The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
In the sub-zero waters of the Southern Ocean, it's all about survival for the crew of the Sudur Havid.
In the spring of 1998, Matt Lewis was just 23 and not long out of college when he accepted a job as a scientific observer on the deep-sea fishing vessel Sudur Havid. It was his first time as an observer and, with the fishing season already started, he was rushed out to Cape Town to join the crew. The boat then sailed off to the Southern Ocean, off South Georgia, to fish in some of the most hostile conditions on the planet.
'Last Man Off' is Matt Lewis's story of that journey and the fateful consequences. The author waited over 15 years for this story to be told. "I was waiting for more time to make the story less painful," said Lewis.
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Once, the Hafod estate near Aberystwyth was one of Wales' most popular attractions, but that was 200 years ago. Then the grand stately home burnt down, and by 1950 the landscaped grounds (inspired by visions of classical Italy - unlikely as that might sound, given the extremely high annual rainfall in mid-Wales!) had fallen into disrepair, off the map, and out of the guidebooks. That's when the Forestry Commission bought the estate and planted it with conifers.
As Felicity Evans finds out, in recent years there's been an ongoing programme to restore the fine paths through the estate's wooded hills, and preserve the ancient parkland trees that still remain. This makes it a fascinating place to visit.
She's shown around by estate manager, David Newnham, landscape historian Jennie Macve (who's written a history of Hafod, and its remarkable founder, Thomas Johnes) and the botanist Ray Wood. Felicity also visits the nearby Llywernog Silver Lead Mine to meet Peter Lloyd Harvey who shows her how this mine reveals a very different attitude to landscape in the early Victorian period: it was far from being a tourist attraction for visiting gentry.
Sybil Ruscoe is at the visit of the Prince of Wales to an organic farm in Wiltshire. It rounds off a positive week for organic farming. Research published this week in the British Journal of Nutrition suggests that organic crops contain higher levels of some antioxidants than conventionally grown crops. The study has put a spring in the step of organic farmers, recovering after a slowdown in consumer spending during the recession. The latest figures from DEFRA show that the number of producers in the UK fell for five years in a row until 2013. Farming Today This Week meets growers from around the country who believe that organic is bouncing back.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Thought for the Day and Weather.
Richard Coles and Aasmah Mir are joined by Lord Sugar's longstanding Apprentice advisor Nick Hewer,
PhD student Hannah Earnshaw who's on the shortlist for a one-way ticket to Mars, and Lois Pryce who rode her motorcycle three thousand miles around Iran on her own. British Empire Medal winner Annie Chapman describes how she's raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for cancer research astride her tractor, lawn bowls player Andrew Newell explains why he wants to get Team Jamaica to the next Commonwealth Games, and JP Devlin tickles the ivories with Joe and Richard Stilgoe. Nancy Dell'Olio shares her Inheritance Tracks.
Nick Hewer presents Countdown on Channel 4. The Apprentice returns to BBC One this autumn.
Annie Chapman received the British Empire Medal for services to charity in June. Her Pink Ladies Tractor Road Run in East Anglia has raised over £300,000 for Cancer Research UK.
Hannah Earnshaw is studying for a PhD in Astronomy at The University of Durham. She's one of 700 people shortlisted by the Mars One Foundation which aims to establish permanent human life on Mars.
Lois Pryce motorcycled around Iran this April. She founded The Adventure Travel Film Festival and has written two books 'Lois on the Loose' and 'Red Tape, White Knuckles'.
Andrew Newell's Jamaica Road Kickstarter aims to crowd fund a Jamaican Lawn Bowls team in time for the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.
Nancy Dell'Olio inherits Nessun Dorma from Puccini's Turandot and passes on Message in a Bottle by The Police. 'Nancy Dell'Olio: Rainbows From Diamonds' is at the Gilded Ballon in Edinburgh from August 15th to 24th.
Joe Stilgoe's show 'Songs On Film' is at Edinburgh's Assembly Checkpoint on July 31st and August 1st.
Steve Punt turns gumshoe, investigating curious rumours surrounding the Baker Street bank robbery of 1971.
Quite possibly the most audacious heist in British history, the robbers tunnelled into the bank's vault from the basement of a shop two doors down. They escaped with a haul worth an estimated £30 million today.
Though four robbers were convicted, intriguing claims persist - most notably that the security services mounted the heist to secure compromising photographs of a senior public figure.
Punt sifts the evidence, calls in the experts and attempts to establish fact from fiction.
Isabel Hardman of the Spectator looks behind the scenes at Westminster. She examines the government's reshuffle this week, asks if it was necessary to rush the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act through parliament in a matter of days, and discusses whether, as some suggest, charities risk becoming too political.
Back in the days of the Vietnam War the airwaves were full of protest songs. Today, plenty of conflict, but none of those songs. Humphrey Hawksley's been to Nashville to find out why. Jeremy Bowen's just been to Gaza, Syria and Iraq and reflects on what the fighting there might achieve. Caroline Wyatt's been reporting on global conflicts for seven years in her role as BBC Defence Correspondent. One question she's frequently been asked about war is: was it all worth it? The Irish economy may once again be gathering strength, but John Murphy, in the west of the republic, finds that emigration is taking its toll on rural life. And how difficult is it to go off for a swim? In the Indian capital Delhi, as Anu Anand's been finding out, it's VERY difficult.
Ghost payments, overdraft charges, stocks and shares transfer problems and insurance comparison sites
Ghost payments: We hear from a listener who paid nearly £2,000 for flights and found that another £2,000 had been frozen in his account at the request of the airline which plunged his account into the red and left him with cheques and payments bouncing. We've heard of similar online horror stories involving supermarkets, department stories and holiday firms. Why do some online retailers 'ring fence' or 'reserve' extra money when you make an order?
Overdrafts: As rules are announced this week to cap pay day loans listeners ask why bank overdraft fees are not subject to a cap. This comes at a time when several high street lenders have changed or are changing their fees which listeners say are costing them much more. We compare arranged overdraft charges and talk to Dan Plant from Moneysupermarket.
Money in limbo: One city insider described it as the Financial Industry's 'dirty secret'. We investigate who is to blame for delays which are holding up transfers of stocks and shares investments speaking to Mark Polson founder of the lang cat and Jason Hollands, Managing Director of Bestinvest.
Insurance Comparisons: The FCA said this week that some insurance comparison sites of failing their customers. The report said that there was too much focus on price without telling consumers about other policy details and that in some cases the sites were not meeting regulatory standards.
A satirical review of the week's news, chaired by Sandi Toksvig, with regular panellist Jeremy Hardy and guest panellists David Mitchell, Andy Hamilton and Rebecca Front.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate and discussion from Uppingham School in Rutland with the Secretary of State for Transport Patrick McLoughlin MP and the Shadow Secretary of State for Local Government and Communities Hilary Benn MP, Molly Scott Cato the new Green MEP for the South West and Maxine Aldred from the Federation of Small Businesses.
The Assisted Dying Bill was debated in the House of Lords this week. Is it right that some people could be helped to end their life?
Presented by Anita Anand.
Adrian Lester stars in a radio version of the Tricycle Theatre's award-winning production, directed by Indhu Rubasingham, about the first black actor of note to play Othello.
The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, 1833. Edmund Kean, the greatest actor of his generation, has collapsed on stage whilst playing Othello. A young black American actor has been asked to take over the role. But as the public riot in the streets over the abolition of slavery, how will the cast, critics and audience react to the revolution taking place in the theatre?
Lolita Chakrabarti won Most Promising Playwright at The Evening Standard Awards and the Critics' Circle Awards after the 2012 run of Red Velvet at The Tricycle. Adrian Lester's performance earned him the Best Actor Award at the Critics' Circle Awards.
The end of the summer term is fast approaching and for children leaving primary school, it can come with a stretch limo, a Prom, a commemorative DVD, and a lot of high emotion. But is that a good thing for the kids? Author Yasmina Reza discusses her new book about relationships, philandering and the differences between the French and the English. Warsan Shire, the first Young Poet Laureate for London, performs her work and talks about what inspired it. Are attacks on Muslim women linked to wearing the burka? We hear from two women on reaction they're experienced when wearing the veil. With the European Union high on the news agenda, we debate what it's achieved for women. After the death of Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Prize winning author and activist, there's a chance to hear a Woman's Hour archive interview, recorded in 2002. Brit Pop was at its height twenty years ago, defined by boys with guitars but what was it like for the few women involved?
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First world war. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak,
Civil war in Sierra Leone, political unrest in Ukraine, the Japanese tsunami and Hurricane Sandy on the east coast of the US - three guests tell Evan Davis how they led businesses through periods of unexpected and extended turmoil.
Nikki Bedi, Adrian Dunbar, Mark Watson, Natalie Young, Richard Thompson, Clara Amfo, Sara Cox, Los Campesinos!
Nikki Mocks The Week with comedian and author Mark Watson. His fifth novel 'Hotel Alpha' tells the story of the charismatic Howard York, who, three decades ago created the finest hotel in London. Here, guests
are provided with everything they could wish for. And when Howard is in the room, there is a sense that anything is possible.
Nikki gets skin deep with Radio 1Xtra DJ Clara Amfo, who's new documentary investigates why so many young black people are bleaching their skin. In 'Deeper Than Skin', Clara asks whether there's a connection between skin colour and identity and what drives some young black people to risk their health for lighter skin.
Nikki's in the Line of Duty with actor, screenwriter and director Adrian Dunabr, who's appeared in such notable films as 'My Left Foot' and 'The Crying Game'. Adrian is directing a one-act play by Beckett dedicated to the Czech playwright Vaclav Havel, and originally performed when he was imprisoned as a dissident. 'Catastrophe' forms part of Happy Days: the 3rd International Beckett Festival in Enniskillen.
Sara Cox cooks up a storm with former Times journalist Natalie Young, whose latest novel 'Season to Taste' tells the tale of Lizzie, an unhappily married housewife, who, overcome by desperation kills her husband, chops him into 16 bits, freezes him, then over the course of the narrative cooks and eats parts of his body.
With music from legendary folk artist Richard Thompson, who performs 'One Door Opens' from his album 'Acoustic Classics' and from Los Campesinos! who play 'What Death Leaves Behind' from their album 'No Blues'.
After this week's cabinet reshuffle Mark Coles profiles Nicky Morgan. Who exactly is the new education secretary?
Malevich at Tate Modern, Importance of Being Earnest, Norte, Silicon Valley, Flusfeder: John the Pupil
A new exhibition of work by Russian painter Kasimir Malevich at London's Tate Modern follows his career from early representational work through his cubo-futurist phase, to his creation of the concept of supremacism and back to figurative art. It is grand in its scale and vision and ambition, but will it be packing in the visitors this summer?
There's another revival of Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest, with an all-star cast including Nigel Havers and Martin Jarvis. What devices can make this 120 year old much-venerated comedy funny to a modern audience?
Filipino film Norte; The End of History is more than 4 hours long and loosely based on Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and it has been hailed as a masterpiece by many critics as it has been shown on the major festival circuit.
There's new US TV sitcom called Silicon Valley, revolving around the lives of a bunch of internet start-up nerds. It's the work of Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead, Office Space, King of the Hill) and it's already been nominated for 5 Emmys
David Flusfeder's John The Pupil is a novel that purports to be a long lost diary of a 13th century monk and his companions as they journey from England to deliver a package from their Friar to The Pope in Viterbo
Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Paul Morley, Kate Williams and Amber Jane Butchart. The producer is Oliver Jones.
"Mr Howard, did you threaten to overrule him.. I note you are not answering the question.. did you threaten to overrule him..."
Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne, is a brave man, confronting his own media archive in this week's MEETING MYSELF COMING BACK. Surely by now he has tired of hearing himself being Paxmaned in 1997 - that same question asked over and over. But Howard's political career was merely stalled by the grilling, not stopped. Having lost out to William Hague in the 1997 leadership election - scuppered, some think, by Ann Widdecombe's remark that there was 'something of the night about him' - the Conservative Party would turn to him again as a leader in 2003.
Lord Howard relives his most memorable time in Prime Minister's Questions, confronting Tony Blair on university top-up fees.
"Let's make it clear Mr Speaker. This grammar school boy is not going to take any lessons from that public school boy there..!" But was this killer blow actually that grammar school boy's line?
He confesses to presenter John Wilson, "I think George may have possibly come up with it....." George Osborne being one of two advisors helping him prepare for PMQ's that day, the other being a fresh faced David Cameron - neither famous for their grammar school credentials.
From tales of strip bars in Los Angeles, to the moving tale of hearing about his wife's delivery of their daughter, whilst in the midst of a heated road enquiry, Lord Howard takes time to reflect on the highs, lows and blows of his long career, including an extraordinary moment when, during a visit to West Berlin 1963, he chanced upon J.F. Kennedy, making his famous speech, and saw 'the weight of the world resting on the slim young shoulders'.
A free adaptation by Robin Brooks of Scott's novel - now set in the year 2035, in a fictional future Scotland.
This is the second season of adaptations of some of Sir Walter Scott's most popular novels, with David Tennant as Walter Scott.
Alan Fairford is destined to become a lawyer but is distracted from his studies by the sudden disappearance of his best friend Danny Latimer.
Danny's absence seems to be connected with the sudden appearance of Stuart Galloway - aka Redgauntlet - who has business with Alan's father, Alexander.
Alan Fairford sets out to find out the answers and hopefully to rescue his friend.
Produced and Directed by Clive Brill.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.
The teenage years are full of change and confusion, creating tensions for parents and children. How much worse can things get when a long-term illness becomes part of the mix?
May is fourteen years old and has type-1 diabetes. After being diagnosed at the age of seven, she initially copes well but, within a few months, she struggles to take her insulin regularly.
The diabetic team try on numerous occasions to help her, and her mum, to manage May's diabetes better, but she doesn't see the point. The risks don't seem real to her and she wants to be normal, like her friends.
At the age of eleven, May is admitted to hospital three times with dangerously high blood sugars. By the age of twelve, the long term complications the team have warned May about, start to appear.
Now on the brink of adolescence, May can't cope. She feels controlled by her diabetes and when those around her try to help, it feels like pressure.
What lengths can the medical team go to to encourage May to take the treatment she needs? Can they force her to take insulin?
This week's contest of lateral thinking and convoluted connections pits the Midlands against Wales for the second time this season, with Tom Sutcliffe in the chair to ensure fair play and to provide gentle hints wherever needed.
Rosalind Miles and Stephen Maddock of the Midlands are making their final appearance of the series, and they need a victory against Myfanwy Alexander and David Edwards of Wales to stay in the running for the overall series title.
The questions require often-arcane snippets of knowledge of history, the visual arts, literature, film and popular culture, and the winners will be the team who need fewest helpful hints from the chairman in order to unravel the complex questions. The questions, as always, include a few of the best recent ideas submitted by listeners.
Tom will also reveal the answer to the question he left tantalisingly unanswered at the end of last week's programme.
Glyn Maxwell meets the Nobel Laureate poet Derek Walcott at his home on the Caribbean island of St Lucia on his 84th birthday. From his beach home, Walcott talks about the sea and what it is like to come from a place he feels to be without history. He remembers his late friend Seamus Heaney and enthuses about Edward Thomas and Philip Larkin. They talk of teaching poetry - Glyn was once Derek's student. He reads some of his own poems and, from memory, a sad and beautiful lyric by Walter de la Mare. The surf and the tropical rain make their own calypso music. Producer: Tim Dee.
SUNDAY 20 JULY 2014
SUN 00:00 Midnight News (b049xc4f)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
SUN 00:30 The Food of Love (b01k9npn)
Cake
In this series of monologues exploring the link between food and memory, poignant domestic dramas gradually unfold through the preparation of a special recipe.
In the first story by Helen Simpson, powerful memories are evoked when a mother bakes a birthday cake for her daughter, now no longer a child.
Helen Simpson is a novelist and hugely acclaimed short story writer. Her first collection, 'Four Bare Legs in a Bed and Other Stories', won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, while her book 'Hey Yeah Right Get a Life', a series of interlinked stories, won the Hawthornden Prize. She was one of Granta's twenty Best of Young British Novelists campaign in 1993, and is currently a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
The next story in the series comes from Kevin Barry, who won this year's Sunday Times short story award. Barry's first novel, 'City of Bohane', was shortlisted for the Costa first novel award, and a previous short story collection, 'There Are Little Kingdoms', won the Rooney prize for Irish Literature. In Barry's story, an insurance clerk of a certain age recreates the romantic spaghetti bolognese he cooked for the lass in the typing pool on his last date - some thirty years before...
The final story in the series is by Aminatta Forna, the award-winning author of two novels: 'The Memory of Love and Ancestor Stones'. In her story, a man struggles to cook for a young child after a terrible loss.
Producer: Justine Willett
Reader: Stella Gonet.
SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b049xc4h)
The latest shipping forecast.
SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b049xc4k)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at
5.20am.
SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b049xc4m)
The latest shipping forecast.
SUN 05:30 News Briefing (b049xc4p)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (b049xfjn)
St Chad's, Shrewsbury
The bells of St. Chad's Church in Shrewsbury, Shropshire.
SUN 05:45 Profile (b049xc02)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 News Headlines (b049xc4r)
The latest national and international news.
SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b049xfjq)
Independently Dependent
Living alone, as a mature person, can result in creating an almost invisible protective guard and an apparent lack of any need to trust or be dependent on others. Then the promise of starting a new relationship throws into question all sorts of assumptions and expectations about oneself and about the other.
The actress Felicity Finch reflects on the idea of how to be independently dependent, with reference to the relationship of John Bayley and Iris Murdoch and the composer Johannes Brahms' life-long devotion to Clara Schumann, his musical mentor's concert-pianist wife.
Produced by Alan Hall.
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
Today's programme was presented by Felicity Finch
The readers were Tara Hugo and Steven Crossley
The interviewee was Marianne Ihlen
Readings:
Title: A Marriage
Author: Michael Blumenthal
Synopsis: Poem exmploring how a couple can find their way of living together
Title: A Personal Touch
Author: Simon Armitage
Synopsis: A couple's search for 'space'
Title: Listen
Author: Alice Walker
Synopsis: An exploration of interdependence
Title: Stag's Leap
Author: Sharon Olds
Synopsis: Exploring a complex admiration for the escapes of others
Title: Fair Play
Author: Tove Jansson
Synopsis: Two partners who work and live side by side explore independent dependence
Title: Iris
Author: John Bayley
Synopsis: Exploring how "the closeness of apartness" became the "closeness of closeness"
Music
Title: Romance
Composer: Amy Beach
Performer: David Halen
Label: AAM Records
Album: Salut d'Amour: Romantic Works for Violin and Piano
Title: Living Through It All
Performer: Stanley Turrentine and Shirley Scott
Label: Blue Note
Album: Common Touch
Title: No Fear of Falling
Performer: I am Kloot
Label: Virgin
Album: Natural History
Title: The Kiss
Performer: Judee Sill
Label: Water Music Records
Album: Heart Food
Title: So Long Marianne
Performer: Leonard Cohen
Label: Sundazed
Album: Songs of Leonard Cohen
Title: Love Will Tear Us Apart
Performer: Susanna and the Magical Orchestra
Label: Magnetic
Album: Ram Café Lounge and Chillout, Vol. 2
Title: Opus 119, No. 1
Composer: Johannes Brahms
Performer: Radu Lupu
Label: Decca
Album: Brahms: 2 Rhapsodies, Op. 79/Klavierstucke, Opp. 117 - 119.
SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (b049xhfb)
Commonwealth Games Athlete
Eighteen year old Samantha Kinghorn was partially paralysed four years ago in an accident on the family farm. As part of her rehabilitation, she took up wheelchair racing. Now she's preparing to represent Scotland in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Sybil Ruscoe meets her and her family on the farm in the Scottish borders. She hears how life has changed since the accident, and discovers that Sam still works on the farm, combining shifts in the lambing shed with her athletic training schedule. Sam also demonstrates the training equipment she uses, built by her father using bits of old combine harvester!
SUN 06:57 Weather (b049xc4t)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 07:00 News and Papers (b049xc4w)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 07:10 Sunday (b049xhfd)
Catholics in World War I; Commonwealth Games; What makes a good death?
Samira Ahmed talks to the Auxiliary Bishop Hendriks of Haarlem, Amsterdam ahead of a special Catholic service on Sunday to offer prayers and support for families who have lost people in the Malaysian air crash.
Continuing our series on World War One we hear from Bishop Richard Moth , Bishop to the Forces, he looks at the Catholic Church's response to the war and in particular to the role of Pope Benedict XV who described the war as "the suicide of Europe".
We hear the views of young people taking part in the first child-led inquiry examining child poverty in the UK, 16-year-old panel member Yousef tells Samira his experience of growing up in a deprived area and what's inspired him to do something about it.
Kevin Bocquet reports from the Athletes' Village as competitors arrive for the Commonwealth Games and talks to Chaplains who have been recruited to look after the spiritual needs of competitors and explores the relationship between religion and sport.
Yvonne Colgan talks about how she accompanied her son to Switzerland to take his own life. She explains why the assisted dying bill does not go far enough. Baroness Julia Neuberger, Revd Dr Brendan McCarthy and Hindu writer Ranchor Prime discuss what it means to have a "good death".
Will Nicky Morgan the new education minister be in favour of Religious Education? Ed Pawson, Chair of National Association of Teachers of Religious Education tells Samira what the wish list is for people on the ground.
Producers
Carmel Lonergan
Dan Tierney
Editor
Amanda Hancox
Contributors
Auxiliary Bishop Hendriks of Haarlem, Amsterdam
Yvonne Colgan
Baroness Julia Neuberger
Revd Dr Brendan McCarthy
Ranchor Prime.
SUN 07:55 Radio 4 Appeal (b049xhfg)
Anti-Slavery International
Hugh Quarshie presents The Radio 4 Appeal for Anti-Slavery International.
Registered Charity: 1049160
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal, mark the back of the envelope ' Anti-Slavery International '.
SUN 07:57 Weather (b049xc4y)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 08:00 News and Papers (b049xc50)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (b049xhfl)
Marking the Commonwealth Games from Gorbals Parish Church, Glasgow.
As tens of thousands of athletes and spectators start to descend on Glasgow close to the Church, the Minister, the Rev Ian Galloway, explores what it means to be a welcoming city and how the Games focus our minds on what kind of excellence we aim for.
With the Gorbals congregation and singers of Glasgow University Chapel Choir directed by James Grossmith, accompanied by Andrew Forbes.
Producer: Mo McCullough.
SUN 08:48 A Point of View (b0499sph)
Believing in reason is childish
Some critics of religion see having faith as being childish. But John Gray argues that believing that human beings are rational is more childish than believing in religion. The belief in the power of reason to improve humankind rests on childishly simple ideas he says. One of the commonest is that history's crimes are mistakes that can be avoided as we gain greater knowledge. But if history teaches us anything, Grey asserts, it's that behaviours and attitudes like cruelty and hatred are permanent human flaws. To imagine that we can become more rational is an example of magical thinking and an expression of the belief in the omnipotence of the human will that psychoanalysts identify as the fundamental infantile fantasy. John Gray believes that we'd all be better off if we saw ourselves as we are: intermittently and only ever partly rational creatures, who never really grow up.
SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b02tw750)
House Martin
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the house martin.
House martins are often confused with swallows , but look shorter-tailed and lack the rusty throats. They're compact birds which build their with pellets of mud under our eaves and although they're so familiar to us in summer, we still can't be certain where they spend the winter. Ornithologists believe that they may spend our winter catching insects high over African rainforests.
SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (b049xk43)
Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (b049xk45)
Tony's feeling guilty. Roy's got a challenge for Elizabeth. Helen's on tenterhooks.
SUN 11:15 Desert Island Discs (b049xtjk)
Doug Allan
Doug Allan is Kirsty's castaway this week.
He's spent thirty-five years capturing unique footage of animals in some of the most remote and least hospitable places on earth. If you've watched fuzzy little polar bear cubs frolic in the frozen wilderness or slick killer whales eerily circling their prey, the spellbinding footage is his. David Attenborough, a long- time collaborator describes his work, simply, as "extraordinary".
A trained biologist he first made a living diving into the icy rivers of Scotland searching among the mussel-beds for pearls; a useful early lesson in patience and coping with the cold. His subsequent dedication to a working life in the wilderness has bagged him a slew of Baftas and Emmys but there's also been an emotional toll - he's coped with periods of depression and is twice divorced.
He says, "Big animals are my passion. I particularly love working with large mammals because they're intelligent and you can develop a relationship with them"
And he's at his happiest at -18 degrees centigrade!
SUN 12:00 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b04969b3)
Series 61
Episode 3
The nation's favourite wireless entertainment pays a visit to the Assembly Hall in Worthing. Regulars Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by Harry Hill, with Jack Dee in the chair. Colin Sell provides piano accompaniment.
Producer - Jon Naismith.
SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (b049xtjm)
Salad leaves
It's boom time in the world of lettuce and salad leaves. More leafy greens were sold in the UK last year than ever before, and that upward trend looks set to continue - driven in particular by bags and bowls of pre-prepared leaves. In this edition of The Food Programme, Dan Saladino goes on a journey into this fast-changing world of leaves - from how they are grown and packaged, to the ongoing hunt for new leaves.
Dan discovers how one particular type of lettuce with roots in 19th-century America changed food forever, he encounters a man who travels the globe searching for the next 'hero leaf' - and learns secrets about preparing and growing.
Along the way he'll meet pioneering chefs René Redzepi and David Everitt-Matthias, US food writer Irene Sax, greengrocer Charlie Hicks, as well as gardener and writer Mark Diacono.
SUN 12:57 Weather (b049xc54)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (b049xtjp)
Shaun Ley presents national and international news, including an in-depth look at events around the world. Email: wato@bbc.co.uk; twitter: #theworldthisweekend.
SUN 13:30 The War Widows of Afghanistan (b049xtjr)
Lisa and Jacqui live in Britain, Tajbibe and Marzia live in Afghanistan. Their lives are very different but they have one thing in common - they were all widowed by the same war.
Their husbands were among the estimated 13000 Afghan soldiers and 453 British soldiers who have died in the war against the Taliban, which began in 2001 and which draws to an official close with the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan this year.
Zarghuna Kargar hears how the lives of all four women changed the moment they received the news of their husbands' sudden deaths, how they have coped in the aftermath and what they feel about war today.
Reporter Zarghuna Kargar
Produced by Mukti Jain Campion
A Culture Wise production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b0499snv)
Correspondence at Sparsholt
Peter Gibbs hosts from the GQT potting shed at Sparsholt College as the panel tackle listeners' questions sent in by post, email and social media.
Produced by Victoria Shepherd
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
This week's questions and answers:
Q. Any suggestions for suitable plants to brighten up an office with no natural light and 24-hour air conditioning?
A. With no natural light and only strip lighting, any plant will struggle. You could try using strips of LED lights to improve your chances. Try Mediterranean plants in big pots; Lemon Trees and Olive trees might work. Try Hibiscus, Bougainvillea and Clivia.
Q. I inherited a delicate pink rose from my grandfather. After years of keeping it in a greenhouse, it is eight foot high but struggling to flower and is losing its leaves, which are covered in cobwebs and dusty mould. How can I save it?
A. If it has been growing in a pot, try putting it in the ground. Burst it into growth and then take long cuttings and try those in the ground outside. It might not need to be grown in a greenhouse after all. Keep it well fed and watered and try to identify the dusty mould which can be treated with chemicals. The webs might be down to spider mites, which can cause damage to the plant. Identify and treat all the plant's ailments before taking cuttings.
Q. Why do the Tomatoes, Courgettes and Peppers I grow in clay pots need more watering than the ones I grow in plastic pots? I am based in the Pennines and am growing them in a greenhouse.
A. The clay pots are losing water via evaporation. The best way to grow these plants would be in black plastic posts on good quality capillary matting.
Q. Is it possible to grow Mecanopsis in East London?
A. Anything is possible, but it is very difficult.
Q. What flower seeds can the panel recommend for a woodland garden that is fifteen by twenty meters wide? I want plants that will flower in the later half of the summer.
A. There aren't many annuals that like shade, so try perennials like Martagon Lilies, Japanese Anemones and autumn bulbs like Corchicums. Fox Gloves such as Illumination Pink should work. White Willow Herb grows well in these conditions, as do Herbaceous Geraniums, Laniums, Paniculata Hydrangeas, Golden Philadelphia, Macarisms and Epimediums.
Q. Any recommendations for a climbing plant on a south-facing wall? Something that won't damage the brickwork - and evergreen would be a bonus.
A. Trachelospermums are wonderful plants with beautiful scented flowers. Wall shrubs like Cytisus battandieri (Pineapple Broom) would be great and wouldn't damage the wall. Itea Ilicifolia are graceful wall shrubs. Banksia Roses have amazing flowers and grow tall. Espalier Pears could work well as could Pyracantha or Clematis Armandii.
Q. Why do some Poinsettias survive with little attention and others die despite a lot of work?
A. You can keep them alive, but they will never be quite the same as when you bought them.
SUN 14:45 The Listening Project (b049xtjt)
Sunday Omnibus
Fi Glover introduces conversations from Devon, Wales and Cumbria about losing your sight but holding on to your appearance, the power of scouting to break down cultural barriers, and whether we help animals or they help us.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Marya Burgess.
SUN 15:00 Classic Serial (b049xtjw)
By a Young Officer: Churchill on the North West Frontier
Douglas Booth stars as the young Winston Churchill. The year is 1897 and news is just reaching London that Islamic insurgents are causing havoc in the mountainous border between British India and Afghanistan.
Written by Michael Eaton
Director: Dirk Maggs
Producer: David Morley
A Perfectly Normal production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 16:00 Open Book (b049xtjy)
Tom Campbell and Nikesh Shukla
Alex Clark talks to Tom Campbell and Nikesh Shukla about the challenge of writing about today's alienated young men - continuing in a tradition of such classic British novels as Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim and Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. How are this new generation of male youth, shaped by social media, lack of affordable housing and challenging employment prospects, being interpreted on the page by today's writers?
Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola was introduced to the West by T S Eliot, championed by Dylan Thomas and likened to Virginia Woolf. As his novels are reissued, Nigerian writer and blogger Chikodili Emelumadu considers the controversy his popularity abroad caused in his native Nigeria when he was first published in the 1950s and assesses the continuing literary merit of his work.
With commemorations of the First World War rippling around the globe, we turn our gaze to the place where it all began, the cultural melting pot that is Sarajevo. Continuing our series of writers' postcards from around the literary globe, Andrea Lesic from Sarajevo University, in a special recording from the Sarajevo Musuem of Literature and Theatre, gives the lowdown on Bosnian books.
SUN 16:27 The Verse That Stings (b049xtk0)
Ian Hislop celebrates the sharp, deflating barbs of Alexander Pope and the 18th Century satirists, 300 years since the publication of The Rape of the Lock.
Ian first came across Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift and the poems of the 18th Century Scriblerus club at school and later studied them at university. He was struck by these rude, offensive and funny poems about the government, the aristocracy and the machinations of power.
As the editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye, Ian views a direct line between his work and Pope's biting satire. Pope and his circle of literary friends debated how offensive their satires should be and whether or not to name and shame subjects.
Ian meets Armando Iannucci, the creator of television satires including The Thick Of It and Veep, who compares the rhythms of Alexander Pope's couplets to the comedian's perfect punch line.
Ian visits Hampton Court Palace, the setting of the long poem that made Pope's name, The Rape of The Lock. Professor Judith Hawley of Royal Holloway University, helps uncover its true story of a trivial confrontation between two leading Catholics of the time.
Professor Edith Hall of Kings College London describes how Pope and the Scriblerians were in awe of Juvenal, Rome's most vitriolic satirist. And Christopher Reid, author of Six Bad Poets a farce in verse about London's literary establishment, explains why some poets are reluctant to write satires today.
Producer: Paul Smith
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 16:55 1914: Day by Day (b049xtk2)
20th July
The French President arrives on a state visit to Russia.
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First world war. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Margaret Macmillan is professor of international history at Oxford University.
Presenter and Writer: Margaret Macmillan
Assistant Producers: Phil Smith and Carly Maile
Researcher: Dawn Berry
Music: Sacha Puttnam
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Broadcast Assistant: Hannah Newton
Development Consultant: Catriona Pennell
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak
Jane Whittenshaw
Producer: Russell Finch
Executive Producer: Joby Waldman
A Somethin' Else Production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 17:00 File on 4 (b049828l)
Childhood Cancer
Every year more than 1,500 UK children are diagnosed with cancer.
For some the outlook is good but for those struck down by one of the rarer cancers, the prognosis can be a bleak one.
Two hundred and fifty children die each year from the disease.
Parents have told File on 4 there is a worrying lack of research into new drugs for childhood cancers, with youngsters sometimes offered treatments which have hardly changed in the last forty years - treatments that can have a limited chance of success and which can cause fatal, serious and life-long side-effects for those lucky enough to survive.
In the battle to get the most up-to-date treatments for children with some of the most aggressive cancers, increasing numbers of families say they are forced to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds to travel abroad to take part in pioneering drugs trials elsewhere.
Meanwhile UK researchers say they face a constant battle for funding. They also warn of a loophole in European regulations which they say stops break-through drugs that have been developed for adult cancer sufferers, being developed to benefit children.
As science takes the treatment and understanding of disease to new levels, Jane Deith asks whether enough is being done to give children a fighting chance.
Reporter: Jane Deith
Producer: Nicola Dowling.
SUN 17:40 Profile (b049xc02)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b049xc56)
The latest shipping forecast.
SUN 17:57 Weather (b049xc58)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b049xc5b)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (b049xyht)
In today's Pick Charlotte Smith hears some of the highs and lows of this week's radio. We hear the highs, well almost, in an investigation of the karaoke scene in Portland, Oregon, and the lows couldn't be lower as we join a journey to the deepest depths of the Pacific Ocean. There's also the Glasgow charm offensive ahead of the Commonwealth Games, an attack of the giggles on 6Music, and the worlds biggest unknown guitarist.
Newsbeat (Radio 1, All-Week)
Harold Bradley - The World's Biggest Unknown Guitarist (Radio 2, 14 July)
The Essay: Homage to Caledonia (Radio 3, All-Week)
The Documentary: Back to Charm School (World Service, 15 July)
On Your Farm (Radio 4, 20 July)
Into the Abyss (Radio 4, 16 July)
Book of the Week: Last Man Off (Radio 4, All-Week)
Don't Make Me Laugh (Radio 4, 17 July)
Chris Hawkins Early Breakfast (6Music, All-Week)
World Agony (Radio 4, 14 July)
Gone to Earth (Radio 4, 16 July)
The Verb (Radio3, 18 July)
Doing It the Milton Keynes Way (Radio 4, 14 July)
Karaoke As Art? (Radio 4, 15 July)
Playing the Skyline (Radio 4, 14 July).
SUN 19:00 The Archers (b049xyhw)
Hayley reminds Roy about Abbie's end of year show. It's important that Roy speaks to Elizabeth to get some time off to attend. Hayley's concerned that she and Roy have barely seen each other recently.
Peggy feels for Helen after Rob's parents stood them up at dinner. Peggy has always worried about Helen but sees Rob as an ideal husband. Jennifer comments on how awful it must be to have a dysfunctional family. Keen to promote her kitchen soirée, Jennifer gives Peggy her invitation.
Peggy is impatient to go inside for today's service, as Jennifer pushes her for details about John Tregorran's funeral service on Friday.
Roy is annoyed with Elizabeth for agreeing to host John Tregorran's funeral party without consulting him. He senses that Elizabeth doesn't want to be alone with him. Elizabeth snaps at Roy, just as Hayley walks in. Roy plays it down.
Jill and Jennifer talk about Carol Tregorran. Jill will be reading a poem for the vigil. Jennifer is keen to help with flowers with for the service. It's the least she can do. Peggy voices her concern. Has Jennifer honestly got time to get involved, and what does Brian think? She warns Jennifer not to be presumptuous, but Jennifer claims that Jill seemed happy for her to help.
SUN 19:15 John Shuttleworth's Lounge Music (b049xyhy)
Series 1
Heaven 17
Since the mid-1980s, aspiring singer/songwriter, John Shuttleworth has been posting audio cassettes of his 'finest songs to date' to pop stars throughout the land, in the hope that someone would record his material. But all to no avail.
However, the BBC has very kindly given John a series and asked him to invite pop starts to bring their music to his Sheffield home. So it is that Chas and Dave, Heaven 17, Toyah Wilcox and Leee John find themselves in John's lounge having tea with wife Mary, being flirted with by Mary's friend Joan and hassled by John's agent Ken Worthington, as they try and perform not only one their greatest hits but more importantly, one of John's.
This week John is in a fluster as Kirsty the scottie dog has eaten the tape with all John's jingles on it - so he's having to play them all live and is worried they may all go wrong.
Mary has been complaining that the music is too loud - although she doesn't seem to mind when Heaven 17 are playing. And is that a lemon drizzle cake she's brought for them?
As Glenn and Martyn settle down to play one of their songs, Come Live With Me, Joan Chitty arrives and quite likes the sound of the title. So while John is fretting that the maths in the song lyrics are all wrong, Joan asks if the boys can give her a massage to ease her sciatica.
All this, along with Tina Charles telling John how to sing very high in Top Tips on the Telephone, leaves time short for Ken in the Konservatory - will it happen?
Written and Performed by Graham Fellows with special guests Heaven 17 and Tina Charles.
Producer: Dawn Ellis
A Chic Ken production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 19:45 Annika Stranded (b049xyj0)
Series 2
All Human Life
Annika Strandhed is a leading light in the murder squad of the Oslo police. Her neuroses - and she has a few - are mostly hidden by a boisterous manner and a love of speedboats. As fictional Scandinavian detectives go, she's not as astute as Sarah Lund or Saga Norén, perhaps, but probably better company.
In this second series of stories by Nick Walker - commissioned specially for Radio 4 - Annika is learning to juggle the demands of policing the Oslofjord with a new challenge. Namely, single motherhood.
Episode 3 (of 3): All Human Life
Frogner Park had always been a place of happy associations for Annika - until three men were found dead at the base of its famous monolith.
Nick Walker is the author of two critically-acclaimed novels, Blackbox and Helloland. His plays and short stories are often featured on BBC Radio 4, including Arnold In A Purple Haze (2009), the First King of Mars stories (2007 - 2010), the Afternoon Drama Life Coach (2010) and the stories Dig Yourself (2011) and The Indivisible (2012). The first series of Annika Stranded was broadcast in 2013.
Reader: Nicola Walker
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 20:00 Feedback (b0499sp1)
On Thursday, the BBC announced 415 jobs losses from its news department. The job cuts are to save money after the last licence fee agreement left the BBC needing to find £800 million in efficiency savings. But what do the cuts mean for radio news? Roger Bolton asks the BBC's Director of News, James Harding.
And amid accusations of bias on both sides, Roger speaks to the World News Editor, Andrew Roy, about whether the BBC is sufficiently impartial in its coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Also this week, hard hitting journalism isn't only for Radio 4. As Radio 1 celebrates 40 years of documentary-making and its Newsbeat programme, we'll be asking some of its young listeners for their views on its documentaries. The Radio 1 and 1Xtra Stories are an hour long and cover anything from domestic violence and teacher-pupil relationships to the lifestyles of the rich and famous. But are they too long for the audience? Is there too much music? We put those questions to Radio 1 Commissioning Editor Piers Bradford and Chloe Straw, an Executive Producer from the independent production company Somethin' Else.
Producer: Will Yates
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 20:30 Last Word (b0499snz)
Elaine Stritch, Nadine Gordimer, Michael Scudamore and Lorin Maazel
Matthew Bannister on
The formidable actress Elaine Stritch. Famous for her remarkable voice, witty put downs and hard drinking youth, she was known as "The First Lady of Broadway".
The South African novelist Nadine Gordimer, whose work embodied the complex story of the nation's struggle with race.
The jockey and trainer Michael Scudamore, who competed in 16 consecutive Grand Nationals, winning in 1959 on a horse called Oxo.
And the conductor Lorin Maazel, who was a child prodigy and went on to direct some of the world's greatest orchestras.
SUN 21:00 Face the Facts (b0499dl7)
Filling the Autism Gap
John Waite investigates why scientists say autism research receives a fraction of the funding invested in other conditions and that as a consequence, there are very few effective interventions to treat the disorder. Meanwhile, parents of autistic children say they face a long wait for treatment provided by their local authority, and have instead turned to unproven methods offered by nutritionists and psychotherapists.
Presenter:John Waite
Producer:Richard Hooper
Editor:Andrew Smith.
SUN 21:26 Radio 4 Appeal (b049xhfg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:55 today]
SUN 21:30 Analysis (b0496bgc)
The End of the Pay Rise?
Something strange has been happening in the British economy. For over six years now, wages have fallen for most of us, which is unprecedented in British modern history. And despite the return of economic growth, wages still have not picked up.
What has happened? And crucially is this a long term problem - is this the end of the pay rise? Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, explores the mystery of our falling wages and finds out how it is related to how productive we are, but also to how wages themselves are shared out between the top earners and the rest of us.
Producer: Estelle Doyle
Contributors:
** Nikki King, Honorary Chairman, Isuzu Trucks UK
** Andy Haldane, chief economist, Central Bank of England
** Jonathan Haskel, Professor of Economics, Imperial College Business School
** Paul Gregg, Professor of Economic and social policy, University of Bath
** Nick Crafts, Professor of Economic History, Warwick University
** Andrew Sentance, former member of Central Bank MPC
** Matt Whitaker, Chief Economist, Resolution Foundation
** Nicola Smith, Trade Union Congress
** Sarah Collyer, Peter Murphy, Hillary Rogers from Isuzu Trucks UK.
SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (b049xyj2)
Weekly political discussion and analysis with MPs, experts and commentators.
SUN 22:45 What the Papers Say (b049xyj4)
Hugh Muir of the Guardian looks at how newspapers covered the week's big stories.
SUN 23:00 1914: Day by Day (b049xyj6)
1914: Day by Day - Omnibus
Episode 3
Rumours spread about Austria-Hungary's planned ultimatum to Serbia. The French are shocked by revelations that their army has a shortage of artillery. A meeting of Suffragettes is attacked by a mob and the British fleet gathers for the naval review by the King.
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First world war. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Margaret Macmillan is professor of international history at Oxford University.
Presenter and Writer: Margaret Macmillan
Researcher: Dawn Berry
Music: Sacha Puttnam
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Broadcast Assistant: Hannah Newton
Development Consultant: Catriona Pennell
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak, Jane Whittenshaw
Producer: Russell Finch
Executive Producer: Joby Waldman
Assistant Producers: Phil Smith and Carly Maile
A Somethin' Else Production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b049xfjq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:05 today]
MONDAY 21 JULY 2014
MON 00:00 Midnight News (b049xc6c)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (b0499dlh)
Rio, Protests and the World Cup; Dying in Prison
Rio, protests and the World Cup. Laurie Taylor talks to Jessica Leigh Glass, graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at Georgia State University, about her research into the street protests taking place in Rio since June 2013. Initially arising in reaction to a hike in public transport fares, the protests broadened to target wider social inequalities, expenditure on multi-million dollar projects ahead of the 2014 World Cup & the 2016 Olympics and the clearing of some favelas. What is the impact of such sporting 'mega-events' on the people who live in the host cities.? They're joined by Professor Anthony King from the University of Exeter.
Also, men dying in prison. Marian Peacock, Senior Research Associate in the Faculty of Health and Medicine at Lancaster University, discusses the increasing number of elderly men - many of whom are sex offenders - who may end their lives in jail.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (b049xfjn)
[Repeat of broadcast at
05:43 on Sunday]
MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b049xc6f)
The latest shipping forecast.
MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b049xc6l)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b049xc6n)
The latest shipping forecast.
MON 05:30 News Briefing (b049xc6q)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04brc1c)
A short reflection and prayer with Canon Simon Doogan.
MON 05:45 Farming Today (b049xzlg)
Farming the Four Corners of the UK
It's a time of significant change for farming. This month has seen a double ministerial reshuffle, with new appointments in both England and Wales. Meanwhile, the finer details of reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy are still being worked out. Following the devolution of agriculture in 1998 there are different rules in different parts of the UK. All this week Farming Today is looking at how farming's faring in the four corners of the United Kingdom. In today's programme we hear from spokesmen from all four of the main farming unions.
Presented by Sybil Ruscoe and produced by Emma Campbell.
MON 05:56 Weather (b049xc70)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b0378wy3)
Common Redstart
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Michaela Strachan presents the common redstart. Redstarts are summer visitors from sub-Saharan Africa. The males are very handsome birds, robin-sized, but with a black mask, white forehead and an orange tail. John Buxton gave us a fascinating insight into their lives when, as a prisoner of war in Germany, he made a study of them.
MON 06:00 Today (b049y3m7)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.
MON 09:00 Playing the Skyline (b049y3m9)
Series 1
Port Talbot: Kizzy Crawford and Gwilym Simcock
On old nautical charts as well as the bird's eye view there is often a coastal profile - the outline of the land seen from the point of view of a sailor approaching it. Radio producer Julian May was struck by the musicality of these, the undulations of hills are melodic, the spacing of landmarks - trees, church spires - rhythmic. Musicians could, he thought, take the line dividing sky from land, place it on manuscript paper, and play the skyline.
Half a dozen prominent musicians are intrigued by this, including jazz musician Courtney Pine; the Scottish composer James MacMillan; Julie Fowlis, leading light of Gaelic song; and Anna Meredith, who was commissioned to create a piece for the Last Night of the Proms.
For Radio 4 Tim Marlow presents three programmes, in England, Wales and Scotland, in which two musicians look at the skyline, talk about their initial responses, then create a piece of music each - playing their skyline. He hears how they are getting along then the musicians, Tim (and Radio 4's listeners) hear for the finished pieces, and consider what they have made.
In the second programme the singer and song writer Kizzy Crawford and pianist Gwilym Simcock create new pieces inspired by the outline against the sky of Port Talbot, seen from the sea. The town, the hills beyond and the steelworks encapsulate the geography and history of Wales.
Kizzy Crawford is eighteen, of Welsh and Bajan heritage, a singer and songwriter at home in English and Welsh. Gwilym Simcock is a Welsh pianist who composes classical pieces, and improvises, too,
They meet Tim Marlow aboard the Seren y Mor (Star of the Sea) looking from out at sea at Port Talbot, whose skyline they will make into music and song.
Producers: Julian May and Benedict Warren.
MON 09:30 World Agony (b049y3mc)
India
Irma Kurtz, Cosmopolitan magazine's Agony Aunt for over 40 years, talks to a different agony aunt from around the world for each programme in this series.
She speaks to Aunts from America, India, Australia, Egypt and South Africa, and reflects on the universal and contrasting problems that occur in their particular society. These Aunts, many of whom have dramatic personal lives themselves, offer advice in newspaper columns, on radio phone-ins and on-line.
Irma draws on her ample experience to offer a useful perspective on their approach to problem solving. Together they discuss the problems specific to their communities and listeners hear examples of some of the letters they receive and the advice given.
Programme 2: Bachi Kakaria, India.
Irma talks Bachi Kakaria, who writes her advice column Giving Gyan in two Indian newspapers, the Mumbai Mirror and the Bangalore Mirror.
Giving Gyan translates roughly as 'laying it on the line', and Bachi certainly does that. This is a very different style of agony aunting to the one we're used to. She is level headed and empathetic but doesn't wrap her advice in any sentiment, as her strap line intimates: 'There are agony aunts and then there's Bachi, she'll sort you out'.
Her qualifications, she says, are none - other than a close observation of life, personal and professional. Her post bag reflects the concerns particularly of young people who, after years of Indian socialism, have been plunged into consumerism. On the one hand there is liberalism and, on the other, conservatism - so there is confusion and conflict in the minds of India's young.
Produced by Ronni Davis
A White Pebble Media production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 09:45 Book of the Week (b049y3mf)
Deep
Doorway to the Deep
In his book, 'Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves', American journalist James Nestor investigates the world of freediving, both competitive and scientific.
He learns how to stay underwater for extended periods; goes shark-tagging; has a close encounter with sperm whales; plunges to 2,500 feet in a DIY submarine; unveils startling facets of human physiology – most notably the extraordinary life-preserving reflexes known as the Master Switch of Life.
And we learn about the old and new life-forms that inhabit our deep oceans – a habitat with the greatest biodiversity on earth, yet most of it remains unknown.
Abridged and produced by Pippa Vaughan.
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (b049y3mh)
Sharing holidays; Commonwealth sportswomen; Supporting mothers when children end up in care
The pitfalls of holidaying with friends who don't share the same approach to parenting. With the opening of the Commonwealth Games just days away, who are the key sportswomen to keep an eye on? A mother's experience of seeing four of her children taken into care because of her lifestyle, and the project that's addressing the problems of other women like her. How botany has evolved and what it's taught us with scientist Professor Kathy Willis.
MON 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b049y3mk)
The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles: Series 6
Episode 1
The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles - Series 6 - Ep1/5
by Esther Wilson
Return of award winning 15' drama series about a young married couple with learning disabilities, starring Donna Lavin and Edmund Davies, actors with learning disabilities. Based on true stories and created in part through improvisation, this comic and heartfelt series sees Darleen pursue her desire to help people less able than herself; she wants to move to a village created solely for adults with learning disabilities. Husband, Jamie, however, has no intention wants no such thing.
Darleen Fyles ........ Donna Lavin
Jamie ......... Edmund Davies
Treena ....... Siobhan Finneran
Bob ...... Cark Cockram
Stacey ...... Ashley Ogden
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.
MON 11:00 The Paper Commonwealth (b049y3mm)
As the director-elect of the Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge, Dr Joya Chatterji explores the remarkable archives at her disposal to find out what they reveal about the tense negotiations to bring India and Pakistan - the first non-white dominions of the British empire - into the Commonwealth. And how the 'old Commonwealth' - Australia, Canada and South Africa -respond to the inclusion of the 'new Commonwealth' into that union. And about the key role played by South Africa in the aftermath of the Boer War - from its white supremacist standpoint - and how it was ultimately brought to heel by the Commonwealth itself.
From the early history of this lasting institution to the plotting of so-called allies, the deep mistrust between India and Pakistan, their zealous attempts to contain mass migration, and prevent the return home of migrants, all produced ingredients that went into the making of the Commonwealth as we know it today. Desperate memos, letters home to relatives and other writings during these times bring the process to life.
Such was the birth of the new Commonwealth in 1947. Today it includes 53 independent countries.
Radio 4 listeners will enjoy the human detail and the horse trading that show that international politics were just a complicated then as they are now. As the news fills with stories from the Glasgow Games, we can stifle a smile in the knowledge that it nearly all didn't happen, while thinking also of the people whose lives were caught up in, and shaped by, its creation.
Producer: Mohini Patel.
MON 11:30 Bad Salsa (b049y3mp)
Series 1
All Change
After treatment for Ovarian and breast cancer Chippy, is mad Jill is sad and Terri is definitely dangerous to know! The road back after cancer treatment can be tricky and full of obstacles. In Bad Salsa, two middle aged women and their younger friend seek to regain their zest for life and love by learning to dance at Bad Salsa, the club where everyone knows your name but no-one knows your prognosis!
Depictions of people with cancer on TV and radio too often follow a standard format; there is the diagnosis, the depression the chemo, then the false recovery followed by the tragic death.
Bad Salsa tries to paint a picture at once more hopeful and more in line with survival rates which have improved immensely over the past twenty years. For many, 'living with cancer' is now their day to day challenge. The characters in the series have finished their treatment and are in the process of finding their way back to normal life or at least finding a "new normal." As in the real world, the challenges of everyday life go on for our characters; like us they have boring marriages, distracting crushes, troublesome children, difficult workmates and infuriating parents, but unlike us their brush with mortality has given them a new perspective. The fun and excitement of the series is in watching them decide to preserve the pre-cancer status quo or in Terri's words, to say "sod it all" and "go for it!"
The series follows the women as they embrace the world of salsa whilst they adjust to life after cancer.
Writer ..... Kay Stonham
Producer ..... Alison Vernon-Smith.
MON 12:00 You and Yours (b049y6c3)
Classic Cars, Care on the Continent and Graphology
NHS England publishes a review of how hospitals are rated by patients and their relatives.
Insurers have been writing to Classic Car owners to tell them they're in danger of being underinsured.
How the European Health Insurance Card has changed - and how it could affect you this summer.
Can you tell whether or not a person is suited to a job by analysing their handwriting?
More on why some potential customers were told they couldn't buy the VW Golf they wanted.
3 months on - how are the new mortgage tests affecting borrowers?
How car insurance firms could be able to keep a closer eye on you.
Does the latest attempt to cut illegal music downloads live up to the promises of the past?
MON 12:57 Weather (b049xc75)
The latest weather forecast.
MON 13:00 World at One (b049y6c5)
Edward Stourton presents national and international news.
MON 13:45 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b048s4tn)
A Rose by Any Other Name
The 18th-century's age of travel and enlightenment meant that a vast influx of newly discovered plants into Europe was creating a botanical tower of Babel. No common language for plants and a wealth of long and localised names made communication about plant species often impossible. Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus dedicated his life to developing a proper system of naming and placing plants into a new ordered hierarchy.
Professor Kathy Willis launches the series by talking to Jim Endersby, historian at Sussex University, who argues that Linnaeus' system of plant classification established the roots of botany as we now know it and revolutionised the economics and movement of plant species and their riches across the globe, and how they are referred to.
She speaks with Linnaean archivist Gina Douglas and learns how in 1753 his System Naturae placed plants into a hierarchy of relationships based on the number of reproductive organs, in the hope of uncovering the machinery of nature. Whilst much of what Linnaeus developed has now been superseded by a more natural system of classification, his method of naming still dominates today.
Producer: Adrian Washbourne
Presenter: Kathy Willis is director of science at Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. She is also professor of long-term ecology and a fellow of Merton College, both at Oxford University. Winner of several awards, she has spent over 20 years researching and teaching biodiversity and conservation at Oxford and Cambridge.
MON 14:00 The Archers (b049xyhw)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Sunday]
MON 14:15 Drama (b049y9pb)
It Takes Two to Lie
Crime drama by Isabelle Grey. When Des takes Nabil hostage while attempting to rob the local Pawnbroker's Shop, things don't go quite the way he had imagined. As he tries to lie his way out of the situation, student Nabil forces him to face up to the truth. But what if you've forgotten what the truth is?
The writer
Isabelle Grey's most recent television drama is 'Tina's Story', an episode of Accused written with Jimmy McGovern. She has contributed to numerous drama series, including The Bill, Casualty, Wycliffe, Rosemary & Thyme and Midsomer Murders. Her third novel will be published in October. This is her first radio drama.
CAST
Des ..... Gerard McDermott
Nabil ..... Muzz Khan
Andy ..... Robert Harper
A BBC/Cymru Wales production, directed by Tom Wentworth.
MON 15:00 Round Britain Quiz (b049y9pd)
(10/12)
In what way might a Dickensian cricket match have provided inspiration for Lindisfarne and J.K.Rowling?
Tom Sutcliffe asks the panellists to ponder this, and plenty of other cryptic puzzles, in the latest contest between the North of England and Scotland. Diana Collecott and Adele Geras of the North will be hoping to repeat the defeat they inflicted last time they encountered the Scots, Val McDermid and Roddy Lumsden. Knowledge of music, literature, mythology and popular culture will all be handy in tackling today's batch of convoluted questions.
As always, some of the questions have been drawn from the stack of brilliant ideas provided by RBQ listeners in recent months.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
MON 15:30 The Food Programme (b049xtjm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:32 on Sunday]
MON 16:00 The Art of the Nation (b049y9pg)
Discovery
BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz investigates the art-works in our homes, and considers the stories they tell about our national identity.
Most of the nation's greatest works of art are in our museums and galleries, but there are also thousands of significant works - some valuable, some not - in homes across the country.
Will Gompertz discovers extraordinary stories behind the art-works on our domestic walls, and the tales they tell about our nation - an unwritten biography charting up and downs, highs and lows.
In the first programme of the series, he reveals the importance of discovery, hearing about the joy of uncovering apparently lost masterpieces, and acquiring works by chance.
Will meets an unemployed couple from Lincoln who believe they have tracked down - via the internet - works by Van Gogh, Manet and Cézanne. Will also finds out about the businessman who happened to become a good friend of Picasso, who gave him one of his prized plates. The plate sat in a drawer for 40 years, because its new owner thought it looked horrible. Now his son has re-discovered it. And there's the tale of home owner who happened to find a work by Francis Bacon on a wall - long hidden behind fitted furniture.
Producer Neil George.
MON 16:30 The Infinite Monkey Cage (b049y9pj)
Series 10
Does Science Need War?
Does Science Need War?
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined on stage by comedian Katy Brand, science writer Philip Ball and medic, author and broadcaster Kevin Fong. They'll be asking whether scientific progress needs the pressures and casualties of war to drive it, or whether some of our biggest scientific breakthroughs, that have resulted from periods of conflict, would have happened anyway? It's a serious topic, but never fear, on the way the intergalactic battles faced in Star Wars, and why only the French could come up with onions as a cure for burns, are all equally seriously investigated.
MON 16:55 1914: Day by Day (b049y9pl)
21st July
The King warns of civil war in Britain over Irish Home Rule.
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First world war. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Margaret Macmillan is professor of international history at Oxford University.
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak
Jane Whittenshaw
Presenter and Writer: Margaret Macmillan
Producer: Russell Finch
Executive Producer: Joby Waldman
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 17:00 PM (b049y9pn)
Eddie Mair presents coverage and analysis of the day's news.
MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b049xc77)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 18:30 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b049y9pq)
Series 61
Episode 4
The antidote to panel games pays a return visit to the Assembly Hall in Worthing. Regulars Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by Harry Hill with Jack Dee in the chair. Colin Sell attempts piano accompaniment.
Producer - Jon Naismith.
MON 19:00 The Archers (b049y9ps)
Kirstie Allsopp is going to open the village fete on Sunday. Susan describes Carol Tregorran as the person who can tell you where the bodies are buried in Ambridge, and also suggests that John Tregorran had a fling with Jennifer. Lynda mentions that Jennifer was handing out invitations to her kitchen-warming soirée. Didn't Susan get one?
Lynda has joined Twitter, actively supporting the @SAVEAmbridge campaign. But she has had some nasty comments already. Emma helps Susan create a Twitter account. They find details of Lynda's planned walk of Route B on Thursday.
Ed's short of cash for Emma's 30th birthday. He doesn't want to rely on Susan and Neil for help. Ed's pleased when Adam asks him to do a few shifts on the grain trailer over the next couple of weeks. Adam also passes on Jennifer's invitation to Ed. It's for the whole family, including Neil and Susan.
While lifting crates, Mike has an unfortunate accident and injures his back. He's determined to struggle on but Ed insists on taking him home to rest. Mike's going to be laid up for a bit, so Ed takes on some cover for him. He's going to be extremely busy doing two jobs but tells worried Emma he'll just have to manage somehow.
MON 19:15 Front Row (b049y9pv)
Joe; David Eldridge; Clavichord; Disobedient Objects
With Samira Ahmed. Nicolas Cage's new film is Joe - about an ex-con who becomes an unlikely father-figure to a troubled fifteen year old boy. Mark Eccleston reviews.
David Eldridge talks about his epic play Holy Warriors (at Shakespeares Globe), which looks at the struggle for Jerusalem.
Carole Cerasi introduces Samira to Bach's favourite instrument, the Clavichord.
And the objects created by political activists in a new exhibition at the V&A.
Presenter: John Wilson
Producer: Claire Bartleet.
MON 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b049y3mk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
MON 20:00 At the End of Death Row (b049y9px)
A series of botched executions in early 2014, shortages of drugs for lethal injections, and moves in several states to abandon execution have re-ignited the debate in the United States about the death penalty.
In this programme BBC correspondent Rajini Vaidyanathan travels across the southern state of Tennessee, where the state legislature recently passed a law re-introducing the electric chair if drugs for lethal injection become unavailable.
Rajini speaks to people across the political spectrum - church ministers keen to end executions, the parents of a murder victim who want to see justice done, a man released after 20 years on death row, and a state representative who backed the new law. She hears a debate filled with tragedy, and nuance, and asks where it might be heading.
Producer: Giles Edwards.
MON 20:30 Analysis (b049y9pz)
Thrifty Debtors
The downturn's made everyone worry more about money. But while we may want to be thriftier, Chris Bowlby discovers why we're stuck with high levels of personal and household debt. Credit has become a way of life and new technology makes it ever more accessible. We know we ought to save more for, say, old age, but pensions seem distant and a dodgy investment, while the government and others are desperate to encourage revived consumer spending . Borrowing to buy houses seems to many the best financial bet. Is there an alternative approach out there?
A wide range of voices from different communities explore the mixture of hard financial fact, psychology and morality that's shaped our financial behaviour in such a turbulent few years.
Producer: Chris Bowlby
Editor: Hugh Levinson.
MON 21:00 Shared Planet (b0496c09)
Urban Wildlife
Wildlife in urban areas can be surprisingly diverse - particularly when neighbouring more natural areas. Can the urban jungle actually be better than some rural areas for bees and birds? In this episode Monty Don hears from scientists working to find out just how important our urban areas are for wildlife.
Presented by Monty Don and produced by Brett Westwood.
MON 21:30 Playing the Skyline (b049y3m9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
MON 21:58 Weather (b049xc79)
The latest weather forecast.
MON 22:00 The World Tonight (b049y9q1)
Malaysian jet: rebels agree to hand over black box.
Gaza conflict continues;
Obamacare in Kentucky.
With Ritula Shah.
MON 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b049y9q3)
The Miniaturist
Episode 1
THE MINIATURIST by Jessie Burton
Read by : Emilia Fox
On a cold autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of the Dutch East India Company's most successful merchant trader : Johannes Brandt. But her lavishly furnished new home is not welcoming, and its inhabitants seem preoccupied with their own secrets. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office which leaves Nella isolated in the grand house on the canal with his sister, the sharp-tongued Marin and Otto and Cornelia their servants as company.
Nella's world changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist, an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny and intricate creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways.
But as she starts to receive unexpected and unasked for items for her 'toy house' Nella becomes aware that the Brandt household contains unusual secrets and she begins to understand - and fear- the escalating dangers that await them all. In this repressively pious society conformity is all. Neighbours are encouraged to spy on each other, excavating 'the canker' of sin. The packages from the mysterious miniaturist begin to reveal chillingly prophetic objects but Nella remains at a loss as to what they all mean.
Ep. 1 : Eighteen year old Nella Oortman arrives from the country at her husband's imposing house in Amsterdam. But the welcome is a little less than effusive.
Producer: JILL WATERS
Abridged by Isobel Creed and directed by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
MON 23:00 Word of Mouth (b04980f3)
Weighing Your Words
Chris Ledgard investigates three situations where the precise use of words is crucial. He speaks to a cancer specialist and a woman in remission from the disease about the language of diagnosis and prognosis. How do doctors balance the need to be sensitive with the need to be accurate? Is the word cancer itself still one that people prefer not to use? The second situation under consideration is when journalists, covering a fast moving story for the popular press, are made party to information they are requested not to print. Reporter Paul Sims describes how he dealt with one such situation during the hunt for the gunman, Raoul Moat in 2010. Finally, there can be few situations where choosing precisely the right words matters more than during negotiations to end an armed conflict.
Britain's Chief Negotiator on Northern Ireland, Jonathan Powell and Sinn Fein's Conor Murphy, discuss the language that paved the way to the Good Friday Agreement and why it was often ambiguous rather than clear language that kept the talks on track.
MON 23:30 Today in Parliament (b049y9q5)
The Prime Minister updates the Commons following the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines MH17. In the House of Lords, peers debate the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill in committee. Sean Curran reports from Westminster.
TUESDAY 22 JULY 2014
TUE 00:00 Midnight News (b049xc81)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
TUE 00:30 Book of the Week (b049y3mf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Monday]
TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b049xc83)
The latest shipping forecast.
TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b049xc85)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b049xc87)
The latest shipping forecast.
TUE 05:30 News Briefing (b049xc89)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04brc0c)
A short reflection and prayer with Canon Simon Doogan.
TUE 05:45 Farming Today (b049yfhn)
Elisabeth Truss, Farmer Protest and Royal Welsh Show
From pristine sheep waiting to enter the show ring to an NFU protest against supermarkets, Farming Today comes from the Royal Welsh Show in Builth Wells.
Caz Graham speaks to the new Secretary of State for Defra about an initiative to ensure the public sector buys from local suppliers and asks Elizabeth Truss what her priorities are for the coming months and if she knows how much a pint of milk of costs.
The National Farmers' Union and NFU Cymru use the Royal Welsh Show as a platform to protest against supermarkets stocking New Zealand lamb when both British and Welsh lamb is in prime season.
And hear from Rebecca Evans, the new Deputy Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries for the Welsh government. Caz Graham asks her how she'll build up relationships with farmers following the sacking of her predecessor Alun Davies, the former Natural Resources and Food Minister.
TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b0378wz1)
Bullfinch
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Michaela Strachan presents the Bullfinch. The males have rose-pink breasts and black caps and are eye-catching whilst the females are a duller pinkish-grey but share the black cap. Exactly why they're called Bullfinches isn't clear - perhaps it's to do with their rather thickset appearance. 'Budfinch' would be a more accurate name as they are very fond of the buds of trees, especially fruit trees.
TUE 06:00 Today (b049yhcl)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.
TUE 09:00 The Life Scientific (b049yhcn)
Carol Robinson on chemistry
Carol Robinson describes her remarkable journey from leaving school at 16 to work as a lab technician at Pfizer, to becoming the first female Professor of Chemistry at both Oxford and Cambridge University, despite an eight year career break to bring up three small children.
Getting back into the workplace wasn't easy. Carol was hired for a job for which she was over-qualified because she 'used to be good' and advised not to dress so smartly because people would think she was a secretary. She managed to negotiate a day a week to do her own research and secured much sought after Royal Society funding to support it.
For decades, Carol felt insecure about having a degree from a further education college, which she achieved by studying part-time for seven years while working at Pfizer; but now Carol is proud of her unconventional route into academia and actively recruits students to her lab from a wide range of different backgrounds.
In her hands, mass spectrometry has been transformed from a routine technique for checking what chemicals are present in, say an antibiotic, into a powerful research tool for drug development. Her motto when doing experiments is, 'it's not working yet' and she's happy to risk drilling into this hugely expensive machine to try and get it to do what she wants.
Producer: Anna Buckley.
TUE 09:30 One to One (b049yhcq)
Sarah Montague talks to a mum with a son in prison
Radio 4's Today presenter Sarah Montague, in the second of two interviews with people who have a family member in prison. This week she talks to a mum whose job it was to help deal with troubled families, often taking them into prison. But, then she discovered that her own son was in such trouble, that she would now be visiting him inside.
Producer: Perminder Khatkar.
TUE 09:45 Book of the Week (b04b60fq)
Deep
Shark-tagging
James Nestor's book 'Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves' begins at the surface and then plunges ever deeper into the unknown – until we are at 35,797 feet below sea level: the lowest point on earth. "Freedivers" come to the ocean to redefine the limits of the human body, swimming up to 400 feet below the surface for minutes at a time in a single breath.
Scientific adventurers take us even deeper when they explore Grand Canyon-like chasms no one has ever reached (alive) before, where life-forms flourish in 300 degree water with absolutely no light. None of it should exist, and yet it does. But how?
Abridged and produced by Pippa Vaughan.
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (b049yhcs)
Girl Summit; Carolyn Forché; Tartan; Feminist marketing
The UK Government and UNICEF are co-hosting Girl Summit. The aim is to end Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting (FGM/C), and Child, Early, and Forced Marriage (CEFM) in a generation. We talk to International Development Secretary Justine Greening and Anita Tiessen of UNICEF.
American poet, teacher and activist Carolyn Forché is best known for her 'poetry of witness'; from the civil war in El Salvador to apartheid in South Africa.
There's a trend to use feminism to promote products such as sanitary towels and shampoo. The advertisers think it makes good business sense, but is this good news for feminism?
A new tartan has been created for Team Scotland at the Commonwealth Games. It remains a popular design choice for fashion - from high street to high end. So what is the enduring appeal of tartan?
TUE 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b049yhcv)
The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles: Series 6
Episode 2
The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles, Ep.2/5
by Esther Wilson
Return of award winning 15' drama series about a young married couple with learning disabilities, starring Donna Lavin and Edmund Davies, actors with learning disabilities. Based on true stories and created in part through improvisation. Darleen has moved to the countryside to a village created solely for adults with learning disabilities. Husband Jamie refused to go and to make matters worse, his mother-in-law, Treena, has moved in with him.
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.
TUE 11:00 Shared Planet (b049yhcx)
Zoos in the Wild
As more land is developed for industry and housing or converted to produce food the areas we have fenced off for nature are increasingly important. But are the worlds nature reserves essentially made into a fortress to protect the area from development able to function on their own, or do they need constant management. Are they "zoos in the wild". Monty Don hears from Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in South Africa, the reserve that helped replenish Southern Africa's white rhinoceros population and finds out whether size really does matter for our protected areas.
TUE 11:30 Roots Reggae and Rebellion (b049yhcz)
Episode 1
Rastafari is Jamaica's most famous export. Alongside Bob Marley - the world's most recognised Rastafarian - this cultural and spiritual movement is the enduring global image of the Caribbean island. For better or worse, the red, green and gold colours, dreadlocks, reggae music and marijuana are all closely associated with Jamaica. But what role has this spiritual movement had in forming Jamaica's soul and identity?
Presented by political commentator and educator Kingslee Daley, this series examines how Rastafari turned from an ostracised religious sect into a global phenomenon. Kingslee is better known as Akala, a British poet, rapper and founder of the Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company. Born in London he was brought up immersed in Rasta culture by his father. In these two half hour programmes, Akala travels to Jamaica to discover the cultural and sociological significance of his spiritual heritage.
Rastafari first came to prominence in 1930s Jamaica, emerging from the civil rights struggle during British colonial rule. It's a complicated synergy of the Old Testament and the teachings of pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey who predicted in the 1920s that "a black king shall be crowned in Africa" ushering in a "day of deliverance." When the Ethiopian prince Ras Tafari - who was also known as Haile Selassie I - became Emperor in 1930, the descendants of slaves in Jamaica took this as proof that Garvey's prophecy had come true. The fact that Selassie was also a pan-Africanist with black empowerment philosophies of his own only further cemented their belief. Many Rastafari believe Selassie to be the second coming of Jesus, a black Christ. But whatever the theologies surrounding Rastafari, its importance for Jamaica and for the Jamaican diaspora has gone way beyond religion.
In this first part of the series, Akala uncovers the story of Rastafari and its role in replacing the shackles of colonial rule with a forgotten African identity. At first Rastas were deemed the scourge of society, hounded by both the British and Jamaican authorities. But thanks to an explosion of incredible music in the 1970s, the Rastafari message took over the whole island before spreading around the world.
Contributors include writer Sir Salman Rushdie, the Kenyan author and political activist Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Professor Carolyn Cooper from the University of the West Indies and the residents of the early Rasta camp known as Pinnacle.
TUE 12:00 You and Yours (b049yhd1)
Call You and Yours - Right to Die
The Lords debated the Assisted Dying Bill last week. The Bill was passed to the next stage without a vote. It proposes allowing adults in England and Wales to be given help to end their lives, if they have less than six months to live. Did they make the right decision? We want to know what you think. The Peers told the personal stories that had formed their judgements - we'd like to hear yours. Call us 03700 100 444.
TUE 12:57 Weather (b049xc8c)
The latest weather forecast.
TUE 13:00 World at One (b049yhd3)
Government orders public inquiry into Litvinenko death. We hear from Alex Goldfarb, a close friend of the Russian dissident and former spy - and from the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Sir Richard Ottaway.
OSCE observers say large parts of the wreckage of Flight MH17 have been hacked into with power tools. We report from Kharkiv where the train carrying the remains of most of those on board has now arrived - and from Brussels where EU foreign ministers are considering tightening sanctions against Russia.
Parents who fail to prevent their daughters being subjected to female genital mutilation are to face prosecution under proposals outlined by David Cameron at an international conference in London. We speak to Fahma Mohamed, a 17 year-old campaigner against FGM, and the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders.
On the eve of the opening ceremony for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Colin Blane asks whether the Games will play in Scotland's independence referendum.
The new Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan, describes as "disturbing" the findings of the former head of counter-terrorism, Peter Clarke, on the so-called Trojan Horse allegations over schools in Birmingham. He's found evidence of an "aggressive Islamist agenda" in some schools, though no direct evidence of radicalisation. The Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood, Shabana Mahmood, responds.
Presented by Edward Stourton.
TUE 13:45 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b049yhd5)
Plants to Shape Society
The 18th-century botanical impresario Sir Joseph Banks was convinced that Britain's destiny was as the major civilising power in the world, and this could be achieved by harnessing botany and imperial progress to each other's mutual benefit.
Professor Kathy Willis talks to Linnaean Society honorary archivist, Gina Douglas, on how Britain's acquisition of Carl Linnaeus' collection of books and specimens proved the tool to promote, identify, and trade plants across the Empire.
She hears from Richard Barley, Director of Horticulture at Kew and former director of Melbourne's Botanic Gardens, who discusses Banks' influence on the choice of plants taken with the first settlers to Australia.
But how central were plants to Britain's colonial project? Historian Jim Endersby weighs up Joseph Banks' 18th-century vision to use Kew as a centre to gather as many plants and plant products as possible, not only to enrich the Royal Garden's collection but for Kew to also function as a botanical exchange house between the colonies.
Producer: Adrian Washbourne
Presenter: Kathy Willis is director of science at Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. She is also professor of long-term ecology and a fellow of Merton College, both at Oxford University. Winner of several awards, she has spent over 20 years researching and teaching biodiversity and conservation at Oxford and Cambridge.
TUE 14:00 The Archers (b049y9ps)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Monday]
TUE 14:15 Drama (b0076zk7)
The Sensitive
Episode 1
By Alistair Jessiman. First in a series of off-beat thrillers about a psychic detective.
Police call in Thomas Soutar to help find a missing woman. Thomas is adept at solving crimes - but is his extraordinary gift a blessing or a curse?
TUE 15:00 Making History (b049yjc5)
Helen Castor is joined by Professor Mark Stoyle from the University of Southampton and Dr Hugh Doherty from the University of East Anglia.
Tom Holland is in Spain at the World Championships of the International Medieval Combat Federation in Belmonte where fifteenth century combat is acted out under the blistering sun - but how accurate is this display and what does it tell us about knights of old?
We explore another iconic historic figure, the cavalier - and, in particular, Sir Thomas Lunsford, the so-called 'cannibal cavalier'. Did he 'snack' on body parts as the propaganda of the day might have us believe or had the Roundheads fallen for a Royalist joke?
We cross to Dublin to hear from Professor James Kelly about new work that shows just how many 'unwanted' children might have been kidnapped or trafficked. Professor Kelly believes that this little explored topic might well reveal thousands of individuals who were either transported to America or 'used' by street beggars or petty criminals.
Contact the programme by emailing making.history@bbc.co.uk - or write to Making History, BBC Radio 4, PO Box 3096. Brighton BN1 1PL.
Producer: Nick Patrick
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 15:30 Into the Abyss (b0499gpc)
The Hadal Zone
Rebecca Morelle talks to explorers of deep ocean trenches, from film-maker James Cameron to biologists discovering dark realms of weird pink gelatinous fish and gigantic crustaceans.
The deepest regions of the ocean lie between 6,000 and 11,000 metres. Oceanographers term this the Hadal Zone. It exists where the floor of abyss plunges into long trough-like features, known as ocean trenches. The hadal zone is the final frontier of exploration and ecological science on the planet.
At its most extreme, the water pressure rises to 1 tonne per square centimetre and the temperature drops to 1 degree C. Despite the challenging conditions, some animals survive and thrive in the trenches. Because the technical challenges to operating down there are so high, we are only now just learning what is down there and how creatures adapt to live in the extremes.
Based at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, deep sea ecologist Alan Jamieson is one of the premier explorers of life in the hadal zone. In the programme, he talks through some of the latest video footage he's acquired from the depths of the Kermadec Trench in New Zealand - not by visiting in person but by dropping cameras on a deep sea probe called a hadal lander to the distant sea floor. The images were gathered on an expedition two months ago and revealed new habits of hadal creatures.
Rebecca does talk to two people who have ventured to the far limit of the hadal zone: US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh who went down to the bottom of Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench in 1960, and Hollywood director James Cameron who, 52 years later, repeated Walsh's voyage to 11,000 metres down.
TUE 16:00 Word of Mouth (b049yjwt)
Message in a Bottle
Chris Ledgard uncorks the subject of message in a bottle.
Sending a message in a bottle across the ocean to be rediscovered by someone in a far off land is an idea as old as Ancient Greece. Christopher Columbus did it, Jules Verne wrote about it and The Police sang that song. There's romance and adventure in the endless possibilities of interacting with the unknown.
As Chris explores the oblique and whimsical nature of this form of communication he hears modern day stories about people who have been saved by sending out an SOS, formed friendships across the water and found scientific value in the pastime.
However, amongst the tide of approval for this historical tradition a dissenting voice lurks.
Produced by Stephen Garner
TUE 16:30 A Good Read (b049yjww)
Shami Chakrabarti and Monica Ali
Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights organisation Liberty, and Monica Ali, author of Brick Lane, talk about their favourite reads with Harriett Gilbert. Books under discussion are Evelyn Waugh's satire on the Anglo-American relationship staged in and around an LA funeral business, The Loved One, Rachel Holmes' biography of Eleanor Marx, and the children's classic, Charlotte's Web. Conversation ranges from our attitudes to death, to strong women who make bad relationship choices, to what makes great children's literature.
Producer Sally Heaven.
TUE 16:55 1914: Day by Day (b049yjwy)
22nd July
The Russian Royal family give a lavish welcome to the French President.
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First world war. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Margaret Macmillan is professor of international history at Oxford University.
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak
Jane Whittenshaw
Presenter and Writer: Margaret Macmillan
Producer: Russell Finch
Executive Producer: Joby Waldman
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 17:00 PM (b049yqz8)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.
TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b049xc8f)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 18:30 Life: An Idiot's Guide (b045fzcm)
Series 3
Penny Pinching and Austerity
Stephen K Amos is joined by Suzi Ruffell, Tom Rhodes and Andy Zaltzman to present a guide to penny pinching and austerity.
Additional material by Stephen Grant and Hugh Sington.
Producer: Colin Anderson.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2014.
TUE 19:00 The Archers (b049yqzd)
Pat's sending John's son Rich a 16th birthday card and cash.
The parish council has received the planning application for Borchester Land's new anaerobic digester (AD). Opinion seems to be split.
Fallon is excited about Loxfest. Hayley is fed up. Loxfest is all she hears about at the moment.
Fallon is prepared to leave Jaxx but daunted by her new solo business venture. She's defensive about PC Burns, insisting they're just friends. Hayley and Fallon reflect on relationships. Hayley enjoys feeling settled. She warns Fallon not to overthink things.
Rob drops Henry round to Bridge Farm but he is clingy and won't let Rob go. So Pat invites Rob in for lunch. Rob confides than he's not exactly for the new AD. It just doesn't feel like farming. He clams up about last Friday, when his parents were a no-show. Tony apologises to Rob for sticking their noses in. Rob says he has Helen and Henry now. He doesn't need anyone else.
Roy's held up at work, dealing with the demands of Loxfest headliners Quaintance Smith. Hayley is angry when Roy stays on and misses Abbie's school performance. Roy promises things will be normal after Loxfest. But Hayley feels Elizabeth is taking advantage of Roy. Loxfest aside, Hayley wants to know what's going on with her marriage. They can't go on like this.
TUE 19:15 Front Row (b049yqzg)
Judith Weir; Eamonn Holmes reviews Believe
In tonight's Front Row: Judith Weir talks to John Wilson about being appointed Master Of The Queen's Music, and Eamonn Holmes - Manchester United superfan - reviews the film, Believe, about Sir Matt Busby's last great coaching challenge.
Also in the programme: the curators of the Ashmolean's new exhibition about Tutankhamun give John a tour and explain the continuing fascination with the Egyptian boy-king - and author Philip Hensher discusses his latest novel, The Emperor Waltz.
TUE 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b049yhcv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
TUE 20:00 Kurdistan: A State of Uncertainty (b049yqzj)
John McCarthy meets the Kurds of northern Iraq, a unique island of stability in a nation broken into warring fragments. He asks how a people who have been victims of abuse and atrocity for generations managed to transform their fortunes so dramatically. How did they recently gain the confidence to calmly take over the disputed city of Kirkuk and claim it as their own? And how can they avoid being sucked once more into a maelstrom of violence?
A rich cast of contributors includes Siyamand Banaa, a diplomat and former peshmerga freedom fighter; Narin Bahat who has committed her life to the cause of disadvantaged women; Yaccoub Sulleyman who, as a child, watched his parents being forced to demolish the family home; and Helly Luv, who has returned from exile to rap her way to stardom in pop music and film.
John starts his journey in the mountains that Kurds believe have shaped their destiny, by offering them protection from the greater powers that have sought to dominate them. He visits the fast-expanding regional capital Erbil, which some people call the new Dubai thanks to its access oil wealth and smart deals. He moves to the cultural capital Sulaymaniah, where he encounters the political tensions that lie just below the surface.
John discovers that internal conflicts, a political system weakened by the abuses of patronage and corruption and the inherent dangers of unpredictable forces mean that Iraqi Kurdistan's good fortune remains vulnerable. It continues to be in a state of uncertainty.
Presenter: John McCarthy
Producer: Geoff Dunlop
A Whistledown production for Radio 4.
TUE 20:40 In Touch (b049yqzl)
Living through the bombing
We hear from two blind women about their experiences of living through the current conflict in Gaza and Israel. They talk about how they find out information about the proximity of rockets and bombs; they speak frankly about dealing with the uncertainty and how their lives have been affected.
We also trail to next week's programme, where Peter White talks to three visually impaired women who have undergone a course to learn how to conduct a choir.
Image: Dalal Al-taji, who speaks with us from South Gaza, just a few kilometres from where the main fighting is.
TUE 21:00 Inside Health (b049yqzn)
Statins, Cholesterol-lowering spreads, Olive oil, Diet and inflammatory bowel disease, Singers' nodules
Some media coverage has suggested that there is a link between eating junk food and the rise of conditions like Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis which involve inflammation of the digestive system. Mark Porter questions the evidence. As school's out for summer Mark finds out why teachers' voices need a rest. He also examines whether cholesterol lowering spreads and drinks do what they suggest. Also in the programme: is frying with olive oil harmful or the healthy choice?
TUE 21:30 The Life Scientific (b049yhcn)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (b049yrng)
Latest from plane crash site in Ukraine.
Should regulation of flight paths be changed?
Birmingham schools 'Trojan Horse' report;
With Ritula Shah.
TUE 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04b3tyw)
The Miniaturist
Episode 2
THE MINIATURIST by Jessie Burton
Read by Emilia Fox
On a cold autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of the Dutch East India Company's most successful merchant trader : Johannes Brandt. But her lavishly furnished new home is not welcoming, and its inhabitants seem preoccupied with their own secrets. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office which leaves Nella isolated in the grand house on the canal with his sister, the sharp-tongued Marin and Otto and Cornelia their servants as company.
Nella's world changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist, an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny and intricate creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways.
But as she starts to receive unexpected and unasked for items for her 'toy house' Nella becomes aware that the Brandt household contains unusual secrets and she begins to understand - and fear- the escalating dangers that await them all. In this repressively pious society conformity is all. Neighbours are encouraged to spy on each other, excavating 'the canker' of sin. The packages from the mysterious miniaturist begin to reveal chillingly prophetic objects but Nella remains at a loss as to what they all mean.
Ep.2. Nella continues to wonder when her husband is going to consumate their marriage, in the meantime her sister-in-law has suggested that some sort of 'distraction' would be a good idea.
Producer: JILL WATERS
Abridged by Isobel Creed and directed by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 23:00 The Infinite Monkey Cage (b049y9pj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 on Monday]
TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (b049yrnj)
The new Education Secretary describes as "disturbing" the findings of an inquiry into the so-called Trojan Horse allegations concerning schools in Birmingham.
The investigation concludes that that there was "sustained and co-ordinated" action by individuals to impose hardline Muslim views in a small number of schools.
The Home Secretary announces that disciplinary hearings of police officers will be held in public under new Government plans to overhaul the scrutiny of forces across the country.
MPs press ministers to take a tougher line with Israel over its offensive against Hamas militants in Gaza as the death toll mounts.
And the chair of the Football Association, Greg Dyke, tells MPs that England will not bid to host any more soccer tournaments while Sep Blatter remains president of FIFA.
Susan Hulme and team report on today's events in Parliament.
WEDNESDAY 23 JULY 2014
WED 00:00 Midnight News (b049xc96)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
WED 00:30 Book of the Week (b04b60fq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Tuesday]
WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b049xc98)
The latest shipping forecast.
WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b049xc9b)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b049xc9d)
The latest shipping forecast.
WED 05:30 News Briefing (b049xc9g)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04brbzx)
A short reflection and prayer with Canon Simon Doogan.
WED 05:45 Farming Today (b049yskj)
Ragwort, Raw Milk, Mussels on the Fal, Welsh Farming Scholarship
A deadly threat to horses or a vital moth habitat? A new survey by the British Horse Society will map where the wild flower Ragwort is growing. It's poisonous to livestock but conservationists argue it shouldn't be eradicated, because it feeds insects.
The Food Standards Agency says it could allow raw milk vending machines in shops, in the future. Safety controls and practicalities have to be ironed out with farmers before the idea can go ahead.
We hear from mussel fisherman on the River Fal, in Cornwall, about their struggle for financial survival since pollution meant the closure of the fishery.
Presented by Anna Hill and produced by Sarah Swadling.
WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b0378x0n)
Rock Pipit
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Michaela Strachan presents the rock pipit. The sight of a greyish bird no bigger than a sparrow, at home on the highest cliffs and feeding within reach of breaking waves can come as a surprise. In spring and early summer, the male Pipits become wonderful extroverts and perform to attract a female, during which they sing loudly to compete with the sea-wash.
WED 06:00 Today (b049ysn8)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.
WED 09:00 The Long View (b049z14k)
Jonathan Freedland takes the long view of Nigel Farage by comparing him to eighteenth century libertarian, John Wilkes, who sent shockwaves through the political establishment and saw himself as the defender of the ordinary man.
Nigel Farage's recent success at local and European elections may have left the other political parties baffled, but the Wilkite movement of the 1760s also caused consternation. Wilkes' election to Westminster was repeatedly quashed, prompting him to obtain re-election.
Wilkes' slogan was 'liberty' and he called for parliamentary reform, raising the issue of how MPs should be chosen: by the people or their elite masters.
Producer: Clare Walker.
WED 09:30 Publishing Lives (b03bs6z3)
Series 1
Allen Lane
Allen Lane left school at 16 and had no university education, yet he was fascinated by learning and education, ideas and argument. His revolutionary innovation was to produce a series of inexpensive books, in paper covers, at sixpence apiece - the price of a packet of cigarettes. It was an idea which came to him when, returning from visiting Agatha Christie in the West Country, he could find nothing worth reading on the Exeter railway station bookstall.
Allen Lane's brainwave - the Penguin - was the biggest single innovation in books of the twentieth century. Households across Britain began sprouting those colour-coded spines. Lane's Penguin books revolutionised publishing and changed people's lives.
Allen Lane's populist instincts told him that post-war Britain was hungry for knowledge. Central to post-war renewal, Penguin titles eventually sold 250 million copies. But he never dumbed down. His Pelican titles, specially commissioned non-fiction, became an informal university for 1950s Britons. Pelicans, said Lane, were "another form of education for people like me who left school at sixteen."
Lane was a great innovator and a great risk taker. In 1960 he took the biggest risk of all by publishing the infamous 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', which had become almost a byword for pornography. In publishing the novel, Lane deliberately risked prosecution.
Penguin, that jaunty little bird from the twentieth century, survives in the new century, still one of the most recognised publishing brands in the English-speaking world.
Robert McCrum meets Allen Lane's daughters, as well as experts in literature and publishing, to discuss the man who brought books to the mass market.
Producer: Melissa Fitzgerald
A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 09:45 Book of the Week (b04b60k8)
Deep
Japan
James Nestor's 'Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves' explores the human relationship with the deep sea, following extreme athletes, adventurers and scientists who risk life and limb to dive deeper than anyone before. What they discover is weird and wondrous, and in many cases redefines our understanding of biology – ours, and the sea's.
Deep begins at the surface and then plunges ever deeper into the unknown – until we are at 35,797 feet below sea level: the lowest point on earth. "Freedivers" come to the ocean to redefine the limits of the human body, swimming up to 400 feet below the surface for minutes at a time in a single breath.
Nestor learns how to stay underwater for extended periods; goes shark-tagging; has a close encounter with sperm whales; plunges to 2,500 feet in a DIY submarine; and unveils startling facets of human physiology – most notably the extraordinary life-preserving reflexes known as the Master Switch of Life.
Abridged and produced by Pippa Vaughan.
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4
WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (b049z14m)
The National Obesity Forum estimates that nearly 25 per cent of UK children are either overweight or obese by the time they join reception class in primary school. So should parents worried that their children are gaining too much weight broach the subject and how to do it? Jenni Murray talks to Candida Hunt from the charity Health, Exercise and Nutrition for the Really Young and Dr Billy White from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
Glasgow's Commonwealth Games open tonight. 'Endurance' is a new theatre production from A Moment's Peace Theatre Company & the Women's Creative Company. The project involved women from Glasgow who had never worked in the arts before. They researched the female athletes from around the world who had participated in the Games through the decades and the theatre piece draws together archive interviews of the athletes themselves with the local women performing their stories.
An Arabic Radio Fiction drama called ' Worth 100 men' which tells the story of the challenges faced by a woman journalist at a radio station, is being broadcast in 9 Arab countries during Ramadan, a popular time for screening soap operas and dramas in the region. The project was launched by the Womanity Foundation, which was set up for the empowerment of women and girls across the world. Jenni speaks to Maysoun Odeh Gangat , the Director of Radio NISAA, a woman's radio station based in Ramallah which has been broadcasting the drama and to Antonella Notari Vischer from the Womanity Foundation.
Throughout the summer Woman's Hour will be discussing classic works of women's fiction. In this interview from 2008 Jenni talks to the Nobel Prize Winner Doris Lessing about her ground-breaking novel, The Golden Notebook.
WED 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b049z14p)
The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles: Series 6
Episode 3
The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles, Ep.3/5
by Esther Wilson
New series of award winning 15' drama about a young married couple with learning disabilities, starring Donna Lavin and Edmund Davies, actors with learning disabilities. Based on true stories and created in part through improvisation. Darleen's left Jamie and moved to the countryside to a village created solely for adults with learning disabilities. She's stressing about the country sounds and Jamie's stressing about his mother-in-law who's moved into his flat.
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.
WED 11:00 The Georgians: Restraint, Revolution and Reform (b049z4ww)
Episode 1
Amanda Foreman examines the formative years of British politics when the most important structures of British life - still valued and recognised today - were established in the shadow of revolution.
Amanda invites us to enter the world of the political elite in London's luxurious St James' Square. Here, political heavyweights would gather for a season debating and defining British politics. Against a backdrop of decadence, they went about the serious business of crafting the structures of politics and society so familiar to us in the 21st Century.
The Georgians continuously tested where true power lay - in the Monarchy, or in Parliament. At Buckingham Palace with the keeper of the Queen's pictures, Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Amanda discovers how a monarchy imported from Hanover styled themselves as a constitutional monarchy that showed deference to the structures of British politics.
But this wasn't just a power play by ambitious politicians, it was part of a reforming attitude exemplified by calls to reform Parliament and make it more representative of the people. No 18th century figure embodied the development of this political modernity more than Edmund Burke, the Irish philosopher and politician, who Amanda encounters with MP Jesse Norman.
The struggle for power was a struggle for control of the people, made more pressing in a climate of fear as revolution took hold across the channel in France. But, as Amanda shows, local-level politics in Georgian Britain was a type of 'soft power' that eased tensions.
Producer: Katherine Godfrey
A Whistledown production for Radio 4.
WED 11:30 The Gobetweenies (b01kksr2)
Series 2
The Break-Up
Marcella Evaristi's sly take on contemporary parenting looks at a divorced North London family through the prism of two go-betweening siblings.
This week, Lucy prepares to dazzle the world with her Rihanna-influenced take on the part of Nancy in the school production of Oliver! - but her mum, armed with a new parenting manual, prepares to do battle with her daughter's impermeable belief in her own genius. Meanwhile, son Tom is appalled by his hated fictional alter ego, cutesy Georgie. Maybe if he garrottes his mother's puppet version of himself, she'll get the hint? Dad is determined to steer him away from the merchandise and takes him to see a wrestling match instead.
Director: Marilyn Imrie
Producer: Gordon Kennedy
An Absolutely Production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 12:00 You and Yours (b049z4x0)
Energy Savings; Y Cube Housing; Cath Kidston in Asia
MPs tell the government to redesign its back to work benefit for sick and disabled people
The portable houses aimed at providing an affordable home for young people in housing need
Paypal is to offer cash advances to help its online merchants to expand
The energy company accused of blocking a consumer's access to the energy ombudsman.
WED 12:30 Face the Facts (b049z4x2)
Charity's New Mission?: Do More, Say Less
Gagging clauses, threats of closure and self-censorship imposed through fear of losing funding - John Waite investigates claims by leading figures in the charity sector that they are being silenced. He hears of a "chilling effect" as voluntary organisations fear for their future if they dare to speak out about local or central government policy. Others, however, tell John that more needs to be done to limit political campaigning and that charities need to concentrate more on helping directly, those in need.
Assistant Producer: Natalie Goldwater
Producer: Joe Kent
Editor: Andrew Smith.
WED 13:00 World at One (b049z4x4)
Edward Stourton presents national and international news.
WED 13:45 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b049z4x6)
Pressed Plants and Possibilities
The Victorians realised that preserving the structural features of a plant was essential to classifying it, placing it on a plant family tree and building up an overall understanding of the relationships between plants. Central to this was the herbarium - a collection of dried plants documented, pressed and mounted onto identical sheets of paper. Kathy Willis examines the genesis of this process at Kew which plays host today to over 7 million specimens, and is now one of a network of herbaria around the world.
If you want to know what a plant is, the herbarium is where you come. But how was the Kew collection established? Kathy Willis hears from historian Jim Endersby on the influence of William Jackson Hooker whose private plant collection forms the basis of the collection.
Historian Anne Secord of Cambridge University examines the delicate relationship between artisan collectors in the field and gentlemen botanists which defied the rigid social divide to enable specimens to be gathered from far afield to advance botanical knowledge.
Kathy Willis learns from Kew botanist, Bill Baker, how patterns now emerge in the herbarium that enable changing patterns of plant behaviour from flowering times to plant distribution to feed into wider questions about the effect of changing climate and land use.
And in an age when the Empire was aiming to show everything to its best advantage researcher Caroline Cornish reveals how plants could be effectively displayed to a curious Victorian public through Britain's first Museum of Economic Botany.
Producer: Adrian Washbourne
Presenter: Kathy Willis is director of science at Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. She is also professor of long-term ecology and a fellow of Merton College, both at Oxford University. Winner of several awards, she has spent over 20 years researching and teaching biodiversity and conservation at Oxford and Cambridge.
WED 14:00 The Archers (b049yqzd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Tuesday]
WED 14:15 Drama (b049z7x1)
Hatch, Match and Dispatch
Nine Lives by Anna Maria Murphy
Beth's elderly father Patrick has a lifetime's worth of stories, and Beth knows them so well she almost feels as if she's lived them herself.
But one story she finds hard to believe – Patrick claims that he was never born. That he's lived forever. As Beth tries to untangle the truth of her father's birth, she uncovers an unexpected family secret.
A series of linked plays that start in a Register Office and end in either a birth, a marriage or a death.
Beth .... Eiry Thomas
Patrick .... Peter Marinker
Bill .... Christian Patterson
Mrs Knowles .... Sharon Morgan
Miriam/Janet .... Eirlys Bellin
Reg/Harold .... Matthew Gravelle
Written by Anna Maria Murphy.
Directed by James Robinson.
A BBC Cymru Wales production first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.
WED 15:00 Money Box (b049p9yy)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:00 on Saturday]
WED 15:30 Inside Health (b049yqzn)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (b049z7x7)
Dalit Parties and Democratisation in Tamil Nadu; History of the Elevator
Elevators - a cultural history. Before skyscrapers transformed the urban landscape a new conveyance made them possible. The elevator, invented in New York in the 1850s, became a factor of metropolitan modernity on both sides of the Atlantic - forever in motion and reflecting the intimacy, as well as the anonymity, of capitalist cities. Laurie Taylor talks to Andreas Bernard, Visiting Professor of Cultural Studies at Leuphana University of Luneburg, and author a of new book which explores the origins & meaning of the 'lift'. Also, Hugo Gorringe, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh, discusses his study of political militants in India who move into mainstream electoral politics.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
WED 16:30 The Media Show (b049z7x9)
MH17 and Gaza reporting, Al Jazeera English journalist Sue Turton, Murdoch's media moves
For rolling news services, there are tough choices to make in the newsroom over how to cover the MH17 disaster and the conflict in Gaza - which story to prioritise, how to deploy, and which angles to cover. Whilst, for reporters, there are the challenges of verifying stories and working in hostile environments. Steve Hewlett discusses how the news makes it onto our screens, and issues of taste and decency with two heads of newsgathering, Jonathan Munro from the BBC, and Jonathan Levy from Sky News.
Al Jazeera English journalists Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed have been in prison in Egypt for six months. Last month, they were convicted of spreading false news and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, and sentenced to between seven and 10 years in prison each. During that same trial, Sue Turton was sentenced to 10 years in absentia. Steve talks to Sue about the guilt she feels as her colleagues serve time in jail, and whether there is any hope of the convictions being overturned.
21st Century Fox, which Rupert Murdoch owns, has tried to buy Time Warner, which controls the likes of cable giants HBO and CNN. The offer of 46.6 billion pounds was rejected. It comes at a time when the sale of Sky Italia, owned by 21st Century Fox, and Sky Deutschland, 57 per cent of which is owned by 21st Century Fox, is believed to be imminent, leading to speculation that Rupert Murdoch will use the proceeds of the sale to boost his bid for Time Warner. Claire Enders from Enders Analysis discusses what this could mean for Rupert Murdoch's empire.
Producer: Dianne McGregor.
WED 16:55 1914: Day by Day (b049z7xc)
23rd July
Austria-Hungary delivers the ultimatum to Serbia.
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First world war. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Margaret Macmillan is Professor of International History at Oxford University.
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak,
Jane Whittenshaw
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Russell Finch
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 17:00 PM (b049z7xf)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.
WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b049xc9n)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 18:30 It's a Fair Cop (b049z7xh)
Series 1
Episode 3
Alfie Moore invites his audience to be police officers for one night as he takes them though a scenario based on a real-life case and asks them 'What would you have done?'
Presented and written by Alfie Moore
Script editor, Will Ing
Producer, Alison Vernon-Smith.
WED 19:00 The Archers (b049z7xk)
Susan's finding her feet as a Twitter user. She's keen to use her account to campaign against the new road. She's also after a few celebrity contacts to join the cause.
Susan asks Adam if he remembers the Tregorrans. He does but doesn't engage on the subject - and he's far too busy to go to the funeral.
Susan gossips to Elizabeth about the alleged closeness between John Tregorran and Jennifer. She also wonders why she hasn't been invited to Jennifer's kitchen warming.
Charlie is miffed when Adam insists it's not his job to help Charlie write the planning application for the new anaerobic digester.
Ed's not keen on Charlie, who seems full of himself. Adam is aware of Charlie's constant threat to take away his contract. Ed reflects on his life. What if he'd gone to college? He won't let Kiera and George make the same mistake he's made. Adam tells Ed to be proud of himself, but Ed admits if it wasn't for this extra work he's doing he'd be in the red.
Hayley covertly approaches Elizabeth at work. They need to talk. Roy thinks the world of Elizabeth and would do anything for her, but Loxfest is becoming too much for him. Elizabeth concedes that it's not fair on Hayley, and offers to sort something out.
WED 19:15 Front Row (b04b1v8n)
Man Booker Prize, Lee Hall's Shakespeare in Love, Dom Flemons and Martin Simpson
Chair of the judges A C Grayling and his fellow judge Erica Wagner join John Wilson to discuss the longlist for this years' Man Booker Prize. It's the first time that American novelists have been eligible for this prestigious award, and four of the listed writers are American.
Billy Elliot writer Lee Hall talks about creating a stage play out of the Oscar winning film Shakespeare in Love. Hall also reveals that he's been busy reading Elton John's personal diaries in preparation for making a biopic of the singer.
Tonight's Front Row features the first joint performance, in the studio, by two leading figures in world music. Dom Flemons - co-founder of the Carolina Chocolate Drops - and Martin Simpson - renowned acoustic and slide guitarist - have been researching and exploring how folk songs travelled back and forth between England and North America, changing shape as they journeyed. They retraced the fieldwork done by folklorist Cecil Sharp, a hundred years ago - and give John a musical demonstration of how an English dancehall ballad became a ragtime blues number.
Image: Shakespeare In Love - Company with Tom Bateman as Will. Photo by Johan Persson (c) Disney.
WED 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b049z14p)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
WED 20:00 Moral Maze (b04b1v8q)
Just War and Gaza
The gruesome and heart rending pictures this week of the broken and shattered bodies of innocent people caught in the cross fire has demonstrated just how rotten the euphemism "collateral damage" really is. As the body count rises and we try to make a judgement between right and wrong and competing narratives of victimhood we're confronted by the terrible calculation "how many innocent victims are acceptable? When does a military operation go from being a legitimate act of war or self-defence to being disproportionate, illegal and immoral? It's a fact that many more Palestinians have died than have Israelis in the current bombardment and that's been the case in previous conflicts too. Would it be more morally acceptable is more Israeli's were killed? How should we factor intent in to the equation? Israel says it's targeting military Hamas rockets and does it's best to avoid civilian casualties, while Hamas is deliberately targeting civilians in Israel and using civilians as human shields in Gaza; a moot point if you're in the firing line or your child has just been killed by a missile. Do more powerful states have a higher moral duty, even if those they're fighting for have no moral qualms when it comes to the fight? As the conflict in Gaza and the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner have demonstrated, civilians are now increasingly in the front line and the line
between combatant and civilian is often not clear, how does that change the rules of just warfare? Moral Maze - Presented by Michael Buerk. Panellists: Matthew Taylor, Melanie Phillips, Giles Fraser and Jill Kirby. Witnesses: Colonel Richard Kemp, Mehdi Hasan, Dr Hugo Slim and Ted Honderich.
WED 20:45 Four Thought (b04b1v8s)
Series 4
Rupert Goodwins
Technology writer Rupert Goodwins was an early user of internet message boards which he idealistically thought would bring the world closer together.
The truth hit him when he waded into a forum debating creationism and ended up being attacked by both sides.
He argues that the fundamental problem of incivility on the internet has never gone away - in fact it has got much, much worse.
Four Thought is a series of thought-provoking talks in which speakers air their thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect culture and society in front of a live audience.
Presenter: Ben Hammersley
Producers: Mike Wendling and Smita Patel.
WED 21:00 Into the Abyss (b04b1v8v)
Deep Sea Mining
The deep ocean contains extraordinary ecosystems, full of life forms found nowhere else on the planet. Some of those same habitats are unusually rich in valuable minerals. Could we and should we mine them?
Hydrothermal vent systems are one of the deep ocean habitats which have gained the interest of mining concerns. Volcanically-heated water gushes from the sea floor. The chemically-charged water sustains unique ecosystems, the like of which aren't seen anywhere else on Earth. There are gigantic worms and clams which are nourished by bacteria within their tissues - the bacteria themselves are fuelled by chemicals in the water, in the way plants on the surface use light. There are vast swarms of blind, heat-guided shrimps.
The superheated waters are also rich in metals such as copper, silver and gold which crystallise when the hot water meets the cold ocean. Great chimneys of metallic ores and rock form in this process. The concentration of metals is typically much higher than those of terrestrial ore deposits. Mining companies are keen to exploit them if the costs of extracting them from deep beneath the waves are favourable. Given growing demand from an increasingly industrialised world, the corporations believe the profits are set to outweigh the costs. Underwater robotic bulldozers and monster sized vacuum cleaners are ready for their first deployments and operations.
Many marine biologists view these prospects with alarm. The impact of mining on hydrothermal vents and other mineral-rich deep sea habitats will destroy life in the immediate extraction areas and may cause unknown kinds and scales of damage down current and distant from mining areas. The pace of life and its rate of recovery is notoriously slow in the deep ocean. Biodiversity in this realm has barely been documented and studied.
Should we be damaging tracts of the ocean bed before we know what's there and what the wider consequences will be? On the other hand, might industrial mining deep under water be preferable environmentally and socially to mining on land where there are people as well as animals?
Rebecca Morelle and David Shukman of BBC News investigate.
Producers: Andrew Luck-Baker and Kate Stephens.
WED 21:30 The Long View (b049z14k)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
WED 21:58 Weather (b049xc9w)
The latest weather forecast.
WED 22:00 The World Tonight (b04b1v8x)
Fighting continues in Gaza as diplomacy makes slow progress, UK accused of hypocrisy over arms sales to Russia and Commonwealth Games opening ceremony with Ritula Shah.
WED 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04b3v10)
The Miniaturist
Episode 3
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Read by Emilia Fox
On a cold autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of the Dutch East India Company's most successful merchant trader : Johannes Brandt. But her lavishly furnished new home is not welcoming, and its inhabitants seem preoccupied with their own secrets. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office which leaves Nella isolated in the grand house on the canal with his sister, the sharp-tongued Marin and Otto and Cornelia their servants as company.
Nella's world changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist, an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny and intricate creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways.
But as she starts to receive unexpected and unasked for items for her 'toy house' Nella becomes aware that the Brandt household contains unusual secrets and she begins to understand - and fear- the escalating dangers that await them all. In this repressively pious society conformity is all. Neighbours are encouraged to spy on each other, excavating 'the canker' of sin. The packages from the mysterious miniaturist begin to reveal chillingly prophetic objects but Nella remains at a loss as to what they all mean.
Ep3. The unlooked for package from the miniaturist has unnerved Nella, but she can't help but be seduced by the intricate craftsmanship.
Producer: JILL WATERS
Abridged by Isobel Creed and directed by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
WED 23:00 Tina C (b04b1v8z)
Tina C's Commonwealth of Nations: The Empire Strikes Back
Country music legend Tina C - multi-Grammy award-winner, global peace icon, and US troops pin-up in warzones worldwide - is the living embodiment (and what a body) of soft power.
Fresh from the Commonwealth Games' spectacular opening ceremony, Tina guides a Glasgow audience through her own unique take on the Commonwealth, and why she should be in it. Expect great songs, laughs, and a look at something you've known about all your life from a completely different perspective. Including special guests, obscure facts, and power ballads to bring us all together where ideology has failed. Written and performed by Christopher Green.
“Christopher Green’s Tina C is one of the great comic creations of the age. A genuinely fine country singer, but with a twist of satire and insight which is rare and to be highly prized.” – Stephen Fry
“To misconstrue Tina as a comedy act done merely for laughs is to miss out on a strategic, highly intelligent brand of satire” - The Age, Melbourne
“The political person’s Barry Humphries” – The Guardian
“Better politics than Michael Moore, better legs than Marlene Dietrich” – New Zealand Herald
“Christopher Green….Part politician, part shaman, part sociologist, part healer, but you’ll happily only focus on the fact that he’s an entertainer” – The Guardian
Producer: Jonquil Panting
WED 23:30 Today in Parliament (b04b1v91)
Sean Curran reports from Westminster.
WED 23:55 The Listening Project (b04b2485)
Allyson and Sarah - Animal Rescue
Fi Glover introduces a conversation between the manager of an Animal Rescue centre and a volunteer about what animals can do for us, and what we must do for them.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Marya Burgess.
THURSDAY 24 JULY 2014
THU 00:00 Midnight News (b049xcbv)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
THU 00:30 Book of the Week (b04b60k8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Wednesday]
THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b049xcbx)
The latest shipping forecast.
THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b049xcbz)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b049xcc1)
The latest shipping forecast.
THU 05:30 News Briefing (b049xcc3)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04brc1t)
A short reflection and prayer with Canon Simon Doogan.
THU 05:45 Farming Today (b04b1zlf)
TB in badgers, Sugar beet, Crofting and Raspberries
A project to test badgers, that have died in road accidents, for bovine TB in Cheshire has found that the disease could be more widespread than previously thought. Scientists at the University of Liverpool began testing badgers at the start of this year. So far they have results for 40 badgers and ten of them have tested positive for the disease. Cheshire is on the edge of a TB hot spot area and is one of 11 areas highlighted by Defra to receive funding to vaccinate badgers in an attempt to stop the spread of the disease.
There will be 20% fewer fields of sugar beet across the British countryside next year and farmers growing that beet will get a lower price for their crop. British Sugar, the company that processes all sugar beet produced in the UK, has announced a 24% price drop for the crop sown next Spring. Caz Graham speaks to the Chairman of the NFU's Sugar Board and asks how the union and British Sugar reach an agreement on price.
And it's the peak of the British raspberry season and according to British Summer Fruits, the body representing many summer fruit growers, commercial production of British raspberries has increased by 370% in the last ten years. To find out how this increase has come about, Lucy Bickerton visits a 'pick your own' farm in Herefordshire.
Presented by Caz Graham and produced by Lucy Bickerton.
THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b0378x67)
Arctic Skua
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Michaela Strachan presents the arctic skua. Arctic Skuas are the pirates of the bird world and cash in on the efforts other seabirds make to find food. They are elegant birds with long angular wings, projecting central tail feathers and a hooked bill. The dashing flight of an Arctic Skua as it chases a hapless gull is always thrilling to watch.
THU 06:00 Today (b04b1zlh)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.
THU 09:00 Inside the Ethics Committee (b04b1zlk)
Series 10
Organ Donation and Newborn Babies
Organ transplants are one of the triumphs of modern medicine. As the field has evolved, views on who can receive organs, and who can donate, have changed.
Elizabeth and Kenny are expecting twins. While one baby looks healthy, the other has anencephaly, a lethal abnormality where the brain fails to develop. Babies with this condition either die in the womb, are stillborn or live for just seconds, minutes or hours after birth. It's possible to terminate the pregnancy of this twin, but the procedure could trigger a miscarriage in the healthy one.
The couple decide to continue with the pregnancy of both twins - a healthy baby girl and a boy with anencephaly. As the pregnancy progresses, it's very emotional for the couple knowing that their little boy won't survive. However, they are keen to meet both babies and spend whatever precious time they might have with their son, before he dies.
Early on in discussions about their son, the obstetrician raises the subject of organ donation. Elizabeth and Kenny are open to the idea. They feel it could enable some good to come out of their son's tragic situation and are keen to explore it further.
Retrieving organs from children for transplant is rare, but it's particularly unusual from newborn babies. It's unheard of in those with anencephaly.
Can Elizabeth and Kenny donate the organs of their newborn baby with anencephaly, after its death? To what lengths can a team go to enable transplantation to take place?
Joan Bakewell and her panel discuss the issues.
Producer: Beth Eastwood.
THU 09:45 Book of the Week (b04b60rv)
Deep
Caribbean
In 'Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves', journalist James Nestor becomes enthralled by the extreme sport of freediving – where humans plunge many hundreds of feet into the sea without oxygen or breathing equipment. Nestor overcomes his initial scepticism about this dangerous sport and meditates on our relationship to the ocean, which he describes as 'the last truly quiet place on Earth.'
We meet scientific adventurers who take us ever deeper when they explore Grand Canyon-like chasms no one has ever reached (alive) before, where life-forms flourish in 300-degree water with absolutely no light. None of it should exist, and yet it does. But how?
Abridged and produced by Pippa Vaughan.
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (b04b1zlm)
Jenni Murray presents the programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
THU 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b04b22h1)
The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles: Series 6
Episode 4
The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles, Ep.4/5
by Esther Wilson
New series of award winning 15' drama about a young married couple with learning disabilities, starring Donna Lavin and Edmund Davies, actors with learning disabilities. Based on true stories and created in part through improvisation. Darleen's left Jamie and moved to the countryside to a village created solely for adults with learning disabilities. Jamie decides to surprise Darleen and go to the commune to declare his love for her. But it all goes terribly wrong.
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.
THU 11:00 Crossing Continents (b04csssl)
Tornado Hide and Seek
When a twisting funnel drops from the sky with tearing winds of up to 500 km/h, what do you do? In Oklahoma, people thought they knew the answer. The state is in the heart of tornado alley in the USA, where the public is regularly drilled on storm awareness. But when the largest storm ever recorded formed on the outskirts of Oklahoma City last year, people ignored the best advice and nearly died in their thousands. Now, officials are nervously watching where the next storm will form...and trying to figure what people will do when it does. Neal Razzell goes out and about with the storm chasers in Oklahoma City.
THU 11:30 With Great Pleasure (b04b22h5)
Neil Stuke at Bristol Food Connections Festival
Neil Stuke, the actor who played Billy Lamb, the Clerk in BBC One's Silk, chooses his favourite and funniest pieces of writing about food for the audience at the Bristol Food Connections Festival. His readers are Miranda Raison and Jack Klaff.
Pieces range from Laurie Lee and Chris Stewart on the delights of Spanish cuisine, to Keith Floyd on the joys of seafood - and Geoff Dyer on his loathing of the same. Provocative lines from PJ O'Rourke, Samuel Pepys on honest gluttony, words of wisdom from Clement Freud and DH Lawrence describing what he ate on his travels in Italy complete the bill of fare.
Neil Stuke is a keen cook, who was runner-up in Celebrity MasterChef. His father was a chef, and Neil himself is a passionate food lover.
Producer Beth O'Dea.
THU 12:00 You and Yours (b04b22h7)
School Holiday Hunger; Reform of Private Healthcare; The Truth About Surveys
You and Yours examines claims that children who get free school meals go hungry in the summer holidays. We hear from a teacher who says students return noticeably thinner. Spain's school canteens will stay open this summer - should ours follow suit?
Business leaders say the private healthcare system needs reform as much as the banking industry, according to new research by health insurance company Bupa. We ask what's going wrong and what needs to change.
And when is a survey worth paying attention to - just how reliable is the research behind those newspaper headlines?
THU 12:57 Weather (b049xcc5)
The latest weather forecast.
THU 13:00 World at One (b04b22sp)
Police report says Met squad gathered information on 18 justice campaigns. But the head of the review, Chief Constable Mick Creedon tells us this never amounted to "direct spying". Yasmin Khan, who's close to the De Menezes family, tells us they believe undercover officers were trying to discredit them.
An Air Algerie plane with 116 people on board disappears over Mali. Our correspondent there has the latest.
The Christian woman condemned to death for apostasy in Sudan has been flown to Italy. We hear from Italy's deputy foreign minister, Lapo Pistelli.
A spokesman for the Egyptian foreign ministry, Badr Abdel Atty, speaks to us about international efforts to push for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Andrew Bomford meets the man behind rescuing the Norton biking brand, who's won government backing for a youth academy to train apprentices.
And are "super ants" on the march across southern England? The head of nature conservation at the National Trust joins us to answer that question.
Presented by Edward Stourton.
THU 13:45 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04b22yh)
Blight on the Landscape
Out of the tragedy of the Irish potato famine was to emerge a major new discipline in science - plant pathology. Infectious micro-organisms would come to be accepted as a cause of disease rather than its result.
Kathy Willis hears from Kew's head of mycology, Brin Dentinger, on the significance of German botanist Antony de Bary's experiments that would lead to a new understanding of the causes of potato blight.
Insights into the life cycle and behaviour of fungal spores required detailed and repetitive observations. Some of the most important insights in the 19th century came from children's story writer and natural history illustrator Beatrix Potter. Historian Jim Endersby explains how her careful observations contributed to the controversial idea that many fungi, far from being destructive, live in symbiosis with a host of plants.
Kew mycologist Martin Bidartondo studies this relationship and we hear how thanks to new technology enabling researchers to identify fungal DNA we're on the brink of elucidating the real importance of fungi in today's ecosystems.
Producer Adrian Washbourne
Presenter: Kathy Willis is director of science at Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. She is also professor of long-term ecology and a fellow of Merton College, both at Oxford University. Winner of several awards, she has spent over 20 years researching and teaching biodiversity and conservation at Oxford and Cambridge.
THU 14:00 The Archers (b049z7xk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Wednesday]
THU 14:15 Drama (b016ljhy)
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
A Late Van Just Glimpsed
written and dramatised by Alexander McCall Smith
Episode One: A Late Van Just Glimpsed
The first of two plays adapted from Alexander McCall Smith's enormously successful and popular series set in Botswana.
Mma Ramotswe makes a ghostly sighting and there is disturbing news about Charlie, Mr JLB Matekoni's wayward apprentice and the ladies investigate unexplained, violent attacks on cattle. Meanwhile, preparations are underway for Mma Makutsi's wedding to Phuti Radiphuti , but tragedy awaits outside the shoe shop.
Director: Gaynor Macfarlane.
THU 15:00 Open Country (b04b24y0)
Butser Ancient Farm, Hampshire
How did people live on the land 2,000 years ago, during the Iron Age? Helen Mark finds out when she visits Butser Ancient Farm near Petersfield in Hampshire, very much a living experiment in practical archaeology.
Founded 42 years ago by Peter Reynolds, Helen hears that Butser still operates as a kind of laboratory that looks into how our ancestors lived. For example, Butser's thatched roundhouses are built according to the exact dimensions found at digs in the vicinity, along the wooded hills and valleys of the South Downs. Butser director Maureen Page shows Helen the sheep they keep, which are genetically close to those kept by Iron Age farmers.
Experienced thatcher and roundhouse builder, Dave Freeman, demonstrates how to lay Norfolk reed as a roofing material. However, we hear the reed isn't from Norfolk or anywhere in the UK, but from Turkey. This is because our reeds simply aren't up to the job, affected by chemical runoff from the fields into our waterways.
Meanwhile Butser's resident experimental archaeologist, Ryan Watts, shows Helen the canoe he successfully made last summer from a fallen oak, hollowing it out with fire, and finishing it off with bronze axes that they cast on site.
Producer: Mark Smalley.
THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (b049xhfg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:55 on Sunday]
THU 15:30 Open Book (b049xtjy)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Sunday]
THU 16:00 The Film Programme (b04b26jh)
Mark Gatiss; Richard Lester on The Beatles; Hercules
With Matthew Sweet.
Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss reveals the identity of one of his favourite screen detectives in another instalment of his series.
Hercules labours again in the form of ex-wrestler Dwayne Johnson, the latest in the long line of body builders who have played the son of Zeus. Christopher Frayling and Natalie Haynes trace the mythology from Italian cinema of the 50s and 60s, where he starred in twenty sword and sandal epics, including Hercules And The Moon Men and Hercules And The Amazon Women
Director Richard Lester reveals which of The Beatles was his favourite actor as A Hard Day's Night is released on DVD to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
Antonia Quirke considers why driving and cinema were made for each other.
THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (b04b26jk)
Science's fascination with the face
Face recognition
The software that analyses images of your face, captured online or when you're out and about, has rapidly improved. Adam visits Amscreen, to test the cameras they deploy at supermarket checkouts to determine your age and sex, to inform advertisers of the best demographic to target. This raises ethical and privacy issues which Adam discusses with privacy expert Professor Colin Bennett and author of "The formula, about algorithms and the algorithm culture", Luke Dormehl.
Quantifying expressions
Is a look of contempt, or a smile, a universal expression or do they vary across cultures? Marnie Chesterton visits Glasgow University's Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, where the scientists are building a huge database of faces, in order to unpick and quantify our expressions. Dr Oliver Garrod from the Generative Face Grammar Group demonstrates how they can capture your face, and animate it.
Evolutionary psychology
There is a long list of evolutionary explanations for the human condition. Mostly these are quite trivial. Teen boys develop acne on their faces to deter females from fertile but psychologically immature mates. Babies cry at night to prevent parents further procreating, resulting in potential sibling rivals. At the other end of the scale, these sorts of explanations have been used to suggest deeply problematic ideas, such as rape being an evolutionary strategy.
Professor David Canter, a psychologist from University of Huddersfield has railed against this fashion for 'biologising' our behaviour. And evolutionary biologist Professor Alice Roberts is also critical of 'adaptionism' - the idea that everything has evolved for an optimal purpose.
Producer: Fiona Roberts.
THU 16:55 1914: Day by Day (b04b26jm)
24th July
Britain and Russia react to Austria-Hungary's ultimatum.
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First world war. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Margaret Macmillan is Professor of International History at Oxford University.
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak,
Jane Whittenshaw
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Russell Finch
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 17:00 PM (b04b2bvp)
Eddie Mair presents coverage and analysis of the day's news.
THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b049xcc7)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 18:30 Sketchorama (b047c7x4)
Series 3
Episode 1
Tom Tuck presents the pick of the best live sketch groups currently performing on the UK comedy circuit - featuring three up and coming groups in character, improv, broken and musical sketch comedy.
In this programme:
Casual Violence
A comedy collective featuring Luke Booys, Greg Cranness, Dave Arrondelle, Alex Whyman, Ben Champion and writer James Hamilton. Their most recent show, House of Nostril, had sell out runs at the Soho Theatre and the Lowry in Salford Quays, following the show's success at the Edinburgh Fringe 2013. They won a ThreeWeeks Editor's Choice Award in 2011 for their show Choose Death, and their writer James Hamilton was nominated for the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality in 2011 and 2012.
Croft and Pearce
Hannah Croft and Fiona Pearce met at school and, in a radical bid to break free from a quiet, cerebral existence in the Home Counties, they both went to study at Oxford University. Desperate to be chatted up by men from mainland Europe, Hannah studied French and Italian. Desperate not to be, Fiona studied English. Fiona went on to train on the three year acting course at Central School of Speech and Drama. Eager to be like Fiona, Hannah also studied acting for three years, at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Since then they have enjoyed three successful runs at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Beasts
Three refined gentlemen of comedy - Owen Roberts, James McNicholas and Ciarán Dowd. After a sell-out second Edinburgh show, these monstrously funny sketchmen are all set for greater success.
Producer: Gus Beattie
A Comedy Unit production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 19:00 The Archers (b04b2bvr)
Lynda encourages Lilian to showcase her knitting at the fete and in front of special guest Kirstie Allsopp.
Crafty Lilian buys some hand-knitted items from second-hand shops, which she'll pass off as her own. She also buys a wrist support. She will claim to have tendonitis to get out of doing any knitting displays. She tells Peggy not to take the moral high ground about the deception. She's just as culpable as Lilian. Peggy reflects that she only seems to get out these days to attend funerals.
Lynda leads the group making the 'No to Route B' video, as they walk, cycle and ride the route. Jim recites a poem to camera.
PC Burns helps Fallon get her van going and collect some furniture for her stall at the fete on Sunday. Fallon admits she's getting through her savings as she develops the vintage business. They tentatively try to arrange a drink or dinner together but are interrupted before they can agree a date.
Burns intervenes when an angry farmer challenges the group who are filming and supposedly trespassing on his property. The altercation is a reminder to Ruth that there will be more people like the farmer opposing them.
THU 19:15 Front Row (b04b2bvt)
Porgy and Bess; Liverpool giant puppets; Gerald Seymour
Tonight's Front Row celebrates the return of giant puppets to Liverpool. This time, the little girl and her dog are joined by her grandmother: Kirsty Lang finds out about the threesome, and how Liverpool council copes with turning the city-centre into a giant's performance-space.
Also in the programme: thriller writer Gerald Seymour on the changing face of contemporary Irish politics; Rufus Bonds Jnr and Nicola Hughes on singing Porgy And Bess; and a review of the first solo exhibition of works by Gego - who has been described as the grandmother of Venezuelan contemporary art.
THU 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04b22h1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
THU 20:00 The Report (b04b2hzc)
Trojan horse schools plot
An anonymous document purporting to reveal a conspiracy by Muslim activists to Islamise secular schools hit the headlines in March this year. The document, known as the Trojan horse letter, was almost certainly a fake. But a government investigation concluded this week that there had been a campaign to introduce "an intolerant and aggressive Islamic ethos into a few schools in Birmingham" and that some Muslim governors had in fact employed the underhand tactics outlined in the letter. Teachers who failed to go along with the Islamising agenda were sometimes bullied by Muslim governors and activists. Yet Birmingham City Council preferred to pay off bullied teachers rather than confront the perpetrators.
Reporter Simon Cox spends time in one of the schools inspected, meets parents and teachers and talks to two of the alleged plotters.
Producer: Ben Crighton.
THU 20:30 The Bottom Line (b04bsylz)
Recalls
Faulty children's beds, mislabelled horsemeat burgers and exploding dishwashers are among the products recalled by companies in the UK to protect the health and safety of consumers. Evan Davis and guests discuss the process for recalling defective items and find out how quickly manufacturers and distributors must act. What are the logistics of getting back hundreds of thousands of products from consumers? And what impact does a recall have on a company's reputation? Does it reassure or unnerve customers?
Guests:
Gerard Bos, Customer Relations Manager for UK and Ireland, Ikea
Chris Dee, Chief Operating Officer, E.H Booth
Vince Shiers, Managing Director, RQA Group
Producer: Sally Abrahams.
THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (b04b26jk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
THU 21:30 Zeitgeisters (b040h14h)
Series 2
Rem Koolhaas
BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz meets the cultural entrepreneurs whose aesthetic sense infects and influences our daily lives... who know what we want, even when we do not... the men and women whose impact goes beyond mere commerce, it shapes contemporary culture.
Programme 2. Rem Koolhaas - the world renowned starchitect whose first step in the profession was not to design a building, but to write a book. 'Delirious New York', became an instant cult hit among avant-garde hipsters... but also became his own manifesto that has shaped his work and that of many others for over thirty years. Now though, as he launches his directorship of this year's Venice Architecture Biennale, he presents a new manifesto - one that takes architecture into a new future which also recognises the past.
Producer: Paul Kobrak.
THU 21:58 Weather (b049xcc9)
The latest weather forecast.
THU 22:00 The World Tonight (b04b2hzh)
Police 'spies' report - 18 justice campaigns investigated, Hamas leader speaks to the BBC, French anti-semitism claims, with Philippa Thomas.
THU 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04b612c)
The Miniaturist
Episode 4
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Read by Emilia Fox
On a cold autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of the Dutch East India Company's most successful merchant trader : Johannes Brandt. But her lavishly furnished new home is not welcoming, and its inhabitants seem preoccupied with their own secrets. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office which leaves Nella isolated in the grand house on the canal with his sister, the sharp-tongued Marin and Otto and Cornelia their servants as company.
Nella's world changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist, an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny and intricate creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways.
But as she starts to receive unexpected and unasked for items for her 'toy house' Nella becomes aware that the Brandt household contains unusual secrets and she begins to understand - and fear- the escalating dangers that await them all. In this repressively pious society conformity is all. Neighbours are encouraged to spy on each other, excavating 'the canker' of sin. The packages from the mysterious miniaturist begin to reveal chillingly prophetic objects but Nella remains at a loss as to what they all mean.
Ep4. Rejected by her husband Nella continues to feel alone in the city, except for the watchful gaze of the strange blonde haired woman.
Producer: Jill Waters
Abridged by Isobel Creed and directed by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
THU 23:00 Don't Make Me Laugh (b04b2hzk)
Series 1
Episode 2
EP 2
David Baddiel hosts this brand-new show as Jonathan Ross, Richard Herring, Kerry Godliman and Paul Chowdhry go against their natural instincts and try not to make an audience laugh.
Scorer: Emily Dean
Producer: Dave Cribb
A So Television / Fierce Tears production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 23:30 Today in Parliament (b04b2hzm)
Susan Hulme reports from Westminster.
THU 23:55 The Listening Project (b04b24y2)
Ali and Tammi - Our Grandmothers
Fi Glover introduces a conversation between friends who had very different relationships with their grandmothers. One worked in a palace, the other ran off to Rio, proving again that it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Marya Burgess.
FRIDAY 25 JULY 2014
FRI 00:00 Midnight News (b049xcd4)
Israel rejects ceasefire plan over Gaza. Are the benefits of UK economic recovery being equally shared? Will Ed Miliband's admission to looking odd pay off politically? And a report on how the US is struggling with an influx of Central American child migrants. With Philippa Thomas.
FRI 00:30 Book of the Week (b04b60rv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Thursday]
FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b049xcd6)
The latest shipping forecast.
FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b049xcd8)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b049xcdb)
The latest shipping forecast.
FRI 05:30 News Briefing (b049xcdd)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04brc2q)
A short reflection and prayer with Canon Simon Doogan.
FRI 05:45 Farming Today (b04b2kt3)
Scottish referendum, African Swine flu, apricots
A leading pig industry expert warns that the UK needs to ramp up its biosecurity measures in order to prevent a spread of infection from African Swine Fever in Eastern Europe and Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea in the US. Derek Armstrong from the British Pig Executive thinks tighter controls in ports and airports are needed. With less than two months to go until the Scottish independence referendum, Nancy Nicolson talks to Scottish Environment minister Richard Lochhead and DEFRA farming minister George Eustice about the pros and cons of independence for Scottish farmers. Meanwhile Northern Irish farmer David Crocket tells Caz Graham about the problems of having a farm which straddles two countries - as well as two currencies. Could the UK become an apricot producer? Phil Harrison meets a fruit farmer who has just produced a bumper harvest in Kent.
Presented by Caz Graham. Produced in Bristol by Ruth Sanderson.
FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b0378x87)
Yellow Wagtail
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Michaela Strachan presents the yellow wagtail. Arriving in April, Yellow Wagtails are summer visitors to the UK, breeding mostly in the south and east. The Yellow Wagtail has several different races which all winter south of the Sahara and all look slightly different. The birds which breed in the UK are the yellowest of all.
FRI 06:00 Today (b04b2kwb)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.
FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (b049xtjk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 on Sunday]
FRI 09:45 Book of the Week (b04b61hh)
Deep
Sri Lanka
James Nestor's book, "Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves" begins at the surface and then plunges ever deeper into the unknown – until we are at 35,797 feet below sea level: the lowest point on earth. "Freedivers" come to the ocean to redefine the limits of the human body, swimming up to 400 feet below the surface for minutes at a time in a single breath.
Nestor introduces us to freedivers who are drawn to the sea for a variety of reasons: some to break records, some to find peace, and some who are scientists, freediving 'because it's the most intimate way to connect with the ocean.'
Nestor unveils startling facets of human physiology – most notably the extraordinary life-preserving reflexes known as the Master Switch of Life.
And we learn about the old and new life-forms that inhabit our deep oceans – a habitat with the greatest biodiversity on earth, yet most of it remains unknown.
Abridged and produced by Pippa Vaughan.
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (b04b2wz8)
Sexual abuse and the elderly; Child labour; How long should you wait before marriage; Natalie Williams.
Sexual violence against older women is ignored or unreported according to new research carried out in Australia. Researchers says there's an 'enormous silence' around the topic because there is a belief that older women are 'asexual' and unlikely to be assaulted. An organisation that helps families dealing with this in the Uk says it reflects a similar picture here.
We discuss new legislation passed in Bolivia last week, making it legal for children to work from the age of 10. Supporters of the move say it will ensure better regulation and safeguards for child workers. But human rights advocates argue that the law is a step backwards in the fight to eradicate child labour around the world.
Media celebrity and singer Cheryl Cole recently announced she'd secretly married after meeting her new husband just three months previously. Is marrying very quickly automatically riskier, and if it is, how long should you wait before you get married ?
And the soul singer Natalie Williams joins Jenni for a live performance.
FRI 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b04b2wzb)
The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles: Series 6
Episode 5
The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles, Ep.5/5
by Esther Wilson
New series of award winning 15' drama about a young married couple with learning disabilities, starring Donna Lavin and Edmund Davies, actors with learning disabilities. Comic and heartfelt, the series is based on true stories and created in part through improvisation. Darleen's living in a village created solely for adults with learning disabilities. She's in a dilemma when her young step sister, Stacey, turns up.
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.
FRI 11:00 The Leadership Gap (b04b2wzd)
Episode 3
Sir John Tusa explores the state of leadership of large organizations in Britain today.
In the final edition of the series, he explores concerted attempts to close the gaps that often appear around leaders.
He visits London Business School to watch a charismatic lecturer exhorting senior executives to be creative and break from the conformism of hierarchical organizations.
He explores the merits of bringing business dynamism into the public sector - and the rival idea of promoting professional specialists in universities and the NHS into leadership roles.
He spends a morning with John Timpson, Chair and former CEO of Timpson's, the high street shoe and watch repair chain, to find out what he means by 'Upside Down Management' - his distinctive approach to leading his thousands of staff.
He explores how that works in practice for the staff - and why Timpson objects to terms like 'Head of Human Relations' and 'Head Office'.
And he hears from Professor Jeffrey Nielsen, a former leadership consultant who now lambasts the 'myth' of leadership and argues instead for a peer-based approach.
So, John asks, is it possible - or desirable - to have a leaderless organization?
With:
Lucy Armstrong (The Alchemists)
Lord (Tony) Hall (Director-General, BBC)
Margaret Hodge MP (Chair, Public Accounts Committee)
Sir Andrew Likierman (Dean, London Business School)
Tarek Nseir (CEO, TH_NK)
Sir David Nicholson (ex-Chief Executive, NHS England)
Jesse Norman MP (Treasury Select Committee)
Sir Hugh Orde (President, ACPO; former Chief Constable of Northern Ireland)
Pat Ritchie (Chief Executive, Newcastle City Council)
Sir Stuart Rose (ex-CEO, Marks and Spencer)
Dame Nancy Rothwell (Vice-Chancellor, University of Manchester)
Sir Martin Sorrell (Chief Executive of WPP)
John Timpson CBE (Chair and ex-CEO of Timpsons)
PRODUCER: Phil Tinline.
FRI 11:30 My Teenage Diary (b038hghc)
Series 5
Ken Livingstone
Another brave celebrity revisits their formative years by opening up their intimate teenage diaries, and reading them out in public for the very first time.
Comedian Rufus Hound is joined by former London Mayor Ken Livingstone. Ken reads from his 1966 diary, when he hitched across the Sahara, adopted an incontinent ostrich called Horace, and ate a venomous snake.
Producer: Harriet Jaine
A Talkback production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 12:00 You and Yours (b04b2wzg)
Affordable Housing; Care Home Costs; Is the End Nigh for the £1 Slot on Your Shopping Trolley?
Peter White hears about problems in building affordable homes. Morrisons is getting rid of the £1 coin slot on shopping trolleys but not everyone's impressed with the idea. And why is Germany wanting to charge British drivers for using its roads?
FRI 12:52 The Listening Project (b04b2wzj)
Eugene and Margaret - Bread for Africa
Fi Glover introduces a couple who anticipated a quiet retirement before a visit to Tanzania made them determined to remedy the endemic starvation they saw by setting up a bakery. Last year no-one starved in Ifakara.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Marya Burgess.
FRI 12:57 Weather (b049xcdg)
The latest weather forecast.
FRI 13:00 World at One (b04b2wzl)
Shaun Ley presents national and international news.
FRI 13:45 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04b2wzn)
Lumping and Splitting
By 1850 identifying and classifying plants had become far more important than mere list making. Establishing the global laws of botany - what grew where and why - occupied the well travelled naturalist Joseph Hooker - son of Kew's director William Hooker and close friend of Charles Darwin. Kathy Willis hears from historian Jim Endersby on how Hooker was to acquire species from all over the world to build up the first accurate maps of the world's flora.
Mark Nesbitt, curator of Kew's economic botany collection, reveals how gifts to Hooker in the collection reveal the relationship between the amateur collector in the field and Hooker back at Kew was one built on trust and mutual understanding.
But, as Jim Endersby explains, the relationships were frought with tension when it came to naming new plants. Arguments between those claiming they had found new species (often called "splitters") versus cautious botanists, such as Hooker, who would often "lump" together species as variants of the same, raised new debates about what constitutes a new species. And as Mark Chase, Keeper of Kew's Jodrell Laboratory reveals, the arguments continue today.
Producer: Adrian Washbourne
Presenter: Kathy Willis is director of science at Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. She is also professor of long-term ecology and a fellow of Merton College, both at Oxford University. Winner of several awards, she has spent over 20 years researching and teaching biodiversity and conservation at Oxford and Cambridge.
FRI 14:00 The Archers (b04b2bvr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Thursday]
FRI 14:15 Drama (b016lkgj)
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
The Saturday Big Tent Wedding
written and dramatised by Alexander McCall Smith
Episode Two: The Saturday Big Tent Wedding
The second of two plays adapted from Alexander McCall Smith's enormously successful and popular series set in Botswana.
The ladies solve the case of the murdered cattle. Mma Makutsi is feeling anxious about her upcoming wedding to Phuti Radiphuti and an old friend comes to the rescue. And Charlie is let off the hook.
Director: Gaynor Macfarlane.
FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b04b2wzs)
Chester Zoo
Eric Robson chairs the horticultural panel programme from Chester Zoo. Christine Walkden, Matt Biggs and Anne Swithinbank answer questions from the audience.
Produced by Howard Shannon
Assistant Producer: Darby Dorras
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
This week's questions and answers:
Q. Why am I so unsuccessful growing Delphiniums and Hollyhocks due to slug damage when my neighbour is so successful? Is this due to differing microclimates?
A.Microclimates are incredibly local and your neighbour might be a bit more rigorous in his slug patrol.
Q. I put all my fruit and vegetable waste into a trench before I plant beans and this seems to work well. What benefits are my plants getting from this composting technique?
A. The plants are getting nutrients from the vegetable waste and the bacteria in the waste are helping to release nutrients from the soil. Some say this method of composting can be detrimental as it can affect the nitrogen levels in the soil, but generally it is very effective. You can also compost your old cotton and woollen clothes.
Q. Why has my potted Yellow Courgette developed blossom end rot?
A. Fluctuating temperatures can cause condensation, which can lead to rot. You can raise the pot on bricks to get the air circulating around the plant, but once the temperatures level out the issue should resolve itself.
Q. I think my Clematis has Clematis wilt, what can I do to save it?
A. This might not be a case of Clematis wilt, rather a case of slugs and snails. Hopefully the plant will produce new shoots, so cut the plant right down, look after the soil and keep an eye on slugs and snails. Don't put down too much feed. You could put a clay tile pipe over the stems to protect them.
Q. I've tried growing Scadoxus (Blood Lily) bulbs in pots with John Innes number two. I started them in the greenhouse in March, but they just haven't grown. What have I done wrong?
A. There is no clear reason. Perhaps this is due to the temperatures in which the bulbs were stored. It might be worth going back to the supplier and raising this issue.
Q. What plants could the panel recommend for a six-foot planter with trellis in a small yard? We are looking for something evergreen to provide all year round privacy.
A. You could go for a Trachelospermum Jasminoides (Star Jasmine), Clematis Macropetala or Clematis Alpina.
Q. Should I remove the Agapanthus plants that are growing near the foundations of my house?
A. It is unlikely that they will do any real damage to the house's foundations.
Q. How and when do we prune a Hydrangea?
A. If this is the Macrophylla Hydrangea, prune immediately after flowering or wait for the following spring when buds develop along the stems. If it's the Annabelle variety, you don't need to prune much, just remove any diseased branches. If you are looking to thin the plant, you can do so at any time over the period of three years, removing one third of the plant at a time.
Q. Any tips for a greenhouse novice?
A. Leaf Lettuce, Beetroot and Spinach can be grown as early as February and are fast growers. Put in a Peach tree. You can sow hardy winter Lettuces in August - Marvel of the Four Seasons and Black-Seeded Simpsons are good varieties. Rocket and Mizuna can also be grown for the winter, as can Physalis fruits. You can put in low raised beds. Interesting varieties of Tomatoes such as Sungold can be grown as early as July. Peppers and Chillies, French Beans and Amaranthus are good to grow in the greenhouse. It is worth keeping a diary to make a record of what grows well.
FRI 15:45 Stories from the Southern Cross (b04b2wzv)
The Mare's Nest, by Chris Womersley
Stories from the Southern Cross consists of three new pieces of writing produced in collaboration with the first Australia New Zealand Literature Festival. Each story represents a new voice from the Antipodes - a place at once very familiar, but in fact quite different.
The series depicts a world of aggressive ennui, of suburban sprawl battling with a voracious bush and extreme weather, of taboos and generations colliding as old, White Australia comes to terms with another generation of migration.
The second of these three stories is Chris Womersley's The Mare's Nest, in which the narrator remembers his father's psychological disintegration, making him anything but the epitome of the Australian male - the bloke. The father's delusions were fuelled by a very real and extraordinary landscape, by myth and recent history, and by his own father's suicide which - in a culture of denial - becomes his 'disappearance'.
Producer: David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 16:00 Last Word (b04b2wzx)
James Garner, Joep Lange, Alan Alan, Philip Wayre, Dora Bryan
On Last Word this week:
James Garner, the film and television actor who starred in Maverick and the Rockford Files....
The Dutch physician, Joep Lange, who's regarded as one of the world's top clinical AIDS researchers....
Alan Alan, an escapologist described as Britain's answer to Houdini....
Philip Wayre, a naturalist who's credited with saving the otter from extinction in England....
And the Bafta award winning actress, Dora Bryan, whose career embraced the stage, screen and television.
FRI 16:30 Feedback (b04b2wzz)
Last weekend many radio listeners were looking forward to catching up on all the programmes they'd missed during the week using the BBC iPlayer. But they found programmes were mysteriously unavailable. In some cases they remained so until Monday afternoon. What went wrong and should the BBC have done more to communicate about the problem? Roger Bolton speaks to the BBC's Mark Friend, the Controller for Radio and Music Multiplatform.
The panellists on this week's Moral Maze had no problems communicating - in fact, many listeners felt they came across all too loud and clear. Feedback received complaints about the overly combative atmosphere during a debate on 'Just War and Gaza'. Roger asks the programme's producer Phil Pegum whether the moral complexities of the argument were drowned out by what one listener described as "childish squabbling".
What makes a great radio double-act? Feedback visits the Test Match Special commentary box to find out what makes the apparently fractious duo of Geoffrey Boycott and Jonathan Agnew tick.
The BBC published its annual report this week which showed that viewing and listening figures were dropping, particularly among young people. And accusations of South-East bias reared their head again, which comes as no surprise to some of our listeners.
Also - there's the Twitter phenomenon started by a Feedback listener - #EatyTalky.
Producer: Will Yates.
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 16:55 1914: Day by Day (b04b2x01)
25th July
Serbia responds to the ultimatum.
Margaret Macmillan chronicles the events leading up to the First world war. Each episode draws together newspaper accounts, diplomatic correspondence and private journals from the same day exactly one hundred years ago, giving a picture of the world in 1914 as it was experienced at the time.
The series tracks the development of the European crisis day by day, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand through to the first week of the conflict. As well as the war, it gives an insight into the wider context of the world in 1914 including the threat of civil war in Ireland, the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux in France and the suffragettes' increasingly violent campaign for votes for women.
Margaret Macmillan is Professor of International History at Oxford University.
Readings: Andrew Byron, Stephen Greif, Felix von Manteuffel, Jaime Stewart, Simon Tcherniak,
Jane Whittenshaw
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Russell Finch
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 17:00 PM (b04b2x03)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.
FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b049xcdj)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 18:30 The News Quiz (b04b2x05)
Series 84
Episode 8
A satirical review of the week's news, chaired by Sandi Toksvig, with regular panellist Jeremy Hardy and guest panellists Susan Calman, Bob Mills and Katherine Ryan.
Produced by Lyndsay Fenner.
FRI 19:00 The Archers (b04b2x07)
At John Tregorran's funeral service, Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye seems in poor taste to Susan but it made Jill smile. Susan is still troubled by not being invited to Jennifer's kitchen warming.
Jennifer notes Carol's lovely eulogy. Susan is still dropping hints about Jennifer and John's supposed affair.
Carol and Jill are delighted to see each other. Susan introduces herself and Carol clocks her as the fount of all village knowledge. Carol seems surprisingly robust about the service and occasion. Only one of Carol's two children, Anna, is there. There's no sign of Richard, who Carol points out is doing what he needs to do. Carol remembers life in Borsetshire and wonders what might have happened if she'd stayed.
At the party at Lower Loxley, Carol talks fondly with Elizabeth. Carol isn't shy in gossiping about the locals. She mentions Brian's roving eye to Jennifer. Carol admires her as a more forgiving wife than she'd ever be.
Carol stops Peggy on her way out and asks what happened to her steely sparkle. They agree to get together tomorrow and look at some old photos of Jack.
Forced to serve drinks like a waiter, Roy feels angry and belittled as Elizabeth's hired hand. He storms away, telling Elizabeth to find someone else to be her plaything.
FRI 19:15 Front Row (b04b2x09)
Julian Lloyd Webber; Andrew Graham-Dixon; The Galapagos Affair
Julian Lloyd Webber tells Kirsty Lang about his future plans, after being forced to retire due to a neck injury.
Andrew Graham-Dixon on his new TV series The Art Of China - which explores China's artistic heritage and the way contact with the West transformed Chinese art.
Jennifer Haley talks about her award winning play The Nether - a disturbing work about the internet and personal responsibility in virtual worlds.
And The Galapagos Affair - an incredible true-life 1930s murder mystery set on the Pacific islands.
FRI 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04b2wzb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (b04b30m3)
Greg Dyke, Dan Hannan MEP, Baroness Kramer, Justine Picardie
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate and discussion from St James' Church in Emsworth, Hampshire, with Chairman of the Football Association Greg Dyke, Editor of Harper's Bazaar Justine Picardie, Conservative MEP Dan Hannan and Transport Minister Baroness Kramer.
FRI 20:50 A Point of View (b04b30m5)
Is patriotism the last refuge of the scoundrel?
Republican or royalist we all need something or someone in which to invest our loyalty. Will Self reflects on what really lies behind our sense of patriotism. In Britain we invest the idea of sovereignty in an individual, namely the Queen - or rather, it is an idealisation of who she is decoupled for the living reality. The Queen, says Will Self, is unfailingly wise, calm, pacific - a true mother of the nation; and if her Government happens to do things that are at variance with her goodliness, that is only because their power is contingent upon an evanescent electoral mandate, while her shadow-power-play is founded upon time-out-of-mind heredity - and at least residually, upon the Lord's will. Patriotic Britons may be reluctant to admit to all of this, argues Self, preferring to be seen as modern and up-to-date, but if they examine their consciences carefully they're likely to concede that a discrete love-of-country object is required for full patriotic attachment.
FRI 21:00 Saturday Drama (b03ccz12)
Christopher Reason - The Confessions of Caminada
The Confessions of Caminada by Christopher Reason
Jerome Caminada was a real life detective in nineteenth century Manchester. This drama is based on a real life case from his memoirs. It is 1889 and eighteen year old Charlie Parton has been convicted of murder of a respected local councillor. He faces execution but prominent social campaigner Mrs Annie Swinton knows the lad and refuses to believe he is guilty.
Caminada................................George Costigan
Annie Swinton..........................Julia Ford
Father Dermot/Bannister..........Russell Dixon
Fletcher/Wood..........................Jonathan Keeble
Moods.......................................Justin Moorhouse
Charlie......................................Oliver Lee
Producer/Director Gary Brown
Manchester is gripped by an economic depression, the political atmosphere is febrile, there are demonstrations on the streets and crime is spiralling. Only this isn't 2013, it's the 1880s and the man keeping chaos at bay is Detective Inspector JEROME CAMINADA. Combining high principles with low cunning, he cracks down on both political dissent and criminality with single-minded ruthlessness. And yet for all his hard nosed pragmatism, he is capable of moments of insight, humour and compassion. The man is an enigma.
FRI 21:58 Weather (b049xcdl)
The latest weather forecast.
FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (b04b30m7)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
FRI 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04b61hk)
The Miniaturist
Episode 5
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Read by Emilia Fox
On a cold autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of the Dutch East India Company's most successful merchant trader : Johannes Brandt. But her lavishly furnished new home is not welcoming, and its inhabitants seem preoccupied with their own secrets. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office which leaves Nella isolated in the grand house on the canal with his sister, the sharp-tongued Marin and Otto and Cornelia their servants as company.
Nella's world changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist, an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny and intricate creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways.
But as she starts to receive unexpected and unasked for items for her 'toy house' Nella becomes aware that the Brandt household contains unusual secrets and she begins to understand - and fear- the escalating dangers that await them all. In this repressively pious society conformity is all. Neighbours are encouraged to spy on each other, excavating 'the canker' of sin. The packages from the mysterious miniaturist begin to reveal chillingly prophetic objects but Nella remains at a loss as to what they all mean.
Ep5. Prompted by the jibes of Agnes Meermans, Nella decided to pay a visit to her husband at the offices of the Dutch East India Company.
Producer: JILL WATERS
Abridged by Isobel Creed and directed by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 23:00 Summer Nights (b04b30m9)
Series 2
Social media - does the retweet empower us?
Social media has connected us to each other throughout the day in ways that we could not have previously imagined. Now our smartphones don't just ring in our ears, they buzz with a constant feed of words and images. Through a stream of tweets, retweets, updates and selfies, we think of ourselves as more emotionally, socially and politically engaged than ever - but are we?
In a week where graphic images from the site of a plane shot down in Ukraine and the casualties in Gaza have been shared in cyberspace, without inhibition - are we now learning that just because we can do something, that it doesn't mean we should? Can we dispense graphic and horrific images without facts, filtering or empathy? And what does it do to us when we do?
Presenter: Jane Garvey
Series Producer: Ruth Watts
Producer: Jane Thurlow
Interviewed guest: Alex Massie
Interviewed guest: Felicity Morse
Interviewed guest: Eamonn O'Neill
Interviewed guest: Alison Phipps.
FRI 23:55 The Listening Project (b04b30mc)
Gill and Paul - Marriage and MSA
Fi Glover with a conversation between a woman dying from Multiple System Atrophy and her husband; they find they must dismiss the future they wanted and accept the one they have, proving again that it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Marya Burgess.
LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)
15 Minute Drama
10:45 MON (b049y3mk)
15 Minute Drama
19:45 MON (b049y3mk)
15 Minute Drama
10:45 TUE (b049yhcv)
15 Minute Drama
19:45 TUE (b049yhcv)
15 Minute Drama
10:45 WED (b049z14p)
15 Minute Drama
19:45 WED (b049z14p)
15 Minute Drama
10:45 THU (b04b22h1)
15 Minute Drama
19:45 THU (b04b22h1)
15 Minute Drama
10:45 FRI (b04b2wzb)
15 Minute Drama
19:45 FRI (b04b2wzb)
1914: Day by Day
16:55 SAT (b049pcc3)
1914: Day by Day
16:55 SUN (b049xtk2)
1914: Day by Day
23:00 SUN (b049xyj6)
1914: Day by Day
16:55 MON (b049y9pl)
1914: Day by Day
16:55 TUE (b049yjwy)
1914: Day by Day
16:55 WED (b049z7xc)
1914: Day by Day
16:55 THU (b04b26jm)
1914: Day by Day
16:55 FRI (b04b2x01)
A Good Read
16:30 TUE (b049yjww)
A Point of View
08:48 SUN (b0499sph)
A Point of View
20:50 FRI (b04b30m5)
Analysis
21:30 SUN (b0496bgc)
Analysis
20:30 MON (b049y9pz)
Annika Stranded
19:45 SUN (b049xyj0)
Any Answers?
14:00 SAT (b049p9z0)
Any Questions?
13:10 SAT (b0499spf)
Any Questions?
20:00 FRI (b04b30m3)
At the End of Death Row
20:00 MON (b049y9px)
BBC Inside Science
16:30 THU (b04b26jk)
BBC Inside Science
21:00 THU (b04b26jk)
Bad Salsa
11:30 MON (b049y3mp)
Bells on Sunday
05:43 SUN (b049xfjn)
Bells on Sunday
00:45 MON (b049xfjn)
Book at Bedtime
22:45 MON (b049y9q3)
Book at Bedtime
22:45 TUE (b04b3tyw)
Book at Bedtime
22:45 WED (b04b3v10)
Book at Bedtime
22:45 THU (b04b612c)
Book at Bedtime
22:45 FRI (b04b61hk)
Book of the Week
00:30 SAT (b049mwb1)
Book of the Week
09:45 MON (b049y3mf)
Book of the Week
00:30 TUE (b049y3mf)
Book of the Week
09:45 TUE (b04b60fq)
Book of the Week
00:30 WED (b04b60fq)
Book of the Week
09:45 WED (b04b60k8)
Book of the Week
00:30 THU (b04b60k8)
Book of the Week
09:45 THU (b04b60rv)
Book of the Week
00:30 FRI (b04b60rv)
Book of the Week
09:45 FRI (b04b61hh)
Broadcasting House
09:00 SUN (b049xk43)
Classic Serial
21:00 SAT (b0495nlb)
Classic Serial
15:00 SUN (b049xtjw)
Crossing Continents
11:00 THU (b04csssl)
Derek Walcott: A Fortunate Traveller
23:30 SAT (b0495r41)
Desert Island Discs
11:15 SUN (b049xtjk)
Desert Island Discs
09:00 FRI (b049xtjk)
Don't Make Me Laugh
23:00 THU (b04b2hzk)
Drama
14:15 MON (b049y9pb)
Drama
14:15 TUE (b0076zk7)
Drama
14:15 WED (b049z7x1)
Drama
14:15 THU (b016ljhy)
Drama
14:15 FRI (b016lkgj)
Face the Facts
21:00 SUN (b0499dl7)
Face the Facts
12:30 WED (b049z4x2)
Farming Today
06:30 SAT (b049p7n8)
Farming Today
05:45 MON (b049xzlg)
Farming Today
05:45 TUE (b049yfhn)
Farming Today
05:45 WED (b049yskj)
Farming Today
05:45 THU (b04b1zlf)
Farming Today
05:45 FRI (b04b2kt3)
Feedback
20:00 SUN (b0499sp1)
Feedback
16:30 FRI (b04b2wzz)
File on 4
17:00 SUN (b049828l)
Four Thought
20:45 WED (b04b1v8s)
From Our Own Correspondent
11:30 SAT (b049p9yw)
Front Row
19:15 MON (b049y9pv)
Front Row
19:15 TUE (b049yqzg)
Front Row
19:15 WED (b04b1v8n)
Front Row
19:15 THU (b04b2bvt)
Front Row
19:15 FRI (b04b2x09)
Gardeners' Question Time
14:00 SUN (b0499snv)
Gardeners' Question Time
15:00 FRI (b04b2wzs)
I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
12:00 SUN (b04969b3)
I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
18:30 MON (b049y9pq)
In Touch
20:40 TUE (b049yqzl)
Inside Health
21:00 TUE (b049yqzn)
Inside Health
15:30 WED (b049yqzn)
Inside the Ethics Committee
22:15 SAT (b0499j2f)
Inside the Ethics Committee
09:00 THU (b04b1zlk)
Into the Abyss
15:30 TUE (b0499gpc)
Into the Abyss
21:00 WED (b04b1v8v)
It's a Fair Cop
18:30 WED (b049z7xh)
John Shuttleworth's Lounge Music
19:15 SUN (b049xyhy)
Kurdistan: A State of Uncertainty
20:00 TUE (b049yqzj)
Last Word
20:30 SUN (b0499snz)
Last Word
16:00 FRI (b04b2wzx)
Life: An Idiot's Guide
18:30 TUE (b045fzcm)
Loose Ends
18:15 SAT (b049xbzz)
Making History
15:00 TUE (b049yjc5)
Meeting Myself Coming Back
20:00 SAT (b049xc07)
Midnight News
00:00 SAT (b0499szy)
Midnight News
00:00 SUN (b049xc4f)
Midnight News
00:00 MON (b049xc6c)
Midnight News
00:00 TUE (b049xc81)
Midnight News
00:00 WED (b049xc96)
Midnight News
00:00 THU (b049xcbv)
Midnight News
00:00 FRI (b049xcd4)
Money Box
12:00 SAT (b049p9yy)
Money Box
15:00 WED (b049p9yy)
Moral Maze
20:00 WED (b04b1v8q)
My Teenage Diary
11:30 FRI (b038hghc)
News Briefing
05:30 SAT (b0499t08)
News Briefing
05:30 SUN (b049xc4p)
News Briefing
05:30 MON (b049xc6q)
News Briefing
05:30 TUE (b049xc89)
News Briefing
05:30 WED (b049xc9g)
News Briefing
05:30 THU (b049xcc3)
News Briefing
05:30 FRI (b049xcdd)
News Headlines
06:00 SUN (b049xc4r)
News and Papers
06:00 SAT (b0499t0l)
News and Papers
07:00 SUN (b049xc4w)
News and Papers
08:00 SUN (b049xc50)
News and Weather
22:00 SAT (b0499t1h)
News
13:00 SAT (b0499t14)
On Your Farm
06:35 SUN (b049xhfb)
One to One
09:30 TUE (b049yhcq)
Open Book
16:00 SUN (b049xtjy)
Open Book
15:30 THU (b049xtjy)
Open Country
06:07 SAT (b0499llh)
Open Country
15:00 THU (b04b24y0)
PM
17:00 SAT (b049pcc7)
PM
17:00 MON (b049y9pn)
PM
17:00 TUE (b049yqz8)
PM
17:00 WED (b049z7xf)
PM
17:00 THU (b04b2bvp)
PM
17:00 FRI (b04b2x03)
Pick of the Week
18:15 SUN (b049xyht)
Plants: From Roots to Riches
13:45 MON (b048s4tn)
Plants: From Roots to Riches
13:45 TUE (b049yhd5)
Plants: From Roots to Riches
13:45 WED (b049z4x6)
Plants: From Roots to Riches
13:45 THU (b04b22yh)
Plants: From Roots to Riches
13:45 FRI (b04b2wzn)
Playing the Skyline
09:00 MON (b049y3m9)
Playing the Skyline
21:30 MON (b049y3m9)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 SAT (b0499typ)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 MON (b04brc1c)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 TUE (b04brc0c)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 WED (b04brbzx)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 THU (b04brc1t)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 FRI (b04brc2q)
Profile
19:00 SAT (b049xc02)
Profile
05:45 SUN (b049xc02)
Profile
17:40 SUN (b049xc02)
Publishing Lives
09:30 WED (b03bs6z3)
Punt PI
10:30 SAT (b049p9yp)
Radio 4 Appeal
07:55 SUN (b049xhfg)
Radio 4 Appeal
21:26 SUN (b049xhfg)
Radio 4 Appeal
15:27 THU (b049xhfg)
Roots Reggae and Rebellion
11:30 TUE (b049yhcz)
Round Britain Quiz
23:00 SAT (b049699v)
Round Britain Quiz
15:00 MON (b049y9pd)
Saturday Drama
14:30 SAT (b049pc1q)
Saturday Drama
21:00 FRI (b03ccz12)
Saturday Live
09:00 SAT (b049p9ym)
Saturday Review
19:15 SAT (b049xc05)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 SAT (b0499t04)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 SUN (b049xc4k)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 MON (b049xc6l)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 TUE (b049xc85)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 WED (b049xc9b)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 THU (b049xcbz)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 FRI (b049xcd8)
Shared Planet
21:00 MON (b0496c09)
Shared Planet
11:00 TUE (b049yhcx)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 SAT (b0499t02)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 SAT (b0499t06)
Shipping Forecast
17:54 SAT (b0499t19)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 SUN (b049xc4h)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 SUN (b049xc4m)
Shipping Forecast
17:54 SUN (b049xc56)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 MON (b049xc6f)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 MON (b049xc6n)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 TUE (b049xc83)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 TUE (b049xc87)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 WED (b049xc98)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 WED (b049xc9d)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 THU (b049xcbx)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 THU (b049xcc1)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 FRI (b049xcd6)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 FRI (b049xcdb)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 SAT (b0499t1f)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 SUN (b049xc5b)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 MON (b049xc77)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 TUE (b049xc8f)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 WED (b049xc9n)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 THU (b049xcc7)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 FRI (b049xcdj)
Sketchorama
18:30 THU (b047c7x4)
Something Understood
06:05 SUN (b049xfjq)
Something Understood
23:30 SUN (b049xfjq)
Stories from the Southern Cross
15:45 FRI (b04b2wzv)
Summer Nights
23:00 FRI (b04b30m9)
Sunday Worship
08:10 SUN (b049xhfl)
Sunday
07:10 SUN (b049xhfd)
The Archers Omnibus
10:00 SUN (b049xk45)
The Archers
19:00 SUN (b049xyhw)
The Archers
14:00 MON (b049xyhw)
The Archers
19:00 MON (b049y9ps)
The Archers
14:00 TUE (b049y9ps)
The Archers
19:00 TUE (b049yqzd)
The Archers
14:00 WED (b049yqzd)
The Archers
19:00 WED (b049z7xk)
The Archers
14:00 THU (b049z7xk)
The Archers
19:00 THU (b04b2bvr)
The Archers
14:00 FRI (b04b2bvr)
The Archers
19:00 FRI (b04b2x07)
The Art of the Nation
16:00 MON (b049y9pg)
The Bottom Line
17:30 SAT (b04bsykw)
The Bottom Line
20:30 THU (b04bsylz)
The Film Programme
16:00 THU (b04b26jh)
The Food Programme
12:32 SUN (b049xtjm)
The Food Programme
15:30 MON (b049xtjm)
The Food of Love
00:30 SUN (b01k9npn)
The Georgians: Restraint, Revolution and Reform
11:00 WED (b049z4ww)
The Gobetweenies
11:30 WED (b01kksr2)
The Infinite Monkey Cage
16:30 MON (b049y9pj)
The Infinite Monkey Cage
23:00 TUE (b049y9pj)
The Leadership Gap
11:00 FRI (b04b2wzd)
The Life Scientific
09:00 TUE (b049yhcn)
The Life Scientific
21:30 TUE (b049yhcn)
The Listening Project
14:45 SUN (b049xtjt)
The Listening Project
23:55 WED (b04b2485)
The Listening Project
23:55 THU (b04b24y2)
The Listening Project
12:52 FRI (b04b2wzj)
The Listening Project
23:55 FRI (b04b30mc)
The Long View
09:00 WED (b049z14k)
The Long View
21:30 WED (b049z14k)
The Media Show
16:30 WED (b049z7x9)
The News Quiz
12:30 SAT (b0499sp7)
The News Quiz
18:30 FRI (b04b2x05)
The Paper Commonwealth
11:00 MON (b049y3mm)
The Report
20:00 THU (b04b2hzc)
The Verse That Stings
16:27 SUN (b049xtk0)
The War Widows of Afghanistan
13:30 SUN (b049xtjr)
The Week in Westminster
11:00 SAT (b049p9yt)
The World This Weekend
13:00 SUN (b049xtjp)
The World Tonight
22:00 MON (b049y9q1)
The World Tonight
22:00 TUE (b049yrng)
The World Tonight
22:00 WED (b04b1v8x)
The World Tonight
22:00 THU (b04b2hzh)
The World Tonight
22:00 FRI (b04b30m7)
Thinking Allowed
00:15 MON (b0499dlh)
Thinking Allowed
16:00 WED (b049z7x7)
Tina C
23:00 WED (b04b1v8z)
Today in Parliament
23:30 MON (b049y9q5)
Today in Parliament
23:30 TUE (b049yrnj)
Today in Parliament
23:30 WED (b04b1v91)
Today in Parliament
23:30 THU (b04b2hzm)
Today
07:00 SAT (b049p7nb)
Today
06:00 MON (b049y3m7)
Today
06:00 TUE (b049yhcl)
Today
06:00 WED (b049ysn8)
Today
06:00 THU (b04b1zlh)
Today
06:00 FRI (b04b2kwb)
Tweet of the Day
08:58 SUN (b02tw750)
Tweet of the Day
05:58 MON (b0378wy3)
Tweet of the Day
05:58 TUE (b0378wz1)
Tweet of the Day
05:58 WED (b0378x0n)
Tweet of the Day
05:58 THU (b0378x67)
Tweet of the Day
05:58 FRI (b0378x87)
Weather
06:04 SAT (b0499t0s)
Weather
06:57 SAT (b0499t10)
Weather
12:57 SAT (b0499t12)
Weather
17:57 SAT (b0499t1c)
Weather
06:57 SUN (b049xc4t)
Weather
07:57 SUN (b049xc4y)
Weather
12:57 SUN (b049xc54)
Weather
17:57 SUN (b049xc58)
Weather
05:56 MON (b049xc70)
Weather
12:57 MON (b049xc75)
Weather
21:58 MON (b049xc79)
Weather
12:57 TUE (b049xc8c)
Weather
21:58 WED (b049xc9w)
Weather
12:57 THU (b049xcc5)
Weather
21:58 THU (b049xcc9)
Weather
12:57 FRI (b049xcdg)
Weather
21:58 FRI (b049xcdl)
Westminster Hour
22:00 SUN (b049xyj2)
What the Papers Say
22:45 SUN (b049xyj4)
With Great Pleasure
11:30 THU (b04b22h5)
Woman's Hour
16:00 SAT (b049pcc0)
Woman's Hour
10:00 MON (b049y3mh)
Woman's Hour
10:00 TUE (b049yhcs)
Woman's Hour
10:00 WED (b049z14m)
Woman's Hour
10:00 THU (b04b1zlm)
Woman's Hour
10:00 FRI (b04b2wz8)
Word of Mouth
23:00 MON (b04980f3)
Word of Mouth
16:00 TUE (b049yjwt)
World Agony
09:30 MON (b049y3mc)
World at One
13:00 MON (b049y6c5)
World at One
13:00 TUE (b049yhd3)
World at One
13:00 WED (b049z4x4)
World at One
13:00 THU (b04b22sp)
World at One
13:00 FRI (b04b2wzl)
You and Yours
12:00 MON (b049y6c3)
You and Yours
12:00 TUE (b049yhd1)
You and Yours
12:00 WED (b049z4x0)
You and Yours
12:00 THU (b04b22h7)
You and Yours
12:00 FRI (b04b2wzg)
Zeitgeisters
21:30 THU (b040h14h)
iPM
05:45 SAT (b0499tyr)