The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Damian Le Bas combines a family memoir with broader historical context as he tells a story of the British traveller community, a people who have been on the margins since their presence and language was first noted down in the mid-16th century, in a pub in Sussex.
Damian inhabits an awkward middle ground between the non-gypsy world and his own heritage. He grew up in West Sussex in a house built by his
grandfather on land the family owned, surrounded by a field that was half car-breaking business, half farmyard. Scattered bits of engines lay alongside bales of hay, brand new trucks were surrounded by geese and terriers. But twice a week they drove an hour each way to their family pitch in the market square of Petersfield where they sold flowers.
Along the way, his elders would nod towards lay-bys and verges, naming them as they passed. These were the 'atchin tans' or stopping places. His great grandmother, Nan, explained to him that they were diverse places where she and her family used to live in the days of wagons and bender tents. Sometimes they would stop for a few days, other times for a few years.
Damian's parents both had faith in education and, when they saw that he was bright, he applied for for a scholarship at the nearby boarding school, leading to ten grade A O-Levels, A Levels and theology at Oxford.
Damian was now firmly an outsider in both worlds. But having plundered the Bodleian Library for histories of gypsies, he felt the need to get out into the world and discover the topography of his ancestors. So he got himself a van and set out to visit the stopping places - from Devon to Northumbria via London and Wales. As we
follow his journey, we also learn about the history of antagonism that has followed gypsies and the movement to reclaim their identity with pride.
Written and read by Damian Le Bas
Abridged and produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
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The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with writer and broadcaster, Sarah Joseph.
A listener takes us round the Red Room club in Ealing, West London. In the 1960s, the venue was called the Ealing Club and was where The Rolling Stones and The Who played some of their earliest gigs. But there are fears that regeneration in the area will mean the club could be at risk. Is enough done to protect grassroots music venues?
Plus Annie Nightingale reads our Your News bulletin and reminisces about the iconic Maida Vale studios.
Presented by Luke Jones and Eddie Mair. Produced by Cat Farnsworth.
Email: ipm@bbc.co.uk. Twitter: @BBCiPM.
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
Clare Balding walks to the extraordinary Dashwood Mausoleum, near High Wycombe, with Julia and Lee Clements and their daughter, Cerys. Cerys is nearly six years old and has cerebral palsy, so joins the walk in her off-road buggy. Together Julia and Lee discuss how they have adapted to life with a profoundly disabled child; Julia says she has become a 'fighter', especially for the right to give her daughter blended 'real' food, through the tube in her stomach, and not just formula milk which is the accepted norm. Lee says he once defined himself by his achievements at work, or in running marathons, or going for very long walks whereas, now, he values even the shortest of outings with Cerys - navigating kissing-gates, or pushing her weighty buggy uphill is a joy and a challenge in itself.
Producer: Karen Gregor.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
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News and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Guests include actor and stand up comedian Richard Blackwood, Little Britain star Matt Lucas, fashion commentator and football obsessive Simon Doonan, and American Football player Phoebe Schecter.
Richard Blackwood talks about his early rise to fame and bankruptcy, before playing the donkey in Shrek the Musical and moving on to straight acting roles.
Matt Lucas, began his career as a giant baby playing the drums and went on to success with Little Britain wearing a fat suits for the character of Bubbles De Vere. He describes his passion for musicals and for Arsenal FC.
Simon Doonan loves football and fashion in equal measure. He is the Creative Ambassador for Barney's New York. He's dressed the White House for Christmas under the Obama administration. And he's a Reading FC fan who has flown from New York to see them play.
Phoebe Schecter plays for and Captains Great Britain's Women's American Football team. She led them to the final of the 2015 European Championships, where they won silver, and she was the first British woman to coach in the NFL when she worked with Buffalo Bills.
And Jo Wood shares her Inheritance Tracks - Patter Patte by Miriam Makeba, and Stray Cat Blues by The Rolling Stones.
Presented by Aasmah Mir and Rev. Richard Coles.
Produced by Louise Corley
Edited by Eleanor Garland.
Actor and comedian Omid Djalili hosts a dinner party with a twist - all his guests are from beyond the grave, his heroes brought back to life by the magic of the radio archive.
He's joined by boxing legend Muhammad Ali, musician David Bowie, Labour MP and one time Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Mo Mowlam, singer and actor Eartha Kitt and actor and comedian Kenneth Williams.
While the lamb roasts in the oven, the conversation around Omid's table is fast and at times combative - from the pleasure of crushing your opponent to the thrill of breaking taboos, from anti-apartheid protests to the fun of stealing chips off other people's plates. There's politics, family and love.
Written and presented by Omid Djalili
Produced by Sarah Peters and Peregrine Andrews
Researcher: Edgar Maddicott
Executive Producer: Iain Chambers
Additional guitar: Marcus Glentworth
A Tuning Fork and Open Audio production for BBC Radio 4.
Iain Martin, columnist for The Times, looks behind the scenes at Westminster.
Reports from writers and journalists around the world. Presented by Kate Adie.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
It emerged this week that thousands of disabled people who claim the mobility element of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) benefits will have to wait until after the end of summer to receive the extra payments backdated from November 2016. Last December the High Court ruled that the Department of Work and Pensions policy in this area had been "blatantly discriminatory against those with mental health impairments." In January the government announced that it would not be appealing against the ruling.
Money Box reporter Tony Bonsignore has discovered that at least three hundred and sixty people have properties in trusts created by the collapsed inheritance planning firm Universal Wealth Preservation. The final total could be much higher.
More than six weeks after an IT failure threw the finances of thousands of TSB customers into chaos, MPs on the Treasury Select Committee say they have "lost confidence" in the ability of TSB Chief Executive Paul Pester to lead the bank.
The topical satirical show that mixes political vituperation with media mauling and celebrity savaging.
The series is written by Private Eye writers Tom Jamieson and Nev Fountain, together with Tom Coles, Ed Amsden, Sarah Campbell, Laurence Howarth, James Bugg, Laura Major, Max Davis and others.
The series stars Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Lewis MacLeod, Debra Stephenson and Duncan Wisbey.
A BBC Studios Production.
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Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from the Potteries Museum in Hanley as part of the Stoke on Trent Literary Festival, with a panel including Ben Bradley MP who is Vice Chair of the Conservative Party for Youth, the ceramics manufacturer Emma Bridgewater, Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon MP and the author and political commentator Edwina Currie.
Listeners have their say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?
The Twin Towers reappear in Dakota in 2021. Nothing is predictable in this new America and reality and history are turned upside down. What exists and what is a shadow?
Steve Erickson's 2017 novel was hailed by critics as the first novel of the Trump era. It imagines checkpoints and borders and rupture zones in a country that's torn apart.
Parker, aged 23, and his 15 year-old sister Zema are driving from the West coast to see their mother in Michigan. On a news feed they hear that the Twin Towers have reappeared in South Dakota. Overnight. Out of nowhere. Strange sounds seem to be coming from them. Is there anyone inside? The buildings look pristine.
Dubbed by reporters on the scene as an "American Stonehenge", they immediately become a pilgrimage site.
Headstrong Zema insists that they change course and join the throng heading to the site. She has brought along mix tapes made by their dad who was a music DJ. The songs somehow reflect where they are and what they are thinking about. Astonished, they learn over social media that their car has become a magnet. Hashtag Supersonic. What is the strange cargo they carry?
Meanwhile, around the Twin Towers, every sightseer hears different music. And on a top floor in the otherwise empty South Tower, Jesse Presley the twin brother of Elvis wakes up. He has his own demons and music raging in his head.
Jesse's journey has parallels with Parker and Zema's. It's a supernaturally charged trip across an America which is familiar and yet eerily angry and dangerous, and back in altered time.
Steve Erickson, often described as a writer's writer, has had ten novels published in as many languages. He's known for Zeroville (soon to be seen as a movie), Our Ecstatic Days, and These Dreams of You which contains some of Shadowbahn's characters.
Recorded on location in Arizona and New York.
Other parts played by
Pete McElligott
Chris Dwane
Sara Berg
Reynaldo Piniella
Raphael Martin
Written by Steve Erickson
Adapted for radio by Anita Sullivan
Produced and Directed by Judith Kampfner and Steve Bond
A Corporation For Independent Media production for BBC Radio 4.
BBC 6 Music's Chris Hawkins listens to new music every day - and he's noticing a trend.
More and more of the bands he plays on the station are writing about politics. Acts like Nadine Shah, Cabbage, Idles and Life are covering topics as diverse as The NHS, the refugee crisis of 2016, austerity and rail privatisation.
Chris visits the performers to ask them what is fuelling their music, considering whether supposedly radical bands are operating in a form of musical filter bubble - singing radical songs to an audience who already agree with their point of view.
From the blues to grime, music and politics have always been intertwined, but Chris Hawkins provides a snapshot of the topics which are driving a generation of rock bands right now.
Presented by Chris Hawkins
Producer Kevin Core
Music featured:
Nadine Shah: Out the Way. Holiday Destination. Mother Fighter. Jolly Sailor.
Idles: Mother. Divide and Conquer.
Life: In Your Hands. Euromillions.
Cabbage: Tell Me Lies About Manchester. Preach to the Converted.
We hear from writer and director Clare Anyiam-Osigwe about her film No Shade which explores the issue of colourism. Clare and Victoria Sanusi a writer at the I newspaper talk about the prejudice they face from black men because they have darker black skin.
The award winning actress Gabourey Sidibe tells us about her new memoir discussing her career, race, body image and beauty standards in the industry.
Couples therapist Esther Perel discusses infidelity
We look at the gender pay gap in sport, the latest Forbes list of the top 100 earning sports stars features all men as Serena Williams who was on the list last year took time out to have a baby. Sports writer Anna Kessel and boxer Tasha Jones discuss the impact the gender pay gap has on women's sport.
It's ten years since Jimmy Mizen was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack in a south London bakery. His mother Margaret tells us about her work bringing communities together and how she has dealt with her grief.
What does a 21st century family look like? We hear from Melanie Carew ,Head of Cafcass Legal and Professor Susan Golombok Director Centre for Family Research at Cambridge University and author of Modern Families.
And we have music from the Australian singer songwriter Courtney Barnett.
Presented by Jane Garvey
Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed
Editor: Beverley Purcell.
Luke Jones with the day's news.
Evan Davis hosts the business conversation show.
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The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Clive Anderson and Sara Cox are joined by Paterson Joseph, Shirley Manson, Thomasina Miers, Bobby Crush and Mike Birbiglia for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Nick Lowe.
Producer: Sukey Firth.
Characterised as both a benevolent philanthropist and as a meddling influence, George Soros has been present at some of the most defining moments in modern history.
Soros was born into a Hungarian Jewish family, and later took on a false identity to survive the Nazi occupation in 1944. It was an experience that shaped his life and his outlook and he went on to escape to the West via his knowledge of the international language Esperanto.
Beginning his career as a tobacco salesman, Soros went on to fund one of the most successful hedge funds in US history. Known for his high risk and brazen approach, he is infamous for his involvement in the devaluation of the British pound, known as Black Wednesday.
But his career as a financial investor was not limited to the markets - he went on to use his money to promote non-violent democratisation in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond. More recently he has proved a controversial figure, providing funding for the pro-Remain campaign in the UK Brexit debate and is now the subject of vilification by the leaders of his native Hungary.
Presenter: Ed Stourton
Producer: Clare Spencer and Serena Tarling.
My Name is Lucy Barton is a one woman play starring Laura Linney in her London stage debut. At London's Bridge Theatre, it's based on the novel by Elizabeth Strout and directed by Richard Eyre
There's a new documentary looking at the life and career of designer Alexander McQueen who died in 2010. It includes interviews with familiar faces and also less-well-known family and friends
Rachel Kushner's novel The Mars Room is largely set within the American penal system - it's not a nice place to be, especially for the narrator who is a prisoner serving a life sentence in the largest women's prison in the world
Aftermath is an exhibition at Tate Britain of art from Europe following the end of the first World War - it shows new art movements emerging in Britain France and Germany reflecting and influencing the society from which it sprang
City of Ghosts is being shown in the Storyville strand on BBC4. It's an Oscar-nominated documentary about a group of Syrian website that opposes ISIS and tries to tell the truth about what is happening in their ruined home city of Raaqa
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Amber Butchart, Liz Jensen and Jim White. The producer is Oliver Jones.
The first episode of Star Trek aired half a century ago, on 8th September 1966. Space medic and broadcaster Kevin Fong asks what happened to the progressive and optimistic vision of future that the iconic television series promised him?
In 1964, Star Trek producer Gene Roddenberry repeatedly failed to convince US television studios and networks to buy his idea for a new kind of science fiction series. Eventually he sold NBC the concept of a sci-fi story in which the human race explored space, united in racial harmony and with benign global purpose.
This was the era of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the western world: mutual nuclear annihilation had almost happened in 1963. The US and USSR were engaged in the Space race.
Yet in Star Trek, American captain James Kirk had a Russian, Pavel Chekov, in charge of the Enterprise's weapon systems.
The battle for civil rights in the United States was also coming to ahead. Gene Roddenberry cast a black woman as fourth in command of the Enterprise - Lieutenant Uhura, the ship's communications officer.
The Vietnam war was ramping up and relations between Mao's China and the United States were at a low. Yet another senior figure on the Enterprise's bridge was Mr Sulu, who Roddenberry wanted as a representative of Asia.
How far have we voyaged towards Star Trek's vision of the future and what of it is likely to be fulfilled or remain undiscovered in the next 50 years?
Kevin Fong presents archive material of the likes of Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Uhura) talking about the inception and filming of the original Star Trek series, and their thoughts about Roddenberry's vision of the future and its impact in the United States at the time.
For example, Nichols relates how she had a chance encounter with Martin Luther King the day after she had told Roddenberry that she intended to leave Star Trek after the first series. King told her he was her number fan and almost demanded that she didn't give up the role of Uhura, because she was an uniquely empowering role model on American television at the time.
For a perspective from today, Kevin also talks to George Takei who played Mr Sulu. Takei laments the ethnically divisive politics of the United States in 2016.
He meets Charles Bolden - the first African American to both command a shuttle mission and lead NASA as its chief administrator. In the age of the International Space Station, he compares himself to the 'Admiral of Star Fleet'. But the former astronaut also talks about the anger he first felt in 1994 when he was asked to fly the first Russian cosmonaut ever to board an American space shuttle.
Kevin also talk to cultural broadcaster and Star Trek fan Samira Ahmed about the sexual and racial politics of the Original series.
Rod Roddenberry, the television producer son of Gene Roddenberry, tells Kevin about his father, his father's politics and creative vision, and why Star Trek still endures, even though its future remains unattained.
Producers: Andrew Luck-Baker and Jennifer Whyntie.
Credits/copyright:
Audio footage from 'Star Trek'' was courtesy of CBS Television Studios.
Some segments of interview with Nichelle Nichols were courtesy of the Television Academy's Archives of American Television.
by Nick Warburton.
Series created by Jonathan Ruffle.
Meticulously based on unit war diaries and eye-witness accounts, each episode of TOMMIES traces one real day at war, exactly 100 years ago.
Through it all, we follow the fortunes of Mickey Bliss and his fellow signallers, from the Lahore Division of the British Indian Army. They are the cogs in an immense machine, one which connects situations across the whole theatre of the war, over four long years.
Lee Ross, Pippa Nixon and Indira Varma star in this story, set on October 14th, 1914. Walter Oddy, wounded in action, is among thousands arriving today at the hospitals in Boulogne. Among so many casualties - will there be time to save one life?
Producers: David Hunter, Jonquil Panting, Jonathan Ruffle
Director: Jonquil Panting.
Our conversations about health issues are useful, Dr Helen Morant of the BMJ tells Fi Glover, to show medics what can be gained by listening to a patient. A celebration of the delivery of the thousandth conversation to the British Library and examination of the value of this unique archive from the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen, now and in the future.
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 learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Marya Burgess.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.
With 25 Islamist plots foiled in the last five years and four extreme right plots stopped since March 2017, the Home Secretary Sajid Javid this week described a "step change" in the terrorist threat to the UK. As a result, MI5 is to declassify and share information on UK citizens suspected of having terrorist sympathies. "Key" biographical data on - potentially - hundreds of people will be given to neighbourhood police, councils and other public agencies such as the Probation Service and the Charity Commission. Is this an example of sensible information-sharing in the interest of national security, or is it the problematic extension of counter-terrorism responsibilities to those who may not be qualified to handle them? Many believe that as the nature of terrorism is changing, so should our behaviour. Anyone can buy a knife and hire a van, therefore we - citizens, employees, officials - should all be vigilant and prepared to report our suspicions. But is all this suspicion good for us or can it result in an unhealthy culture of paranoia and vigilantism? The question goes much wider than terrorism. For example, should clergy, therapists, journalists and teachers be duty bound to report suspicions of criminality? Is respect for confidentiality no longer an unassailable virtue? Witnesses are Phillip Blond, Silkie Carlo, Adrian Hilton and Hannah Stuart.
Producer: Dan Tierney.
(15/17)
Russell Davies chairs the third of the 2018 semi-finals, featuring another four heat winners or exceptional scorers from the earlier stages of the tournament. A place in the Final awaits the winner. This week's semi-finalists are:
Clive Dunning, a teacher from Stockton-On-Tees
Garry Holland, a writer from Didcot
Julia Lemagnen, a retired company director from Whaddon in Buckinghamshire
Tom Williams, a personal assistant from London.
The competitors will also be asked to collaborate in answering a pair of questions supplied by a Brain of Britain listener hoping to outwit them - who will win a prize if he or she succeeds.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
Two choreographers talk about how they were inspired to create a dance based closely on a poem.
Ben Duke, nominated this year for an Olivier Award, grew to love Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost while at university and set about creating his one-man show in contemporary dance called Paradise Lost - lies unopened beside me.
Julie Cunningham, a dancer/choreographer who now runs her own company, went to the Glastonbury Festival, saw the poet Kate Tempest perform, and immediately wanted to set some of her poems to dance.
Ben Duke springs off Paradise Lost and, in a mix of dance and conversation, with just a little of the text, leads his audience through God's creation of the universe, to the battle with Lucifer, and the final expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. Dance critic Judith Mackrell and poet and dance producer Karthika Nair describe Ben's approach as a kind of riff on the poem, moving between his own domestic challenges and the challenges face by God as they both struggle to complete their act of creation.
Julie Cunningham's piece is based on a selection of poems from Kate Tempest's prizewinning collection Hold Your Own, through which runs the story of Tiresias - boy, then woman, then prophet, blinded by the gods for his knowledge of both genders. Set for four dancers, she sees her work called To Be Me as a search for the individual person, with the Tiresias story as the background. Judith Mackrell feels that the passion and strength of Kate Tempest's poetry are contrasted to great effect by the beauty and power of Julie's choreography.
Photograph of Ben Duke: Alicia Clark
Producer: Richard Bannerman
A Far Shoreline production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
A Figure of Speech is a new short story written and narrated by Will Self.
Sitting at a bar, dabbling with a digital map on his phone, the man is approached by another. He ignores him but later discovers the stranger is connected to this phone map. Connected in a disturbing way..
Producer Duncan Minshull.
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Bells on Sunday comes from St Leonard's Church in Hythe.
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Rabbi Harvey Belovski goes back to his childhood and remembers the nervous boy who had an aversion to uncertainty - something that continued to trouble him well into adulthood.
Harvey explains that, when he was young, he was taken with the certainty shown by Abraham in the story of the Binding of Issac, where his total faith in God led him to the brink of sacrificing his son. According to Harvey, "we are always left in awe, or horror, that Abraham seemed to experience no doubt that he was doing the right thing."
Later, Harvey found another interpretation of the story in the writings of a Polish rabbi known as the Ishbitzer, who suggests that Abraham was being tested to see if he could embrace uncertainty - did God want Abraham to sacrifice Isaac or would Isaac become the father of a great nation? Abraham simply couldn't know, yet he was required to accept the doubt.
"This might seem trivial," Harvey says, "but it changed my world forever...I began to see doubt and complexity less as enemies to be eliminated, but as central features of a meaningful life."
Through traditional Jewish music and the compositions of Mozart and Chopin, he leads us on his journey from discomfort to mature acceptance that uncertainty is something to be embraced.
Presenter: Rabbi Harvey Belovski
Producer: Michael Wakelin
A TBI production for BBC Radio 4.
The machair is a unique coastal grassland, rich in wildflowers, that form one of the rarest habitats in Europe, and for this Living World wildlife presenter Lindsay Chapman relives the magic of this man made but fragile landscape which Brett Westwood experienced on this visit to South Harris in 2004.
Brett meets up with Martin Scott from the RSPB who guides him across this sea washed habitat to discuss the special nature of botanically rich grasslands. This grassland is a result of many centuries of grazing by farm animals through the crofting system, the programme unearth how that grazing benefits not only the wild flowers, but the birdlife too. Along the way Brett discovers wonderful flora such as meadowsweet, silverweed and knapweed. But on a cold wet day their quest to find the great yellow bumblebee does prove problematic. This habitat is unique to western and northern Scotland and today faces considerable threats, from changes in the traditional crofting system to the introduction of hedgehogs and mink which can affect ground nesting birds making their home in the Machair, and controversial projects to remove them.
To bring this story up to date since this programme was first broadcast, Lindsey Chapman offers some recent updates into the magical world of the Machair.
Producer Andrew Dawes.
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Thirty years since the start of construction began on the largest regeneration project Britain has seen in modern times - Canary wharf - the area's former vicar and now Bishop of Salisbury, Nicolas Holtham, returns to find out what's changed and meet some old friends still working in the community.
The Government have announced funding to increase security at places of worship at risk of hate attacks. It comes after a mosque and Gurdwara were fire bombed in Leeds. Home Office Minister Baroness Williams talks to Edward Stourton about how the new funding will help and we also hear from Director of Just Yorkshire Nadeem Murtuja.
The man known as the Vicar of Baghdad has been cleared by the Metropolitan Police of paying Isis to free Yazidis slaves. Canon Andrew White joins Edward Stourton to reflect on the investigation and its impact on him.
The Chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum, Mohammed Amin, discusses what he sees as his party's failure to take action on Islamophobia.
Journalist Konstantin Von Eggert talks to Edward Stourton about the ultra-conservative, orthodox, Cossack "morality police" due to patrol World Cup games which kick off in Russia this week.
Leading figures from the oil industry will meet the Pope for a summit on climate change this week. James Politi of the Financial Times talks to Edward about this unusual gathering and what is hoped will be achieved.
Jayne Ozanne talks about her new book 'Just Love: A Journey of Self-acceptance' and it's telling of her 40 year journey to reconcile her faith with her sexuality before becoming one of the leading figures ushering in a new era of LGBTI acceptance in the Church.
Producers:
Catherine Earlam
Lissa Cook
Series Producer:
Amanda Hancox.
Benjamin Zephaniah makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of International Tree Foundation.
Registered Charity Number: 1106269
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal. (That's the whole address. Please do not write anything else on the front of the envelope). Mark the back of the envelope 'ITF'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'ITF'.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
The new Bishop of London, the Rt. Revd. Sarah Mullally, who before her ordination was Chief Nursing Officer at the Department of Health, preaches at a service to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the NHS, live from the church of St Bartholomew-the-Less, situated within the walls of St Bart's Hospital in London. The service is led by the Rector, Fr Marcus Walker, and the choir of St Barts is directed by Rupert Gough. Producer: Ben Collingwood.
"Cute mobile machines with arms, hands and big friendly eyes reminding you to take your next pill... or lifting people in and out of wheelchairs" - is this the way to look after a growing elderly population?
Sarah Dunant reflects on the crisis in care for the elderly and wonders if artificial intelligence can provide a satisfactory answer.
Producer: Adele Armstrong.
It is the final week of the BBC's wildlife series Springwatch; what better time then than for it's host Chris Packham, a long time presenter and supporter of Tweet of the Day, to select five of his personal favourites from the Radio 4 series. Birds which should be calling or singing while Springwatch is on air. In this episode Chris recalls the delight on seeing a sparrowhawk in the garden before introducing the five species he has chosen from his own time presenting on the series, which you can hear Monday to Friday at 05.58 this week.
You can hear more from Chris in the Tweet of the Week omnibus podcast, which can be found on the Radio 4 website, or can be found on the BBC iplayer Radio App by searching search for Tweet of the Week.
Producer Andrew Dawes.
Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
Brian prepares for the fallout, and Lily finds herself trapped.
Professor Carlos Frenk is a cosmologist and one of the originators of the Cold Dark Matter theory for the formation of galaxies and the structure of the universe. He has worked at Durham University since 1985, where he was appointed the inaugural Ogden Professor of Fundamental Physics in 2001 and has been Director of the Institute for Computational Cosmology since 2002.
Born in Mexico in 1951, he is the son of a German Jewish immigrant father and a Mexican mother with Spanish roots. After completing his physics degree in Mexico, he came to Cambridge University in the mid-1970s to do a PhD in Astronomy. His first postgraduate job took him to the University of California where he worked on a computer simulation of the universe with three fellow cosmologists, disproving the idea that the universe contains hot dark matter and establishing the theory of cold dark matter instead.
Professor Frenk's papers have received more than 100,000 citations, making him one of the most frequently cited authors in the field of space science and astronomy. He has won a number of prizes for his work, including the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. He was awarded a CBE in 2017.
Presenter: Kirsty Young
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Gyles Brandreth temporarily takes over from Nicholas Parsons as the chairman of this iconic panel game. He is joined by Paul Merton, Josie Lawrence, Sara Pascoe and Tony Hawks.
The panel have to talk on a given subject for sixty seconds without repetition, hesitation or deviation. What does Paul daydream about? Can Josie tell us much about the Wild West? How much does Sara know about the Theory of Evolution and does Tony really enjoy bungee jumping? All this will be revealed and more!
Hayley Sterling blows the whistle and it was produced by Matt Stronge.
Just A Minute is a BBC Studios production.
As part of the BBC Food and Farming Awards Nigel Barden and Tom Parker Bowles met an amazing array of street food vendors. In this programme Nigel tells the finalist's stories and visits KERB market in Camden to hear how the industry is rapidly evolving across the UK.
First they meet Manjit Kaur and Michael Jameson from Manjit's Kitchen in Leeds. Manjit and Michael started by doing home deliveries of vegetarian traditional Punjabi food and now have a permanent home in Kirkgate market as well as a horsebox they use to serve across the country.
The Bees Country Kitchen in Chorley is run by Sarah and Mike Bryan. The Bees serve a huge array of dishes from Chorley Market including vegan and healthy meals. They have a huge commitment to using local produce and serving their community.
The Old Granary Pierogi in Herefordshire is run by Emilia Koziol-Wisniewski, husband Piotr and brother Jacek Koziol. They talk about the difficulty they had as immigrants coming to this country and starting their business selling traditional Polish food when hardly anyone knew what it was.
Nigel also talks to Mark Laurie from The Nationwide Caterers Association (NCASS) about how the industry has changed even in a short amount time as well as what we can expect in the future.
Presented by Nigel Barden
Produced in Bristol by Sam Grist.
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Global news and analysis.
Baroness Shirley Williams follows the footsteps taken by her mother Vera Brittain in her memoir "Testament of Youth" to the graveside of her uncle Edward Brittain in the foothills of the Italian Alps. Through letters sent between Edward and Vera, and a journey to the trenches of Northern Italy, Shirley Williams looks back at the forgotten Asiago campaign on the Italian Front at the very end of World War I and the tragic circumstances leading to Edward Brittain's death one hundred years ago.
Presenter: Allan Little
Producer: Sarah Shebbeare.
Eric Robson and the panel are at the RHS Chatsworth Flower Show. Matthew Wilson, Pippa Greenwood and Matt Biggs answer the horticultural questions.
The panellists offer suggestions to fill a large gap in an old hedge, advise on the best way to take cuttings from a friend's plant and assist with a struggling blueberry bush. They also help to plan a new, small wood and explain how to spot Ash dieback.
Pippa Greenwood visits Rebecca Robinson at the GQT Bloomin' healthy garden featured at the RHS Chatsworth Flower Show.
Produced by Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Hester Cant
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Fi Glover introduces conversations between members of the RNLI team at Spurn Point in the Omnibus edition of the series that proves 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 learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Marya Burgess.
Jonathan Holloway's reimagining of Dostoyevsky's nightmare vision of a lonely civil servant driven to madness when his life is stolen by a doppelganger.
Produced and directed by Gemma Jenkins
Jonathan Holloway has taken Dostoyevksy's tale of the lonely civil servant on the verge of a nervous breakdown and relocated it to a steampunk version of 19th Century St Petersburg, substituting the labyrinthine Tsarist bureaucracy of the original with the advanced computer systems office of the Russian Federation's Intelligence Services.
To win his superiors' admiration the story's hero, Golyadkin, starts working on perfecting a new cyber-weapon only to find that a new arrival in the office who looks remarkably like him is taking all the credit for his work.
In this new adaptation the 21st century begins to intrude - samovars bubble, dances mix trance with live string quartets, electric taxis whine on the highways while horses clatter by and computers are gas-fuelled.
In Golyadkin's fractured mind he's lost all sense of where he exists in time and what we're experiencing is his dream of the future.
Dostoyevsky's themes of grinding bureaucracy, societal pressures inducing feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness are given a bleakly modern twist.
Cressida Connolly talks to Mariella Frostrup about her new novel After the Party. Three sisters from a privileged Sussex family are caught up in the rise in popularity of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists during the summer of 1938.
Mariella talks to Chris Power and Peter Kemp about newly published collections of short stories from three recently departed masters of the genre, Helen Dunmore, William Trevor and Denis Johnson.
And a unique view of the book world of Baghdad from the Iraqi author of Frankenstein in Baghdad, Ahmed Saadawi.
The echo has always been a source of fascination for composer and sound designer Sarah Angliss. She reveals how writers, poets and musicians have tried to capture and bottle the thrill of the echo down the ages.
Sarah travels to Maidenhead to encounter a remarkable natural echo under a bridge built by Brunel in the 1830s.
Dr Rowan Boyson explains how Wordsworth used verse to convey a vivid impression of echoes, decades before the recording age, and Dr Miranda Stanyon discusses the uncanny properties of the echo, a feeling Sophie Heawood was aware of when she experienced an eerie telephonic echo across the Atlantic. They discuss the fashion for provoking mountain echoes on the Grand Tour. This leads Sarah to a grisly 19th century tale about a traveller who attempted to buy an echo in Italy. She contrasts this with the story of Charlie Watkins who invented the Copicat as an affordable copy of a tape echo effect he heard in Italy in the 1950s.
Natural echoes have often been mimicked in music, creating a sense of otherworldiness, and the echo effect has always been central to the world of dub reggae, as demonstrated by Aniruddha Das and Dub Morphology who push the echo to the edge of chaos.
Sarah meets echo chasers Tom Tierney, a New York sound recordist, and Dr Chris Warren, aka The Echo Thief. Dr Chris uses a technique that bottles the echoey-ness of urban spaces.
Perhaps though, the realism of these captured echoes isn't as important as the thrill of the echo itself.
Readers: Suzanne Rayner and Katie Kontoulis
With thanks to the NAMM Archive for the Charlie Watkins interview (2008).
Presented by Sarah Angliss
Produced by Peregrine Andrews
A Far Shoreline production for BBC Radio 4.
Selling passports. It may sound illicit but 'citizenship-by-investment' is a global industry worth billions - and it's completely legal.
The idea is simple - invest huge sums of money and in return acquire residency rights or citizenship, even visa-free access to all European member states.
The UK offers residency in exchange for an investment of £2 million - or for £10 million, the possibility of British citizenship within two years.
And across the world, countries are vying to attract the super-rich through these schemes. But they are attracting attention for the wrong reasons.
European MEPs have launched an investigation into a 'Golden Passports' programmes across Europe - including the UK - amid concerns that they pose a corruption risk. In the US, government financial investigators say individuals are buying citizenship to hide their true identity, in an attempt to flout economic sanctions against Iran.
Tonight, File on 4 examines the trade in passports and visas for the wealthy and asks whether they deliver any real value for the countries that sell them, and assesses the evidence that they are being used by criminals.
Reporter: Alys Harte
Producer: David Lewis
Editor: Gail Champion.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Gerry Northam chooses his BBC Radio highlights.
Brian struggles to keep his temper, and Kirsty is less than impressed.
Gaby Roslin hosts the funny, entertaining film quiz with impressions by Alistair McGowan and Ronni Ancona. This week, team captains John Thomson and Ellie Taylor are joined by special guests Iain Lee and Lucy Porter
Presented by Gaby Roslin
Team Captains: John Thomson and Ellie Taylor
Impressionists: Alistair McGowan and Ronni Ancona
Created by Gaby Roslin
Written by Carrie Quinlan and Barney Newman
Produced by Gordon Kennedy, Gaby Roslin and Barney Newman
An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4.
In these three specially-commissioned tales by Heidi Amsinck, Copenhagen is a place of twilight and shadow. And its antique shops are full of curiosity - and strangeness.
Episode 1 (of 3): The Bird In The Cage
In Christianshavn, Erik covets the caged automaton songbird he sees in a shop window.
Heidi Amsinck, a writer and journalist born in Copenhagen, has written numerous short stories for radio including Radio 4's three-story set Copenhagen Confidential in 2012. A graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, Heidi lives in Surrey.
Writer: Heidi Amsinck
Reader: Tim McInnerny
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
It was recently reported that the infant mortality rate in England and Wales has risen - bucking decades of constant decline. Some of the causes cited in the news include social issues such as rising obesity in mothers, deprivation and struggling NHS staff. We hear from a paediatric intensive care specialist and a health data researcher who say the rise is more likely because we're counting the deaths of very premature babies differently to in the past.
HOW TO REDUCE EXAM REVISION WITH MATHS
A self-confessed lazy student has asked for help with his exams - what's the minimum amount of revision he needs to do in order to pass? Rob Eastaway from Maths Inspiration does the sums.
A BILLION DEAD BIRDS?
It's claimed that a billion birds in America die each year by flying into buildings. Where does this number come from and how was it calculated - and is it remotely correct?
LONDON v NEW YORK CITY
It was reported earlier this year that London's murder rate was higher than New York City's for the first time - but how do the two cities compare a few months down the line, and is there any value in making these snapshot comparisons?
Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Richard Fenton-Smith
Editor: Richard Vadon.
Photo: Peter Stringfellow
Tina Daheley on the nightclub owner Peter Stringfellow, who introduced nude table dancing to Britain.
Graham Corbett, the first Chairman of Postcomm, and Eurotunnel's chief financial officer.
Kate Spade, American fashion designer who rose to fame with her range of handbags in the 1990s.
John Julius Norwich, aristocratic man of letters, historian, travel writer and broadcaster.
Eli Avivi, self-proclaimed president of the independent state of Achzivland in Israel.
Interviewed guest: Fiona Lafferty
Interviewed guest: Anne Corbett
Interviewed guest: Robert Peston
Interviewed guest: Artemis Cooper
Interviewed guest: Raffi Berg
Archive clips from: BBC Radio Sheffield, 2012; Archive Hour: Clubbin', 21/09/2002 Radio 4; God of the Week, 01/01/94 Radio 1; Richard Bacon: Peter Stringfellow and Adam Henson, 01/03/2011 5 Live; The Today Programme, 26/03/2001 Radio 4; The Today Programme, 03/10/02 Radio 4; Chronicle: The Fall of Constantinople, 25/11/1967 BBC TV; Round Britain Quiz, 20/09/93 Radio 4; Frogmore House: A Royal Retreat, 09/08/90 BBC TV; Desert Island Discs, 02/11/97 Radio 4.
How can we be sure that the technology we are creating is going to do the right thing? Machines are merging into our lives in ever more intimate ways. They interact with our children and assist with medical decisions. Cars are learning to drive themselves; data on our likes and dislikes roam through the internet. Sandra Kanthal asks if we already in danger of being governed by algorithmic overlords.
Weekly political discussion and analysis with MPs, experts and commentators.
4 Debut Extra. Catherine Burns introduces tales of people taken by surprise by discoveries and events. True stories told live in the USA.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Laurie Taylor is joined by Lynne Vallone, Professor of Childhood Studies, to discuss her book, Big and Small, in which she explores the often uncomfortable implications of using physical measures to judge normalcy and perceptions of beauty.
Tanya S Osensky is an attorney who has made it her personal crusade to highlight the discrimination faced by short people in our society and to suggest ways of changing this. In her book, Shortchanged, Tanya reflects on her own experiences of being short as well as addressing 'heightism' in the workplace, in social situations, and beyond. She joins the discussion on the line from Atlanta, Georgia.
Producer Natalia Fernandez.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with writer and broadcaster, Sarah Joseph.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Chris Packham presents the story of the blue tit. The perky blue tit is a stalwart of garden bird-feeders. This popular British bird has a blue cap and wings, olive green back and yellow belly. The male and females look identical to us but blue tits can clearly tell each other apart, find out how in this episode.
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Psychedelic drugs are once again being trialled to treat a range of psychological conditions. The writer Mike Pollan tells Kirsty Wark about the science of LSD and magic mushrooms: from the 1940s to the 1960s they promised to shed light not only on the deep mysteries of consciousness, but also to offer relief from addiction and mental illness. Banned since the 1970s, there is now a resurgence of research into these mind-altering substances.
While some psychiatrists were getting their patients to experiment with psychedelics in the 1950s, far more were administering electroconvulsive therapy - both have a controversial history. ECT involves sending an electric current through the brain to trigger an epileptic seizure. It gained a reputation as a barbaric treatment, after the film One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. But the psychiatrist Dr Tammy Burmeister believes that it's time people understood the therapeutic potential from this procedure.
The poet Andrew Motion's latest book Essex Clay is an attempt to return to heartfelt memories of childhood. He looks back at his mother's riding accident, which left her 'floating herself among the nebulae and gas clouds of her vast unconsciousness' and her subsequent slow death. The book revolves around loss and memory and retrieval.
The evolution of the human brain is one of the wonders of nature, but the philosopher of science Peter Godfrey-Smith asks what if intelligent life on Earth evolved not once, but twice? He wonders how the octopus - a solitary creature - became so smart. He traces the story from single-celled organism 3.8 billion years ago to the development of cephalopod consciousness, casting new light on the octopus mind.
Producer: Katy Hickman.
Masih Alinejad is a journalist and activist from a small village in Iran. In 2014 she sparked a social media movement when she posted a picture of her curly hair blowing in the wind without her veil or hijab. Across Iran, women started sharing pictures of their uncovered hair on Masih's Facebook page in open defiance of the strict religious beliefs of their country - and often, their families.
With the creation of My Stealthy Freedom Masih gained over one million supporters and inspired women everywhere to take a stand against the compulsory wearing of the hijab.
But behind the scenes of this movement, Masih has been fighting a painful personal battle. She is a divorcee - a sin equivalent to prostitution in Iranian culture. As a political reporter, Masih has been actively speaking out against the government's corrupt policies for more than a decade and this has led to her expulsion from Iran and separation from her son.
In this first episode of her memoir, she remembers her childhood in a village in Iran and how, although only a child, she began to rebel against the standards of behaviour that she and other girls were expected to follow.
Read by Nathalie Armin
Abridged by Elizabeth Burke
Produced by Alexandra Quinn
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
By Ben Lewis.
A funny real-time drama set around a kitchen table at the weekly meetings of a 21st century family who are not even managing to 'just about manage'.
Amelia is 14. She's been through a divorce before. She really doesn't want to go through it again. But her blended family is threatening to unblend. So she draws on her experience as assistant chairperson of the Key Stage 3 debating society and initiates weekly family meetings for truth, reconciliation, grievance airing and the seeking of practical solutions. But can ultra-unionist Amelia overcome the separatist factions in her own family? Attendance is mandatory. Resistance is useless.
Cast:
Nicole ... Rosie Cavaliero
Amelia ... Cleo Demetriou
Jan ... Deborah Findlay
Sean... Jonathan Forbes
Callum ... Elliot Speller-Gillott
Directed by Kirsty Williams.
The Untold follows an international child custody case which has caused enormous stress and pain to the Bradford born mother, Tracy, who has not seen her daughter for sixteen months.
Grace Dent follows what happens as Tracy seeks access to her little girl, who was taken to the Czech Republic by her former partner during an access visit. He was within his rights to petition the courts there under the Hague Convention, which considers residency based on the length of time spent in an area and the roots put down there.
The recordings follow Tracy's fight to see her daughter and the legal obstacles in her way, from language barriers in proceedings to the contested factors at the heart of the relationship break-down. She has enlisted the help of her MP, Philip Davies, who wants the Foreign Office to consider helping the increasing number of parents in similar situations.
Tracy is heartbroken without her daughter and wonders how she will cope - they last saw each other as she kissed the little girl goodbye. That was over a year ago and just before her ex-partner took her for what was meant to be a sleep-over in Bradford. The next day he phoned from his village in the Czech Republic to say they were there and wouldn't be returning as planned.
"It was the worst moment of my life, I think I collapsed and can't really remember what happened next. It was like everything collapsed and the nightmare that's been my life since had begun. I want to be with my daughter and know that she feels the same, to separate us like this is cruel beyond belief."
Producer: Sue Mitchell.
Andy and Jeff clash with The Mayor (Rasmus Hardiker) as a missing sweet shop sets off a tale of kompromat, corruption and coastal erosion. Starring Philip Jackson and Mark Benton.
An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Imagine a place without mobile phones. Quiet isn't it. People still look at each other when they are talking. It's not a dream. It really exists.
Take Highway 250 in West Virginia into the Allegheny Mountains and the car radio fades to static. Glance illegally at your mobile phone and the signal disappears. You're in The National Radio Quiet Zone - 13,000 square miles of radio silence, just a few hundred miles from Washington DC. No Wi-Fi; no cell phones; no radio signals.
Designated a radio wave free area in the 1950s, the area is home to two giant listening stations. One listens to deep space, as far back as milliseconds after the Big Bang - the Green Bank National Observatory; the other is Naval Communications, the NSA listening ear.
Taller than the Statue of Liberty, the Green Bank Telescope is the world's largest moving land object. It has the sensitivity, says Mike Holstine, "equivalent to a billionth of a billionth of a millionth of a watt... the energy given off by a single snow flake hitting the ground. Anything man-made would overwhelm that signal." Hence the legal requirement, for a radio frequency free zone.
Photographer Emile Holba, long fascinated with the edges of society, takes a trip into the Quiet Zone where the ability to listen in to moments after the creation of the universe, means the local population have sacrificed their connection to the outside world.
It's not a world without conflict as pressure grows to move into the technological future on the one hand, whilst on the other, a growing band of electro-sensitive immigrants are moving into cabins in the woods. Meanwhile the government are considering the viability of a continued large investment in searching space.
Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
Nine companies that sold useless drugs to pensioners have been closed down and the small charities to benefit from free advice from data experts.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Cambridge Analytica became involved in a scandal in the spring of 2018 when it was revealed that it had collected the personal information of millions of Facebook users without their knowledge. The firm claimed that it could use this information to influence elections by "micro-targeting" voters - giving them messages tailored to their individual personalities. There were claims that it had helped swing the US presidential election for Donald Trump, and allegations that it had been involved in the Brexit campaign. If true, it seemed that Cambridge Analytica had discovered a way to mess with voters' heads by identifying and then exploiting their secret hopes and fears. It seemed sneaky, if not downright sinister.
But leaving aside the specifics of what Cambridge Analytica actually did, how well does the science behind the alleged method stack up? Can the population be sliced, diced, and targeted through sophisticated "psychographic" techniques. in SLICE, Jolyon Jenkins investigates by breaking it down into five areas: Selfhood, Likes, Inclinations, Convincing, and Elections:
Selfhood: psychologists claim that someone's "personality" can be measured according to five independent factors: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. These are known as the "Big Five". Cambridge Analytica relied on the Big Five for its method. But can we all be boiled down like this? How did we end up with five factors? The bizarre history of personality testing is filled with larger-than-life egos, dubious hypotheses and - some say - questionable methodology. Are the Big Five dominant today just because five is a handy number, and because it lets all psychologists use the same scale?
Likes: When two Cambridge University psychology researchers started using Facebook to do personality tests, little did they know what they would unleash. Not only could Facebook be used to administer personality questionnaires, but they discovered that people's Facebook behaviour, including their "likes" could be used to predict personality. And, they claimed, computer-based personality-based judgements are more accurate than those made by humans. Cambridge Analytica took the idea and ran with it. But now, even Cambridge Analytica's own data expert says that the claim is overblown.
Inclinations: Does someone's personality tell you anything about how they are likely to vote? People assessed as "Open to new experiences" tend to have more liberal political opinions, but isn't that exactly what you would expect? During the Brexit campaign, areas of the country where the population scored low on "openness" were significantly more likely to vote "leave". But why are those areas more "closed" in the first place? Could there be a genetic factor, or is it the environment? Could it even be that areas that have been hit by infectious disease in past centuries have a more "closed" population because avoiding strangers was the best way to avoid infection?
Campaigns: If your Facebook behaviour reveals whether you're an extrovert or introvert, neurotic or stable, agreeable or unpleasant, can these results be used to get you to change your behaviour? Researchers at Cambridge found that you could sell more cosmetic products to extroverts and introverts if you gave them messages targeted to the particular personality. Cambridge Analytica claimed that in America they could get a pro-gun rights message through most effectively to neurotic people by targeting them with a fear-based message, whereas conscientious people would be better influenced by a message that focused on tradition and stability. True or false?
Elections: Whatever Cambridge Analytica did or did not do, the data that Facebook and other big data companies have can almost certainly be used effectively for political campaigning. We speak to people involved in the last UK general election about how the data harvested by Facebook itself - not Cambridge Analytica - was used to deliver targeted messages to particular groups of voters. How Labour sent messages to pro-Brexit Labour supporters to reassure them that Jeremy Corbyn was not a closet remainer. How the two main parties bid against each other for such Google search terms as "Dementia Tax" in an attempt to reach wavering voters. Targeting voters through their digital footprint seems here to stay. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Some of the original Cambridge university researchers argue that, in an era when people are disengaged from politics and ill-informed, microtargeting voters to connect with their particular concerns could be a useful way to get the population re-engaged with the political process.
Presenter/Producer: Jolyon Jenkins.
What would happen if the UK broke apart? In this everyday story of British folk, David and Ruth Fletcher face our next civil war.
1/5 Making Other Plans
The Fletcher family are just trying to love and look after each other at their home "until everything settles down". With their daughter's wedding coming up, they haven't got time for politics. But as the UK dissolves into conflict, organising the big day is getting more and more impossible.
Martin Jameson's drama draws on detailed research from BBC correspondents to analysts, contingency planners, and those with first hand experience of the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, to make the Fletchers' adventures a compelling account of what civil war could do to us all.
Starring Jeremy Swift and Maureen Beattie.
Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting.
Script Consultants:
Tamara Kovacevic - Senior BBC journalist with first hand experience of the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s
Richard Vergette - Writer and teacher for advice on parenting a teenager with Down Syndrome
With thanks to:
Malcolm Barnard
Peter Barnes - BBC Senior Political Analyst
Louisa Brooke-Holland - Senior Research Analyst, International Affairs and Defence section, House of Commons Library
Rory Cellan-Jones - BBC Technology Correspondent
Gabrielle Garton Grimwood - Senior Research Analyst in Emergency Planning
Mike Livingstone - Former Strategic Director of Children's Services, Manchester City Council.
Jonathan Marcus - BBC Diplomatic Correspondent
Prof Bill McGuire - Professor Emeritus; Geophysical & Climate Hazards, UCL
Dr Gemma Sou - Lecturer in Disaster Studies, University of Manchester
Peter Wynne-Wilson - Course Director, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (for advice on Birmingham and its demographics)
Imogen Woolrich and the Octagon Bridges Theatre Group,
Harri Chambers - for Welsh translations,
and Steve Pearce, Eric Bradley & John Rudin for IT advice.
Cast:
Dave Fletcher ... Jeremy Swift
Ruth Fletcher ... Maureen Beattie
Maggie Pelling ... Elizabeth Counsell
Jonny Fletcher ... Sam Barnard
Tricia Ince and Kristina Matic ... Elinor Coleman
Helena Fletcher ... Lauren Cornelius
Alex Pritchard ... Ryan Whittle
Clive ... John Lightbody
Iain ... Paul Cunningham
Russell ... Ryan Early
News Anchor ... Emma Handy
Correspondent ... Kerry Gooderson
Journalist ... Sean Murray
Democratic Alliance MP ... Joseph Ayre
Cabinet Minister ... Stephen Hogan
Writer ... Martin Jameson
Director ... Jonquil Panting
Producer ... Jonquil Panting.
(16/17)
With one more place in the Final remaining, the last of this year's heat winners and high scorers take to the stage to see if they can clear the final hurdle. Russell Davies' questions range across the usual wide spectrum, from chemistry and computing to comics and classic TV. The hopeful semi-finalists are:
Mark Cooper, a public servant from Brighton
Diana England, a housewife from Penrith
Mark Eves, an accountant from London
Paul Prior, a retired instrument technician from Ormskirk
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
We're floating silently in the sky beneath a giant pink balloon. The passengers peer at allotments in rows, over garden walls, spy a police car speeding through suburban streets, a train curving on rails into a tunnel, a sleepy teenager creeping home down an alley, , a woman in a pink dressing gown drinking a cup of tea as her dogs patrol the garden... and finally a magnificent crossing of the River Avon, bird song reaching up to the basket of the balloon drifting silently above.
Birds fly below, wispy clouds hit the bleary eyed faces of two poets a composer and an air pilot, passing over the city of Bristol in the early morning.
Combining the sounds heard from a balloon, with the words and poems of Miles Chambers, Poet Laureate for Bristol and Rebecca Tantony, both first time balloonists, we take a journey over the city, hearing sound rising up unimpeded from the waking city.
Also in the basket, multi-award winning composer Dan Jones, who brings on board both his music and his previous experience as the sound designer for a fleet of balloons called Sky Orchestra - and of course the pilot, Peter Dalby, who spends his life staring down at the world from above.
For the balloonist there is no friction; sound rises curiously unimpeded upwards with zero interference. We bring a rich mix of propane burner gushing, the dawn chorus, a choir of city sounds captured in a balloon, all mixed with the magical music of Dan Jones.
Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
Aleks Krotoski enters the world of the unwatched, the unread and the unnoticed, all the content posted online that no-one ever sees.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Gyles Brandreth temporarily takes over from Nicholas Parsons as the chairman of this iconic panel game. He is joined by Paul Merton, Josie Lawrence, Sara Pascoe and Tony Hawks.
The panel have to talk on a given subject for sixty seconds without repetition, hesitation or deviation. Has Tony ever said 'I do'? Does Sara often travel first class? How often does Josie tend her garden and was can Paul tell us about the Isle of Wight? Find out all this and more!
Hayley Sterling blows the whistle and it was produced by Matt Stronge.
Just A Minute is a BBC Studios production.
Ed contemplates humiliation, and Peggy fears the worst.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
The political journalist and commentator Steve Richards presents the first part of a new series about Jeremy Corbyn. Having previously explored the Labour leader's extraordinary path to the top of his party, Steve updates the story to cover the events of the past year and explore prospects for the future. Jeremy Corbyn surprised his critics by achieving much better than expected results at the general election in June 2017. How far has he strengthened his leadership and his standing in the country? Tracing the key moments in the period since, such as the internal struggles over Brexit and the row over anti-Semitism, we explore how Jeremy Corbyn has been adapting to the challenges of leadership and preparing for possible power. The programme weaves narrative and archive with interviews with key players, both supporters and critics of the Labour leader.
Producer: Leala Padmanabhan.
New infrastructure such as major transport projects promises huge benefits. London and the South East are currently looking forward to Crossrail, the start of HS2 and much more besides. But how does all this look from further north? Chris Bowlby heads for his home territory in the north east of England to discover a region full of new ideas about future connections, but worried that current national plans risk leaving it lagging behind. And what, he asks, might this mean for the whole country's future?
Producer: Chris Bowlby
Editor: Hugh Levinson.
Mark van Dongen, 29, was left paralysed from the neck down and lost his left leg, ear and eye following an acid attack carried out by his ex-girlfriend, Berlinah Wallace in September 2015. He chose to have his life brought to an end in a Belgian clinic 15 months later, having decided he could not face a life of pain.
Early on the morning of 23rd September 2015, BBC reporter Charlotte Callen was woken by the terrifying screams of her neighbour outside her bedroom window. The events of that night in a quiet Bristol neighbourhood would eventually result in a court case in which Wallace would be charged not just with throwing the acid, but with murder. Wallace was found guilty of throwing a corrosive substance with intent but cleared of both murder and manslaughter.
Having been one of the first on the scene the BBC's Home Affairs Correspondent for the West of England, Charlotte has been reporting on the case since the attack, getting to know Mark's family and following their journey through the British legal system.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
By Louise Erdrich. The world is in crisis. Evolution has gone into reverse, affecting all creatures great and small, including the next generation of humans. Fewer babies - or their mothers - are surviving to full term and, of those babies born, many have been identified as belonging to a more primitive species of human. As governments take drastic action to limit the catastrophe, there has never been a more dangerous time to be having a baby.
Cedar Songmaker is pregnant. She is the adopted daughter of Minneapolis liberals. Determined to find out as much about her baby's make up as possible, she makes contact with her birth family on the Ojibwe reservation.
Episode 6
Cedar is in a high security maternity hospital. Both her families join forces to plan a break out.
The author, Louise Erdrich, lives in Minnesota. Her novel The Round House won the National Book Award for Fiction. She has also received the Library of Congress Prize in American Fiction, the prestigious PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Writer: Louise Erdrich
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Reader: Cherrelle Skeete
Producer: Lisa Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
A piano tuner discovers a hoard of gold coins carefully concealed inside a piano. Whoever hid it there is a mystery. Radio 4's very own Inspector Clouseau Steve Punt is on hand to piece together the clues. His detective trail leads him on a journey through Victorian music circles, the Freemasons, bankruptcy, and Shredded Wheat packets as he works out who stashed the gold.
Producer Neil McCarthy.
News from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with writer and broadcaster, Sarah Joseph.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs
Chris Packham presents the blackbird. Resident blackbirds are on the alert just now because their territories are under siege. Large numbers of Continental blackbirds pour in to the UK each winter to escape even colder conditions elsewhere.
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Jim Al-Khalili discusses quarks, popularising particle physics and nuclear spies in Britain with Professor Frank Close of Oxford University.
Can you have a new creative life after you have retired? Having recently stepped back from a demanding job in part because he wants to be more 'hands on' and creative, Fergus Keeling talks to Bristol hat designer Tricia Hamilton about 'life after 60' and how she changed careers from being a teacher to designing hats. As Fergus discovers, there is much to be gained from flexing your creative muscles in later life.
Producer Sarah Blunt.
Today, Masih starts an underground political book group while at school. The group soon decides to publish secret pamphlets calling for greater freedom in Iranian society, and word of their activities begins to spread alarmingly quickly. Meanwhile, Masih struggles with the question of whether she can bear to get married, purely in order to travel and live more freely.
Masih Alinejad is a journalist and activist from a small village in Iran. In 2014 she sparked a social media movement when she posted a picture of her curly hair blowing in the wind without her veil or hijab. Across Iran, women started sharing pictures of their uncovered hair on Masih's Facebook page in open defiance of the strict religious beliefs of their country - and often, their families.
With the creation of My Stealthy Freedom Masih gained over one million supporters and inspired women everywhere to take a stand against the compulsory wearing of the hijab.
But behind the scenes of this movement, Masih has been fighting a painful personal battle. She is a divorcee - a sin equivalent to prostitution in Iranian culture. As a political reporter, Masih has been actively speaking out against the government's corrupt policies for more than a decade and this has led to her expulsion from Iran and separation from her son.
Read by Nathalie Armin
Abridged by Elizabeth Burke
Produced by Alexandra Quinn
A Loftus Production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
By Ben Lewis.
A funny real-time drama set around a kitchen table at the weekly meetings of a 21st century family who are not even managing to 'just about manage'.
Amelia is 14. She's been through a divorce before. She really doesn't want to go through it again. But her blended family is threatening to unblend. So she draws on her experience as assistant chairperson of the Key Stage 3 debating society and initiates weekly family meetings for truth, reconciliation, grievance airing and the seeking of practical solutions.
Amelia didn't manage to start her agenda before the first meeting fell apart. She's called the second meeting, her agenda is on the fridge, but will anyone turn up?
Cast:
Nicole ... Rosie Cavaliero
Amelia ... Cleo Demetriou
Jan ... Deborah Findlay
Sean... Jonathan Forbes
Callum ... Elliot Speller-Gillott
Directed by Kirsty Williams.
There is obviously a profound difference between the lives of 'Millennials' and those of a 1950s teenager.
In the first of this 3 part series Mental Health Researcher Sally Marlow, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London,
asks is there an actual difference for mental health, or is it simply awareness - that mental health issues are now talked about far more openly than they were when the term 'teenager' was first coined?
What is the problem - is it real, or is there some sort of reporting bias at work? - Or both? Is there a parental equivalent of "the worried well" when it comes to mental health? Has the increased awareness of mental health problems contributed to medicalising feelings and behaviours that in the past were thought of as part and parcel of adolescence, and if so, is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Some of the reasons for mental health issues are not surprising- such as trauma and social isolation, but there are other reasons too - factors such as microaggressions on the part of society, and systemic problems like austerity and ethnocentricity are contributing.
Life online clearly is now a big factor, especially social media, and there certainly is impact. The negatives hit the headlines, from body shaming to bullying and even suicide - but how much of this is really new and how much of it is an online expression of pre-existing issues?
There is good data on the prevalence of young people's mental health problems over the years. We use this to compare current 16 - 25 year olds to previous generations.
Gabriel Faure's gentle and life-affirming Requiem is the subject for the first in the latest series of Tales from the Stave. Frances Fyfield is joined by the choral composer and former King's Singer Bob Chilcott who, as a young treble sang the Pie Jesu on a 1967 recording with Sir David Willcocks. Alongside him is the Fauré biographer Jessica Duchen and the host at the Biblioteque de France, Mathias Auclair.
The Requiem, completed in 1888 is one of Faure's few large scale choral works, but the manuscript pages are kept in modest library folders. Although the handwriting is careful and clear these are working documents with extravagant and curiously beautiful crossings out and re-workings. Much of that process is towards simplicity and clarity, a far remove from the drama of Requiems by Verdi or Mozart. Faure himself referred to it as something more like a lullaby of death. The 'sleep of death' he envisaged doesn't seem to give him pause. Instead it's full of light and optimism.
Producer: Tom Alban.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
'The Keeper of the Quiet' - Chuck Niday takes Emile Holba out in his radio wave detector van, as he continues his exploration of 13,000 square miles designated 'the National Quiet Zone' - protecting the Robert C Byrd Telescope in Green Bank, West Virginia. Listening to deep space, using a giant telescope - the largest moveable technological object on land - 2.3 acres in size.
Imagine a place without mobile phones. Quiet isn't it. People still look at each other when they are talking. It's not a dream. It really exists.
Designated a radio wave free area in the 1950s, the area is home to two giant listening stations. One listens to deep space, as far back as milliseconds after the Big Bang - the Green Bank National Observatory; the other is Naval Communications, the NSA listening ear.
Hence the requirement, by law, for a radio frequency free zone since 1954.
Photographer Emile Holba, long fascinated with the edges of society, takes a trip into the Quiet Zone where the ability to listen in to moments after the creation of the universe, means the local population have sacrificed their connection to the outside world.
Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
Consumer phone-in.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
When two Cambridge University psychology researchers started using Facebook to do personality tests, little did they know what they would unleash. Not only could Facebook be used to administer personality questionnaires, but they discovered that people's Facebook behaviour, including their "likes", could be used to predict personality. And, they claimed, computer-based personality-based judgements are more accurate than those made by humans - better even than your partner's assessment of you. Cambridge Analytica took the idea and ran with it, claiming they could micro-target voters with bespoke messages to influence them. But now, even the firm's own data expert says that the claim is overblown. Others disagree ...
Presenter/Producer: Jolyon Jenkins.
What would happen if the UK broke apart?
In this everyday story of British folk, David and Ruth Fletcher face our next civil war.
2/5 Things Fall Apart
Now Manchester is besieged by rival forces, the Fletchers find themselves in danger. Not just from dodgy neighbours with brand new machine guns, but from inside their own family.
Martin Jameson's drama draws on detailed research from BBC correspondents to analysts, contingency planners, and those with first hand experience of the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, to make the Fletchers' adventures a compelling account of what civil war could do to us all.
Starring Jeremy Swift and Maureen Beattie.
Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting.
Script Consultants:
Tamara Kovacevic - Senior BBC journalist with first hand experience of the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s
Richard Vergette - Writer and teacher for advice on parenting a teenager with Down Syndrome
With thanks to:
Malcolm Barnard
Peter Barnes - BBC Senior Political Analyst
Louisa Brooke-Holland - Senior Research Analyst, International Affairs and Defence section, House of Commons Library
Rory Cellan-Jones - BBC Technology Correspondent
Gabrielle Garton Grimwood - Senior Research Analyst in Emergency Planning
Mike Livingstone - Former Strategic Director of Children's Services, Manchester City Council.
Jonathan Marcus - BBC Diplomatic Correspondent
Prof Bill McGuire - Professor Emeritus; Geophysical & Climate Hazards, UCL
Dr Gemma Sou - Lecturer in Disaster Studies, University of Manchester
Peter Wynne-Wilson - Course Director, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (for advice on Birmingham and its demographics)
Imogen Woolrich and the Octagon Bridges Theatre Group,
Harri Chambers - for Welsh translations,
and Steve Pearce, Eric Bradley & John Rudin for IT advice.
Cast:
Dave Fletcher ... Jeremy Swift
Ruth Fletcher ... Maureen Beattie
Maggie Pelling ... Elizabeth Counsell
Jonny Fletcher ... Sam Barnard
Tricia Ince ... Elinor Coleman
Helena Fletcher ... Lauren Cornelius
Alex Pritchard ... Ryan Whittle
Philippa Fletcher ... Kerry Gooderson
Marli ... Ryan Baker
Roger ... Sean Murray
Steven ... Stephen Hogan
Clive ... John Lightbody
Luke ... Joseph Ayre
Writer ... Martin Jameson
Director ... Jonquil Panting
Producer ... Jonquil Panting.
Josie Long hears stories of observation - from glimpsing who you might become to an artist who secretly surveilled her father.
Rosalind Jana explores the crackle of possibility and hope in a love story observed across a crowded room, Johanna Heldebro talks about her art project - To Come Within Reach of You - in which she followed and photographed her father, and Sarah Algashgari talks about working at the first football match in Saudi Arabia that allowed female spectators.
Deciphering
Featuring Rosalind Jana
The Watchers
Featuring Sarah Algashgari
Produced by Andrea Rangecroft
Following Father
Featuring Johanna Heldebro
Produced by Tom Henley
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
Tom Holland is joined by Dr Matthew Green for a programme that's all at sea.
Helen Castor is in Great Yarmouth where local people voted overwhelmingly for Brexit. One of their major gripes with Brussels was the detrimental impact they thought EU quotas had on the town's fishing industry. Dr James Barrett is an archaeologist who researches the medieval fishing communities of Britain and he reveals that, 800 years ago, the fishermen of Gt Yarmouth worked closely with their counterparts across the North Sea to bring in unimaginable quantities of herring - along with Britain's main supply of wine.
Earlier this year and just a few miles north of Great Yarmouth, villagers living in chalets on the cliffs at Hemsby were evacuated as the so-called "Beast from the East" tore into the unstable, sandy cliffs. Several of these properties have since been demolished, whie others have been the focus of a frantic attempt to protect them from the unforgiving sea. Such destruction is commonplace in the history of the East Coast. Geographer Sally Brown from the University of Southampton heads to East Yorkshire to meet Marcus Jecock from Historic England and find out how the North Sea has shaped the lives of people living nearby for centuries.
The British seaside resort has been an unloved place ever since package holidays took its clientele to sunnier climes overseas. Now funding bodies such as the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Arts Council have been investing in projects that seek to restore some of these places to their former glory. But how effective is this and does one seaside history fit every coastal resort? Guardian writer Tim Burrows goes home to Southend to ponder the death of the seaside.
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Is moving justice online a good idea? In British Columbia they have done just that, with a new online tribunal handling things like small claims and property disputes. Could something like this work in Britain? Joshua Rozenberg reports from Vancouver.
Producer: Neil Koenig
Researcher: Diane Richardson.
Two former doctors join Harriett Gilbert to talk about their favourite books. Adam Kay is a writer and comedian whose first book, This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor, was published to great acclaim in 2017. Farrah Jarral is a writer and broadcaster who was, until recently, a London GP.
The good reads up for discussion are Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris and I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson.
Producer: Mair Bosworth.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Debbie McGee shares her diaries with Rufus Hound, and reminisces about her years as a hard-working student at the Royal Ballet School in London.
Presenter: Rufus Hound
Producer: Harriet Jaine
A Talkback production for BBC Radio 4.
Alistair is resolute, and Pip feels the strain.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
File on 4 investigates mounting concern about forensic science in England and Wales - hearing the cases of two men who almost went to prison for rape because the police failed to properly investigate crucial evidence on mobile phones.
Forensic science is increasingly important both in finding criminals and successfully prosecuting them. It's used for everything from investigating fires like Grenfell to huge terrorist cases. And it covers checking phone records, CCTV, DNA and fingerprinting. It's painstaking, time-consuming work but it can often turn up vital evidence.
The programme hears that a criminal investigation is underway into one company providing forensic evidence, another has gone bust and a third has had to be financially bailed out. Meanwhile some police forces carry out their own forensic work but incredibly some do so, without the official accreditation that forensic companies are expected to obtain. And the regulator says she can't do anything about it as the Government won't give her the powers she needs.
Presenter: Melanie Abbott
Producer: Anna Meisel
Editor: Andrew Smith.
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted.
Claudia Hammond presents a series that explores the limits and potential of the human mind.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
By Louise Erdrich. The world is in crisis. Evolution has gone into reverse, affecting all creatures great and small, including the next generation of humans. Fewer babies - or their mothers - are surviving to full term and, of those babies born, many have been identified as belonging to a more primitive species of human. As governments take drastic action to limit the catastrophe, there has never been a more dangerous time to be having a baby.
Cedar Songmaker is pregnant. She is the adopted daughter of Minneapolis liberals. Determined to find out as much about her baby's make up as possible, she makes contact with her birth family on the Ojibwe reservation.
Episode 7
It's the day of the planned hospital break out.
The author, Louise Erdrich, lives in Minnesota. Her novel The Round House won the National Book Award for Fiction. She has also received the Library of Congress Prize in American Fiction, the prestigious PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Writer: Louise Erdrich
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Reader: Cherrelle Skeete
Producer: Lisa Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
The night of the "North West of the North West Small Business Awards" is fast approaching and Phil sees this as an ideal opportunity to impress Ellie who's nominated for "Best Florist" - all he needs to do is get the job hosting it. And even then, it is on the one condition that he finds a celebrity to present the main award. Well, it's good for Lolly to have something to do...
"Phil Ellis Is Trying" is new sitcom for BBC Radio 4 written and created by Phil Ellis (Edinburgh Award Panel Prize winner 2014) and Fraser Steel (I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, 8 Out Of Ten Cats, A League Of Their Own).
Produced by Sam Michell
A BBC Studios Production.
News from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with writer and broadcaster, Sarah Joseph.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Chris Packham presents the story of the grey wagtail. Grey wagtails are supremely graceful birds which boost their appeal by nesting in photogenic locations. They revel in shaded spots near swift-flowing water and will also nest by canal lock-gates or mill-races.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.
The poet Hollie McNish meets the actor Paapa Essiedu.
Hollie won the Ted Hughes Award for new work in poetry in 2016, and has published five books of her poems. Her most recent book, Plum, draws on memories and writing from childhood and her teenage years, along with her experiences as a parent. She first made her name as a performance poet, and her videos have received millions of views online.
Paapa played Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2016 - the first black actor to take the role for the RSC. The production toured the UK earlier this year, and also travelled to North America. Paapa first joined the RSC in 2012, shortly after graduating from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He has also worked at the National Theatre, and at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol.
Producer Clare Walker.
Clare Balding travels to Hothfield Heathlands in Kent to meet a herd of Konik Ponies and discover the extraordinary story of the domestication of wild horses in Europe.
Horse historian Susanna Forrest explains how European wild horses of the Tarpan and Taki type developed ,and disappeared. First they were killed for food. Then they were used for labour and transport, eventually facing extinction in the 19th century.
The Konik, the Tarpan's closest relative, were genetically re- created by scientists in Poland. They were an essential part of a bizarre third reich experiment to recreate an ancient Aryan horse. Now they perform an invaluable role in managing some of the few areas of heath land that remain in the UK. Increasingly, they are being recognised as one of the most useful tools in the environmentalist's kit to protect diminishing natural resources.
Aided by Ian Rickard from Kent Wildlife Trust, Clare discovers the Konik in the mists of the Kent heath land, hearing how one of the brightest hopes for Europe's environmental future is linked to one of the darkest periods of its past.
Research that emerged in February 2018 about the origins of our domestic horses will change how we look at the development of the animals.
Producer: Lucy Dichmont
A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4.
Masih is still a teenager when she has to face the horror of an Iranian gaol and separation from her fiancé. In between the interrogations, she discovers she has more than herself to worry about - she is pregnant.
Masih Alinejad is a journalist and activist from a small village in Iran. In 2014 she sparked a social media movement when she posted a picture of her curly hair blowing in the wind without her veil or hijab. Across Iran, women started sharing pictures of their uncovered hair on Masih's Facebook page in open defiance of the strict religious beliefs of their country - and often, their families.
With the creation of My Stealthy Freedom Masih gained over one million supporters and inspired women everywhere to take a stand against the compulsory wearing of the hijab.
But behind the scenes of this movement, Masih has been fighting a painful personal battle. She is a divorcee - a sin equivalent to prostitution in Iranian culture. As a political reporter, Masih has been actively speaking out against the government's corrupt policies for more than a decade and this has led to her expulsion from Iran and separation from her son.
Read by Nathalie Armin
Abridged by Elizabeth Burke
Produced by Alexandra Quinn
A Loftus Production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
By Ben Lewis.
A funny real-time drama set around a kitchen table at the weekly meetings of a 21st century family who are not even managing to 'just about manage'.
Amelia is 14. She's been through a divorce before. She really doesn't want to go through it again. But her blended family is threatening to unblend. So she draws on her experience as assistant chairperson of the Key Stage 3 debating society and initiates weekly family meetings for truth, reconciliation, grievance airing and the seeking of practical solutions.
Two meetings down and things aren't looking up. And tonight, an emergency meeting has been called.
Cast:
Nicole ... Rosie Cavaliero
Amelia ... Cleo Demetriou
Jan ... Deborah Findlay
Sean... Jonathan Forbes
Callum ... Elliot Speller-Gillott
Directed by Kirsty Williams.
Parents share memories of their firstborn, who died when he was just a month old, and worry that no one else will remember him. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
Comedy about the inept staff at a historic house, starring Simon Callow, Jane Horricks and Miles Jupp.
Every year, thousands of tourists flock to the Lake District. But one place they never gois Plum House - the former country home of terrible poet George Pudding (1779-1848). Now a crumbling museum, losing money hand over fist, it struggles to stay open under its eccentric curator Peter Knight (Simon Callow). Tom Collyer (Tom Bell) tries and fails to get the museum back on track, alongside the hopelessly out of touch deputy Julian (Miles Jupp), corner-cutting gift shop manager Maureen (Jane Horrocks), put-upon education officer Emma (Louise Ford), and enthusiastic but dim-witted caretaker Alan (Pearce Quigley).
In this episode, the offer of an honorary degree at a less than prestigious ex-polytechnic sends Peter into a depressive spiral, as he questions whether he has wasted his life. The team call on the chief psychiatrist to the academic profession, the radical Doctor Bloch.
The cast is joined by Steve Pemberton who guest stars as Doctor Bloch.
Written by Ben Cottam and Paul McKenna
Produced by Sarah Cartwright
Directed by Paul Schlesinger
A Hat Trick production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Pocohontas County has strict rules about the emission of radio signals, so that the Green Bank Telescope can conduct observations without interference.
This can cause some irritation to locals, who might want to use mobile phones but can't, but the National Quiet Zone is a legally controlled are of radio quiet, so the area has remained Wi-Fi free, as the rest of the world get increasingly addicted to their smart phones.
Now a new group of people have started to make their way into the area - living in cabins, or 'faraday cages', they are the people who believe themselves to be electromagnetically hyper sensitive. Mobile phone towers can give them headaches; smart metres stop them sleeping. Emile Holba heads into the woods to meet the Wi-Fi runaways, and self-describing 'technological lepers'.
Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Assuming that you can work out someone's personality from their social media footprint, does that personality tell you anything about how they are likely to vote? People assessed as "Open to new experiences" tend to have more liberal political opinions, but isn't that exactly what you would expect? During the Brexit campaign, areas of the country where the population scored low on "openness" were significantly more likely to vote "leave". But why are those areas more "closed" in the first place? Could there be a genetic factor, or is it the environment? Could it even be that areas that have been hit by infectious disease in past centuries have a more "closed" population because avoiding strangers was the best way to avoid infection?
Presenter/Producer: Jolyon Jenkins.
What would happen if the UK broke apart?
In this everyday story of British folk, David and Ruth Fletcher face our next civil war.
3/5 What Country, Friends, Is This?
Forced to flee their home, the Fletchers are racing in two cars towards sanctuary in North Wales. But there are dangers on the road - and not just from the tanks.
Martin Jameson's drama draws on detailed research from BBC correspondents to analysts, contingency planners, and those with first hand experience of the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, to make the Fletchers' adventures a compelling account of what civil war could do to us all.
Starring Jeremy Swift and Maureen Beattie.
Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting.
Script Consultants:
Tamara Kovacevic - Senior BBC journalist with first hand experience of the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s
Richard Vergette - Writer and teacher for advice on parenting a teenager with Down Syndrome
With thanks to:
Malcolm Barnard
Peter Barnes - BBC Senior Political Analyst
Louisa Brooke-Holland - Senior Research Analyst, International Affairs and Defence section, House of Commons Library
Rory Cellan-Jones - BBC Technology Correspondent
Gabrielle Garton Grimwood - Senior Research Analyst in Emergency Planning
Mike Livingstone - Former Strategic Director of Children's Services, Manchester City Council.
Jonathan Marcus - BBC Diplomatic Correspondent
Prof Bill McGuire - Professor Emeritus; Geophysical & Climate Hazards, UCL
Dr Gemma Sou - Lecturer in Disaster Studies, University of Manchester
Peter Wynne-Wilson - Course Director, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (for advice on Birmingham and its demographics)
Imogen Woolrich and the Octagon Bridges Theatre Group,
Harri Chambers - for Welsh translations,
and Steve Pearce, Eric Bradley & John Rudin for IT advice.
Cast:
Dave Fletcher ... Jeremy Swift
Ruth Fletcher ... Maureen Beattie
Maggie Pelling ... Elizabeth Counsell
Jonny Fletcher ... Sam Barnard
Tricia Ince ... Elinor Coleman
Helena Fletcher ... Lauren Cornelius
Philippa Fletcher ... Kerry Gooderson
Emrys Driscoll ... Kai Owen
Olwen Driscoll ... Cara Chase
Janice ... Emma Handy
Nathan ... Ifan Meredith
Mick ... Ryan Early
Kyle ... Joseph Ayre
Radio 4 ... Stephen Hogan
Radio Free Manchester ... John Lightbody
Writer ... Martin Jameson
Director ... Jonquil Panting
Producer ... Jonquil Panting.
Financial phone-in.
Sociological discussion programme, presented by Laurie Taylor.
Topical programme about the fast-changing media world.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The hit series returns for a sixth series with more shop based shenanigans and over the counter philosophy, courtesy of Ramesh Mahju and his trusty sidekick Dave. Written by and starring Donald Mcleary and Sanjeev Kohli.
Set in a Scots-Asian corner shop, the award winning Fags, Mags & Bags sees a return of all the shop regular characters, and some guest appearances along the way, from the likes of Julia Deakin and Mina Anwar.
In this episode, Ramesh enrols the local community to raise funds to help Keenan realise his ambition of playing in a badminton tournament in Frankfurt. Keenan intends to fly the flag for Lenzie and Scotland, and Keenan's Mum is eyeing up being the new Judy Murray.
Join the staff of Fags, Mags and Bags in their tireless quest to bring nice-price custard creams and cans of coke with Arabic writing on them to an ungrateful nation. Ramesh Mahju has built it up over the course of over 30 years and is a firmly entrenched, friendly presence in the local area. He is joined by his shop sidekick, Dave.
Then of course there are Ramesh's sons Sanjay and Alok, both surly and not particularly keen on the old school approach to shopkeeping, but natural successors to the business. Ramesh is keen to pass all his worldly wisdom onto them - whether they like it or not!
Written by Donald Mcleary and Sanjeev Kohli
Producer: Gus Beattie
A Comedy Unit production for BBC Radio 4.
Freddie is in too deep, and Adam has problems with his workforce.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Combative, provocative and engaging debate chaired by Michael Buerk. With Mona Siddiqui, Matthew Taylor, Anne McElvoy and Tim Stanley.
Talks with a personal dimension.
Forget the big-nosed fictional character. Philip Ball reveals the real Cyrano de Bergerac and his links to 17th-century space flight that have become technological reality today.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
By Louise Erdrich. The world is in crisis. Evolution has gone into reverse, affecting all creatures great and small, including the next generation of humans. Fewer babies - or their mothers - are surviving to full term and, of those babies born, many have been identified as belonging to a more primitive species of human. As governments take drastic action to limit the catastrophe, there has never been a more dangerous time to be having a baby.
Cedar Songmaker is pregnant. She is the adopted daughter of Minneapolis liberals. Determined to find out as much about her baby's make up as possible, she makes contact with her birth family on the Ojibwe reservation.
Episode 8
Following the hospital breakout, Cedar and Tia are hiding at the recycling plant.
The author, Louise Erdrich, lives in Minnesota. Her novel The Round House won the National Book Award for Fiction. She has also received the Library of Congress Prize in American Fiction, the prestigious PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Writer: Louise Erdrich
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Reader: Cherrelle Skeete
Producer: Lisa Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
Matt Berry presents a series of interviews with the greats of the stage, screen and music world.
This week Matt Berry brings you his interview with Uri Geller, recorded at Geller's home in 1974 just as the self-proclaimed psychic's star was on the rise. Geller wasn't keen at first, but eventually agreed and was very welcoming. He was becoming quite a global star back in the early 70s and there was much fascination, not to mention the odd sideways glance, at the very mention of his name. Berry actually met him first on the dance floor of Tramp's night club a year earlier but Geller said he had no memory of it. Not wanting to let such a snub deter Berry, he soldiered on and within this interview managed to get a real sense, of the real Uri Geller
Written, performed and edited by Matt Berry.
Produced by Matt Stronge.
It is a BBC Studios production.
The second series of Elvis McGonagall's daft comic world of poems, mad sketches, satire and facetious remarks, broadcast from his home in the Graceland Caravan Park just outside Dundee.
Stand-up poet, armchair revolutionary, comedian and broadcaster Elvis McGonagall (aka poet and performer Richard Smith) continues his frenzied and largely ineffectual search for the bright side. He is unenthusiastically convinced that there is a positive side to life. He's heard talk of it. He may even have caught a glimpse of it somewhere. So, from his caravan in the Graceland Caravan Park near Dundee, the Scottish punk poet goes in search of it.
With the hindrance of his dog Trouble and his friend Susan Morrison, Elvis does his very best to accentuate the positive - but the negative has a nasty habit of coming back to roost with the grim regularity of an unimaginative pigeon.
Recorded entirely on location, in a caravan on a truly glamorous industrial estate somewhere in Scotland.
Episode 2: A Wholly Holistic Elvis.
Elvis is feeling distinctly off-colour and Trouble has terrible wind, so when an outbreak of an obscure new strain of flu from the Himalayas is announced, he fears the worst. Can traditional medicine help them? Or do man and dog simply need to think positive? The two invalids set out boldly in search of alternative health.
Written by Elvis McGonagall, with Richard Smith, Helen Braunholtz-Smith and Frank Stirling.
Producer: Frank Stirling
A Unique Broadcasting Company production for BBC Radio 4.
News from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with writer and broadcaster, Sarah Joseph.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Chris Packham presents the story of the Coot. The explosive high-pitched call of the coot is probably a sound most of us associate with our local park lakes. Coot are dumpy, charcoal-coloured birds related to moorhens, though unlike their cousins, they tend to spend more time on open water, often in large flocks in winter.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas of Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755) whose works on liberty, monarchism, despotism, republicanism and the separation of powers were devoured by intellectuals across Europe and New England in the eighteenth century, transforming political philosophy and influencing the American Constitution. He argued that an individual's liberty needed protection from the arm of power, checking that by another power; where judicial, executive and legislative power were concentrated in the hands of one figure, there could be no personal liberty.
With
Richard Bourke
Rachel Hammersley
And
Richard Whatmore
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Masih begins a new career as a political journalist in Iran, exposing corruption in Iranian politics. While she gains readers, she also begins to be threatened by the authorities. Meanwhile, she faces divorce and losing custody of her son.
Masih Alinejad is a journalist and activist from a small village in Iran. In 2014 she sparked a social media movement when she posted a picture of her curly hair blowing in the wind without her veil or hijab. Across Iran, women started sharing pictures of their uncovered hair on Masih's Facebook page in open defiance of the strict religious beliefs of their country - and often, their families.
With the creation of My Stealthy Freedom Masih gained over one million supporters and inspired women everywhere to take a stand against the compulsory wearing of the hijab.
But behind the scenes of this movement, Masih has been fighting a painful personal battle. She is a divorcee - a sin equivalent to prostitution in Iranian culture. As a political reporter, Masih has been actively speaking out against the government's corrupt policies for more than a decade and this has led to her expulsion from Iran and separation from her son.
Read by Nathalie Armin
Abridged by Elizabeth Burke
Produced by Alexandra Quinn
A Loftus Production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
By Ben Lewis.
A funny real-time drama set around a kitchen table at the weekly meetings of a 21st century family who are not even managing to 'just about manage'.
Amelia is 14. She's been through a divorce before. She really doesn't want to go through it again. But her blended family is threatening to unblend. So she draws on her experience as assistant chairperson of the Key Stage 3 debating society and initiates weekly family meetings for truth, reconciliation, grievance airing and the seeking of practical solutions.
Will the family pull together enough cash to dig them out of their financial hole? All eyes turn to stay-at-home-dad, Sean, to see whether he can rejoin the world of work.
Cast:
Nicole ... Rosie Cavaliero
Amelia ... Cleo Demetriou
Jan ... Deborah Findlay
Sean... Jonathan Forbes
Callum ... Elliot Speller-Gillott
Directed by Kirsty Williams.
Reports from writers and journalists around the world. Presented by Kate Adie.
The writer and illustrator Judith Kerr has created some of our best-loved books for children since publishing her first, and perhaps most famous book, 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea', which celebrates its 50th birthday this year.
Judith's life has always inspired her writing, from fleeing Nazi Germany as a child, a story she told in 'When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit', to the peculiar family cats whose adventures she chronicled in the Mog series. Now 94 years old, Judith is still hard at work, still writing and drawing in the study overlooking the common where she has written all her books and in this programme Judith invites us into her study as she works on her latest classic.
Producer & Presenter: Jessica Treen.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Homer Hunter takes Emile down by the creek in Stoney Bottom star gazing. Homer remembers before the telescope was built and when the Quiet Zone was just a quiet place - apart from the moonshine, and the blue grass, and the bear hunting, and the preaching.
Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
If your Facebook behaviour reveals whether you're an extrovert or introvert, neurotic or stable, agreeable or unpleasant, can these results be used to get you to change your behaviour? Researchers at Cambridge found that you could sell more cosmetic products to extroverts and introverts if you gave them messages targeted to the particular personality. Cambridge Analytica claimed that in America they could get a pro-gun rights message through most effectively to neurotic people by targeting them with a fear-based message, whereas conscientious people would be better influenced by a message that focused on tradition and stability. What does seem to be true is that during both the Brexit and 2016 US election campaigns, the personality factor that seemed make the difference was neuroticism. In times of uncertainty and populist politics, could neuroticism be the secret ingredient to campaigning?
Presenter/Producer: Jolyon Jenkins.
What would happen if the UK broke apart?
In this everyday story of British folk, David and Ruth Fletcher face our next civil war.
4/5 The Price
Can the Fletcher family stay together, in the crowds of refugees being forced to walk out of Wales?
Martin Jameson's drama draws on detailed research from BBC correspondents to analysts, contingency planners, and those with first hand experience of the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, to make the Fletchers' adventures a compelling account of what civil war could do to us all..
Starring Jeremy Swift and Maureen Beattie.
Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting.
Script Consultants:
Tamara Kovacevic - Senior BBC journalist with first hand experience of the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s
Richard Vergette - Writer and teacher for advice on parenting a teenager with Down Syndrome
With thanks to:
Malcolm Barnard
Peter Barnes - BBC Senior Political Analyst
Louisa Brooke-Holland - Senior Research Analyst, International Affairs and Defence section, House of Commons Library
Rory Cellan-Jones - BBC Technology Correspondent
Gabrielle Garton Grimwood - Senior Research Analyst in Emergency Planning
Mike Livingstone - Former Strategic Director of Children's Services, Manchester City Council.
Jonathan Marcus - BBC Diplomatic Correspondent
Prof Bill McGuire - Professor Emeritus; Geophysical & Climate Hazards, UCL
Dr Gemma Sou - Lecturer in Disaster Studies, University of Manchester
Peter Wynne-Wilson - Course Director, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (for advice on Birmingham and its demographics)
Imogen Woolrich and the Octagon Bridges Theatre Group,
Harri Chambers - for Welsh translations,
and Steve Pearce, Eric Bradley & John Rudin for IT advice.
Cast:
Dave Fletcher ... Jeremy Swift
Ruth Fletcher ... Maureen Beattie
Maggie Pelling ... Elizabeth Counsell
Jonny Fletcher ... Sam Barnard
Tricia Ince ... Elinor Coleman
Chris ... Stephen Hogan
Gary ... John Lightbody
The Dinner Lady ... Lisa Palfrey
The Engineer ... Gruffudd Glyn
Adele ... Kerry Gooderson
Pete Angel ... Ryan Early
Border Guard ... Joseph Ayre
Writer ... Martin Jameson
Director ... Jonquil Panting
Producer ... Jonquil Panting.
Clare Balding walks in beautiful sunshine with one of the longest standing groups we've had on Ramblings. For over 30 years, Derek Fawcett and friends have met for an annual walk. They've known each other since they were at medical school and, despite going into different specialities, have retained a strong connection; they say this is best enjoyed while out walking. Today, they are in Laugharne in south west Wales. They follow a route from Laugharne Castle which takes in Dylan Thomas's former home. Thomas once described Laugharne as the 'strangest town in Wales' and based Llareggub in Under Milk Wood ('bugger all' spelt backwards) on the place.
Producer: Karen Gregor.
Francine Stock talks to Ari Aster, the director of the film that's supposedly the scariest of the year so far - Hereditary.
Adam Rutherford investigates the news in science and science in the news.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Frank Skinner loves history, but just doesn't know much of it. So he's devised a comedy discussion show in order to find out more about it.
Along with his historian in residence, Professor Kate Williams, Frank is joined by a selection of celebrity guests who help him navigate his way through the annals of time, picking out and chewing over the funniest, oddest, and most interesting moments in history.
The guests are Al Murray and Isy Suttie, who discuss Robin Hood, wartime slogans, Annie Oakley and a statue-related history mystery.
Produced by Mark Augustyn and Justin Pollard
An Avalon production for BBC Radio 4.
Jill comes to the rescue, and Fallon has a bright idea.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Evan Davis hosts the business conversation show.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
By Louise Erdrich. The world is in crisis. Evolution has gone into reverse, affecting all creatures great and small, including the next generation of humans. Fewer babies - or their mothers - are surviving to full term and, of those babies born, many have been identified as belonging to a more primitive species of human. As governments take drastic action to limit the catastrophe, there has never been a more dangerous time to be having a baby.
Cedar Songmaker is pregnant. She is the adopted daughter of Minneapolis liberals. Determined to find out as much about her baby's make up as possible, she makes contact with her birth family on the Ojibwe reservation.
Episode 9
'Mother' tracks Cedar down to the Ojibwe reservation.
The author, Louise Erdrich, lives in Minnesota. Her novel The Round House won the National Book Award for Fiction. She has also received the Library of Congress Prize in American Fiction, the prestigious PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Writer: Louise Erdrich
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Reader: Cherrelle Skeete
Producer: Lisa Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
Westminster lobby hack Sam Peakes has just written her best political story yet. But in journalism, what you write isn't always what people read.
Written by Christopher Davies, Alistair Griggs and Jon Harvey
Produced by Jon Harvey
A Hat Trick production for BBC Radio 4.
News from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with writer and broadcaster, Sarah Joseph.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Chris Packham presents the water rail. Water rails are very secretive and live in thick vegetation in marshes and fens where the birds breed. The adult birds look rather like small moorhens but with chestnut on top, a blue-grey face and a zebra-stripe patch on their sides. They have long blood-red bills used for probing for insects.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Masih finds that she is no longer safe in Tehran working as a political journalist. She is forced into exile during the Iranian elections of 2009 but finds a way to protest against the Islamic Republic with her online movement.
Masih Alinejad is a journalist and activist from a small village in Iran. In 2014 she sparked a social media movement when she posted a picture of her curly hair blowing in the wind without her veil or hijab. Across Iran, women started sharing pictures of their uncovered hair on Masih's Facebook page in open defiance of the strict religious beliefs of their country - and often, their families.
With the creation of My Stealthy Freedom Masih gained over one million supporters and inspired women everywhere to take a stand against the compulsory wearing of the hijab.
But behind the scenes of this movement, Masih has been fighting a painful personal battle. She is a divorcee - a sin equivalent to prostitution in Iranian culture. As a political reporter, Masih has been actively speaking out against the government's corrupt policies for more than a decade and this has led to her expulsion from Iran and separation from her son.
Read by Nathalie Armin
Abridged by Elizabeth Burke
Produced by Alexandra Quinn
A Loftus Production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
By Ben Lewis.
A funny real-time drama set around a kitchen table at the weekly meetings of a 21st century family who are not even managing to 'just about manage'.
Amelia is 14. She's been through a divorce before. She really doesn't want to go through it again. But her blended family is threatening to unblend. So she draws on her experience as assistant chairperson of the Key Stage 3 debating society and initiates weekly family meetings for truth, reconciliation, grievance airing and the seeking of practical solutions.
It's time for the family's weekly meetings. But the chair herself hasn't turned up.
Cast:
Nicole ... Rosie Cavaliero
Amelia ... Cleo Demetriou
Jan ... Deborah Findlay
Sean... Jonathan Forbes
Callum ... Elliot Speller-Gillott
Directed by Kirsty Williams.
In the second part of his exploration into British Caribbean identity, journalist Hugh Muir meets the grandchildren of the Windrush pioneers.
They are born here to parents born or brought up in Britain, they speak with British accents and the island rivalries of their grandparents are long gone. So how Caribbean do they feel - if it all?
Through conversations with young British Caribbeans, including his daughter Ruby and the producer Zakia Sewell, Hugh asks whether the Windrushers' attitudes and culture still serve this young generation navigating modern Britain.
Today, there are young British Caribbeans working in all areas of public life - in the arts, in business, education and the civil service. Many are living out the dreams of their grandparents. Hugh meets members of Young Identity, a spoken-word collective from Manchester, who are proud to hear their grandparents' patois infiltrating British language and music. He also talks to Nicholas Daley, a mixed-heritage fashion designer who takes cues from the dashing Windrushers in their sharp suits and hats.
While the Windrush look and language might provide inspiration for some, for others the traditional values of the grandparents are a hindrance. Selina Stone, a theology lecturer, wants her Pentecostal church to address more of the difficult issues facing her generation. For Craig Pinkey, a criminology lecturer and youth worker, there's an unconscious bias in the workplace and for the young Caribbeans he works with in inner city Birmingham, it's poverty and alienation.
On his journey, Hugh meets Tia Simon Campbell and Naeem Davis who run a queer club night called BBZ, something their more conservative grandparents would never have imagined. But like many of their peers, they still identify with their Caribbeaness. Although they've only ever visited the sunny islands, they feel a huge gratitude for the hard work and endurance of the Windrushers who set out to create a better life for their descendants.
Produced by Zakia Sewell
A Cast Iron Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
Martin Jarvis directs the masterly comic series written by Michael Frayn, the author of Noises Off and the most comic philosophical writer of our time. The outstanding cast is led by Ian McKellen, Joanna Lumley, Stephen Fry, Alfred Molina, Alex Jennings and Jarvis himself.
It's an astonishing tour de force of comic imagination and satire.
Each of the four episodes reveals Frayn's infectious delight in writing between the lines of theatre, fiction, television and the media, the church, relationships - life in general.
In this third episode, Stephen Fry gives smug thanks to God, Matthew Wolf and Martin Jarvis become mute mime-artists (even on the radio), Nigel Anthony invites sponsorship for doing precisely nothing, Ian McKellen as God conducts his own prayer-answering service and Rosalind Ayres provides a tetchy update to your Pocket Playhouse.
Cast:
Ian McKellen, Stephen Fry, Rosalind Ayres, Matthew Wolf, Martin Jarvis and Nigel Anthony.
Written by Michael Frayn,
Director: Martin Jarvis.
A Jarvis and Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Rumours of closure at the Robert C Byrd Telescope at the National Radio Astronomy facility in Green Bank, West Virginia, abound.
Emile Holba hears from Karen O'Neill what extraordinary things the telescope can hear, and asks if the Quiet Zone is no longer needed how will that change the lives of those who live in this valley?
The telescope is trying to understand the creation of the universe, but there are universal issues pushing against the Quiet Zone.
The lives of those in the valley are in the hands of outsiders. The real MIB.
Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
Consumer news and issues.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
It's not clear that Cambridge Analytica did anything very special with their psychographic targeting. But that's not to say that the data, that Facebook and other big data companies have, can't be effectively used for political campaigning. We speak to people involved in the last UK general election about how the data harvested by Facebook itself - not Cambridge Analytica - was used to deliver targeted messages to particular groups of voters. How Labour sent messages to pro-Brexit Labour supporters to reassure them that Jeremy Corbyn was not a closet remainer, and how the Conservatives sent messages to other voters warning them against Diane Abbott. How the two main parties bid against each other for such Google search terms as "Dementia Tax" in an attempt to reach wavering voters. Targeting voters by their Big Five personality score or through other personal information seems here to stay. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Some of the original Cambridge University researchers argue that, in an era when people are disengaged from politics and often ill-informed, microtargeting voters to connect with their individual concerns could be a useful way to get the population re-engaged with the political process.
Presenter/Producer: Jolyon Jenkins.
What would happen if the UK broke apart?
In this everyday story of British folk, David and Ruth Fletcher face our next civil war.
5/5 Home
A leak from an unattended nuclear power plant forces a UN-brokered resettlement plan for the refugees. But where are the Fletchers being taken?
Martin Jameson's drama draws on detailed research from BBC correspondents to analysts, contingency planners, and those with first hand experience of the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, to make the Fletchers' adventures a compelling account of what civil war could do to us all..
Starring Jeremy Swift and Maureen Beattie.
Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting
Script Consultants:
Tamara Kovacevic - Senior BBC journalist with first hand experience of the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s
Richard Vergette - Writer and teacher for advice on parenting a teenager with Down Syndrome
With thanks to:
Malcolm Barnard
Peter Barnes - BBC Senior Political Analyst
Louisa Brooke-Holland - Senior Research Analyst, International Affairs and Defence section, House of Commons Library
Rory Cellan-Jones - BBC Technology Correspondent
Gabrielle Garton Grimwood - Senior Research Analyst in Emergency Planning
Mike Livingstone - Former Strategic Director of Children's Services, Manchester City Council.
Jonathan Marcus - BBC Diplomatic Correspondent
Prof Bill McGuire - Professor Emeritus; Geophysical & Climate Hazards, UCL
Dr Gemma Sou - Lecturer in Disaster Studies, University of Manchester
Peter Wynne-Wilson - Course Director, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (for advice on Birmingham and its demographics)
Imogen Woolrich and the Octagon Bridges Theatre Group,
Harri Chambers - for Welsh translations,
and Steve Pearce, Eric Bradley & John Rudin for IT advice.
Cast:
Dave Fletcher ... Jeremy Swift
Ruth Fletcher ... Maureen Beattie
Jonny Fletcher ... Sam Barnard
Kristina Matic ... Elinor Coleman
Alex Pritchard ... Ryan Whittle
Naveed ... Antonio Aakeel
Dr Shah ... Vineeta Rishi
Clare ... Emma Handy
Geoff ... Sean Murray
Debbie ... Kerry Gooderson
Nurse ... Lauren Cornelius
Radio 4 ... Stephen Hogan
Radio Free Manchester ... John Lightbody
Writer ..... Martin Jameson
Producer ..... Jonquil Panting
Director ..... Jonquil Panting.
Eric Robson hosts a very special edition of the show as GQT takes its annual Summer Garden Party to National Trust Mount Stewart in County Down, Northern Ireland. Matthew Wilson, Bunny Guinness, Bob Flowerdew and Mount Stewart's Neil Porteous answer the audience's horticultural questions.
Produced by Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Mathew Baynton reads a new short story by the Irish writer, Donal Ryan.
On their fifth, disastrous, date, Jack takes Bryony to Stonehenge and is haunted by the voice of his dead father.
Produced by Natalie Steed for BBC Northern Ireland
Reader ..... Matthew Baynton
Writer ..... Donal Ryan
Producer ..... Natalie Steed.
Obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.
Radio 4's forum for comments, queries, criticisms and congratulations.
A father and daughter share a facility with words, though only one writes professionally. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Topical satirical impressions. The show that holds a wobbly mirror up to the news.
Kate has the rug pulled from under her, and Ruth suffers a crisis of confidence.
News, reviews and interviews from the worlds of art, literature, film and music.
Shaun Ley presents political debate from the Coleraine Campus of Ulster University with a panel including Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP.
A weekly reflection on a topical issue.
On the eve of Father's Day, Mark Thomas examines how the image of dad has been made and re-made over the decades.
This is a personal journey into the BBC archives and beyond. Mark's own Dad was tough. Mark says he's a softee as a father. Do we need more definition of what it is to be dad?
While motherhood is traditionally twinned with apple pie, one strong image of fatherhood is a man dressed in a batman suit protesting his rights of access to his children. There's no single dominant image, though. We have gay dads, soft dads, disciplinarian dads, workaholic dads, stay-at-home dads and absentee dads. This is rich and rewarding territory, and the archive comes both from the public and private sphere. We hear experts and writers on fatherhood, famous dads like David Beckham and Sir Bob Geldof, and civilian dads' tales too.
Seismic events and cultural awakenings have shaped and re-shaped the figure of the father and yet today we still question who he really is. Why?
Mark also talks to fatherhood experts and those who have been watching the changing role of the father with a passionate interest over the decades - MP David Lammy, Adrienne Burgess from the Fatherhood Institute and Professor Charlie Lewis.
Produced by Sarah Cuddon
A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
By Louise Erdrich. The world is in crisis. Evolution has gone into reverse, affecting all creatures great and small, including the next generation of humans. Fewer babies - or their mothers - are surviving to full term and, of those babies born, many have been identified as belonging to a more primitive species of human. As governments take drastic action to limit the catastrophe, there has never been a more dangerous time to be having a baby.
Cedar Songmaker is pregnant. She is the adopted daughter of Minneapolis liberals. Determined to find out as much about her baby's make up as possible, she makes contact with her birth family on the Ojibwe reservation.
Episode 10
Cedar is nearly full-term and confined in the heavily guarded Stillwater Birthing Centre.
The author, Louise Erdrich, lives in Minnesota. Her novel The Round House won the National Book Award for Fiction. She has also received the Library of Congress Prize in American Fiction, the prestigious PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Writer: Louise Erdrich
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Reader: Cherrelle Skeete
Producer: Lisa Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
News from Westminster.
A professional musician shares a lifelong love of jazz with his brother. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.