SATURDAY 12 OCTOBER 2024

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (m0023p08)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 00:30 On Friendship by Andrew O'Hagan (m0023ny4)
Imaginary Friendships

Andrew O’Hagan turns his clear eye on human relationships for Radio 4, with a week of essays examining friendship from every angle. The author concludes with an examination of every writer's companions - the friends of the imagination.

Andrew O'Hagan is an award-winning writer of fiction and non-fiction whose novels have been adapted for stage and screen. His essays and reports have appeared in London Review of Books, New York Review of Books, Granta, The Guardian and The New Yorker.

Read by the author
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0023p0b)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0023p0d)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0023p0g)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SAT 05:30 News Briefing (m0023p0j)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0023p0l)
Praying for Peace

Good morning.

Tomorrow sees the start of the annual Week of Prayer for World Peace. Begun in 1974, Christians and others have been using this week as a focus for prayer for half a century. I can’t imagine it ever having been more necessary than today. The ongoing hostilities following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may, at least for now, be dwarfed by the dreadful scenes from Lebanon, Israel and Gaza, yet both carry with them the threat of escalation into a wider regional or global war, Beyond these lie over a hundred other conflicts, in places such as Sudan and Yemen, whose stories rarely hit our headlines.

All too often, religion itself is prayed in aid; faith leaders are called upon to provide moral backing both for their nation’s cause and for the methods by which it is being pursued. ‘Our victory is God’s will’, goes the argument, ‘so whatever must be done to achieve it, comes with divine approval’. Edward Carpenter, who became Dean of Westminster Abbey, in the same year that he helped found the Week of Prayer for World Peace, would, like others who had lived through the European wars of the twentieth century, have known this well. And that if religion is used to sanctify war, it adds to the importance of faith in promoting and praying for peace.

So today I pray for all those who will mark this coming week. May they not be disheartened by the proliferation of conflict. May their prayers may be answered. And when they rise from prayer, may they join with people of all faiths and goodwill, to work for peace, even where the trumpets of war seek to drown all other voices.


SAT 05:45 Glued Up: The Sticky Story of Humanity (m001y8gt)
War and Wounds

In this series, materials scientist Mark Miodownik charts the journey of human progress through the sticky substances that have shaped us.

In episode four he explores how the accidental invention of superglue produced a life saving adhesive that was used to treat battle wounds during the Vietnam War.

He hears how medical glues today have transformed the way we heal ourselves. And he learns about research into a new generation of tissue adhesives inspired by sticky, slimy secretions from the natural world.

Contributors:
Chantelle Champagne, University of Alberta
Jeff Karp, Brigham and Women's Hospital through Harvard Medical School

Sound effects: Cup breaks by avakas, from Freesound

Producer: Anand Jagatia
Presenter: Mark Miodownik
Executive Producer: Sasha Feachem
BBC Studios Audio Production


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (m0023whl)
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.


SAT 06:07 Ramblings (m0023q04)
Arsenic and Fish Weirs on the Edge of Dartmoor

Clare explores the Lower Tavy Valley in Devon with Sharon Gedye a physical geographer who's spent years discovering how the area's rich history has shaped its landscape and people.

Sharon takes Clare on a circular walk starting on West Down, on the western edge of Dartmoor, heading down towards the River Tavy and eventually reaching Double Waters, the confluence of the Tavy and Walkham. On the way they see evidence of arsenic mines, copper workings and discuss long forgotten but fascinating fish weirs.
One of these, Sharon discovered with the help of court records, was the focus of an unlikely battle in 1280.

Sharon is also interested in how humans shape landscape and how landscape shapes us. Thinking of her grandfather, she says: He was a quarry-man on Dartmoor and by picturing him working and polishing the granite, I feel closer to how he experienced the world.

Also on the walk are two of Sharon's friends who bring their own areas of expertise to their interpretation of the area: archeologist Chris Smart, and heritage consultant, Andrew Thompson

Sharon writes a blog which you can find at www.awalkinenglishweather.com They met at WhatThreeWords: grin.tend.negotiators / Grid Ref: SX479708

Presenter: Clare Balding
Producer: Karen Gregor


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (m0023whn)
12/10/24 Farming Today This Week: charges for inspections at abattoirs, beef prices, slurry spreading in Wales, water management

Proposals for abattoirs to take on more of the cost of vets and meat inspectors are 'excessive and dangerous' according to the meat industry. The Association of Independent Meat suppliers or AIMS which represents both big and small slaughterhouses, says the Food Standards Agency's plan to remove or reduce the discount offered to smaller abattoirs risks 'single-handedly destroying the foundations of the British meat industry. The FSA have urged people to take part in their consultation.

Farmers are getting the highest price for their beef animals in England and Wales, for ten years. Part of the reason, according to Meat Promotion Wales, is growing domestic demand. We speak to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board.

Some Welsh farmers claim they're having to choose between the risk of polluting rivers or breaking the law, ahead of a controversial muck-spreading ban. New rules forbid slurry spreading across Wales from mid October to January, in an effort to protect water quality.

After a record breaking year of rainfall across many parts of the UK water management has become an ever pressing issue for farmers. In Wales, it's a year since the launch of the Welsh Government's Natural Flood Management Accelerator programme. We visit a natural flood management project that's part of the two-year £4.6 million pound programme.

Conservationists in Devon are working with Natural England to see whether there could be some kind of financial support for farmers who make space for beavers on their land as part of natural flood management.

Presenter = Charlotte Smith
Producer = Rebecca Rooney


SAT 06:57 Weather (m0023whq)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SAT 07:00 Today (m0023whs)
12/10/24 - Mishal Husain and Justin Webb

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


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (m0023whv)
Nigel Slater, Selina Brown, Andrew Ziminski, Ian Rankin

Radio 4's Saturday morning show brings you extraordinary stories and remarkable people.


SAT 10:00 Curious Cases (m0023whx)
Series 1

2. The 5 Second Rule

Would you eat food that fell on the floor? That’s the question Hannah and Dara are getting their teeth into this week as they put the so-called ‘5 second rule’ through its paces.

For some people it’s 3 seconds, and for others its 10 – especially if it involves a dropped ice cream and a screaming child. But microbiologist Don Schaffner says there’s no safe amount of time to leave food on the floor if you’re planning to eat it. And while you might think buttered toast would pick up the biggest number of bugs, it may surprise you to hear that wet foods like watermelon are actually the worst when it comes to attracting harmful bacteria.

If all this is putting you off your dinner, the bad news is that the rest of your kitchen is also a microbiological minefield. Research shows nearly 70% of us keep our fridges are the wrong temperature, which sparks a lively discussion about whether it’s ever safe to reheat rice.

For home hygiene guru Sally Bloomfield it’s all a question of being a bit more clever about the kind of germs we expose ourselves to and weighing up risks.

Contributors:

Dr Don Schaffner: Rutgers University
Dr Ellen Evans: Cardiff Metropolitan University
Professor Sally Bloomfield: International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene

Producer: Marijke Peters
Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
A BBC Studios Audio Production


SAT 10:30 Soul Music (m0023wj0)
Diamonds and Rust

“Well, I'll be damned,
Here comes your ghost again…”

Joan Baez, also known as the "Queen of Folk", is halfway through writing a song one day when she gets a call from Bob Dylan. It’s 1974; almost 10 years after their relationship ended. The song went on to become the iconic ‘Diamonds and Rust’, an outpouring of memories from their time together in the early sixties.

Music writer Kevin EG Perry tells the story behind Baez and Dylan’s relationship, how they shaped each other’s worlds, and how this song came into being a decade later. Folk legend Judy Collins, also a good friend of Joan Baez, shares old memories of Newport Folk Festival alongside more recent memories of performing ‘Diamonds and Rust’ with Baez at her 80th birthday. And we hear from people whose lives have been touched by the song. Classicist Edith Hall listened to ‘Diamonds and Rust’ on repeat when she ended her first marriage, on the night that the Berlin Wall fell. And writer John Stewart looks back on a heady relationship from his early twenties, which was always bound up with the lyrics of this song. Decades later, this formative time in his life continues to resonate with diamonds, rust, and gratitude.

Producer: Becky Ripley


SAT 11:00 The Week in Westminster (m0023wj2)
George Parker of the Financial Times analyses the week's political developments at Westminster.

In the week of Sir Keir Starmer's 100 days in Number Ten, the former deputy chief of staff to David Cameron, Baroness Kate Fall, and Tony Blair's former director of political operations, John McTernan, discuss the political fallout of the resignation of the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Sue Gray.

To discuss the forthcoming budget George is joined by former Treasury minister and crossbecnh peer, Lord O'Neill and the Head of Bloomberg Economics, Stephanie Flanders.

Following his retirement from the House of Lords, the Labour politician and founding member of the Social Democratic Party, Lord Owen, discusses his life in politics.
Two former Conservative MPs, David Gauke and Miriam Cates discuss the latest in the Conservative leadership contest.


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m0023wj4)
The Brazilian Amazon Burns

Kate Adie introduces stories from Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Singapore, Oman and Vietnam.

The Amazon rain forest in Brazil has suffered its worst fires in two decades, with most started illegally by humans looking to exploit the land for its resources. The world relies on the Amazon to absorb a lot of its carbon, but these fires mean it is now emitting record amounts itself. Ione Wells has been in Brazil’s west.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the world’s most biodiverse countries, though decades of war and deforestation have led to the degradation of the environment. But a group of scientists is trying to revitalise a forgotten reserve in Haut-Katanga province. Hugh Kinsella Cunningham travelled with them to the Upemba National Park.

Singapore has a zero-tolerance policy on illegal drugs, and is one of only a few countries that continues to execute people convicted of drug trafficking. For those caught using illicit narcotics, the punishments can also be severe. Linda Pressly met recovering addicts undergoing compulsory treatment in a state-run rehab centre.

Oman is growing in popularity as a tourist destination, though the oil-rich sultanate is focusing on its ancient heritage, rather than the hi-tech desert cities of its neighbours. This travel boom is also providing opportunities for women entrepreneurs hoping to break cultural barriers, as Sophia Smith Galer discovered in the Salalah region.

And we travel to Vietnam where William Lee Adams embarked on a personal mission while filming a travel documentary - to lay his elder brother's ashes to rest at his family's temple in Ho Chi Minh City.

Series producer: Serena Tarling
Production coordinators: Sophie Hill & Katie Morrison
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith


SAT 12:00 News Summary (m0023wj6)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 12:04 Money Box (m0023wj8)
Pension Credit and Renters Insurance

The Government is writing to 120,000 people aged 66 or more encouraging them to claim the means-tested benefit pension credit, which will also entitle them to the winter fuel payment. The letters will go out from next month to people the Department for Work and Pensions has identified as likely to be entitled following a targeted trial scheme last year.

Also on the programme, a leading debt charity calls for the way council tax debt is collected to be reformed, and why do millions of renters not insure their belongings?

Presenter: Paul Lewis
Reporters: Dan Whitworth and Emma Smith
Researcher: Jo Krasner
Editor: Sarah Rogers

(First broadcast 12pm Saturday 12th October 2024)


SAT 12:30 The News Quiz (m0023nzm)
Series 115

Cleverly Timed Exits

This week on The News Quiz the panel unpack Sue Gray's cabinet exit, the arrival of man (and possible Irish Law firm) Morgan McSweeney and James Cleverly pipped at the post.

Written by Geoff Norcott

With additional material by: Cody Dahler, James Farmer, Tom Mayhew and Christina Riggs.
Producer: Rajiv Karia
Executive Producer: Pete Strauss
Production Coordinator: Jodie Charman
Sound Editor: Marc Willcox

A BBC Studios Audio Production for Radio 4
An Eco-Audio certified Production


SAT 12:57 Weather (m0023wjb)
The latest weather forecast


SAT 13:00 News and Weather (m0023wjd)
The latest national and international news and weather reports from BBC Radio 4


SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (m0023nzt)
Bronwen Maddox, Alison McGovern MP, Andrew Mitchell MP, Layla Moran MP

Alex Forsyth presents political debate from St Matthew's Church in Walsall, with the chief executive of the foreign affairs think tank Chatham House, Bronwen Maddox; employment minister Alison McGovern MP; shadow foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell MP; and Layla Moran MP, the new chair of the Commons health and social care committee.

Producer: Paul Martin
Lead broadcast engineer: Owain Williams


SAT 14:00 Any Answers? (m0023wjg)
Call Any Answers? to have your say on the big issues in the news this week.


SAT 14:45 The Archers (m0023nzr)
Kenton gloats to Jolene about his Flower and Produce award-winning apple and cheese pie. Lilian toasts George’s sentencing with them, relieved that Alice and Fallon can both draw a line under it all now. They look through entries for the competition to name the kitten, but they aren’t impressed, so decide to give it another week. However, amongst the entries there’s a message from someone who is interested in the old Shires ashtray in the competition photo. They agree to get in touch with him.

Emma can’t be bothered to get up – not only has her boy been taken away, but they’ve put him in an adult prison. Susan reminds her that George will be on a wing with people his age and that George said he was ok with it. Emma retorts that since they forced him to tell the truth, George has had no choice but to be brave. She knows he’s scared. And she hasn’t had her phone call from him yet. Susan takes her in hand, ordering Emma to get up and get dressed. She needs to think about Keira too.

Later, Emma thanks Susan for chivvying her along. Susan advises her to keep putting one foot in front the other, so that when George rings he’ll hear normality in Emma’s voice. Emma agrees that George is stronger than she thinks. They’ll get him through it. When George rings later he is on edge, because of something kicking off in the wing. When they’re interrupted by a bang inside the prison Emma becomes desperate, before George is cut off.


SAT 15:00 Breaking the Rules (m0023wjj)
The English Are Coming

Ghosts of the past awaken as a community is torn apart by the housing crisis in Cornwall.

No longer able to buy or rent in their own town, residents form an action group to put outsiders off coming to the area. Small acts of protest land them in trouble when the fight between locals and the hated English - the Emmet - escalates.

When Sadie’s ailing grandmother decides to leave her 16th century house to an uncle who plans to rent it out to tourists, the young woman looks to the group for help. But as they threaten more radical action, Sadie is forced to choose between her family and her cause. That’s until the uncle begins renovating, and a dark and ancient wrong in the family’s past demands to be resolved. The house will not have it any other way.

Cornwall has always maintained a distinct cultural identity from the rest of England. Across the centuries, there were many revolts against English rule, including the Western Rising of 1549. In 2014, the UK Government recognised the Cornish as a national minority with a unique identity.

Hattie Naylor is an award-winning writer for radio and stage. Her previous drama with Afonica, Dead Weather, won Best Drama, Best Actress and Best Supporting Performance at the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2022.

Cast
Sadie and Morwenna ..... Sofia Oxenham
Rowena and Lina ….. Susan Penhaligon
Tamara ..... Sirine Saba
Richard and Peter ..... Tristan Sturrock
Gerren and Cory ..... Will Howard
Gavin ..... Richard Corgan
Bennath ..... Tamsyn Kelly

Other voices are played by the cast

Written by Hattie Naylor

Executive Producer: Sara Davies
Production Manager: Anna de Wolff Evans

Sound design by Adam Woodhams

Directed and produced by Nicolas Jackson

An Afonica production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (m0023wjl)
Weekend Woman’s Hour: Dr Hilary Cass, Meera Syal & Tanika Gupta, SEND teacher training, Sophie Kinsella, Contraception

Dr Hilary Cass, now Baroness Cass, led a four year review into children’s gender identity services in England. Her final report concluded that children had been let down by a lack of research and "remarkably weak" evidence on medical interventions, and called for gender services for young people to match the standards of other NHS care. In an exclusive interview Nuala McGovern gets Dr Hilary Cass’s reflections six months on from releasing her landmark report.

A Tupperware of Ashes is a play which follows an ambitious Michelin-Star chef, Queenie, played by Meera Syal. It's a family drama about life, immigration and the Indian spiritual cycle of death and rebirth written by playwright Tanika Gupta. Both women joined Anita Rani to talk about the play which is currently on at the National Theatre.

Mums say that the UK’s system for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is broken. An opinion poll from Opinium commissioned by Woman's Hour for a programme on SEND last month revealed that only half of mothers believe their child with SEND is well supported in school, and those in Scotland are the least likely to feel this way. Krupa Padhy takes a look at what is going on behind the scenes with Julie Allan, Professor of Equity and Inclusion at the University of Birmingham; Bev Alderson, National Executive Member of the teaching union NASUWT and Jo Van Herwegen. Professor of Developmental Psychology and Education at University College London.

Bestselling author Sophie Kinsella, known for the hugely popular Shopaholic series and many other bestsellers, talks to Nuala about her latest novel, What Does It Feel Like? It is her most autobiographical yet and tells the story of a novelist who wakes up in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there and learns she’s had surgery to remove a large tumour growing in her brain. She must re-learn how to walk, talk, and write. Six months ago, Sophie shared with her readers on social media that in 2022, she had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, a type of aggressive brain cancer. It is known for its poor prognosis with only 25% of people surviving more than one year, and only 5% survive more than five years.

A new report from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, BPAS, looks into what women want from contraception, the innovations in non-hormonal contraception, and the contraceptive options available to men. Anita was joined by CEO of BPAS Heidi Stewart and 28-year-old Charlotte whose contraceptive pill gave her severe migraines for more than two years before the connection was made.

The Northumbrian electro-folk musician Frankie Archer has performed at Glastonbury and The BBC Proms, been featured on ‘Later... With Jools Holland’, and named as One To Watch! She has released a new EP 'Pressure and Persuasion’, through which she tells the stories of four women and girls from centuries past who navigate the same expectations that are put on women today. Frankie joined Nuala to talk about womanhood, tradfolk and to perform her current single, Elsie Marley.

Presenter: Krupa Padhy
Producer: Annette Wells
Editor: Rebecca Myatt


SAT 17:00 PM (m0023wjn)
P&O owner to attend summit despite row

A row between the P&O owner and the government has been resolved on the eve of an investment summit. The transport secretary had called the ferry company a ‘cowboy operator’. Also, British Airways cancels flights over missing parts and museums warn against climate protests.


SAT 17:30 Political Thinking with Nick Robinson (m0023wjq)
The Tzipi Hotovely One

The Israeli Ambassador sits down with Nick Robinson on the week of the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack.
They discuss what lies behind her worldview, the mindset of Israelis and the actions of her government.


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m0023wjs)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SAT 17:57 Weather (m0023wjv)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0023wjx)
The former First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, dies aged 69.


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (m0023wjz)
Pam Ayres, Dawn O'Porter, Dee C Lee, Poppy O'Toole, Ahir Shah, Clive Anderson

The poet Pam Ayres, author of Oh, I wish I'd looked after Me Teeth - which was voted one of the UK's top ten comic verses - joins Clive to discuss almost half a century of writing and a new volume of her collected works - Doggedly Onwards. Dawn O'Porter was once the journalist behind documentaries on topics from extreme dieting to poligamy and even the movie Dirty Dancing. Now she's a bestselling novelist and her latest work Honeybee is the taboo-tackling tale of twentysomething friends Renee and Flo who grew up, like Dawn herself, on Guernsey and seem to be failing at life. The comedian Ahir Shah went to Edinburgh festival last year with a work-in-progress show about family, immigration, Rishi Sunak and baked beans. He came home with the 2023 Edinburgh Comedy Award. Now that show is on Netflix and he's taking off on a UK tour. And Poppy O'Toole, a Michelin-trained chef who's become a TikTok sensation with the moniker "The Potato Queen" on gadgets and keeping eating interesting. Plus music from soul singer Dee C Lee, who worked with Wham! and The Style Council but is now back with a new album and touring for the first time in 25 years.

Presented by Clive Anderson
Produced by Olive Clancy


SAT 19:00 Profile (m0023wk1)
Gaga

She’s a girl from New York's Lower East Side whom grew up to a life of stardom and is now known by just one name.

Gaga, a classically trained pianist, has secured Grammy-winning songs like Poker Face and Rain on Me. While her performance in A Star Is Born was Oscar-nominated.

Along the way, there’s been a meat dress, a high-profile stance against US military policy, and a collaborative album with Tony Bennett.

Her latest work, Harlequin, is a companion album to her new big screen performance in Joker: Folie à Deux.

From all-conquering song thrush to screen favourite, Stephen Smith has been find out about the life of Gaga.

Production team
Producers: Diane Richardson, Kirsteen Knight and Ben Cooper
Editor: Ben Mundy
Sound: Neil Churchill
Production Co-ordinators: Maria Ogundele

Credits
Joker: Folie à Deux (Official Trailer) - Writer/director/producer Todd Phillips. Warner Bros.
A Star is Born (Official Trailer) - Director Bradley Cooper. Warner Bros.
The inauguration of Joe Biden, 2021, CSPAN.
The Late Show, RTE.
2016 Academy Awards.


SAT 19:15 This Cultural Life (m0023pzh)
Nile Rodgers

Nile Rodgers is one of the most successful and influential figures in popular music. As a songwriter, producer and arranger he has enjoyed a 50 year career with his bands Chic and Sister Sledge, and collaborations with artists including Diana Ross, David Bowie, Duran Duran, Madonna, Daft Punk and Beyoncé.

Bringing his 1959 Fender Stratocaster guitar to the This Cultural Life studio, Nile tells John Wilson how the instrument has been the bedrock of almost every record that he worked on, and acquiring the nickname 'The Hitmaker'. He discusses his bohemian upbringing in 1950s New York with his mother and stepfather who were both drug users. He chooses as one of his most important influences his jazz guitar tutor Ted Dunbar who taught him not only about musical technique but also how to appreciate the artistry of a hit tune. “It speaks to the souls of a million strangers” he was told.

Nile Rodgers reminisces about his musical partner Bernard Edwards, with whom he set up the Chic Organisation after the pair first met on the club circuit playing with cover bands. He discusses their song writing techniques and the importance of what they called ‘deep hidden meaning’ in lyrics. He also reflects on the untimely death of Bernard Edwards in 1996 shortly after he played a gig with Nile in Tokyo, and why he continues to pay musical tribute to his friend in his globally-touring stage show which includes the songs of Chic and other artists they worked with.

Producer: Edwina Pitman


SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (m0023wk3)
Hey World, What's the Craic? Patrick Kielty on Ireland's 1994

Comedian Patrick Kielty and Producer Ruth Sanderson - both Northern Irish - recall their experiences of 1994, an extraordinary year which would change the whole Island of Ireland forever.

Patrick was starting his TV comedy career in Northern Ireland, tackling the troubles, politics and identity head on in a ground breaking show. The first IRA ceasefire was announced that year and created a sense of hope and optimism that things might just change.

South of the border, the Republic of Ireland experienced the 'Celtic Tiger', a phrase first coined in 1994. A state which had struggled economically since its independence was gaining in confidence and entering a new era of its own history. 1994 marked its change from being a pastoral cliché to becoming a vibrant, modern society.

1994 also saw the first great waves of scandal to hit Catholicism in Ireland as victims of sexual abuse began to come forward in large numbers, irreparably altering the nation's relationship with the church.

Culturally in 1994, Irish bands like U2 were creating a soundtrack for the world, but it was the interval act of that year’s Eurovision song contest - Riverdance - which would arguably have the greatest impact on how Irish culture was thought of, and exported, around the globe.

Presented by Patrick Kielty
Producer: Ruth Sanderson
A Bespoken Media production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 21:00 The History Podcast (m0023wk5)
The Brighton Bomb

Episode 11

In 1984 an IRA bomb planted under a bath in Brighton’s Grand Hotel came close to killing Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet. Five people died and 31 others were seriously injured.

writer Glenn Patterson tells the story of the deadly attack, unravelling the threads that brought all involved - often by heart breaking chance - to that place and time, 2.54am on the morning of 12 October, and reveals how the police only just averted a huge follow-up IRA bombing campaign, aimed at England’s beaches.

When you get right down to it, everything in life is a matter of timing…

It is the night of 17 September 1984. The guest in room 629 of Brighton’s Grand Hotel has ordered a bottle of vodka and three cokes.

A few minutes before, the guest – who signed in two days ago as Roy Walsh – put the panel back on the side of the bath in 629’s en suite.

Behind that panel he has left a bomb, timed to go off in three weeks, three days, six hours and thirty-six minutes, at 2.54am on Friday 12 October.

The day of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton.

And the Prime Minister and all her cabinet, as this man who calls himself Roy Walsh knows, will be staying in the Grand Hotel.

It is the biggest direct assault on a British Government since the Gunpowder Plot.

And in the bomber's mind, it’s only the start.

A Walk On Air Films production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 22:00 News (m0023wk7)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 22:15 The Food Programme (m0023ny2)
The Champagne of Dairy and other drinks

Jaega Wise travels the country to meet the three finalists in the Drinks Producer category in this year's BBC Food and Farming Awards.

Her journey takes her to Belfast and the Bullhouse Brewery which began life in a farm shed. Now thriving in an industrial estate, head brewer Will Mayne talks about his frustrations with the current alcohol licensing system in Northern Ireland which he says made it hard for him to open a pub and sell his beer. The controversial "Surrender Principle" means there's a cap on the number of issued pub licences which can be sold for one hundred thousand pounds each. Jaega also hears from Colin Neill - the chief executive of the trade body Hospitality Ulster - who believes the current system keeps standards high in pubs and does work for publicans.

Then it's on to East Sussex and the producers of a fermented milk drink nicknamed "the champagne of dairy". Ki-Kefir was co-founded by Sam Murphy who started off making kefir in her London kitchen. It proved so popular with friends and family that she linked up with a dairy farm when she moved to the countryside to expand her production. She shows Jaega how kefir is made and discusses its potential health benefits.

Lastly, Jaega travels to Scotland to see the country's oldest working distillery. The Glenturret Distillery in Crieff has been producing whisky since 1763, with a short break during the years of Prohibition. Distillery manager Ian Renwick hosts a tour and uncorks some 15-year old whisky in the tasting room.

Jaega also mulls over the shortlisted three with the drinks journalist Olly Smith in a whisky bar in London.

Presented by Jaega Wise
Produced by Sam Grist and Robin Markwell
Archive Clip from Saturday Kitchen on BBC1 from 14th Sept, produced by Cactus TV.


SAT 23:00 Randy Feltface's Destruction Manual (m0023hth)
4. Water

Randy Feltface takes a deep dive and comes up wishing he hadn’t. Extinction, pollution, rising temperatures and a very angry salmon all make an unwelcome appearance in this show - but will Randy press on with his plan to press the destruction button, or will he have a change of heart and share his hopes for the future?

This head-on charge into possibly the most important subject facing humanity comes to you via a show where you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn, you’ll laugh again between the learny bits and most of all, you’ll be able to say “I was there when Radio 4 decided to have show hosted by a puppet”

Randy Feltface has been seen on Netflix, ABC, NBC, and has a huge & devoted following across the globe (1m+ social media followers, 1.6m TikTok followers, 833k subscribers, 79m YouTube views). His hour-long specials are YouTube cult classics, his world tours are sold out sensations, and he's the only Radio 4 presenter to be entirely made of felt.

With Margaret Cabourn-Smith, William Hartley & Venice Ohleyer

Produced & directed by David Tyler

A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 23:30 Brain of Britain (m0023ph8)
Heat 6, 2024

(6/17)
What's the largest artery in the human body? What's the biggest-selling single in Britain never to have reached no.1? And when Shane Warne bowled the so-called 'Ball of the Century', who was on the receiving end? You can find the answers to these and many other questions - and discover whether the contestants know the answers - in the sixth heat of the 2024 Brain of Britain tournament.

There's a place in the semi-finals reserved for today's winner, but others could go through too if the contest is tight and their scores are high enough.

Taking part are:
Jo Cardwell from Lichfield
David Edwards from Denstone in Staffordshire
Brian Johnston from Sutton Coldfield
Janie Mitchell from Lydbury North in Shropshire.

Brain of Britain is a BBC Studios Audio production for Radio 4.

Assistant Producer: Stephen Garner
Producer: Paul Bajoria

SUNDAY 13 OCTOBER 2024

SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m0023wk9)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 00:15 Bookclub (m0023ph6)
Susanna Clarke: Piranesi

Susanna Clarke won the Women's Prize for Fiction with her novel Piranesi. She joins James Naughtie and a group of readers to answer their questions about this intriguing, tantalising novel.


SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0023wkc)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0023wkf)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0023wkh)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SUN 05:30 News Briefing (m0023wkk)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m0023wkm)
The church of St Mary le Ghyll in Barnoldswick Lancashire

Bells on Sunday comes from the church of St Mary le Ghyll in Barnoldswick Lancashire. Founded in 1157 by monks from Kirkstall Abbey, the tower was added in 1524, but it wasn’t until 1723 that the community was able to hang three bells cast by Abraham Rudhall of Gloucester. Last century the bells fell into disuse but in 2010, sufficient funds were raised to augment them to a peal of six and more recently to eight bells. The Tenor bell weighs twelve and a quarter hundredweight and is tuned to A flat. We hear them ringing Barnoldswick Treble Bob Minor on the heaviest six bells.


SUN 05:45 In Touch (m0023ydx)
A Theatre Special

It's now two years since the publication of "The Unseen" - a report exploring domestic abuse experienced by blind and visually impaired people. Now Extant, a group of visually impaired performing artists, has adapted the report into an audio drama, and a short tour of the production starts on the 16th of October in Wolverhampton. Extant members, Ben Wilson and Georgie Wyatt join us to explain more about their work.

Leeds Playhouse Theatre is one of a number of organisations to have collaborated with the Thomas Pocklington Trust and RNIB to provide internships for visually impaired people. We talk to Akin Famakin about his experience as an intern at the Theatre and to Amy Leach, the Deputy Artistic Director.

Presenter: Beth Hemmings
Producer: Fern Lulham
Production Coordinator: Pete Liggins

Website image description: Peter White sits smiling in the centre of the image, wearing a dark green jumper. Above Peter's head is the BBC logo (three individual white squares house each of the three letters). Bottom centre and overlaying the image are the words "In Touch"; and the Radio 4 logo (the word Radio in a bold white font, with the number 4 inside a white circle). The background is a bright mid-blue with two rectangles angled diagonally to
the right. Both are behind Peter, one of a darker blue and the other is a lighter blue.’


SUN 06:00 News Summary (m0023x2j)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 06:05 Thinking Allowed (m0023pvt)
Gender and Radicalisation

Is misogyny implicated in radicalisation, across the political spectrum?

Laurie Taylor talks to Elizabeth Pearson, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Royal Holloway, University of London about her primary research among two of Britain’s key extremist movements: the banned Islamist group al-Muhajiroun, and those networked to it; and the anti-Islam radical right, including the English Defence League, For Britain and Britain First. Also, Katherine Williams, a former post-doctoral student in Politics and International Relations at Cardiff University, explores women's engagement with the far right and queries the notion that women do not support such politics, given the contemporary resurgence and global electoral successes of the far right, in its many guises.

Producer: Jayne Egerton


SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (m0023x2l)
For the Love of Plants

Ruth Bramley never planned to fall in love with plants.

Her father, Richard, runs Farmyard Nurseries in West Wales and is passionate about plants. He calls the nursery - which is now a successful business - a hobby that got out of hand! But Ruth was determined to live a different life...until she got long Covid, which left her with serious health problems. After weeks of being bed-bound, Ruth was struggling with her mental health, and her dad thought having a project might give her something to focus on. So he built her The Houseplant Place - a subsidiary to the nursery. Her burgeoning love of houseplants has grown as her recovery has progressed. Now the pandemic that brought her so low is helping her business, as the fashion for houseplants it kicked off continues to grow.

In this programme Steffan Messenger visits the nursery to meet Richard and Ruth, along with other members of their plant-mad team. Richard's philosophy is that every member of staff should be given an area of the nursery that is there's to nurture. Indulging the interests of his staff has lead to him acquiring a National Collection of Pitcher Plants - carnivorous plants that catch flies in their slippery funnel-like pitchers - and having an extraordinary number of house leeks!

Presented by Steffan Messenger
Producer by Heather Simons
A BBC Audio Bristol Production


SUN 06:57 Weather (m0023x2n)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m0023x2q)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 07:10 Sunday (m0023x2s)
Church to Mosque; England's new Cardinal; Last Christians of Gaza

Edward Stourton is in the chair with a debate on what to do with empty churches, as the Church of England blocks plans to allow one in Stoke-on-Trent to become a mosque.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom - an organ of the Federal government based in Washington - has published a report on the Chinese government's efforts to control the country's religions including reports of crosses and images of Jesus and Mary being taken down in churches and replaced with pictures of the Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Bond Director Lee Tamahori famous for 'Die Another Day' tells us about his latest blockbuster starring Guy Pearce. 'The Convert' is a film about a missionary and his misgivings about converting Maori tribes to Christianity in 1800's New Zealand.

Fr Timothy Radcliffe talks about his surprise at being appointed a Cardinal, his journey to becoming an esteemed preacher and his thoughts on the regalia that comes with being a 'red hat'.

Sunday hears from George Antone, one of the last Christians of Gaza who has been in touch with the programme for the past year as he and hundreds of Catholics seek refuge in the Holy Family Church in Northern Gaza. As military action intensifies in the region, George tells us about his fears for the future.


SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m0023x2v)
Mary's Meals

Actress Sophie Thompson makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Mary's Meals. The charity provides school lunches for children across Africa, Asia and Latin America who may otherwise go hungry.

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 ‘Mary's Meals’.
- Cheques should be made payable to ‘Mary's Meals’.
- You can donate online at bbc.co.uk/appeal/radio4

Registered Charity Number: SC022140. If you’d like to find out more about the charity’s work visit *https://www.marysmeals.org.uk
*The BBC is not responsible for content on external websites

Producer: Katy Takatsuki


SUN 07:57 Weather (m0023x2x)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m0023x2z)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the Sunday papers


SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m0023x31)
Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation

For almost a century, the BBC Singers have supported the broadcast of radio worship, enabling a multitude of listeners to take part in the praise of God in their own homes. Today’s service reflects on the BBC Singers legacy of religious broadcasting and is led by Daily Service presenter Rev Angela Tilby, who has presented the Daily Service since 1971, together with reflections from principal guest conductor Bob Chilcott, and composer Lucy Walker.

The BBC Singers, directed by Barry Rose with organist Andrew Lumsden, were recorded in St Martin-in-the-Fields. The producer is Andrew Earis.


SUN 08:48 A Point of View (m0023nzw)
Naughtie on America

1. Call Me Ishmael

James Naughtie presents the first of four personal essays exploring America's 'wild search for meaning' in the run-up to November's presidential election.

From the freezing waters of Nantucket Sound in Moby Dick, via sunken levees of the Mississippi and the railroad blues of New Orleans, to the ‘raucous expeditions into an underworld of…richly wounded humanity’ in contemporary crime novels, James contemplates this moment in the United States through its fiction.

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith


SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (m0023x34)
Gillian Burke on the Goldfinch

A new series of Tweet of the Day for Sunday morning revealing personal and fascinating stories from some fresh voices who have been inspired by birds, their calls and encounters.

Growing up in Kenya, biologist and presenter Gillian Burke thought exotic looking birds were only the preserve of the tropics. And then she saw a charm of goldfinch. These noisy, cheeky birds with bright colouration are an exotic burst of activity in the British countryside, accompanied by a trail of bubbling flight calls.

Producer : Andrew Dawes for BBC Audio on Bristol
Studio engineer : Suzy Robins


SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m0023x37)
Tributes paid to 'charismatic' Alex Salmond

After Alex Salmond's sudden death, Joanna Cherry and David Davis reflect on his impact on British politics. Plus Maxine Peake on the art of starring in a biopic, and Joe Root's dad Matt on his son's England runs record.


SUN 10:00 Desert Island Discs (m001hwt9)
Lesley Manville, actor

Lesley Manville made her debut on the West End stage as a teenager in 1972, and since then has taken on a wide range of roles on stage and screen, including an Oscar-nominated performance in the film Phantom Thread.

She was born in Brighton and first enjoyed performing as a singer, winning competitions with her sister. When she was 15, she commuted daily to the Italia Conti stage school in London. Her first professional role was in a West End musical, and in 1974 she joined the cast of the ITV soap opera Emmerdale Farm. After two years she decided to leave, even though the work was well paid, and return to the stage.

At the Royal Court in London she appeared in some of the most critically acclaimed new plays of the 1980s including Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls, and Andrea Dunbar’s Rita, Sue and Bob Too. She has also enjoyed a long collaboration with the film director Mike Leigh, memorably playing the alcoholic Mary in Another Year.

Her recent TV roles include starring as Cathy in the popular BBC Two sitcom Mum, for which she won a Royal Television Society Award in 2019. She has also played Princess Margaret in The Crown, including a scene in which Margaret shares her favourite records on a BBC radio progamme.

She was appointed a CBE in 2021.

DISC ONE: Over The Rainbow - Eva Cassidy
DISC TWO: My Brother Jake - Free
DISC THREE: O Soave Fanciulla, composed by Giacomo Puccini, performed by
Jose Carreras, Richard Stilwell and Teresa Stratas and Metropolitan Opera Chorus, conducted by James Levine
DISC FOUR: Sugar on the Floor - Etta James
DISC FIVE: You Don't Have To Say You Love Me - Dusty Springfield
DISC SIX: Not While I’m Around - Barbra Streisand
DISC SEVEN: Make You Feel My Love - Adele
DISC EIGHT: Phantom Thread III - Jonny Greenwood

BOOK CHOICE: A Botanical Encyclopedia
LUXURY ITEM: A bed with linen, duvet and pillows
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Over The Rainbow - Eva Cassidy

Presenter Lauren Laverne
Producer Sarah Taylor


SUN 10:45 More Wow (m0022kt2)
1. The Cosmos

What is awe, and where do we find it? Exploring how the elusive emotion of awe can be a vital force in our lives.

As something usually associated with intense experiences and extreme environments, for many of us awe can often seem difficult to attain. Science journalist Jo Marchant tracks down individuals who live awe-filled lives, uncovering where we might find it ourselves and how it can alter body and mind.

Episode one: Jo discovers how astronaut Ron Garan's experience of looking back on earth shifted his perspective forever. She takes some of these lessons to cultivate an astronaut's eye-view on life while on a London walk.

Featuring: Ron Garan, former NASA astronaut and ispace-U.S. CEO;
Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley and author of Awe: The Transformative Power of Everyday Wonder;
Helen de Cruz, Professor of Philosophy at St Louis University, Missouri and author of Wonderstruck: How Wonder and Awe Shape the Way We Think.

Presented by Jo Marchant, author of Cure, The Human Cosmos and Decoding the Heavens.

Producer: Eliza Lomas
Editor: Chris Ledgard


SUN 11:00 The Archers Omnibus (m0023x39)
Writer: Naylah Ahmed
Director: Dave Payne
Editor: Jeremy Howe

Jolene Archer…. Buffy Davies
Kenton Archer…. Richard Attlee
Lilian Bellamy…. Sunny Ormonde
Alice Carter…. Hollie Chapman
Susan Carter…. Charlotte Martin
Ed Grundy…. Barry Farrimond
Eddie Grundy…. Trevor Harrison
Emma Grundy…. Emerald O‘Hanrahan
George Grundy…. Angus Stobie
Will Grundy…. Philip Molloy
Brad Horrobin…. Taylor Uttley
Azra Malik…. Yasmin Wilde
Khalil Malik…. Krish Bassi
Zainab Malik…. Priyasasha Kumari
Hannah Riley…. Helen Longworth
Fallon Rogers…. Joanna Van Kampen
Lynda Snell…. Carole Boyd
Ms Bartram…. Julia Winwood
Mr Marney…. Nuhazet Diaz Cano
Judge Hardwick…. David Acton
Sharon…. Amanda Wilkin


SUN 12:15 Profile (m0023wk1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 12:30 Just a Minute (m0023nqc)
Series 93

4. Trying Times - the national newspaper for judges

Sue Perkins challenges Jan Ravens, Tony Hawks, Katherine Parkinson and Stephen Fry to speak for 60 seconds without repetition, deviation or hesitation. Subjects include Small Town Secrets, Mark Antony, and the Subject of Ridicule.

Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls
Sound Editor: Marc Willcox
Producer: Rajiv Karia
An EcoAudio certified production.

A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.


SUN 12:57 Weather (m0023x3c)
The latest weather forecast


SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m0023x3f)
The Chancellor's tightrope

How can the Chancellor improve public services without busting the national budget? And why the US has banned technology that links your car to your smartphone.


SUN 13:30 Old School Problems (m0024293)
Hundreds of schools in England are waiting for new buildings.
But there are warnings that a government scheme to build them is behind schedule.
BBC Education Correspondent Hazel Shearing investigates efforts to get spades in the ground, asking why some construction firms might be slow to sign up to seemingly lucrative contracts – and what other obstacles are getting in the way.
She visits Haygrove School in Bridgwater, which had to close a new building built by the defunct firm Caledonian Modular on safety grounds, and meets pupils at Patchway School in Bristol as they await their new school building.
Presented by Hazel Shearing
Produced by Kevin Core


SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m0023nyy)
Kingston upon Hull: coastal planting, eucalyptus trees and mouldy grapes

When is a seed ready to harvest? Which evergreen shrubs could I plant on the coast? Why are my greenhouse grapes going mouldy?

Kathy Clugston and her panel of horticultural experts are answering questions from an audience of keen gardeners in Kingston upon Hull.

Joining Kathy to plant some useful seeds of advice are proud gardener Matthew Biggs, garden designer Bunny Guinness and head gardener Matthew Pottage. They discuss the best time to use soil improver, how to see a eucalyptus tree through winter and their most creative ideas for attracting punters to open gardens.

Later in the programme, Matt Biggs pays a visit to Stratford Fire Station to hear how they’ve transformed and rejuvenated their garden space.

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 14:45 Opening Lines (m0023x3h)
Little Dorrit - Episode 1

Little Dorrit, written by Charles Dickens in the 1850s, is among the author’s most ambitious novels containing a massive sweep of themes, characters and locations.

At its heart though is the confined space of the Marshalsea Debtors Prison, where the blameless Amy Dorrit chooses to live with her incarcerated father William, who takes pride in being the longest serving prisoner in the place.

In the first of two episodes focusing on the novel, John Yorke describes how the deeply personal events from Dickens’ own childhood, relating to his own father’s time at the Marshalsea, made the book such an important and personal project for him. Helping John in his analysis of one of Dickens’ truly great books is writer and producer Armando Iannucci, Professor Phil Davis from the University of Liverpool, and Dickens’ own great-great-great-granddaughter Lucinda Hawksley.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe, and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy, John has trained a generation of screenwriters.

Contributors:
Armando Iannucci, writer and producer
Professor Phil Davis, University of Liverpool
Lucinda Hawksley, author

Reader: Chipo Chung
Researcher/Broadcast Assistant: Nina Semple
Sound: Sean Kerwin

Producer: Geoff Bird

Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 15:00 Dickensian (m0023x3k)
Little Dorrit: Episode 1

Arthur Clennam returns to England after 20 years in China. He brings with him a watch, with ‘Do Not Forget’ worked in beads on the casing.

Will his mother reveal the mystery behind the inscription? Does it relate to some wrong that has to be righted? And does the implacable Mrs Clennam know that the young seamstress who works for her is the daughter of William Dorrit, inmate of the Marshalsea debtors prison for over 20 years ?

Dickens’s 11th novel satirises the institutions of government and society, in particular the Circumlocution Office, a department run purely for the benefit of its incompetent officials, and the prisons where debtors were incarcerated, unable to work, until they had repaid their debts.

Dickens writes from personal experience as his father spent time in the Marshalsea.

Charles Dickens/ Rigaud ..… Jason Watkins
Arthur Clennam ..… Samuel Barnett
Amy Dorrit ..… Kitty Archer
William Dorrit ..… Paul Bradley
Frederick Dorrit ..... David Tarkenter
Mrs Clennam ..… Claire Price
Merdle ….. Joseph Millson
Mrs General ..… Nisha Nayar
Pancks ..… Carl Prekopp
Maggy ..… Lauren Cornelius
Jerry Flintwich / Dan Doyce …. Shaun Mason
Affery ..… Sarah Thom
Tite Barnacle Snr. .… Ewan Bailey
Tite Barnacle Jr ..… Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong

Adapted for radio by Mike Walker
Production Co-ordinator: Annie Keates-Thorpe
Sound Design: Alisdair McGregor, Markus Andreas
Director: Jeremy Mortimer
Executive Producer: Joby Waldman

A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4

Jason Watkins (The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies, Coma, W1A) is Dickens, who narrates the story, as well as the unscrupulous Rigaud. Samuel Barnett (Twenty Twelve, Penny Dreadful, Dirk Gently) is Arthur Clennam, and Claire Price (Rebus, Home Fires) plays Mrs Clennam. Paul Bradley (Eastenders, Holby City) is William Dorrit, and Kitty Archer (The Pursuit of Love, and recipient of the Ian Charleson Award for her role in Tartuffe at the National Theatre) is Amy Dorrit. Joseph Millson (Peak Practice, Holby City) is Merdle, Nisha Nayar (The Story of Tracy Beaker, Rosy Maloney) is Mrs General, Lauren Cornelius (That's What She Said, A Date with Shillelagh, Twin Leaps) is Maggy.

Mike Walker has written many original radio dramas and dramatisations. Little Dorrit is the eighth Dickens novel he has dramatised for BBC Radio.


SUN 16:00 Open Book (m001gwvk)
Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield was the only writer Virginia Woolf admitted being jealous of, yet by the 1950s was so undervalued that Elizabeth Bowen was moved to ask, 'Where is she - our missing contemporary?'

Mansfield died one hundred years ago this month, aged just 34 years old, and in this programme Chris Power explores her turbulent life, and legacy, through her innovative contribution to Modernism and the short story. Chris is joined by Claire Harman, author of a new biography, All Sorts of Lives, which takes a fresh look at Mansfield's life through ten of her most pivotal stories, the short-story writer and novelist Lucy Caldwell and Dr Chris Mourant.

Book List – Sunday 8 January and Thursday 12 January

All Sorts of Lives by Claire Harman
The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield
Bliss by Katherine Mansfield
The Wind Blows by Katherine Mansfield
Journal by Katherine Mansfield
The Montana Stories by Katherine Mansfield
Wild Places: Selected Stories by Katherine Mansfield
In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield
The Child Who Was Tired by Katherine Mansfield
Bliss by Katherine Mansfield
Katherine Mansfield and Periodical Culture by Chris Mourant


SUN 16:30 Brain of Britain (m0023x3p)
Heat 7, 2024

(7/17)
Would you know the actual name of the castle in Bavaria that's sometimes known as the 'Disney castle'? Or the title of the famous novel that was originally published under the pen-name Victoria Lucas?

These are just two of the questions the competitors will face in today's heat of Brain of Britain. Russell Davies runs them through their paces at the Squire theatre in Nottingham, as they attempt to win a semi-final place later in the season.

Appearing today are
Colin Daffern from Salford
Andrew Fisher from Sheffield
Charlotte Jeffreys from Nottingham
Sarah Thornton from Holmfirth in West Yorkshire.

Brain of Britain is a BBC Studios Audio production for Radio 4.

Assistant Producer: Stephen Garner
Producer: Paul Bajoria


SUN 17:00 Witness History (w3ct5ypg)
The pioneering eye surgery that led to Lasik

In 1963, Dr Jose Ignacio Barraquer Moner performed the first surgery on a human eye aimed at correcting short-sightedness.

The ophthalmologist had been developing his technique for years, believing that there was a better solution for blurry vision than wearing glasses.

But he had to move from Spain to Colombia to begin his experimental surgery which involved dry ice, a watchmaker’s lathe and rabbits. The idea was to change the shape of the cornea – the front layer of the eye - to focus vision.

First, he sliced off the patient’s cornea then dunked it in liquid nitrogen, before using a miniature lathe to carve the frozen cornea into the right shape. Next, he thawed the disc and sewed it back on.

Jose’s initial surgery was performed on rabbits, but in 1963 he carried out the first procedure on a human patient, a 9 year old girl. It was a success, and soon doctors from around the world were flocking to Colombia to find out more.

Barraquer called this procedure keratomileusis, from the Greek words for “carving” and “cornea.” The technique was the forerunner of Lasik eye surgery when the lathe was replaced with lasers.

Jose’s daughter, Carmen Barraquer Coll followed her father into ophthalmology and tells Jane Wilkinson, how he inspired her.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: Lasik eye surgery in 2009. Credit: BSIP/UIG Via Getty Images)


SUN 17:10 The Verb (m0023x3s)
Margaret Atwood and Alice Oswald

Ian McMillan talks to Margaret Atwood and Alice Oswald about how we write poetry, and their own process, the natural world, time, and the possibilities of myth.


SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m0023x3v)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SUN 17:57 Weather (m0023x3x)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0023x3z)
Israel has asked the UN to immediately remove its peacekeepers from parts of southern Lebanon


SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m0023x41)
Nicola Beckford

What makes a full English “full”? Beans? Black pudding? Fried bread? This question continues to spark debate with food experts and audiences alike, as we hear on The Kitchen Cabinet. Also, what can a rivalry between two newspapers in a remote town in Colorado teach us about political divisions in America? Gary O'Donoghue meets a cattle herder, who also publishes a local paper that's 141 years old, to find out. Plus, we hear about two people becoming friends in the most extraordinary circumstances - and what we can learn from saying a final farewell to a friend.

Presenter: Nicola Beckford
Producer: Anthony McKee
Production Co-ordinator: Jack Ferrie

A BBC Audio Northern Ireland production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 19:00 The Archers (m0023x43)
Despite Neil’s best intentions Emma’s irritated by his concern for her. She tells him there was a fight when George phoned on Friday and the prison went into lockdown. Neil suggests George might be safer locked in his cell, but this doesn’t allay Emma’s fears. Emma angrily tells Neil she wishes they’d never persuaded her to call the police on George, then asks Neil to go.

Crossing the yard Neil bumps into Clarrie, helps carry her shopping inside, then has a funny turn and has to sit down. Over tea and cake Clarrie suggests Neil goes to the doctor. He thinks it’s just down to worrying over what’s happened since making Emma report George, but Clarrie assures Neil, doing the right thing can never be wrong, even if Emma blames them right now. To Clarrie, later, Emma admits how hard she’s finding everything. Clarrie hugs her, it’s going to be okay.

Will and Ed visit Elizabeth at Lower Loxley to ask for advice on getting the prison to help George. Elizabeth sympathises, but based on her own experience with Freddie suggests there is very little they can do to change things. What they can do is be there for George and support him to get through his sentence. It also means living their lives as normally as possible, so that George will know what he’s coming back to when he’s released. Later, Will and Ed discuss Poppy’s ideas for celebrating Apple Day. With George in prison Will’s against it, but Ed says it’s all part of keeping things normal and persuades Will to go along with it.


SUN 19:15 Illuminated (m0023x45)
We Are Not Alone

In 1980, Prestonwood Mall in Dallas contacted the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) with a unique request. It was the opening weekend of The Empire Strikes Back, and the mall’s marketing team wanted an additional attraction. Sensing an opportunity, John P Timmerman, the owner of a family air-conditioning business in Ohio and a dedicated volunteer at CUFOS, packed his car with an eye-catching collection of UFO photographs and embarked on a cross-country journey for the weekend.

What began as a simple photography exhibit turned into a 12year research expedition across the malls of America.

In front of plexiglass panels, between the skylights and shiny floors, Timmerman interviewed curious shoppers with stories to tell. What he captured on his small tape recorder was the “raw material of ufology” - candid, first-hand accounts of strange lights, silver discs, and close encounters.

Between 1980 and 1992, Timmerman recorded 1,179 witness reports across 120 tapes that cover every aspect of the UFO phenomena. The collection is considered one of the largest ever put together by a single investigator.

John P Timmerman spent years travelling far from his quiet family life in the Midwest searching for insights into our place in the universe. What he found, among the hum of escalators and muzak, was connection - or ‘contact’ - with thousands of ordinary people, all searching for the same thing.

Produced, Edited & Sound Designed by Oliver Sanders
Archive Digitisation & Co-Production by James Timmerman
Executive Producer: Lucia Scazzocchio
Special thanks to Dr Mark Rodeghier, Dr Michael Swords, Dr Michael West, The Center For UFO Studies, The Timmerman Family, Dominic De Vere, Francesca Thakorlal, Ben Plumb, Hannah Kemp-Welch.

A Social Broadcasts production for BBCRadio 4


SUN 19:45 Buried (m001hnm8)
Series 1

Series 1 - 9. Fear of the Unknown

In his last days, Joe thought the pollution was putting lives at risk. His friends were willing to break the law to find out. Years on, are deadly cancers rising?

"All you have to do... is dig it up."

A trucker’s deathbed tape plays out. It’s urgent, desperate.

In this BBC Radio 4 podcast series, investigative journalists Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor deep-dive into one of the worst environment crimes in UK history - the secret dumping of a million tonnes of waste near a city. But when they uncover missing documents, fears of toxicity and allegations of organised crime, they realise they’ve stumbled into something much bigger. As they pick at the threads of one crime, they begin to see others. Could Britain be the home of a new mafia, getting rich on our waste?

In a thrilling ten-part investigation, the husband-and-wife duo dive into a criminal underworld, all the time following clues left in a deathbed tape. They’re driven by one question - what did the man in the tape know?

Presenters and Producers: Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor
Assistant Producer: Tess Davidson
Original Music and Sound Design: Phil Channell
Sound Design and Series Mixing: Jarek Zaba
Executive Producers: Phil Abrams and Anita Elash
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke

A Smoke Trail production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 20:00 Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley (m00237hd)
Bonus Episode: Lady Swindlers

In this special episode of Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley, recorded in front of a live audience, Lucy is joined by Professor Rosalind Crone, Lady Killers in-house historian and Salma el-Wardany, writer, poet and BBC Breakfast presenter. They look back at the last three seasons and offer an exclusive preview of the new season, Lady Swindlers.

Lady Killers is where Lucy Worsley and a crack team of female detectives investigate the crimes of women from the 19th and 20th Century from a contemporary, feminist perspective.

Producer: Julia Hayball
Assistant Producer: Riham Moussa
Readers: Clare Corbett and Jonathan Keeble
Sound Design: Chris Maclean
Executive Producer: Kirsty Hunter

A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4.

If you're in the UK, listen to the newest episodes of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/3M2pT0K


SUN 20:30 Last Word (m0023nz2)
Lord Ouseley, Norman Ackroyd, Lore Segal, Cissy Houston

John Wilson on Lord Ouseley, the co-founder of the anti-racism football campaign ‘Kick it Out’ and former Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality.

The landscape artist and printmaker Norman Ackroyd whose work celebrates some of the most remote and inhospitable areas of the UK.

Lore Segal, the author whose book ‘Other People’s Houses’ told the story of her fleeing the Nazis on a Kindertransport and being fostered in England.

The Grammy Award winning singer Cissy Houston was a leading light in gospel music and sung with a range of artists including Elvis, Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and her daughter Whitney.

Producer: Ed Prendeville

Archive: BBC HardTalk Interview 05/02/2013, Notes on Water – Poppy Ackroyd ,Norman Ackroyd – Archipelago poem, BBC Front Row Norman Ackroyd interview with John Wilson 10/11/2016, Cissy Houston - Sweet Inspiration, PBS, 1987 Youtube upload, Whitney Houston interview with her mom Cissy, 1988 Youtube upload,Cissy Houston: The Sweet Inspirations, NVLP, 2009 Youtube upload, BBC Woman's Hour 30/06/18 Lore Segal Interview


SUN 21:00 Money Box (m0023wj8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 on Saturday]


SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m0023x2v)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:54 today]


SUN 21:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m0023wj4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:30 on Saturday]


SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m0023x47)
Radio 4's Sunday night political discussion programme.


SUN 23:00 In Our Time (m0023pzc)
Robert Graves

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of 'I, Claudius' who was also one of the finest poets of the twentieth century. Robert Graves (1895 -1985) placed his poetry far above his prose. He once declared that from the age of 15 poetry had been his ruling passion and that he lived his life according to poetic principles, writing in prose only to pay the bills and that he bred the pedigree dogs of his prose to feed the cats of his poetry. Yet it’s for his prose that he’s most famous today, including 'I Claudius', his brilliant account of the debauchery of Imperial Rome, and 'Goodbye to All That', the unforgettable memoir of his early life including the time during the First World War when he was so badly wounded at the Somme that The Times listed him as dead.

With

Paul O’Prey
Emeritus Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Roehampton, London

Fran Brearton
Professor of Modern Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast

And

Bob Davis
Professor of Religious and Cultural Education at the University of Glasgow

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Robert Graves (ed. Paul O'Prey), In Broken Images: Selected Letters of Robert Graves 1914-1946 (Hutchinson, 1982)

Robert Graves (ed. Paul O'Prey), Between Moon and Moon: Selected letters of Robert Graves 1946-1972 (Hutchinson, 1984)

Robert Graves (ed. Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward), The Complete Poems (Penguin Modern Classics, 2003)

Robert Graves, I, Claudius (republished by Penguin, 2006)

Robert Graves, King Jesus (republished by Penguin, 2011)

Robert Graves, The White Goddess (republished by Faber, 1999)

Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (republished by Penguin, 2017)

Robert Graves (ed. Michael Longley), Selected Poems (Faber, 2013)

Robert Graves (ed. Fran Brearton, intro. Andrew Motion), Goodbye to All That: An Autobiography: The Original Edition (first published 1929; Penguin Classics, 2014)

William Graves, Wild Olives: Life in Majorca with Robert Graves (Pimlico, 2001)

Richard Perceval Graves, Robert Graves: The Assault Heroic, 1895-1926 (Macmillan, 1986, vol. 1 of the biography)

Richard Perceval Graves, Robert Graves: The Years with Laura, 1926-1940 (Viking, 1990, vol. 2 of the biography)

Richard Perceval Graves, Robert Graves and the White Goddess, 1940-1985 (Orion, 1995, vol. 3 of the biography)

Miranda Seymour: Robert Graves: Life on the Edge (Henry Holt & Co, 1995)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production


SUN 23:45 Short Works (m0023wvn)
356A to Marrakech

Stephen Fry reads Andrew Hunter Murray’s new comic short story.

When a computer for a budget airline becomes sentient, things start looking rather terminal for humankind…

A satirical short story about AI, apathy, and in-flight entertainment. Please fasten your headphones, and welcome on board – the 356A to Marrakech.

Andrew Hunter Murray is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Last Day, The Sanctuary, & A Beginner's Guide To Breaking And Entering. A QI Elf, Andrew co-hosts the multi-award-winning podcast No Such Thing As A Fish, and writes for Private Eye.

Read by Stephen Fry.

Producer: Katie Sayer

A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4

www.pozzitive.co.uk

MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 2024

MON 00:00 Midnight News (m0023x49)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.


MON 00:15 World Of Secrets (w3ct793m)
Al Fayed, Predator at Harrods

Al Fayed, Predator at Harrods: 3. Paris

Work trips to “the city of lights” turn dark, as the extent of Mohamed Al Fayed’s power and control becomes clear. Staying in the historic Villa Windsor in Paris should have been a dream come true, but the women are left terrified.

This season of World of Secrets is about sexual abuse. And this episode contains some of the most graphic descriptions. For a list of organisations in the UK that can provide support for survivors of sexual abuse, go to bbc.co.uk/actionline.

Presented by Cassie Cornish-Trestrail and Shaimaa Khalil, and produced by Neal Razzell and Sally Abrahams. The editor is Matt Willis. It’s a Long Form Audio production for the BBC World Service.

Special thanks to series consultant, Keaton Stone, director Erica Gornall and executive producer, Mike Radford.


MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m0023wkm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday]


MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0023x4c)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0023x4f)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0023x4h)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


MON 05:30 News Briefing (m0023x4k)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4


MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0023x4m)
Peace and trust

Good morning.

The violent disturbances that disrupted the peace of towns across England for several nights in August, shocked me deeply. The willingness of many of those taking part to believe and act on rumours spread on social media, even when they had been clearly rebutted by police, exposed something deeply corrosive in British society - a profound lack of trust in authority figures combined with a toxic gullibility when offered something the hearer wants to believe is true. Where trust is low, peace is only ever going to be shallow, easily disrupted, and, once damaged, hard to repair. So, whether we are seeking peace between nations, or within a single community, we need to pay attention to trust. We must develop patterns of behaviour that build up trust, especially between those not minded to trust each other.

For centuries the international dimension of trust building has been part of the core work of diplomats. In more recent times, international agencies such as the United Nations have also played an important part. Within nations, when leaders, including in politics, business and even faith communities, behave in ways that show themselves to be untrustworthy, divisions are exacerbated and peace made more fragile.

So, today I pray.

God of all truth, help us to distinguish between truth and falsehood, especially when we prefer to believe a lie. Grant us leaders, in every walk of society, who are truth-telling and trustworthy. Bless the work of diplomats, international agencies and all who seek to build up trust between the nations, particularly in times when trust is low. May the rewards of their words and deeds be seen in the growth of peace. Amen.


MON 05:45 Farming Today (m0023x4p)
14/10/24 - Harvest 2024, eco-friendly twine, UK wine

The 2024 wheat harvest is the second worst since records began in 1983, according to DEFRA. That won't be much of a surprise to famers across the country who have battled wet weather which has destroyed some crops and disrupted planting plans and harvest. What will it mean for farm businesses and consumers?

We visit a trial in Cornwall which is testing if twine made from sisal could be an an eco-friendly alternative to wrapping bales of hay and straw in plastic netting. Sisal twine is made from plants and was traditionally used by farmers until it was replaced by plastic. 

And vineyards are preparing to start harvesting their grapes at this time of year. We get a snapshot of this growing sector.

Presented by Charlotte Smith
Produced by Heather Simons


MON 05:57 Weather (m0023x4r)
Weather reports and forecasts for farmers


MON 06:00 Today (m0023y88)
14/10/24 - Mishal Husain and Nick Robinson

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


MON 09:00 Start the Week (m0023y8b)
From Sapiens to AI

Yuval Noah Harari’s best-selling Sapiens explored human’s extraordinary progress alongside the capacity to spin stories. In Nexus he focuses on how those stories have been shared and manipulated, and how the flow of information has made, and unmade, our world. With examples from the ancient world, to contemporary democracies and authoritarian regimes, he pits the pursuit of truth against the desire to control the narrative. And warns against the dangers of allowing AI to dominate information networks, leading to the possible end of human history.

The classicist, Professor Edith Hall, looks at how information flowed in Ancient Greece, and how the great libraries of Alexandria and Pergamon were precursors to the World Wide Web. Homer wrote about intelligent machines in his epic poetry, which suggests that the human desire for AI goes back a long way, along with the hubris about being in control. By understanding and appreciating the past, Professor Hall argues we can look more clearly at our current condition.

Madhumita Murgia is the first Artificial Intelligence Editor of the Financial Times and the author of Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI. She investigates the impact AI can have on individual lives and how we interact with each other. And while there are fears that companies have unleashed exploitative technologies with little public oversight, cutting edge software has unprecedented capacity to speed up scientific discoveries.

Producer: Katy Hickman


MON 09:45 Café Hope (m0023y8f)
Band of sisters

Heather Sharp who started Forces Wives Challenge tells Rachel Burden about how the social enterprise has reduced loneliness and restored confidence to women who have partners serving in the military.

Café Hope is our virtual Radio 4 coffee shop, where guests pop in for a brew and a chat to tell us what they’re doing to make things better in big and small ways. Think of us as sitting in your local café, cooking up plans, hearing the gossip, and celebrating the people making the world a better place.

We’re all about trying to make change. It might be a transformational project that helps an entire community, or it might be about trying to make one life a little bit easier. And the key here is in the trying. This is real life. Not everything works, and there are struggles along the way. But it’s always worth a go.

You can contact us on cafehope@bbc.co.uk


MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0023y8k)
Women's magazines, Dawn Sturgess, Female funeral directors

For generations of women and girls, glossy magazines have been a guide to clothes, lifestyles, relationships and, of course, sex. Titles like Cosmopolitan, Woman’s Own and Sugar were pored over by thousands of us and now there is a podcast that celebrates those beloved back issues. Every week the hosts of Mag Hags, Lucy Douglas and Franki Cookney, read a different issue of a magazine from the 70s, 80s or 90s. As well as revelling in the 20th Century fashions, features and lifestyle advice, Lucy and Franki join Nuala McGovern to uncover a fascinating insight into the way we lived then, and the way we live now.

A public inquiry begins today which will explore the circumstances of the death of Dawn Sturgess, the woman from Wiltshire killed by a 2018 poisoning blamed on Russian agents. Her death came four months after Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury. At the time Prime Minister Theresa May said the Skripals were poisoned with the military grade nerve agent, Novichok and that it was "highly likely" that Russia was responsible - a claim Russia denies. Dawn Sturgess died after coming in to contact with the nerve agent which had been hidden inside a perfume bottle. Nuala is joined by BBC Wiltshire's Marie Lennon, one of the voices behind the new BBC Podcast, Salisbury Poisonings.

Black Box Diaries is a feature-length documentary that follows the director Shiori Itō’s investigation into her own alleged sexual assault in an attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender. Opening up questions around the #MeToo movement in Japan, Shiori explains how her quest became a landmark case exposing the country’s outdated judicial and societal systems.

Death is a subject many people still shy away from, but one woman is determined to change that. Funeral director Inez Capps is on a mission to challenge the taboos around death and demystify an industry often shrouded in mystery. Since the age of 19, she’s been working with the deceased, and she’s using social media to give people a glimpse behind the scenes — from the care a loved one receives, to tours of the hearse and the embalming suite. Inez runs a funeral business with her parents in the East Midlands.

Presenter: Nuala McGovern
Producer: Kirsty Starkey


MON 11:00 How Would We Know If Democracy Had Died? (m0023y8p)
The Demagogue and the Cabal

This year’s general election prompted dire warnings of imminent dictatorship. It was marred by the intimidation of campaigners. And turnout was historically low. Over the summer, the far right fomented racist violence in English towns. When the authorities cracked down, some feared freedom of speech was at risk. Meanwhile, in America, both sides warn that the other threatens to bring the republic’s democracy crashing down.

Democracy is a permanent gamble and such fears have always haunted it. But if panic is best avoided, so too is complacency. There remains the insidious fear that, while the forms remain, democracy can slowly wither.

In this three part series, Phil Tinline sets out to trace where the red lines lie that keep our political system - and America’s - safe, by asking how we would know if they had been crossed, and democracy was on its way out.

In this first episode he explores how recent events have revived two contrasting fears: that populist extremism is on the rise, and that a technocratic establishment wants to leech power away from parliament. And he examines how those concerns are shaped by the last constitutional confrontation the country faced: the crisis over prorogation, in the febrile summer and autumn of 2019.

Contributors:
John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons 2009-2019
Munira Mirza, Chief Executive of Civil Future and former Director of No 10 Policy Unit 2019-2022
Dominic Grieve, Attorney General for England and Wales from 2010 to 2014
Kim Leadbeater, MP for Spen Valley
Will Tanner, former Deputy Chief of Staff at No 10 under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
Rob Ford, Professor of Political Science, University of Manchester
Peter Kellner, political commentator and former President of YouGov

Producer: Sarah Shebbeare


MON 11:45 The Lion, the Witch and the Wonder by Katherine Rundell (m0023y8s)
Magnificent Disasters

In this gripping investigation of children’s fiction, award-winning author Katherine Rundell makes a passionate argument for a literature that is often underrated, yet whose magic can live on inside us for the rest of our lives. The best children’s books need to be good enough both for the hungriest child and the wisest, sharpest adult.

In the first of five original essays, Katherine Rundell examines how some of the greatest writers in literature have failed in their attempt to write for a young readership, from Tolstoy’s bleak and bloodthirsty stories to Graham Greene’s cute picture books. Being a great writer does not guarantee that you will have the same brilliance when it comes to younger readers.

For Oxford academic Katherine Rundell, creating books for children is the most challenging writing of all. She explores what it takes to write for children and why it can bring out the best or worst in writers.

Katherine Rundell is an acclaimed writer for children, winning Author of the Year and Book of the Year for Impossible Creatures at the British Book Awards 2024 and winner of the Costa Children’s Book Award.

Written and presented by Katherine Rundell
Producer: Jo Glanville
Editor: Kirsten Lass
Production Co-ordinator: Heather Dempsey
Studio Engineer: Dan King

A Loftus Media Production for BBC Radio 4

Quotation credit:
Toni Morrison interview - "Art and Social Justice": A conversation on Broadway with Toni Morrison, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Sonia Sanchez, Wednesday, June 15, 2016, Ambassador Theatre, New York

Photo credit: Nina Subin


MON 12:00 News Summary (m0023y8v)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 12:04 You and Yours (m0023y8x)
Fine dining, pavement parking laws and buying unopened parcels

It's been a tough few years to be running an independent restaurant. The former MasterChef winner Simon Wood has just closed his - we hear from him about the cost pressures facing high-end eateries. Also - as Scotland brings in a ban on parking on the pavement, how the rules are confusingly different depending on where you live. Hummus fans have flipped their lids about a change in the way their pots are packaged - but is it greener? And what do you get if you order an unopened parcel on the internet?

PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON
PRODUCER: TOM MOSELEY


MON 12:57 Weather (m0023y8z)
The latest weather forecast


MON 13:00 World at One (m0023y91)
Government tells business to back Britain

The prime minister welcomes global firms to an investment summit. Plus the latest from Gaza, and the writer of the new biopic of Donald Trump.


MON 13:45 The History Podcast (m0023y93)
The Brighton Bomb

The Brighton Bomb: 6. Out of the Rubble

It's the day after one of the most shocking terror attacks in British history - a timebomb hidden in the Brighton hotel where the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and her cabinet are staying during the 1984 Conservative Party conference.

The casualties have all now been recovered. Four are dead, several of the injured are fighting for life.

Now all that remains is the rubble. Somewhere in here will lie the answer to who was responsible. Not the organisation – the Provisional IRA has already said it was them – but the individual human being, or beings, who left the bomb.

All the police have to do is find them.

Written and presented by Glenn Patterson

Series Producer: Owen McFadden
Story Consultant and Sound Design: Alan Hall
Producer: Lena Ferguson
Archive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormick
Production Co-Ordinator: Hollie Wallace
Composer: Mark McCambridge
Sound Engineer: Claire Marquess
Mixing Engineer: Mike Woolley
Patrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions

Executive Producer Rachel Hooper

A Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films


MON 14:00 The Archers (m0023x43)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]


MON 14:15 Drama on 4 (m0023y95)
Hopping

This female-led comedy transcends the decades from 1930s Kent to modern times. Loverin, a woman from the present day, is researching her family tree online, although she tends to be more interested in the human stories than the historical facts and figures.

In East London lives the Turner family - highly strung Clara, anarchic Aunt Lil, stylish Ada and book worm Will. Every year they venture to pastures green in Kent to pick hops, leaving grumpy Father (George Turner) to work the summer in the sweaty London docks. They can’t wait to reach the freedom and fresh air of Faversham. Ada is excited to flirt with some Kentish lads again, Will is beside himself at the prospect of seeing a cow, Aunt Lil is ready to embrace the fireside revelry, and Clara is looking forward to seeing her friend Rose.

When the Turner family arrive in Kent we meet the charismatic Rose, who arrives on horseback surrounded by dogs. Rose and Clara are like chalk and cheese, but this doesn’t stop them from becoming incredibly fond of each other.

The first day of hop picking is the annual competition between the Kent folk and the Londoners, to see who can pick the most hops. Clara is keen to make a good impression on jobsworth Neil the hop measurer, but is thwarted at every turn.

Writers Susan Harrison and Lucy Trodd lightly touch on the themes of migration, prejudice and sisterhood, through a folky humorous lens.

Cast:
Narrator ... Nancy Zamit
Aunt Lil ... Rosie Cavaliero
Clara ... Susan Harrison
George/ Neil ... Dan Starkey
Will/ Hut Hopper ... Gemma Arrowsmith
Ada ... Jade Johnson
Rose ... Lucy Trodd

Violinist ... Oliver Izod
Original music written by Susan Harrison, Lucy Trodd and Duncan Walsh Atkins

Written by Susan Harrison and Lucy Trodd
Directed and produced by Catherine Bailey

A Catherine Bailey production for BBC Radio 4


MON 14:45 Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding (m0016xrt)
Episode Three

Helen Fielding's iconic 1996 novel of life as a single thirty-something woman in London.

"Can officially confirm that the way to a man's heart these days is not through beauty, food, sex, or alluringness of character, but merely the ability to seem not very interested in him."

Bridget Jones begins the new year full of resolutions. She pledges in her diary to drink less, smoke less, lose weight, find a new job, stay away from unsuitable men and learn to programme the VCR. But her resolve is tested by the horrors of attending dinner parties with the "smug marrieds", the confusing behaviour of her charming rogue of a boss Daniel Cleaver, and her increasingly embarrassing encounters with human rights lawyer Mark Darcy.

Bridget Jones's Diary started life as a weekly column in the pages of The Independent in 1995, when Fielding worked on the news desk. Helen’s column chronicled the life and antics of fictional Bridget Jones as a thirty-something single woman in London trying to make sense of life and love. It was first published as a novel in 1996 and has gone on to sell more than 15 million copies worldwide and has been adapted into a series of films.

Read by Sally Phillips
Abridged by Sara Davies
Produced by Mair Bosworth and Mary Ward-Lowery


MON 15:00 A Good Read (m0023y97)
Amy Liptrot and Karl Ove Knausgaard

The Norwegian author of the hugely successful My Struggle books Karl Ove Knausgaard chooses The Names by Don de Lillo. It's set in Athens in the early 1980s with the main character being a risk analyst whose estranged wife is working there as an archeologist. It's a richly themed novel that feels very contemporary as well as prophetic. Amy Liptrot's book The Outrun is currently enjoying further success with the release of the film of the same name starring Saoirse Ronan. Her choice is Attrib by Eley Williams a collection of short stories on various themes including a poignant account of language loss through aphasia in The Alphabet.
Harriett chooses Open Throat the story of a mountain lion forced ever closer to humans as wildfires sweep the Hollywood Hills. Henry Hoke's novel is based on an actual lion P22 that stalked Los Angelinos for many years before being captured and killed in 2022. Open Throat is a satire on American life from the perspective of a queer big cat.

Producer: Maggie Ayre


MON 15:30 Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley (m0023jkt)
Lady Swindlers with Lucy Worsley

33. Tilly Devine - Underworld Queen

Lucy Worsley investigates the career of one of Sydney’s most notorious gangsters, Tilly Devine. Draped in furs and encrusted in jewels, she’s the madam of one of the most lucrative brothel networks the city’s ever seen.

What brings Tilly from south London to Sydney? How does she rise to the top of the city’s ruthless, gritty 1920s gangster crime scene? To track Tilly’s story, Lucy is joined by historian Leigh Straw and Guest Detective Christine Nixon, the first female chief commissioner in an Australian state police force.

Together the team trace Tilly’s crossing from London to Sydney as a ‘War Bride’ and her ruthless ambition to make it in a man’s world. Young Tilly joins a criminal underworld lit up by all night parties, soaked in illicit liquor, and menaced by dangerous brawls. Her ruthless rise to riches doesn’t go unchecked, hot on her heels is police officer Lillian Armfield, specially chosen to join New South Wales’s first female police force. Will the police and the long arm of the law prevail over the Queen of Vice? Will the vicious Razor Wars and Tilly’s bitter feud with her nemesis, female gangland crime boss Kate Leigh, be her undoing?

Lucy and her team of all female detectives find out.

Producer: Emily Hughes
Readers: Clare Corbett, Jonathan Keeble and Guy Dow-Sainter. 
Sound Design: Chris Maclean
Executive Producer: Kirsty Hunter

A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4.

If you're in the UK, listen to the newest episodes of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/3M2pT0K


MON 16:00 Old School Problems (m0024293)
[Repeat of broadcast at 13:30 on Sunday]


MON 16:30 Marianna in Conspiracyland (m0023y99)
Why Do You Hate Me? USA

4. Doxxed and Blocked: ‘We’re distressed about war in the Middle East and now trolls are after us.'

Few topics have caused as much division online as the deepening war in the Middle East. In this episode, Marianna is in New York investigating the experiences of students targeted on social media. They have been affected by doxxing – where their personal information is shared online triggering racist and misogynistic hate – by people wanting to make a wider political argument. The abuse that they have received has impacted each of their views in different but significant ways and potentially influenced their vote in the US presidential election. Marianna tracks down some of their trolls and confronts one of them.

Host: Marianna Spring
Producers: Emma Close and Daniel Wittenberg
Story Editor: Matt Willis
Editor: Sam Bonham
Commissioning Editor: Rhian Roberts
Sound Design: Tony Churnside
Production Co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge


MON 17:00 PM (m0023y9c)
Government encourages business to invest in UK

Business leaders attend a major investment summit in London, we hear from two of them - and the Health Secretary Wes Streeting. We get the latest on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. And Nasa's mission to one of Jupiter's moons to search for signs of life.


MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0023y9f)
The government has given details of more than 60 billion pounds invested in the UK at today's business summit


MON 18:30 Just a Minute (m0023y9h)
Series 93

5. Cheek by jowl with some stubbly nosed man

Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Jenny Eclair, Josie Lawrence and Julian Clary join host Sue Perkins for the long-running, quick-thinking Radio 4 panel game. Each player tries to speak for 60 seconds without repetition, deviation or hesitation on subjects including Letting The Cat Out Of The Bag, Styling It Out, and Retiring To The Seaside.

Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls
Sound Editor: Marc Willcox
Producer: Rajiv Karia
An EcoAudio certified production.

A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.


MON 19:00 The Archers (m0023y9k)
Helen’s at Bridge Farm, dropping Jack off for Pat to take to school, when Neil arrives. He’s taking a week off work at Berrow, but can’t bear the idea of doing nothing, so offers to help out at Bridge Farm instead. Grateful Helen sends him off on a task just as Kirsty turns up. While Helen toasts bagels Kirsty bemoans how difficult it is trying to get a mortgage for Willow Farm. Helen then suggests Kirsty could either sell the Beechwood house or move in with Helen and the boys, at least temporarily, but Kirsty can’t imagine ever living there again.

Clarrie spots Neil working and threatens to tell Susan about his turn yesterday, if he doesn’t make an appointment with the GP. Then Pat talks to Clarrie about the possibility of keeping goats for meat, in connection with a school project Henry’s doing, before moving onto Apple Day. Overriding Clarrie’s doubts about the Grundys holding such a public event Pat thinks it could be just what the family needs to bring them together. If Pat can get away she’d love to bring Jack, Henry, Nova and Seren along. Then Clarrie confides her concerns about Neil.

Later, Pat encourages Neil to take a break and talks to Helen about the dangers, particularly for men, of keeping stressful feelings bottled up inside. When Helen seeks him out Neil confides how hard it’s been for the family, coping with the fallout from George’s actions and imprisonment. Helen mentions the benefits of counselling, only for Neil to gently but firmly resist the idea, before heading off.


MON 19:15 Front Row (m0023y9m)
Bronski Beat Age of Consent 40th Anniversary, Percival Everett, Horror on stage

Forty years ago Bronski Beat released Age of Consent, a record so loud and proud that it become an era-defining moment of gay liberation. We look back at the record's music, legacy and politics with novelist Matt Cain and Laurie Belgrave, who has produced the new 'The Age of Consent 40' concert at the Southbank Centre. Samira talks to Percival Everett about his Booker-shortlisted James, a potent retelling of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which offers a new voice to the enslaved character Jim. And, we look at how the horror genre has developed on the stage with Jessica Andrews who has adapted Saint Maud for Live Theatre in Newcastle and Matthew Dunster who directed 2:22 A Ghost Story and the recent West End production of The Pillowman.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Ruth Watts


MON 20:00 Rethink (m0023q08)
Rethink... immigration

Rethink looks again at the issues of our time, and considers how we might approach them differently. Scrutinising the latest thinking and research, we look at what this might mean for policy and society.

In this episode, we’re looking at one of the most divisive issues of our time – immigration – and in particular, how we can change the discourse around migration.

Polling from the British Social Attitudes survey suggests that the UK is now more divided on immigration, by age, education, and political party, than at any time since 2011. But polling also indicates that there are large areas of agreement between people who are pro-immigration and others who are immigration-sceptic.

A majority of people think net immigration is too high.

A majority also believe that Ukrainian refugees, Afghans who helped UK forces, Hong Kong Chinese, doctors, nurses and care workers should be allowed to come to the UK.

And most people agree that crossing the channel in small boats is not a good idea.

So if a majority of people agree on these issues, how have we become so tribal? Why have politicians of all flavours failed us over the decades? How can get them to be more honest about the trade-offs that come with every immigration decision that's made - and how can we change the political discourse?

Presenter: Ben Ansell
Producer: Ravi Naik
Editor: Clare Fordham

Contributors:
Sunder Katwala, Director, British Future
Alan Manning, Professor of Economics at the LSE and former chair of the Migration Advisory Committee
Dr Madeleine Sumption, Director of the Migration Observatory in Oxford, and a current advisor to the Migration Advisory Committee
Robert Colvile, Director, the Centre for Policy Studies


MON 20:30 BBC Inside Science (m0023q0b)
Should we bring back extinct animals?

A woolly mammoth by 2028.

That’s the bold claim from US company Colossal Biosciences, who say research is under way that will make this possible.

But even if we have the technology to bring back a long dead species, should we? We hear the arguments for and against de-extinction.

Also this week, what will Europa Clipper find when it heads to one of Jupiter’s icy moons and how to win a Nobel Prize.

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton
Producers: Ella Hubber, Sophie Ormiston & Gerry Holt
Editor: Martin Smith
Production Co-ordinator: Andrew Rhys Lewis

BBC Inside Science is produced in partnership with the Open University.


MON 21:00 Start the Week (m0023y8b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


MON 21:45 Café Hope (m0023y8f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 today]


MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m0023y9p)
Rare air strike in northern Lebanon attributed to Israel

Lebanon is blaming Israel for an air strike in northern Lebanon that left 21 people dead. The strike hit the mostly Christian village of Aitou, far from the hotspots of the current conflict in southern Lebanon, Beirut and the Bekaa Valley.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to ease regulations in some parts of the economy as he welcomed billions of pounds of inward investment.

And 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the legacy of East Germany continues to cast its shadow. A former Stasi officer has been convicted of murdering a Polish defector who attempted to cross from East to West Berlin in 1974.


MON 22:45 The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (m0023zl2)
Episode One

In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering expats from across history to test the limits of time-travel. Her role is to work as a 'bridge' - living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847', Commander Graham Gore, a member of John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition.

Along with his fellow 'expats' – extracted from the Great Plague, the Battle of Naseby, the French Revolution and the Battle of the Somme - Gore must be introduced to the internal combustion engine, women’s emancipation, computer dating apps, the smoking ban, and 21st Century cultural and social sensitivities. Among these are the narrator’s ambivalent feelings about her own mixed-race heritage.

The role of a Bridge, she discovers, may be well-paid, but it’s complex and difficult to navigate, particularly when the Victorian explorer sharing her living space is an attractive, infuriating, deeply sexy adventurer. When it becomes apparent that the very future is at stake, the job becomes both more complicated and more dangerous.

Episode 1: The ‘bridges’ meet their ‘expats’ from the past.

Kaliane Bradley is a British-Cambodian writer and editor who has won the 2022 Harper’s Bazaar Short Story prize and the 2022 V S Pritchett Short Story Prize. The Ministry of Time is her debut novel, widely acclaimed as exciting, clever, funny and gripping - ‘a little time-bomb of a book’ according to the writer Francis Spufford. It was shortlisted for this year’s Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, and is a Sunday Times and New York Times best-seller. It also featured on Barack Obama’s reading list this summer.

The reader is Aoife Hinds, known for her roles in TV’s Derry Girls and Normal People.

Abridged and produced by Sara Davies
Production Co-ordinator: Sarah Tombling
Sound Designer: Matt Bainbridge
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


MON 23:00 Limelight (m001rqym)
Harland - Series 3

Harland - 2. Diu mart

Lucy Catherine's supernatural thriller continues. On the run from the police, Dan has sought refuge inside the trunk of the ancient Wych Elm which still stands amidst the charred ruins of Harland's shopping centre.

Dan ..... Tyger Drew-Honey
Morris ..... Rupert Holliday Evans
Sadie ..... Melissa Advani
Sarah ..... Ayesha Antoine
Janis ..... Fiona Skinner
DCI Cummins ..... John Lightbody
Fordingbridge ..... Sean Baker
Dom-Rob ..... Josh Bryant-Jones
Melangell ..... Kitty O’Sullivan
Security Guard ..... Tyler Cameron

Production Co-ordinator ..... Jenny Mendez
Technical Producer ..... Andrew Garratt
Sound Design by Peter Ringrose and Caleb Knightley
Directed by Toby Swift
A BBC Audio Production for BBC Radio 4


MON 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0023y9r)
Alicia McCarthy reports as MPs question the government about the recent controversy surrounding gifts to ministers

TUESDAY 15 OCTOBER 2024

TUE 00:00 Midnight News (m0023y9t)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


TUE 00:30 The Trust Shift (m001xlvz)
Local Trust

Across five episodes, Rachel Botsman traces the intriguing history of trust.

Rachel looks back on what she sees as the three major chapters of trust in human history. In the broadest terms, these are Local Trust, Institutional Trust, and Distributed Trust. As we’ve moved from one to the next, we've experienced, what she calls, ‘Trust Shifts’.

These shifts have happened because humans took a risk to try something new. To innovate in ways that have shaped our behaviours, for better or worse. Rachel reflects on how each trust shift has profoundly changed the dynamics of our lives; whether that’s how we bank or buy goods, vote, learn, travel, date, and importantly, find and consume information.

In Episode 1, Rachel takes us right back to 11th century medieval Europe, where the 'Maghribi traders', a tight-knit group of Jewish traders, made a leap of trust. They are the main characters of our first trust shift, when we began to trust outside of our local communities for the first time.

Featuring Avner Greif, Emeritus Professor of Economics at Stanford Univeristy and MacArthur Genius.

Rachel Botsman is the author of Who Can You Trust? and What's Mine Is Yours. She was Oxford University’s first Trust Fellow and has worked with world leaders, the Bank of England, CEOs and financial regulators.

Producer: Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio, Bristol.
Editor: Chris Ledgard.


TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0023y9w)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0023y9y)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0023yb0)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


TUE 05:30 News Briefing (m0023yb2)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4


TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0023yb4)
Fleeing for safety

Good morning.

One of the greatest euphemisms of warfare is the phrase “collateral damage”. It’s a sanitised term for those who are not themselves combatants, but whose bodies or lives are torn apart by the conflict raging around them. In fear or in consequence of such damage, many take the rational decision to flee. Others have it taken for them, being warned to leave or forcibly evacuated from communities that are about to be at the centre of hostilities. Some simply have nothing but ruins left of their former homes.

Most households displaced by conflict end up simply in another part of their home country. Of those who do cross international borders, the great majority stay close to the land to which they still hope, someday, to return. A small fraction journey onwards, ending up in Western Europe. Only a very tiny percentage arrive in the UK, with a wish to settle and rebuild their lives here.

Living in a city like Manchester, I get to meet refugees from time to time, indeed some of them become members of my churches. Their tales of living in constant terror are harrowing. Many are so traumatised that it takes a long while before they can relearn what living in peace is like, before they can find peace of mind. Their fear, for friends and family left behind, is well-founded.

So today, my prayer is for all displaced by conflict.

Heavenly, Father, grant those displaced by war, a passage to safety and a compassionate welcome wherever their journey ends. Heal the damage sustained through their suffering, and grant them the peace that alone will enable them to rebuild their shattered lives. Amen.


TUE 05:45 Farming Today (m0023yb6)
15/10/24 - Renewable community benefits, English sparking wine, grassland payments

New energy infrastructure projects like solar and wind farms don't always go down well with local communities. But what if people living nearby got cheaper energy bills or even owned shares in the development? When asked about new energy infrastructure last month, the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said he wants to "do deals with local people so they can see a benefit for their community". We find out how that could work for rural people.

We visit Chapel Down on the North Downs in Kent. It's England’s largest wine maker and still has ambitious plans for expansion, including planting more than 100 acres of new vines.

More than 30 organisations have written to the Government to say the current system of farm payments is encouraging some farmers to tear up fields of permanent pasture, which could be managed to become species-rich meadows.

And how do you harvest walnuts? We go along and take a look.

Presented by Anna Hill
Produced by Heather Simons


TUE 06:00 Today (m0023ycw)
15/10/24 - Nick Robinson and Mishal Husain

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


TUE 09:00 Young Again (m0023ycy)
14. Gabor Maté

Kirsty Young asks physician Gabor Maté what advice he would give his younger self.

Maté was born to Jewish parents in terrible circumstances in Hungary in 1943. His grandparents were killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp, his father was in forced labour and his mother was suffering from jaundice. He reveals how his own understanding of the long-term affects of childhood trauma connects to this personal history. He also discusses his work with drug addicts and his relationship with his wife and children.

A BBC Studios Audio production.


TUE 09:30 Inside Health (m0023y0w)
Changing the lives of children with rare genetic diseases

If you have a rare genetic disorder, new technology that allows your genetic code to be analysed means you could have a diagnosis within weeks. Before, people with rare diseases would often go their entire lives without a diagnosis. It's a revolutionary advancement but does it change how patients are treated or help improve their wellbeing?

Presenter James Gallagher meets Lisa whose daughter Jaydi was born with a rare genetic disease that affects her growth, speech, eyesight and a number of other conditions. We hear the story of Lisa and Jaydi's journey to diagnosis through Exeter University's Deciphering Developmental Disorders (DDD) study, and how it changed the course of Jaydi's life.

Her clinician, Consulatant Clinical Geneticist Dr Emma Kivuva, tells James how the diagnosis impacted on the care they offered and Dr Caroline Wright, Genetics & Genomics Theme Lead on the DDD study explains how they are measuring the effect of diagnosis on patient treatment and wellbeing.

This programme was produced in partnership with The Open University.

Presenter: James Gallagher
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Editor: Holly Squire


TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0023yd0)
Lesley Manville, Brain injuries in childbirth, Strictly Come Dancing

The actress Lesley Manville is currently starring alongside Mark Strong in Robert Icke’s adaptation of Oedipus. She plays Jocasta, Oedipus’ wife. Lesley joins Nuala McGovern to tell us more about the play, what it’s like being back on stage for the first time since 2020, and why she thinks women's stories are being featured more.

Every year thousands of babies need care for a brain injury sustained during birth. Now, highly focused training is being piloted in nine hospitals across England, aiming to standardise the approach and ensure staff know the best way to deal with an emergency that could lead to brain injury. Nuala is joined by Mary Dixon-Woods from the Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute and Gemma Barber from Liverpool Women’s Hospital to discuss how the training will work and what difference it could make.

Strictly Come Dancing pair Katya Jones and Wynne Evans have faced criticism over an incident on Saturday's show where Evans appeared to put his hand around Jones' waist and on her stomach. Both have apologised for any misunderstanding over the moment, saying it was part of an 'inside joke', but there has been an outcry from fans and the press. Nuala speaks to the Independent's Claire Cohen to discuss more.

Kendall Alaimo is an artist, activist and survivor of child sex trafficking. She joins Nuala live from a UN conference in Vienna to talk about her advocacy and the importance of giving survivors a seat at the table.

Presenter: Nuala McGovern
Producer: Lottie Garton


TUE 11:00 Screenshot (m0023wvq)
Saturday Night Live

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode look at the impact of Saturday Night Live, or SNL, as the long-running US sketch show prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Just how important is SNL in the history of American comedy? And why have we never quite understood it over here?

Ellen speaks to actor and former SNL writer Paula Pell about how it felt to get a job on the show after growing up as an obsessed fan - and whether the hectic schedule of Saturday Night Live is always conducive to the best comedy. And she talks to US comedian and podcaster Ashley Ray about SNL's enduring influence on American humour, and its relevance for audiences as it enters its 50th season.

Meanwhile, Mark discusses the cinema that has emerged from the series - from big hitters like The Blues Brothers and Wayne's World to box office flops MacGruber and A Night at the Roxbury - with author and Empire magazine editor Nick de Semlyen. And he gets the inside track on working with SNL's legendary super-producer Lorne Michaels - and on bringing the music of Queen to a whole new generation - from Wayne's World's director Penelope Spheeris.

Producer: Jane Long
A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 11:45 The Lion, the Witch and the Wonder by Katherine Rundell (m0023yd2)
The Lion and the Witch

In this gripping investigation of children’s fiction, award-winning author Katherine Rundell makes a passionate argument for a literature that is often underrated, yet whose magic can live on inside us for the rest of our lives. The best children’s books need to be good enough both for the hungriest child and the wisest, sharpest adult.

In the second of five original essays about children’s fiction, Katherine reveals how the fashion of writing for younger readers has changed - from the moral instruction of the earliest literature, telling children what to do and who to obey, to books that offered children intellectual freedom and huge worlds.

Katherine explores the visions of some of the greatest writers, including Tove Jansson, CS Lewis and Tolkein. She discovers a world of literature that opens up spaces of imagination that can enchant or terrify, introducing us to characters and ideas that captivate us.

Katherine Rundell is an acclaimed writer for children, winning Author of the Year and Book of the Year for Impossible Creatures at the British Book Awards 2024, and winner of the Costa Children’s Book Award.

Written and presented by Katherine Rundell
Producer: Jo Glanville
Editor: Kirsten Lass
Production Co-ordinator: Heather Dempsey
Studio Engineer: Dan King

A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4

Photo credit: Nina Subin


TUE 12:00 News Summary (m0023yd4)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 12:04 You and Yours (m0023yd6)
Call You & Yours: Do You Go to Gigs?

Do you go to gigs, how often and where.
Music venues are closing at record rates and bands are doing shorter tours.
How has that changed things for you?
Are you spending big on an arena tour or festival, or going to see smaller acts. Or maybe you feel priced out altogether?

Email youandyours@bbc.co.uk and add your [phone number so we can call you back - or from 11am on Tuesday you can call us on 03700 100 444

Presenter: Shari Vahl
Producer: Kev Mousley


TUE 12:57 Weather (m0023yd8)
The latest weather forecast


TUE 13:00 World at One (m0023ydb)
UK urged to sanction two Israeli ministers

Lord Cameron - former foreign secretary and former prime minister – says when he was in government he drew up plans to sanction two key members of the Israeli war cabinet: Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. WATO asks Lord Peter Ricketts, who was the top civil servant in the Foreign Office, what further actions the government should take. Also: the Children's Commissioner condemns the long wait for a diagnosis faced by children thought to have autism and ADHD in England; and WATO speaks to the 23-year-old British climber who has become the youngest woman to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000-metre plus peaks.


TUE 13:45 The History Podcast (m0023ydd)
The Brighton Bomb

The Brighton Bomb: 7. Fight Them on the Beaches

Patrick Magee plays mouse to the cat of the Southern Irish police, acting on a tip-off from their colleagues in the North.

He escapes back to Great Britain from Dublin and joins a new IRA unit planning a summer-long campaign targeting seaside resorts: more bombs in hotels and a new tactic - burying bombs on beaches. It will be the most concentrated wave of IRA attacks since the 1930s.

Written and presented by Glenn Patterson

Series Producer: Owen McFadden
Story Consultant and Sound Design: Alan Hall
Producer: Lena Ferguson
Archive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormick
Production Co-Ordinator: Hollie Wallace
Composer: Mark McCambridge
Sound Engineer: Claire Marquess
Mixing Engineer: Mike Woolley
Patrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions

Executive Producer Rachel Hooper

A Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films


TUE 14:00 The Archers (m0023y9k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]


TUE 14:15 Drama on 4 (m0009b3n)
Gut

by Frances Poet

Stranger danger. How do you parent in a world that has lost its innocence? Can you trust your gut? For Lucy one possible incident infects her marriage, her family and her sanity.

Lucy ..... Jeany Spark
Rory ..... Joseph Kloska
Morven ..... Jessica Turner
Joshua ..... Elizabeth Poet
Strangers ..... Neil McCaul, Will Kirk, Greg Jones

Director: David Hunter

Department of Information Safety soundtrack Crown Copyright The British Film Institute.


TUE 15:00 Punt & Dennis: Route Masters (m0023ydg)
Series 1: From Beer to Eternity

3 - From West Ham United to Madagascar

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis are on a mission from West Ham United to Madagascar with the help of Isy Suttie, in a warm and witty podcast that celebrates new and half-remembered trivia as they try to find entertaining links between random places, people and things.

Could you make your way from The Starship Enterprise to the Air Fryer, armed only with A Level Economics and a Geography degree? Hugh Dennis is going to have to. While Steve Punt will have to pick his way across Africa, to find what links Machiavelli and Madagascar. Across the series, they’ll be joined by guests including Ken Cheng, Kiri Pritchard McLean, Isy Suttie and Marcus Brigstocke, on a scenic route which takes in Shampoo, The Gruffalo, Watford Gap Services and Yoghurt.

Written and hosted by Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis
With Isy Suttie
Produced by Victoria Lloyd
Recorded at Maple St Creative
Mixed by Jonathan Last

A Listen Production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 15:30 Thinking Allowed (m0023ydj)
Sea Travelling

Laurie Taylor talks to Helen Sampson, Professor in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, about her voyage into the lives and work of seafarers. 25 years of fieldwork on merchant cargo ships has given her an unusual insight into the changing realities of life onboard and the gap between romantic notions of sea travel and the harsher realities - from isolation from friends and family to the monotony of daily life, increasing regulation and surveillance. Also, Sara Caputo, Senior Research Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge, illuminates the way in which the history of mapping the oceans reflects the creation of the modern world as we know it, via centuries of trading, exploring and conquering.

Producer: Jayne Egerton


TUE 16:00 Surrealism Remixed (m0023ydl)
The Jolt

Today, Russell Tovey, actor and art lover, is following the trail of this mind-bending art movement to see where it’s ended up at a time when the world we live in seems increasingly surreal. Looking at disjoined, discordant, juxtaposed images on our screens - does it mean we’re all Surrealists now?

The concept of Surrealism was dreamt up 100 years ago, after the First World War, when the French poet André Breton published his first ‘Surrealist manifesto’ in October 1924. Breton had big ambitions for Surrealism to tap into the unconscious, via the power of dreams, and reach beyond the narrow realism and destructive rationality he saw around him.

Surrealism first started entering popular culture, when the Surrealist artists began to work in other fields: Rene Magritte had a publicity firm, Salvador Dali advised Hitchcock and Disney and Man Ray was a successful fashion photographer. Understanding and exploring our inner world became fashionable during the mid 20th century, thanks in part to Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, who was a huge influence on the Surrealists. But by now, Surrealist techniques of tapping into the unconscious mind, were also being co-opted by the fast-growing advertising industry. As well as filtering into film, fashion and advertising, Surrealism has thoroughly influenced comedy, especially British comedy.

With Louisa Buck; Martin Creed; Anna María; Hugh Morrison; Lisa Mullen; Mark Polizzotti; Vic Reeves; John Luke Roberts; Laurence Scott; David Shrigley and Rory Sutherland.

Producers: Melissa FitzGerald and Eliane Glaser

Sound Design: Tony Churnside

A Zinc Audio Production

Cover Photo: Martin Creed and Russell Tovey


TUE 16:30 When It Hits the Fan (m0023ydn)
Kamala Harris, Man City v the Premier League and LinkedIn

David and Simon discuss Kamala Harris’s interview on the hit US podcast Call Her Daddy. What can British politicians and business leaders learn about the power of being three-dimensional and opening up?

Also, it’s a game of two halves – the PR behind the football civil war that is Manchester City versus the Premier League.

And the LinkedIn job status update. To varnish, or not to varnish?

Producer: Eve Streeter
Editor: Sarah Teasdale
Executive Producer: William Miller
Music by Eclectic Sounds
A Raconteur Studios production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 17:00 PM (m0023ydq)
Robert Jenrick speaks to PM

As leadership contest ballots go out to Conservative party members, Robert Jenrick speaks to PM about his pitch to voters. We hear from one of the researchers who pioneered the science behind weight loss drugs. And, the US lawsuits against Tiktok.


TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0023yds)
Sir Keir Starmer drops a heavy hint that taxes on businesses could go up in the Budget.


TUE 18:30 Janey Godley: The C Bomb (m001ngc2)
3. When I Get Bored, Bad Things Happen

Janey Godley doesn’t know how long she’s got left, so she’s telling ALL the jokes! This is her extraordinary story. Fearless and unflinching, yet life affirming stand-up at its very best.

In this episode Janey tells stories akin to the wild west, in the east end of Glasgow. She and her family go from the perfectly chaotic life of publicans and private schools, to runaways clutching thier possessions in black bin bags.

Since Janey’s comedy career began, she’s exposed, on stage, many painful traumas from her life - from childhood neglect and sexual abuse, to marrying into a gangster family who eventually turned on her, and even the murder of her mother - with a seeming lack of sentimentality and the blackest of humour.

Relentlessly authentic, she's also had to face up to her own mistakes - taking responsibility and apologising both publicly and onstage, as well as sharing the shame of being ‘cancelled’ and the very dark place that took her to.

Then, just months later… the hand grenade of a cancer diagnosis forced her to start fighting for her life.

Now, after finally admitting that after everything she’s been through in life, maybe she‘s not “fine”, and with a terminal diagnosis, she’s submitted to the ultimate ‘C bomb' for many men and women of her generation - counselling.

And as a result of this insight, she’s more hilarious and compelling onstage than ever.

Janey’s experienced a life of extremes but has come out the other side with rare insight, still able to make light of all its trials and tribulations in her signature dark and uncompromising style.

Recorded live in front of an audience in her hometown, Glasgow.

A Dabster production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 19:00 The Archers (m0023y0d)
Chelsea and Fallon are working at The Tearoom, with Adam and Natasha lending a hand. To Chelsea’s annoyance Natasha then asks her to train Adam to use the coffee machine. Later, Chelsea helps Adam source bunting and decorations for the school Halloween disco he’s helping Ian organise. At the end of the day Chelsea admits how awkward she found it working with Adam. He sensed it, but reckons his shifts in the Tearoom shouldn’t happen too often in future.

Kirsty comes across a pensive Clarrie at Bridge Farm and confides how strapped for cash Rewilding Ambridge is, especially after losing a wealthy potential sponsor last week. Clarrie admits how much she’s missing George – and how awkward it is talking to Fallon. Kirsty takes Clarrie’s hand and promises to support her as they enter The Tearoom. Kirsty accepts Adam’s offer of a chai latte he’s been working on, while Clarrie tentatively exchanges pleasantries and then invites Fallon and Harrison to the Apple Day event next week. Fallon says she’s busy then and Clarrie leaves. However, Fallon follows Clarrie out to say she appreciates the invitation and Clarrie’s kind words, but she really would find going to Apple Day too much right now.

Adam tells Chelsea he still can’t forgive the Grundys for what George did and its repercussions, but Chelsea points out how wretched George felt about it too. Then Fallon surprises them both with the news that she’s been selected to run one of the units at the EV Station, before heading off to hand in her notice to Natasha.


TUE 19:15 Front Row (m0023ydv)
Jodie Whittaker, Japanese food art, Booker writer Anne Michaels

Jodie Whittaker talks to Tom Sutcliffe about returning to the stage for the first time in over a decade to star in an updated version of John Webster's 17th-century revenge tragedy The Duchess [of Malfi]. The super-realism of Japanese food replicas is on show in London exhibition Looks Delicious! Curator Simon Wright and Japanese food expert Akemi Yokoyama reflect on this distinctive art. Baroness Ludford discusses buying single theatre seats. Canadian writer Anne Michaels talks about her Booker Prize shortlisted novel Held, which begins on the French battlefield in 1917 and spans 4 generations.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet


TUE 20:00 The Knock on the Door (m0023dr4)
Investigating the devastating effects of investigations related to child abuse images - even when charges are dropped. Jane Wakefield hears from individuals who say they were wrongly targeted and that police action wreaked enormous damage on their families and reputations, even though officers have eventually decided not to pursue criminal investigations. She hears how suspects' phones and other devices were seized with long waits for the police to examine them for evidence. Meanwhile their lives went on hold. The programme investigates how police track the people who trade in these awful images and examines concerns about the reliability of the reliance on IP (internet protocol) addresses for locating suspects.
Producer: Sarah Treanor


TUE 20:40 In Touch (m0023pwb)
Eye Care Support Pathway; Guide Dogs - help with free running

The eye care support pathway is a framework developed by the RNIB and partners from across the sight loss sector. It aims to support people through the various stages of sight loss by helping them to understand those stages and signposting them to sources of assistance to navigate through each one. Rob Cooper, Director of Strategic Engagement at RNIB joins us to explain how the process will work, and Dr Peter Hampson, Clinical and Policy Director at the Association of Optometrists gives us an eye care professional's view.

Worried listeners have contacted In Touch with concerns that sighted support to enable guide dogs to go free running could be withdrawn. We speak to Mark Sanderson, Director of Skills, Information and Support at Guide Dogs to clarify the situation.

Presenter: Peter White
Producer: Fern Lulham
Production Coordinator: Pete Liggins

Website image description: Peter White sits smiling in the centre of the image, wearing a dark green jumper. Above Peter's head is the BBC logo (three individual white squares house each of the three letters). Bottom centre and overlaying the image are the words "In Touch"; and the Radio 4 logo (the word Radio in a bold white font, with the number 4 inside a white circle). The background is a bright mid-blue with two rectangles angled diagonally to the right. Both are behind Peter, one of a darker blue and the other is a lighter blue.


TUE 21:00 World Of Secrets (w3ct793n)
Al Fayed, Predator at Harrods

Al Fayed, Predator at Harrods: 4. Surveillance state

Security cameras were everywhere - in Harrods and in a luxury apartment used by staff. There’s an atmosphere of paranoia. Vanity Fair magazine was investigating the rumours swirling around Mohamed Al Fayed. Would the truth about him be exposed, even as potential witnesses say they were intimidated?

This season of World of Secrets is about sexual abuse, and includes descriptions which some listeners might find distressing. For a list of organisations in the UK that can provide support for survivors of sexual abuse, go to bbc.co.uk/actionline.

Presented by Cassie Cornish-Trestrail and Shaimaa Khalil, and produced by Neal Razzell and Sally Abrahams. The editor is Matt Willis. It’s a Long Form Audio production for the BBC World Service.

Special thanks to series consultant, Keaton Stone, director Erica Gornall and executive producer, Mike Radford.


TUE 21:30 The Bottom Line (m0023pzp)
Debt: Do Collectors Deserve Their Bad Reputation?

It must be one of the most-maligned professions out there - on a par, perhaps, with traffic wardens - but debt collectors perform a vital service to businesses and the wider economy. So why do we love to despise them?

Evan Davis and guests discuss the industry's inner workings, from the public image of aggressive, burly bailiffs, to the reality of repayment plans prompted by artificial intelligence. We ask how most try to ensure they collect debts fairly, and also hear the other side of the debt story - how damaging and stressful it can be for businesses who desperately need the money.

Plus, why do we find it so hard to talk about debt in the UK? We hear about the industry's efforts to tackle the stigma.

Evan is joined by:

John Pears, UK CEO, Lowell;
Amon Ghaiumy, co-founder and CEO, Ophelos;
Dana Denis-Smith, CEO and founder, Obelisk Support.

Production team:

Producer: Simon Tulett
Researcher: Farhana Haider
Editor: Matt Willis
Sound: Dafydd Evans and Sarah Hockley
Production co-ordinators: Rosie Strawbridge and Katie Morrison


TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (m0023ydz)
US warns Israel it may withhold some military assistance

The United States has told Israel it may withhold some military assistance unless the provision of aid into Gaza is improved within 30 days. The demand was made in a letter sent to Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday. We get the reaction of Simcha Rothman - a member of the Religious Zionist party in Israel's ruling coalition - and the former US ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides.

On the eve of an assisted dying bill being introduced in parliament, we speak to the Archbishop of Canterbury. And as Thomas Tuchel is named as Gareth Southgate's successor, we ask if a German manager can end the decades of hurt for England.


TUE 22:45 The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (m0023zl5)
Episode Two

In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering expats from across history to test the limits of time-travel. Her role is to work as a 'bridge' - living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847', Commander Graham Gore, a member of John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition.

Along with his fellow 'expats' – extracted from the Great Plague, the Battle of Naseby, the French Revolution and the Battle of the Somme - Gore must be introduced to the internal combustion engine, women’s emancipation, computer dating apps, the smoking ban, and 21st Century cultural and social sensitivities. Among these are the narrator’s ambivalent feelings about her own mixed-race heritage.

The role of a Bridge, she discovers, may be well-paid, but it’s complex and difficult to navigate, particularly when the Victorian explorer sharing her living space is an attractive, infuriating, deeply sexy adventurer. When it becomes apparent that the very future is at stake, the job becomes both more complicated and more dangerous.

Episode 2: Cultural clashes, a spliff and a sketch.

Kaliane Bradley is a British-Cambodian writer and editor who has won the 2022 Harper’s Bazaar Short Story prize and the 2022 V S Pritchett Short Story Prize. The Ministry of Time is her debut novel, widely acclaimed as exciting, clever, funny and gripping - ‘a little time-bomb of a book’ according to the writer Francis Spufford. It was shortlisted for this year’s Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, and is a Sunday Times and New York Times best-seller. It also featured on Barack Obama’s reading list this summer.

The reader is Aoife Hinds, known for her roles in TV’s Derry Girls and Normal People.

Abridged and produced by Sara Davies
Production Co-ordinator: Sarah Tombling
Sound Designer: Matt Bainbridge
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 23:00 Marianna in Conspiracyland (m0023y99)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Monday]


TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0023yf1)
Susan Hulme reports as MPs urge Ministers to push harder for a ceasefire in the Middle East and Parliament takes the next step towards removing hereditary peers from the Lords.

WEDNESDAY 16 OCTOBER 2024

WED 00:00 Midnight News (m0023yf3)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


WED 00:30 The Trust Shift (m001xm7s)
In Institutions We Trust?

Across five episodes, Rachel Botsman traces the intriguing history of trust.

Rachel looks back on what she sees as the three major chapters of trust in human history. In the broadest terms, these are Local Trust, Institutional Trust, and Distributed Trust. As we’ve moved from one to the next, we've experienced, what she calls, ‘Trust Shifts’.

These shifts have happened because humans took a risk to try something new. To innovate in ways that have shaped our behaviours, for better or worse. Rachel reflects on how each trust shift has profoundly changed the dynamics of our lives; whether that’s how we bank or buy goods, vote, learn, travel, date, and importantly, find and consume information.

In Episode 2, Rachel charts the rise of institutional trust, asking why we trusted institutions in the first place, and how they innovated ways to trust each other on a much larger scale. She tells this through the story of one institution in particular: maritime insurance.

Featuring Christopher Kingston, the Richard S. Volpert Professor of Economics at Amherst College, Massachusetts.

Rachel Botsman is the author of Who Can You Trust? and What's Mine Is Yours. She was Oxford University’s first Trust Fellow who's worked with world leaders, the Bank of England, CEOs and financial regulators.

Producer: Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio, Bristol
Editor: Chris Ledgard


WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0023yf5)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0023yf7)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0023yf9)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


WED 05:30 News Briefing (m0023yfc)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4


WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0023yff)
News from the frontline

Good morning.

One of the signs that the end is nigh, as set out in the Book of Revelations, the final book of the bible, is that there will be ‘wars and rumours of wars’. Today, the notion that wars could be waged at so remote a distance that we might have nothing more than rumour to go by, seems decidedly quaint. Instead, the horrors of war are beamed into our homes and downloaded onto our devices incessantly. We cannot pretend, as did so many in former eras, that war is noble and glorious. We see the bodies pulled from beneath wrecked buildings, we hear the cries of the wounded and bereaved. We can judge the justifications offered by military and political leaders, and find them wanting. And then, maybe years after a conflict has ended, we read the stories of rape and torture, of mass executions and individual abuses, often perpetrated on all sides.

We owe much to the journalists and war correspondents who bring us stories from the heart of the war zone. That they do so at great personal risk is borne out by the number who lose their lives on their assignments. Yet courage is not only found on the frontline, it can be even more risky and daunting to expose war crimes that governments and military leaders prefer to keep hidden.

So today, I ask God’s blessing and protection on all who venture into places of conflict, to bring back the stories and pictures that reveal to us the truth about war. May they be guarded from physical hurt, protected from mental trauma and kept safe from any who would wish them harm. Amen.


WED 05:45 Farming Today (m0023yfh)
16/10/24 Bluetongue restrictions, champagne producers in Kent, organic milk

Bluetongue disease continues to affect livestock across England, and into Wales. The virus, which can be fatal to sheep, is transmitted by biting midges, which breed in warm temperatures. Over the last few weeks, DEFRA has increased the areas where animal movements are restricted. We speak to a breeder in Suffolk whose pedigree flock is under lockdown because of the restrictions. He's been unable to sell his rams at market and has criticised the government for not tackling the disease sooner. He feels he should be compensated. Defra says it's taking prompt action to mitigate the spread of the disease.

All week we're discussing wine, and in England, sparkling white wine has been going from strength to strength. That's attracted interest and investment from one of the world’s best known Champagne houses. Taittinger has opened a vineyard near Canterbury in Kent and will soon be bottling its first wine from there.

Listeners have told us they can't get hold of semi skimmed organic milk in the supermarket. We speak to a dairy consultant to find out why.

Presenter = Anna Hill
Producer = Rebecca Rooney


WED 06:00 Today (m0023xzn)
16/10/24 - Emma Barnett and Justin Webb

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


WED 09:00 More or Less (m0023xzr)
When are numbers like a horse at a gymkhana?

Can we teach BBC political editor Chris Mason some new maths skills?
Do 60 of the UK’s richest people pay 100% tax?
Have water bills fallen in real terms since 2010?
When it comes to HPV and cervical cancer, is zero a small number?

Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news.

Presenter: Tim Harford
Producers: Nathan Gower and Bethan Ashmead Latham
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Katie Morrison
Sound mix: Sarah Hockley
Editor: Richard Vadon


WED 09:30 The Coming Storm (m0023xzt)
S2: 6. Kompromat

In series one of this podcast we spent months investigating QAnon, a crazy conspiracy theory involving an elite cabal of paedophiles and child sex traffickers. And we never really grappled with… this actual convicted paedophile and sex trafficker, who was at the centre of a network of global financial cultural and political elites.

But the story of Jeffrey Epstein is more than a kernel of truth at the heart of Qanon. It connects the idea of a cabal of elite paedophiles to the wider conspiracy theory we’re looking into for series two, one that millions of Americans believe: that democracy is a facade, and that the institutions of America, from politics to finance, from Hollywood to the secret intelligence agencies, are controlled by hidden hands.

Producer: Lucy Proctor
Sound design and mix: James Beard
Editor: Richard Vadon
Script consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh Gray
Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke
Original music: Pete Cunningham

CREDITS:
Stephen Hawking clip from goal.cast, TikTok

Jeffrey Epstein reporting in Florida, 2008-2011 from WPBF, Palm Beach Post, WBTV, Miami Herald

G Edward Griffin clip from The Subversion Factor, Knowledge 2020 Media, 1983

Gamestop archive from CNBC

Ian Carrol's videos: Cancelthisclothingco on TikTok

Peter Thiel on The Joe Rogan Experience


WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0023xzw)
Isabelle Huppert, NHS Whistleblower line, The Kill List, author Cecelia Ahern

French actress Isabelle Huppert is renowned for her portrayal of dark, complex characters. She's also been hailed by many as one of the greatest actors of modern cinema. Since the 1970, she's starred in more than 120 films, including The Lacemaker, The Piano Teacher, and Elle for which she was Oscar nominated. She joins Nuala to discuss her latest role in a new comedic film The Crime is Mine, directed by François Ozon.

From today NHS staff in England will be able to whisteblow on colleagues for sexual harassment, as part of plans to improve safety for staff across the health service. Almost three-quarters (74%) of NHS England staff are female and in this year's NHS Staff Survey, almost 58,000 staff said they'd been the victim of assault, touching, sexualised or inappropriate conversation or jokes from their colleagues. To discuss the plans Nuala speaks to reporter, Melanie Abbott and Dr Chelcie Jewitt co-founder of Surviving in Scrubs set up to raise awareness of the sexist and misogynistic culture within health care.

New podcast The Kill List follows a group of journalists who discovered a page on the dark web detailing requests to have people killed, with women most likely to be the ones targetted. The investigation led to a major international police operation over four years and, at the heart of it are the real people whose lives were seemingly at huge risk. Nuala is joined by the programme's producer Caroline Thornham and Jennifer whose former husband posted a 'hit' for her on this website.

Cecelia Ahern is the bestselling author of an incredible twenty books. She first found success at a remarkably young age. She was only 21 when her novel PS I Love You became an international bestseller and then a Hollywood film. She tells Nuala McGovern how Celtic mythology and a return to nature inspired her latest novel.

Presented by Nuala McGovern
Producer: Louise Corley


WED 11:00 The Knock on the Door (m0023dr4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Tuesday]


WED 11:45 The Lion, the Witch and the Wonder by Katherine Rundell (m0023y00)
The Ingredients

In this gripping investigation of children’s fiction, award-winning author Katherine Rundell makes a passionate argument for a literature that is often underrated, yet whose magic can live on inside us for the rest of our lives. The best children’s books need to be good enough both for the hungriest child and the wisest, sharpest adult.

In the third of five original essays about children’s fiction, Katherine reveals some of the ingredients that make a successful book. There are threads that run through the history of children’s literature and that still enthral readers today, including secrets, animals and jokes. The greatest children’s writers have always acknowledged their readers’ intelligence and have never been afraid to include sophisticated ideas or irony.

It’s the promise of the young reader’s imagination that appeals to Katherine herself as a children’s author - when you write for a child, you’re writing for someone who is in the process of becoming the person they will be.

Katherine Rundell is an acclaimed writer for children, winning Author of the Year and Book of the Year for Impossible Creatures at the British Book Awards 2024, and winner of the Costa Children’s Book Award.

Written and presented by Katherine Rundell
Producer: Jo Glanville
Editor: Kirsten Lass
Production Co-ordinator: Heather Dempsey
Studio Engineer: Dan King

A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4

Photo credit: Nina Subin


WED 12:00 News Summary (m0023y02)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 12:04 You and Yours (m0023y04)
Loan Fraud Scam, Repair Cafe, Advice Centres

In today's programme, a special report by Shari Vahl, on the case of a man who handed over thousands to criminals after he set out to apply for a simple loan. Such were the number of calls the man was receiving from the scammers that they called while Shari was interviewing him. Listen to find out what happened.

Also on the programme, there's a repair revolution happening on a high street near you, as we hear more and more shops are opening up. We visit one and speak to Fiona Dear from the Restart Project about what else needs to happen to help people get things fixed.

And Advice Centres which offer financial and debt advice are worried they may struggle to keep going in the coming year - that's according to a new report out next week. We get to preview the findings of the report with Liz Bayram, the Chief Executive of Advice UK and hear from an advice centre about the challenges they're facing.

PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON

PRODUCER: CATHERINE EARLAM


WED 12:57 Weather (m0023y06)
The latest weather forecast


WED 13:00 World at One (m0023y08)
Chancellor to seek £40bn in budget

Chancellor Rachel Reeves looks set to bring in tax rises and spending cuts to the value of 40 billion pounds in her budget. Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak clash in PMQs over foreign interference. And Ukraine's president Zelensky presents his victory plan to parliament.


WED 13:45 The History Podcast (m0023y0b)
The Brighton Bomb

The Brighton Bomb: 8. A Hotel Too Far

Spring 1985, six months on from the bomb at Brighton’s Grand Hotel that killed five men and women in town for the Conservative Party conference and came within feet of killing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Police are now satisfied that they have identified the man responsible for planting the bomb - Patrick Magee, aka the Chancer.

They just don’t know where he is.

Magee is back in Britain, planting a bomb in a hotel across the road from Buckingham Palace with an even longer timer fuse than the Brighton bomb. A police surveillance operation on another IRA suspect, meanwhile, leads to an unexpected result.

Written and presented by Glenn Patterson

Series Producer: Owen McFadden
Story Consultant and Sound Design: Alan Hall
Producer: Lena Ferguson
Archive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormick
Production Co-Ordinator: Hollie Wallace
Composer: Mark McCambridge
Sound Engineer: Claire Marquess
Mixing Engineer: Mike Woolley
Patrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions

Executive Producer Rachel Hooper

A Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films


WED 14:00 The Archers (m0023y0d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Tuesday]


WED 14:15 Drama on 4 (m000b0c3)
Shrapnel

by Isabel Wright

Having escaped from a war-torn city, reporter Nadine assumes that she can handle anything. But in reality her mind remains trapped and under siege.

Nadine ..... Monica Dolan
Rafael .... Javier Marzan
Donna ..... Nicola Ferguson
Sofia ..... Sinead MacInnes
John ..... Ikky Elyas
Girl ..... Asiyah Williams

A BBC Scotland production directed by Gaynor Macfarlane


WED 15:00 Money Box (m0023y0g)
Money Box Live: Missing Out on Financial Support?

Each year it’s estimated that £23 billion worth of help and support – from housing benefits to pension credit – goes unclaimed according to Policy in Practice.

We look at the kind of help that is available, and hear from listeners on their experiences trying to claim the benefits they’re entitled to, as well as who might be able to get money off their childcare or broadband bills.

Presenter Felicity Hannah is joined by a panel of experts who answer your questions on how to make the best of the available support: Rachael Walker, research and policy director at Policy In Practice; Sam Hubbard, Head of Core Services at Citizens Advice in Staffordshire North and Stoke On Trent and David Samson, a benefits expert at Turn2Us.

And we hear from a range of people with their own experiences of trying to secure benefits – sometimes during life-changing moments. Gary from Lincolnshire tells us how he had to become a carer for his poorly wife. But during a difficult journey to obtain benefits, it was only by chance that he discovered certain types of support he was entitled to. Meanwhile, Esther from London tells us how she wasn’t aware she could be entitled to a carer’s allowance for her children – two of whom have complex needs .

Presenter: Felicity Hannah
Producer: Craig Henderson
Editor: Sarah Rogers

(This episode was first broadcast on Wednesday 16th October 2024).


WED 15:30 The Artificial Human (m0023y0j)
Can AI debunk conspiracy theories?

Conspiracy theories—once confined to fringe communities—have entered the mainstream.

Social media has supercharged outlandish narratives, giving them an air of legitimacy through viral sharing. With generative AI now capable of producing hyper-realistic images, videos, and audio, the boundaries between fact and fiction are more blurred than ever. It feels almost inevitable that AI will further amplify conspiracy theories in public and online discourse.

But perhaps the future isn’t quite so bleak. Aleks and Kevin explore how AI could actually help debunk conspiracy theories and combat the flood of misinformation online.

They speak with the team behind 'Debunk-bot', an AI chatbot that has shown remarkable success in shifting people’s beliefs around conspiracy theories. They also talk to Mick West, who has spent decades debunking falsehoods, about how AI might help reduce the impact of dangerous conspiracies—and what role humans must play in guiding those who find their way out of conspiracy rabbit holes with the help of a bot.

Join Aleks and Kevin as they investigate how AI can help us separate fact from fiction. And if you have a question about AI, email us at theartificialhuman@bbc.co.uk.


WED 16:00 The Media Show (m0023xb6)
BBC News cuts, Isis Prisons Museum, the perils of press junkets

The BBC has announced cuts to its news output including closing the interview show HARDtalk after nearly 30 years. We talk to HARDtalk presenter Stephen Sackur. The Isis Prisons Museum was established in 2017 when a group of journalists, filmmakers and activists entered deserted Islamic State prisons to collect evidence. We talk to the team behind the project whose public archive was launched last week. Plus we hear what happens when press junkets go bad and talk to the maker of a new BBC Two documentary about one of Hollywood's most notorious scandals when a mysterious bidder acquired MGM Studios only to flee the country while under investigation by the FBI.

Guests: Stephen Sackur, Presenter, HARDTalk; David Abraham, CEO, Wonderhood Studios; Kjersti Flaa, journalist and entertainment reporter; Amer Matar, journalist and Director of the ISIS Prisons Museum; Robin Yassin-Kassab, Chief English Editor of ISIS Prisons Museum; Yvonne McDermott Rees, Professor of Law, Swansea University

Presenters: Katie Razzall and Ros Atkins
Producer: Simon Richardson
Assistant Producer: Lucy Wai


WED 17:00 PM (m0023y0l)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.


WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0023y0n)
Inflation drops below the Bank of England's target for the first time in three years.


WED 18:30 Ivo Graham's Obsessions (m0023y0q)
Series 1

3. John Robins & Michelle De Swarte

Comedian and obsessive Ivo Graham welcomes 2 guests to share their biggest obsessions with him.

British Podcast Award-winning comedians John Robins and Michelle De Swarte join Ivo this week. John is obsessed with musical icon and prolific songwriter Frank Zappa, while Michelle spends more than she's willing to admit on skincare. Ivo also delves into the audience to find out what their proclivities are, and finally Ivo is joined by a Very Obsessed Person, or 'VOP'. This week, Paul Beckmann not only tells us of his love of Fortresses of the UK, but his wife, Katia also joins to explain just how deep the obsession goes.

Hosted by Ivo Graham
Featuring John Robins, Michelle De Swarte and Paul & Katia Beckmann

Written by Ivo Graham and Matthew Crosby

Additional Material by Ray Badran, Cody Dahler, Christina Riggs and Peter Tellouche

Recorded at the Marylebone Theatre by Duncan Hannant and Donald McDonald
Sound edited by Charlie Brandon-King
Production Coordinators: Katie Baum and Jodie Charman
Executive Producer: Pete Strauss

Produced by Gwyn Rhys Davies, a BBC Studios Audio production for Radio 4

An EcoAudio certified production
Show image: Matt Stronge


WED 19:00 The Archers (m0023x9f)
At Grange Farm, Ed and Will discuss plans for Apple Day. Various attractions and stalls are allocated to different family members, but when Emma comes in she’s less than enthusiastic – will anyone even turn up? But later she tells Clarrie she’ll help out, for Poppy’s sake. Clarrie reckons they’ve still got friends in the village who’ll come – and believes George would be for it too.

With Fallon leaving they’ve had a crisis meeting at Bridge Farm. Helen and Pat remain relatively calm, but Natasha catastrophises. She can’t believe Fallon’s making the right choice, abandoning them for a “nowhere place” like the EV Charging Station. Natasha admits to feeling hurt by Fallon’s decision. Helen sympathises with her, but apart from looking for a new manager doesn’t think there’s much they can do. Finding a replacement will be hard, Natasha reckons. Worse, Fallon will be in direct competition with them. Helen thinks the Bridge Farm brand will see them through, but Natasha’s not giving up, hoping she can persuade Fallon to change her mind.

Henry is helping Pat in the goat pen and confesses he misses George. Henry still thinks George is alright, despite what he’s done. Pat reassures him, it’s not bad to think that - and she doesn’t regret writing a reference for George. Pat feels she had to put her conscience first, despite the ructions it’s caused in the family. Henry agrees with her. Pat then talks about putting a meat buck in with the nannies to produce quality goats for meat production. Henry thinks it’s a fantastic idea and definitely wants to help.


WED 19:15 Front Row (m0023y0s)
Rupert Everett, Scotland's Female Bands, artist Everlyn Nicodemus

Actor Rupert Everett on his debut collection of stories, The American No.

Carla J Easton talks about her music documentary Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland's Girl Bands. And Lung Leg perform in the studio.

And artist Everlyn Nicodemus on her belief that "art is resurrection" at her first retrospective, at the National Galleries of Scotland.

Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Mark Crossan


WED 20:00 AntiSocial (m0023ny9)
Breeding for Britain

Deaths have outnumbered births in the UK for the first time in nearly 50 years, new figures show. Should we encourage people to have more babies?

With an ageing population and not enough babies born to fully replace the older generations, some people are warning of population collapse. It was a hot subject at this year’s Conservative Party Conference - one fringe meeting discussed how to encourage people to have more children - and the phrase ‘Breed for Britain’ was soon trending on X.

Some people say that conversations like this are bad for women, and our total population is still growing - thanks to net migration. Others argue that immigration isn’t the solution, and we need to increase our fertility rate.

What do the figures show about demographic trends? How have other countries tried to boost their birth rates, and have they succeeded? And how has a conspiracy theory about the so-called ‘Great Replacement’ shifted into the mainstream?

Presenter: Adam Fleming
Producers: Ellie House, Simon Maybin, Caroline Bayley
Production coordinator: Janet Staples
Editor: Penny Murphy


WED 20:45 Profile (m0023wk1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


WED 21:00 Soul Music (m0023wj0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 on Saturday]


WED 21:30 The Conflict (m002474l)
Middle East

Israel-Lebanon (1982)

What can history teach us about the conflict in the Middle East?

Jonny Dymond brings together a carefully assembled panel of experts, academics and journalists to talk about the conflict in the region.

What has happened in history to lead us to this point? And, what can history teach us about what might happen next?

This week, Jonny is joined by Dr Burcu Ozcelik, a senior research fellow for Middle East security at Rusi, and historian, James Barr.

Please get in touch with Jonny and the team: theconflict@bbc.co.uk.

The Conflict: Middle East was made by Keiligh Baker and Ivana Davidovic. The technical producers were Jonny Hall and Tim Heffer. The assistant editor is Ben Mundy. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

This episode is part of a BBC Sounds series. It was recorded at 14:00 on Tuesday 15 October 2024.


WED 22:00 The World Tonight (m0023y0y)
Inquiry into carers' payment scandal

The government has announced an independent review of overpayments to carers - after ministers acknowledged some people had been pushed to "breaking point". We speak live to the Liberal Democrat leader - and carer - Sir Ed Davey.

Also tonight:

A bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales has been formally introduced in Parliament. We hear the view of the Silent Witness actor - and disability rights campaigner - Liz Carr.

And the composer of the score for a newly restored silent Sherlock Holmes film.


WED 22:45 The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (m0023zlc)
Episode Three

In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering expats from across history to test the limits of time-travel. Her role is to work as a 'bridge' - living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847', Commander Graham Gore, a member of John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition.

Along with his fellow 'expats' – extracted from the Great Plague, the Battle of Naseby, the French Revolution and the Battle of the Somme - Gore must be introduced to the internal combustion engine, women’s emancipation, computer dating apps, the smoking ban, and 21st Century cultural and social sensitivities. Among these are the narrator’s ambivalent feelings about her own mixed-race heritage.

The role of a Bridge, she discovers, may be well-paid, but it’s complex and difficult to navigate, particularly when the Victorian explorer sharing her living space is an attractive, infuriating, deeply sexy adventurer. When it becomes apparent that the very future is at stake, the job becomes both more complicated and more dangerous.

Episode 3: Graham learns to ride a bicycle.

Kaliane Bradley is a British-Cambodian writer and editor who has won the 2022 Harper’s Bazaar Short Story prize and the 2022 V S Pritchett Short Story Prize. The Ministry of Time is her debut novel, widely acclaimed as exciting, clever, funny and gripping - ‘a little time-bomb of a book’ according to the writer Francis Spufford. It was shortlisted for this year’s Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, and is a Sunday Times and New York Times best-seller. It also featured on Barack Obama’s reading list this summer.

The reader is Aoife Hinds, known for her roles in TV’s Derry Girls and Normal People.

Abridged and produced by Sara Davies
Production Co-ordinator: Sarah Tombling
Sound Designer: Matt Bainbridge
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


WED 23:00 Influencers (m001q6hz)
Series 1

2. Radiance

Katy Brand and Katherine Parkinson write and star in a new comedy about the world of influencing, where they play Ruth and Carla – two wannabe stars of the online business world.

They are bound together by a carefully controlled image that can lead to lucrative product placements and well-paid endorsements - but only if the PR is played just right. And that’s a problem because, behind the scenes, things are not always as harmonious as they seem.

Episode 2: Radiance
Ruth and Carla are dealing with a Gwyneth-inspired wellness disaster involving gaffer tape, and trying to launch a new range of ‘merch’.

Carla – Katy Brand
Ruth – Katherine Parkinson

Written by Katy Brand and Katherine Parkinson
Producer: Liz Anstee

A CPL production for BBC Radio 4


WED 23:15 The Skewer (m0023y10)
Series 12

Episode 6

The week’s biggest stories like you’ve never heard them before. Jon Holmes remixes the news into a satirical concept album. This week: The Economy in Wonderland, Choppy Days, and The Invasion of the European Commission on Human Rights.

Producer: Jon Holmes
An unusual production for BBC Radio 4


WED 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0023y12)
Prime Minister's Questions - and more, with Alicia McCarthy.

THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2024

THU 00:00 Midnight News (m0023y14)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


THU 00:30 The Trust Shift (m001xmcp)
Distrust In The Institution

Across five episodes, Rachel Botsman traces the intriguing history of trust.

Rachel looks back on what she sees as the three major chapters of trust in human history. In the broadest terms, these are Local Trust, Institutional Trust, and Distributed Trust. As we’ve moved from one to the next, we've experienced, what she calls, ‘Trust Shifts’.

These shifts have happened because humans took a risk to try something new. To innovate in ways that have shaped our behaviours, for better or worse. Rachel reflects on how each trust shift has profoundly changed the dynamics of our lives; whether that’s how we bank or buy goods, vote, learn, travel, date, and importantly, find and consume information.

In Episode 3, Rachel explores how as the role of institutions grew in our lives, events happened which shook their foundations, and people began to question their purpose and intentions. She tells the story of how trust in one system, healthcare in the United States, unraveled. And how it can be a lesson to all institutions.

Featuring Julian Appiah-Koduah of Jul's The Hair Klinik in Mitcham, and Dr Bayo-Curry Winchell, Family Medicine and Urgent Care Physician, Medical Director and Founder of Beyond Clinical Walls.

Jul's The Hair Klink are part of the UK-first BAME Barber Network project, set up by the London South Bank University, Croydon BME Forum and Off The Record.

Rachel Botsman is the author of Who Can You Trust? and What's Mine Is Yours. She was Oxford University’s first Trust Fellow and has worked with world leaders, the Bank of England, CEOs and financial regulators.

Producer: Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio, Bristol
Editor: Chris Ledgard


THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0023y16)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0023y18)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0023y1b)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


THU 05:30 News Briefing (m0023y1d)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4


THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0023y1g)
Revenge or defiance?

Good morning.

In the shock of the May 2017 terrorist attack in the centre of Manchester, I had to learn quickly. It fell to me, as bishop, to try to give a moral lead to the people of my city and beyond. I had to offer some direction as to how to channel their feelings in the aftermath of an atrocity which had taken 22 lives and maimed hundreds more. The aim of the perpetrator had been, I felt sure, to create division between us. To incite reprisals, particularly against those who shared his faith, so that peaceful coexistence would not longer be possible in our diverse city.

Turning to my scriptures, I found in the teachings of both Jesus and St Paul, that anger could be channelled in a different direction, not to revenge but defiance. It came to me that we could best defy the aims of the terrorist by using his action as a spur to draw closer to each other. We could combat his hatred not with hatred of our own but with love, and respond to his violence with peace. That, I became sure, was what Jesus had meant about turning the other cheek; what Paul had meant in commending acts of kindness and generosity towards our enemies.

So, this is my prayer for today.

Almighty God, I ask not that you take away my anger at violence and injustice, but that you will guide me to direct it along the paths of peace. May it strengthen me to defy hatred, and to be instead a force for love and reconciliation, not only in this Week of Prayer for World Peace, but always. Amen.


THU 05:45 Farming Today (m0023y1j)
17/10/24 - Review of Defra's rules, decline in the beef herd, wine harvest

The government has announced that Defra should be a 'key economic growth department' and has ordered a review into its regulations and regulators. That's been welcomed by some, like the Country Land and Business Association, which says ministers need 'a laser like focus on identifying and removing the barriers to economic growth in the countryside'. The National Farmers' Union told us it wants a 'proportionate and predictable' regulatory environment for farmers. But others are more wary: campaigners have described the move as 'dispiriting', fearing that it could mean less regulation to stimulate economic growth at the cost of environmental protections. The internal review will be led by an economist, Dan Corry, who was head of the Number 10 Policy Unit under Gordon Brown.

The size of England's beef herd has continued its fall. It's come down by 5% in the last year and now stands at 595000. In the ten years before that, the number of cattle bred for meat fell by 13%. The National Beef Association is calling on the Government to introduce new payments to farmers to halt what it calls an alarming trend.

UK winemakers' harvest is underway. It too has fallen victim to the weather which has made the cereal harvest in England one of the worst since the 1980s. For grapes, the wet cold weather prevented or delayed pollination, with some yields are down 90%.

Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Beatrice Fenton.


THU 06:00 Today (m0023x83)
17/10/24 - Amol Rajan and Emma Barnett

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


THU 08:57 DEC Middle East Humanitarian Appeal (m0024jzp)
An appeal on behalf of the Disasters Emergency Committee for the Humanitarian crisis in the Middle East.

To Give:
0330 123 0333 Standard geographic charges from landlines and mobiles will apply
Or you can write a cheque and make it payable to DEC Middle East Humanitarian Appeal,
And post it to DEC Middle East Humanitarian Appeal, PO Box 999, London EC3A 3AA.


THU 09:00 In Our Time (m0023x87)
Hayek's The Road to Serfdom

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Austrian-British economist Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (1944) in which Hayek (1899-1992) warned that the way Britain was running its wartime economy would not work in peacetime and could lead to tyranny. His target was centralised planning, arguing this disempowered individuals and wasted their knowledge, while empowering those ill-suited to run an economy. He was concerned about the support for the perceived success of Soviet centralisation, when he saw this and Fascist systems as two sides of the same coin. When Reader's Digest selectively condensed Hayek’s book in 1945, and presented it not so much as a warning against tyranny as a proof against socialism, it became phenomenally influential around the world.

With

Bruce Caldwell
Research Professor of Economics at Duke University and Director of the Center for the History of Political Economy

Melissa Lane
The Class of 1943 Professor of Politics at Princeton University and the 50th Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College in London

And

Ben Jackson
Professor of Modern History and fellow of University College at the University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets Since the Depression (Harvard University Press, 2012)

Bruce Caldwell, Hayek’s Challenge: An Intellectual Biography of F.A. Hayek (University of Chicago Press, 2004)

Bruce Caldwell, ‘The Road to Serfdom After 75 Years’ (Journal of Economic Literature 58, 2020)

Bruce Caldwell and Hansjoerg Klausinger, Hayek: A Life 1899-1950 (University of Chicago Press, 2022)

M. Desai, Marx’s Revenge: The Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism (Verso, 2002)

Edward Feser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hayek (Cambridge University Press, 2006)

Andrew Gamble, Hayek: The Iron Cage of Liberty (Polity, 1996)

Friedrich Hayek, Collectivist Economic Planning (first published 1935; Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2015), especially ‘The Nature and History of the Problem’ and ‘The Present State of the Debate’ by Friedrich Hayek

Friedrich Hayek (ed. Bruce Caldwell), The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents: The Definitive Edition (first published 1944; Routledge, 2008. Also vol. 2 of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, University of Chicago Press, 2007)

Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom: Condensed Version (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2005; The Reader’s Digest condensation of the book)

Friedrich Hayek, ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society’ (American Economic Review, vol. 35, 1945; vol. 15 of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, University of Chicago Press)

Friedrich Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order (first published 1948; University of Chicago Press, 1996), especially the essays ‘Economics and Knowledge’ (1937), ‘Individualism: True and False’ (1945), and ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society’ (1945)

Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (first published 1960; Routledge, 2006)

Friedrich Hayek, Law. Legislation and Liberty: A new statement of the liberal principles of justice and political economy (first published 1973 in 3 volumes; single vol. edn, Routledge, 2012)

Ben Jackson, ‘Freedom, the Common Good and the Rule of Law: Hayek and Lippmann on Economic Planning’ (Journal of the History of Ideas 73, 2012)

Robert Leeson (ed.), Hayek: A Collaborative Biography Part I (Palgrave, 2013), especially ‘The Genesis and Reception of The Road to Serfdom’ by Melissa Lane

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production


THU 09:45 Glued Up: The Sticky Story of Humanity (m001y8h3)
Coming Unstuck

In this series, materials scientist Mark Miodownik charts the journey of human progress through the sticky substances that have shaped us.

In episode five he explores how the sticking power of modern glues – in everything from phones to furniture and planes to wind turbines – pose a problem, because they can’t be UNstuck.

He hears how modern electronic devices contain more glue than ever before, making them harder to repair and more likely to end up in landfill. But new designs could make our tech more sustainable.

And he learns about research into reversible glues that can be turned off at the flick of a switch, and how they could change the way we make, fix and recycle our stuff.

Contributors:
Barny Greenland, University of Sussex
Liz Chamberlain, iFixit

Sound effects: scratching_rotten_wall by erpe, from Freesound

Producer: Anand Jagatia
Presenter: Mark Miodownik
Executive Producer: Sasha Feachem
BBC Studios Audio Production


THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0023x8c)
Midlife marriage and money, Sara Sharif, Blessing scams, Maddalena Vaglio Tanet

What are the economic implications of getting married in your midlife? Anita Rani is joined by the Financial Times’ Claer Barrett, writer and couples counsellor Lucy Cavendish and journalist and author Flic Everett to share their thoughts and experiences.

The murder trial of Sara Sharif, a 10-year-old girl found dead in Woking in August 2023, is at the Old Bailey in London. Sara's father Urfan Sharif, stepmother Beinash Batool, and uncle, Faisal Malik, have denied murder. BBC correspondent Helena Wilkinson talks to Anita about what the jury has been told so far.

Are Women's Super League football clubs overlooking female English coaches? The Football Association has an aim of 75% female coaches in this league, but the season started with four out of 12 female coaches, two of whom are English. The BBC’s senior women’s football reporter Emma Sanders joins Anita to discuss why this might be.

Blessing scams are targeting Chinese communities in the UK. They're usually carried out by women in groups of three, approaching people asking for help in Cantonese. Tuyet van Huynh's mother was one of these victims. After she was targeted, Tuyet set out to expose this practice on social media and has since heard from other victims. She speaks to Anita about the impact the crime has had on their family.

Italian author Maddalena Vaglio Tanet’s acclaimed debut novel Untold Lessons is a story she was born to write. Based on events that took place in her own family decades ago, Untold Lessons explores how a tragic event prompts the disappearance of a much-loved teacher, and what the double mystery tells us about the lives and attitudes of the people living her local community at the time.


THU 11:00 This Cultural Life (m0023x8h)
Hanif Kureishi

Novelist, playwright and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi's first screenplay, My Beautiful Launderette brought him Oscar and BAFTA nominations in 1985. Five years later his debut novel The Buddha Of Suburbia, set amidst the social divisions of mid 70’s Britain, became a bestseller and was adapted as a BBC television series. After eleven screenplays including My Son The Fanatic, Venus and The Mother, and nine novels, including Intimacy and the Black Album, his latest book is a memoir called Shattered. It records the year he spent in hospital after a fall on Boxing Day 2022 which has left him paralysed.

Hanif talks to John Wilson about the influence of his father, also a writer, who in part inspired his debut novel The Buddha Of Suburbia. He also talks about the influence of Freudian analysis on his writing and how he is coping with the effects of his life-changing accident.

Producer: Edwina Pitman


THU 11:45 The Lion, the Witch and the Wonder by Katherine Rundell (m0023x8m)
The Magic of Magic

In this gripping investigation of children’s fiction, award-winning author Katherine Rundell makes a passionate argument for a literature that is often underrated, yet whose magic can live on inside us for the rest of our lives. The best children’s books need to be good enough both for the hungriest child and the wisest, sharpest adult.

In the fourth of five original essays, Katherine Rundell asks what fantasy fiction is for. Writers have been inventing mythical creatures for centuries. Some serve as warnings to navigate our own terror, others are a vehicle for thinking about enchantment and power. Fantasy fiction opens a space for bold ideas and for feeding our imagination, which should never be considered an optional extra. And it’s children’s books that can keep that imagination alive, even in adulthood.

Katherine Rundell is an acclaimed writer for children, winning Author of the Year and Book of the Year for Impossible Creatures at the British Book Awards 2024 and winner of the Costa Children’s Book Award.

Written and presented by Katherine Rundell
Producer: Jo Glanville
Editor: Kirsten Lass
Production Co-ordinator: Heather Dempsey
Studio Engineer: Dan King

A Loftus Media Production for BBC Radio 4

Quotation credits:
Diana Wynne Jones: in Diana Wynne Jones: An Exciting and Exacting Wisdom, by Teya Rosenberg et al. Peter Lang Publishing, 2002, p170
Ursula LeGuin, The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction, Ultramarine Publishing, 1979, p. 204
Ursula le Guin, 'Some Assumptions About Fantasy', a speech by Ursula K. Le Guin, presented at the Children’s Literature Breakfast BookExpo America, Chicago, 4 June 2004

Photo credit: Nina Subin


THU 12:00 News Summary (m0023x8t)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 12:04 The Bottom Line (m0023x8y)
Evacuation: How to Rescue a Business From a War Zone

When a company finds itself facing war or natural disaster how can it get staff out of harm's way, and is there any chance of ensuring business as usual?

Evan Davis speaks to one business leader who helped move hundreds of staff out of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia when war broke out in 2022. Two crisis response companies explain how they have been helping clients with people and operations in Lebanon, Israel and parts of the USA recently hit by hurricanes.

Plus, what is an employer's obligation in these situations, and do the same rules apply to international as well as local hires?

Evan is joined by:

Ann Roberts, chief people officer, Flo;
James Waddington, global director of security assistance, International SOS;
Elmarie Marais, founder and CEO, GoCrisis;
and Anna, an employee at Wildix.

Production team:

Producer: Simon Tulett
Researchers: Drew Hyndman and Michaela Graichen
Editor: Matt Willis
Sound: Pete Wise and Tim Heffer
Production co-ordinator: Katie Morrison

(Picture: A Ukrainian flag flies from a destroyed building in Mariupol, April 2022. Credit: Reuters/Alexander Ermochenko/BBC)


THU 12:32 Sliced Bread (m0023x92)
Cleaning Sprays

Do we really need all those cleaning sprays?

Have a peek in anyone’s cupboard under the sink (ask first or it can get a bit weird) and you’re bound to find a clutch of cleaning sprays and products. The marketing often says they’re designed for certain rooms and do specific jobs.

But listener Alice wants to know if we really need different sprays for our bathrooms and kitchens. Will soap and water do the same job, and what about supermarket own-brand products? She’s also keen to know about the cleaning properties of natural products like vinegar…and what about the concentrated versions that allow you to add your own water?

Greg and Alice are joined by Dr Sally Bloomfield from the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene, as well as TV’s ‘Queen of Clean’, Lynsey Crombie, to run the science through the evidence mill.

All our investigations start with YOUR suggestions. If you've seen an ad, trend or wonder product promising to make you happier, healthier or greener, email us at sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk OR send a voicenote to our WhatsApp number 07543 306807

PRESENTER: GREG FOOT
PRODUCER: SIMON HOBAN


THU 12:57 Weather (m0023x95)
The latest weather forecast


THU 13:00 World at One (m0023x98)
Israel is accused of starving Gazans

Israel is accused of using starvation as a weapon in Northern Gaza. Retired General Giora Eiland denies the IDF is following a plan he devised to lay siege to the area. Plus, Professor Richard Bates explains how he uncovered a new tomb in Petra.


THU 13:45 The History Podcast (m0023x9b)
The Brighton Bomb

The Brighton Bomb: 9. Performance

When you get right down to it, everything in life is a matter of timing.

Any other evening, a knock at the door would put Patrick Magee on alert. As chance would have it, though, it being a Saturday, rent day, Magee, and the four other people in the flat with him on Glasgow’s Langside Road, are expecting the landlord.

Instead Magee opens the door to dozens of police and Special Branch officers who have over the past few hours massed around the address. They rush into the flat and overpower them before they have time to react.

After six years of trying, Special Branch finally have the man they have dubbed ‘the Chancer’, the man only a few of them as yet know bombed Brighton’s Grand Hotel.

Getting him to confess to it, or even speak, is another matter.

Written and presented by Glenn Patterson

Series Producer: Owen McFadden
Story Consultant and Sound Design: Alan Hall
Producer: Lena Ferguson
Archive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormick
Production Co-Ordinator: Hollie Wallace
Composer: Mark McCambridge
Sound Engineer: Claire Marquess
Mixing Engineer: Mike Woolley
Patrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions

Executive Producer Rachel Hooper

A Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films


THU 14:00 The Archers (m0023x9f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Wednesday]


THU 14:15 Drama on 4 (m0023x9h)
Sleaze

Siobhan and Max seem to lead a blissfully boring family life, complete with a young daughter and stable careers as teachers. But when Max’s old band - one hit wonders 15 years ago - reform following a hit new cover of their song, Siobhan begins to question the stories she has told herself about their relationship and their past. Then troubling allegations about the band begin to emerge…

Sleaze is an exploration of the culture of the early 2000s - in the music scene and more generally - and the generational shift that has occurred since then. The play delves into the ambiguities of memory and how the stories we tell of our life shifts as time moves on, and cultural tides change. It deals with challenging themes involving sexual assault and inappropriate relationships.

Sleaze is written by Joe von Malachowski and Will Close (the writing partnership behind Mediocre White Male). Featuring original music composed and performed by Phil McDonnell.

CAST:
Siobhan ..... Lydia Wilson
Max ..... Will Close
Ivan ..... Jonny Weldon
Hooper ..... Matthew Durkan
Chloe ..... Crystal Condie
Lucy ..... Jadie Rose Hobson

Writers: Joe von Malachowski & Will Close
Director: Anne Isger
Production Co-ordinator: Gaelan Davis-Connolly
Sound: Pete Ringrose, Ali Craig, Mike Etherden

Original music by Phil McDonnell

A BBC Studios Audio Production for BBC Radio 4


THU 15:00 Ramblings (m0023x9k)
GM Ringway - a new 200-mile walking route

Clare hikes along a section of the GM Ringway, Greater Manchester’s new walking trail. It’s a 200 mile route split into 20 stages, starting and ending in Manchester city centre. It goes around the edge of the county through all 10 boroughs of the region, and it’s linked with public transport so people can easily access the linear stages.

Joining Clare as she walks part of Stage 6, which is Strines to Marple, is Andrew Read whose brilliant idea this was. He was awarded £250k of funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund to make it happen.

The project also depends upon a legion of keen volunteers, several of whom join Clare for today’s walk. One of these is ‘Stage Guardian’ Roz Hughes who explains how important volunteer involvement is to keep the walk maintained in the long term.

The starting point of the walk, Strines Station, was described in The Railway Children. Craig Wright joined the group to share his enthusiasm for this classic children’s book, and - while reading a short section - points out aspects of a view that can be recognised from Edith Nesbit's descriptions.

Presenter: Clare Balding
Producer: Karen Gregor


THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (m0023x2v)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:54 on Sunday]


THU 15:30 Illuminated (m0023x45)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:15 on Sunday]


THU 16:00 Rethink (m0023x9q)
Rethink...pricing

Rethink looks at the issues of our time, and considers how we might approach them differently. Scrutinising the latest thinking and research, we look at what this might mean for policy and society.

In this episode: the cost of living has been high, but all too often, we also pay a premium. It's because of dynamic pricing, drip pricing and now personalised pricing.

Dynamic pricing is why, after queuing for hours, Oasis fans were offered tickets that were considerably more expensive than the ones advertised. It's also why do you can be offered different prices each time you try and book an airline ticket, or a hotel online.

Big data means that companies can figure out exactly what you are willing to pay online and can shift the price you face to match that.

AI data-gathering software is causing cartel-like behaviour amongst competitors, who can draw similar conclusions about their market, and set similar prices.

The depth of information available to companies means that they know the price a market will bear, rather than how much customers can afford and regardless of interest rates set by central banks.

Regulators are playing catch-up, but what other strategies could be used to combat anti-competitive pricing led by algorithms? And what needs to change to ensure buyers can work out if they're getting a fair deal?

Presenter: Ben Ansell
Producer: Ravi Naik
Editor: Clare Fordham

Contributors:
David Dayen, writer and journalist, and the executive editor of The American Prospect magazine.
Tom Smith, partner at Geradin, and former Legal Director at the UK Competition and Markets Authority.
Cathrine Jansson-Boyd, Professor of consumer psychology at Anglia Ruskin University.
Martyn James, consumer rights campaigner and journalist.


THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (m0023x9s)
Are our carbon sinks failing?

The Earth’s natural carbon sinks absorb half of our pollution. But now, they appear to be collapsing. Why is this happening – and will we be able to reach our climate goals without them?

Also this week, why a psychologist won the Nobel Prize in Physics, the culprit behind the second biggest mass extinction event, and does playing video games make you smarter?

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton
Producers: Sophie Ormiston, Ella Hubber, Anna Charalambou
Editor: Martin Smith
Production Co-ordinator: Andrew Rhys Lewis

BBC Inside Science is produced in collaboration with the Open University.


THU 17:00 PM (m0023x9v)
Hamas leader reportedly killed

Israel has reportedly killed the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar - a key figure in the planning and execution of the 7 October attacks on Israel last year. Also, the former UN humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths speaks to Evan Davis about Gaza, and being able to speak more freely now he’s left the UN.


THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0023x9x)
The Israeli Government says its soldiers have killed the Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar.


THU 18:27 DEC Middle East Humanitarian Appeal (m0024jzp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:57 today]


THU 18:30 Olga Koch: OK Computer (m0023x9z)
Series 3

3. Money

Comedian and computer scientist Olga Koch and her sassy digital assistant Algo open up their bank balances and tackle the controversial topic of money. What exactly is money? What does it mean to “have money”? Are taxes even real? No seriously, should you be opening those letters from HMRC at all?
Performed by Olga Koch
Written by Olga Koch and Charlie Dinkin

Featuring Rajiv Karia as Algo

Additional material from Rajiv Karia, Peter Tellouche and Christina Riggs

Produced by Benjamin Sutton
A BBC Studios Audio Production for BBC Radio 4


THU 19:00 The Archers (m0023xb2)
While Brad tries to study at The Tearoom, Chelsea moans about a group staying on past closing time. Then a stranger, Zainab, comes in and Chelsea refuses to serve her, before Brad’s coffee gets spilled over Zainab’s top. Zainab accepts a coffee as compensation before Natasha mentions they need to close up, but tells Zainab to wait inside until they’re done. Brad then wraps his scarf around Zainab’s shoulders to keep her warm, while Chelsea tells Natasha to go and pick up the twins, she’ll finish off and lock up.

Later, after they’ve finished, Chelsea thanks Brad and Zainab for helping. Zainab offers Brad his scarf back, but he tells her to keep it before going. Zainab offers a lift on her scooter and in return Chelsea offers to do Zainab’s eyebrows and eyelashes at Chelsea’s house tomorrow after work. A new friendship is born.

While helping Helen restock the shop Adam asks if there’s more juggling of staff in prospect. But what he really wants is reassurance that he’s done the right thing ordering spooky decorations for the school disco. Later, over a glass of wine, Adam suggests Helen could buy Kirsty’s Beechwood house if she really wants to help her, an idea Helen warms to while looking over the decorations Adam’s bought. One thing though, Helen checks that Ian told Adam it’s called ‘Spooky Day’ – and more specifically it’s a ‘Spooky Disco’? Adam is horrified when Helen outlines the problem some parents and schools have with the word Halloween – it is all over the bunting Adam bought.


THU 19:15 Front Row (m0023xb4)
Review: TV The Franchise; Film The Crime is Mine; Book Juice by Tim Winton

Mel Giedroyc and Sarah Crompton join Samira to review The Franchise, the new comedy series from Armando Iannucci offering a behind the scenes look at the filming of a superhero film franchise.

They also review Tim Winton’s epic new novel Juice, set in the future of a climate change ravaged Australia.

And Francois Ozon's new comedy film The Crime is Mine, which sees an actress charged with murder finding the courtroom the perfect place to launch her career starring Isabelle Huppert.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Corinna Jones


THU 20:00 The Media Show (m0023xb6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Wednesday]


THU 21:00 Loose Ends (m0023wjz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:15 on Saturday]


THU 21:45 The Warsaw Ghetto: History as Survival (m001l9cn)
4. The Jewish Postman

The story of the Oyneg Shabes archive. Between 1940-43 a group of dedicated writers, led by historian Emanuel Ringeblum, secretly recorded daily Jewish existence for the 500,000 souls trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto. The project became a race against time -history as survival. Anton Lesser narrates this 10 part series of the lives, stories & destruction of the Ghetto. Episode 4-The Jewish Postman. With Alfred Molina as Peretz Opoczynski.

In the middle of Europe, in the middle of the 20th Century, a half million Jewish men, women & children were herded into a prison city within a city. Walled off & surrounded by the German occupiers & their collaborators. How do you tell the world about your life and fate? Historian and activist Emanuel Ringelblum devised and directed a clandestine archive- codename Oyneg Shabes (Joy of the Sabbath) to chronicle every aspect of their existence. He recruited over 60 'zamlers' or gatherers to write, collect & compile thousands of pages-diaries, essays, poems, photographs, statistical studies, art, ephemera -a historical treasure that was buried even as the Ghetto was being extinguished so that the world might read and understand. Listen to their stories

Episode 4-The Jewish Postman. Separated from the rest of Warsaw parallel institutions and jobs were needed. Peretz Opoczynski trudged up & down the ruined buildings of the ghetto to deliver eagerly sought letters from loved ones & from abroad.

Narration by Anton Lesser & featuring Alfred Molina. Translation by David Suchoff. Historical adviser Samuel Kassow. Written & produced by Mark Burman.
For more information on the Oyneg Shabes/Ringeblum archive go to the website of the Jewish Historical Institute https://cbj.jhi.pl/


THU 22:00 The World Tonight (m0023xb8)
Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas, killed in Gaza

The man who led Hamas for seven years and orchestrated the October 7th attacks against Israel has been killed by the IDF. Yahya Sinwar died in a firefight in central Gaza. US President Joe Biden has spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and urged him to seize the opportunity to bring the war in Gaza to an end. Since it began the war has claimed the lives of more than 42,000 people. An air strike on a school in Jabalia on Thursday left a further 22 people dead.


THU 22:45 The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (m0023zl7)
Episode Four

In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering expats from across history to test the limits of time-travel. Her role is to work as a 'bridge' - living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847', Commander Graham Gore, a member of John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition.

Along with his fellow 'expats' – extracted from the Great Plague, the Battle of Naseby, the French Revolution and the Battle of the Somme - Gore must be introduced to the internal combustion engine, women’s emancipation, computer dating apps, the smoking ban, and 21st Century cultural and social sensitivities. Among these are the narrator’s ambivalent feelings about her own mixed-race heritage.

The role of a Bridge, she discovers, may be well-paid, but it’s complex and difficult to navigate, particularly when the Victorian explorer sharing her living space is an attractive, infuriating, deeply sexy adventurer. When it becomes apparent that the very future is at stake, the job becomes both more complicated and more dangerous.

Episode 4: The Time Travellers' party.

Kaliane Bradley is a British-Cambodian writer and editor who has won the 2022 Harper’s Bazaar Short Story prize and the 2022 V S Pritchett Short Story Prize. The Ministry of Time is her debut novel, widely acclaimed as exciting, clever, funny and gripping - ‘a little time-bomb of a book’ according to the writer Francis Spufford. It was shortlisted for this year’s Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, and is a Sunday Times and New York Times best-seller. It also featured on Barack Obama’s reading list this summer.

The reader is Aoife Hinds, known for her roles in TV’s Derry Girls and Normal People.

Abridged and produced by Sara Davies
Production Co-ordinator: Sarah Tombling
Sound Designer: Matt Bainbridge
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


THU 23:00 The Today Podcast (m0023xbb)
Michael Gove on right-wing politics, the Tories and Trump v Harris

After two decades in politics, including 10 cabinet positions under four prime ministers, Michael Gove is no stranger to the heat of a Conservative leadership contest. With Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick now going head-to-head in the final stage of the race to choose the party’s next leader, the Tory veteran joins Nick and Amol to give his assessment of the two candidates. What are their strengths and weaknesses? And what is the future - not just of the Conservative party - but the right more broadly?

Now out of politics, Michael Gove also discusses his new role as editor of The Spectator magazine, why he’d vote for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump and why he’d vote against changing the law on assisted dying in the UK.

If you have a question you’d like Amol and Nick to answer, get in touch by sending us a message or voice note on WhatsApp to +44 330 123 4346 or send an email to today@bbc.co.uk.

The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson, both presenters of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Amol was the BBC’s media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he’s also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick was the BBC’s political editor for ten years before and was also ITV’s political editor.

To get Amol and Nick's take on the biggest stories of the week, with insights from behind the scenes at the UK's most influential radio news programme, subscribe to The Today Podcast on BBC Sounds so you don’t miss an episode. You can also listen any time on your smart speaker by saying “Smart Speaker, ask BBC Sounds to play The Today Podcast.”

The senior producer is Lewis Vickers, the producer is Hatty Nash, research and digital production from Joe Wilkinson. The editor is Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths. Technical production from Mike Regaard.


THU 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0023xbd)
Susan Hulme reports from Westminster as ministers set out their plans for reform of the criminal justice system.

FRIDAY 18 OCTOBER 2024

FRI 00:00 Midnight News (m0023xbg)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


FRI 00:30 The Trust Shift (m001xmfm)
Distributed Trust

Across five episodes, Rachel Botsman traces the intriguing history of trust.

Rachel looks back on what she sees as the three major chapters of trust in human history. In the broadest terms, these are Local Trust, Institutional Trust, and Distributed Trust. As we’ve moved from one to the next, we've experienced, what she calls, ‘Trust Shifts’.

These shifts have happened because humans took a risk to try something new. To innovate in ways that have shaped our behaviours, for better or worse. Rachel reflects on how each trust shift has profoundly changed the dynamics of our lives; whether that’s how we bank or buy goods, vote, learn, travel, date, and importantly, find and consume information.

In Episode 4, Rachel charts the rise of the trust shift we've experienced in our own lifetimes: Distributed Trust. The kind of trust that used to be centralised in institutions, which is often hierarchical, and controlled, is now being distributed through networks and platforms. For better or worse, this shift is facilitating the sharing of trust across vast networks of people, on a scale that wasn’t possible before.

Featuring Rikke Rosenlund, founder of Borrow My Doggy: an online platform that connects local owners with people who want to look after a dog.

Rachel Botsman is the author of Who Can You Trust? and What's Mine Is Yours. She was Oxford University’s first Trust Fellow and has worked with world leaders, the Bank of England, CEOs and financial regulators.

Producer: Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio, Bristol
Editor: Chris Ledgard


FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0023xbj)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0023xbl)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0023xbn)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


FRI 05:30 News Briefing (m0023xbq)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4


FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0023xbs)
Blessed are the peacemakers

Good morning.

‘Blessed are the peacemakers’, says Jesus addressing the crowd, ‘For they will be called children of God’. Like most of the other groups on whom he invokes a blessing during his Sermon on the Mount, the catch is in the tense. As with the meek, the mournful and the merciful, their reward awaits them in the future, its coming will be part of the breaking in of God’s Kingdom. In the meantime, their lot may not be so fortunate.

For the last few years I have served as Bishop Visitor to the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship. Formed in 1937, it was one of the groups that inspired the founding of the Week of Prayer for World Peace which ends on Sunday. Pacifists are often caricatured as cowardly or lacking in patriotism. Yet in their commitment to peacemaking, a commitment undimmed in even the least promising seasons, they rank among the bravest and most determined people I know. Christians among them seek out in practice something that the theologian Tertullian first wrote around the year 200AD, that when Jesus disarmed St Peter, he disarmed every soldier. Whilst I don’t count myself as a pacifist, I believe that the voice of pacifism has a proper part to play in all conversations about peace and conflict, and yet it remains a voice that often goes unheard.

So today, I want to pray for all peacemakers, pacifists and others, that their voice may not be silenced amid the rattling of sabres. That, especially when conflict seems close, we will listen to their protestations, and be prepared, even if we ultimately fall short, to strive again for peace. Amen.


FRI 05:45 Farming Today (m0023xbv)
18/10/24 - COP 16, soil microbes, wine tourisim

The UK is in danger of violating international agreements on restoring nature, that's according to the Wildlife Trusts. The Trusts' chief executive, Craig Bennet, tells us next week's COP 16 on biodiversity is a crucial chance for the Government to demonstrate how it will meet targets.

Tom Heap explores the microscopic world of microbes, including an experiment to improve the resilience of wheat.

Viticulture is one of the fastest growing parts of agriculture here in the UK. Recent data shows that more than 80 new vineyards opened in 2023, bringing the total number to over a thousand for the first time. But many rely on tourism to make them financially stable, and the industry body Wine GB estimates there were over 1.5 million visits to vineyards and wineries last year.

Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Beatrice Fenton


FRI 06:00 Today (m0023yfk)
18/10/24 - Justin Webb and Nick Robinson

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


FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (m001hwt9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Sunday]


FRI 09:45 Continental Divides (m0023g6k)
Episode 1 - Winners and Losers

Misha Glenny explores a number of political divides facing Europe and asks whether the continent is undergoing the same crises it went through in the 1930s.

In this first episode, he investigates two countries that have elected ultra-conservative leaders over the last 15 years – Viktor Orban in Hungary in 2010 and Giorgia Meloni in Italy in 2022. Speaking to a range of voices from former politicians to academics, journalists and economists, Misha unpacks the importance of economic and social crises in their electoral success, whether it was the 2008 financial crash in Hungary or the Covid pandemic in Italy.

Producer: Artemis Irvine
Executive Producer: Robert Nicholson

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0023yfm)
Elkie Brooks, 'Emotional vampires', Breast cancer drug

Why has a drug that can extend life for advanced breast cancer patients not been made available on the NHS? NICE have made the decision that Enhertu, a drug that can give around an extra six months to live on average, is too expensive. BBC Health Correspondent Cath Burns joins Anita Rani alongside Kate Wills, who has stage 4 cancer and has been campaigning for the drug to be made available.

Do you have an 'emotional vampire' in your life? It’s that person who can make you feel drained with their negativity, who isn’t taking your own emotions into account. It can make for tricky relationships – so how do you identify an emotional vampire, and how do you handle that person? Chartered psychologist and author Suzy Reading joins Anita to discuss, alongside journalist and author Radhika Sanghani.

Elkie Brooks is the renowned British rock, jazz and blues singer. In a career spanning six decades, she was the biggest selling female British artist and still holds the accolade of the most Top 75 albums among female artists. She began singing professionally aged 15, shared a bill with The Beatles and went on to front the group Vinegar Joe with Robert Palmer, before going solo. She’s currently on her Long Farewell Tour and joins Anita in the studio to talk about her career and turning 80 next year.

In the latest in our series on special educational needs and disabilities we speak to the comedian Josephine Lacey. Today, we are looking at a very personal issue which will resonate for some mothers of boys with SEND. Josephine joins Anita in the studio.

Presenter: Anita Rani
Producer: Emma Pearce


FRI 11:00 The Food Programme (m0023yfp)
Eating on the Spectrum

Leyla Kazim explores how neurodivergence can affect the way people eat and experience food.

The programme visits Aubergine Café in Cardiff, which is owned and run by autistic individuals, to meet the staff who explain why the café is needed and how it provides a better workplace for neurodivergent people.

Leyla also speaks to expert dietitian David Rex, who supports children with autism facing eating challenges. She meets the parents of one of his patients, a four-year-old girl recently diagnosed with ARFID (Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder). David explains the role of "safe foods" and how they can both aid and complicate recovery.

At The Holmewood School in north London, a specialist school for neurodivergent children, teachers and students share with Leyla how their new food technology kitchen is transforming some children's relationship with food, while also building skills and pride.

And renowned chef Heston Blumenthal, owner of The Fat Duck restaurant, discusses his own experiences with ADHD and bipolar disorder.

The programme also features:

Kate Tchanturia, a professor of psychology in eating disorders at King's College London, who developed the PEACE pathway to support autistic people with anorexia.

Lucinda Miller, clinical lead at NatureDoc and author of Brain Brilliance, a book of recipes and guidance for parents of neurodivergent children.

Leanne Maskell, founder of ADHD Works, a company providing ADHD coaching.

Presented by Leyla Kazim
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Natalie Donovan


FRI 11:45 The Lion, the Witch and the Wonder by Katherine Rundell (m0023yfr)
The Looking Glass

In this gripping investigation of children’s fiction, award-winning author Katherine Rundell makes a passionate argument for a literature that is often underrated, yet whose magic can live on inside us for the rest of our lives. The best children’s books need to be good enough both for the hungriest child and the wisest, sharpest adult.

In her final original essay, Katherine Rundell argues that children’s books are not a luxury, but fundamental to our culture and to the society we build. Reading for pleasure can change your life and books can offer a vision of the world as it is, and as it might be. So we have to fight to ensure that all children have the opportunity to seek out books.

Katherine Rundell is an acclaimed writer for children, winning Author of the Year and Book of the Year for Impossible Creatures at the British Book Awards 2024 and winner of the Costa Children’s Book Award.

Written and presented by Katherine Rundell
Producer: Jo Glanville
Editor: Kirsten Lass
Production Co-ordinator: Heather Dempsey
Studio Engineer: Dan King

A Loftus Media Production for BBC Radio 4

Photo credit: Nina Subin


FRI 12:00 News Summary (m0023yft)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 12:04 Rare Earth (m0023yfw)
The Magic of Microbes

The environment and wildlife show returns with a celebration of the humble microbe. Tom Heap and Helen Czerski are joined by a ‘microbe explorer’ who travels to some of the Earth’s most hostile environments in search of microbes with a huge appetite for carbon dioxide. They also be visit the crop trial field station of Imperial College London where researchers are studying changes to bacteria in soil that could help agriculture and the environment.

Producer: Emma Campbell

Assistant Producer: Toby Field

Rare Earth is made by BBC Audio Wales and West in association with the Open University.


FRI 12:57 Weather (m0023yfy)
The latest weather forecast


FRI 13:00 World at One (m0023yg0)
Will Sinwar's death lead to a Gaza ceasefire?

President Biden joins calls for a ceasefire after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. A former Israeli negotiator discusses if there is now a diplomatic route to end the war. Plus how trustworthy is your Alexa? A new study accuses the devices of repeating untruths.


FRI 13:45 The History Podcast (m0023yg2)
The Brighton Bomb

The Brighton Bomb: 10. No Penny for the Pat

Remember remember the 5th of November. The Gunpowder Plot has been seared into centuries of British popular history. Why have the events of October 1984 and the attempt to wipe out a Prime Minister and her cabinet not been committed to our public consciousness in the same way?

For the principal contributors in our series, the events of 40 years ago had a seismic impact on their lives. What, if anything, did the Brighton time bomb achieve?

Written and presented by Glenn Patterson

Series Producer: Owen McFadden
Story Consultant and Sound Design: Alan Hall
Producer: Lena Ferguson
Archive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormick
Production Co-Ordinator: Hollie Wallace
Composer: Mark McCambridge
Sound Engineer: Claire Marquess
Mixing Engineer: Mike Woolley
Patrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions

Executive Producer Rachel Hooper

A Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films


FRI 14:00 The Archers (m0023xb2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Thursday]


FRI 14:15 Limelight (m00238rh)
Central Intelligence

Central Intelligence: Episode 6

The inside story of the CIA from the perspective of Eloise Page (Kim Cattrall), who joined on the Agency’s first day in 1947 and, in a 40-year career, became one of its most influential figures. Eloise takes the listener on a journey through the highs and lows of US foreign policy, spanning the staggering world events that shaped her career, as well as portraying her relationships with early CIA leaders, Allen Dulles (Ed Harris) and Richard Helms (Johnny Flynn).

New episodes available on Fridays. Listen first on BBC Sounds.

In Episode 6, the discovery of a network of spies deep behind Soviet lines leads to the most brilliant operation of the Cold War.

Cast:
Eloise Page……….Kim Cattrall
Allen Dulles……….Ed Harris
Richard Helms……….Johnny Flynn
Frank Wisner……….Geoffrey Arend
Kermit Roosevelt……….Rob Benedict
Young Eloise Page……….Elena Delia
General Bedell-Smith and General Eisenhower……….Kerry Shale
James Jesus Angleton……….Philip Desmeles
Clover Dulles……….Laurel Lefkow
Julia Helms……….Julee Cerda
Lyman Kilpatrick……….Akie Kotabe
John Foster Dulles………. Nathan Osgood
Bill Machle & Sienko……….Hubert Hanowicz

All other parts were played by members of the cast

Original music by Sacha Puttnam

Production:
Written by Greg Haddrick, who created the series with Jeremy Fox
Sound Designers & Editors: John Scott Dryden, Adam Woodhams, Martha Littlehailes & Andreina Gomez
Script Consultant: Misha Kawnel
Script Supervisor: Alex Lynch
Trails: Jack Soper
Archive Research: Andy Goddard & Alex Lynch
Production Assistant: Jo Troy
Sonica Studio Sound Engineers: Mat Clark & Paul Clark
Sonica Runner: Flynn Hallman
Marc Graue Sound Engineers, LA: Juan Martin del Campo & Tony Diaz
Margarita Mix, Santa Monica Sound Engineer, LA: Bruce Bueckert
Mirrortone Sound Engineers, NY: Collin Stanley Dwarzski and James Quesada

Director: John Scott Dryden
Producer & Casting Director: Emma Hearn
Executive Producers: Howard Stringer, Jeremy Fox, Greg Haddrick and John Scott Dryden.

A Goldhawk production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 14:45 Buried (m001hp4z)
Series 1

Series 1 - 10. What Joe Knew

Justice at last over Mobuoy - and a legal first by the river. Then, in a finale of twists and answers, we uncover the secret that disturbed Joe until the end.

"All you have to do... is dig it up."

A trucker’s deathbed tape plays out. It’s urgent, desperate.

In this BBC Radio 4 podcast series, investigative journalists Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor deep-dive into one of the worst environment crimes in UK history - the secret dumping of a million tonnes of waste near a city. But when they uncover missing documents, fears of toxicity and allegations of organised crime, they realise they’ve stumbled into something much bigger. As they pick at the threads of one crime, they begin to see others. Could Britain be the home of a new mafia, getting rich on our waste?

In a thrilling ten-part investigation, the husband-and-wife duo dive into a criminal underworld, all the time following clues left in a deathbed tape. They’re driven by one question - what did the man in the tape know?

Presenters and Producers: Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor
Assistant Producer: Tess Davidson
Original Music and Sound Design: Phil Channell
Sound Design and Series Mixing: Jarek Zaba
Executive Producers: Phil Abrams and Anita Elash
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke

A Smoke Trail production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m0023yg4)
Postbag Edition: Mires Beck Nursery - Pond Liners, Witches' Broom and Badgers

How do I stop badgers from eating my tulips? Any tips on changing a ripped pond liner? How do I effectively take cuttings from a plant?

Kathy Clugston and her panel of horticultural heroes take a wander around Mires Beck Nursery in Hull, while dipping into the GQT postbag to answer your gardening grievances.

Joining forces with Kathy are head gardener Matthew Pottage, garden designer Bunny Guinness and curator of RHS Bridgewater Marcus Chilton-Jones. The panellists are joined by various workers and volunteers from the nursery who share own tips and tricks on gardening challenges, such as planting trees from seed and planting native varieties.

Producer: Dominic Tyerman
Assistant Producer: Rahnee Prescod
Executive Producer: Carly Maile

Click here for the Plant List: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0023yg4

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 15:45 Short Works (m0023yg6)
The Archaic Smile

A holiday in the sun isn't the relaxing break one couple were counting on in a haunting new short work from Chris Kohler.
Read by Chris Reilly
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie

Chris Kohler is from Glasgow, Scotland. His short stories have been published in 3am, Egress, The Stinging Fly, The Moth, Gutter, Dark Mountain and Minor Literatures. He was shortlisted for the VS Pritchett Short Story Prize 2023. His debut novel Phantom Limb is published by Atlantic Books.

An EcoAudio certified production from BBC Audio Scotland.


FRI 16:00 Last Word (m0023yg8)
Alex Salmond, Ethel Kennedy, Ratan Tata, Fleur Adcock

Kirsty Lang on

Alex Salmond, the former First Minister of Scotland.

Ethel Kennedy, wife of Robert F Kennedy who went onto become a campaigner for Human Rights.

Ratan Tata, the businessman who led the Tata Group for more than two decades.

Fleur Adcock, the poet who's conversational, irreverent style made her one of the most popular voices in British poetry.

Interviewee: Brian Taylor
Interviewee: Michael Posner
Interviewee: Sameer Hashmi
Interviewee: Deryn Rhys-Jones
Interviewee: Neil Astley

Producer: Gareth Nelson-Davies

Archive used:

Alex Salmond, Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, 21/01/2011; Alex Salmond, BBC TV Promo, A Rebel's Journey, BBC One Scotland, 19/11/2014; Alex Salmond speech, SNP Conference, BBC News, 1990; Alex Salmond speech, Scotland Independence Referendum, BBC News, 2014; Ethel Kennedy campaign speech, Ethel, HBO Docs, 2012, Director: Rory Kennedy; JFK Assassination: Cronkite informs a shocked nation, CBS News, 22/11/1963; News actuality, WBZ Archives: The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, CBS Boston YouTube channel uploaded 05/06/2018; Ethel Kennedy interview, NBC Nightly News,1988; Ethel Kennedy interview, Ethel, HBO Docs, 2012, Director: Rory Kennedy; Ratan Tata interview, The Documentary: The Gospel of Wealth, BBC World Service, 16/10/2019; Ratan Tata interview, Tata in the Global Market, BBC News India, 1997; Jaguar-Land Rover buyout, BBC News, 26/03/2008; Fleur Adcock reads: ‘Things’, ‘For a Five-Year-Old’, Snails, Courtesy BloodAxe Books, Uploaded, Bloodaxebooks.com on 01/10/2008; Fleur Adcock interview, Private Passions, BBC Radio 3, 17/05/2009;


FRI 16:30 More or Less (m0023xzr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Wednesday]


FRI 17:00 PM (m0023ygb)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.


FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0023ygd)
Hamas has confirmed that its leader, Yahya Sinwar, is dead


FRI 18:30 The News Quiz (m0023ygg)
Series 115

Inflation and Incinerators

This week on The News Quiz, the panel assess the fall in inflation, Wes Streeting's latest bright idea.

Written by Lucy Porter, with additional material by: Mike Shephard, Tasha Dhanraj, Peter Tellouche and Alfie Packham.
Producer: Rajiv Karia
Executive Producer: James Robinson
Production Coordinator: Jodie Charman
Sound Editor: Marc Willcox

A BBC Studios Audio Production for Radio 4
An Eco-Audio certified Production


FRI 19:00 The Archers (m0023ygj)
Writer: Naylah Ahmed
Director: Pip Swallow
Editor: Jeremy Howe

Helen Archer…. Louiza Patikas
Henry Archer…. Blayke Darby
Natasha Archer…. Mali Harries
Pat Archer…. Patricia Gallimore
Neil Carter…. Brian Hewlett
Clarrie Grundy…. Heather Bell
Ed Grundy…. Barry Farrimond
Emma Grundy…. Emerald O’Hanrahan
Will Grundy…. Philip Molloy
Brad Horrobin…. Taylor Uttley
Chelsea Horrobin…. Madeleine Leslay
Adam Macy…. Andrew Wincott
Zainab Malik…. Priyasasha Kamari
Kirsty Miller…. Annabelle Dowler
Elizabeth Pargetter…. Alison Dowling
Fallon Rogers…. Joanna Van Kampen


FRI 19:15 Screenshot (m0023ygl)
Archaeology

To mark the tenth anniversary of BBC sitcom Detectorists, Mark Kermode and Ellen E Jones dig into archaeologists and treasure hunters on screen.

Mark speaks first to stand-up comedian and actor Alexei Sayle about his small, but pivotal, role in the third Indiana Jones film The Last Crusade.

Mark then talks to Italian director Alice Rohrwacher, whose recent film La Chimera is the story of a down-at-heel tomb raider, played by Josh O’Connor, looting Etruscan artefacts in 1980s Italy.

Meanwhile, Ellen speaks to French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop about her new film Dahomey - a docudrama that follows 26 looted treasures from the 19th century Kingdom of Dahomey, as they make their return trip from Paris to present-day Benin.

And she talks to Mackenzie Crook, creator and star of Detectorists, about how an episode of Time Team inspired the series - about a pair of Essex metal detectorists hunting for long-buried treasures from the past.

Producer: Jane Long
A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (m0023ygn)
Hilary Benn MP, David Brooks MLA, Chris Donnelly, Tina McKenzie

Alex Forsyth presents political discussion from Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Hilary Benn MP, the DUP MLA David Brooks, the political commentator and columnist for The Irish News Chris Donnelly and the Policy Chair of the Federation of Small Businesses Tina McKenzie.
Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Lead broadcast engineer: Michael Hart


FRI 20:50 A Point of View (m0023ygq)
Naughtie on America

2. Words, Words, Words

From the description of Alexander Hamilton as 'the bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar', to Lyndon Johnson's depiction of Gerald Ford as a man who 'couldn't fart and chew gum at the same time', James Naughtie argues that American political language has long been teeming with insult.

He recalls as a student in 1974, queuing at the back door of the White House one evening and coming away with transcripts of the Watergate tapes, full of 'expletive deleted' notes 'that blacked out various Nixon explosions.'

But in our own time, James says, something quite different is at play. The language of politics today, he says, 'instead of being punctuated by insults, it's become enslaved to them. And the more exaggerated political language becomes, the more it is devalued - because it has lost its true purpose.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith


FRI 21:00 Free Thinking (m0023ygs)
Insiders & Outsiders

The philosopher Leo Strauss claimed that many of the great texts of Western philosophy can be read in two ways. There's the message intended for everybody, but also a deeper level, accessible only to those who can see it. Taking this as a starting point, Matthew Sweet grapples with the closed world of social media tribes, the challenges posed by conspiracy theory, and the history of thinking in allegorical symbols.
With:
Marianna Spring, the BBC's Disinformation Correspondent
Lisa Bortolotti, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham
Daniel Herskowitz, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Theology & Religion, University of Oxford
Hugh Cullimore, PhD student at the Warburg Institute

And Constantine Sandis, Director of Lex Academic discusses the shortlist for the 2024 Nayef Al-Rodhan Book Prize in Transdisciplinary Philosophy. The shortlisted books are:
Chris Armstrong, Global Justice and the Biodiversity Crisis (Oxford University Press).
Mazviita Chirimuuta, The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience (The MIT Press).
Shannon Vallor, The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking (Oxford University Press).

https://royalinstitutephilosophy.org/book-prize/

Producer: Luke Mulhall


FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (m0023ygv)
Will Hamas leader's death end Gaza war?

The killing of the leader of Hamas has led to calls for a ceasefire, as fears of a winter famine grow. We hear from inside Gaza.

Also tonight:

As the Foreign Secretary David Lammy promises "cooperation" with China on a visit to Beijing, the son of Jimmy Lai, the British citizen jailed in Hong Kong for supporting democracy, urges Mr Lammy to make that conditional.

The TV presenter Mariella Frostrup on how she hopes to tackle gender inequity in the workplace as the government's new menopause employment ambassador.

And it's hot stuff: are celebrities' hot sauces driving the booming demand for spicy seasoning?


FRI 22:45 The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (m0023zl9)
Episode Five

In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering expats from across history to test the limits of time-travel. Her role is to work as a 'bridge' - living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847', Commander Graham Gore, a member of John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition.

Along with his fellow 'expats' – extracted from the Great Plague, the Battle of Naseby, the French Revolution and the Battle of the Somme - Gore must be introduced to the internal combustion engine, women’s emancipation, computer dating apps, the smoking ban, and 21st Century cultural and social sensitivities. Among these are the narrator’s ambivalent feelings about her own mixed-race heritage.

The role of a Bridge, she discovers, may be well-paid, but it’s complex and difficult to navigate, particularly when the Victorian explorer sharing her living space is an attractive, infuriating, deeply sexy adventurer. When it becomes apparent that the very future is at stake, the job becomes both more complicated and more dangerous.

Episode 5: A traitor and a saboteur.

Kaliane Bradley is a British-Cambodian writer and editor who has won the 2022 Harper’s Bazaar Short Story prize and the 2022 V S Pritchett Short Story Prize. The Ministry of Time is her debut novel, widely acclaimed as exciting, clever, funny and gripping - ‘a little time-bomb of a book’ according to the writer Francis Spufford. It was shortlisted for this year’s Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, and is a Sunday Times and New York Times best-seller. It also featured on Barack Obama’s reading list this summer.

The reader is Aoife Hinds, known for her roles in TV’s Derry Girls and Normal People.

Abridged and produced by Sara Davies
Production Co-ordinator: Sarah Tombling
Sound Designer: Matt Bainbridge
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 23:00 Americast (m0023ygx)
Will abortion decide the election? It might in Arizona...

Many voters will be picking the candidate that aligns with their views on abortion access this year, and in some states, the issue is literally on the ballot.

One of them is Arizona, where people are voting on the law around access, and Sarah's been speaking to voters about the debate.

We discuss why it’s the debate that Democrats hope this election comes down to, and what Trump's changing view on it is.

CHOSTS:

* Justin Webb, Radio 4 presenter
* Sarah Smith, North America Editor
* Marianna Spring, Disinformation and Social Media Correspondent
* Anthony Zurcher, North America Correspondent

GET IN TOUCH:

* Join our online community: https://discord.gg/qSrxqNcmRB
* Send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 9480
* Email Americast@bbc.co.uk
* Or use #Americast

This episode was made by Chris Flynn with George Dabby, Catherine Fusillo and Rufus Gray. The technical producer was Ben Andrews. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

If you want to be notified every time we publish a new episode, please subscribe to us on BBC Sounds by hitting the subscribe button on the app.

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Americast is part of the BBC News Podcasts family of podcasts. The team that makes Americast also makes lots of other podcasts, including The Global Story, The Today Podcast, and of course Newscast and Ukrainecast. If you enjoy Americast (and if you're reading this then you hopefully do), then we think that you will enjoy some of our other pods too. See links below.

The Global Story: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/w13xtvsd
The Today Podcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0gg4k6r
Newscast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/p05299nl
Ukrainecast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0bqztzm


FRI 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0023ygz)
News from Westminster with Sean Curran, where Peers debate which British values should be taught in schools.