boys fancy an adventure of their own.
Written by: Katie Hims
Music: Matthew Strachan
Directed by Editor: Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
WED 12:15 You and Yours (b04cf9gx)
Supermarket price wars; More complaints about Unicom
An investigation into a company accused of mis-selling broadband deals and charging extortionate termination fees. The writing group preparing to publish their debut book - all of the authors have dementia. And we'll get answers to why Talk Talk customers are finding their e mails are mysteriously disappearing.
WED 13:00 World at One (b04cf9gz)
Martha Kearney presents national and international news.
WED 13:45 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04cffpd)
Battling Bark and Beetle
By the end of the First World War the mysterious sudden death of elms was a common sight across Belgium and the Netherlands. Dutch researchers managed to elucidate the real culprit amidst rumours of drought or wartime gas poisoning. It was a fungus thought to originate from America, carried by a beetle and the disease rather unfairly gained its name Dutch elm disease. Diagnosis produced no cure and it soon advanced across the channel to Britain.
Professor Kathy Willis talks to the head of Kew's arboretum, Tony Kirkham, on the disease's impact amidst complacency, and how the emergence of a vigorous new fungal strain was to completely transform the landscape during its peak in the 1970's.
Now that the principle replacement for lost elms, ash, itself has fallen victim to the latest disease to hitch a ride on incoming nursery stock, Paul Smith, Head of Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, explains why this new disease could be easier to control.
Producer Adrian Washbourne.
WED 14:00 The Archers (b04cc7yc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Tuesday]
WED 14:15 Drama (b04cffpg)
Psalm
Nick Warburton's tense and moving drama springs from one curious historical fact: the Elizabethan playwright Ben Jonson once escaped execution for manslaughter, just by reading a psalm.
An old loophole in the law meant that anyone who proved that they could read from the bible, could have their case tried in an ecclesiastical court as if they were clergy, and that their sentence would be lighter.
The fact that the passage normally chosen to be read was Psalm 51, with its penitential sentiments, meant that this psalm came to be called 'the neck verse'.
But what if you were a condemned man... who couldn't read?
Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting.
WED 15:00 Bricks and Bubbles (b04c9gsg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:00 on Saturday]
WED 15:30 Inside Health (b04cc7ym)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (b04cffpj)
Gaybourhood and City Life
Gay life at home and in the 'city' - a special edition of Thinking Allowed presented by Laurie Taylor. From squatted terraces to rented bedsits, the social historian, Matt Cook, explores the domestic and family lives of gay men - the famous, infamous and unknown - in London over the past century. The social anthropologist, Rachael Scicluna, charts the changing domestic lives of metropolitan lesbians. And US sociologist, Amin Ghaziani, describes the way in which urban enclaves such as Greenwich Village in New York have long provided sexual minorities with a safe haven in an unsafe world.
How have gentrification, as well as increasing social acceptance and legal rights, impacted on the existence of gay neighbourhoods? And do lesbian and gay home lives now mirror those of heterosexuals rather than offering alternative models of domesticity, family and belonging?
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
WED 16:30 The Media Show (b04cffpl)
New laws for bloggers; the impartiality of reporters; radio presenters working for free
Public council meetings in England can now be filmed and tweeted about, following the introduction of new legislation. Local government secretary Eric Pickles today signed a Parliamentary order allowing press and public to film and digitally report from all public meetings of local government bodies. It follows a spate of cases where journalists and bloggers have been asked to stop filming or recording proceedings at meetings, despite the, 'open government' doctrine. Steve Hewlett talks to one blogger, ejected for reporting proceedings, and Ian Murray, Southern Daily Echo editor-in-chief and President of the Society of Editors about the opportunities this ruling could yield for local news.
Jon Snow has stepped out from behind the neutrality of his newsreader's desk to present a piece to camera on his recent trip to Gaza, where he described being haunted by the horrific injuries inflicted on innocent children caught up in the conflict. The video has reopened a debate questioning where an appropropriate line lies between impartiality and so called, 'attachment journalism' for reporters. Steve is joined by David Loyn, the BBC's Afghanistan correspondent who says that, 'emotion is the stuff of propaganda', and Newsweek correspondent Alex Perry, on how they navigate the emotional turmoil of covering conflicts.
A well-respected radio industry executive says he's concerned that some presenters in commercial radio are working for free. John Myers says he's been contacted by a number of people including some who work for national services at profitable major media organisations. He talks to Steve Hewlett about his calls for an industry review into pay.
Producer: Katy Takatsuki.
WED 16:55 1914: Day by Day (b04cffpn)
6th August
German Zeppelins bomb the Belgian city of Liege - the first air attack on a European city.
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First World War. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Margaret Macmillan is Professor of International History at Oxford University.
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak
Jane Whittenshaw
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Russell Finch
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 17:00 PM (b04cffpq)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.
WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04c97rw)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 18:30 Dead Ringers (b04cffps)
Series 12
Episode 2
After a rest of 7 years, the classic, award winning impressions show is back with a new cast of characters.
No one will be safe from the merciless parodies, as the show takes down every programme, institution and politician you hold dear.
Starring Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Duncan Wisbey, Lewis MacLeod, Debra Stevenson.
Producer: Bill Dare.
WED 19:00 The Archers (b04cffpv)
Embarrassed about his recent combine mishap, Ed tries for work at Brookfield, hoping they'll need some help with the wheat harvest.
PC Burns shows up to question Ben about the brick that was thrown at the village hall last night. Ben cracks and names Freddie, now petrified that Freddie will kill him for grassing.
Ben's frogmarched to the Bull to apologise to Charlie. Firm but reasonable in front of embarrassed Ruth, Charlie tells Ben to take a leaf out of Ruth's book. It's fine to argue against Route B, but violence isn't the answer.
Charlie instructs Rob to give the presentation on the new anaerobic digester, at their forthcoming open day. Not exactly keen, Rob agrees, although he'll be more confident talking about the existing one, which is linked to the mega dairy..
Ed tries to apologise to Charlie about the combine. He asks if there's any chance of some menial work. Stunned and offended, Charlie lets rip at Ed, calling him a yokel who can't be trusted to operate sophisticated equipment. Ed explodes and a fight nearly breaks out.
Rob tells seething Charlie to shut up. Calling people yokels isn't going to do him any favours in the local community.
WED 19:15 Front Row (b04cffpx)
Sir Neville Marriner; The Inbetweeners 2; My Night With Reg
Sir Neville Marriner, who turned 90 this year, is the most recorded living conductor. He talks to Kirsty Lang about his long and varied career, and his return to the BBC Proms.
The Inbetweeners is a rare example of a television sitcom which made a successful transfer to the big screen. Co-creators Damon Beesley and Iain Morris discuss their second Inbetweeners film in which the four friends take their teenage antics on a gap year to Australia.
The words of Poets Laureate across three and a half centuries feature in a new exhibition opening this week. From the first poet appointed to the post, John Dryden, to the current one, Carol Ann Duffy - original manuscripts and rare editions of their works are on display. In addition, historic recordings of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ted Hughes and Sir John Betjeman, as well as readings by actors Timothy West, Sir Daniel Day-Lewis and Dame Judi Dench can be heard, bringing new resonance to the poems themselves. Curator Deborah Clarke tells Kirsty about the start and development of the post of Poet Laureate, and about bringing their words to life.
Kirsty is joined by critic David Benedict to review a new production of My Night With Reg, a 1994 gay comedy set during the AIDS crisis.
Image: Sir Neville Marriner (c) Mark Allan.
WED 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04cf5pz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:41 today]
WED 20:00 Moral Maze (b04cffpz)
Surrogacy
She was paid £8850. The money would help repay the family's debts and to go towards the education her two children. Pattaramon Chanbua never even met the Australian couple who were paying her. It's known as "gestational surrogacy" where the host mother is implanted with an embryo. Effectively the Australian couple were paying to rent the Thai woman's womb. In this case Pattaramon gave birth to twins. One of them, who's been named Gammy had Down's syndrome. It's a terrible story that raises many uncomfortable moral and ethical dilemmas. This isn't just a simple contractual obligation. At the heart of this there's a child's life. Who bears the moral responsibility when things go wrong? And is that something that can be delegated to regulation? Infertility is a grief for many thousands of couples and the trade in international surrogacy also attracts same sex partners who desperately want children. But how do we - should we - weigh their pain against the exploitation of poor women and the commodification of that greatest of gifts - the gift of life? In such emotive cases it's perhaps too easy to rush to judgment. There's the argument that when done properly surrogacy can enrich people's lives, offering the childless a the chance to become parents and by putting money into the hands of surrogate women it gives them the chance to plan the future of their families in the way they see fit. If we ban it we take that opportunity out of their hands. If we regulate is that tacitly condoning a degrading a marketization of something that should not be commodified? And if we regulate womb renting, why not allow the poor to monetise other parts of their bodies? Their blood? Or perhaps a kidney? And is it the role of the state to regulate and control what people do with their bodies? Moral Maze - Presented by Michael Buerk.
Panellists: Matthew Taylor, Claire Fox, Anne McElvoy and Jill Kirby.
Witnesses: Richard Westoby, Julie Bindel, Nicola Scott and Dr. Helen Watt.
Produced by Peter Everett.
WED 20:45 Four Thought (b04cffq1)
Series 4
Philip North
When Revd Philip North was tending the spiritual needs of people on an estate in Hartlepool he saw at close range the way a poor community could become self-sufficient.
But in the years since, he argues, the working class has been systematically de-skilled by middle class professionals.
In this provocative talk he argues that top-down meddling has replaced grassroots community-building, and that society is worse off for it.
Four Thought is a series of thought-provoking talks in which speakers air their thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect culture and society in front of a live audience.
Presenter: Ben Hammersley
Producer: Mike Wendling.
WED 21:00 Heal Thyself: A History of Self-Help (b04cc7cm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
15:30 on Tuesday]
WED 21:30 The Long View (b04cf5pv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
WED 21:58 Weather (b04c97ry)
The latest weather forecast.
WED 22:00 The World Tonight (b04cffq3)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
WED 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04cffq5)
Pierre et Jean
Episode 2
Guy de Maupassant's compelling short novel, abridged in 4 parts by Penny Leicester, follows family rivalries in the seaport of Le Havre:
2. First there were feelings about the Will, now a secret concerning Madame Roland is out..
Producer Duncan Minshull.
WED 23:00 The Future of Radio (b04cffq7)
Series 1
Plastic Fantastic
What is the future of radio? In a world of digital overload can the public be expected to just listen to something without any pictures? Is the radio era over? The Institute of Radiophonic Evolution (IRE), based in South Mimms, is working hard to give radio a bright future.
Their secret work is revealed in these programmes which draw on conference calls, voice notes and life-logs, to tell a compelling and strange story of the technological lengths to which the researchers will go to keep radio relevant.
Instead of just adding pictures, the lab is working on ways to transmit smells, vibrations, and 3D images, as well as a way of putting radio into listeners' very brains!
It sounds impossible, but the IRE boffins believe in making the impossible audible. And that's their motto.
Each week a jiffy bag of sound files arrives at BBC Radio 4. We listen to the contents to discover what backroom boffins Luke Mourne and Professor Trish Baldock (ably assisted by Shelley – on work experience) have been up to.
In this episode, Luke and Trish seem to have cracked the old Star-Trek conundrum – how do you transport physical objects through space?
Luke..........................................William Beck
Trish..........................................Emma Kilbey
Shelley......................................Lizzy Watts
Felix..........................................David Brett
Aileen/Stella..............................Joan Walker
Lawrence..................................Chris Stanton
Pianist: Mike Woolley
Written by Jerome Vincent and Stephen Dinsdale.
Producer: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2014.
WED 23:15 Little Lifetimes by Jenny Eclair (b04cffq9)
Series 1
Carol Goes Swimming
By Jenny Éclair
Carol's life's not really been the same since her best friend Sandra died but a trip to the swimming bath brings back memories of their time together with surprising results.
Produced by Sally Avens.
WED 23:30 With Great Pleasure (b04b22h5)
Neil Stuke at Bristol Food Connections Festival
Neil Stuke, the actor who played Billy Lamb, the Clerk in BBC One's Silk, chooses his favourite and funniest pieces of writing about food for the audience at the Bristol Food Connections Festival. His readers are Miranda Raison and Jack Klaff.
Pieces range from Laurie Lee and Chris Stewart on the delights of Spanish cuisine, to Keith Floyd on the joys of seafood - and Geoff Dyer on his loathing of the same. Provocative lines from PJ O'Rourke, Samuel Pepys on honest gluttony, words of wisdom from Clement Freud and DH Lawrence describing what he ate on his travels in Italy complete the bill of fare.
Neil Stuke is a keen cook, who was runner-up in Celebrity MasterChef. His father was a chef, and Neil himself is a passionate food lover.
Producer Beth O'Dea.
THURSDAY 07 AUGUST 2014
THU 00:00 Midnight News (b04c97ss)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
THU 00:30 Book of the Week (b04cs869)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Wednesday]
THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04c97sv)
The latest shipping forecast.
THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04c97sx)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04c97sz)
The latest shipping forecast.
THU 05:30 News Briefing (b04c97t1)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04d0w3f)
Radio 4's daily prayer and reflection with the Rev Neil Gardner of Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh.
THU 05:45 Farming Today (b04cfftw)
Self Sufficiency Day, WW1 egg collection, Crohn's disease
The National Farmers' Union has dubbed August 7th 'Self Sufficiency Day' - the date we'd run out of food if we didn't import any. But does it matter whether or not the UK is self-sufficient in food, and what impact does it have on food security? Felicity Evans chairs a lively discussion between Phil Bicknell, the NFU's chief economist, and Gene Philhower, agriculture councillor at the US Embassy in London.
New research has found that a bacterial pathogen that comes from cattle, sheep and other animals, and is suspected of being associated with Crohn's Disease in humans, is sometimes present in the fine spray from rivers and our bathroom showers. MAP, as it's known, has already been proven to cause Johne's Disease in cattle. Professor Roger Pickup from Lancaster University tells Felicity what his research revealed.
And, continuing a week of special reports to commemorate 100 years since the start of the First World War, we hear the remarkable story of Chrissie Squire from Dorset. She collected eggs for wounded soldiers and wrote poems and letters on the shells - an act of kindness that's remembered to this day.
Presented by Felicity Evans and produced in Bristol by Anna Jones.
THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b0378xkr)
Honey Buzzard
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Michaela Strachan presents the honey buzzard. The Honey Buzzard is more closely related to the Kite than it is to our common Buzzard. It gets its name for its fondness, not for honey, but for the grubs of bees and wasps. The bird locates their nests by watching where the insects go from a branch. It then digs out the honeycomb with its powerful feet and breaks into the cells.
THU 06:00 Today (b04cfgrd)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.
THU 09:00 Inside the Ethics Committee (b04cfgrg)
Series 10
Treating Smokers
Many patients with lung disease receive oxygen therapy to try to improve their quality of life. However, patients with this condition often struggle to give up smoking and continue the habit against medical advice.
Mark has smoked since he was a teenager. Now 67 he has advanced lung disease as a result of his smoking. Despite his worsening ill health and against medical advice, Mark continues to smoke 40 cigarettes a day.
Having oxygen at home also carries a fire risk, so the fire service carry out an inspection at each patient's home. The medical team is concerned as they are noticing an increasing number of patients being treated for burns after smoking whilst using their oxygen in the home.
Our second patient, James, set his plastic tubing alight when he sparked up. The oxygen flowing into his nostrils fuelled the fire and he was hospitalised with facial burns.
Should patients be allowed oxygen therapy if they continue to smoke? Who is responsible for any fire that happens? The doctor? The patient?
And how should the benefit to patients be weighed against the risks for people living nearby who might also be caught up in a fire?
Joan Bakewell and her panel discuss the issues.
Producer: Lorna Stewart.
THU 09:45 Book of the Week (b04cs8n0)
In Montmartre
Episode 4
Author Sue Roe's account, abridged by Katrin Williams, describes how Pablo Picasso and other artists found this Paris quarter irresistible when arriving in the early 1900's:
4. Picasso travels with Fernande to Spain, which opens the mind to some fantastic possibilities. And one particular picture will cause a stir.
Producer Duncan Minshull.
THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (b04cfgrj)
Deepti Kapoor; Sheila Jeffreys; Over-sharing online
Deepti Kapoor talks about her first novel "A Bad Character." It's set in 21st century Delhi and offers an insight into what it means to be a middle-class woman who chooses to reject the security of an arranged marriage in a city that can intimidate single women.
Over the past twenty years considerable social, political and legal changes have taken place for the transgender community, after years of campaigning. Professor Sheila Jeffreys latest book claims that despite this progress, transgenderism illustrates another way in which stereotypical notions of 'gender' hurt people and societies.
Breakthrough Breast Cancer Generations Study spanning 40 years is celebrating its 10th anniversary. It's helping us understand why and how breast cancer develops and, in time, what steps we can take to prevent it . What's it discovered so far and what's it hope to achieve in the next 30 years.
Parenting sites can be great places for people to share advice and offer support - but are they the right place to openly discuss sexual issues ? Jenni looks at why some women confess intimate details online and ask whether graphic posts, such as ones about sex after birth and threesomes celebrate a woman's sexuality or reveal too much information.
Angela Merkel has been pictured wearing a colourful jacket that she has kept in her wardrobe for 18 years . Is she thrifty or is it just common sense to keep recycling the same outfits, regardless of whether you are in the public eye, or not?
Presented by Jenni Murray
Producer Beverley Purcell.
THU 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b04cfgrl)
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Episode 4
Elizabeth starts practising writing her travel journal but Sam disapproves of her writing things down before they happen. Sam's attempt to become a candidate for Parliament is thwarted by rumours that his biggest supporter, the Duke of York, is to convert to Catholicism. Elizabeth spies Debs Willet through the window of the glove shop and feels faint. But all is forgotten as they set off happily on their journey together to Holland and France.
Adapted by Hattie Naylor
Theme music: Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May, words by Robert Herrick and music by William Lawes, sung by Bethany Hughes. Lute, baroque guitar and theorbo played by David Miller. Violin and viol by Annika Gray, and recorders by Alice Baxter.
Historical consultant: Liza Picard
Sound by Nigel Lewis
Production Co-Ordinator: Willa King
A BBC/Cymru Wales production, directed by Kate McAll.
THU 11:00 Crossing Continents (b04b22h3)
Crimea: Paradise Regained
Europe and the US have imposed the toughest sanctions on Russia since the Cold War amid anger over the Kremlin's support for east Ukrainian separatists who stand accused of shooting down a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet. But the crisis began further south with Russia's annexation of Crimea in March.
Crimea's idyllic scenery drew Soviet visitors for years - some called it the Communist Cote d'Azur. The collapse of communism did little to dent Russia's appetite for their bit of paradise on the Black Sea along with the thousands of Ukrainian holidaymakers who flocked there each year. But now the Ukrainians are staying away and the Russian government is trying to fill the gap by urging employers in Russia to send staff on subsidised breaks in Crimea. A holiday in the newly annexed peninsula has become every Russian's patriotic duty. For Crossing Continents, Lucy Ash visits Crimean tourist resorts and explores the motives behind Vladimir Putin's fateful decision to reclaim Russia's paradise.
THU 11:30 Graffiti: Kings on a Mission (b04cfhm3)
In 1974, one of America's most celebrated cultural figures declared graffiti as "the great art of the 70s".
Back then, thousands of teenagers were vandalising New York, in particular the subway system. Yet Norman Mailer described their "passion", their "cool", their "masterpieces in letters six feet high".
Who were the teens behind the "tags" - now the veterans of the scene? Why did they create this movement? Were they even thinking about art, politics, protest - or simply writing their names on trains?
We meet some of those who defied the law (and their parents) and diced with death including pioneers such as Riff 170, Jester, Coco 144, Flint Gennari, and Tats Cru. Their efforts have been replicated far beyond New York – in art galleries and in the hands of Arab Spring protesters – and yet their aspirations were largely apolitical: they were chasing fame and the acceptance of their peers.
We explore the city's complicated relationship with graffiti, which it appears to condemn and celebrate in equal measure. Former artists – or "writers" as they prefer to be known – revisit their old haunts and discuss why they believe they had a right to "tag", "bomb" and "destroy" New York with markers and spray paint.
The programme paints a vivid picture of a city that became a canvas at a time when, according to Norman Mailer, "it looked as if graffiti would take over the world".
Producer: Steve Urquhart
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in August 2014.
THU 12:00 Home Front (b04cfhm5)
7 August 1914 - Ralph Winwood
The first season of an epic drama series set in Great War Britain exactly one hundred days before its original broadcast on BBC Radio 4. In this episode, when a postman drops dead in the Post Office, the life of Reverend Mr Winwood takes an unexpected turn.
Written by: Katie Hims
Music: Matthew Strachan
Directed by Editor: Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
THU 12:15 You and Yours (b04cfhm7)
Plain-packaged cigarettes; Patient Choice; Boots
Could plain-packaging of cigarettes reduce rates of smoking? Public Health England thinks so. We hear the experience from Australia where it has already been tried.
Remember "Patient Choice?" A health regulator says many NHS patients are not being offered the choice which was once promised.
Boots, a mainstay of the British high street, has been sold to an American company. We ask what, if anything, might change?
Producer: Louise Clarke-Rowbotham
Presenter: Winifred Robinson.
THU 12:57 Weather (b04c97t3)
The latest weather forecast.
THU 13:00 World at One (b04cfhm9)
Martha Kearney presents national and international news.
THU 13:45 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04cfhqt)
Hunt for Diversity
Agriculture tends to favour the best food varieties but this is often a trade off with beneficial traits such as resistance to disease or tolerance to drought. During the 1920s the Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov, having witnessed famine on a large scale, became increasingly concerned about the potential loss of locally adapted varieties and spent his life studying crop plants in their wild habitats.
Professor Kathy Willis examines Vavilov's pioneering work and his search for pools of genetic variability - so called "centres of origin" amongst the wild relatives of our domesticated crops that could help sustain future plant breeding for human use.
Vavilov's story has a tragic end but, as we hear, his legacy lives on in seedbanks such as Kew's Millennium Seedbank at Wakehurst Place whose Crop Wild Relatives Project is collecting and assessing new potential amongst the original progenitors of our domestic crops.
With contributions from archaeobotanist Dorian Fuller, Kew's curator of economic botany Mark Nesbitt, Crop Wild Relatives Project coordinator Ruth Eastwood, and head of the Millennium Seedbank Paul Smith.
Producer Adrian Washbourne.
THU 14:00 The Archers (b04cffpv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Wednesday]
THU 14:15 Drama (b04cfkv4)
Recent Events at Collington House
Episode 1
Collington House is a secondary school in a Midlands town with a large proportion of its students from the Muslim community. New head teacher Roz Taylor, eager to be inclusive and accommodate all faiths and cultures, finds herself increasingly at odds with one of the parent governors.
This is a drama that gets behind the news headlines and political wrangles to examine what is actually meant by "Islamisation" and the difference is between radicalisation and the co-existence of different faiths in schools on a day-to-day level.
Writer: Matthew Solon
Researcher: Eva Kryslak
Sound: Eloise Whitmore
Director: John Dryden
A Goldhawk Essential production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 15:00 Open Country (b04cfkv8)
The Bournville Legacy
As the Cadbury family sought to expand their growing chocolate business in the late 19th century they also developed their vision for a better quality of life for the people of Birmingham. Buying 300 acres of land they created a model village they called Bournville, helping people escape the slums to good quality housing with gardens and fruit trees, green open spaces, churches and sports facilities.
Today the Trust that runs the estate has expanded it to a thousand acres and residents often speak of being able to smell the chocolate from the factory. Felicity Evans visits the South Birmingham town to see how George Cadbury's work and ethos continues today. She visits some of the first houses built and talks to lifelong residents and former Cadbury workers about what made the area special. She visits Rowheath Pavilion, 90 years after its creation, to hear how it still hosts sports teams and community events but also looks out for those in need of support.
She also ascends the village's carillon tower, built by George after an inspiring trip to Belgium. The 4-octave, 48 bell instrument is still played each Saturday. Carilloneur Trevor Workman explains how it's one of only a handful in the UK and gives a demonstration of how it should be played - with gusto!
But modern residents of Bournville aren't the only ones to benefit. The new village of Lightmoor is being developed near Telford to establish the same community benefits George envisioned. But can community still be formed in the modern day and without the original chocolate factory.
Presented by Felicity Evans
Produced in Bristol by Anne-Marie Bullock.
THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (b04c9s0c)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:55 on Sunday]
THU 15:30 Bookclub (b04c9xcs)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Sunday]
THU 16:00 The Film Programme (b04cfkvd)
John Slattery; How to Train Your Dragon 2; Lilting
With Francine Stock.
John Slattery, aka Roger Sterling in Mad Men, discusses his directorial debut, God's Pocket, one of the last films to star Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died earlier this year.
Lilting director Hong Khaou reveals the personal story behind his new drama about a gay man who tries to form a bond with the mother of his late partner, even though she cannot speak English and suspects that she would not have approved of their relationship.
Neil Brand tells us how to score your dragon and how music captures the experience of flight in the animated blockbuster How To Train Your Dragon 2.
One of the most frustrating experiences about watching a film is trying to find a cinema that shows it - Francine asks one of the most powerful people in the cinema industry, Clare Binns Of Picturehouse Cinemas, why the choice is so limited for so many cinema-goers.
Francine hears from listeners' experiences of being alone in a cinema, including the woman who didn't go to the toilet in case the management shut the film down.
THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (b04cfkvg)
New dinosaur; GM chickens; Lightning; Rosetta; Diatoms
Dinosaur
A jumble of bones found in Venezuela belong to a group of very early dinosaurs, that could have been herd animals. Paul Barrett from the Natural History Museum explains to Professor Alice Roberts how a jumble of bones found in a 'bone bed' belong to a number of individual Laquintasaura venezuelae dinosaurs. They are an ancient, small, omnivorous dinosaur, which could have survived the Tertiary/Jurassic extinction event 200 million years ago.
Genetically Editing Chickens
Diseases devastate livestock around the world. In chickens for example the deadly strain of bird flu and the lesser known bacterial infection Campylobacter, does not only harm the chickens but is also a real threat to human health and welfare. Scientists are continually trying to develop vaccines, but the strains of bacteria keep evolving resistance to them. One of the solutions being explored at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, is genetic. Using a subtle form of genetic modification, called genome editing. The team are trying to find the genetic components of natural resistance in a wide group of chicken breeds, which they can then insert into the genome of livestock fowl in the hope of breeding healthier, safer chickens.
Lightning
A listener asks why lightning is jagged. Rhys Phillips from Airbus Group in Cardiff makes lightning in a lab. He has the answer.
Rosetta
The European Space Agency's robotic spacecraft Rosetta has reached the orbit of the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and is about to start its detailed study. In the audacious and risky mission, the craft will follow the orbit of the comet as it approaches and passes the Sun. It will attempt to land a probe on the surface of the icy, rocky mass. It's hoped the mission will provide great insight into what comets are made of, how they behave as they heat up, creating its gassy coma and tail. And it's hoped Rosetta and its lander will be able to tell about where Earth's water and even some of the building blocks for life might have come from.
Diatoms
A type of phytoplankton, found in water, called Diatoms build hard silicon-based cell walls. Researchers, at the University of Galway, have shown it's possible to chemically transform the shells of living diatoms so they could carry drugs into our bodies in entirely new ways.
Producer: Fiona Roberts.
THU 16:55 1914: Day by Day (b04cfkvl)
7th August
British Trade Unions announce they will not oppose the war.
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First World War. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Margaret Macmillan is Professor of International History at Oxford University.
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak
Jane Whittenshaw
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Russell Finch
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 17:00 PM (b04cfkvq)
Eddie Mair presents coverage and analysis of the day's news.
THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04c97t5)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 18:30 Sketchorama (b048nyk4)
Series 3
Episode 3
Tom Tuck presents the pick of the best live sketch groups currently performing on the UK comedy circuit - featuring three up and coming groups in character, improv, broken and musical sketch comedy.
In this programme:
Four Screws Loose.
New Act of the Year finalists, featuring Richard Caine, Joseph Elliot, Thom Ford and Conan House.
They have performed in prestigious comedy venues from London to Edinburgh (via, naturally, Yeovil) and alongside top acts such as Ardal O'Hanlon, Patrick Kielty, Alex Zane, Frisky and Mannish and Boy With Tape on his Face.
The Jest.
Recently slimmed down from a nine-person sketch group Simply the Jest, who performed at the Fringe from 2011 to 2013. The Jest is made up of University of Exeter graduates Ella Ainsworth (School of Comedy on Channel 4 and at The Pleasance, the BBC's Hustle and Being Human), Tristan Rogers, Jack Stanley (Little Britain, 2005 film The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), Luke Theobald (runner-up on an episode of Pointless. Hell yeah!) and Bryony Twydle.
Birthday Girls.
Beattie Edmondson, Rose Johnson and Camille Ucan. Collectively, individually and existentially they have been seen or heard on things like Live At The Electric (BBC3), Absolutely Fabulous, Dick & Dom's Funny Business (BBC2) and the first series of Sketchorama in their former sketch collective Lady Garden.
Producer: Gus Beattie.
A Comedy Unit production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 19:00 The Archers (b04cfkvs)
Hayley's sympathetic to overworked Roy. He's struggling to get used to Geraldine, the new temporary assistant manager at Lower Loxley. Forgetting that he and Hayley are going out to the pub tonight, Roy eventually turns up late.
Mike's feeling past it. Ed complains that work's dried up since the combine disaster. Mike could thump Charlie for calling Ed a yokel.
Freddie refuses to apologise to Charlie for throwing the brick at the village hall. He hurtfully accuses Elizabeth of being ineffective in the fight against Route B, while David and Ruth are out protesting. Nigel wouldn't have stayed neutral. She can tell that to PC Burns.
Roy can see how upset Elizabeth is. Her priority has to be to keep things going for the future and Freddie's inheritance. Roy gives Freddie a man-to-man talk, defending Elizabeth. Freddie relents.
Roy lays it on the line to Elizabeth. He's prepared to leave Hayley for her. But Elizabeth says no.
Emma loves her 30th birthday present from Ed - the dress she wanted. He's got her some pearls as well. Amused Emma points out that pearls are for 30 years of marriage. Ed can't stop apologising for falling short as a provider. But Emma tells him what matters is their kids and their life together. It's all she has ever wanted.
THU 19:15 Front Row (b04cfnz0)
Guy Pearce; Joseph O'Neill; Edinburgh Comedy
Damian Barr talks to actor Guy Pearce, whose new film The Rover is set in the Australian Outback just after a great economic collapse.
Joseph O'Neill discusses his new novel, The Dog, which has recently been longlisted for this year's Man Booker prize.
Stephen Armstrong reports from Edinburgh on the best of this year's Fringe.
And Naomi Alderman explores the current glut of television shows about geeks, including Silicon Valley and the Big Bang Theory.
THU 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04cfgrl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
THU 20:00 The Report (b04cfnz2)
Litvinenko: The Miniature Nuclear Attack
It was a death in Britain like no other seen in living memory.
The gaunt and agonised face of the former Russian security service officer, Alexander Litvinenko, stared out of television screens and newspaper front pages in November 2006 as his painful end approached in London's University College Hospital. His poisoning by a radioactive isotope was a bizarre death. It baffled the experts and transfixed a horrified nation.
Nearly eight years on from his death, Litvinenko's relatives - as well as lawyers, scientists, diplomats, politicians and the public at large - are still waiting to find out how this British citizen met his end in such an alarming and public way. After patient but unyielding pressure from his widow, Marina, and a High Court ruling earlier this year, the Home Secretary finally accepted in July that the inquest into the death needed to be replaced with a public inquiry. Under the senior judge, Sir Robert Owen, it will probe aspects of the case which the inquest was unable to scrutinise.
Peter Marshall reported on the Litvinenko story as it first unfolded. Now, he speaks to Marina Litvinenko about the questions she thinks should lie at the centre of Sir Robert's inquiry and what she wants it to achieve. He also speaks to lawyers, scientific and security experts about the unusual life and death of the former security officer in Russia's FSB - the successor body to the Soviet-era KGB.
Marshall discovers how far Alexander Litvinenko's decision to flee to Britain, the special work he undertook and the enemies he had all affected how he died. And he questions how far the Russian state and its president, Vladimir Putin - already under pressure over Ukraine and the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 - should be under examination too.
THU 20:30 In Business (b04cfnz4)
Fast and Furious
Britain is a world leader in Formula 1 cars, engineering and research. Peter Day reports on how the influence of UK motor racing expertise is now reaching out into other businesses and our everyday lives, inspired by the drama of the pit-stop.
Produced by Sandra Kanthal.
THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (b04cfkvg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
THU 21:30 Zeitgeisters (b03z081s)
Series 2
Sonia Friedman
BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz meets the cultural entrepreneurs whose aesthetic sense infects and influences our daily lives... who know what we want, even when we do not... the men and women whose impact goes beyond mere commerce, it shapes contemporary culture.
Programme 4. Sonia Friedman - the prolific West End and Broadway producer whose shows Ghosts, Chimerica, Book of Mormon and Merrily We Roll Along have just scooped fourteen Olivier awards. In fact, it was Laurence Olivier who interviewed her for her first job as a stage manager at the National Theatre. Since when she co-founded the theatre company Out of Joint before forming her own production company in 2002 and becoming possibly one of the most powerful impresarios of the West End and Broadway.
Producer: Clare Walker.
THU 21:58 Weather (b04c97t7)
The latest weather forecast.
THU 22:00 The World Tonight (b04cfnz6)
Islamists seize new ground in Iraq, Russian EU food ban and a special report on Nigeria's economy - with David Eades.
THU 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04cfnzb)
Pierre et Jean
Episode 3
Guy de Maupassant's compelling short novel, abridged in 4 parts by Penny Leicester, follows family rivalries in maritime Dieppe:
3. Jean is happy of course, but Pierre burns with rage. So a confrontation is due.
Producer Duncan Minshull.
THU 23:00 Don't Make Me Laugh (b04cfnzg)
Series 1
Episode 4
David Baddiel hosts this brand-new show as David Mitchell, Josh Widdicombe, Roisin Conaty and Joe Lycett go against their natural instincts and try not to make an audience laugh.
Scorer: Emily Dean
Producer: Dave Cribb
A So Television / Fierce Tears production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 23:30 With Great Pleasure (b04brrj8)
Simon Callow
Actor Simon Callow presents and reads his favourite literary extracts, with the help of his chosen reader Patricia Hodge. His life in books ranges through Tynan, Logue and Isherwood to Dickens, Nashe and Shakespeare: in which Simon and Patricia perform together on stage for the first time. Recorded in front of an audience at St George's in Bristol.
Producer Beth O'Dea.
FRIDAY 08 AUGUST 2014
FRI 00:00 Midnight News (b04c97v5)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
FRI 00:30 Book of the Week (b04cs8n0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Thursday]
FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04c97v7)
The latest shipping forecast.
FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04c97v9)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04c97vc)
The latest shipping forecast.
FRI 05:30 News Briefing (b04c97vf)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04d0w8t)
Radio 4's daily prayer and reflection with the Rev Neil Gardner of Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh.
FRI 05:45 Farming Today (b04cfrtt)
Russian import ban, Irish Sea fish decline, WW1 moss bandages
Russia bans almost all food imports from the EU and US leading to extreme concern for UK farmers. Martin Haworth from the National Farmers Union, says it's a potential disaster for UK farming, as the European market will be flooded with displaced food - which was intended for Russia. It is calling on supermarkets here to buy British produce. Meanwhile Bertie Armstrong from the Scottish Fisherman's Federation says the ban will impact significantly on the UK's fishing industry.
Northern Irish scientists claim that global warming, as opposed to overfishing, may hold the key to the decline of cod and salmon in the Irish Sea. Although they've had years of fishing restrictions and EU quotas, the measures have seemingly failed to protect fish stocks. Radio Ulster's Nicola Weir talked to scientist Walter Crozier about his research.
All this week Farming Today is looking at the impact World War One had on UK farming. Our report today's report explores how sphagnum moss was collected from the bogs of Dartmoor and used to treat wounds of some of the thousands of soldiers who were injured in France and Belgium.
Presented by Sybil Ruscoe and produced in Bristol by Ruth Sanderson.
FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b0378xmn)
Common Tern
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Michaela Strachan presents the common tern. The Common Tern is the most widespread of our breeding terns and is very graceful. It has long slender wings and a deeply forked tail with the outer feathers extended into long streamers. These features give the bird its other name, sea swallow, by which terns are often called.
FRI 06:00 Today (b04cfvfn)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.
FRI 08:57 DEC Gaza Crisis Appeal (b04fhn5m)
Winifred Robinson presents the DEC Gaza Crisis Appeal.
FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (b04c9xcg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 on Sunday]
FRI 09:45 Book of the Week (b04cs8z9)
In Montmartre
Episode 5
Author Sue Roe's account, abridged by Katrin Williams, describes how Pablo Picasso and other artists found this Paris quarter irresistible when arriving in the early 1900's:
5. Picasso eventually leaves Montmatre for the sedate charms of Clichy. Then author Gertrude Stein sums what Montmartre really means to its artists.
Reader Stella Gonet
Producer Duncan Minshull.
FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (b04cfvfq)
100 years of the Brownies; Why women are covering up on the beach; Holidays
Sheila McClennon presents the programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
FRI 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b04cfvfs)
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Episode 5
After Sam has explored the shipyards of Holland, he and Elizabeth travel to Paris where Elizabeth enjoys buying fashionable gloves and hats. The difficult past year is forgotten and they are happy in each other's company. They go to the Palais Royal to see a play but soon afterwards Elizabeth begins to feel unwell. They return home where her sickness gets worse. Doctor Hollier is called but no remedy seems to help. Sam remembers the promise he made her, and calls a Priest. The concluding episode of this long-running series, adapted from the diaries by Hattie Naylor.
Theme music: Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May, words by Robert Herrick and music by William Lawes, sung by Bethany Hughes. Lute, baroque guitar and theorbo played by David Miller. Violin and viol by Annika Gray, and recorders by Alice Baxter.
Historical consultant: Liza Picard
Sound by Nigel Lewis
Production Co-Ordinator: Willa King
A BBC/Cymru Wales production, directed by Kate McAll.
FRI 11:00 Choral Diplomacy (b04cfvfv)
Political journalist Alex Stevenson follows an unusual diplomatic venture by MPs and peers, as the Parliament Choir hosts the Bundestag Choir for a unique concert in Westminster.
The Parliament Choir is a workplace choir comprised of anyone who works at Westminster from peers, to MPs to researchers, to caterers. As part of the commemorations for World War 1, they've taken the step of inviting their German counterparts, the Bundestag Chor, to Westminster for a concert on July 9th. The concert also remembers the 300 years since the Hanoverian Succession.
What was originally a nice idea has been transformed into a major opportunity to boost diplomatic ties with Germany following support from German chancellor Angela Merkel. The documentary investigates whether the resulting parallel political programme will make a difference amid a period of intense sensitivity for British-German relations over the future of Europe.
Alex Stevenson has been following the choir as they prepare with their conductor Simon Over. He visits rehearsals in London and in Berlin and attends the Foreign Office reception to greet the German choir before the big day of the concert itself.
We hear from current choir Chairman, former Cabinet minister Caroline Spelman MP, previous chair Lord German, veteran politician Kenneth Clarke, conductor Simon Over, the composer in residence at the choir Nick O'Neill and other choir members.
Producer: Laura Parfitt
A White Pebble Media production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 11:30 My Teenage Diary (b039cy0f)
Series 5
Sarfraz Manzoor
Another brave celebrity revisits their formative years by opening up their intimate teenage diaries, and reading them out in public for the very first time. In this programme, comedian Rufus Hound is joined by journalist Sarfraz Manzoor.
Sarfraz relives his teenage days living in Luton in a strict Muslim family - when he was obsessed with Bo Derek and pop music, and desperate to buy a computer.
Producer: Harriet Jaine
A Talkback production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 12:00 Home Front (b04cfvfx)
8 August 1914 - Adam Wilson
The first season of an epic drama series set in Great War Britain exactly one hundred days before its original broadcast on BBC Radio 4. In this episode, there is perfect weather for the Sunday School picnic.
Written by: Katie Hims
Directed by Editor: Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
FRI 12:15 You and Yours (b04cfvfz)
Superfast broadband; Beating Himalayan Balsam; Beer gardens
Peter White looks at who's now getting superfast broadband in the UK. The balsam bashers tackling the scourge of Himalayan Balsam in the UK. What makes the perfect beer garden?
Producer: Mike Young
Presenter: Peter White.
FRI 12:57 Weather (b04c97vh)
The latest weather forecast.
FRI 13:00 World at One (b04cfvg1)
Shaun Ley presents national and international news.
FRI 13:45 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04cfvg3)
Botanical Medicine
In 1947 Sir Robert Robinson received the Nobel prize for Chemistry "in recognition of his investigations of plant products of biological importance, especially the alkaloids". This powerful family of plant chemicals was proving a potent medical tool.
Professor Kathy Willis traces the natural role of alkaloids in plants and the first attempts to isolate one of the best know - quinine, from chinchona bark growing in the Andes. This development gave rise to the emergence of a new kind of laboratory scientist equally able to handle botanical and chemical data. As Mark Nesbitt, Keeper of Kew's Economic Botany Collection explains, this was to eliminate the chance and guesswork in identifying "good" plants from "bad".
Professor Monique Simmons of Kew's Jodrell Laboratory, assesses why chemicals from the plant kingdom are still needed in the fight against some of our most challenging diseases, from breast cancer to cardiovascular disease, and how making the nuanced connections between plant species is central to success in this field.
Producer Adrian Washbourne.
FRI 14:00 The Archers (b04cfkvs)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Thursday]
FRI 14:15 Drama (b0184s2s)
The Lamp
In a remote Scottish library, a farmer's widow and a visiting Kenyan librarian bond unexpectedly over a shared love of books.
Written by Linda Cracknell and recorded on location at Innerpeffray Library in Perthshire, a museum celebrating Scotland's first public lending library.
Directed by Eilidh McCreadie.
FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b04cfw3h)
Windermere
Eric Robson chairs a special edition of Gardeners' Question Time from Windermere. Joining him aboard the ferry to answer passenger questions are Bob Flowerdew, Pippa Greenwood and Bunny Guinness.
This week's programme features the National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens. More information can be found on their website: www.nccpg.com/
Produced by Howard Shannon
Assistant Producer: Darby Dorras
A Somethin' Else Production for BBC Radio 4
This week's questions and answers:
Q. Is deadheading really necessary?
A. It depends on what you're growing. It's worthwhile for summer bedding but when it comes to shrubs, it's probably not worth it. Deadheading does help to clean up the appearance of your plants though.
Q. Can we fill the dips and hollows in our lawn with soil and grass seed?
A. Where you have bumps or dips, make a slit, peel back the turf, level the soil and lay the turf back down again. If you want to start again, put a layer of topsoil over the whole thing and plant grass seed.
Q. I have an enormous hedge that I trimmed recently. A third of it has now died. What went wrong?
A. It looks like it has suffered from disease, perhaps seiridium canker. If this is the case, you must cut out all the diseased branches. However, this might also be due to drought or waterlogging.
Q. Can the panel recommend some colourful shrubs to plant on a very shady side of the house?
A. Paniculata hydrangeas will tolerate shade. One called Limelight is particularly nice. Try hardy varieties of Roses such as May Flower. Lilac could also work. Mahonia has coloured leaves and bright yellow flowers and it does well in the shade. Climbing Tropaeolum Speciosum has attractive foliage and bright flowers. Clematis will sprinkle colour through the other plants.
Q. Do the panel have any top tips for starting an allotment.
A. Get rid of the weeds. Don't be overambitious - stick with six of your favourite things. Start with plants rather than seeds the first year. Try raised beds and mini greenhouses. Try to work the allotment throughout the year.
Q. How do we deal with the invasion of the Himalayan balsam and prevent it in future years?
A. Cut it down before it goes to seed. Try glyphosate weed killer. Be careful where you apply this, particularly if it's near water. It's an easy weed to uproot, so this might be a more ecologically sound way of dealing with the problem. It also makes brilliant compost.
Q. We have large-leaved Rhododendrons that are ten years old and they still haven't flowered. What is going on?
A. It sounds like moisture levels are low and the shade might be too dense. Get more light in and be sure to keep the plants moist and you should get some flowers.
Q. Which native wildflowers would the panel recommend planting?
A. Campanula (Harebell), Wild Orchids which can be sewn in plugs, Yellow Rattle can be planted to prevent the grass from taking over and Wild Chicory and Campion flowers are lovely.
Q. Can the panel recommend a potted plant for the roof of my boat?
A. In the summer, plant rows of dwarf Sun Flowers. A stretch of wild flower meadow would be nice. Trailing Pelegoniums or Balcony Geraniums could work as would House Leeks and a Nasturtium variety known as Empress of India.
FRI 15:45 If I Only Had... (b04cfw3k)
If I Only Had A Brain by Ian Sansom
Stories inspired by the iconic MGM film adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s classic novel The Wizard of Oz.
The Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Cowardly Lion's quest to find Brains, Heart and Courage have sparked three stories from Ian Sansom, Morwenna Banks and Colin Carberry.
You'll hear about people in unexpected situations, challenged to display qualities they never realized they had all along, or which find them looking at their lives in a new light in their own personal quests for a brain, a heart, and the nerve.
If I Only Had a Brain:
In the opening story, novelist and broadcaster Ian Sansom takes us into the daily routine of a scientist who in his quest for new discoveries rarely tells the people he meets exactly what his job entails.
Read by. Mark Heap.
Producer: Heather Larmour
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.
FRI 16:00 Last Word (b04cfzx9)
Chapman Pincher, Mike Smith, Lettice Curtis, Karl Albrecht, Kenny Ireland
Matthew Bannister on
The journalist and author Chapman Pincher who specialised in revealing inside information about the British secret services.
Karl Albrecht the reclusive German businessman who, with his brother, founded the cut price supermarket chain Aldi and became a multi billionaire.
Mike Smith the Radio 1 breakfast show presenter who went on to a successful career on TV.
Lettice Curtis the fearless woman pilot who played a key role in the wartime Air Transport Auxiliary.
And the actor and director Kenny Ireland, known to TV viewers for playing a swinger in the comedy series Benidorm, but also a former artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh.
FRI 16:30 Feedback (b04cfzxc)
On 4th August 1914 Britain entered World War I. The BBC marked the date with a variety of programmes exploring the history of the conflict and by broadcasting commemorative ceremonies. Many listeners were moved by the coverage, others questioned whether it was too jingoistic, while some wonder whether the level of analysis is sustainable for the next four years.
Also this week, Roger Bolton meets his teenage crush - Carol Tregorran from The Archers, played by film star Eleanor Bron. Carol hasn't been heard in The Archers for 34 years, but how long will she be staying this time?
And Roger is in Glasgow meeting journalists at the BBC headquarters at Pacific Quay on the day of the first televised debate of the Scottish Referendum campaign. With just six weeks to go before the people of Scotland cast their vote, Roger asks Scotland Correspondent Colin Blane and Special Correspondent Allan Little whether they can give their listeners inside and outside of Scotland the information they want and need. He also meets Louise White, presenter of BBC Radio Scotland's phone-in programme Morning Call, and BBC Scotland political editor Brian Taylor who deals with allegations of bias from both sides.
Marcus Brigstocke has dealt with plenty of allegations of bias for his brand of close-to-the-bone political satire. His Radio 4 comedy series The Brig Society returned this week and already listeners are divided over whether his analysis of the European Union was refreshingly witty or wilfully one-sided. Which side are you on?
Producer: Lizz Pearson
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 16:55 1914: Day by Day (b04cfzxf)
8th August
The French army declares a victory in their lost province of Alsace.
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First World War. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Margaret Macmillan is Professor of International History at Oxford University.
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak
Jane Whittenshaw
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Russell Finch
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio.
FRI 17:00 PM (b04cfzxh)
Coverage and analysis of the day's news.
FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04c97vk)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 18:27 DEC Gaza Crisis Appeal (b04fhn5m)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:57 today]
FRI 18:30 The Brig Society (b04cfzxk)
Series 2
Social Media
Uh-oh - Marcus Brigstocke has been put in charge of a thing! Each week, Marcus finds he's volunteered to be in charge of a big old thing and each week he starts out by thinking "Well, it can't be that difficult, surely?" and ends up with "Oh - turns out it's utterly difficult and complicated. Who knew...?"
This week, Marcus has decided to create his own Social Media site. Please RT. Please Follow. Please Like. Please give all your details to Google and the NSA.
Helping him to turn your metadata into cash will be Rufus Jones ("W1A", "Holy Flying Circus"), William Andrews ("Sorry I've Got No Head") and Margaret Cabourn-Smith ("Miranda")
The show is a Pozzitive production, and is produced by Marcus's long-standing accomplice, David Tyler who also produces Marcus appearances as the inimitable as Giles Wemmbley Hogg. David's other radio credits include Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation, Cabin Pressure, Thanks A Lot, Milton Jones!, Kevin Eldon Will See You Now, Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive, The Castle, The 3rd Degree, The 99p Challenge, My First Planet, Radio Active & Bigipedia. His TV credits include Paul Merton - The Series, Spitting Image, Absolutely, The Paul Calf Video Diary, Three Fights Two Weddings & A Funeral, Coogan's Run, The Tony Ferrino Phenomenon and exec producing Victoria Wood's dinnerladies.
Written by Marcus Brigstocke, Jeremy Salsby, Toby Davies, Nick Doody, Steve Punt & Dan Tetsell
Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for the BBC.
FRI 19:00 The Archers (b04cfzxm)
It's Kenton and Shula's birthday. Armed with a new Panama hat from Fallon, Kenton's off to Paris with Jolene. So disappointingly for Pat, he'll miss the open day at Berrow Farm.
Shula hasn't received the same birthday treatment from Alistair. Jim's rather annoyed with Alistair for not passing on his present to Shula - a book of specially chosen verse.
Kenton thinks David is secretly quite proud of Ben for his part in the protest at the village hall. Shula's certainly proud of Dan. He is taking part in the Sovereign's Parade, a ceremony for those at the end of their year's training at Sandhurst.
PC Burns jokes about Fallon's clapped out old camper van. They test drive a Morris 1000 van, which Burns has suggested as Fallon's new vintage wagon. Making small talk, Burns realises that Fallon is keen to be just mates, as she presses him on the idea of dating Elizabeth. Rather hurt and confused, Burns asks to be dropped off.
Fallon is pleased to tell Pat she'll buy the van.
Pat, Jim and Shula discuss the proposed anaerobic digester and all the waste that will be trucked through the village. Jim knows that Charlie is a very plausible young man. They need to find a way to throw him off balance at the forthcoming open day.
FRI 19:15 Front Row (b04cfzxr)
Ben Whishaw; Margaret Kennedy
We review the new BBC One comedy series, Boomers. Set in Thurnemouth, 'Norfolk's only West facing resort', it follows the ups and downs of a group of baby boomers wrestling with the unique challenges of life in retirement, featuring an all-star cast including Alison Steadman, Stephanie Beacham, Russ Abbot and June Whitfield.
Actor Ben Whishaw on his new film Lilting, in which he plays a grieving man who tries to befriend his late boyfriend's Chinese mother.
Margaret Kennedy's 1924 novel, The Constant Nymph, was a sensational bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic and inspired a West End play and three films. Kennedy enjoyed success with her subsequent novels but today few recognise her name. With the reissue of her books, novelist Joanna Briscoe and Dr Anne Manuel discuss the qualities of this former literary lioness.
And where art meets science: Front Row spoke to three chemists who work in art galleries, preserving, restoring and even discovering, paintings.
Presenter: Damian Barr
Producer: Nicola Holloway.
FRI 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04cfvfs)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (b04cfzxt)
Max Hastings, Soweto Kinch, Julie Bindel, Mark Littlewood
Martha Kearney presents political debate from the Broadcasting House Radio Theatre in London, with historian and commentator Max Hastings, jazz saxophonist Soweto Kinch, feminist writer Julie Bindel, and Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs Mark Littlewood.
FRI 20:50 A Point of View (b04cfzxw)
Believing in Beliefs
Will Self offers a weekly reflection on a topical issue.
FRI 21:00 Home Front - Omnibus (b04cfzxy)
4-8 August 1914 (Season 1 start)
An epic drama series set in Great War Britain exactly a hundred years before it was first broadcast. In the first weekly omnibus edition of Season 1, Folkestone comes to terms with being at the hub of Britain's war effort.
Written by Katie Hims
Consultant Historian: Professor Maggie Andrews
Music: Matthew Strachan
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Home Front is a ground-breaking Radio Four radio drama - its biggest ever - set in Britain during 1914-18, playing a central role in the BBC's comprehensive offering to mark the centenaries of World War One.
An enthralling fiction, set against a backdrop of fact. Each episode is set a hundred years to the day before broadcast, and follows one character's day. Together they create a mosaic of experience from a wide cross-section of British society, and a playful treasure hunt, with historical truths hidden in each story.
Season One is set in Folkestone, a fashionable Edwardian seaside resort that quickly became one of the hubs of the military machine, and close enough to France to hear the fighting. Future seasons will be set in Newcastle and Devon, telling the major stories of wartime Britain.
FRI 21:58 Weather (b04c97vm)
The latest weather forecast.
FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (b04cfzy0)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
FRI 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04cfzy2)
Pierre et Jean
Episode 4
Guy de Maupassant's compelling short novel, abridged in 4 parts by Penny Leicester, follows family rivalries in the seaport of Le Havre:
4. There's only one answer: Pierre must bid his farewells. It's sad for the family, but what else is possible?
Producer Duncan Minshull.
FRI 23:00 Summer Nights (b04cfzy4)
Series 2
Ebola - 'Keep calm and carry on'?
Pandemics, panics and is it a help or a hindrance that we're so fascinated by contagious diseases?
The World Health Organisation has declared the outbreak of Ebola which began in West Africa a public health emergency. It is an horrific disease that kills up to 90 per cent of those it infects. The images of its victims are tough to watch on our television screens, but the story only got our full attention when a woman with a suspected case landed at Gatwick earlier this week. Though she did not have Ebola, it brought the panic surrounding the virus closer to home. But is panic always an unhealthy response to a crisis? Can it make us feel solidarity with others and spur us into action, be it scientific, medical or political? Or does the urge to panic betray our own selfish instinct to survive?
Presenter: Aleks Krotoski
Producer: Ruth Watts.
FRI 23:55 The Listening Project (b04cfzy6)
Marion and Grace - A Time to Dance
Fi Glover with a conversation between an eight year old who has her dance career mapped out and her grandmother, who was considered too tall for ballet but still tap dances at 78, proving once 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.