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

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 final episode, Fergal looks back on his grandparents' generation to examine the cost and legacy of war in Ireland. He reflects on how the wounds of the past shaped the island on which he grew up. "I look back on my grandparents' generation and see a people exhausted and traumatised by conflict."

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

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The latest shipping forecast.

The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rabbi YY Rubinstein, a writer, teacher and broadcaster.

In iPM's second programme on asexuality, one listener on finding his identity. 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.

Clare Balding joins Multiple sclerosis sufferer, Jo Fielder, on a training walk, just before she attempted to cover the entire length of the Ridgeway in just seven days. They were joined by Jo's husband, Jake and former track and field athlete, David Hemery. Winner of the 400 metres hurdles in the 1968 summer Olympics in Mexico City, David has been a source of inspiration and training advice to Jo as she prepares for this challenge. Tune in to find out if she made it.

Map ref: SU 09358 68848 OS Explorer 157 Marlborough and Savernake Forest.

Producer: Lucy Lunt.

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.

The latest weather forecast.

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

Monty Don joins presenters Aasmah Mir and Shaun Keaveny to discuss his television gardening career and how getting your hands dirty is good for your mental well-being.

Tree climber and award-winning documentary cameraman James Aldred shares his love of trees and the adventures he's had with gorillas, leopards, snakes and poisonous frogs in rainforests around the world.

Soil scientist Jackie Stroud loves worms. She reveals why.

And listener Suzanne Gray explains why, at the age of 49, she joined the Territorial Army to work as an operating theatre nurse in a military field hospital in Afghanistan.

We'll also hear the inheritance tracks of TV property presenter Kirstie Allsopp.

Presenters: Aasmah Mir & Shaun Keaveny
Producer: Paul Waters.

Jay Rayner and the team visit Bletchley Park near Milton Keynes. Zoe Laughlin, Tim Hayward, Rachel McCormack and Andi Oliver are this week's panellists.

Producer: Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett

Food Consultant: Anna Colquhoun

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.

The One Thousand and One Nights are a collection of fantastical stories of flying carpets, magic and genies whose ancient origins go back to the 7th century or earlier. The tales are told by Scheherazade who uses the power of storytelling night after night to stop her Sultan husband from beheading her. These highly influential stories were brought to the West in the 18th century and they have continued to evolve over the centuries. Rajan Datar and guests explore why these stories became so popular around the world and what they mean to us today.

With Rajan is Wen Chin Ouyang, Professor of Arabic at SOAS in London; Dr Sandra Naddaff, senior lecturer in Comparative Literature at Harvard University; and the Iranian TV producer Shabnam Rezaei.

It's as if doomsday had arrived early in Raqqa as bats swoop over the remains of the city. Kate Adie introduces correspondents' stories and analysis from around the world.

In Syria, Quentin Sommerville finds a city which had been occupied and terrorised by the so-called Islamic State and is now being destroyed by a thousand blows from coalition airstrikes.

In Colombia, Katy Watson reports from the border bridge which 25,000 Venezuelans cross each day. Most do so in search of food and medicine, but more and more are deciding to stay.

In South Africa, Milton Nkosi worries that history is repeating itself with the recent spate of political killings in KwaZulu Natal.

In America's Deep South, Fleur Macdonald joins fellow MacDonalds, Alexanders, Johnsons, MacSweeneys and MacWhannells as they celebrate their Scottish heritage and their allegiance to Clan Donald.

And in Spain, Chris Bockman visits what was Europe's second-biggest train station, but was left to rot and rust. Today the building in Canfranc attracts more curious visitors than it ever did passengers.

Producer: Joe Kent.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

The latest news from the world of personal finance.

Miles Jupp is joined by Holly Walsh, Andrew Maxwell, Fern Brady and Isabel Hardman to discuss the Labour Party Conference, Germany's election results & Donald Trump's feud with the NFL.

Written by Sarah Campbell, Jon Hunter and James Kettle with additional material from Athena Kugblenu and Jenny Lavillie.
The producer was Joe Nunnery and it was a BBC Studios Production.

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The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from All Hallows Catholic High School in Penwortham, Lancashire, with Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon, Economics and Trade correspondent for The Economist Soumaya Keynes, International Development Minister Rory Stewart MP and the chair of Change Britain Gisela Stuart.

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

Stardust by Ray Connolly
Show me a boy who never wanted to be a rock star and I'll show you a liar. Following on from the events of 'That'll be the Day', it's the early sixties and Jim Maclaine is now an aspiring pop musician. He seeks out his old mate Mike, because every pop star needs a road manager. Based on the seventies film of the same name.

Director/Producer Gary Brown.

Hessle road is an infamous working class district in Hull. But to those who live and work there, it's much more than that - it's a place of character, community but also hardship. This montage documentary pieces together the ghosts of Hessle Road's past through some of its most colourful characters.

It's a collection of moving, funny tales over a bed of traditional folk music from the beating heart of Hull, crowned as City of Culture 2017.

Hull's heritage is anchored in the sea. Its fishermen, the last of the great hunters, lived in the most colourful community in the world but were exposed to extreme danger in the perilous waters within the Arctic Circle. Their lives were held together by a set of primitive folk beliefs - magic and music. But behind the closed doors of this community are darker stories - 6,000 men left Hull for the sea but never returned. The families of those lost still live in the city's terraced houses.

"They were the underdogs, fighting against nature at sea and social prejudice at home.... George Orwell talked about society standing on the shoulders of the miners. But the port of Hull prospered on the backs of the trawlermen." - Historian and photographer Alec Gill, who has documented Hessle Road since the 1970s.

Among the Hessle Roaders we meet are the last remaining "headscarf revolutionary" Yvonne, a former night club singer and friend to Lillian Bilocca who marched to Downing Street to change the safety laws on trawler ships - and the raucous folk veteran Mick McGarry and HillBilly Troupe, keeping Hull's folk music scene alive.

Produced by Hana Walker-Brown
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4.

Bananarama, the most successful girl group of all time, are reuniting for a UK wide tour. Siobhan Fahey, Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward look back on their eighties heyday.

The feminist campaigner Julie Bindel discusses the myth of sex work and why she believes in the abolition of the global sex trade. We also hear the counter argument from Laura Watson of the English Collective of Prostitutes and from Sake who is an independent sex worker.

In 1969 Rupert Murdoch bought The Sun newspaper, the play Ink tells the story of its first year. We hear from the actress Sophie Stanton who plays Joyce Hopkirk the women's editor and from the journalist Eve Pollard on what it was like as a woman in Fleet Street at the time.

As 2017 marks the centenary of the birth of one of the jazz greats Ella Fitzgerald. Record producer Juliette Pochin tells us about the process of creating a new album combining Ella's original vocals with the music of the London Symphony Orchestra.

We discuss diabulimia, the act of restricting insulin in order to lose weight - sixty per cent of women living with type 1 diabetes will have experienced an eating disorder by the time they are 25. We hear from Nabeelah who restricts her insulin and from Dr Jane Morris, Consultant psychiatrist in eating disorders at the Royal Cornhill Hospital in Aberdeen.

It's now 10 years since the first episode of the reality TV show Keeping up with the Kardashians. Sarah Carson a features editor at Radio Times and Nell Grecian a sex and dating blogger discuss the influence of the Kardashians on young women.

Presented by Jenni Murray
Produced by Rabeka Nurmahomed
Edited by Jane Thurlow

Interviewed guests: Bananarama
Interviewed guest: Julie Bindel
Interviewed guest: Laura Watson
Interviewed guest: Sake
Interviewed guest: Eve Pollard
Interviewed guest: Sophie Stanton
Interviewed guest: Juliette Pochin
Interviewed guest: Nabeelah
Interviewed guest: Jane Morris
Interviewed guest: Sarah Carson
Interviewed guest: Nell Grecian.

Full coverage of the day's news.

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The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Clive Anderson and Emma Freud are joined by Vince Cable, John Thomson, Simon Amstell and Sudha Bhuchar for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Jolie Holland & Samantha Parton and Josh Ritter.

Producer: Sukey Firth.

This week the Chief Whip will deliver a major speech at the Tory party conference, just before the Prime Minister takes the stage.
But who is Gavin Williamson? Mark Coles looks at the life and career of the Yorkshire man who knows about pottery, loves hedgehogs and keeps an eight legged pet on his desk in parliament. And some say, has his sights set on higher political office.

British film Daphne portrays the hectic life of a young woman in an overwhelming, contemporary London
The National Theatre's touring production of Jane Eyre started in London, has been around the country and its back in the capital before heading off on tour again
Multi award-winning American documentary maker Ken Burns has a new series. It's about the Vietnam war and has just begun on BBC4
Italian author Nicola Lagioia's novel Ferocity won that country's highest literary award, how well does it work in translation?
An exhibition of the work of Jasper Johns has just opened at London's Royal Academy

Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sebastian Faulks, Meg Rosoff and Tiffany Murray. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Live from Hull, Jeremy Irons and Julie Hesmondhalgh perform poetry inspired by the city and its poets. Presenter Lindsey Chapman leads the poetic journey through the city. Part of Contains Strong Language, the BBC's season of Poetry and Performance from Hull.

Directed by Charlotte Riches
Produced by Susan Roberts.

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.

Can lawyers save the planet? Clive Anderson and guests discuss the role the law can play in reducing global warming.

The devastation caused in the Caribbean by Hurricane Irma is being blamed on global warming. The Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Brown says the worldâ€TMs major emitters of greenhouse gasses should be held responsible. But what law or court could achieve that?

A new scientific study says 30 per cent of the impact of global warming can be traced to the activities of just 90 companies. But what law or court could hold them liable?

On June 1, 2017, Donald Trump announced that the US was withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation because it undermined his countryâ€TMs economy. Can lawyers force the US to rejoin?

In 2015 the Urgenda Foundation won a landmark court case which forced the Dutch government to increase its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Similar court battles have since been won elsewhere in the world, most recently in South Africa where judges ruled against government support for a new coal-fired power station.

Legal experts representing both environmental and commercial interests discuss the strengths and weakness of current laws and regulations controlling greenhouse gas emissions. Do we need a specialised International Court on the Environment with powers to force governments and individual businesses to reduce emissions? Does the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement undermine legal efforts to mitigate climate change? Can courts force companies to take measures which put them at a commercial disadvantage in the international market? How will Brexit affect climate change regulations in the UK?

An Above The Title production for BBC Radio 4.

(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.

Sir Don McCullin, photographer and 'sky stalker', talks to Mariella Frostrup about the landscape surrounding his Somerset house.

McCullin's best known as a star photojournalist of the 1960's and 1970's, but he's also been photographing the Somerset fields for more than three decades. In this special programme he tells Mariella Frostrup why. "I was ready for the English landscape - it became my psychiatrist's chair. Having spent the last sixty years covering wars and tragedies, watching people being murdered and starving to death, I needed to save myself."

A revealing and intimate programme recorded entirely on location, featuring the sites he adores and rare access to his darkroom to discuss that burnt and brooding technique. The Tate is planning an exhibition of his landscapes next year. "There has to be a connection between the terrible imagery he has witnessed and these landscapes now, expunged of humanity - it's almost like they're an act of revenge." Mariella Frostrup

The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.

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

By Susmita Bhattacharya. An auto-biographical piece of creative non-fiction about the challenges Susmita faced after breast cancer and, in particular, after chemotherapy.

Susmita Bhattacharya was born in Mumbai and sailed the world on oil tankers before settling down in the UK. She is an associate lecturer at Winchester University and leads the SO:Write Young Writers' workshops in Southampton. Her first story for radio, The Summer Of Learning, was broadcast in 2015. Her debut novel, The Normal State of Mind, was published the same year. Her short stories and poems have been widely published in the UK and internationally. She lives in Winchester with her family and cat named after a Bollywood star.

Writer: Susmita Bhattacharya
Reader: Susmita Bhattacharya
Producer: Jeremy Osborne

A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.

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The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

This week's Bells on Sunday comes from St Peter's Cathedral in Adelaide, Australia. The bells were cast and installed by Taylors of Loughborough in 1946. The tenor, tuned to C, weighs over two imperial tons which makes it second only in weight to that of the tenor at Sherbourne Abbey. Here they are ringing Grandsire Triples.

The latest national and international news.

Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand reevaluates our use of the word judgemental, arguing that it needn't have negative connotations. She concludes that, ultimately, we need to be judged.

For some people of faith the phrase 'judgement day' summons up images of fire and brimstone. Shoshana reveals that for Jews, judgement day is an annual event. Yom HaDin, The Day of Judgement, is the biblical name for the holiday known as Rosh Hashanah. Shoshana explores the traditions of both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (which follows ten days later).

Interweaving music ranging from Leonard Cohen's Who By Fire and Bob Marley's Judge Not to Mozart's Requiem Mass, Shoshana notes that the idea of a judgement day has always fascinated musicians. Interestingly, musical interpretations of the Day of Judgement vary wildly in tone. We hear the voices in Mozart's Requiem trembling with dread in response to a stern God, whilst Faure's Requiem does away with the wrathful imagery and depicts death as a peaceful release from struggle. Reflecting on the differences between these great composers' depiction of judgement day, Shoshana argues that we need a balance between judgement and mercy in our lives.

Shoshana goes on to reference the troubled history of the judicial system during the American Civil Rights Movement and the role of the therapist who must withhold their judgement when counselling their patients. She also examines the doctrine of karma - a system of divine justice.

Presenter: Shoshana Boyd Gelfand
Producer: Max O'Brien
A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4.

Brett Westwood relives programmes from The Living World archives. In this episode from 1991 Michael Scott travels to Country Durham where in Hamsterley Forest he meets botanist David Bellamy and Head Ranger Brian Walker on a tour of the area.

A combination of careful management and a degree of good luck have turned Hamsterley Forest, Co Durham, into a haven for wildlife. Along with almost 100 different varieties of tree, ferns, and other fascinating plants, the wood pasture and meadows provide ideal habitats for birds like the crossbill, siskin, curlew and nightjar.

Producer Andrew Dawes.

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

Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme.

Lemn Sissay makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Hope and Homes for Children.

Registered Charity Number 1089490
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 'Hope and Homes for Children'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'Hope and Homes for Children'.

The latest weather forecast.

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

Sunday Worship for Harvest from Holy Trinity, Westbury on Trym Church, Bristol in its 1300th Anniversary Year. Focussing on the words of St Francis of Assisi the service explores our response and responsibility to ecology and the environment with seasonal music and prayers. Led by Fr André Hart and Canon Bruce Saunders.
Director of Music: David Ogden. Organist: Richard Johnson. Producer: Stephen Shipley.

Andrew Sullivan on how America has become "a truly tribal society".

"I've lived here since the Reagan era", he writes, "and there have been plenty of divides. But none quite as tribal or as rooted in non-negotiable identity as this one".

He warns of what the outcome might be and reminds the listener that a liberal democracy is always a precarious enterprise.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

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.

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

Writer ..... Paul Brodrick
Director ..... Rosemary Watts
Editor ..... Huw Kennair-Jones

David Archer.....Timothy Bentinck
Ruth Archer.....Felicity Finch
Pip Archer.....Daisy Badger
Josh Archer.....Angus Imrie
Jolene Archer.....Buffy Davis
Pat Archer.....Patricia Gallimore
Helen Archer.....Louiza Patikas
Brian Aldridge.....Charles Collingwood
Jennifer Aldridge....Angela Piper
Lilian Bellamy.....Sunny Ormonde
Harrison Burns.....James Cartwright
Ian Craig ..... Stephen Kennedy
Justin Elliott.....Simon Williams
Rex Fairbrother.....Nick Barber
Toby Fairbrother.....Rhys Bevan
Eddie Grundy.....Trevor Harrison
Clarrie Grundy.....Heather Bell
Will Grundy.....Philip Molloy
Emma Grundy.....Emerald O'Hanrahan
Ed Grundy.....Barry Farrimond
Adam Macy ..... Andrew Wincott
Kate Madikane.....Perdita Avery.

Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cancer specialist. His biography of the disease, The Emperor of All Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010. A haematologist and oncologist by training, his research focuses on cancer therapy and gene functions related to blood cells. His latest book, The Gene, goes in search of normality, identity, variation and heredity.

Born in India in 1970 he grew up with his extended family in Delhi. In his youth he trained as an Indian classical singer before travelling to the US to study biology at Stanford. At Oxford he was a Rhodes scholar before enrolling at Harvard to study medicine. He is currently Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Columbia University Medical Centre.

Presenter: Kirsty Young
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Nicholas Parsons challenges Paul Merton, Rufus Hound, Jenny Eclair and Zoe Lyons to speak on the topics on the cards without deviation, hesitation or repetition.

Hayley Sterling blows the whistle.

Produced by Victoria Lloyd.

How we eat says so much about us. Where we come from, our family background, our feelings about our bodies even - our appetite for all kinds of pleasure... There was a time when how we eat was mostly about class, but whether you called it "tea" or "dinner" or "supper", there were still fixed conventions about when and where we ate, and what we ate. These days the certainties, the boundaries, have been broken up. How do we eat now? Well, differently, as this series reveals.

This first programme of How We Eat explores the pleasures and pitfalls of eating alone. As one in three households in Britain is now a single-person household, increasing numbers of people ARE eating on their own. Do we eat differently when we eat unobserved? How do people of all ages, from students to widowers, adjust to suddenly having to cook for themselves?

Sheila Dillon investigates the booming business of ready-meals for one, and hears embarrassing confessions about secret snacks: such as people who shut themselves in the utility room to gorge on chocolate, pretending they're doing the laundry. She visits inspirational cookery writer Anna del Conte, who's in her 90s, to talk to her about the delicious meals she makes for herself now that she's a widow. She goes to a cookery class at a hospice. She talks to students who admit to living on alcohol and crisps. And she meets a man who cooks fresh meals to share with his dog.

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News with Mark Mardell including the latest from the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, Catalonia's independence referendum and the resurgence of radio pirates.

In the first programme of this series, Hardeep is in his native Scotland to cook lunch for Inverness based friends Colin Campbell and Rona Tynan. Colin has lived with primary progressive multiple sclerosis since his 30s and at the age of 56 made the decision to end his life at a Swiss Clinic rather than face an unbearable, lonely decline. Hearing his plight, fellow MS patient Rona Tynan felt compelled to get in touch with him. The former London Met police officer has lived with MS for 12 years and she felt distressed that Colin wanted to end his life, especially when he was more able than her. In June this year, when Hardeep turned up at Rona's door to make the pair of them a haggis curry, Colin still had an appointment for the Swiss Clinic in his diary.

Producer: Helen Lee.

Peter Gibbs presents the second of two programmes from the GQT 70th birthday party at Ness Botanic Gardens. Bunny Guinness, James Wong, Pippa Greenwood and Bob Flowerdew answer the questions from the audience.

Produced by Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.

Fi Glover introduces conversations between partners where one has a terminal or degenerative illness, and a father and son facing the inevitability of a funeral 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.

Elena Ferrante's story of a life long friendship between Lila and Lena comes to an end in this sad and surprising final chapter.

Lena, now a famous writer, returns to Naples with her two children to find Lila has also managed to turned her life around, despite remaining in the claws of violent and mafia run Naples. Finding themselves both pregnant, the complications of their friendship grows ever deeper and the tensions deepen. As the city attempts to rebuild itself, post war Naples continues to struggle to accept or change the inevitabilities of life.

Broken marriages, violent relationships, and the yearning for something more - something better is never far away. The violent past of these two extraordinary friends will always be there and, for one, there seems to be only one way out.

Written by Elena Ferrante
Translated by Ann Goldstein
Dramatised for radio by Timberlake Wertenbaker

Directed by Celia de Wolff
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

Peter Høeg's internationally bestselling Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow was the original Scandi-crime thriller. First published in 1992 the novel's runaway success was due to its extraordinary central character, 37 year old Smilla Qaavigaaq Jasperson, as well as the unfamiliar backdrop of snowy Copenhagen and the icy wastes of Greenland. Smilla is half-Dane and half-Inuit; she is unmarried, childless, independent and irascible and yet she forms an unlikely friendship with her neighbour six year old Isaiah.

The book opens when the young boy has fallen to his death from the roof of their apartment building; it's ruled an accident, yet Smilla, an expert on ice and snow, can tell from his footprints that he was running from someone. She begins her own investigation, forming an uneasy friendship with another neighbour, a mechanic. Smilla uncovers a trail of clues, and her sense of snow leads her into a mystery that goes back decades.

Peter Høeg explains how the character of Smilla came to him in an unlikely way, as he saw a Somalian woman cross the street in Copenhagen and knew his next main character would be called Smilla. For Høeg, books are intuitive and less logical than daily life. He candidly discloses that Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow was written by a young and inexperienced novelist, and how looking back, he is dissatisfied and rather ashamed of its enigmatic ending. He says that writing a novel is like running a marathon, it's an intense experience, and by the end, the writer can lose concentration in his exhaustion. Presented by James Naughtie

Presenter : James Naughtie
Interviewed guest : Peter Høeg
Producer : Dymphna Flynn

November's Bookclub choice : Mother's Milk by Edward St Aubyn (2006).

Michael Rosen visits the seminary where Gerard Manley Hopkins revolutionised the rhythm and sound of poetry.

In 1875, stirred by the tragic drowning of five exiled German nuns off the Kent coast, Hopkins - studying in the Jesuit seminary of St Beunos in North Wales - brought together the rhythms of song, Welsh poetry and the chiming sounds of Old English alliteration to produce the extraordinary The Wreck of the Deutschland. This moment kick-started his poetry writing after a self-imposed abstinence of some seven years.

Michael Rosen visits St Beunos to feel the daily atmosphere of the seminary and the glorious landscape of the Vale of Clwyd which Hopkins invokes so powerfully in his sequence of poems written in the space of one year. Poet Michael Symmons Roberts joins him there.

Like many other students of English Literature, Michael was stunned by Hopkins' experimental breaking and re-making of the English language and heard similarities with the jazz of musicians like Miles Davies in these new rhythms. How was it that Hopkins could reject the long established pattern of poetry, with its metrical feet, and instead use the principal of the beat of music? How could he have been so inventive with poetry, fifty years ahead of his time, before 20th Century Modernist poets discovered how they could take these risks too? It's hard to hear Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood without hearing the presence of Hopkins behind it. For Seamus Heaney, Hopkins was "the main man"!

Michael Rosen and Michael Symmons Roberts walk through field and woods, look out over the Vale of Clwyd to see the view that Hopkins saw, discovering the distinctive elements of this amazing creative moment - the religious devotion of the seminary and the beauty of the landscape and the natural life within it.

The journals, letters and poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins are read by Samuel West.
Readings in copyright are by kind permission of Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Province of the Society of Jesus.

Producer: Emma-Louise Williams
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.

Adoption can transform lives. Today, most children available for adoption have had a difficult start. Removed from birth parents and taken into care, many have experienced abuse and neglect which can leave them with complex mental health and/or developmental needs. Adoption can provide them with stable and loving homes.

But what happens when the challenges the adoptive family faces become overwhelming? And is there enough support available to the families who give a home to some of the most vulnerable children in society?

File on 4 hears from adoptive parents struggling to cope with their children's complex problems - and battling with the authorities to get the help they desperately need.

The charity Adoption UK thinks as many as a quarter of all adoptive families are in crisis and in need of professional help to keep their family together. But are adoptive parents given enough information about the challenges they are likely to face and when they do encounter problems, is there enough help available?

Two years ago, the government set up a special fund designed to help adoptive families in England access a range of post-adoption therapeutic services. To date, more than £52 million has been spent via the Adoption Support Fund. But where is the money going and are the treatments on offer proven to be effective?

The truth is that no one really knows how many adoptions are 'disrupted' or end up in full break down when the child is permanently returned to care. But when they do, it is devastating for everyone involved. We speak to families fighting to get the help they need to stay together.

Reporter: Alys Harte
Producer: Jane Drinkwater.

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The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Broadcasters choose their BBC Radio highlights.

Adam tries not to seem ungrateful, and Justin's trip gets extended.

A second series featuring acclaimed double-act Max and Ivan as incompetent private detectives for hire. Joanna Lumley guest stars.

The detectives investigate a series of mysterious thefts which threaten the very future of Nunhead Community Centre. Assisted by the permanently tired caretaker Gerry, they track the chief suspect, washed-up former B-Movie actress Lavinia Moncrief and eventually have to go undercover to infiltrate her bizarre acting classes. Also featuring bell ringers, hypnotism and a mutant komodo dragon.

Written by and Max Olesker and Ivan Gonzalez
Developed by John Stanley Productions
Produced by Ben Walker
A Retort production for BBC Radio 4.

The story of a disappearance - told backwards.

Indira Varma kicks of Jon McGregor's 15-part specially commissioned short story series set in a Peak District village. Today: the community is rocked when a family walk on the moors takes a tragic turn. Now a reporter pieces together the mother's account of what happened...

The fifteen stories of The Reservoir Tapes each stand alone but together build a compelling portrait of a village shaken by tragedy, as they explore events that precede and follow the disappearance the teenage Becky Shaw on a family holiday. A companion to Jon McGregor's critically acclaimed Man Booker long-listed novel Reservoir 13, these stories and their different perspectives offer tantalizing glimpses as to might have happened to the young Becky.

Writer: Jon McGregor is an acclaimed British novelist who has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize three times. His third novel, Even the Dogs, won the International Dublin Literary Award
Reader: Indira Varma is an acclaimed British actor, known for her roles in Luther and Game of Thrones.
Producer: Justine Willett.

Is Uber safe?

Recently Transport for London took the decision not to renew Uber's London license. One criticism of the company is that its drivers commit too many sexual offences. Billboards around the capital last year said that 32 of the 154 allegations of assault made against London taxi drivers between February 2015 and February 2016 involved Uber drivers. But is that a big number and how do the total number of allegations made compare to the years before Uber was even operating?

The Brits seeking European passports elsewhere

In partnership with Reality Check, More or Less has spoken to each of the other 27 countries in the EU to find out whether an increasing number of Brits living abroad have applied for citizenship. This has certainly been the trend in many countries. We'll reveal the most popular countries and tell the tale of how easy it may or may not have been to get the numbers!

How do we know if there is more domestic violence around?

If you want to look at whether the amount of domestic violence in the UK is going up or down, how would you measure it? Over the last three decades, this is something that Sylvia Walby, Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University, has been trying to figure this out. We speak to her about ways to improve the current statistics available.

Big polluters: container ships versus cars

A number of websites have claimed that '15 of the largest ships emit as much pollution as all the cars in the world.' That is a very catchy statement which gives an indication of the pollution produced by shipping containers around the world. But is it true. We look at the different types of emissions produced by container ships and cars.

Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Charlotte McDonald.

Matthew Bannister on

Hugh Hefner who built the Playboy empire on a best selling magazine. Was he a libertarian who changed attitudes to sex or a sleazy pornographer?

Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov who is credited with averting a nuclear disaster during the Cold War.

The right wing Conservative M.P. Teddy Taylor best known for his outspoken opposition to the European Union.

And actress Liz Dawn who played Vera Duckworth in Coronation Street for nearly thirty years.

With food waste a huge global problem, can business find new, profitable solutions? Tanya Beckett delves into pizza bins, visits larvae breeders and talks to everyone from bankers to hummus-makers as she investigates why this fast-changing business scene. How can new technology help tackle the problem? And are wasteful food consumers ready for radical change?

Producer: Chris Bowlby
Editor: Penny Murphy.

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

Radiolab asks is 'survival of the fittest' compatible with animals helping each other out? With Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich.

Radiolab is a Peabody-award winning show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and the human experience.

First broadcast on public radio in the USA.

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

Sectarianisation - Laurie Taylor asks if a new theory offers an explanation for contemporary conflicts across the Arab Islamic world. Have we become too wedded to a version of events which suggests that Shia and Sunni peoples are locked into a primordial, trans-historical battle, seemingly without end? He's joined by Danny Postel, Assistant Director of the Middle East and North African Studies Program at Northwestern University, Madawi Al-Rasheed, Visiting Professor at the Middle East Centre at the LSE and Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for the The Independent.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rabbi YY Rubinstein, a writer, teacher and broadcaster.

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.

The latest weather forecast for farmers.

In the first of five recollections about his encounters with birds, writer and wildlife programme-maker Stephen Moss explains why the sound of the Song Thrush evokes such powerful memories of his grandfather.

Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new 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: Sarah Blunt.

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

Live from Manchester during the Conservative Party conference, Sir David Cannadine argues that Victorian Britain was never far from revolution. He tells Andrew Marr how a century seen as conservative was actually troubled by political upheaval. Britain may have been the world's greatest empire but it was riven by self-doubt. Novelist Anthony Powell depicted the turbulence of the 20th century in his series A Dance to the Music of Time. Powell is seen as the arch-conservative, but biographer Hilary Spurling shows his fascination with power and people at every level of society. Jane Green tracked the 2017 General Election as co-director of the British Election Study. She explains how the public judges those in power, and why political reputations are hard to shake. And Phillip Blond, director of the think tank ResPublica, helped shape recent conservative ideas including the "big society" and the "northern powerhouse". He fears the Conservative Party could become irrelevant unless power is shared out.

Producer: Hannah Sander.

Martin Amis is one of the most celebrated authors of modern times. A new collection rounds up his non-fiction pieces from 1986 to 2016, and this week five compelling topics are aired.

Some time back one of our national newspapers held a Q&A on the page with the author. Questions ranged from the serious to the odd, including views on father Kingsley, the hassle of smoking roll-ups, his child acting days and.. 'what question have you never been asked?'

Questioners Sarah Ridgeway, Tom Forrester, and Charlie Clements.

Reader Bill Nighy

Producer Duncan Minshull.

New guidance for judges on child contact cases involving domestic abuse allegations come into force today. Judges must carefully consider the impact of domestic violence on children and question whether the "presumption of contact" should apply. Campaigners say previously the "presumptions" have resulted in devastating and tragic outcomes for children. Christina Blacklaws, Solicitor and Vice-President of the Law Society, and Katie Ghose, Chief Executive of Women's Aid, join Jane.

2017 marks the centenary of the Medical Women's Federation. To celebrate, every day this week we are speaking to leading female clinicians about the women from medical history who inspired them. Today, Jane talks to Professor Mary Horgan, President of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and a leading specialist in the field of vaccinations. She picks Dorothy Stopford Price for her work on BCG vaccinations in Ireland.

The dress historian Lucy Adlington has written a novel for young adults entitled 'Red Ribbon'. It is inspired by the real female prisoners who worked in the tailoring studio at camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. They were tasked with making stylish clothes for Frau Hoss, the wife of the Nazi commander, as well as the wives of other male officers. She joins Jane to discuss.

As part of our Best Place to be a Woman series, we hear from young Muslim women about what life is like for them at the moment in Britain. Muna Ahmed got in touch to say, in her view, it's pretty grim. She sat down with a group of women, some who have converted to Islam and others, like her, who were born into the religion. They share stories of suspicion, harassment and abuse as they go about their lives online and on the street.

Lucy Catherine's Viking epic of love, revenge and leadership inspired by the Icelandic sagas

Gudrun, a young woman in 11th century Iceland, forges her path through a world of unearthly beauty yet uncompromising harshness. Left reeling from the part she played in her lover's death she's determined to rebuild her family and win back the trust of her husband.

Produced and directed by Gemma Jenkins

The first series ended with the death of Gudrun's lover, Kjartan, killed by his best friend and brother, Bolli. Bolli is married to Gudrun. He suspects his wife was behind the blood feud that led to Kjartan's death. Kjartan married into Norwegian royalty and when his wife returns to Iceland with plans to convert the country to Christianity it becomes clear her motives are far from pious.

Gudrun is under the protection of Freija, the Norse Goddess of love and war. She can sometimes be as slippery a customer as her protégée. Freija's voice cries out for a new kind of leadership. Is she really on Gudrun's side or does she have an agenda of her own?

Suspicious of how power and ambition are wielded by men Gudrun's left feeling increasingly isolated. She longs for the freedom to live her life according to her own rules, beholden to no-one.

The show is inspired by the famous Laxdaela Saga featuring the original Nordic Noir heroine, Guðrún Ósvífursdóttir. There is speculation that the saga was written by a woman. Gudrun has the same steely determination and in some cases the almost psychopathic single-mindedness of her successors, Lisbeth Salander and Saga Noren, not to mention the ability to scheme, manipulate and bend others to her will in the manner of Borgen's wily politician Birgitte Nyborg.

Kate Phillips returns as Gudrun. Previous roles include Jane Seymour in Wolf Hall, Linda in Peaky Blinders and Lise in War & Peace, all on BBC1.

And Gudrun returns for a third series in December.

Criminologist David Wilson talks to former criminal turned journalist Erwin James. James committed a string of petty offences before carrying out two brutal murders. He fled to France and joined the Foreign Legion, before returning to Britain where he stood trial and was sentenced to life.

In prison he started writing a newspaper column and began coming to terms with what he had done, helped by a prison psychologist. He later wrote a book, "Redeemable". But what is redemption, and is it even possible without the forgiveness of those who have been hurt?

Producer: Jolyon Jenkins.

A comedy written by and starring Esther Coles (BBC2's "Nurse").

Esther takes refuge from a troubled world on her allotment where she finds serenity among the vegetables and loses herself in her bee keeping. While daughter Molly uses the shed as a makeshift study for her exams love-sick Robert has come to ask Esther to take him on a tour of her bee hive, but the spell is broken when Geoff wades in in a make-shift bee-keeping outfit in search of his stolen pumpkin.
Welcome to a quirky, warm world where troubles get lost in the long grass and small things can bring contentment.

Esther - Esther Coles
Robert - Mark Benton
Geoff - Paul Whitehouse
Molly - Patricia Allison
Sally - Arabella Weir
Grandma Maggs - Jane Horrocks

Produced by Gareth Edwards
A BBC Studios Production.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

In the 1920s lead was added to petrol. It made cars more powerful and was, according to its advocates, a "gift". But lead is a gift which poisons people; something figured out as long ago as Roman times. There's some evidence that as countries get richer, they tend initially to get dirtier and later clean up. Economists call this the "environmental Kuznets curve". It took the United States until the 1970s to tax lead in petrol, then finally ban it, as the country moved down the far side of the environmental Kuznets curve. But as Tim Harford explains in this astonishing story, the consequences of the Kuznets curve aren't always only economic.

Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Ben Crighton.

The secondary ticketing website Viagogo has been criticised by MPs and musicians for charging fans over-inflated prices for concert tickets. Some people have even been denied entry to events because the tickets were fake. Banks used to deny customers refunds - but You and Yours has new figures to suggest that banks are starting to co-operate if people have problems with Viagogo.

Online bookie 888 has been fined a record £7.8 million for allowing gamblers who had self excluded from the website to log back in and play again. We hear from a listener who self excluded, was able to log back on, and win £10,000. But his winnings were denied because he had self excluded. Is he entitled to his winnings?

We report from Grasmere in the Lake District on the efforts volunteers go to to protect Red squirrel populations. They say that government grants are now hard to access which could threaten their conservation efforts.

We have the latest on our story about genealogy website AncestryDNA, who were keeping samples of customer's saliva. It was written in the small print and the website has now removed it, but we've found customer's DNA is still being stored unless you ask for it to be destoyed.

More than a dozen car manufacturers in the UK have launched scrappage schemes - where you trade in your old car and get a discount on a new one - but we investigate how some of these deals mean your car is sold on and not scrapped at all.

And, we have the latest on the court ruling deciding sleep-in carers for people with learning disabilities should be paid the minimum wage instead of a £35 flat fee. The government has delayed its decision on whether care homes should pay £400 million in back pay to carers. But how are these carers coping in the meantime?

The latest weather forecast.

Analysis of news and current affairs.

Professor Sir David Cannadine explores political fame and image by looking at how an object or prop, whether chosen deliberately or otherwise, can come to define a political leader.

Sir David looks at the significance of these props of power - what they mean and what they become, and what happens when, almost inevitably, Prime Ministers lose control of their image and their props take on a hostile meaning, very different from their original intentions.

Neville Chamberlain always liked to carry a big black umbrella. It was intended to project an image of the quintessential Englishman, who was always smart, prepared and, in a manner of speaking, neatly furled. When Chamberlain arrived home after meeting Hitler at Munich in 1938, he was clutching Hitler's signed piece of paper in one hand and his brolly in the other. His umbrella now took on a new and potent symbolism as a "peace umbrella" and one that would keep the German bombs from raining down on British heads. He was sent hundreds of umbrellas by a grateful public and there was even a song composed at the time which contained the lyrics, "You look swell holding your umbrella / All the world loves a wonderful fella".

Yet as war broke out in Europe, Chamberlain's trademark brolly was quickly seized upon by his enemies as a laughable symbol of his gentlemanly ineffectiveness and it became a lightening-rod for critics of appeasement. Declassified MI5 records reveal how Hitler mocked him for it - and Chamberlain's once so celebrated umbrella morphed from useful trademark into an embarrassing symbol of political weakness and pusillanimity.

Produced by Melissa FitzGerald
A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4.

1961, Liverpool. Paul Farley's new play tells the story of a love affair conducted between a young couple who never meet, but who send each other singles made in an automatic record-your-own-voice booth.

Music for George's song written and performed by Brian Protheroe

Directed by Emma Harding.

The popular and evergreen quotations programme 'Quote ... Unquote' returns. Nigel Rees quizzes Simon Brett, Vanessa Feltz, Michele Hanson and Henry Normal.

Quote ... Unquote, the popular quotations quiz, returns for a new series.

For over forty years, Nigel Rees has been joined by writers, actors, musicians, scientists and various comedy types. Kenneth Williams, Judi Dench, PD James, Larry Adler, Ian KcKellen, Peter Cook, Kingsley Amis, Peter Ustinov... have all graced the Quote ... Unquote stage.

Join Nigel as he quizzes a host of guests on the origins of sayings and well-known quotes, and gets the panel to share their favourite anecdotes.

Episode 1

Detective Fiction Author Simon Brett
Guardian Columnist Michele Hanson
Broadcaster Vanessa Feltz
Poet and writer Henry Normal

Presenter ... Nigel Rees
Reader ... Charlotte Green
Producer ... Katie Tyrrell
Production co-ordinator ... Beverly Tagg

This is a BBC Studios Production.

"The terraced streets were my Grand Canyons, the shipyard cranes my redwood trees, those steelwork tips were my mountain ranges and the brickyard ponds were my seven seas".

These are the words of the songwriter Graeme Miles that inspired Sean Cooney, David Eagle and Michael Hughes of the Teesside folk group The Young'uns - Radio 2's Folk Band of the Year Award winners in 2015 & 2016. Stumbling across a folk club at the age of 17, school friends Sean, David & Michael first heard the songs of Graeme Miles - songs about their local area - songs that resonated. They realised that there was beauty to be found in a place they had been brought up to believe was "deprived" and "unromantic", and that Graeme's songs instilled a sense of pride.

For years now the band have been singing Graeme's songs, and, in this programme, they find out more about the man and his work. Featuring interviews with Graeme's widow Annie, and discussion and performances from esteemed musicians from the folk world, including the critically-acclaimed band The Unthanks, this programme highlights some of Graeme's finest songs. From an emotive performance of 'Waiting For The Ferry' on the banks of the River Tees, to a stirring rendition of 'Ring of Iron' accompanied by the legendary Billingham group The Wilson Family, The Young'uns discover more about their muse, and present the programme in their unique and humorous way.

Produced by Elizabeth Foster.

Sin eating was an age old British practice carried out by those on the fringes of their communities. When someone died the sin eater would consume a ritualistic meal over the corpse and in doing so they would take on their sins. Whether they were outcasts because of this, or to start with folklorists can't say. What is known for certain though is that they were among the poorest - who else would do it?

While the practice may have died out over a hundred years ago there is a digital equivalent. Content moderators working in huge numbers across the world are fighting a losing battle both to keep horrible images from slipping into our social media feeds but also against the harm they suffer from witnessing so much gruesomeness.

Aleks Krotoski will hear about what happens when you stare into the abyss for too long.

Producer: Peter McManus.

Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

David Mitchell hosts the panel game in which four comedians are encouraged to tell lies and compete against one another to see how many items of truth they're able to smuggle past their opponents.

Richard Osman, Arthur Smith, Lou Sanders and Phil Wang are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as dolphins, cows, Arnold Schwarzenegger and students.

Produced by Jon Naismith
A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.

Alistair and Anisha need to work together, and Ian reaches an agreement.

Arts news, interviews and reviews.

This year's winner of the Journey of a Lifetime Award, Nicole Bennet Fite, travels deep into the valleys of Tajikistan to find a shrine devoted to womens' resistance.

Nicole is a student of anthropology at Stanford University, California and a young radio maker. For six weeks this year she travelled around the small Central Asian republic of Tajikistan and visited the remote and beautiful Yagnob Valley.

On her first big solo adventure as a young woman, her aim is to hear about the experiences of women on her path through Tajikistan.

Crossing glaciers and skirting herds of goats, she makes her way to a shrine at the end of the valley. This sanctified place, deep in the forest, is the preserve only of women. Inside it is a boulder said to represent a Yagnob woman who turned herself to stone to avoid rape by Mongol armies attacking the village 800 years ago.

At the shrine, Nicole has her own epiphany.

About the Journey of a Lifetime award: Are you passionate about radio and podcasting? Are you excited about finding new ways to tell original stories in sound? And are you itching to explore and understand the world around you?

Then we have exciting news for you. The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), in partnership with BBC Radio 4, is offering a £5,000 grant to help you make a journey - near or far - and a radio programme telling the world about it. You will be given BBC training and ongoing support from a BBC documentary producer.
If this sounds fun to you, you can find out how to apply by clicking on this link: http://bit.ly/1wBNKHB.

Will technology radically reshape the highly profitable world of finance? Technology can revolutionise industries, making goods and services cheaper and more accessible. Television is going the same way with online services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime providing thousands of movies and boxsets. From the point of view of the consumer the picture is the same - we tend to have more choice and pay less money. Profits get squeezed. Yet there's one service we buy that seems to be a glaring exception - finance. Philip Coggan of The Economist asks whether the rapidly growing financial technology sector is about to change all that, creating a future that's much less comfortable for City fat cats, but better for everyone else.

Producer: Ben Carter

(Photo: Tech Globe on hand. Credit: Shutterstock).

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.

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.

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.

When are old clothes merely second hand and when are they vintage? Fashion historian Amber Butchart explores how our perception of cast off clothing has dramatically changed over the past hundred years.

In the first of two programmes, Amber visits shops, markets, museums and fashion houses in a quest to track how second hand clothes have gone from being simple hand-me-downs, only found in jumble sales and charity shops, to featuring in the pages of glossy fashion magazines and for sale at high prices in auction houses.

Producer: Phill Brown
An Alfi Media production for BBC Radio 4.

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

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rabbi YY Rubinstein, a writer, teacher and broadcaster.

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.

In the second of five recollections about his encounters with birds, writer and wildlife programme-maker Stephen Moss recalls going in search of a bird that 50 years was rare but today are found all over southern Britain - and is most often heard before it is seen, having a very loud song! It is the Cetti's Warbler.In the second of five recollections about his encounters with birds, writer and wildlife programme-maker Stephen Moss recalls going in search of a bird that 50 years was rare but today are found all over southern Britain - and is most often heard before it is seen, having a very loud song! It is the Cetti's Warbler.

Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new 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 Sarah Blunt

Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new 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 Sarah Blunt.

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

Lucie Green studies the sun - that giant, turbulent ball of burning gas at the centre of our solar system. Her first ambition was to become an art therapist, but she soon switched from art to astrophysics, and before long had fixed her gaze on our local star. It may be 93 million miles away, but the sun's extensive and ever changing magnetic field determines the 'weather' throughout our solar system. Under a worst-case scenario, bubbles of super-hot plasma and streams of high energy particles - spat out when the surface of the sun erupts - can hurtle towards planet earth, damaging communication and navigation satellites and bringing down electrical power supplies.Thanks to the work that Lucie and others have done to raise awareness of these coronal mass ejections, solar belches as Lucie likes to call them are now a recognised threat to national security, alongside flooding, pandemic flu and terrorist attacks.

Producer: Anna Buckley.

DJ and radio presenter Trevor Nelson grew up in London and came to find out he had half siblings on the Caribbean island of St Lucia. However, for Trevor and his three sisters who were raised by his parents in the UK, this was something that didn't really have an impact on his family life until much later when Trevor finally met his half siblings.

It's something that has fascinated Trevor all his life, and now in this series of One to One, he meets people to uncover what it's like to have, or to find out you have, half siblings.

In the first of his three programmes, he meets Adrienne who has eight half siblings but no full brothers and sisters. She tells Trevor that that there is no jealousy and rivalry and that they really are one big happy family. Really?

The producer is Perminder Khatkar.

Martin Amis is one of the most celebrated authors of modern times. A new collection rounds up his non-fiction pieces from 1986 to 2016, and this week five compelling topics are aired.

Like many major writers, he has experienced the highs and lows of the mega author tour. Travelling across America these experiences are even more comic and strange. Praised by readers, heckled by fellow authors, bumping into Jack Nicholson, it's never a dull moment as a 'hireling of my own novel'.

Reader Bill Nighy

Producer Duncan Minshull.

Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.

Lucy Catherine's Viking epic of love, revenge and leadership inspired by the Icelandic sagas.

Gudrun's rival in love, Hrefna, returns to Iceland with a band of missionaries and a plan to convert the country to Christianity. Her motives for returning to the land where her husband was murdered are far less clear cut.

Produced and directed by Gemma Jenkins.

One swallow doesn't make a summer but it comes close: Brett Westwood explores a much loved and inspirational bird whose own definition of happiness is a field of cow dung. Mark Cocker is in one such field in Derbyshire; Anders Pape Moller catches breeding swallows in a cow byre in Jutland; and Angela Turner reminds us how a swallow lives when it leaves the European summer. Featuring poems by Swinburne and Keats and a song by Robert Burns. Producer: Tim Dee.

The Russian Revolution unleashed a brand of humour that continues to this day. In this two-part series, comedian and Russophile Viv Groskop explores a century of revolutionary comedy and asks how it continues to shape the national psyche.

The series will rediscover comedy of the Revolution: Bolshevik satire, early Communist cartoons and jokes about Lenin, as writers, satirists and comedians recall the jokes and cartoons shared by their parents and grandparents.

Viv will investigate the birth of the 'anekdot' and trace the development of dark humour through the purges. She will look at how dissident humour in the late 1950s influenced comedy in London and New York, and meet contemporary comedians to gain an understanding of the shape and sound of the comedy circuit in Russia today.

Producer: Georgia Catt.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

You might think electricity had an immediate and transformative impact on economic productivity. But you would be wrong. Thirty years after the invention of the useable light bulb, almost all American factories still relied on steam. Factory owners simply couldn't see the advantage of electric power when their steam systems - in which they had invested a great deal of capital - worked just fine. Simply replacing a steam engine with an electric dynamo did little to improve efficiency. But the thing about a revolutionary technology is that it changes everything. And changing everything takes imagination. Instead of replacing their steam engines with electric dynamos, company bosses needed to re-design the whole factory. Only then would electric power leave steam behind. As Tim Harford explains, the same lag has applied to subsequent technological leaps - including computers. That revolution might be just beginning.

Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Ben Crighton.

Consumer phone-in.

The latest weather forecast.

Analysis of news and current affairs.

Professor Sir David Cannadine explores political fame and image by looking at how an object or prop, whether chosen deliberately or otherwise, can come to define a political leader - from Winston Churchill's cigar and siren suit to Margaret Thatcher's handbag.

Sir David looks at the significance of these props of power - what they mean and what they become, and what happens when, almost inevitably, Prime Ministers lose control of their image and their props take on a hostile meaning, very different from their original intentions.

In 1937, Stanley Baldwin retired in what was considered a blaze of glory, and he expected to live out his remaining days as a revered elder statesman behind his wrought-iron gates at his country estate, Astley Hall. But the Second World War changed everything and Baldwin's reputation collapsed when he became the scapegoat for Britain being ill-equipped to fight Hitler.

The problem became centred on his iron gates when, in September 1941, Stanley Baldwin's old enemy, Lord Beaverbrook, asked all local authorities to survey their area's iron and steel gates for requisitioning as scrap metal. Baldwin duly applied for exemption for the Astley Hall gates on the grounds of artistic merit. However Beaverbrook bit back and Baldwin's gates became something of a cause celebre and the focus for a national campaign hounding an old appeaser who was now seen to be hampering the war effort.

Stanley Baldwin's iron gates at Astley Hall were eventually removed, all except the pair of presentation gates given to him by the Worcestershire Association on his retirement. Sir David Cannadine goes in search of Baldwin's remaining gates to find out what happened to them.

Produced by Melissa FitzGerald
A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4.

By Meic Povey

Since the death of his wife, Billy has lived on his own. But now it's time to stop grieving, and start living again.

Before she died Billy's wife, Sally, gave him a list of things to do once she was gone: Cancel loyalty cards; close bank account; retile hallway, and so on. Billy has followed her instructions religiously. Now, there is one item left on Sally's list - a full-length mirror in the bathroom they used to share.

Once in place the mirror dominates the room, and is hard to ignore. Billy is forced to confront his image - a man alone in the world. But he feels unexpectedly hopeful now the mirror is up. He finds he is glancing at his image more and more, and Billy realises that despite his 60-odd years he's looking pretty good.

Directed by James Robinson
A BBC Cymru Wales Production.

The ability to share underused resources like holiday homes and car journeys through online sites has disrupted many sectors of the economy. Many people now travel using 'Airbnb' or 'Uber' and being able to deal directly with the owner of the property or the driver of the car has opened up additional revenue streams for some and cheaper travel options for us all. As many more industries are about to be 'disrupted' by sharing technology Tom Heap discovers how the sharing economy might also be good for the planet.

New apps like Olio and Fat Llama or the Library of Things are designed to allow people to share everything from leftover food to lawnmowers. In a world where space is at a premium and less people will own their own home many of us may no longer want to store so much 'stuff'. The solution is to borrow what we need when we need it and many statistics suggest we have already reached a point of 'peak stuff'. Buying less manufactured goods may be bad for the economy but it could be good news for the planet. Tom finds out just how far the sharing economy can provide for his needs and asks if this shift in how and what we consume can really save energy and emissions.

Producer: Helen Lennard.

Michael Rosen finds out what the rest of society can learn about communication from people on the autism spectrum, by getting an insight into a different worldview. He meets Alis Rowe and Helen Eaton from the Curly Hair project. Producer Sally Heaven.

Writers Toby Young and Sarah Vine talk favourite books with Harriett Gilbert. Sarah has an insider's view of British politics- what made her choose John Preston's A Very English Scandal, the true story of Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe's trial for murder? Toby Young picks Lionel Davidson's thriller Kolymsky Heights, and Harriett selects Conundrum, the memoir of travel writer and trans woman Jan Morris.
Producer Sally Heaven.

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 4 Tim is in Wales at the Borough Theatre in Abergavenny. Dramatic events come in the form of an anecdote about a haunted hotel and a warship trying to do a three-point turn.

Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.

Oliver decides to step down, and Brian is forced to pay out.

Join John Wilson for a celebration of the power and possibilities of the short story as Chair of Judges Joanna Trollope announces the winner of the 2017 BBC National Short Story Award live from the Radio Theatre.

The judging panel Eimear McBride, Jon McGregor and Sunjeev Sahota discuss the merits of the entries from the shortlisted authors. In contention for the £15,000 prize are Helen Oyeyemi, Benjamin Markovits, Cynan Jones, Jenni Fagan and Will Eaves.

Radio 1 presenter Alice Levine will also announce the winner of the BBC Young Writers' Award and consider the strengths and emerging themes of the stories with judges Nikesh Shukla and Holly Bourne.

The BBC National Short Story Award is presented in conjunction with BookTrust.

Presenter : John Wilson
Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Manveen Rana uncovers hate speech and extreme Islamist messages in some of Britain's mainstream Urdu language newspapers, radio stations and TV channels.

While we are often told the internet and social media have accelerated the fermentation of extremist ideas, File on 4 reveals how widely-available 'old media' is also disseminating sectarian, anti-Semitic and even violent messages through newspapers and TV channels accessible in Muslim communities across the UK.

But at what point do these media outlets cross the line from bad taste to criminal behaviour? And are media regulators doing enough to prevent and punish the offenders?

Producers: Richard Fenton-Smith & Sajid Iqbal
Editor: Gail Champion.

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.

Fashion historian Amber Butchart discovers what happens to the clothes we give to charity shops. Some of them can end up travelling thousands of miles and affect people's lives in ways that goes well beyond raising money for worthy causes.

In the second and concluding episode, Amber travels to Senegal, via London and Yorkshire, to trace the process that our charity clothes go through and hears about the positive and negative impacts our donations are having globally.

Producer: Phill Brown
An Alfi Media production for BBC Radio 4.

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

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rabbi YY Rubinstein, a writer, teacher and broadcaster.

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.

In the third of five recollections about his encounters with birds, writer and wildlife programme-maker Stephen Moss recalls the first time he saw a Bittern - a bird which whilst it produces a loud booming call can be quite elusive.

Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new 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: Sarah Blunt.

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

Roderick Williams shows how Britain has become an astonishingly fertile breeding ground for the world's very best professional choirs and choristers. He explores the hugely important role that our cathedrals and university chapels have played in sustaining these groups; plus the long, but not always illustrious, history that brought them here. And he asks what the future holds for this most British of musical institutions.

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 4 - Purple
From music to chocolate, purple has created its own brands. It appears the least in nature and its scarcity in everyday life led humans to link it with luxury and quality. Traditionally the chosen colour of royalty, dark purple has been fought over in the most famous of colour battles - Nestle vs Cadburys. The dispute over Pantone 2865c, the colour chosen by Cadburys over 100 years ago has been in and out of the courts for over a decade. Wayne uncovers our relationship to purple which, while being popular with teenagers, is also linked to death and mourning.

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

Martin Amis is one of the most celebrated authors of modern times. A new collection rounds up his non-fiction pieces from 1986 to 2016, and this week five compelling topics are aired.

A feature film based on Iris Murdoch (with Kate Winslet and Judi Dench portraying her through the years), gives him chance to muse on the life and work of this acclaimed novelist. A unique and profound voice, movingly married to John Bayley, he describes her portrayal on celluloid, her eccentric domesticity, and her later descent as Alzheimer's takes hold.

Reader Bill Nighy

Producer Duncan Minshull.

Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.

Lucy Catherine's Viking epic of love, revenge and leadership inspired by the Icelandic sagas.

The Norwegian priest Refkel has spent the winter working alongside Gudrun on her farm. As spring returns he redoubles his efforts to save her soul.

Produced and directed by Gemma Jenkins.

A mother and daughter united by greasepaint. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

Photo: Abdur Rahman and his wife Iram love home educating their 3 daughters and feel the girls get a terrific experience from the range of educational and social activities they plan as a family.

Nobody knows exactly how many children are being educated at home because parents are under no obligation to tell the authorities - registration isn't mandatory, although there were close to 30,000 children on the voluntary registers kept by local authorities in 2016/17 academic year. This represented a 97 per cent increase on the 2011 figures. Councils point to a number of reasons for the increase, including the fact that more parents are removing their children from school to avoid prosecution for poor attendance, or because the pupil might be at risk of exclusion.

In Bradford Winifred Robinson meets 14 year old Mohammed, whose mother opted for home education rather than have him sent to the pupil referral unit. She readily admits she's out of her depth trying to teach him and says she has not really managed to do it in the ten months that he's been at home. She says his bad behaviour at school had caused problems: "The school said if you don't want him going into the pupil referral unit, then you have to home school him. I'm not that educated myself and I work in the mornings, I didn't really know what I was agreeing to and it isn't working for him."

Mohammed agrees, saying that his Mum means well but has no understanding of the curriculum: "My mum, she isn't a teacher for teaching Maths, English and Science. I've got nothing to do, so I go back to sleep, or play on the X Box. When I went to school I was around other children and I was happy. Now it's just a boring being alone - I don't like it." Mohammed wants to get back into school, but he's now struggling to find a school that will take him and is worried about catching up.

According to Abdur Rahman, it is happening more frequently: he runs an intervention program for excluded youngsters and tells Winifred that if a child doesn't engage in school they can become a negative influence: "Eventually the only other option for the school is to say 'elective home school'. Abdur Rahman sees both extremes of the home education debate because he and his wife took the very positive decision to home educate their three daughters. They are able to give the girls attention and direction in their home classroom. His concern is at the other end of the spectrum when parents almost have the decision forced on them by schools who should be doing more to engage some pupils. They go to the parent and say, 'if you're child doesn't come to school you could be fined'. Then the option comes, 'well, you could elective home school'. Schools work like a business nowadays and if that child isn't going to get them what they need then they will go down this road."

Councillor Richard Watts chairs the Local Government Association's Children and Young People Board and thinks that strengthening the powers of local authorities will help avoid cases of children slipping below the radar: "What the lack of rules does is present some loopholes where some children are taken out of schools for reasons that don't have the child's best interest at heart and actually some schools we know are effectively putting a lot of pressure on parents to home educate their kids to get them off the roll when exam comes around.

It's an issue Lord Soley hopes to address through his private members bill, which would make it mandatory to register home educated pupils with the local authority, who would monitor their 'educational, physical and emotional development.' Currently, a parent of a school-age child must ensure he or she gets a full-time education, 'either by regular attendance at school or otherwise,' and that it must be suitable to their age and ability. Lord Soley says that whilst most parents do a good job of teaching their children at home, the voluntary system can leave some families slipping through the net.

Greg Smith, head of operations at Oxford Home Schooling, a not-for-profit trust that provides educational material for home educators, feels that the proposed measures go too far. He tells Winifred that the only other occasion on which the state has the right to enter your home is: "if you've committed a crime." He is worried that some local authorities treat home education on a par with truancy, or as a safeguarding problem, rather than working with parents: "Councils should be supporting these parents with the choices they are making."

A murder mystery with a quirky touch written by Suk Pannu and starring Meera Syal. The Indian Aunty from Slough gets mixed up in society crimes in Berkshire.

Mrs Sidhu (Meera Syal) is the interfering Indian chef with a taste for murder. Since her husband's death, she has built a successful reputation as a caterer in Slough and has expanded into well-heeled Berkshire, where the posh clients pay better. But when crime strikes, Mrs Sidhu embroils Inspector Burton (Justin Edwards) in the murky lives of gadget inventor, Lord Lucas, his icy wife Lady Lucas (Rachel Atkins) and bride to be Jemma Broghan (Amy Morgan).

Meanwhile at home, she is plagued by her wily catering supplier Mr Varma (Vincent Ebrahim) and her wayward son Tez (Hamza Jetooa).

In the first episode, Mrs Sidhu leaves Slough for a posh wedding at Lapsley Hall where the bride appeals for her help in finding her missing maid of honour. Meanwhile her son Tez is angry when she employs a French sous chef.

Writer Suk Pannu
Editor Leon Chambers
Studio Engineers Phil Horne, Leon Chambers
Director Marilyn Imrie
Producer Gordon Kennedy
Executive Producer Chris Pye

An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Nicholas Murray Butler was one of the great thinkers of his age: philosopher; Nobel Peace Prize-winner; president of Columbia University. When in 1911 Butler was asked to name the most important innovation of the industrial era, his answer was somewhat surprising. "The greatest single discovery of modern times," he said, "is the limited liability corporation". Tim Harford explains why Nicholas Murray Butler might well have been right.

Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Ben Crighton.

Consumer affairs programme.

The latest weather forecast.

Analysis of news and current affairs.

Professor Sir David Cannadine explores political fame and image by looking at how an object or prop, whether chosen deliberately or otherwise, can come to define a political leader - from Winston Churchill's cigar and siren suit to Margaret Thatcher's handbag.

Sir David looks at the significance of these props of power - what they mean and what they become, and what happens when, almost inevitably, Prime Ministers lose control of their image and their props take on a hostile meaning, very different from their original intentions.

Anthony Eden was one of the briefest serving Prime Ministers of modern times, and his name became inseparably linked with the Suez fiasco of 1956, from which his reputation has never recovered. But in the earlier stages of his political career, Eden was widely regarded as the most attractive and glamorous figure in British public life. These qualities were both proclaimed and symbolised by his Homburg hat, which he briefly made fashionable when it became known as the Eden on Savile Row. In fact, Anthony Eden is the only British Prime Minister, apart from the Duke of Wellington, to have had an item of apparel named after him.

But with Eden's fall from grace, the Eden hat was quickly forgotten and one biographer wrote scathingly in the 1960s, "who wears an Anthony Eden hat today?"

And while we still use the phrase Wellington boot, and remember the victor of Waterloo, the Eden Homburg, and the man who gave his name to it, have both been largely forgotten.

Produced by Melissa FitzGerald
A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4.

An unexpected event at school gives Ed special powers - like turning into a minotaur. Comic drama by Ed Harris.

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 Nick Heyward from Haircut 100.

Ken is very excited as he's heard that Nick has had a spiritual awakening and he's keen to learn how he can have one of his own. John feels that Ken is being silly wearing a kaftan and beads, but Ken is convinced that Nick can help him and ignores John.

Also, Mary is not happy with the smell of the josticks that Ken has lit so he's ejected by John while Nick wins Mary over with his rendition of Can't Go Back To Savoury Now.

In Top Tips on the Telephone, John learns from Tony Christie about coping with Eurovision failure!

Written and Performed by Graham Fellows with special guests Nick Heyward and Tony Christie.
Produced by Dawn Ellis
A Chic Ken production for BBC Radio 4.

Jolene tries to be a voice of reason, and Alice plays peace-maker.

Arts news, interviews and reviews.

Against a record rise in the number of sentences being made more severe after being found to have been unduly lenient, Clive Anderson and guests discuss whether sentencing law is fit for purpose.

Should judges have the freedom to reflect a defendant's mitigating circumstances, even if that means wildly different sentences for the same crime? Or should rigid guidelines ensure consistency across the country, so that a shoplifter in Penrith is treated the same as one in Peterborough?

The Law Commission has just published a report which says complexity in current sentencing law is causing costly delays and prompting judges to make errors, and even leading to unlawful sentences. In a recent study, 30% of sentences were found to have been handed down incorrectly.

The prison population has doubled in the last 25 years. It is now the largest in Europe. Lord Justice Treacy, Chairman of the Sentencing Council, believes an increased focus by courts on victims has seen so-called sentence inflation - increasingly harsh sentences handed down for the same crimes.

Barrister Michelle Nelson is alarmed by the findings of David Lammy's review of the criminal justice system that ethnic minority offenders face bias and even overt discrimination in the way they are handled. BAME people accused of drugs offences are 240% more likely to be sent to prison than white offenders.

The legal director of the Howard League, Laura Janes, asks if the aim is to rehabilitate offenders or simply to punish them. She says the UK should follow Germany and make more use of suspended sentences - opportunities for offenders to reform themselves - rather than automatically handing down custodial sentences.

Producer: Matt Willis
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.

David Baddiel tries to understand the United Kingdom's constitution.

What does a constitution do? Does not having a written constitution mean we don't really have a constitution at all? Should we? And where does the Royal Family fit in? David speaks to Lord Lisvane, a former Clerk of the House of Commons, and to Lord Turnbull, once the country's top civil servant, to understand these and other puzzling questions about the constitution.

Producer: Giles Edwards.

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.

In the throes of splitting up from her boyfriend, 29-year-old Charlotte (Helen Monks) is determined to prove she's not as self-centred as he says she is. She signs up as a volunteer to visit the elderly, expecting to be paired with a frail and needy old lady who's full of gratitude and appreciation for such a selfless act. Instead she meets 82-year-old Lillian (Miriam Margolyes), a belligerent and feisty old bat who sees through her in an instant.

Needless to say, they don't get on.

Helping Lillian clear out her garage is undoubtedly a Good Turn, but it's not long before Charlotte's self-interest gets the better of her. She spots a vintage treasure in amongst Lillian's junk and, determined to get her hands on it, attempts to manipulate Lillian into giving it to her. Not only does her plan backfire spectacularly, but it also reveals how both women are just as greedy as each other.

This four-part, two-actress comedy, written by Holly Walsh and Kat Sommers, was recorded on location and features the fantastic combination of Miriam Margolyes and Helen Monks, working together for the first time.

A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4.