SATURDAY 10 JULY 2010

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (b00sy5kq)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


SAT 00:30 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00swmjz)
Meeting The Gods (1200 - 1400 AD)

Hoa Hakananai'a Easter Island Statue

This week Neil MacGregor is exploring the sophisticated ways in which people connected to gods and ancestors in the Middle Ages. He is looking at religious images from India, France, Mexico and Turkey.

Today - in the last programme of the second series - he is with one of the most instantly recognisable sculptures in the world: one of the giant stone heads that were made on Easter Island in the South Eastern Pacific Ocean. These deeply mysterious objects lead Neil to consider why they were made and why many were ultimately thrown down.

What was the Easter Islanders understanding of their gods and their ancestors? Steve Hooper, an expert on the arts of the Pacific, and the internationally renowned sculptor Sir Anthony Caro both respond to this monumental work of devotion.

Producer: Anthony Denselow.


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b00sy5ks)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b00sy5kv)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at 5.20am.


SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b00sy5kx)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 05:30 News Briefing (b00sy5kz)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b00sy5n7)
with Alison Murdoch.


SAT 05:45 iPM (b00sy5n9)
"My old man's a dustman and won't reach retirement age." Listeners talk about pensions. Also why working longer prolongs your life and a sneak preview of the winner of the iPM competition: "I'd Like to Win Hugh Sykes!"
With Eddie Mair and Jennifer Tracey.


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (b00sy5nc)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SAT 06:04 Weather (b00sym54)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 06:07 Open Country (b00syqmb)
The plans to begin culling badgers in an area of Wales have divided the rural community. In a special programme, Welsh poet and author Owen Sheers talks to people in Pembrokeshire about the tensions that are running high among neighbouring landowners, some of whom support the decision to cull badgers within a trial zone to try and eradicate TB in cattle.

Producer: Maggie Ayre.


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (b00syqmd)
Farming Today This Week

This morning, Charlotte Smith is at a pig farm in Staffordshire to find out about the life and death of pigs reared in the UK. For the past six months, Farming Today has been following eleven pigs being reared indoors at a farm in Yorkshire. The majority of pigs in this country which end up in supermarkets are reared in this way. This week, these pigs were slaughtered to go into the food chain. In this programme, Charlotte follows the journey of the Farming Today pigs from birth to the abattoir. She also finds out what the difference is between outdoor and indoor reared pigs and explores the welfare issues involved in each.
Presenter: Charlotte Smith. Producer: Anna Varle.


SAT 06:57 Weather (b00syqmg)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 07:00 Today (b00syqmj)
With James Naughtie and Evan Davis. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather, Thought for the Day.


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (b00syqml)
Fi Glover is joined by English fashion designer Wayne Hemingway. The poet is Luke Wright.

The producer is Simon Clancy.


SAT 10:00 Excess Baggage (b00syqmn)
Sandi Toksvig gets a glimpse into the esoteric world of surfing when she meets author and surfer Tom Anderson who has journeyed round the world in search of new places to ride the waves. He has surfed from Sri Lanka to Spain including chasing hurricanes in the USA, riding the Severn Bore and what many consider to be the best wave in the world off the South African coast.

Sandi also explores two different approaches to women's travel. Christine Davies is the co-founder of Thelma and Louise, a social networking website that puts women in touch with others so they can travel together and share experiences of their journeys. Christine has also coped with bereavement by sailing on a clipper to Brazil. Jennie Cox is part of a recent trend for young women to go on a girls' break often inspired by the location for a film. She and a couple of girlfriends recently returned from a road trip round California, Arizona and Nevada and she tells Sandi of the fun to be had travelling with pals.
Producer: Harry Parker.


SAT 10:30 Electric Ride (b00syqmq)
Episode 4

Peter Curran drives a battery car 4,500 miles round Europe on a pioneering journey. He talks to manufacturers about their progress with the production of electric cars.

En route he struggles to find enough power points to charge his battery.

Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, France, Spain and Europe - on his last leg he manages to arrive back in the UK to join the Brighton to London Eco-rally.

Produced by Dilly Barlow and Kevin Dawson
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


SAT 11:00 The Week in Westminster (b00syqms)
Steve Richards of The Independent looks behind the scenes in Westminster.


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (b00syqmv)
Our correspondents have many tricky moments. But not all of them come on front lines, or at dangerous checkpoints. Some come at the dinner table.

The face veil worn by some Muslim women is meant to deflect unwelcome attention. But it's doing rather the opposite in France at the moment. The wearing of the veil there is attracting huge political attention. Parliament is debating whether to ban it. Those opposing the veil see it....among other things....as an affront to France's commitment to equality. But as Christian Fraser explains, it's a sensitive issue that raises questions about the place of Islam in French society.

History has a way of repeating itself in Afghanistan's wars. Back in the seventies, the Russians handed the fight over to the Afghan army, and withdrew. And now the Americans hope to do something similar. So how quickly might the Afghan forces be big enough and strong enough for the job....? Well, much depends on the kind of training programme that Frank Gardner has been watching at a base in the south of the country.

The West looks economically exhausted -- badly overspent, and deep in debt. Europe is braced for a coming "age of austerity". But in China....on the other hand....all the talk is of coming prosperity. Its economy may grow by as much as eleven percent next year. And Michael Robinson says China's car-makers are poised to mount a new challenge the industry's established giants around the world....

That was Michael Robinson....and you can hear more from him in a new, weekly series called "China; Shaking the World", starting on the World Service on Monday.

For years now, Gaza has been blockaded. Its confrontation with Israel has made it extremely difficult for goods and people to come and go. Gazans often talk of their tiny, strip of territory as being a kind of prison. But some have actually managed to dig their way out. Tunnels have been a kind of economic lifeline. And as Jon Donnison explains, it's been possible to make serious money with a shovel in the sands of Gaza....

Our correspondents have many tricky moments. But not all of them come on front lines, or at dangerous checkpoints. Some come at the dinner table. There are times in more remote places when it would be rude not to eat what you're given. But that's not always easy. I remember once....in the Kyrghyz mountains.... very much struggling to finish a sheep's ear.... And Rajesh Mirchandani has just had a rather similar experience in Alaska....


SAT 12:00 Money Box (b00syqmx)
On today's/tomorrow's Money Box on Radio Four with Paul Lewis:

A revolution for calculating private sector pensions . But it may not be good news.

Plus: A sneak preview of a bank which wants us to have fun - but can it cope with the opposition?

And how paying 'continuously' might be hard to get out of.

Producer: Lesley McAlpine.


SAT 12:30 The Now Show (b00sy4yp)
Series 31

Episode 4

Paul the Psychic Octopus: Our animal-heavy silly season series continues with a football-result-predicting octopus finding international fame.

Steve Punt and John Finnemore guide listeners through the government’s plans for electoral reform; though it’s still unclear which voting system next year’s referendum will follow.

Both gravy and actual trains are under revue as the BBC and royal family report back on their own value for money, and can the national press really have recycled an article about the blacking-out of a Midlands swimming pool’s windows, without checking the facts?

Mitch marks Ringo's birthday with an octo-ode, Jon Holmes thinks newspaper headline writers are making stuff up, “Naomi Campbell to Testify at War Crimes Trial” Really? And guest, Henning Wehn, gives a German perspective on the World Cup.

Starring Steve Punt and John Finnemore, with Mitch Benn, Jon Holmes, Laura Shavin and Henning Wehn.

Written by the cast, with additional material from James Kettle, Carrie Quinlan, John Luke Roberts and Andy Wolton. Produced by Colin Anderson.

This week’s Audience Question:
“Russia and the USA are exchanging captured spies, what’s the best / worst swap you’ve ever made?”

If you’d like to share your answer or to read other people’s, search for #nowshow on Twitter.


SAT 12:57 Weather (b00syqmz)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 13:00 News (b00syqn1)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (b00sy4yr)
Jonathan Dimbleby chairs the live debate from The Tolmen Centre in Constantine, near Falmouth, Cornwall, with questions from the audience for the panel including: Labour MP and chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Margaret Hodge; Conservative MP John Redwood; Patience Wheatcroft, Editor in Chief of the Wall Street Journal, Europe and Guardian columnist John Harris.

Producer: Victoria Wakely.


SAT 14:00 Any Answers? (b00syqn3)
Jonathan Dimbleby takes listeners' calls and emails in response to this week's edition of Any Questions?


SAT 14:30 Saturday Drama (b00syrn5)
Simon Passmore - Going to Ground

By Simon Passmore

1940, Kent. England is on full alert in anticipation of a German invasion. As church bells sound the alarm, a secret resistance unit springs into action. Whatever happens, none of them expects to see their families again.

Directed by Toby Swift

******

This wartime drama features the exploits of an English guerrilla unit trained to make things as difficult as possible for the German invasion force.

The existence of the covert Auxiliary Units during World War II only became widely known in the 1990s. They were patrols of 4 to 8 men with orders to disappear as soon as the bells sounded. Southern England was dotted with dozens of secret underground bunkers which served as their bases. Trained and equipped with the best guerrilla weapons available, their orders were to sabotage and snipe at the invading army; to gather information on troop movements. Completely cut off by design, they operated in total secrecy and isolation. Their life expectancy was calculated officially at 14 days.


SAT 15:30 The FAE Sonata (b00sjbsx)
Frei Aber Einsam - 'free but lonely' - was the motto of the great 19th century violinist Joseph Joachim. It's also the name of a Violin Sonata played by Joachim, accompanied by Clara Schumann, that resulted from a collaboration between the composer Robert Schumann and two of his pupils, Johannes Brahms and Albert Dietrich.

On the 200th anniversary of Schumann's birth, Tom Robinson examines the complex relationships between these romantic artists through the prism of this piece of music. Schumann's passionate love for his wife Clara is matched only by Brahms' devotion to her during and following Schumann's decline into mental illness.

Brahms was also a close champion of Joachim, until the violinist's divorce, when they fell out over the composer's support for Joachims' wife. And the FAE Sonata itself was neglected - an innocent victim - until long after Brahms' death.

Tom unpicks the romantic and turbulent story of a musical collaboration with the help of pianist and Schumann champion Lucy Parham, violinist Tasmin Little, Robert John Godfrey of 'The Enid' and Radio 3's Andrew McGregor.

Producer: Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.


SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (b00sysgm)
Weekend Woman's Hour

Presented by Jane Garvey. Why not enough women are serious about exercise. The rise of 'mantenatal' classes - pregnancy and child-birth classes for prospective dads. Actress Natascha McElhone and her grief at losing her husband. Low pay and unmarried: prospects for female civil servants in the 19th century. Teaching school children the art of public speaking. Punk icon Linder on her 13 hour show. A Kind of Loving - the legacy of northern writing in the fifties.


SAT 17:00 PM (b00sysgp)
Saturday PM

Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Carolyn Quinn, plus the sports headlines.


SAT 17:30 The Bottom Line (b00sxtc0)
Evan Davis is joined in the studio by top business guests to discuss the fear of technology and the difficulties of working with people you don't like.

When we constantly hear about revolutionising effect of technology on the business world, it's easy to forget that many people are suspicious of new innovations. Technophobia may stem from legitimate concerns, and it can hit companies working in the high-tech sphere, especially when communication doesn't keep pace with invention. The panel discusses fear of genetically modified crops, internet security and more.

Also on the programme: working with people you don't like. They are the tricky ones, those with tough personalities and idiosyncratic habits. We hear how the bosses on our panel have dealt with difficult characters throughout their careers and how they manage these types today.

Evan's guests are John Atkin, chief operating officer of Syngenta; Eric Grosse, president of Expedia Worldwide; and John McLaren, chairman of Barchester Group.


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b00sysgr)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 17:57 Weather (b00sysgt)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b00sysgw)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (b00sysgy)
Clive Anderson and guests with an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy.

Clive Anderson goes on several excursions this week as he's joined by the broadcaster, former political correspondent and one of Strictly Come Dancing's most popular contestants John Sergeant. For his latest two part documentary, Tracks of Empire, he journeyed 3,000 miles by train to trace the history of the great Indian railway.

With BBC Radio 4's London: Another Country season underway, playwright, actor and presenter Kwame Kwei-Armah talks about his contribution, The London Story, exploring the cultural and political changes of the last thirty years which has made London what it is today.

Deadpan stand up, QI and Have I Got News For You regular Rich Hall returns to his homeland to show that the southern states of America are much more than just rednecks, racism and hillbillies for a one off documentary for BBC Four, 'Rich Hall's The Dirty South'.

Jo Bunting talks to Irish comedian Sean Hughes. 20 years on from being the youngest ever Perrier winner, he returns to the Edinburgh fringe with his more mature offering, 'Ducks and Other Mistakes I Have Made'.

Plus there's music from acclaimed Oxford five piece Foals, who break off from their many festival apperances to perform a track from their album Total Life Forever for Loose Ends.

And from singer-songwriter Martha Tilston, who having grown up with poetry, music and art has spun her own seductive music, showcased in her latest album Lucy and the Wolves.

Producer: Cathie Mahoney.


SAT 19:00 Profile (b00sysh0)
Mark Serwotka

Mark Serwotka, head of the biggest civil service trade union and according to his critics, a member of the left-wing awkward squad. He's now on a collision course with the Government over plans to reduce public sector jobs. Morland Sanders profiles a union leader who so far this year, has fronted three national strikes.

He is perceived by some as an outdated trade union firebrand but he is committed to protecting the public sector from cuts to the kinds of job he did for nearly twenty years - a benefits officer in the south Wales valley of Aberdare.

Producer - Ian Muir-Cochrane.


SAT 19:15 Saturday Review (b00sysh2)
Tom Sutcliffe and his guests writer and filmmaker James Runcie, novelist Dreda Say Mitchell and director of the ICA Ekow Eshun review the week's cultural highlights including Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis and La Bete at the Comedy Theatre, London

Mark Rylance, David Hyde Pierce and Joanna Lumley star in David Hirson's play La Bete at the Comedy Theatre in London. The intellectual dramatist Elomire is appalled when his royal patron forces him to collaborate with the boorish buffoon Valere.

25 years after his debut novel Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis has written a sequel - Imperial Bedrooms. The book's narrator, Clay, has returned to Los Angeles from New York to find his old friends are involved in some less appealing aspects of the movie business.

Kristin Scott Thomas plays Suzanne, a bourgeois housewife, in Catherine Corsini's film Leaving. Suzanne falls for a Spanish builder but finds that there is no escaping her husband's retribution.

In Grandma's House - a new sitcom on BBC2 - television presenter Simon Amstell plays a television presenter called Simon who wants to make a career change. This news does not go down very well with his family, including his mother played by Rebecca Front.

Before John Singer Sargent became a celebrated society portrait painter, he was drawn to maritime subjects and seascapes. The exhibition Sargent and the Sea at the Royal Academy in London brings together over 70 of these works, from this formative period in the artist's career.

Producer Torquil MacLeod.


SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (b00sysh4)
I'm On The Train

Does the daily experience of the embattled commuter define the British national character almost better than anything else? Consider the need for endurance and stoicism, the acceptance of the ritual of the queue and the ability to completely blank out one's neighbours?

As part of the London season this is the starting point for writer and broadcaster Ian Marchant as he eavesdrops upon the experiences of generations of hapless commuters. Acknowledging the first commuter line which was built in the 1830s, this feature documentary bears testimony to the cumulative toll exacted by that daily dose of suspended animation, tepid coffees and half-completed crosswords. Ian reflects on the way in which mobiles and laptops have transformed our experience of public and private space. Addressing the daily round of anxious clock-watching, dashed hopes, and frequently failed expectations, Ian shares his theories on the existence of a new time zone to describe the experience of wasted hours: British Nothing Time. BNT, he convincingly demonstrates, is intricately woven through the best years of our lives

He will look at how generations have dealt with the need for diversion looking at the heydayof the crossword, its recent eclipse by Sudoku, the tonnage of newspapers glanced at and discarded, and the onward march of gadgets, from transistor radios to iPods. With these changes have come a renegotiation of what is private and public, as people loudly regale a whole carriage with the intimacies of their supposedly private lives. He'll also find out about the relationships that have formed and foundered on the train, and about the train as a creative space - an astonishing number of first novels were not only drafted but also completed on the 07.48 and the 17.55.

And, as we'll hear, the commute is no innocent activity: its existence has fuelled the disappearance of the clear lines between town and country.

Producer: Mark Smalley.


SAT 21:00 Classic Serial (b00swkc1)
PG Wodehouse - Summer Lightning

Episode 1

A star cast in a timeless comedy.

Affably absent-minded Earl of Emsworth, preparing his prize-winning pig Empress of Blandings for the Shropshire Agricultural Show, is afraid that rival pig-owner Sir Gregory Parsloe is planning to nobble his precious Empress. Parsloe fears that Emsworth's brother Galahad's memoirs contain scurrilous stories about their younger days in the naughty 1890s - particularly a racy story involving some prawns. He plans to hire private detective Percy Pilbeam to purloin the manuscript.

Emsworth's sister Lady Constance, equally desperate to stop publication, also has a secret plan.

And romance is in the air. His Lordship's new secretary and Emsworth's niece Millicent are secretly in love, but need financial help to pull off the marital merger. Emsworth's nephew, Ronnie Fish, is also in love with an unsuitable person - chorus girl Sue Brown. But Emsworth refuses to allow Ronnie any more money. Ronnie concocts a plan to regain his uncle's approval.

Pig-napping, private detection, impostering, mistaken situations, fisticuffs and broken engagements ensue. All is set for glorious mid-summer mayhem.

Galahad Threepwood ..... Charles Dance
Lady Constance ..... Patricia Hodge
Beach ..... Tim Pigott-Smith
Percy Pilbeam ..... Matt Lucas
Lord Emsworth ..... Martin Jarvis
Hugo Carmody ..... Samuel West
Sue Brown ..... Lisa Dillon
Ronnie Fish ..... Matthew Wolf
Millicent ..... Rachael Stirling
Rupert Baxter ..... Jared Harris
Sir Gregory Parsloe ..... Michael Jayston
Stage Doorman/Second Waiter ..... David Weston
Commissionaire/First Waiter ..... Jon Glover
Pagegirl ..... Anna Moore
Voice of Wodehouse ..... Ian Ogilvy

Dramatised by Archie Scottney.

Director: Martin Jarvis
Producer: Rosalind Ayres
A Jarvis & Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.


SAT 22:00 News and Weather (b00sysmg)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.


SAT 22:15 Moral Maze (b00sxj2j)
When the government said it was asking for departments to come up with plans for a 40% cut in their budget, the message was clear - nothing was going to be sacred. Except that is the NHS and foreign aid. While schools, police and armed forces all say cuts of this magnitude will hit front line services, the £7 billion a year budget for the Department for International Development has been ring fenced. In the depths of an unprecedented financial crisis, why should foreign aid be exempt from scrutiny? Defenders say there's a very clear moral imperative - if we cut foreign aid people will die as a direct result. Critics argue that government spending on aid has been distorted by the dictates of foreign policy - how else could you explain why we're giving over £800m in aid to India - a country that can afford its own space programme?

Is foreign aid a luxury we can't afford, or is this just another excuse not to care - to disengage from our responsibilities as one of the richest countries on earth and close our eyes to the suffering of millions of people around the world?

Michael Buerk chairs with Michael Portillo, Melanie Philips, Clifford Longley and Kenan Malik.

Witnesses:
Julian Harris, Project Director at International Policy Network

Sabina Alkire, Director of the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative and an Anglican Priest.

Michela Wrong, former journalist and the author of three non-fiction books on Africa, latest book was about corruption in Kenya called 'It's our turn to eat'

Myles Wickstead, Former ambassador in Ethiopia, Visiting prof of International Relations at the OU. Ran the Secretariat for the Commission for Africa, revisiting the issue.


SAT 23:00 Quote... Unquote (b00sx2qn)
The quotations quiz hosted by Nigel Rees.

As ever, a host of celebrities will be joining Nigel as he quizzes them on the sources of a range of quotations and asks them for the amusing sayings or citations that they have personally collected on a variety of subjects.

Reader ..... Peter Jefferson.

Produced by Sam Bryant.


SAT 23:30 Poetry Please (b00swlfq)
Roger McGough introduces a broad selection of listeners' poetry requests, including work by Keats, Vernon Scannell and Maura Dooley. There are poems about bravery, wandering women, sleep and rain. The readers are Kenneth Cranham and Jonjo O'Neill. Maura Dooley reads her own poem, re-telling a story from 1833 of the attempts by the women of Mumbles Head to rescue their men from a capsized lifeboat. There's a sonnet by Keats that might strike a chord with anyone who has felt the desperation of sleeplessness. 'Old Meg she was a gypsy' begins another, very different poem by Keats; 'Meg Merrilees.' It is one of those first lines of poetry that seems to have stuck in the minds of many listeners. There's also an archive reading by Henry Sandon of 'Miss Thompson Goes Shopping' by Martin Armstrong.