The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

The final episode in the series following the Music Director of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Sir Antonio Pappano, as he and his team prepare for a brand new staging of Puccini's Opera La Boheme.

All major opera houses rely on well established productions of repertoire classics. Puccini's La bohème is a permanent fixture in the world's top five Operas as measured by performance numbers and John Copley's 1974 staging at Covent Garden was a familiar and much loved favourite. However the time has come to replace it with a new production and the challenge to do that with a fresh staging falls to the team of Music Director Sir Antonio Pappano and stage director Richard Jones.
In five programmes across the week Radio Four follows Maestro Pappano as the new production takes shape. He works with singers, discusses the particular challenges of operating at the very highest level of Operatic performance and expectation and gives candid insights into the often perilous journey to an opening night.
We also hear from the team both on and off stage who work alongside Pappano, including the young cast who are acutely aware that the production they are replacing opened with singers like Placido Domingo and Sir Thomas Allen. There are also stage directors, set-builders, movement directors and Maestro Pappano's trusted repetiteur. But at the heart of it, in the weeks leading up to opening night and as the curtain rises, is the Music director himself, combining the orchestral brilliance of Puccini's score and the dazzling qualities of the singers on stage to produce what they all hope will be a worthy addition to the Royal Opera House's Puccini tradition.

Producer: Tom Alban.

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The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

A reading and a reflection to start the day, with the Rev Canon Jenny Wigley, rector of Radyr in Cardiff.

iPM is the news programme that starts with its listeners. Email ipm@bbc.co.uk. Twitter: @BBCiPM. Presented by Luke Jones and Eddie Mair.

The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.

In this series of Ramblings, Clare Balding is walking with people or in places recommended by listeners. Eryl Davies wrote to the programme suggesting a walk in the hills of North Wales with her father, Tegid. He lives near Blaenau Ffestiniog and loves to explore the area every day, usually alone with his dog Twm. Not that unusual except that Tegid has no sight and relies on his memory and his canine companion to find the way. He has always loved walking and when he can, likes to share his passion with the rest of the family. Today he's joined by Eryl and his sixteen year old grandson, Llewellyn.

Their route can be found on OS Outdoor Leisure map 18

Producer: Lucy Lunt.

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.

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News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

Extraordinary stories, unusual people and a sideways look at the world.

Marcel Duchamp is considered one of the great artists of the 20th century, but was his greatest achievement - Fountain - a urinal bearing the signature R. Mutt, the work of someone else?

The original Fountain has long been lost, and for many decades forgotten, but in the 1950's became such a talking point again that Duchamp decided to manufacture up to a possible 17 copies - one of which stands proud, under glass, in the Tate Modern.

Earlier this century a poll of 500 art historians voted it the most significant art work of the 20th century, for the questions it raises about art and the artist, but although the importance of 'Fountain' in the history of art is undisputed, is it certain the artist was, in fact, Duchamp?

And if it wasn't him, then who was it?

Join the dots, and the paint brush of history seems to point at the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven - a truly free spirit and radical artist, who Duchamp called 'the future'. The smoking gun is a letter written in 1917 by Duchamp to his sister Suzanne, stating "One of my female friends" had submitted the urinal as a sculpture to the exhibition, "the pseudonym Richard Mutt".

True, false, or just a fascinating theory... its one that throws an interesting light over one of the most significant works of the 20th century.

Steve Punt dons galoshes and heads for the nearest convenience.

Producer: Sara Jane Hall.

Tango is easy to recognise: those daring steps, the tight hold of the dancing partners, the intense yet melancholy music dominated by the plaintive sounds of the bandoneon. But if you ask what exactly tango is and where it came from, the answer may not be so immediately clear – because it’s more than a genre of music, more than just a style of dance.
To explore the roots, the culture and the magic of tango, Rajan Datar is joined by leading tango historians Maria Susana Azzi, Christine Denniston and John Turci-Escobar.

Photo: Argentine dancers on stage at the World Tango Championships in 2014 (Getty Images)

Reports from writers and journalists around the world. Presented by Kate Adie.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

The latest news from the world of personal finance.

Miles Jupp is joined by Jeremy Hardy, Lucy Porter, Daniel Finkelstein & Sarah Kendall to discuss Theresa May and Boris Johnson's views on Brexit, Ryanair's flight chaos and The Liberal Democrat Party conference.

Writers - Madeline Brettingham, Max Davis and James Kettle with additional material by Danielle Grufferty and Jenny Laville
Producer - Joe Nunnery
A BBC Studios Production.

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The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Lancing College in West Sussex with a panel including the Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott MP, the author and columnist Charles Moore, the Minister for Disabled People Health and Work Penny Mordaunt MP and the writer and broadcaster Steve Richards.

Listeners have their say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?

That'll be the Day by Ray Connolly
It's 1959 and young Jim Maclaine seems to have it all. He's good looking and destined to go to a good university. But he's haunted by the father that abandoned him and his mother when he was small. Is he ready for the normal life mapped out for him? Or is he restless like his old man? Based on the seventies hit film.

Director/Producer Gary Brown.

The music writer Laura Barton visits three corners of Britain and listens closely to the music found in different landscapes.

In Belfast, a city known for its industry and its Troubles, Laura is accompanied by the composer Deirdre Gribbin, who grew up in west Belfast and went to school along the Falls Road. They take a stroll along the towpath of the River Lagan, which Deirdre often visits to think through her orchestral music against the rhythms of the water.

Also, Laura visits three figures who still live in Northern Ireland - the avant garde performance artist Die Hexen, the musician David Holmes and the singer Susan McCann. She discusses how growing up during the conflict shaped their musical tastes, why country music is so popular in Belfast and what it's like to be at the cutting edge of musical innovation in the city.

Produced by Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.

The model Leomie Anderson talks about her experiences in the fashion industry.

We discuss if women are choosing the right degrees at university. Rachel Coldicutt, the CEO of Dot Everyone UK believes all degrees and social skills can be useful to the growing STEM job market, and Floriane Fidegnon tells us why she's chosen to study Mechanical Engineering.

The BBC Broadcaster and journalist Victoria Derbyshire tells us about her book documenting her experience of breast cancer two years ago and a specialist advisor for Macmillan Cancer Support Dany Bell explains how best to tell children when you have a serious illness.

We hear from Kara Lily Hayworth on playing Cilla Black in the new musical touring the UK. Jane Garvey and her mum tell us what they think of the show which they see in Liverpool.

We discuss the politics behind the Best Place to be a Woman in Britain with Emily Thornberry the MP for Islington South and Finsbury about why she thinks Islington was identified as the worst place to be a woman and from Jo Swinson MP for East Dunbartonshire which was the best place and from Rona Mackay SNP MSP for Strathkelvin and Bearsden on why the first and second place to top the list are in Scotland.

Sisters Laura and Sarah Ayoub perform for us.

And Allison Pearson talks about her latest novel 'How Hard Can it Be'. It follows on from 'I don't know how she does it' a tale of modern motherhood featuring the character Kate Reddy. Fifteen years on Kate is in her fifties and dealing with teenagers, aging parents. the menopause and trying to return to work.

Presented by Jane Garvey
Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed
Editor: Jane Thurlow.

Full coverage of the day's news.

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The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Clive Anderson and Christopher Eccleston are joined by John O'Farrell, Ore Oduba, Ria Jones and Stephen Harris for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Squeeze.

Producer: Sukey Firth.

On Profile this week, we look at the life and career of the world's top diplomat - the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.

When he opened the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, the 68 year old former Portuguese Prime Minister warned the world was in danger, "in pieces" and needed putting back together again.

So, who is he and how does he plan to go about it ?

Mark Coles talks to childhood friends, political colleagues past and present - even Portugal's President - who help explain the events and personal tragedies that have shaped Guterres and led him to take on arguably the most difficult job on the planet.

Floods, cancer, Catholicism, chocolate and cheese...everything you need to know about new UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, on Profile this week.

This year's Golden Bear winning film On Body And Soul is a peculiar love story between two social misfits who work at a Hungarian abattoir
A revival of Thornton Wilder's most-performed play Our Town at Manchester's Royal Exchange resets it to reflect the local audience
Jennifer Egan's follow up to her multi prize-winning A Visit From The Goon Squad is Manhattan Beach. Set in the docks of New York during wartime, Egan has described it as "a fairly straightforward, noirish thriller". Will our panel be more effulgent?
A major new exhibition of the work of the late street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat has opened at London's Barbican Centre; was he warmly or suffocatingly embraced by New York's hungry art scene in the 1980s?
HBO TV's new series The Deuce begins on Sky Atlantic

And - if you listen to the podcast version of this programme, you can find out what the reviewers have been enjoying when they weren't not absorbing stuff for the Saturday Review

Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Natalie Haynes, Arifa Akbar and Peter Kemp. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Steve Punt explores the eternal appeal of a good mystery, drawing on 10 years of experience as Radio 4's resident gumshoe, Punt PI.

Steve's joined by Jon Ronson and Ian Rankin to dissect the components of a compelling mystery. From the case of the handsome lieutenant poisoned by a partridge in the 1930s, to hundreds of children collapsing in a field one summer in 1980, Steve Punt's alter ego has spent the last 10 years travelling the country investigating bizarre cases, crimes and riddles for the Radio 4 series Punt PI. But what is it about an unsolved murder or an unexplained phenomenon that always fascinates us? And what elements does a mystery need to hold our attention?

Historian Fern Riddell, criminologist Elizabeth Yardley and former detective Mark Willaims-Thomas also help Steve with his enquiries.

Producer: Georgia Catt.

The third book in Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels, charting the lifelong relationship between two girls, Lila Cerullo and Elena Greco, who grew up together in the slums of post-War Naples.

Elena, having escaped to Milan after the publication of her first book, struggles to find the courage to live, parent and write again after her marriage to her increasingly dismissive husband Pietro.

Lila, meanwhile, also struggles to rise above her social conditions and desperately tries to find a way to better herself in whatever way she can. By day she suffers the daily abuse and exploitation at work in the local sausage factory and by night she works hard with her partner, Enzo, to make a difference with her life by studying hard the ever-changing face of technology.

Struggling with periods of mental darkness, she also wrestles with being a parent and finding the time to be true to herself. Eventually she is encouraged by a group of old friends and young students to admit her anger at the social adversity and abuses suffered by the women at work in the factory and to stand up and shout about it.

As always, amid the troubles, the two women turn to each other, gaining either strength or weakness from the other, not always to happy effect.

Dramatised for radio by Timberlake Wertenbaker
Directed by Celia de Wolff

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.

There has been a 64 per cent drop in the number of young people being dealt with in the youth justice system. The reduction reflects an underlying fall in youth crime, but also a sustained commitment by police and the courts to finding other ways of dealing with young offenders to avoid criminalising them. Clive Anderson and guests discuss the need for further reforms.

Barrister Shauneen Lambe, executive director of Just for Kids Law, says the system is still too punitive and does not adequately deal with young people with the most serious problems, including repeat offenders.

Solicitor Greg Stewart who has represented young offenders in court for 25 years, says many of the recent reforms simply "re-arranged the furniture" and believes further wholesale changes are needed, including raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility. At 10 years old in England and Wales, it is among the lowest in the world.

Also taking part are Chief Constable Olivia Pinkney who leads for the National Police Chiefs Council on young people's issues, and Malcolm Richardson, chair of the Magistrates Association.

The programme discusses new sentencing guidelines for young offenders, a damning report on youth custody institutions by the Chief Inspector of Prisons and a new report by David Lammy raising serious concerns about the treatment of black, Asian and minority ethnic young people in the youth justice system.

Clive asks if our system is currently too harsh or too lenient in its approach to young offenders. Do we have the right range of punishments and alternatives to custodial sentences? Do our courts sufficiently recognise recent advances in understanding of the adolescent brain?

Producer: Brian King
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.

(12/13)
Benjamin Britten's 'War Requiem' was commissioned for the opening of the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral in the 1960s - but do you know which composer's choral work 'The Beatitudes' was also first unveiled on that occasion? And if that's not the kind of 60s music you're steeped in, try this: which California band had Grace Slick as its singer?

There's just one place left in the 2017 Final of Counterpoint. The three heat winners who return to face Paul Gambaccini's questions today will have to prove that their knowledge is wide-ranging enough to get them over the final hurdle in the race for the trophy. And they'll have to identify music from much longer ago than the 1960s, and from much more recently too, if they're to stand a chance.

As always, there'll be plenty of musical treats, some of which will be familiar, and others that might whet your appetite for something new.

Producer: Paul Bajoria.

The poet Ross Sutherland takes a visceral look at the art of professional wrestling - from its violent theatre to its tendency to bleed through the fourth wall. Exploring the porous boundary between the reality of the ring and the world outside, searching for the edges of the story.

Ross speaks to wrestlers and writers, diving into the world of two of the UK's independent wrestling promotions - Progress Wrestling and Insane Championship Wrestling. We eavesdrop on a violent wedding, speak to a villain carved out of the Conservative Party and explore wrestling's complex relationship with pain and politics.

Image credit: Robbie Boyd (Warrior Fight Photography)

Produced by Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

What happens when scientists around the world suddenly down tools?

Written by Tania Hershman, who is the author of two story collections, My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions, and The White Road and Other Stories. Her award-winning short stories and poetry have been widely published in print and online and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4. Tania is founder and curator of ShortStops, celebrating short story activity across the UK and Ireland. She is a Royal Literary Fund fellow at the faculties of science at Bristol University.

Written and Read by Tania Hershman
Producer: Jeremy Osborne

A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.

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This week's Bells on Sunday come from All Saints Church, East Pennard in Somerset. The church, which dates from the 15th Century, held a ring of three bells until 1740 -when two heavier bells were added - creating the heaviest ring of five in the world. The tenor, tuned to the key of C, weighs twenty four and three quarter hundredweight. The bells were rehung in 1972 and we hear them now ringing Call Changes.

The latest national and international news.

For the boy scouts and Cicero, for Benjamin Franklin and Confucius, preparation has been a key to success. Some, however, feel that too much preparation is the gateway to procrastination - that it is dangerous to be over-prepared.

Mark Tully considers both these views - the wisdom of preparing and the value of spontaneity - with the help of writers as diverse as Napoleon Bonaparte, Effie Waller Smith and Louis MacNeice. There is music too from Mozart, Paul Termos and Charlie Parker.

The readers are David Holt, Adjoa Andoh and Francis Cadder.

Written and presented by Mark Tully
Produced by Frank Stirling.

Brett Westwood relives programmes from The Living World archives. In this 2011 episode Paul Evans joins Bruce Langridge from the National Botanic Garden of Wales and Dr Gareth Griffiths, a mycologist from Aberystwyth University on a fungal foray with a difference, as they look for waxcaps hidden amongst grass.

With over a million fungal species in the World, understanding these could be a daunting prospect for someone new to the science of mycology. However waxcaps are a good entry point as in Britain there are just 40 or 50 of these beautiful fungi species. Apart from being wonderful to view, waxcaps are now known to be an indicator species of the health of a grassland, especially below ground.

Waxcaps generally are in decline in Western Europe as unimproved grasslands succumb to agricultural intensification, with increased nitrogen fertilizers being especially harmful to their microrhiza in the soil. So to begin the journey Paul travels to a remote rural chapel where Bruce has been working to improve the habitat of the graveyard for the benefit of waxcaps. The vibrancy of colour these little fungi buttons produce is astounding, but as Gareth recalls, no one really knows why they are so bright as their one and only function is to disperse spores across the landscape.

From there the trio head down the valley to an organic farm to find the fabled ballerina waxcap, a shocking pink candy sweet looking fungi poking through the green sward. Once thought very rare, these waxcaps have now become the iconic flagship for waxcaps. So why should we conserve these waxcap grasslands? Well as both Gareth and Bruce explain they are the visible evidence of a healthy soil ecosystem underneath the grass who's activity is as important as photosynthesis.

Producer Andrew Dawes.

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Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme.

Colin Freeman makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of the Mines Advisory Group (MAG).

Registered Charity Number 1083008
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal. (That's the whole address. Please do not write anything else on the front of the envelope). Mark the back of the envelope 'Mines Advisory Group'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'Mines Advisory Group'.

The latest weather forecast.

The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.

A service live from Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral to mark the centenary of the birth of the Catholic martyr Oscar Romero. As Archbishop of San Salvador, Romero worked tirelessly to fight corruption in his native country of El Salvador, speaking out against poverty and injustice. He was assassinated in 1980 while celebrating mass in the chapel of the Divine Providence cancer hospital.

The preacher is the Rt Revd John Rawsthorne, Bishop Emeritus of Hallam, and the service is led by the Dean of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, Canon Anthony O'Brien. The Cathedral choir is directed by Christopher McElroy. Producer: Ben Collingwood.

Monica Ali with a personal take on why she believes the history of the British Empire must be taught in our schools.

She recalls a conversation with her father where he told her that at primary school he'd been taught about the Black Hole of Calcutta and how the British gave India railways. At secondary school - post Independence and Partition, her Dad's history curriculum changed dramatically...it ceased to cast a rosy glow over British rule.

When she was at school, Monica was taught nothing about Empire.

And with her children, the subject barely got a look-in.

"Post Brexit, when the fantasy of a small nation decoupled from the world has never been greater", she writes, "it is time to put the British Empire firmly into the school curriculum".

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

In the first of five Tweets of the Day this week, professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology David Rothenberg discussed the brown thrasher.

Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. In this latest series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.

Producer: Tim Dee
Picture: Denise Laflamme.

Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.

Ian wants to forge ahead, and Lexi has to make plans.

Professor Dame Jane Francis is the Director of the British Antarctic Survey.

She is no stranger to surviving in extreme conditions, because for much of her career her research has taken her to the Polar Regions. Travelling with her fossil hammer, her principal interests are in palaeoclimatology and palaeobotany. She specialises in the study of fossil plants, and how they shape our understanding of climates in the distant past, when Antarctica was much warmer.

In 2002 she received the Polar Medal, for her outstanding contribution to British polar research, and in 2013 she became the first woman to head the British Antarctic Survey.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Nicholas Parsons challenges Sheila Hancock, Tony Hawks, Phill Jupitus and Jenny Eclair to speak on the topics on the cards without deviation, hesitation or repetition.

Hayley Sterling blows the whistle.

Produced by Victoria Lloyd.

It's the night where the stars of the food world shine their brightest; the Oscars of the food and farming world. Your food heroes and the winners of the BBC Food & Farming Awards 2017 are announced in the first of two programmes. Sheila Dillon is joined by chef and awards judge Giorgio Locatelli, and a plethora of special guests in Bristol to mark the 17th BBC Food and Farming Awards.

The BBC Food & Farming Awards 2017 concludes tomorrow on BBC Radio 4 at 1530.

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Global news and analysis.

A monthly series in which broadcaster and acclaimed historical novelist Sarah Dunant delves into the past to help frame the present, bringing to life worlds that span the centuries.

Taking modern day anxieties as its starting point, the programme considers how certain questions are constant, yet also change their shape over time.

This month, Sarah is plunging into the world of personal debt. As present-day concerns rise about ever-increasing levels of consumer borrowing and the individual's vulnerability to predatory lenders, Sarah explores the complex history of debt, the opportunity and the risk it has represented to people over the years.

From the stories of indentured labourers seeking a new life in 19th century Guyana to the Scottish woman charging interest of King James VI, Sarah tries to glean a little light to guide us through today's murky world of money.

This month's guests are Professor Cathryn Spence from Vancouver Island University, Professor Jerry White from Birkbeck University of London, David Kynaston and Professor Clem Seecharan from London Metropolitan University.

Presenter: Sarah Dunant
Producers: Katherine Godfrey and Nathan Gower
Executive Producer: David Prest
Readers: Sabrina Carter and Peter Marinker
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.

Eric Robson hosts a very special edition from Ness Botanic Gardens, where GQT held its 70th birthday garden party. On the anniversary panel with Eric are Matt Biggs, Anne Swithinbank, Matthew Wilson - alongside returning panellist and special guest Roy Lancaster.

The panel answers questions from a lively audience of 1000 gardeners, offering tips on getting rid of Himalayan Balsam, advising on being patient with a satsuma, and suggesting the best tea varieties to grow in the UK.

Also, Rosie Yeomans takes a tour of the garden party, chatting with expert and amateur gardeners alike and paying a visit to the BBC Talks Stage along her way.

Produced by Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.

Fi Glover introduces conversations about pacifism, altruism and the pressures of body fascism in the Omnibus edition of the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.

The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject

Producer: Marya Burgess.

by Penelope Fitzgerald

dramatised by Michael Butt

Young Annie Asra finds bureaucracy, camaraderie, eccentricity and love in the BBC of 1940. Based on the Booker Prize-Winner's comic novel, starring Helen George and Toby Jones.

Director: David Hunter

Helen George is well known for both her role as Trixie Franklin in the BBC Series CALL THE MIDWIFE and her recent performance in reaching the quarter-final stage of STRICTLY COME DANCING.

Toby Jones is shortly to be seen as Captain Mainwaring in the forthcoming DAD'S ARMY film. Also on TV in THE DETECTORISTS and CAPITAL. His career ranges from Dobby in the HARRY POTTER films to Truman Capote in INFAMOUS. Recent radio includes the G.F. Newman series THE CORRUPTED.

Four Seasons returns with poems of autumn, old and new, read by actors and poets to mark the turning of the year.

The ethos of the paralympic movement is fair and equal competition. At its heart is the classification system designed to ensure people of equal impairment compete against each other.

The International Paralympic Committee has warned that some athletes are exaggerating their disability - known as intentional misrepresentation - in order to get into a more favourable class. It said this was in "grave danger of undermining the credibility of the sport."

File on 4 has spoken to athletes, parents and coaches who say they too are concerned the system is being abused. They claim less disabled athletes are being brought into sports in the quest for medals. Some athletes have decided to quit competing altogether as they no longer believe there is a level playing field. They claim more disabled athletes are being squeezed out of para competition.

The first ever athletes forum for the paralympic movement was held this summer. It too says there is a lack of trust about classification among competitors and called for greater transparency saying athletes should have the ability to raise concerns about fellow competitors.

Is doubt about the current system threatening trust in the paralympic movement?

Reporter: Jane Deith
Producer: Paul Grant.

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Broadcasters choose their BBC Radio highlights.

Pip urgently needs help, and Jolene is called upon.

Richie Webb stars as performance shy cocktail pianist Nigel Penny.

Nigel Penny's attempts to live his life in the background have been thwarted by the surprise arrival of his entrepreneurial half-brother, Pav (Paul G Raymond) who is desperate to find gigs for Nigel and his musical partner, wannabe singer Rachel (Jess Robinson).

Despite his protestations of sea-sickness, Pav books Nigel to accompany Rachel as the entertainment on a floating barge at an event hosted by Belinda (Vicki Pepperdine), an old acquaintance of Nigel's. Meanwhile Stan (Dave Lamb) is yearning to return to his homeland.

Directed by Nick Walker
Audio Production by Matt Katz
Written and produced by Richie Webb
A Top Dog production for Radio 4.

As part of their final Media Degree assessment at NUC in Northern Ireland, three final year university students - Natalie Driver, JJ Collins and Vic Grant - decide to make a podcast about a cold case which happened in Colecastle fourteen years ago. On Saturday April 26th 2003, Toby Ellis was minding his four month old nephew, Derek Ellis. He nipped into his local newsagents and left the pram outside on the street. He claimed he left the child for no longer than two minutes. During this time, the baby was abducted and six days later the infant's body was discovered buried in a nearby wooded area, Mountfort. Cause of death, a blow to the head. No one was ever charged with the murder and the case has remained on-going.

The first episode of Hiding Out is a podcast hosted by one of the students, Natalie; she reveals she is currently in hiding fearing for her safety. Having published their first podcast on The Murder at Colecastle, her fellow student Vic had received a call from someone who had heard the podcast claiming they had new evidence about the day the child was abducted. Vic and JJ met with the source. That was 3 days ago and no one has seen or heard from either Vic or JJ since... The only contact Natalie has received is a text sent from her classmate JJ's phone which reads "We're watching you. Stop this now." Natalie knows their disappearance is clearly linked to digging into the murder of Derek Ellis. If she finds them, she may finally find the truth of what happened in Colecastle. Natalie's nightly podcasts of 'Hiding Out' are attracting more and more interest - #whereisnatalie and #findvicandjj are rife with speculation. Are these three students actually in danger? Or - as their media lecturer believes - is this all an elaborate media hoax?

Gerard Stembridge ..... Writer
Gemma McMullan ..... Series Producer & Director.

£350 million claim again

Boris Johnson has made the claim again that when the UK leaves the EU it will gain control of £350 million a week. The UK Statistics Authority has written to the Foreign Secretary to tell him it is a mis-use of official statistics to make this assertion. We take a look at why they have taken this action.

Disadvantaged students going to university

We look at two claims - is Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn correct to say that there are fewer students from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university now. Plus - is it true that disadvantaged students from England are twice as likely to go to university than those from Scotland.

Spanish vets

Is it true that British vets train for seven years while in Spain it only takes a year to qualify?

The value of Half a Crown from 1887

A loyal listener and a friend were recently discussing a Half Crown coin that they found at a sale. They wanted to know how much it would be worth in today's money. The answer is not as straight forward as you might think.

Matthew Bannister on

David Shepherd, the artist who painted trains, aeroplanes and elephants and worked tirelessly to conserve wild animals.

Nancy Hatch Dupree, the American born adventurer and writer who devoted her life to creating an archive of Afghan culture and history.

Gordon Williams, the Booker prize shortlisted author whose novel The Siege of Trencher's farm became the controversial film Straw Dogs.

Pat Albeck the designer known as "the queen of the tea towel" who produced popular fabric designs for John Lewis and the National Trust.

Harry Dean Stanton, the gaunt, hollow-eyed actor best known for films like "Paris, Texas" and "Repo Man".

Image of David Shepherd courtesy of the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation.

From the film Wall Street, to the play Enron, finance workers and bankers tend to be portrayed negatively in works of fiction.
Andrew Dickson traces the history of these depictions, asking if they're fair - and if more positive portrayals would enhance the reputation of the City
He speaks to playwrights, a bond trader turned thriller writer, a film historian and a veteran of the banking industry

Producer: Penny Murphy.

Weekly political discussion and analysis with MPs, experts and commentators.

With Francine Stock.

Director Bertrand Tavernier takes Francine Stock on a journey through French cinema, and explains why it's good to meet your heroes, even if you don't like working with them.

Elliot Grove saw his first movie at the age of sixteen, banned from going to the cinema by his Amish parents, and he was hooked from that moment. He now runs one of the biggest film festivals in Europe, Raindance, which celebrate is 25th anniversary this week. And it's all thanks to Lassie Come Home.

Lady Macbeth is one of the success stories of British cinema this year, and the search is on to find the next big thing to come from the I-Features scheme, which is run like a competition. Francine talks to two of the successful candidates from the latest round, Eva Riley and Alex Usborne, and asks them how they are going to spend their £350,000 budget.

Have you ever met somebody who has the exactly same recurring dream as you ? That's the premise of On Body And Soul, an award-winning romantic drama set in an abattoir. Its director Ildiko Enyedi discusses dream dates with Francine.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

The Mafia and organised crime from Sicily to Japan and the UK. Laurie Taylor talks to Federico Varese, Professor of Criminology at Oxford University. He has charted the daily life of people working for the mafia and the ways in which it is being impacted by changes in technology and the movement of people and money. They're joined by Ann Veron, documentary maker and co-author of a new study on the role of Mafia women and by Paul Lashmar, an academic at City University and investigative journalist with a specialism in organised crime.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

A reading and a reflection to start the day, with the Rev Canon Jenny Wigley, rector of Radyr in Cardiff.

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.

The latest weather forecast for farmers.

Nature writer Melissa Harrison describes how the call of a tawny owl takes her back to childhood, reminding her of people and a feeling that slipped into memory.

Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. In this latest series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.

Producer: Tom Bonnett
Picture: Jim Thurston.

News and current affairs. Includes Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

Francine Stock talks to the sleep scientist Matthew Walker whose latest book is a clarion call to get more sleep, as the latest research confirms that sleeping less than 6 or 7 hours has a devastating impact on physical and mental health. Armed with proof that shift work is detrimental for workers, political strategist Matthew Taylor considers what responsibility companies have to their staff in making sure they get enough sleep and whether since industrialisation modern working practises militate against this. Concerns about lack of sleep and remedies for improving it are nothing new: the historian Sasha Handley looks back to early modern sleep patterns and advice, and wonders why so many of our forebears slept in two distinct phases with an hour in the early hours set aside for sex, housework or reading. The latest exhibition at the National Gallery, Reflections, co-curated by Susan Foister, shows how the medieval painter van Eyck had a huge influence on the Pre-Raphaelite painters, whose work stood in opposition to creeping industrialisation and harked back to a by-gone era of knights and sweet slumber.
Producer: Hannah Sander.

After nearly three decades reporting conflict from all over the world for the BBC, Fergal Keane goes home to Ireland to tell a story that lies at the root of his fascination with war. It's a family tale about how the ghosts of the past return to shape the present.

Fergal's grandmother, Hanna Purtill, her brother Mick and his friend Con Brosnan, along with many of their neighbours, found themselves caught up in the revolution that followed the 1916 Easter Rising. They took up guns to fight the British Empire and create an independent Ireland.

Many thousands of people took part in the War of Independence and the Civil War that followed. Whatever side they chose, all were changed in some way by the costs of violence. Fergal uses the experiences of his ancestral homeland in north Kerry to examine why people will kill for a cause and how the act of killing reverberates through the generations.

In the first episode, Fergal recalls his father's tall stories about ghosts around the family home. But one such story, that of the murdered soldier on the street outside, turned out to have a basis in truth.

Abridged by Anna Magnusson
Produced by Pippa Vaughan
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.

Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.

By Katie Hims

Nell finds herself pregnant and marries Barry, not the father, for the sake of respectability. She has twin girls, Jeanie and Meg, and has a blissful first year raising her daughters. But Barry takes an instant dislike to the girls.

Director . . . . . Sasha Yevtushenko

Jeanie and Meg, twin black-eyed girls, are separated at the age of five, one to stay at home, in a working class family in Scarborough, one to be adopted from a children's home by an upper middle class academic family. And thus their separate fortunes are set in motion, united only by the vaguest memory of being happy together. Their search for each other continues throughout their lives.

Katie Hims is one of radio's most cherished writers. She is currently on attachment to the National Theatre studio. Previous stage work includes Billy The Girl for Clean Break at Soho Theatre. Since 2014 she has worked on the radio series Home Front, including three seasons as lead writer. Other radio work includes Poetry In Motion, Black Dog, King David, Lost Property (winner of the BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Original Drama), The Gunshot Wedding (winner of The Writer's Guild Best Original Radio Drama), and The Earthquake Girl (winner of the Richard Imison Award). Her recent radio adaptations are The Hot Kid by Elmore Leonard and The Martin Beck Killings by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo.

Journalist Hugh Muir examines whether the newspaper industry is losing touch with Britain's increasingly diverse society.

Last year, the Reuters Institute of Journalism published research showing 94% of British journalists are white and 86% university educated. Ethnic minorities and the working classes are largely unrepresented.

Does this lack of diversity in newsrooms undermine the quality and accuracy of the news we read?

Hugh began his own career at the Newham Recorder in East London and was one of the very few black, working class journalists on the staff. With a career at newspapers such as The Mail on Sunday, The Evening Standard and The Guardian, he reflects how his background has been both a help and, at times, a hindrance.

We also hear from Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Britain who has persistently challenged inaccurate and ill-informed reporting about Muslim people in the press. He argues there is too often a lack of basic cultural understanding on the part of journalists, resulting in hostility, mistrust and division.

Eleanor Mills, Editorial Director of the Sunday Times, says that the depth and breadth of reporting is profoundly improved by more diversity in newsrooms and connecting to wider audiences is vital to the commercial survival of newspapers.

Neil Wallis, formerly deputy editor of the Sun and the News of the World, cautions against politically-correct hiring and suggests the lack of diversity may be because few ethnic minority candidates apply for journalism jobs.

Josie Dobrin, co-founder of Creative Access, reveals the obstacles faced by aspiring journalists from minority and working class backgrounds - such as unpaid internships, unfamiliar cultural codes, and a lack of senior role models. Of all the creative industries, she says, the press is one of the slowest when it comes to diversifying the workforce.

Newspaper apprenticeship schemes are now being set up to try and develop a more diverse talent pool. But will these bring change fast enough to save an industry with circulations apparently in terminal decline?

Producer: Zakia Sewell
A Cast Iron production for BBC Radio 4.

By Tom Wainwright

Comedy-drama that follows the fortunes of Bridget, the principal of Leg Breakers School of Performing Arts, a struggling stage school for kids. In an attempt to drum up interest in her struggling stage school, Bridget stages an audacious publicity stunt by organising a Calamity Jane-themed 'flashmob' at the local shopping centre.

With special thanks to the members of the Musical Theatre class at the Young Actors' Theatre in London.

Directed by Sasha Yevtushenko.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Can chemistry help us bake the perfect cake?

Listener Helena McGinty aged 69 from Malaga in Spain asks, "'I have always used my mother's sponge cake recipe. But is there a noticeable difference in the outcome if you vary some of the ingredients, or the method?"

In this episode Hannah and Adam go head to head in a competition to create the perfect cake using the power of science.

They are aided by materials scientist Mark Miodownik, from University College London, with tips on how to combine the ideal ingredients and trusted techniques to construct a structurally sound sponge.

Jay Rayner, food critic and presenter of Radio 4's The Kitchen Cabinet, is on hand to judge the results. But who will emerge victorious in this messy baking battle?

Presenters: Hannah Fry, Adam Rutherford
Producer: Michelle Martin.

Online bookies appear to be encouraging problem gamblers to play again by making them VIP members. Is rewarding a gambler who's betting large sums with free spins and trips away risky? And how do they ensure that their subsequent behaviour isn't problematic?

New research commissioned by You and Yours shows by 2037 there will be 3.2 million people in the UK over the age of 85, double the amount we have now with many of them needing long term care. But we won't have enough care staff to look after them. Our reporter Samantha Fenwick analyses the data and what this means for residents, their families and carers.

Rihanna's new makeup line has made beauty vloggers very excited because of its inclusive foundation range of 40 shades. Why have some cosmetic companies not seen this potentially lucrative gap in the market before?

People who've booked holidays at Center Parcs in Longleat were looking forward to diving in the rapids - one of its main attractions. But Center Parcs has closed the ride at short notice and told people to change their dates or get a refund.

People who run YouTube channels are complaining that Google, who own it, are cutting their income by deciding that their videos are unsuitable for advertisers. It means they lose the money that comes from the revenue share on ads placed on videos. Which videos are Google deeming suitable for adverts?

A new bottle deposit scheme is being proposed by the Scottish government, but corner shops there say the scheme is unworkable - we find out why.

Presenter: Winifred Robinson
Producer: Lydia Thomas.

The latest weather forecast.

Analysis of news and current affairs.

Documentary series.

By Lucy Catherine

Set in that most secretive of hermit states, North Korea, we begin in the late 1970s when Kim Jung-Il, the Great Leader's son, is put in charge of the country's film industry at the age of 25. Like his father, Jung-Il sees cinema as an instrument of mass propaganda. But he's also a genuine movie buff and is appalled by the poor quality of North Korea's offerings. After all, this is the age of Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola - and Jung-Il can clearly see that his own country's unsophisticated melodramas are decades behind the West.

He is determined to put DPRK on the map through its movies and he concocts an audacious plan to kidnap South Korea's star film director Shin Sang-Ok and his estranged wife, the much-celebrated actress Choi Eun-Hee - and persuade them to work for him.

What follows is a truly remarkable narrative involving the kidnapping of both stars, Shin's failed escape attempts, his five-year incarceration in a labour camp, Choi's growing 'friendship' with her captor, her eventual re-union with her husband, the plotting of their escape while making 6 films for Jung-Il, the re-kindling of love, and their eventual escape to the US Embassy in Vienna. ,

An 'audio-film' about love of the movies, love in captivity, a hidden culture, and one of the most eccentric dictators in history.

Written by Lucy Catherine, and drawing on material from the book A Kim Jong-Il production by Paul Fischer.

The songs were translated and arranged by Emma Harding, and sang by Wendy Kweh.

Director . . . . . Sasha Yevtushenko.

(13/13)
The most varied music quiz of them all reaches its climax for 2017, with the three competitors who have come through heats and semi-finals now facing the final challenge. Paul Gambaccini asks the questions that will determine who takes the 31st BBC Counterpoint title.

Would you know the name of the quirky Scottish folk group who performed at Woodstock, but were omitted from the film of the festival? Which British singer-songwriter who died earlier this year was once in a short-lived super-group called Oasis? And who is credited with inventing the name of Tchaikovsky's sixth symphony, the 'Pathetique'?

The answers to these and many other questions lie within today's grand Final - and there are plenty of musical extracts to jog your memory and perhaps lead you down new musical avenues.

Producer: Paul Bajoria.

It's the night where the stars of the food world shine their brightest; the Oscars of the food and farming world. In the second of two programmes from the 17th BBC Food & Farming Awards 2017, Sheila Dillon tells the stories of your food heroes; Our winners and finalists. And she hears about the journeys that our judges have taken to meet them, from Hull to the Highlands, Cirencester to County Antrim, to document the best in food and farming across the UK.

The first part of the BBC Food & Farming Awards 2017 was on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday 24th September at 1230.

The crime novelist Mark Billingham believes there's more to the country icon Hank Williams than catchy melodies and a white suit.

Recorded on location during a promotional tour of the UK, Mark has chosen Hank as his muse because he believes the singer confronted an eternal artistic dilemma head on: how do you please a crowd and still please yourself? As the author of a popular, long-running crime series, it's a question which fascinates him. Crime fiction fans demand a book a year - but the challenge for any artist is to keep pushing their own creativity - so how did Hank manage it?

Mark meets Michael Weston-King of the band My Darling Clementine to discuss how the country singer's raw, brutal lyrics mined his own tumultuous life. He asks fellow crime novelist Christopher Brookmyre how he manages to balance the demands of commerce with the need to enjoy writing. And there are insights from the author MJ Hyland about the dangerous route taken by authors who decide to make a radical change in their writing. There's an unexpected detour into artistic motivation with Mark Radcliffe on 6Music and a chat on the streets of Liverpool about the dangers of "series fatigue" with the author Luca Veste. Having explored the real-life conflicts and tragedies which became fuel for Hank's art - Mark explores a step taken by Hank which is as radical as any by David Bowie or Bob Dylan - he became someone else - developing his Luke the Drifter alter ego which spurred him on to even greater creativity.

On a publicity dash across the UK - our presenter hears of the obsessions which made his muse a unique - if short-lived legend. As Mark Billingham discovers - Hank Williams can change your creative life.

Presenter: Mark Billingham
Producer: Kev Core.

A century after the October Revolution Ernie Rea and guests discuss the role of Belief and Unbelief in Russia. Ernie Rea's guests are Victoria Smolkin from Wesleyan University, Connecticut, Felix Corley from Forum 18 and Vera Tolz from the University of Manchester.

Producer: Rosie Dawson.

Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Nicholas Parsons challenges Paul Merton, Rufus Hound, Sarah Kendall and guest to speak on the topics on the cards without deviation, hesitation or repetition.

Hayley Sterling blows the whistle.

Produced by Victoria Lloyd.

Justin has an unexpected call, and Eddie sows a seed.

Arts news, interviews and reviews.

What is the role of the modern council? And what should it be?

The Grenfell Tower tragedy left many people puzzled, angry even, about the role of the modern local authority. Many assumed the responsibility for fire safety in a block of social housing would rest fair and square with the council - the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. in fact, an unofficial debate after the fire, revealed a complex tangle of responsibilities between the council and a variety of "arms-length" public bodies and outright commercial organisations.

Adrian Goldberg grew up on a council estate in Birmingham, The city local authority - the biggest in Europe - built and collected the rent on the brand new house the family moved into in 1976. And, every day, Adrian took a council-subsidised bus service to the secondary school run by his local education authority. On the way home he'd drop into his council-run library to pick up some books or take a swim in the council run pool.

All of which makes him an ideal candidate to judge the changing nature of the local council. He returns to Druid's Heath where he was brought up and where his mother still lives in the very same council house. It's an estate of a dozen or so tower blocks along with low-rise housing - in the southern suburbs of Birmingham. in 1976, it was brand new. Adrian helped lay the new lawn in his new garden. For the first time, the family was able to keep a dog.

In 1986, taking part in a BBC initiative called Domesday Reloaded, junior school pupil Anna Coalter praised the underfloor heating at Pleck House - one of the tower blocks on Druid's Heath. She also observed that many of the residents were noisy, the milkman refused to deliver and the lift often broke down.

Today, it remains the only council estate in the city not to have been "modernised." A council paper says two parts of the estate require "major intervention due to the poor quality and layout of existing housing." Regeneration plans have been made. In this programme, Adrian spends 24 hours on Druid's Heath investigating what help and services residents really need and to what extent the council is addressing those needs. Will the planned regeneration transform the lives of existing residents? Is the lift any more reliable in Pleck House than it was in 1986?

Birmingham is the home of the confident municipalism pioneered by Joseph Chamberlain when he was Mayor of Birmingham and which has been copied across the UK and in many parts of the world. It's a spirit that was eloquently summarised by Walsall MP John McShane in the Commons in 1930:

"A young person today lives in a municipal house, and he washes himself ... in municipal water. He rides on a municipal tram or omnibus, and I have no doubt that before long he will be riding in a municipal aeroplane. He walks on a municipal road; he is educated in a municipal school. He reads in a municipal library and he has his sport on a municipal recreation ground. When he is ill he is doctored and nursed in a municipal hospital and when he dies he is buried in a municipal cemetery."

Today, the situation is much more complex.

Presenter:Adrian Goldberg
Producer:Beth Sagar-Fenton
Reseracher:Kate Whannel.

Panama's idyllic islands are threatened by a rising sea, but one community has a plan... The Guna Yala archipelago is made up of dozens of tiny, tropical, low-lying islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama. They are populated by the Guna people - Latin America's most fiercely independent, and many would say, most savvy, indigenous group. But the Guna are in trouble. Rising sea levels as a result of climate change, together with a growing population, threaten island life. The Guna aren't alone of course - millions of people around the globe could be displaced from coastal villages as the oceans envelop land in the coming decades. But unlike most vulnerable groups, the Guna of Gardi Sugdub island have a plan. They are intent on building a new community on the mainland, and re-locating. Could their efforts provide a model for other communities confronting climate displacement in the region, and even beyond?

Photo Credit: Simon Maybin.

A mature Baobab tree looks like its standing with its head in the ground and its roots in the air - hence the name the Upside-Down tree. But this tree is no joke. It is of enormous spiritual and cultural importance to local people and is also known as The Tree of Life highlighting its importance as a source of water, food, medicine and materials; for example, the bark is used for making rope, the petals for glue and the roots for making ink. But it's the edible fruits, high in vitamin C and anti-oxidants that in recent years have increased the commercial value and importance of the tree as Brett Westwood discovers as he explores our relationship with this iconic tree. Producer Sarah Blunt.

In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.

Sue Townsend's hilarious and heart breaking chronicle of a teenager growing up in the Midlands in the 1980s. A brand new serialisation, read by Harry McEntire, in the year that Adrian Mole himself turns 50.

It's 1981 and Margaret Thatcher is in power, Britain is at war in the Falklands and teenagers are growing up in a world without mobile phones or computer games. While his parents are downstairs, drinking, smoking and arguing about their failing marriage, Adrian is upstairs in his bedroom listening to Abba, reading great works of literature, writing poems, and penning letters to the BBC.

Despite the many challenges that life throws at him - including regular beatings from the school bully, unrequited love, raging hormones, a severe case of acne and numerous rejection letters - Adrian soldiers on bravely and wins a place in our hearts with his charming naïveté.

Reader: Harry McEntire
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Alexa Moore

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

Malorie Blackman, author of Noughts and Crosses, talks in depth to Michael Rosen about language: the writing that has shaped her and how she's used language in her own influential work. Her lifelong love of reading was fostered by the libraries she went to as a child. If she had to choose between being a reader and being a writer, she says, she'd choose being a reader..
Producer Beth O'Dea.

Cariad Lloyd is an actor, improviser, comedian and writer. And she's outraged to hear that people are not reading Iris Murdoch any more. So she's chosen her Booker Prize winner The Sea, The Sea to bring to the A Good Read table and back into the limelight.
Mike Bullen is the screenwriter of Cold Feet, and Life Begins. And he finds To Rise Again At A Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris laugh-out-loud funny. Humour is such a subjective thing..
LovetoRead is a campaign celebrating the pleasures of reading, and as part of it presenter Harriett Gilbert chooses the book that's most special to her, and explains why: it's The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham.
Which book would you recommend to a friend? Share your own Good Reads using the hashtag #LovetoRead.
Producer Beth O'Dea.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

A reading and a reflection to start the day, with the Rev Canon Jenny Wigley, rector of Radyr in Cardiff.

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.

Nature writer Melissa Harrison muses on the mimicking sounds of starlings, particularly one that learned the ring of her family phone causing calamity in the house.

Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. In this latest series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.

Producer: Tom Bonnett
Picture: Merseymouse.

News and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

Marine ecologist Tracey Rogers talks to Jim Al Khalili about her research on one of Antarctica's top predators. This is the leopard seal - a ten foot long killer which glides among the ice floes in search of prey ranging from other seals to penguins to tiny krill. Tracey's research has encompassed the animal's prolific and eerie underwater singing to radical changes in its diet that appear to be linked to climate change.

Now a senior researcher at the University of New South Wales in Australia, Tracey first encountered the species as a less than successful seal trainer at a zoo in Sydney. There she met a giant female leopard seal named Astrid. Astrid's singing one Christmas day in the early 1990s set Tracey on the path to become the world's authority on this Antarctic species.

Tracey tells Jim how her first expedition to study leopard seals was met with almost universal scepticism until she dropped an underwater microphone into the water. In the following 25 years, she has worked to decode the meanings and qualities of the leopard seal song and explored the changes being forced upon the species by climate change. Tracey describes what made her return to Antarctica again and again and tells the story of how she almost met her end in the perilous shifting world of the pack ice. And then there's the time a leopard seal mistook her for a penguin.

There is a longer version of this interview in the podcast of this episode - more on the seal vocalisations and how Tracey saved the life on a young colleague who fell into the freezing sea.

Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker.

Isabel Hardman of The Spectator asks whether growing food can improve our mental health. John Kennington or 'JK', as he's known, is a recovering alcoholic. He shares his life story with Isabel at Feed Bristol, a project that reconnects city dwellers with nature, while she explains how she learned to manage her own from being outdoors and growing plants.

Producer: Mark Smalley.

After nearly three decades reporting conflict from all over the world for the BBC, Fergal Keane goes home to Ireland to tell a story that lies at the root of his fascination with war. It's a family tale about how the ghosts of the past return to shape the present.

Fergal's grandmother, Hanna Purtill, her brother Mick and his friend Con Brosnan, along with many of their neighbours, found themselves caught up in the revolution that followed the 1916 Easter Rising. They took up guns to fight the British Empire and create an independent Ireland.

Many thousands of people took part in the War of Independence and the Civil War that followed. Whatever side they chose, all were changed in some way by the costs of violence. Fergal uses the experiences of his ancestral homeland in north Kerry to examine why people will kill for a cause and how the act of killing reverberates through the generations.

In the second episode, Fergal's grandmother and uncle - Hanna and Mick - join the Irish Volunteers and blood is spilled in their hometown of Listowel when a Royal Irish Constabulary sergeant is ambushed by IRA volunteers.

Abridged by Anna Magnusson
Produced by Pippa Vaughan
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.

Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.

By Katie Hims

Jeanie has lived in a children's home for two years, and has caught the attention of Joseph Campbell Clark, an eminent child psychologist who decides he wants to adopt her as an academic project. For his wife, Jeanie is not a project, she is a yearned-for child. Meanwhile, her twin sister Meg is told to stop speaking about her at home.

Director . . . . . Sasha Yevtushenko.

Brett Westwood steps into the world of a creature charged with the lore of night, whose dance with a flame has captivated us and whose cocoons have clothed us. Walk with him as he takes a journey into the domain of the moth. Producer: Tom Bonnett.

Radio 4 documentary.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

No one knows why the Earth's magnetic North and South poles swap. But polar reversals have happened hundreds of times over the history of the Earth.

So, asks John Turk, when is the next pole swap due and what will happen to us?

Hannah turns to astronomer Lucie Green from Mullard Space Science Laboratory to discover how the earth's magnetic field protects us from the ravages of space. And Adam consults geophysicist Phil Livermore from the University of Leeds to find out if, and when, we're facing a global apocalypse.

Plus astronaut Terry Virts, author of The View from Above, describes his experiences of a strange magnetic glitch in the earth's magnetic field, known as The Bermuda Triangle of Space, which could help us prepare for the next event.

Presenters: Hannah Fry, Adam Rutherford
Producer: Michelle Martin.

Consumer phone-in.

The latest weather forecast.

Analysis of news and current affairs.

Robert Birley's 1949 Reith lecture series, "Britain in Europe", remain urgently topical today. Sarah Montague discusses the lectures with Professor Anand Menon. The Reith Lectures began in 1948 on the Home Service, subsequently moving to Radio 4 and becoming a major national occasion for intellectual debate. As part of the celebrations of Radio 4's 50th anniversary, the network looks back at the first 10 years of the Reith Lectures to explore how they reflect the times in which they were delivered and how well they stand up now. Birley was headmaster of Eton who had worked in postwar Germany. In his lectures, he looked forward to what he described as a European Union and discussed how far Britain would become integrated in it. Sarah assesses his lectures with the help of Anand Menon, who heads The UK In A Changing Europe thinktank.
Producer: Neil Koenig
Researcher: Josephine Casserley.

By Lucy Catherine

Riotously entertaining feature-length true story of how a South Korean movie star and her estranged director husband were kidnapped by Kim Jong-Il, brought to North Korea and forced to revive the film industry. They are sent to labour camps, finally make amazing movies, rekindle their love and escape.

An 'audio-film' about love of the movies, love in captivity, a hidden culture, and one of the most eccentric dictators in history.

Written by Lucy Catherine, and drawing on material from the book A Kim Jong-Il production by Paul Fischer.

Director . . . . . Sasha Yevtushenko.

What can we learn from the humanity of others? From seeing ourselves reflected in someone else? Josie Long presents stories of role models - from surrogate father figures to people who create a path for others to follow.

"You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There's this idea that monsters don't have reflections in a mirror. And what I've always thought isn't that monsters don't have reflections in a mirror. It's that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves... Part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it." - Junot Diaz

Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.

Tom Heap asks if the Environment Agency is fit for purpose. After seven years of deep cuts to its staffing and budgets, Tom Heap asks the EA's Chair, Emma Howard Boyd, to respond to her critics. We hear from those who are concerned that the EA is doing too little, too late when it comes to protecting the quality of our rivers and the environment, and that it can appear toothless when dealing with the rising tide of waste crime.

Senior Conservative politician, John Gummer, now Lord Deben, created the Environment Agency in 1995. He tells us that the organisation has become too cosy to government and has lost its independence. Emma Howard Boyd responds to these and other concerns, such as the EA's shedding of one third of its frontline enforcement officers over the last five years. Can it still safeguard our environment?

Producer: Mark Smalley.

Lifelong Arsenal supporter Michael Rosen and football-uninterested Dr Laura Wright talk to Adam Hurrey about the language, and in particular, the clichés of football. Football is a linguistic microclimate, with coinages shooting into everyday speech: back of the net!
Producer Sally Heaven.

City Boss Helena Morrissey champions the life of Rachael Heyhoe Flint, the pioneer of women's cricket. Joined by journalist and historian Raf Nicholson, their task is to convince Matthew Parris that hers was a great life.

Producer: Perminder Khatkar.

Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Tim Vine has been travelling the length and breadth of this fair land to not only uncover the best stories of the Great British public but also to take every possible opportunity to tell a ridiculous joke and sing a preposterous song along the way.

In episode 3 Tim takes the Chat Show wagon to Birmingham where there are some alarm bells after a high-stakes game about the disposal of confidential documents.

Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.

Ian is keen to move forward, but Adam is not convinced.

Arts news, interviews and reviews.

Current affairs documentary series.

News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted.

Dr Mark Porter presents a series on health issues.

In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.

Sue Townsend's hilarious and heart breaking chronicle of a teenager growing up in the Midlands in the 1980s. A brand new serialisation, read by Harry McEntire, in the year that Adrian Mole himself turns 50.

It's 1981 and Margaret Thatcher is in power, Britain is at war in the Falklands and teenagers are growing up in a world without mobile phones or computer games. While his parents are downstairs, drinking, smoking and arguing about their failing marriage, Adrian is upstairs in his bedroom listening to Abba, reading great works of literature, writing poems, and penning letters to the BBC.

Despite the many challenges that life throws at him - including regular beatings from the school bully, unrequited love, raging hormones, a severe case of acne and numerous rejection letters - Adrian soldiers on bravely and wins a place in our hearts with his charming naïveté.

Reader: Harry McEntire
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Alexa Moore

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

We all like to think we know about the news and yet, whilst jokes about Donald Trump's tiny hands are all well and good, do you still have that nagging suspicion there's important things going on beneath the headlines you'd like to know about? Well, help is at hand! Nish Kumar is here to cast his spotlight on the week's most talked about news items, taking an in-depth look at the biggest stories from the past seven days as well as scrutinising the bigger issues of the moment.

Starring Nish Kumar with Sarah Campbell.

Written by Sarah Campbell, Max Davis, Gabby Hutchinson-Crouch, Nish Kumar, and Tom Neenan.

It was produced by Matt Stronge and was a BBC Studios Production.

Harriett Gilbert talks to poet Murray Lachlan Young & 'Guilty Feminist' podcaster Deborah Frances-White about good reads. Under discussion are Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves, A Petrol Scented Spring by Ajay Close, and Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. The books spark some fiery discussion about gender and race. Producer Sally Heaven.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

A reading and a reflection to start the day, with the Rev Canon Jenny Wigley, rector of Radyr in Cardiff.

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.

Nature writer Melissa Harrison braves a dip in a Dorset river and hears the high 'pip' of a kingfisher. She realises she must be sharing with the water with one of her favourite birds.

Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. In this latest series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.

Producer: Tom Bonnett
Picture: Lynn [Mrs Birds].

Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

Roderick Williams traces the long evolution of our amateur singing tradition, from borrowed songs crudely performed in our streets and taverns, to the rise of our great Victorian choral societies and the most recent choral sensation to sweep the nation: Rock Choir.
Roderick is a professional singer, and we follow him to Yorkshire where he is booked to perform with the world famous Huddersfield Choral Society. He hears how the puritans kick-started a choral revolution, and he visits Wales to find out how choirs helped to build new communities as industrial revolution swept the nation. It's a story of how ordinary people have used singing to take ownership of our most cherished musical treasures; how Britain's amateur singers have showed us that great art is something we can all do, not just witness.

Producer: Chris Taylor for BBC Wales.

Designer Wayne Hemingway looks at five colours that have been at the centre of ownership and trademark battles, revealing the complex status of colours in our society - their artistic, commercial and cultural impact.

He explores our response to colour - whether it's the red soles of designer shoes, the blue strip of a football team or the purple of a chocolate bar wrapper - interviewing those involved in branding, advertising and IP, as well as the psychologists, scientists , colour gurus, artists and those creating the colours of tomorrow using Nanotechnology.

Programme 3 - Green
Green is so ubiquitous that even the word has environmental, political and health meanings. It's used without limitation to boost the environmental credentials of businesses such as energy companies - notably BP. It's part of what some environmentalists calls "green-washing", as green symbolises vegetation - grass, fields, farmlands. A current Royal Horticultural Society campaign, Greening of the Grey, aims to bring more green spaces to our towns and cities. Wayne visits RHS Wisley to meet Science Director Alistair Griffiths, gardeners and visitors to discover more about the power of green.

Producer: Sara Parker
A Juniper production for BBC Radio 4.

After nearly three decades reporting conflict from all over the world for the BBC, Fergal Keane goes home to Ireland to tell a story that lies at the root of his fascination with war. It's a family tale about how the ghosts of the past return to shape the present.

Fergal's grandmother, Hanna Purtill, her brother Mick and his friend Con Brosnan, along with many of their neighbours, found themselves caught up in the revolution that followed the 1916 Easter Rising. They took up guns to fight the British Empire and create an independent Ireland.

Many thousands of people took part in the War of Independence and the Civil War that followed. Whatever side they chose, all were changed in some way by the costs of violence. Fergal uses the experiences of his ancestral homeland in north Kerry to examine why people will kill for a cause and how the act of killing reverberates through the generations.

In the third episode, the war comes into the town when the IRA send round an order that District Inspector Tobias O'Sullivan must be killed. Con Brosnan is one of the volunteers who respond to that call. The death of O'Sullivan will haunt Fergal Keane's family through the generations.

Abridged by Anna Magnusson
Produced by Pippa Vaughan
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.

Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.

By Katie Hims

On a trip to Scarborough Meg and Jeanie meet on the beach, and Nell stabs Harry at the dinner table. Out of the blue. In the arm.

Director . . . . . Sasha Yevtushenko.

A father and son have recently organised two funerals. It's got them thinking about the father's... Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

Richard Herring's new comedy about four generations of a family. Starring Alison Steadman, Phil Davies and Richard Herring.

Relativity is a witty and loving portrait of family life, with affectionate observation of inter generational misunderstanding, sibling sparring and the ties that bind, that will resonate with anyone who has ever argued with their dad about how to pronounce crisp brand names.

Episode 4:
When Ken is rushed into hospital, and Margaret has to hold the fort alone, the family do their best to reach hospital as fast as possible - in a typically chaotic manner. Pete is nearly done for stealing chocolate Hob Nobs, Jane relives her glory days as a teen sprinting champ and Ian and Chloe have their first row.

Written by Richard Herring and produced by Polly Thomas.
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Broadcast Assistants: Bella Lamplough Shields, Bryony Jarvis Taylor
Producer: Polly Thomas
Executive Producers: Jon Thoday and Richard Allen Turner
An Avalon Television production for BBC Radio 4.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Why do songs get stuck in our heads? And what makes some tunes stickier than others?

Drs Rutherford and Fry investigate 'earworms', those musical refrains that infect our brains for days. Every morning 6Music DJ Shaun Keaveney asks his listeners for their earworms, and Hannah finds out which tunes keep coming back.

Adam asks Dr Lauren Stewart, from Goldsmiths University, to reveal the musical features that make some songs catchier than others.

And they find out why, in times of crisis, an earworm may just save your life.

Producer: Michelle Martin.

Consumer affairs programme.

The latest weather forecast.

Analysis of news and current affairs.

Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, gave the BBC's Reith lectures in 1953. Sarah Montague and Professor Brian Cox consider the lessons to be learnt from them today. The Reith Lectures began in 1948 on the Home Service, subsequently moving to Radio 4 and becoming a major national occasion for intellectual debate. As part of the celebrations of Radio 4's 50th anniversary, the network looks back at the first 10 years of the Reith Lectures to explore how they reflect the times in which they were delivered and how well they stand up now.
Producer: Neil Koenig
Researcher: Josephine Casserley.

By DC Jackson and David Ireland.

A fast-paced comic drama about a reality TV star at the top of her game and a literary novelist on her knees.

Starring Amelia Bullmore and Jaime Winstone.

Directed by Kirsty Williams.

Financial phone-in.

Sociological discussion programme, presented by Laurie Taylor.

Topical programme about the fast-changing media world.

Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

John Shuttleworth invites celebrated pop stars to his Sheffield home to perform one of their own songs and also, more importantly, one of his.

This week it's Clare Grogan from Altered Images.

The timing of her visit couldn't be better as it's Doreen Melody's birthday and John is hoping that Clare will go along and sing Happy Birthday to Doreen - after all it's one of her biggest hits. But he's most disappointed when Clare starts singing the wrong tune!

Surprisingly, it's Ken Worthington who saves the day by offering to take Clare on a date, hoping that she'll become Ken's Girl rather than Gregory's!

John will have to console himself with top tips on the telephone from Nick Lowe, who he hopes will solve the problem of Dolby hiss.

Written and Performed by Graham Fellows with special guests Clare Grogan and Nick Lowe.
Produced by Dawn Ellis
A Chic Ken production for BBC Radio 4.

Helen has a lot to think about, and Ed refocuses his efforts.

Arts news, interviews and reviews.