SATURDAY 10 MARCH 2012

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (b01cp8ft)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


SAT 00:30 Book of the Week (b01d2gt8)
Then They Came for Me

Episode 5

Maziar Bahari left London in June 2009 to cover Iran's presidential election, believing he would return to his pregnant fiancée, Paola, in just a few days. In fact, he would spend the next three months in Iran's most notorious prison, enduring brutal interrogation sessions.

During his time in prison, Bahari drew strength from the similar experiences of his family in the past: his father had been imprisoned by the shah in the 1950s and his sister by Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1980s.

Read by Philip Arditti and Peter Hamilton Dyer.

'Then They Came for Me' is by Maziar Bahari, with Aimee Molloy. The book is published by Oneworld
Abridged by Richard Hamilton
Produced by Emma Harding.

Music tracks from CD Iranian Chronicles (2008), by David Bergeaud
Label: CD Baby.Com/Indys
ASIN: B001MIFY46


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01cp8fw)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01cp8fy)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at 5.20am.


SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01cp8g0)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 05:30 News Briefing (b01cp8g2)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01cwx24)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Roger Hutchings, Methodist minister.


SAT 05:45 iPM (b01cwx26)
Marriage Understood: Lenny Bruce, Laurel & Hardy and our listeners explain wedded bliss.Eddie Mair uses music, poetry, comedy and personal testimony to explore what marriage is. iPM@bbc.co.uk.


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (b01cp8g4)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SAT 06:04 Weather (b01cp8g6)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 06:07 Ramblings (b01cwv4f)
Inspirational Walks

Brecon Beacons - Art in the Park

Clare Balding walks part of the Beacons Way in the Brecon Beacons National Park to find out how people are being inspired to create their own response to the surrounding landscape. The Park's landscape has inspired artists for generations and today Clare is joined by Robert Macdonald, one of 8 artists to create a series of images which are set into stone along sections of the footpath as part of a project called 'Art in the Park'. Groups from schools and colleges, as well as people from outside of the Park boundaries, have been encouraged to walk sections of the Beacons Way and gain inspiration themselves from the art work and from the landscape around them.

Leading the walk today are some of the people involved with the project from both National Park and the Brecon Beacons Park Society and, as they walk, Clare talks to members of a group from Drugaid Cymru to find out how the project is helping, and inspiring, them.

Presenter: Clare Balding
Producer: Helen Chetwynd.


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (b01d0fqk)
Farming Today This Week

Schmallenberg virus was never heard of before last summer. Now over 3,000 animals across Europe have this disease which causes birth defects in lambs and calves.

Charlotte Smith visits the Royal Veterinary College's farm in Hertfordshire, which has two cases of Schmallenberg in their lambs. Professor Peter Mertens explains why midges are thought to be carrying the virus over the Channel, and Dr Matt Horte from the Met Office shows the models they are using to discover where the midges flew to.

Anna Hill meets a vet who has been dealing with Schmallenberg in cattle in Norfolk. Dr Alejandro Thiermann from the World Organisation for Animal Health warns that next year Schmallenberg could affect even more animals. And Professor Matthew Baylis from Liverpool University Climate and Infectious Diseases of Animals predicts that the UK could be seeing more midge borne viruses in the future.

Presented by Charlotte Smith. Produced by Emma Weatherill.


SAT 06:57 Weather (b01cp8g8)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 07:00 Today (b01d0fwx)
With John Humphrys and Sarah Montague. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (b01d0fwz)
Joan Collins, Aoife Mannix, Hammer actor, Most Compassionate Mum, Morse Code Sound Sculpture, Duke Fakir's Inheritance Tracks

Richard Coles with Joan Collins, poet Aoife Mannix, Hammer House of Horror actor Shane Briant, the mother of three who took adopted her friend's 5 children when tragedy struck, a voice artist makes us go 'aaaaah', a Sound Sculpture about Morse Code and the Inheritance Tracks of Duke Fakir from The Four Tops.

Producer: Sukey Firth.


SAT 10:00 Excess Baggage (b01d0fx1)
Russia - Crimea - Ukraine

Sandi Toksvig discusses the 'Wild East' - Russia - with the BBC's former Moscow correspondent, Martin Sixsmith. Actor Michael Simkins relates his adventures on a rail journey from London to Kiev and on to Crimea to visit the former site of the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava in 1854 - and author and linguist Anna Shevchenko explains why she believes Ukraine, where she was born, is a 'hidden' country with much to offer the traveller.

Producer: Harry Parker.


SAT 10:30 The Art of Monarchy (b01d0g3b)
The People

The Royal Collection is one of the most wide-ranging collections of art and artefacts in the world and provides an intriguing insight into the minds of the monarchs who assembled it.

During the series, Will Gompertz encounters dozens of these unique objects - some priceless, others no more than souvenirs - each shedding light on our relationship with the monarchy and giving a glimpse into the essential ingredients of a successful sovereign.

In this programme, Will investigates the unspoken and unwritten contract that has existed between the rulers and the ruled in this country. Over the centuries, both parties have used compromise and conflict, threat and reward. Will uses six objects from the Collection to illuminate some of the pivotal moments in this relationship.

From the Wriotheseley Garter Book, dating from the 1520s, one of the earliest depictions of Parliament in action, to a ring keeping the memory of the recently executed King Charles I alive, Will sees both extremes of the relationship between monarch and subject. He encounters the face of revolution in an early photograph purchased by Prince Albert and meets some of those recently touched by a sword that belonged to King George VI, now known as the Investiture Sword, as he gets to the heart of the might and the majesty of monarchy.

Producer: Neil George.


SAT 11:00 The Week in Westminster (b01d0g3d)
As MPs discuss the Queen's diamond jubilee in the Commons, George Parker of the Financial Times asks why they can't criticise the Monarch there.

He hears from the man who takes the pulse of Conservative backbenchers in the run-up to the Budget.

There's a tribute to the late Lord St John of Fawsley who set up the system of select committees.

And the story of a potentially explosive leak that was never made public.

Chris Skidmore, Paul Flynn. Sajid Javid, Lord Butler, John Whittingdale and Mike Hancock are his guests.


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (b01d0g3g)
The fisherman who decided to sail TOWARDS the tsunami - Julian May hears his story as he drives around Japan a year after the tidal wave and nuclear emergency. Owen Bennett Jones has been meeting Syrians forced into making painful decisions by the ongoing fighting in their country. The BBC's moving out of Bush House in London and, for our man in Rome Alan Johnston, that's a cause of some sadness. Russia's often associated with having autocratic leaders and Tim Whewell's in the city of Krasnodar where many still revere the memory of the empress, Catherine the Great. And Will Ross receives an unexpected invitation to fly into troubled Somalia with the Ethiopian army.


SAT 12:00 Money Box (b01d0g3j)
As the city watchdog orders banks to send out letters to customers who may have been mis-sold personal payment insurance Moneybox investigates why it's taking so long to pay out those whose claims have already been agreed. The programme asks if the banks will be able to cope with up to 12 million new claimants.

Paul Lewis hears from one Moneybox listener who's become the victim of so-called 'red lining' and with less than a month to the ISA deadline he'll have a round up of the best deals around.

That's Moneybox with Paul Lewis just after the news at midday tomorrow/today on Radio 4.


SAT 12:30 The Now Show (b01cwwls)
Series 36

With Lloyd Langford

Topical comedy with Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis who are joined by Jon Holmes, Lloyd Langford, Lucy Montgomery and Mitch Benn for this week's look back at the news.

Producer; Ed Morrish.


SAT 12:57 Weather (b01cp8gb)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 13:00 News (b01cp8gd)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (b01cwwlz)
Farnborough, Hampshire

Jonathan Dimbleby chairs a live discussion of news and politics from Farnborough Hill school in Farnborough, Hampshire, with Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles; Shadow Attorney General, Emily Thornberry; Daily Telegraph columnist, Cristina Odone and writer, broadcaster and Guardian columnist, Jonathan Freedland.

Producer: Victoria Wakely.


SAT 14:00 Any Answers? (b01d0g3l)
Call Jonathan Dimbleby on 03700 100 444, email any.answers@bbc.co.uk or tweet #bbcaq. Topics this week include the conflict in Afghanistan; does the Government lack a compelling vision beyond cutting the deficit; would gay marriage strip the institution of its distinctive nature; and should it be essential for all children leaving school to speak English "as a native"?

Producer: Rachel Simpson.


SAT 14:30 Saturday Drama (b00t8349)
Rebus: Strip Jack

Rebus: Strip Jack, part 1

Ian Rankin's Edinburgh detective, Inspector Rebus, investigates the disappearance of an MP's wife. Ron Donachie stars in a two-part dramatisation by Chris Dolan.


SAT 15:30 Bach's Choir (b01cvpz7)
Stephen Evans traces the 800 year history of the the boys choir of St Thomas' Church Leipzig, from the days of J S Bach through Mendelssohn, the war years and communism.

St Thomas' is a remarkable choir. One of the oldest in Europe it was traditionally formed from the less privileged children of the area and developed a unique sound and technical excellence that J S Bach exploited to the full in his 20 years as its music master. Since then the choir has treasured the musical traditions of its early years and defended the elite musical education of the boys and the performance of Bach's works as he would have heard them, surviving the Nazi years and atheist communism too.


SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (b01d0g3n)
Weekend Woman's Hour: Goldie Hawn, Sport Relief

Is it right to place a child with a family of a different ethnic background or culture ? Goldie Hawn on the secret to maintaining a long term. Alison Steadman on the enduring appeal of Abigail's Party 35 years on and Agyness Deyn on making her stage debut. Former President of Ireland Mary Robinson on what brings about social change. Happy 60th to the New Musical Experess, but what was it like for its women writers in those early days. Plus if money wasn't an issue, what would you choose to do - stay at home with the kids, or go out to work? And Jane Garvey goes the extra mile to raise money for Sport Relief.

Presented by Jane Garvey
Producer - Laura Northedge
Editor - Beverley Purcell.


SAT 17:00 PM (b01d0j0z)
Saturday PM

Ritula Shah presents a fresh perspective on the day's news, with sports headlines.


SAT 17:30 The Bottom Line (b01cwvbm)
Cock-ups and Conspiracies

The view from the top of business. Presented by Evan Davis, The Bottom Line cuts through confusion, statistics and spin to present a clearer view of the business world, through discussion with people running leading and emerging companies. The programme is broadcast first on BBC Radio 4 and later on BBC World Service Radio, BBC World News TV and BBC News Channel TV.

Evan's executive panel discuss corporate cock-ups and conspiracies. They swap thoughts on why they occur, and how best to avoid them.

Joining Evan are Andy Green, chief executive of business and technology service provider Logica; Phil Smith, chief executive of technology company Cisco UK and Ireland; Luke Johnson, serial entrepreneur and chairman of private equity firm Risk Capital Partners.

Producer: Ben Crighton
Editor: Richard Vadon.


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b01cp8gg)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 17:57 Weather (b01cp8gj)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01cp8gl)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (b01d0j11)
Clive Anderson with Sean Bean, John Sergeant and Claire Foy. Emma Freud flirts with Jason Donovan. And music from The Civil Wars

Voted the UK's second sexiest man in 2004 (Clive came in at No.1), Sheffield born actor Sean Bean joins Clive as he returns to our screens in the new action thriller Cleanskin in which he plays a Secret Service Agent.

Journalist and broadcaster John Sergeant flicks through Britain's First Photo Album, a forthcoming BBC2 series in which he traces the footsteps of a Victorian pioneer photographer who documented Britain in the 1860s.

Claire Foy reflects on playing a fledgling feminist in White Heat, BBC2's drama about a group of student housemates from 1965 London to the present day.

Emma Freud tries to tango with actor and singer Jason Donovan. But he's dumped his dancing shoes and returned to the music studio with the release of his new album Sign Of Your Love.

We have music from double Grammy award winners, The Civil Wars - who Adele dubbed "by far the best live band I've ever heard" and the critically acclaimed Anna Freier aka I Am Harlequin.

Producer: Cathie Mahoney.


SAT 19:00 Profile (b01d0j13)
Francois Hollande

Chris Bowlby profiles the Socialist Party candidate for the French presidential elections, Francois Hollande. He's not a man well known to people in the UK. But within a couple of months, he could be a key figure in European politics and he's promising a radical challenge to economic orthodoxy in France and in the EU.

Among his proposals is a 75% tax rate for French euro millionaires and a re-negotiation of the EU's plan to save the Euro. Francois Hollande's challenge is personal not just political. A man once known as 'Mr Pudding', who rides around Paris on a moped, he says he'll be 'president normal', after the bling of the Sarkozy era.

Producer:
Lesley McAlpine.


SAT 19:15 Saturday Review (b01d0j15)
Tom Sutcliffe and his guests the writers Kamila Shamsie and Louise Doughty and the poet Paul Farley review the week's cultural highlights.

Bel Ami is Declan Donnellan's first feature and is an adaptation of the novel by Guy de Maupassant. It stars Robert Pattinson as an ambitious young man who climbs from poverty and obscurity in Belle Epoque Paris, using three married high society women (Christina Ricci, Uma Thurman and Kristin Scott Thomas) as the rungs on his ladder.

Silver is Andrew Motion's sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure story Treasure Island. Forty years on from the events in that book, Jim Hawkins is the disillusioned and drunken owner of a Thameside pub. His son - also called Jim - is dissatisfied with his own life of drudgery, but everything changes when a young woman turns up who wants him to meet her father - a one-legged man called Silver.

Going Dark is a new piece by the theatre company Sound and Fury at the Young Vic in London. Written by Hattie Naylor and performed in darkness (sometimes partial, sometimes total) it stars John Mackay as a lecturer at a planetarium who discovers that he is going blind.

Louise Bourgeois: Return of the Repressed is an exhibition at the Freud Museum in London which features work by the artist along with a selection of recently discovered psychoanalytic writings that she made from 1951 until the 1980s.

Julian Fellowes' follow up to Downton Abbey is another ITV drama set in the early 20th century with the class system at its heart. Titanic is a four part series which revisits the familiar story of the doomed ocean liner.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.


SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (b01d0j17)
Government Is Not the Solution

Amid global economic turmoil, high government debts and the rise of the Tea Party, hostility to overweaning, overspending government power appears to be on a roll in America today.

As Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum all struggle to win the US Republican Party's Presidential nomination, each is doing their best to convince the Party's membership that he is the man to rein in 'Big Government'.

But, as Jonathan Freedland explores, this hostility has its roots at the very beginning of the United States.

In this programme, he traces how Americans' suspicion of centralised power began with the 1770s rebellion against British rule - and how it became the basis of the way America is governed, through the 'separation of powers'.

Jonathan unearths a rich seam of archive which shows how this has coloured American politics over recent decades, even as the size of government has grown.

He explores how it fuelled opposition to the New Deal, Civil Rights and the War in Vietnam.

And he asks how American Presidents have found ways to push against the constraints of the Constitution and drive their policies through.

Historian Professor Desmond King argues that from Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan and beyond, Presidents have repeatedly declared 'War' on everything from the Depression to drugs, poverty to inflation.

This was always a canny bid to play on American patriotism and the President's role as Commander-in-Chief - to make social reform sound as urgent and necessary as fighting a foreign foe.

But has this strategy now run out of firepower? And if so, is America's relationship with the very idea of central government now more vexed than ever?

Producer: Phil Tinline.


SAT 21:00 Classic Serial (b01cvgbp)
The Cruel Sea

Episode 2

Dramatised by John Fletcher.
2 of 2.
The second part of Nicholas Monsarrat's searing classic novel about the war in the North Atlantic.

Lockhart ..... Gwilym Lee
Ericson ..... Jonathan Coy
Hallam ..... Tracy Wiles
Wainwright ..... David Seddon
Raikes ..... Gerard McDermott
Phillips ..... Peter Hamilton-Dyer
Ferraby ..... Carl Prekopp
Gregg ..... Harry Livingstone
The Operator ..... Adam Billington
Coxswain ..... James Lailey

Sound by Caleb Knightley
Directed by Marc Beeby.


SAT 22:00 News and Weather (b01cp8gn)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.


SAT 22:15 Moral Maze (b01cwrw8)
Iran and nuclear weapons

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Washington this week to meet US President Barack Obama and right at the top of the agenda was Iran's nuclear programme. Iran claims its programme is for peaceful purposes, but at the same time has banned inspections by the International Atomic Energy Authority to verify those claims. Despite international sanctions Iran seems determined to press ahead - analysts differ on time scales, but all agree that it now has the capability to produce a nuclear weapon if it so chooses. A nuclear armed Iran could dangerously destabilise an already volatile Middle East and pose an existential threat to Israel, putting millions of lives at stake. Also other countries, like Saudi Arabia, would almost certainly feel they'd have to follow the nuclear route. So is it our moral duty to intervene, by force if necessary, to stop that happening? Or, after a decade of disastrous western wars in the Middle East, would an attack on Iran amount to criminal irresponsibility? Can the international community claim any moral authority on this issue when it has allowed India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel all to develop nuclear weapons? And, in a week when there have been renewed calls of the UK to abandon its 25 billion pound Trident programme, what is our moral justification for keeping our own nuclear arsenal while at the same time preaching non-proliferation to the Iranians?

Witnesses: Prof David Rodin, Director of the Oxford Institute for the Ethics & Law of Armed Conflict, DTL from Geneva; Douglas Murray Henry Jackson Society; Dr Mehrdad Khonsari, Sen Res. Consultant at Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies,London/former Iranian diplomat; Prof Mike Clark, Director of RUSI.

Combative, provocative and engaging debate chaired by Michael Buerk with Michael Portillo, Matthew Taylor, Clifford Longley and Melanie Phillips.


SAT 23:00 Brain of Britain (b01cvk8q)
(17/17)
Russell Davies is in the chair, as the 2012 season of the longest-lived general knowledge contest of them all reaches the Final. The four competitors who have come unscathed through heats and semi-finals line up for the last hurdle, which will determine who is named the 59th 'Brain of Britain'. This year the Finalists are from London, South Wales and Nottinghamshire.

They can expect the questions to be especially challenging in the Final contest. They'll be asked, among many other questions, to name Dickens's mistress who was the subject of an acclaimed biography by Claire Tomalin in the 1990s; and the Pope who instigated the First Crusade with an uncompromising sermon in the year 1095.

As always, the champion takes home the handsome silver 'Brain of Britain' trophy.

Producer: Paul Bajoria.


SAT 23:30 Poetry Workshop (b01cvgbt)
Series 1

Episode 4

Ruth Padel's landmark series exploring the pleasures of writing and reading poems comes this time from The Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, where Ruth leads a workshop with the Junkbox poetry group.

To warm up their poetry muscles, the group try out some writing exercises. These will be available on the website for anyone who wants to give them a go. Then they work on developing and refining poems from two members of the group; acting (as Heaney describes it) as "the reader over my shoulder." The poems are Milking Time by Becky Lowe and Still Life with Wine Glasses by Alan Kellerman. Both have a sense of loss or longing. The group discuss line endings, alliteration and adjectives, and the effectiveness of their use in the two poems. They also enjoy and respond to a poem by Gwyneth Lewis that evokes that peculiarly Welsh phenomenon 'hiraeth'.

Producer: Sarah Langan.



SUNDAY 11 MARCH 2012

SUN 00:00 Midnight News (b01d0fgf)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


SUN 00:30 Bath Festival Stories, Series 3 (b01d23ny)
Cleaning the Silver

This year's Radio 4 stories from the Bath Literature Festival were recorded on stage on International Women's Day and are all are written by women in the West Country, with women at their heart. They all have a slightly edgy feel to them, too, as ghosts, shadows and the memories of strange events unfold. In Jenni Mills' story, Cleaning the Silver, a daughter remembers her childhood under the regime of a strict and bullying father, and revisits the circumstances around his shocking death. Jenni writes psychological thrillers, and is the author of two novels, Crow Stone and The Buried Circle - the latter set at Avebury stone circle, not far from her home in Wiltshire. Cleaning the Silver is set in another place she knows well, one of the smaller Channel Islands.

Before turning to writing, Jenni worked in broadcasting as a producer, TV director, and radio presenter, fronting Woman's Hour, Famous For Fifteen Minutes and other R4 programmes.

Further stories in the Bath Festival series are by Morag Joss and Patricia Ferguson

Producer: Sara Davies.


SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01d0fgh)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01d0fgk)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01d0fgm)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 05:30 News Briefing (b01d0fgp)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (b01d0kxw)
The bells of St. Vedast, Foster Lane in London.


SUN 05:45 Lent Talks (b01cws2d)
Prof Linda Woodhead

Linda Woodhead - Director of the Religion and Society Research Programme and Professor of Sociology of Religion at Lancaster University - draws from the findings of the Religion and Society research programme to explore the dis-embedding from traditional community relationships to new communities formed from choice rather than inheritance.

In the wake of political and social reactions to the financial crisis, austerity measures and the riots of 2011, debate continues to determine the role of the individual and society. The 2012 Lent Talks consider the relationship between the individual and the collective. Is each person one alone or one of many? Is it the human condition to be self-contained or to belong to the family, the tribe, the congregation, the nation? We live in groups but our most intense experiences are incommunicable. Jesus shared a communal last supper but he died an outcast, abandoned and rejected by his people, his disciples and (apparently) his Father.

Speakers of this year's talks include the journalist and author Martin Wroe, who will explore humanity being at its most divine when working in community; John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, explains how his encounter with God is enhanced through science; Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University, examines the philosophy of the individual and how this is neglected in many areas of Islam; Dr Gemma Simmonds CJ, explores the agony of the individual in society.

The Christian season of Lent is traditionally a time for self-examination and reflection on universal human conditions such as temptation, betrayal, abandonment, greed, forgiveness and love.


SUN 06:00 News Headlines (b01d0fgr)
The latest national and international news.


SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b01d23tn)
Reason and Desire

Mark Tully considers the eternal human conflict between our Reason and our Desires. To what extent should the first regulate the second? And how do we achieve the right balance between the two.

With readings from Aristotle, Fernando Pessoa and Kim Addonizio, and a diverse range of music, from The Rolling Stones to Wagner, Mark compares secular thoughts on the subject with the teachings of various religions.

The programme features an interview with Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, Professor of Comparative Religion and Philosophy at Lancaster University who makes it clear that there is no one single attitude towards reason and desire in Christianity or in religions of Indian origin.

But whether bound by secular or religious thoughts on the matter, Mark sees a clear need for our desires of all sorts to be controlled to some extent, however difficult it is to find a balance between desire and reason.

The readers are Peter Guinness and Samantha Bond.

Producer: Adam Fowler
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (b01d23tq)
Charlotte Smith visits Pwllpeiran, the upland research farm in Wales which is due to be sold after 80 years of service. It's a huge farm, perched at the top of the Cambrian mountains, and is rough, challenging farming terrain, where 5 inches of rain can fall in a single day.

It was taken over by government in 1955, to help post-war Wales produce more food in the uplands. Today it houses a number of long running experiments, on farm pollution, climate change and water quality, as research priorities have changed. ADAS has held the lease since 1997, but is pulling out of the farm 5 years before the lease ends. Unless a buyer can be found by the autumn, the Welsh Assembly government will sell it in small lots to local farmers.

Presenter: Charlotte Smith Producer: Melvin Rickarby.


SUN 06:57 Weather (b01d0fgt)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 07:00 News and Papers (b01d0fgw)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 07:10 Sunday (b01d23w4)
Edward Stourton with the religious and ethical news of the week. Moral arguments and perspectives on stories familiar and unfamiliar.

Series Producer: Amanda Hancox.


SUN 07:55 Radio 4 Appeal (b01d23xk)
Straight Talking Peer Education

Kay Mellor presents the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of the charity Straight Talking Peer Education.

Reg Charity: 1101726
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal, mark the back of the envelope Straight Talking Peer Education.
Give Online www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/appeal.


SUN 07:57 Weather (b01d0fgy)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 08:00 News and Papers (b01d0fh0)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (b01d24b3)
The Rev Dr Trystan Owain Hughes, Anglican Chaplain to Cardiff University, is the preacher in the 3rd of this year's Lent series taking the theme of Freedom Through Action. Live from Eglwys Dewi Sant Church in Cardiff, the service is led by the Rev Delyth Liddell and the Cardiff University Chamber Choir is directed by John Hugh Thomas. Organist: Jeffrey Howard. Producer: Sian Baker.
Download web resources specially written for the series from the Churches Together in Britain and Ireland Website.


SUN 08:50 A Point of View (b01cwwm1)
Churchill's American Speeches

David Cannadine reflects on the enduring resonance of the important speeches which Winston Churchill delivered in colleges and universities in the United States. Westminster College, Fulton, has "become a shrine to Churchill and his 'iron curtain' speech" and Harvard was where he gave a speech on "Anglo-American Unity".
Producer: Sheila Cook.


SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (b01d24q8)
Paddy O'Connell presents news and conversation about the big stories of the week.


SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (b01d24rf)
For detailed synopses, please see daily episodes.

Writer ..... Simon Frith
Director ..... Julie Beckett
Editor ..... Vanessa Whitburn

Shula Hebden Lloyd ..... Judy Bennett
David Archer ..... Timothy Bentinck
Ruth Archer ..... Felicity Finch
Tony Archer ..... Colin Skipp
Pat Archer ..... Patricia Gallimore
Helen Archer ..... Louiza Patikas
Tom Archer ..... Tom Graham
Brian Aldridge ..... Charles Collingwood
Jennifer Aldridge ..... Angela Piper
Adam Macy ..... Andrew Wincott
Ian Craig ..... Stephen Kennedy
Lilian Bellamy ..... Sunny Ormonde
Peggy Woolley ..... June Spencer
Clarrie Grundy ..... Rosalind Adams
Emma Grundy ..... Emerald O'hanrahan
Edward Grundy ..... Barry Farrimond
Susan Carter ..... Charlotte Martin
Brenda Tucker ..... Amy Shindler
Kirsty Miller ..... Annabelle Dowler
Alan Franks ..... John Telfer
Jim Lloyd ..... John Rowe
Cliff Alladay ..... Gerard McDermott.


SUN 11:15 Desert Island Discs (b01d24vq)
Jackie Mason

Kirsty Young's castaway is the American comedian Jackie Mason.

His one-man shows have been pulling in audiences for more than fifty years. Like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather before him, he trained initially as a rabbi - and quickly acquired a reputation for being very funny.

"The people who heard my sermons kept saying to me; 'Rabbi, why aren't you a comedian?' I said to myself, maybe I should take the hint."

Producer: Leanne Buckle.


SUN 12:00 Just a Minute (b01cvkc7)
Series 62

Episode 5

Nicholas Parsons challenges Paul Merton, Sue Perkins, Julian Clary and Charles Collingwood to talk without hesitation, repetition or deviation for 60 seconds. From March 2012.


SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (b01d0rcv)
Japan, Fukushima and food

Richard Johnson reports from Japan on the impact of the Fukushima disaster on food. How has the threat of contamination changed attitudes to the nation's prized food culture?

A year ago, Japan was hit by the catastrophic Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. In the days that followed, reactors 1, 2 and 3 at the Fukushima nuclear power station experienced full meltdown. The fears of catastrophic radioactivite contamination led to a 20 km-radius evacuation around the plant, while engineers risked their lives to stabilise the reactors.

It was the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, but that wasn't the end of the story. A longer-term food story started to emerge.

A testing regime was introduced to monitor radiation levels in the food supply chain. The World Health Organisation is also carrying out its own tests to ensure that absorption of caesium through food, over decades to come, doesn't become a major threat to public health.

But as Richard Johnson discovers, confusion and lack of information in the early weeks of the crisis has led to suspicion and mistrust among large sections of the Japanese population. For this reason, the disaster is likely to not just change Japan's relationship with its politicians, but also its food culture.

Producer: Dan Saladino.


SUN 12:57 Weather (b01d0fh4)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (b01d24ym)
Shaun Ley presents the latest national and international news, including an in-depth look at events around the world. Email: wato@bbc.co.uk; twitter: #theworldthisweekend.


SUN 13:30 Japan: Coping With Disaster (b01d7bbl)
What does the Japanese response to last year's tsunami and nuclear meltdown tell us about modern Japan? Anthropologist Tom Gill meets people affected by the two disasters.


SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b01cwwlg)
Wolverhampton

Eric Robson, Chris Beardshaw, Pippa Greenwood and Bob Flowerdew are guests of Wolverhampton Horticultural Society.

In addition - Practical March: a hands-on guide to one of the busiest months of the gardening year.

The questions addressed in the programme are:
How can does green manure combine with my No Dig approach to gardening?
Why are the heads of my Roderik red cabbage distorted?
How can I make use of lime tree woodchip as bed dressings?
How can I use complimentary planting to deter pests?
How can I protect my begonias and foxgloves from being eaten?

Produced by Howard Shannon
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 14:45 Lent Talks (b01cws2d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:45 today]


SUN 15:00 Classic Serial (b01d2bxg)
Out of the Hitler Time

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

The story of a Jewish family forced to flee from Germany in 1933 - told from the perspective of nine-year-old Anna.

The first book of Judith Kerr's internationally acclaimed trilogy dramatised by Beaty Rubens.

Young Anna ... Lauren Mote
Max ... Hugo Docking
Mama ... Adjoa Andoh
Papa ... Paul Moriarty
Julius ... James Lailey
Elsbeth ... Xenia Mainelli
Omama ... Eleanor Bron
Fraulein Lambeck ... Tracy Wiles
Aunt Sarah ... Sheila Steafel
Herr Rosenfeld ... Gerard McDermott
Passport Officer ... Christopher Webster
Concierge ... Alex Rivers

Director: David Hunter


SUN 16:00 Open Book (b01d26ln)
Marina Lewycka, on her latest book 'Various Pets Alive and Dead'

Mariella Frostrup talks to Marina Lewycka about her latest book, Various Pets Alive and Dead, a wry look at modern values, which explores the lives and loves of a family whose hippy parents brought their children up in a commune. Whilst their daughter has become a house proud primary school teacher their son Serge is secretly trading derivatives in the aptly named city bank FATCA. Award winning author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian turns her comic eye on the humorous clash of ideologies within one family during the financial crash of 2008.

We'll be discussing why the publishing industry has become so enamoured by the next big author and what is happening to the more established, but not so prominent career novelists? With author and critic Matt Thorne, one of the Judges for this year's Fiction Uncovered, an initiative supporting 8 novels by talented writers whose work deserves to be better known - and more crucially - better sold to the public: Editor in Chief at Bloomsbury Alexandra Pringle, launching Bloomsbury Circus in May aimed a discovering and growing new talent, and Charlie Williams, author of the Mangel series and self confessed mid-lister, a term most authors hate.

And the much beloved fictional characters Mapp and Lucia, created by E F Benson in the 1920s, in such classics as Lucia In London and Lucia's Progress are brought to life by writer and fan Guy Fraser-Sampson in his novel Lucia on Holiday. What does it demand of a writer to write about characters whose existence is already so firmly fixed in the minds - and hearts - of their numerous fans, which include Alexander McCall Smith and Gyles Brandreth among them, and how do their snobbery and pretentions speak to us now?

Producer Andrea Kidd


SUN 16:30 The Narrow Road to the Disaster Zone (b01d26qk)
Every Japanese person knows Matsuo Basho's 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North'. This classic is an account by Japan's best-loved poet of a journey he made in 1689. He visited several places famous for their beauty, and because they had inspired poets in years gone by. He celebrated these in his haiku and visited fellow poets.

Many of the places Basho wrote about were devastated by last year's tsunami. He walked through Fukushima prefecture, where the stricken nuclear plant is today. In Shiogama, Basho pitied the fishermen and, at Ishinomaki, described hundreds of boats bobbing in a wide bay. Of the 12,000 vessels registered in Sendai, Shiogama and Ishinomaki, only 1,200 remained intact after the tsunami.

For the first anniversary of the earthquake the poet and translator Stephen Henry Gill, who has lived in Japan for many years, follows in Basho's footsteps on his own 'Narrow Road to the Disaster Zone'. He tries to reach the power station, passing through village after village deserted because of radiation. He looks at the islands of Matushima, so beautiful they left Basho speechless, continues to the fishing villages of Oshika peninsula and on to the point where he looks out to sea towards the epicentre.

All the time, like Basho, Stephen meets people - a poet publishing his work about the tsunami on Twitter; volunteers rebuilding houses; a Zen priest radio broadcaster whose show kept communication open; the fisherman who went to sea, choosing to risk riding the giant waves rather than have his boats smashed onshore. Using interviews, sounds recorded along the way, Basho's writings, and his own haiku, Stephen Gill creates, one year on, a historical, contemporary and cultural response to the earthquake, the nuclear fallout and the tsunami.

Producer: Julian May.


SUN 17:00 File on 4 (b01cw5ns)
Family Annihilation

In the last two months, three fathers have killed their partners, children and themselves. File on 4 investigates what drives these men to take such drastic action.

The programme talks to relatives, expert forensic psychiatrists and academics to try to find out why they became so-called 'family annihilators'.

It looks at new research into such cases which points to a link to unemployment rates and the levels of gun ownership. It will also ask whether authorities like the health service and police could do more to watch for signs that men are a risk to their families and asks whether new gun licence measures are working.
Presenter: Jane Deith
Producer: Paul Grant.


SUN 17:40 Profile (b01d0j13)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b01d0fh6)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 17:57 Weather (b01d0fh8)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01d0fhb)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (b01d26ts)
Hardeep Singh Kholi makes his selection from the past seven days of BBC Radio

Have you ever fallen in love via email? Have you ever wondered what would happen if you could find all your bosses passwords? Have you ever taken a trout on the underground? No? Well on Pick of the Week this week Hardeep Singh Kohli covers all these areas. He'll also enjoy the beauty of Bach, the tenacity of Tim Key and loving Lounge music while sipping an imaginary Martini as an Italian countess slips into some less comfortable.

Love Virtually: Radio 4 08.03.2012
Tim Key's Late Night Poetry Programme: Radio 4 07.03.2012
Desert Island Discs: Radio 4 04.03.2012
Night Visions: Radio 4 09.03.2012
Global Reach: Radio 4 06.03.2012
Essential Classics: Radio 3 07.03.2012
The Wire: Father, Son and Holy Ghost Radio 3 10.03.2012
Book at Bedtime: Capital Radio 4 09.03.2012
Bach's Choir Radio 4 06.03.2012
Book of the Week: Then They Came For Me ep2 Radio 4 06.03.2012
Something Understood: Radio 4 04.03.2012
The Essay: Listener, They Won It ep1 radio 3 05.03.2012
Fever Pitched: Radio 4 05.03.2012
In the Lounge with Rich Morton: Radio 4 08.03.2012
BBC Radio Scotland: Good Morning Scotland 01.03.2012

Email: potw@bbc.co.uk or www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/potw
Producer: Cecile Wright.


SUN 19:00 The Archers (b01d0prr)
Jennifer's concerned that Brian is obsessed with monitoring the websites against the new dairy. She had to prise him away from the computer to take Ruairi out this morning.

Alice tells Jennifer that she's taking Amy to a charity fashion show in the week, and plans to introduce her to a postgrad bio-medical student. She thinks they'd make a lovely couple. Jennifer thinks Amy's capable of finding her own man, if she wants one.

Tom and Helen are keen to move forward with the polytunnel plans but know they need to get the packaging right for the wholesale market. It's something else for Tom's To Do list. At least Jazzer's up for some extra work. He needs the money to impress his new woman. Tom's surprised but pleased to see Tony, who's out getting a bit of gentle exercise with Pat, Helen and Henry. Pat's anxious that he doesn't do too much.

Pat can't stop fussing over Tony. She blames herself for being nothing but selfish since she learned about Rich. Helen reassures her that Tony's heart attack is not her fault. They could all blame themselves over things they've done. Helen and Pat agree they'll never take Tony for granted again.


SUN 19:15 Meet David Sedaris (b012lpvz)
Series 2

The Ship Shape and Make That a Double

The multi-award winning American essayist brings his wit and charm to BBC Radio 4, concluding his second series of audience readings. This week some serious thought is put into buying a holiday home in 'The Ship Shape' and the complexities of gender assignment when learning French in 'Make That a Double'.

Producer: Steve Doherty
A Boomerang production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 19:45 A Father for My Son (b01d28pq)
Episode 1

The Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott died a hundred years ago, leaving behind a fascinating and talented wife, the sculptor Kathleen Scott. Jenny Coverack's trilogy of readings is adapted from her own one-woman stage play, written with Robert Edwards, based on Kathleen Scott's autobiography and journals. These begin with Kathleen's unconventional childhood, when she was farmed out to relatives, before she took the bold and at the time unconventional decision to go to Paris to study art. Here, she mixes in Bohemian circles and is pursued by numerous admirers wanting to start affairs, but what matters most to her is the search for a man worthy of the role of father to the son she longs for.

With grateful acknowledgement to the novelist Louisa Young for her biography of her grandmother, Kathleen Scott, 'A Great Task of Happiness'.

Reader: Jenny Coverack
Producer: Sara Davies.


SUN 20:00 Feedback (b01cwwln)
This week the news carried tough stories about the situation in Syria, and about the death of 15 year old Kristy Bamu, at the hands of his sister and her partner. Too much information said some listeners, especially as some reports did not include a warning about the graphic content. Several other reports did carry a warning - which other listeners found patronising.

Richard Clark, head of the BBC Radio Newsroom, tells Roger why a warning may or may not be added, and why he feels it can be the right decision to include disturbing detail. He also tackles your objections about the amount of coverage being given to the US presidential primaries.

Is it the end of the road for BBC Radio 2's traffic reports? With websites, apps and local radio providing up to the minute information that's relevant to you wherever you are, some listeners think the end is nigh for traffic on national radio. Sally Boazman, aka Sally Traffic, tells Roger in no uncertain terms why she and her ilk are still providing a vital service.

And over-emotional ranters or real people speaking truth to power? Presenters Steven Nolan and Victoria Derbyshire reveal all about the art of the phone-in.

Presenter: Roger Bolton

Producers: Karen Pirie and Kate Taylor
A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 20:30 Last Word (b01cwwll)
Norman St John-Stevas, Lynn D Compton, Leonard Rosoman, Robert Sherman

John Wilson on:

Politician, academic and dandy Norman St John Stevas, remembered by Michael Heseltine and Andrew Neil.

D-Day hero Buck Compton - member of the Band Of Brothers company who later led the prosecution of Bobby Kennedy's killer Sirhan Sirhan.

Leonard Rosoman, the war artist who documented the London blitz and taught David Hockney at art school.

And Disney film songwriter Robert Sherman, who helped create the soundtrack to childhood.


SUN 21:00 Money Box (b01d0g3j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:00 on Saturday]


SUN 21:26 Radio 4 Appeal (b01d23xk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:55 today]


SUN 21:30 Analysis (b01cvkg6)
Neue Labour

Why Labour thinkers believe German society should be the model for Britain's centre left. Matthew Taylor, a former policy adviser to Tony Blair, presents.


SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (b01d28s1)
Carolyn Quinn previews the week's politics with the Chief Political Commentator of the New Statesman, Rafael Behr. They discuss Liberal Democrat divisions over the planned reforms to the health service in England, the forthcoming Budget and signs that Labour intends adopting a tougher approach to reforming the welfare state.

Lib Dem MP Stephen Williams and Labour MP Willie Bain join the weekly panel of politicians. They discuss health, taxation and Afghanistan.

Daniel Brittain reports on the Orpington by election of March 1962. He goes back to the constituency with the Liberal candidate who won a famous victory half a century ago. The Labour candidate recalls the atmosphere at the count. Did the result mislead the Liberals into thinking they could sweep the Tories aside in suburban England?

Programme editor: Terry Dignan.


SUN 22:45 What the Papers Say (b01d28w0)
Episode 94

Hugo Rifkind of The Times analyses how the newspapers are covering the biggest stories in Westminster and beyond.


SUN 23:00 The Film Programme (b01cwvb7)
Actor John Cusack on playing Edgar Allan Poe, and his concerns for free speech in America.

Juliet Stevenson discusses the difficulties of working with Peter Greenaway on his film from 1988, Drowning by Numbers.

Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod are better known as the co-founders of the theatre company, Cheek by Jowl. This week sees the release of their debut film, Bel Ami, starring Robert Pattison as the amoral cad from the famous novel by Guy de Maupassant.

Riz Ahmed is a British actor noted for his roles in The Road to Guantanamo and Four Lions. He's now starring in Trishna, an adaptation of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, directed by Michael Winterbottom. He discusses working with the director and why the film is set in India.

Producer: Craig Smith.


SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b01d23tn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:05 today]



MONDAY 12 MARCH 2012

MON 00:00 Midnight News (b01d0fhz)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (b01cwrt6)
Boxing styles UK vs US - Why nations fail

Why do some nations remain mired in poverty whilst others thrive? A new book argues that the clue to prosperity has less to do with a country's climate, culture and geography than with the inclusivity of its institutions. Authoritarian regimes may succeed in the short run, but long term wealth is only ensured by secure private property, the rule of law and democracy. James Robinson, Professor of Government at Harvard University, discusses his thesis with Laurie Taylor. They're joined by Paul Collier, Professor of Economics at Oxford University. Also 'A Straight Left against a Slogging Ruffian' - the origins of different boxing styles in the UK and US. Research by, Kasia Boddy, an English lecturer at University College, London, explores the boxing boom in the years leading up to the First World War. How did anxieties about the pre-war balance of power turn into a debate on the pros and cons of English versus American styles of boxing? And does this cultural clash about sporting technique still get played out today?
Producer: Jayne Egerton.


MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (b01d0kxw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday]


MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01d0fj1)
The latest shipping forecast.


MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01d0fj3)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01d0fj5)
The latest shipping forecast.


MON 05:30 News Briefing (b01d0fj7)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01d0kxy)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Roger Hutchings, Methodist minister.


MON 05:45 Farming Today (b01d0ky0)
Saying it with British flowers - with around 75% of flowers now imported to the UK, Charlotte Smith assesses the challenges the UK's industry faces.

New figures show Campylobacter is on the rise across Europe. The bug causes hundreds of thousands of cases of illness and around 80 deaths each year in the UK. The European Food Safety Authority warns there is no sign of its growth slowing.

And Farming Today looks at the problems farmers claim Chinese lanterns are still causing.

Presenter: Charlotte Smith Producer: Melvin Rickarby.


MON 05:57 Weather (b01d0fj9)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.


MON 06:00 Today (b01d0ky2)
Morning news and current affairs, presented by John Humphrys and Sarah Montague, including: 07:50 Can the US-Afghan relationship recover from the killings of 16 Afghan civilians by a US soldier? 08:10 Jane Nicklinson explains why her husband wants to have the right to die. 08:20 What is happening in Gaza?


MON 09:00 Start the Week (b01d0ky4)
Writers on Families: Colm Tóibín and AS Byatt

Andrew Marr talks to Colm Toibin about the ways writers write about families, and also the impact of their own often dysfunctional relationships - from Thomas Mann and WB Yeats, to the nightmares of John Cheever's journals. In her novel, The Children's Book, AS Byatt explored how far a writing mother can harm her children, and yet she argues that she'd prefer to know nothing about a writer's private life. The novelist Will Eaves mined his own family background for his latest book, but insists it's more a work of imagination, than memoir. And it's these relationships, and culture, that are the key to the success of our species, rather than consciousness, language and intelligence, according to the evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel.
Producer: Katy Hickman.


MON 09:45 Book of the Week (b01d0ky6)
Svetlana Alliluyeva - 20 Letters to a Friend

Episode 1

By Svetlana Alliluyeva. Abridged by Eileen Horne.

Writing as if to a close friend, Josef Stalin's daughter recalls her extraordinary life as an eyewitness to history, beginning with the searing memory of her father's final hours, and the turmoil provoked by his terrible death...

Read by Stella Gonet

Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (b01d0ky8)
Women in Business in Liverpool

A Women in Business live broadcast from Liverpool where a panel of successful businesswomen is on hand to answer questions from female entrepreneurs. Contributors are: Judith McKenna, Chief Operating Officer of Asda; Sophie Cornish, co-founder of not-on-the-highstreet-dot-com and a writer on business for Stylist Magazine; Dawn Gibbin, founder of international flooring epxerts, Flowcrete; and Sharmadean Reid, stylist and entrepreneur whose nail art company WAH! Nails is in the flagship Top Shop stores at Oxford Circus and Stratford.
Presenter: Jane Garvey.
Producer: Jane Thurlow.


MON 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b01d0kyz)
JL Carr - The Harpole Report

Episode 1

1/5. Comic drama. Idealistic young teacher, George Harpole, decides to shake things up when he becomes acting head of Tampling St Nicholas Primary School - but he encounters stiff resistance from all quarters in J.L Carr's novel, dramatised by Jonathan Smith.

George Harpole...........Shaun Dingwall
Emma Foxberrow..........Hattie Morahan
Mr Tusker.............Christian Rodska
Mr Theaker.............Sam Dale
Mrs Blossom..........Lesley Nicol
Mrs Rita Grindle-Jones......Jane Whittenshaw
Mr James Pintle.........David Holt
Mrs Sue Byrd...........Susie Riddell
Other parts played by the cast.
Producer/director: Bruce Young.


MON 11:00 Feed Me to the Wind (b01d0prf)
Tens of thousands of ashes remain uncollected or unscattered. Amanda Mitchison looks at the choices, conflicts and absurdity in the new British ritual of ash scattering.

More of us than ever choose to take the ashes of the deceased away from a crematorium or funeral directors: but it's what should happen then we can't figure out. In fact, every undertaker has a whole room of unclaimed ashes - those whose next of kin either couldn't decide, or agree, what to do with them. As a nation, we used to know which death rites were, well, right - but as more and more are cremated, we lawless Britons started improvising.

We speak to people who are yet to collect ashes - or have made the decision to keep them, at home - exploring the complex emotions these plastic containers provoke, even in modern 'un-spiritual' Britain. We'll hear from people whose personal ceremonies did not go to plan, where uncertainty about bylaws and prevailing winds has led to farce instead of reverence. The practicalities always seem to fox our need for something 'spiritual', so perhaps we're not adequately prepared for what we receive from undertakers.

We ask whether the whole process is a hangover of the industrial revolution - and look at the feelings that municipal buildings like crematoria can elicit. In the quest for something special and unique, those who are in the business of ash-scattering tell us about the more dramatic means of scattering - miniature Viking ships and all.

Perhaps we could take a lead from other traditions which have practiced cremation for thousands of years - what is the Hindu perspective on cremation? Should we let those around us know to 'Feed Me To The Wind' if that is what we would want?

Producer: Caleb Parkin.


MON 11:30 Wordaholics (b01d0prh)
Series 1

Episode 4

Wordaholics is the comedy panel game all about words.

Gyles Brandreth presides as Natalie Haynes, Michael Rosen, Arthur Smith and Paul Sinha vie for supremacy in the ring.

Wordaholics is clever, intelligent, witty and unexpected. There are toponyms, abbreviations, euphemisms, old words, new words, cockney rhyming slang, Greek gobbledegook, plus the panellists' picks of the ugliest and the most beautiful words: the whole world of words.

Writers: Jon Hunter and James Kettle

Producer: Claire Jones.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2012.


MON 12:00 You and Yours (b01d0prk)
Is contracted out overnight veterinary care harming pets?

Many veterinary surgeries subcontract their out-of-hours care to private companies. But is it too expensive? Does it always put pet welfare first? Do you even know what arrangement your local vet has? Also - we don't appreciate in Britain how lucky we are to have such low energy prices. So says the German boss of one of the UK's biggest power companies. Is he right? And the founder of what we think is the UK's first "cash mob" explains how it could rescue the high street. It's like a flash mob - but for shopping.


MON 12:57 Weather (b01d0fjc)
The latest weather forecast.


MON 13:00 World at One (b01d0prm)
The Afghan parliament has demanded that the American soldier who shot dead 16 civilians be put on trial in Afghanistan. NATO's senior representative in the country -- Sir Simon Gass -- tells us its strategy would not change.

Days after Nick Clegg called for a special tax on the wealthy, the Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party - Michael Fallon - tells us this programme a 'tycoon tax' would be "unworkable".

The Foreign Secretary - William Hague - speaks of his frustration ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on Syria.

Labour Leader, Ed Miliband, tells our School Reporters what his wife calls him when she's angry.

Plus art experts in Florence believe they may have discovered a lost masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci.

To share your views email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.


MON 13:45 Alvin Hall in The Bonfire of the Vanities (b01d0prp)
The Bronx

Tom Wolfe described 1980s Bronx as a crime-ridden place of despair. Crack dealers on every corner, horrifying crimes every day, and a justice system which could do little to improve it.

Harlem's revitalised, and New York is renowned for its safety- is the Bronx now a great place to live? Alvin Hall visits the site of Sherman McCoy's disastrous wrong turn and ventures further into the borough to where whole streets' worth of apartment buildings were burnt out 25 years ago, to discover what's replaced them.

Speaking to a local priest, photographer and environmental activist, he asks whether a Sherman McCoy today would feel as threatened if he took the wrong lane on the route back to Manhattan from JFK Airport.

Produced by Lucy Lloyd.


MON 14:00 The Archers (b01d0prr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]


MON 14:15 Stone (b01d0pw9)
Series 3

Taken

Taken written by Richard Monks.

Third in a new series of the intelligent, morally complex detective drama created by Danny Brocklehurst and starring Hugo Speer as DCI John Stone.

Following a spate of attacks on Eastern European businesses in the region, a man of Polish descent is attacked in the lead up to local elections. Stone suspects the involvement of members of the English Nationalist League, an extremist right wing political party led by the charismatic Keith Dowd. When Dowd's teenage daughter goes missing, Stone is forced to investigate whether the two cases are linked.

DCI STONE.....Hugo Speer
DI MIKE TANNER.....Craig Cheetham
DS SUE KELLY.....Deborah McAndrew
DOWD.....Kevin Doyle
SARAH.....Kathryn Hunt
ROSA.....Shannon Flynn
DCI WISE/STEFAN.....James Nickerson
TOMASZ.....Paul McCleary
ABE/CAIN/MULWINNEY.....Dermot Daly

Directed by Nadia Molinari.

Audio Drama North.


MON 15:00 The 3rd Degree (b01d0qth)
Series 2

University of East Anglia

Coming this week from the University of East Anglia, "The 3rd Degree" is a funny, lively and dynamic quiz show aimed at cultivating the next generation of Radio 4 listeners whilst delighting the current ones. It's recorded on location at a different University each week, and it pits three Undergraduates against three of their Professors in a genuinely original and fresh take on an academic quiz. Being a Radio 4 programme, it of course meets the most stringent standards of academic rigour - but with lots of facts and jokes thrown in for good measure.

Together with host Steve Punt, the show tours the (sometimes posh, sometimes murky, but always welcoming!) Union buildings, cafes and lecture halls of six universities across the UK.

The rounds vary between Specialist Subjects and General Knowledge, quickfire bell-and-buzzer rounds and the 'Highbrow & Lowbrow' round cunningly devised to test not only the students' knowledge of current affairs, history, languages and science, but also their Professors' awareness of television, film, and Lady Gaga... In addition, the Head-to-Head rounds, in which students take on their Professors in their own subjects, were particularly lively, and offered plenty of scope for mild embarrassment on both sides...

The resulting show is funny, fresh, and not a little bit surprising, with a truly varied range of scores, friendly rivalry, and moments where students wished they had more than just glanced at that reading list...

Producer: David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 15:30 The Food Programme (b01d0rcv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:32 on Sunday]


MON 16:00 The Road Home: Remaking Homer's Odyssey (b01d0rhz)
Tom Holland explores the continuing appeal of Homer's Odyssey. From the Coen Brothers' film 'O Brother Where Art Thou?' to feminist rewritings of the story of Penelope's long-suffering wait for her husband to return we remain as fascinated as ever by one of the poetic cornerstones of western life. Why should that be?

Homer has been quarried and mined and remade ever since the Iliad and the Odyssey were first sung. But today poets, dramatists, songwriters, novelists and filmmakers are working on the poems like never before it seems. Dante, Tennyson and James Joyce all had goes at rewriting the story of Odysseus (also called Ulysses) and his struggle to get home after the Trojan War, but what do today's reworkers have to say about the story and its meaning to us? Simon Armitage, Michael Longley, Zachary Mason, Alice Oswald, Edith Hall, and the late Peter Reading and Christopher Logue join the words of Margaret Attwood and the music of Tim Buckley and the Soggy Bottom Boys to help us all find our way home. Producer:Tim Dee.


MON 16:30 Beyond Belief (b01d0rj1)
Travellers

There are many communities of travelling people in Britain and there have been for generations. While most people accept their lifestyles, some in the settled communities regard them with a degree of suspicion, even as a people apart.

Many travellers have a strong religious faith. Those of Irish origin tend to be Catholic; but an increasing number of travellers of Romany origin are joining Pentecostal churches. How does their religious practice differ from the mainstream? Are there common features that relate to their way of life? How has the experience of travelling and of exclusion impacted on their faith? In religion, as in life, must they always be outsiders?

Joining Ernie Rea to discuss the religious beliefs of travelling people are Dr Adrian Marsh, Senior Programme Manager at the Open Society Foundation, Cathleen McDonagh, from Exchange House, a National Traveller Organisation in Dublin; and Jackie Boyd, a pastor with the Light and Life Gypsy Church.


MON 17:00 PM (b01d0rj3)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.


MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01d0fjf)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 18:30 Just a Minute (b01d0rj5)
Series 62

Episode 6

Nicholas Parsons challenges Paul Merton, Liza Tarbuck, Josie Lawrence and Kit Hesketh-Harvey to talk for 60 seconds without hesitation, repitition or deviation. From March 2012.


MON 19:00 The Archers (b01d0rj7)
Brian remarks on the irony of him packing veg boxes at Bridge Farm, while Pat's campaign against the dairy threatens to stymie his business. Brian getting frustrated. He knows that Rufus and the PR firm are doing all they can, but he doesn't know if it's enough. After what's happened to Tony, Jennifer is concerned about the toll this is taking on Brian's health - she even changes his diet!

Emma's still struggling to find someone to look after George and Keira. Neil's convinced something will turn up. Susan praises Neil for the work he's done on the doll's house. Emma agrees it will be great for Keira when she's old enough. Susan warns Emma not to let George get close to Hilary Noakes' cockatoo as it seems to be ill. Neil reckons this is gossip but Susan and Emma insist it's helpful information.

Vicky calls on Susan to discuss an earlier comment from Jim. She's been trying to work out what he meant when he said she's looking very trim these days. Was he saying she was fat before? Vicky's not sure how to take it, and she's not convinced it was just a compliment.


MON 19:15 Front Row (b01d0rj9)
Lesley Sharp; Noah Stewart; We Bought a Zoo

Actress Lesley Sharp talks about returning to her role as Manchester police officer DC Janet Scott in the TV drama Scott and Bailey, alongside Suranne Jones. She reflects on how the series approaches the work of the murder squad, and discusses her career which includes The Full Monty and Mike Leigh's Vera Drake.

Matt Damon stars in the new film We Bought A Zoo, based on a British true story about a man who decided to take on a struggling zoo. Directed by Cameron Crowe, the film moves the action to California. Gaylene Gould reviews.

Noah Stewart is a young American tenor who grew up in Harlem and has already played Don Jose in Carmen, Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly and Rodolfo in La Boheme. This week he releases a CD of songs, and opens at the Royal Opera House in Judith Weir's new opera Miss Fortune. He reflects on working with a living composer, flying with a blanket over his head to avoid germs, and the views of his mother on his career so far.

Producer Nicki Paxman.


MON 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b01d0kyz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


MON 20:00 Document (b01d0rjc)
Mike Thomson presents Radio 4's investigative history series, examining documents which shed new light on past events.

In 1946, against the general post-Second World War retreat from Empire, Britain acquired a new territory: Sarawak on the island of Borneo.

Before its cession to the British, Sarawak had, for over a hundred years, been ruled over by the so-called White Rajahs.

They were, in fact, the Brooke family from Dorset and the decision by Vyner Brooke to hand over to British rule was a controversial one both within his family and within the country of Sarawak in general.

By 1949 it appeared that those opposed to the handover or 'cession', led by Anthony Brooke, were losing the argument.

It was then that a new governor, Duncan Stewart, was appointed. But a few short weeks after his arrival, he was fatally stabbed while inspecting a school in the provincial town of Sibu.

Stewart bravely tried to hide his injury and was flown out to Singapore. He clung to life long enough to see his wife who had hurried from London to see him.

The death of a young and promising British officer was blamed on the final, violent convulsion of the anti-cession movement, with the implication that Anthony Brooke should share some of the responsibility.

But was that really the motive for the attack? With the help of documents discovered by historian Simon Ball, Mikr Thomson explores the British attempts to play down and even hide the real reason for the assassination.

And Mike speaks to Anthony Brooke's grandson and Duncan Stewart's daughter about the legacy left to them by this forgotten outburst of colonial violence.

Producer: Tom Alban.


MON 20:30 Analysis (b01d0rp8)
Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Downing Street Guru

Janan Ganesh of The Economist speaks to Downing Street's favourite intellectual, Nassim Nicolas Taleb - author of the best selling book The Black Swan - to investigate his political appeal.

Producer: Mukul Devichand


MON 21:00 Material World (b01cwvb9)
Quentin Cooper asks if tourists and scientists may be bringing aliens into Antarctica. He checks out a controversial collision 12 900 years ago in which an asteroid impact may have changed the climate. He hears how one of our amateur scientists is investigating why we hate nasty noises and he discovers how star-quakes could help us discover habitable planets.

Producer: Martin Redfern.


MON 21:30 Start the Week (b01d0ky4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


MON 21:58 Weather (b01d0fjh)
The latest weather forecast.


MON 22:00 The World Tonight (b01d0rpb)
Diplomats at the UN Security Council issue strong condemnations of the violence in Syria. But is there any real chance of a political solution?

Anger erupts in Afghanistan after a US soldier kills 16 civilians in a night rampage - has the western strategy failed?

And how Chinese could be overtaking English as the lingua franca in business.


MON 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b01d7f9m)
Capital

Episode 6

Zbigniew is working on the house Petunia Howe lived in when he makes a life-changing discovery.

Capital - the new novel by John Lanchester - is the story of one south London street, which has seen a hundred years of fortunes made and lost, of hearts broken, of first steps and last breaths. And then, one day a card with a simple message drops through each letterbox: 'We Want What You Have'...

Capital interweaves the lives and stories of the residents of Pepys Road in an utterly compelling, post-crash, state-of-the-nation novel told with compassion, humour and truth; epic in scope, yet intimate and contemplative.

Producer: David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 23:00 Lucy Montgomery's Variety Pack (b00w7c95)
Series 1

Episode 2

Meet Daisy, the chattering public school girl's, parents and find out why the Mona Lisa has been dumped by the Laughing Cavalier.

Plus, a Police Officer who can't find the right words, a street survey that probes too far and Candi Karmel's sister makes an appearance.

A multi-paced, showcase for the exceptional talent of Lucy Montgomery.

With Philip Pope, Sally Grace, Waen Shepherd and Natalie Walter.

Written by Lucy Montgomery with additional material by Steven Burge and Dan Tetsell.

Music by Philip Pope

Producer: Katie Tyrrell.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2010.


MON 23:30 Today in Parliament (b01d0rpd)
The Armed Forces Minister, Nick Harvey, says the killing of 16 Afghan civilians by a US soldier was "an appalling tragedy".
The House of Lords supports a move to make stalking a criminal offence. But ministers promise to look at the details again after some peers voice concerns.
Labour demands that the Government publish secret advice from civil servants about the move to the new-look NHS in England.
And the MP who pleaded guilty to assaulting fellow politicians in a Palace of Westminster bar apologises to the Commons.
Sean Curran and team report on today's events in Parliament.



TUESDAY 13 MARCH 2012

TUE 00:00 Midnight News (b01d0fk2)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


TUE 00:30 Book of the Week (b01d0ky6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Monday]


TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01d0fk4)
The latest shipping forecast.


TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01d0fk6)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01d0fk8)
The latest shipping forecast.


TUE 05:30 News Briefing (b01d0fkb)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01d29d8)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Roger Hutchings, Methodist minister.


TUE 05:45 Farming Today (b01d0rtd)
Anna Hill hears how hi-tech horticulture powered by LEDs could bring rose growing back to Britain. Chris Plackett from the farm energy centre in Warwickshire explains how this could help reduce the 75% of flowers we currently import.

As a hosepipe bans loom, the Environment Agency tells Farming Today the drought could spread this summer, affecting fruit, vegetable and salad growers and reducing the water available for livestock. With warnings of water shortages across many parts of Europe, The National Farmers' Union warn that food prices could go up if the drought proves significant.

And scientists across the country are working on improving our diet by increasing the nutritional benefits of our food - they're calling it biofortification. Like many technologies associated with GM, it's proving controversial. Professor Dale Sanders from the John Innes Centre explains why purple tomatoes, fish oils in oilseed rape and health enhancing blood oranges might all be possible through UK research.

Presenter: Anna Hill Producer: Melvin Rickarby.


TUE 06:00 Today (b01d0rtg)
The Today programme with John Humphrys and Evan Davis, including the risks associated with eating large amounts of red meat, David Cameron's visit to the United States to meet President Obama, the view of the Royal College of GPs about the NHS bill and whether the emphasis placed on discovering the Higgs boson "God particle" by physicists could actually be counter-productive.


TUE 09:00 The Life Scientific (b01d0rtj)
John Lawton

Jim Al-Khalili talks to environmental scientist John Lawton about making space for nature. A keen birdwatcher from the age of 7, John describes his studies of birds, dragonflies and bracken and his groundbreaking experiments in the Ecotron, essentially a box full of nature. For the last few decades John has advised successive governments on a host of environmental issues such as GM crops, road traffic pollution and nature conservation. His latest report Making Space for Nature was turned into policy remarkably fast but, he says, it isn't always easy to get governments to listen to environmental advice based on science.

Producer: Anna Buckley.


TUE 09:30 One to One (b01d0rtl)
Samira Ahmed with Lucy Mathen

The journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed is taking over the One to One interviewer's microphone for the next three weeks.

Samira has spent 20 years reporting breaking news at home and abroad from Britain to Los Angeles to Berlin. Born to Hindu and Muslim parents and educated at a Catholic school, Samira married into a Northern Irish family. As a result, she's aware of the way news coverage can make sweeping assumptions about stories and tries to seek out the missing angles behind the headlines.

With that in mind, her first guest, Lucy Mathen, tells a tale of charitable endeavour, with a surprising twist.

Lucy Mathen joined John Craven's Newsround in 1976, becoming the BBC's first female British Asian to present a major TV programme. Several years later, after interviewing a local doctor in Afghanistan, she decided she could achieve a great deal more in a warzone by working as a doctor, not as a journalist. So she retrained as an ophthalmologist, and in 2000 launched the charity Second Sight which runs eye hospitals in northern India helping to cure cataracts for thousands of people.

But the story we're telling in One to One is about football....

Producer: Karen Gregor.


TUE 09:45 Book of the Week (b01dd3wj)
Svetlana Alliluyeva - 20 Letters to a Friend

Episode 2

By Svetlana Alliluyeva. Abridged by Eileen Horne.

Svetlana describes her early childhood, which slowly turned from idyll to nightmare as her father's power grew and his tyranny began to destroy close friends and family.

Read by Stella Gonet

Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (b01d12nt)
Joan Bakewell on the art of the interview; Vintage clothes for the vintage lady - how to wear second hand with style; Preparing a disabled child to leave home; Why are there still so few women on boards? Balancing the cost and quality of child care. Presented by Jane Garvey.


TUE 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b01dd3gd)
JL Carr - The Harpole Report

Episode 2

2/5. Comic drama. Harpole's missionary zeal is dented by the loss of his moveable spanner and a disappointing set of eleven plus results. J.L Carr's novel is dramatised by Jonathan Smith.


TUE 11:00 Scott's Legacy (b01d12nw)
Episode 1

Kevin Fong looks beyond the failure of Robert Falcon Scott's expedition to be the first to reach the South Pole and focuses instead on the scientific legacy of Scott's explorations of Antarctica between 1901 and 1912.

In recent years, much has been written about Scott the polar loser and bungler. But that personalised narrative ignores the pioneering scientific research and discoveries which transformed Antarctica from an unknown quantity on the map into a profoundly important continent in the Earth's past and present.

Before Scott and Shackleton trekked across the vast ice sheets in the early 1900s, no-one was sure whether there was even a continent there. Some geographers had suggested Antarctica was merely a colossal raft of ice anchored to a scattering of islands. The science teams on the three British expeditions made fundamental discoveries about Antarctic weather and began to realise the frozen continent's fundamental role in global climate and ocean circulation. They discovered rocks and fossils which showed Antarctica was once a balmy forested place. They mapped the magnetism around the South Pole for both science and navigators. They found many new species of animals and revealed the extraordinary winter breeding habits of the penguins.

Antarctic historians such as Ed Larson and polar researchers such as David Walton of the British Antarctic Survey explain how the motivation for Scott's two expeditions and Shackleton's Nimrod expedition was a mix of colonial ambition, scientific exploration and displays of national prowess. In fact many historians suggest that Scott's final bid to claim the South Pole for the British was handicapped because the expedition was doing too much science.

The dedication to scientific discovery is most poignantly revealed by fossils that Scott's party collected after their disappointment of being beaten by Amundsen and a few weeks before they froze to death trudging across the Ross ice shelf. They found a particular plant fossil which had been one of the Holy Grails on the early explorations of Antarctica's interior. As Peta Hayes of the Natural History Museum explains, it proved an hypothesis raised by Darwin among others that all the southern continents were once linked together. The fossils were also important evidence to support the new and controversial theory of Continental Drift - a theory which now underpins the entirety of modern Earth science.

Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker.


TUE 11:30 The Brontes' Piano (b01d12ny)
Singer Catherine Bott explores the Bronte sisters' musical world through their newly restored piano, returned to the parsonage in Haworth.

Joined by pianist Jonathan Cohen, Catherine looks through the Bronte's family music collection and discovers how musical life at the parsonage underscored the sisters' creative life, their work and tastes.

When Charlotte Bronte discovered the poems of her sister Emily, she described them as having "a peculiar music - wild, melancholy and elevating." The Bronte sisters - Charlotte, Emily and Anne - have been mythologised and worshipped ever since their early deaths. Haworth Parsonage, where they and their troubled brother Branwell grew up, has been a place of pilgrimage for 150 years.

The Brontes are a literary industry, because we need them to stand as symbols of doomed, rebellious womanhood. And their lives, just as much as their writing, oblige us. They all wrote compulsively from early childhood, creating fantastical worlds in minute writing, moralising verse-tragedies - and Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

But when they made music, they came home from the fantasy lands of Gondal and Angria, to sing and play folk songs (such as Robert Burns' 'Ye Banks and Braes), popular numbers by Haydn, Handel's Harmonious Blacksmith, for their own pleasure, not solely to demonstrate their maidenly accomplishments.

With the piano restored, their sheet music is still in its drawer. Catherine and Jonathan get to hold it in their hands to recreate a quiet evening at home with Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell.

They all lived much of the time in a "wild, melancholy and elevating" world, and that's part of the Bronte myth, but their music-making reminds us of a different side to them - perhaps one that doesn't quite fit with how we want or need them to be.

Producer: Simon Hollis

A Brook Lapping production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in March 2012


TUE 12:00 You and Yours (b01d12p0)
Call You and Yours: UK officially in a state of drought

This has been the second driest winter for 12 months in some areas of the UK. Hosepipes and sprinklers will be banned for domestic customers in Kent and Sussex from April 5.

On Call You & Yours we'll be talking about drought, and asking why for a country known for its rain we can't sort our shortage of water out?

Do you live in a drought area? Or perhaps you come from a place with a high rainfall and don't understand what the fuss is about? Should the water companies themselves be doing a better job of conserving supplies or should they be transporting it around the country?

If you want to have your say, you can email youandyours@bbc.co.uk, text 84844 and we may call you back or call 03700 100 444. Lines open from 10am on Tuesday. You can also tweet @BBCRadio4 #youandyours.


TUE 12:57 Weather (b01d0fkd)
The latest weather forecast.


TUE 13:00 World at One (b01d13jl)
Martha Kearney presents the latest national and international news. Listeners can share their views via email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.


TUE 13:45 Alvin Hall in The Bonfire of the Vanities (b01d13jn)
Wall Street

The Bonfire of The Vanities told the story of rich Wall Street bond trader Sherman McCoy being involved in a hit-and-run with a young black man in the Bronx, and the dramatic fall out that follows.

Sherman's arrogance led to him being there, and his Wall Street success led to his arrogance. Are there still Sherman McCoy's populating Wall Street today, 25 years after the publication of Tom Wolfe's novel?

Alvin asks, with Occupy Wall Street, and the implosion of many of the finance companies in New York, whether we've seen the end of the 'Masters of the Universe'.

Produced by Lucy Lloyd.


TUE 14:00 The Archers (b01d0rj7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]


TUE 14:15 Drama (b01d13jq)
Apple Jelly

Apple Jelly is a snapshot of austerity Britain in 2011/2012 based on interviews with people who have been affected by the cuts.

After starting a family, Sam transformed herself into a high achieving personal fitness trainer. When she is asked by a residential rehabilitation project for young mothers with drug and alcohol addictions to run a weekly fitness programme she agrees, little realizing that her personal journey has only just begun.

Sam's bittersweet true story blends verbatim with fictionalized dramatized scenes and is interwoven with interviews from a people who have been at the sharp end of the cuts.

Cast:
Sam ..... Jo Mcinnes
Chrissie ..... Petra Letang
Janie ..... Catrin Stewart
Maisie .... Abigail Thaw
Rachel ..... Jessica Pidsley
Fran ..... Lisa Gardner
Pippa ..... Rachel Atkins
Mark ...... Adrian Middleton

Writer Adrian Middleton's first play for radio was 'London Pride'. He worked as an inclusive volunteering officer for Scope and was an advice and guidance volunteer for The UK Coalition.

Producer: Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 15:00 The Global Reach (b01d13js)
Episode 2

The Global Reach is a new weekly programme, presented by Katie Derham, which aims to shine a light on international affairs through the personal stories of those directly involved in the making of history.

This week, a family of Syrian refugees from Homs talk about daily life in the besieged city, their flight to Lebanon and why they still don't feel safe.

The Russian journalist and documentary maker Alexander Korobko tells us why he thinks the western media has got it all wrong about Vladimir Putin.

Also, an exclusive interview with Constantino Davidoff, the argentinian scrap metal dealer whose business deal to dismantle three whaling stations in South Georgia led to the Falklands War.

And we go rodent hunting with Ma Dayong, a multimillionaire Chinese ratcatcher.

Producer: Will Yates
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 15:30 Costing the Earth (b01d13xv)
The Power of Peat

In the fight against climate change the peatlands of the British Isles are one of our greatest assets. A healthy peat bog can absorb more carbon dioxide and store it for longer than forests of a similar size. But we're still destroying our peat at a frightening rate. It's mined for use by gardeners, it's burned in power stations, taken by traditional peat-cutters and ravaged by moorland fires.

In 'Costing the Earth' Tom Heap meets the people leading the fightback. He takes to the skies above the Peak District where helicopters are dropping rocks and heather brash onto remote hillsides to heal the wounds caused by two centuries of acid rain. He joins the teams blocking drains and planting pods of sphagnum moss in an effort to bring carbon-sucking life back to the blasted heaths of the peaks.

Producer: Alasdair Cross.


TUE 16:00 Law in Action (b01d13xx)
Drug and Alcohol Misusing Families

For the last four years, London's Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) has been trying to get drug and alcohol misusing families back on track. It has done so by pioneering a different approach from that adopted by the mainstream family courts. Whereas they often employ punitive measures, FDAC combines a more interactive legal process with supportive social work. But does it work? And does it represent value for money?

Joshua Rozenberg visits the court to find out how effective its work has been and what those who use FDAC think of it. He speaks to those involved in the day-to-day work of the court - including the district judge, the social workers involved in its creation, legal representatives and others with expert knowledge of the problems which the court's family users must tackle to put their lives back in order - and finds out what worries critics of FDAC. Law in Action discovers how far this innovative - but intensive - legal model is one which can realistically be emulated elsewhere in the UK when public funds are under such pressure.

The programme also focuses on the Justice Secretary's latest travails. Kenneth Clarke is struggling to persuade key figures in the secret world of closed legal proceedings to endorse his plans radically to extend such procedures. Joshua Rozenberg lifts the veil on these little-known "special advocates" as the lawyers are known. He asks one of them what his role actually involves in court - and why he opposes Kenneth Clarke's plans so strongly.

Producer Simon Coates.


TUE 16:30 A Good Read (b01d13xz)
Chris Lintott and Neil McCormick

Harriett Gilbert and her guests - astronomer and Sky at Night presenter, Chris Lintott and Chief Music Critic for The Daily Telegraph, Neil McCormick - discuss favourite books by Anne Tyler, Olaf Stapledon and Marie Darrieussecq.

A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler
Publisher: Vintage

White by Marie Darrieussecq
Publisher: Faber

First Men by Olaf Stapledon
Publisher: Gollancz

Producer: Toby Field

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2012.


TUE 17:00 PM (b01d13y1)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.


TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01d0fkg)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 18:30 Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! (b01d13y3)
Series 7

The Arrival

Arthur arrives in Spain to run an ill friends bar. Struggling with the language and culture, Arthur enlists the help of his taxi driver as he puts on his first event, with Arthur himself leading the singing on the Karaoke.

Count Arthur Strong - one time Variety Star, now sole proprietor and owner of Doncaster's Academy of Performance - is a show business legend, raconteur, and lecturer extraordinaire. He stars in a Sitcom with regular sidekick Wilfred Taylor, Master Butcher, and a host of other characters.

All false starts and nervous fumbling, badly covered up by a delicate sheen of bravado and self-assurance, and an expert in everything from the world of entertainment to the origin of the species, everyday life with Arthur is an enlightening experience.

Cast:
Steve Delaney
Mel Giedroyc
Alastair Kerr
Martin Marquez
David Mounfield

Producer: John Leonard
A Komedia production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 19:00 The Archers (b01d13y5)
Joe and Jim discuss the saplings in the community orchard, which have got off to a good start.

Mike arrives and accuses Jim of fancying Vicky and making sleazy remarks to her. When Jim realises what he's referring to, he apologises for any misunderstanding. He certainly didn't mean to insult Vicky. Mike won't let it go, and even Joe's had enough. He defends Jim and insists that he'd never insult a lady. Mike admits he'll have to take Jim's word that it was just a genuine compliment.

David's been milking at Bridge Farm. Tom's insisting that they pay Pip if she carries on helping them. The consultant arrives to discuss the new slurry tank. David and Ruth are surprised at how young she seems but Lisa knows her stuff, and agrees that their proposal for autumn calving is a workable and practical way forward. She'll work on a business plan for the bank, to include a new slurry tank.

After giving them details of a farm which is already autumn calving, Lisa leaves David and Ruth feeling optimistic. Ruth recognises this isn't the end, though. David agrees, but thinks it's maybe the end of the beginning.


TUE 19:15 Front Row (b01d13y7)
Irving Berlin's daughters; playwright Helen Edmundson

With Mark Lawson

Irving Berlin's three daughters reflect on their father's career as one of America's most successful songwriters. They also discuss their inherited responsibilities for his music and the continuing appeal of songs such as Cheek to Cheek and Puttin' On the Ritz, the light of a new UK stage version of the film Top Hat.

The National Gallery's new exhibition Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude, features the two paintings Turner donated to the gallery on the strict condition that they be hung alongside two specific paintings by the 17th century Old Master, Claude. The exhibition's curator Susan Foister and art critic William Feaver discuss the conditions and stipulations artists have made about how their work is displayed during their lifetime and beyond.

Dramatist Helen Edmundson discusses her new play Mary Shelley, based on the life of the author of Frankenstein. The play centres on the scandalous relationship between Mary Shelley and her husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the impact it had on their families.

Producer Claire Bartleet.


TUE 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b01dd3gd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


TUE 20:00 File on 4 (b01d13y9)
Tax Avoidance

How strong is the government's commitment to ending schemes set up to minimise tax? A number of schemes have proved popular in the private sector, including Employee Benefit Trusts. These have been used by football clubs for tax planning purposes, but are now in the sights of HMRC as it attempts to recoup what it sees as unpaid tax. But how widespread are these trust schemes and why are they so popular with companies that have large government contracts?

As the Treasury reviews tax avoidance by senior government employees, it has emerged that employees in other parts of the public sector are using payment schemes that keep them off the payroll. There is growing concern that paying public servants through personal service companies may be inappropriate.

How tax-compliant are the citizens of the United Kingdom? Is there a risk that publicity about the tax-avoidance schemes of the rich, coupled with easier access to information via the internet, could lead to more people trying to cut their contributions?
Presenter: Fran Abrams
Producer: Ian Muir-Cochrane.


TUE 20:40 In Touch (b01d13yc)
Peter White talks to former soldier Craig Lundberg about the way he coped with his sudden sight loss, after being shot whilst serving in Iraq. Craig says he was determined to prove himself still able to partake in physical pursuits, including climbing mountains and doing charity cycle rides.
He attributed the suport of his family and girlfriend to his rehabilitation but says he was also very determined to find his own way of coping with life without sight.
Tony Shearman meets the blind and visually-impaired cast members of 'Sheer', the latest production from Extant. The show is a combination of comedy burlesque and horror and is written and directed by Maria Oshodi.


TUE 21:00 Inside Health (b01d13yf)
Red meat and heart health, carbon monoxide, screening, joints supplements

A new study shows that a diet rich in red meat increases the risk of developing bowel cancer - so how much is too much? Professor Tom Sanders from Kings College, London, explains how a rise in obesity and an inactive lifestyle could be as much to blame as your favourite steak.

This week 17 people - including 2 ambulance crew - were treated for suspected carbon monoxide poisoning at a food plant in Cornwall. The medical adviser to the charity CO Awareness explains how to protect everyone in your home from the accidental poisoning which can have catastrophic effects.

NHS screening programmes are based on evidence - so that they target the right groups of people who are most at risk of developing a condition. But more and more private companies are offering tests like CT and ultrasound scans. Abdominal aortic aneurysm is a potentially lethal condition - where the main artery in the abdomen balloons and could burst. Many private companies offer screening for it - but vascular surgeon Hany Hafez from St Richard's hospital in Chichester believes that it's a waste of time and money for women and for men who are under 65 years of age.

And Dr Mark Porter gets on a treadmill to answer a listener's question about whether running is truly good for his health - or will end up ruining his knees. Dr Kamran Abassi - the editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine - casts his expert eye over the evidence behind supplements which are supposed to help keep our joints healthy.


TUE 21:30 The Life Scientific (b01d0rtj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


TUE 21:58 Weather (b01d0fkj)
The latest weather forecast.


TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (b01d13yh)
Allegations of political disappearances in Sri Lanka - we have a special report.

Do David Cameron and Barack Obama share some political ground?

And can life as an astronaut damage your eyesight?

With Ritula Shah.


TUE 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b01ddbdx)
Capital

Episode 7

While Shahid Kamal is faced with interrogation at Paddington Green Police Station, Zbigniew comes face to face with Matya at No 51 Pepys Road.

Capital - the new novel by John Lanchester - is the story of one south London street, which has seen a hundred years of fortunes made and lost, of hearts broken, of first steps and last breaths. And then, one day a card with a simple message drops through each letterbox: '
We Want What You Have'....

Capital interweaves the lives and stories of the residents of Pepys Road in an utterly compelling, post-crash, state-of-the-nation novel told with compassion, humour and truth; epic in scope, yet intimate and contemplative.

Producer: David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 23:00 The History Plays (b01d1403)
O Salutaris Hostia, Diana

The History Plays are a series of imagined conversations at key moments in the recent history of Britain.

In "O Salutaris Hostia, Diana" Imelda Staunton stars as Martha and Toby Jones as Graham. The couple look back over their lives together but their very different views on Diana mask a far more personal conflict, and Graham's dislike of the princess has its roots in his pain over the circumstances of their son Alan's death.

Written and directed by Nigel Smith
Produced by Gareth Edwards.


TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (b01d1405)
Joanna Shinn sees the health and social care bill survive another attack in the Commons; MPs hear details of the attempt to rescue two hostages in Nigeria; and Ken Clarke defends plans that could lead to some legal proceedings being held in secret.

Editor: Peter Mulligan.



WEDNESDAY 14 MARCH 2012

WED 00:00 Midnight News (b01d0fl3)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


WED 00:30 Book of the Week (b01dd3wj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Tuesday]


WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01d0fl5)
The latest shipping forecast.


WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01d0fl7)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01d0fl9)
The latest shipping forecast.


WED 05:30 News Briefing (b01d0flc)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01d29g5)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Roger Hutchings, Methodist minister.


WED 05:45 Farming Today (b01d29gr)
The European ban on battery cages is eating into bakers' profits, because liquid and bulk egg prices are rising sharply. The supply of eggs has shrunk as farmers have taken their battery houses out of production. The Ulster Farmers Union says that output in Northern Ireland has dropped by 15%. Previously, the majority of Northern Irish eggs were exported to the rest of the UK. The Soil Association warns that an American study linking regular red meat consumption with premature deaths might be less relevant in the UK, because of important differences in the way cattle are farmed here. And, the grower on a mission to make local blooms as familiar a concept as local food, with a Flowers From The Farm label.

Producer: Sarah Swadling
Presenter: Anna Hill.


WED 06:00 Today (b01d29hg)
With John Humphrys and Justin Webb. Including Sports Desk; Yesterday in Parliament; Weather; Thought for the Day.


WED 09:00 Midweek (b01d29j3)
Libby Purves is joined by former boxer Sugar Ray Leonard; singer and songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan; actor and dancer Adam Cooper and scenographer Pamela Howard.

Gilbert O'Sullivan is a three time Ivor Novello-winning singer and songwriter responsible for the hits 'Alone Again (Naturally)' and the UK No.1s 'Clair' and 'Get Down'. This year he is celebrating 45 years in the music industry by releasing his greatest hits album, 'A Singer and His Songs - The Very Best Of Gilbert O'Sullivan' and embarking on a UK tour.

Former boxing champion Sugar Ray Leonard was known as an artist and a showman in the ring, having gruelling encounters with Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Marvin Hagler. His autobiography, 'The Big Fight' tells of his humble beginnings through to an Olympic gold medal, championship titles, retirements and comebacks as well as drug and alcohol abuse. The Big Fight is published by Ebury Press.

Adam Cooper is a former Principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, who has now turned to acting and choreography. He is currently playing Don Lockwood in the musical, Singin' In The Rain at London's Palace Theatre.

Pamela Howard OBE is a scenographer and theatre director. She is curating an exhibition, The Art of Chichester Festival Theatre: A Celebration, to mark the 50th anniversary of Chichester Festival Theatre. The exhibition celebrates the ways in which visual theatre artists responded to the challenge of designing for the first purpose-built thrust stage in the UK. The Art of Chichester Festival Theatre: A Celebration is at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester.

Producer: Paula McGinley.


WED 09:45 Book of the Week (b01dd3x5)
Svetlana Alliluyeva - 20 Letters to a Friend

Episode 3

By Svetlana Alliluyeva. Abridged by Eileen Horne.

Finally resolving to confront the past, Svetlana describes her paradoxical adoration for a strict and judgmental mother, and the awful truth about her mother's untimely death....

Read by Stella Gonet

Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (b01d2bcg)
Part-time work - opportunities for women wanting to work flexibly; The secret scent of sexual attraction, Linda Grant on A Thousand Reasons to be a Feminist and Bim Adewunmi on how Twitter has given a new voice to women; Cook the Perfect Cheesecake with Lisa Faulkner; The Military Wives new album. Presented by Jenni Murray.


WED 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b01dd3h1)
JL Carr - The Harpole Report

Episode 3

3/5. Comic drama. Mr Theaker, the caretaker, reacts badly to Harpole's reforming efforts.

J.L Carr's novel is dramatised by Jonathan Smith.


WED 11:00 Building the Big Society (b01d2fbb)
Cooperating

The government is keen for public sector staff to form social enterprises. A new law requires public bodies to take into account 'social value' when awarding contracts. And the NHS will see more services put out to tender. But what do these changes mean on the ground?

Over the past 8 months, Giles Edwards has been given inside access as a major new social enterprise is created in Bath from parts of the local NHS and the local council.

He has followed staff, many of whom had worked in the council or health system for many years, as they find their feet in the new world of the private sector. Do the doctors, social workers and managers who felt optimistic about the change at the beginning feel the same way now? And what about those who felt nervous, concerned, or downright hostile?

The programme also explores the wider impact. Will Sirona Care and Health, the new organisation, make good on its promises to create wider 'social value'? What can it do with its £50 million budget and 1,700 staff to improve the lives of people in Bath and North East Somerset?

Producer: Giles Edwards.


WED 11:30 Shedtown (b011jvhf)
Series 1

Something's Gonna Change

Who hasn't thought about running away from it all at some time or other? Throwing caution to the wind, wrenching oneself out of a long established orbit to head for the deep space of the unknown?

Barry (Tony Pitts) and Jimmy (Kevin Eldon) haven't. Until now. Friends since school days in a small town, they find themselves slipping inexorably and almost unconsciously into middle age.

Shedtown is a dream born out of quiet desperation. Throughout the series our wooden icon of escape and isolation 'the shed' becomes a symbol of possibility and change; a new community by the sea where our heroes can circumnavigate the mundane, once and for all.

It's the works day out for the workers of Blakeley Industrial Museum - and something's got to change.

Cast:
Barry ...... Tony Pitts
Jimmy & Johnny ..... Kevin Eldon
Colin ..... Johnny Vegas
Diane ..... Suranne Jones
Dave ..... Shaun Dooley
Eleanor ..... Ronni Ancona
Maureen ..... Emma Fryer
William ..... Adrian Manfredi
Nicky ..... Caron May Carly
Yvonne ..... Jessica Knappett
Father Michael ..... James Quinn
Wes ...... Warren Brown

Narrator ..... Maxine Peake
Music ..... Paul Heaton

Written and created by Tony Pitts
Directed by Jim Poyser

Producer: Sally Harrison
A Woolyback Production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 12:00 You and Yours (b01d2fbs)
Richard Branson on government loans for entrepreneurs

Richard Branson explains why he wants the Government to give student-style-loans to young entrepreneurs.
Also: De-shopping - the retail fraud where customers buy clothing, wear it and then take it back. It's on the rise as consumers find more sophisticated ways to out smart the retailers.

The designer of a revolutionary cardboard cycle helmet tells us why he thinks it's safer than anything else on the market.

And the Property Ombudsman on why it's time to start regulating letting agents.

Presented by Winifred Robinson.
Produced by Karen Dalziel.


WED 12:57 Weather (b01d0flf)
The latest weather forecast.


WED 13:00 World at One (b01d2fd0)
Martha Kearney presents the national and international news. Listeners can share their views via email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.


WED 13:45 Alvin Hall in The Bonfire of the Vanities (b01d2fgd)
Justice

Tom Wolfe wrote of the procession of young black men being jolted through the criminal justice system in New York, and particularly the Bronx, as a depressing, and relentless, spectacle. 1980's New York was renowned for its crime, but today it is supposed to be cleaned up.

Alvin Hall asks how much really has changed since those dark days, visiting the courthouse in the Bronx, speaking to legal contemporaries of characters in the book and then asking the truth of what's changed from a younger member of the current generation of lawyers.

Produced by Lucy Lloyd.


WED 14:00 The Archers (b01d13y5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Tuesday]


WED 14:15 Drama (b01d2fj4)
Series 4

Goose Feathers

By Nick Warburton. Trevor Peacock stars as inspirational chef Warwick Hedges who runs an upmarket restaurant in the Cambridgeshire Fens with his son Jack. Warwick is after celebrity endorsement for the restaurant but Jack is hesitant. Just who does Warwick consider to be a celebrity? And would Jack want them in the restaurant? Meanwhile a silent guest turns up in the restaurant and mysteriously disappears.

Warwick Hedges...Trevor Peacock
Jack Hedges...Sam Dale
Marcia Hedges...Kate Buffery
Zofia...Helen Longworth
Samuel...John Rowe
Special Guest...Gyles Brandreth

Directed by Claire Grove.


WED 15:00 Money Box Live (b01d2fkc)
Financial phone-in.


WED 15:30 Inside Health (b01d13yf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]


WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (b01d2fll)
Private military security; whisky tourism

The MIddle Eastern conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have been characterised by widespread deployment of private military and security companies. Their job has been to provide protection to army compounds, aid agencies and governments. Most of these men are American but a third are British. Laurie Taylor hears about new research by Professor Paul Higate, a Reader in Gender and Security at Bristol University. His study finds that British operatives see themselves as cool headed professionals but regard their American counterparts as 'trigger happy cowboys'. But is this perception an objective reality or a self serving illusion? The sociologist, Professor Anthony King, joins this discussion. Also, artifice versus authenticity on the traveller trail.
Professor Karl Spracklen from Leeds Metropolitan University talks about the quest for the 'real' and 'authentic'' in tourism. Whisky tours are now as central to Scottish tourism as buying heather or eating haggis. Has 'tasting a dram' become just another element in the construction of invented tradition?
Producer: Jayne Egerton.


WED 16:30 The Media Show (b01d2fm1)
The Voice launches on BBC1 next week, a few weeks ahead of the usual launch date of ITV's Britain's Got Talent. This year, though, BGT's been brought forward and the two programmes will clash. Neil Midgley has been looking into how this happened and what's at stake for the broadcasters.

James Murdoch's written to the Commons committee investigating phone hacking at the News of the World, reasserting that he has not misled Parliament while sharing responsibility for not uncovering wrongdoing earlier. Why has he written this now, without being asked and what hangs on the committee's delayed report? Channel 4's political editor Gary Gibbon and Guardian media editor Dan Sabbagh discuss.

Lord Hunt is the chair of the Press Complaints Commission which, he announced last week, is closing down to reform. He says he has the encouragement of Lord Leveson to develop a new model for self regulation - which Lord Leveson has clarified is not the same as endorsement. Lord Hunt tells Steve how he thinks a new PCC could work.

And Emma Barnett, the Telegraph's digital media editor, looks at Mashable, the technology and social media news site which CNN is said to be thinking of buying for $200 million, just a few years after a Scottish teenager started it up in his bedroom in Aberdeen.

The producer is Simon Tillotson.


WED 17:00 PM (b01d2fr1)
Eddie Mair presents the day's top stories. Including Weather.


WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01d0flh)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 18:30 Life: An Idiot's Guide (b01d2fsj)
Series 1

First Impressions

Stephen K Amos and his pick of the circuit's best stand-ups build an idiot's guide to life.

Miss London, Jess Fostekew and Craig Campbell join Stephen to offer an idiot's guide to first impressions.

Producer: Colin Anderson.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2012.


WED 19:00 The Archers (b01d2gxk)
Jamie tells Natalie that Alistair wants him to join the cricket team again. Jamie has his reservations about spending so much time with old men when he'd rather be with her. He comes up with an idea - youth training on different nights from the usual nets. Jamie decides he'll suggest it to Marty. If he's keen, Jamie will put it to Alistair.

Alice goes to the fashion show, while Chris tries to get his head around VAT. Alice's match-making plans have failed. Amy already has a new boyfriend, Carl, but she won't give out any juicy details.

Tom updates Tony on the farm but Tony's not listening. He's thinking about Rich. When they met, he just wanted to hug Rich and say he was his granddad. Realising the emotional toll this is still having, Tom tells Helen he's had a change of heart. He wants Pat and Tony to see Rich again, and to be able to tell him who they are.

Helen agrees to talk to Kylie to see if she can get Sharon to change her mind. Tom knows they're lucky to still have their dad, and this is worth doing for him.


WED 19:15 Front Row (b01d2h3h)
Miró's grandsons on his sculptures; The Devils on DVD

With Mark Lawson

As the UK's largest exhibition of the sculpture of Joan Miró opens at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Mark meets Miró's grandsons, Emilio Fernández Miró and Joan Punyet Miró. They discuss the career of an artist who at the age of 81 described himself as "an established painter but a young sculptor".

In the new film thriller Contraband, Mark Wahlberg stars as a family man and former smuggler, dragged back into crime by his naive brother-in-law. Novelist M J Hyland reviews.

What did Shakespeare's plays sound like when first performed? The British Library is releasing a Shakespeare CD in what is claimed to be the original pronunciation. Actor Ben Crystal discusses how listening to Shakespeare performed this way changes our understanding of his language.

As Ken Russell's notorious 1971 film The Devils becomes available on DVD for the first time, in its original X certificate version, the film's editor Michael Bradsell and original cast member Murray Melvin share their memories of making it.

Producer Ekene Akalawu.


WED 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b01dd3h1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


WED 20:00 Moral Maze (b01d2h6s)
Gay Marriage

The government will this week launch a public consultation on its proposals to allow gay marriage. The idea has brought forth a torrent of opposition from many senior church leaders who argue the institution is one of the building blocks of society and that the state does not have the moral authority to dismantle the universally understood meaning and purpose of marriage. Earlier this year the Pope said gay marriage threatens to undermine "the future of humanity itself" and in a speech to US bishops in Rome last Friday he said the Christian vision of human sexuality was now in crisis around the world with "powerful political and cultural currents seeking to alter the legal definition of marriage". The Universal Declaration on Human Rights defines marriage as a right which applies to men and women and that "the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state". But the authority of the church, our understanding of human sexuality and our definitions of what a family is have all changed fundamentally in the past 60 years. Of course there are those who say that's part of the problem and there are also those who see the issue in the simple terms of equality - why should gay people be denied something that heterosexuals have as a right? But there are also many people of faith who welcome the idea that the sacrament of marriage should be open to as many people as possible because it's the best way establish long lasting, stable loving relationships whether children are being raised in them or not. So who should be allowed to marry?

Witnesses: Dr Austen Ivereigh - Catholic Voices; Ben Summerskill - Chief Executive Stonewall; Dr David Landrum - Director of Public Policy Evangelical Alliance; Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner- Movement of Reform for Judaism.

Combative, provocative and engaging debate chaired by Michael Buerk with Michael Portillo, Anne McElvoy, Kenan Malik and Clifford Longley.


WED 20:45 Lent Talks (b01d2h8v)
Prof John Lennox

John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, explains how the relationship between God and the individual is enhanced through science.

In the wake of political and social reactions to the financial crisis, austerity measures and the riots of 2011, debate continues to determine the role of the individual and society. The 2012 Lent Talks consider the relationship between the individual and the collective. Is each person one alone or one of many? Is it the human condition to be self-contained or to belong to the family, the tribe, the congregation, the nation? We live in groups but our most intense experiences are incommunicable. Jesus shared a communal last supper but he died an outcast, abandoned and rejected by his people, his disciples and (apparently) his Father.

Speakers of this year's talks include the journalist and author Martin Wroe, who will explore humanity being at its most divine when working in community; Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University, examines the philosophy of the individual and how this is neglected in many areas of Islam; Dr Gemma Simmonds CJ, explores the agony of the individual in society.

The Christian season of Lent is traditionally a time for self-examination and reflection on universal human conditions such as temptation, betrayal, abandonment, greed, forgiveness and love.


WED 21:00 Costing the Earth (b01d13xv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 15:30 on Tuesday]


WED 21:30 Midweek (b01d29j3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


WED 21:58 Weather (b01d0flk)
The latest weather forecast.


WED 22:00 The World Tonight (b01d2hck)
Premier Wen Jiabao says without reform China could face political turmoil like that seen during the Cultural Revolution. But what kind of reform does he want?

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King gets a grilling from BBC School Report journalists.

And a decade since it was set up, the International Criminal Court delivers its first verdict, but does it help or hinder conflict resolution?


WED 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b01ddbhm)
Capital

Episode 8

At Paddington Green Police Station Shahid gets a nice surprise, meanwhile at work Roger gets a terrible one.

Capital - the new novel by John Lanchester - is the story of one south London street, which has seen a hundred years of fortunes made and lost, of hearts broken, of first steps and last breaths. And then, one day a card with a simple message drops through each letterbox: 'We Want What You Have'....

Capital interweaves the lives and stories of the residents of Pepys Road in an utterly compelling, post-crash, state-of-the-nation novel told with compassion, humour and truth; epic in scope, yet intimate and contemplative.

Producer: David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 23:00 Tim Key's Late Night Poetry Programme (b01d2hf1)
Series 1

Superstition

Tim Key tells the tale of Mike Figg, an intensely superstitious man. Tom Basden plays the xylophone and has brought his own beaters.

Written and presented by Tim Key
With Tom Basden

Produced by James Robinson.


WED 23:15 Can't Tell Nathan Caton Nothing (b01d2hg0)
Series 1

About Dating

Nathan struggles with his family who disapprove not only of his career but his girlfriend too. Can he persuade them to accept either?

This is the story of young, up-and-coming comedian Nathan Caton, who becomes the first in his family to graduate from University - only to opt for a career in comedy - much to his family's annoyance who want him to get a 'proper job' using his architecture degree.

Each episode shows the criticism, interference and rollercoaster ride that Nathan endures from his family as he pursues his career against their wishes.

A mix of Nathan's stand-up intercut with scenes from his family life.

Written by: Nathan Caton. Additional material by: Ola and Maff Brown.

Nathan ..... Nathan Caton
Grandma ..... Mona Hammond
Mum ..... Adjoa Andoh
Dad ..... Curtis Walker
Monica ..... Chizzy Akulolu
Samantha ..... Alex Tregear

Script Editor: James Kettle

Producer: Katie Tyrrell

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2012.


WED 23:30 Today in Parliament (b01d2hg2)
Sean Curran reports on rowdy exchanges at question time as Nick Clegg is urged to block the health and social care bill; the government defends the use of the Warrior armoured vehicle in Afghanistan; and peers are dismayed that some police forces want to buy their cars from abroad.

Editor : Peter Mulligan.



THURSDAY 15 MARCH 2012

THU 00:00 Midnight News (b01d0fm4)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


THU 00:30 Book of the Week (b01dd3x5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Wednesday]


THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01d0fm6)
The latest shipping forecast.


THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01d0fm8)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01d0fmb)
The latest shipping forecast.


THU 05:30 News Briefing (b01d0fmd)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01d2kcx)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Roger Hutchings, Methodist minister.


THU 05:45 Farming Today (b01d2kfy)
You might know it better as the cause of aches during exercise but lactic acid could be used to reduce levels of E. Coli and other food poisoning bacteria on beef carcasses. It is a common practice in the USA but, at the moment, the EU only allows meat to be washed with water. The European Food Safety Agency now says it's safe, and the UK Food Safety Agency is consulting on a possible rule change. Also in the programme, some journalists of the future from Oxfordshire interview a farming entrepreneur of the future, for BBC News School Report. Anna finds out how British grown sugar begins life. And, Charlotte discovers which flower bulbs have to be kept in the fridge.

Presenter: Charlotte Smith
Producer: Sarah Swadling.


THU 06:00 Today (b01d2kry)
With Evan Davis and Justin Webb. Including Sports Desk; Yesterday in Parliament; Weather; Thought for the Day.


THU 09:00 In Our Time (b01d2kzx)
Vitruvius and De Architectura

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Vitruvius' De Architectura. Written almost exactly two thousand years ago, Vitruvius' work is a ten-volume treatise on engineering and architecture, the only surviving work on the subject from the ancient world. This fascinating book offers unique insights into Roman technology and contains discussion of the general principles of architecture, the training of architects and the design of temples, houses and public buildings.The rediscovery of this seminal treatise in the 15th century provided the impetus for the neoclassical architectural movement, and Vitruvius exerted a significant influence on the work of Renaissance architects including Palladio, Brunelleschi and Alberti. It remains a hugely important text today, two millennia after it was written.With:Serafina CuomoReader in Roman History at Birkbeck, University of LondonRobert TavernorEmeritus Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the London School of EconomicsAlice KoenigLecturer in Latin and Classical Studies at the University of St Andrews.Producer: Thomas Morris.


THU 09:45 Book of the Week (b01dd3xr)
Svetlana Alliluyeva - 20 Letters to a Friend

Episode 4

By Svetlana Alliluyeva. Abridged by Eileen Horne.

Turning to her teenage years, Svetlana writes to her friend of the heartbreaking period before and during the war when she loses a brother and gains a lover, against her father's wishes...

Read by Stella Gonet

Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (b01d2l1n)
Doreen Lawrence; Tippi Hedren; Mum – I don’t want you on Facebook

Celebrating, informing and entertaining women. Presented by Jenni Murray.


THU 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b01dd3jg)
JL Carr - The Harpole Report

Episode 4

4/5. J.L. Carr's comic novel, dramatised by Jonathan Smith. The Widmerpool children run riot in class until Harpole unexpectedly succeeds in teaching them to read.


THU 11:00 From Our Own Correspondent (b01d2l2y)
No peaceful night's sleep for Jonathan Fryer when he stays in a community in Benin where people live in stilt houses above a lake; the Sri Lankan government has emphasised its commitment to reconciliation after the civil war but Charles Haviland says there are questions to be asked about people being abducted or simply disappearing; Rupert Wingfield-Hayes has been testing opinions in Gaza City after a week of violence between militants there and the Israeli security forces; contemporary art's being allowed into the Kremlin for the first time -Rosie Goldsmith's been to take a look and ponder the ramifications for the Russian art world; and Olaf Furniss wonders what'll happen to the extraordinary specialist shops in Mexico's old city centre now the redevelopers are moving in.


THU 11:30 Architects of Taste (b01d2l30)
Historian and actor Ian Kelly explores the cross over between food and feasting, art, architecture and performance.

From the most extravagant medieval feasts and festivals, to the modern gastronomy of chefs like Heston Blumenthal and Ferran Adria, food has long been moulded, sculpted, and displayed against the most theatrical of backdrops. Ian Kelly explores the story of artistry in cookery, and argues that it's a neglected cultural phenomenon.

He looks at the life of Antonin Careme, the first celebrity chef, whose enormous sugar sculptures and piece montees, for the likes of Napoloeon and the Prince Regent, epitomised centuries of high eating. And the Victorian Alexis Soyer, whose 'symposium of all nations' rivalled the Great Exhibition in its gastronomic extravagance.

We also hear from the chef Ferran Adria, Jane Asher, food historians Ivan Day and Marc Meltonville, and chef Anne Willan, and jelly mongers Bompas and Parr about how a new generation of food artists are bringing back the spirit of Careme in their events and performances.

Producer: Jo Wheeler
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 12:00 You and Yours (b01d2l5j)
Breast implant compensation, 'live' blood tests, and magic mirrors

A UK woman has successfully claimed a refund for her PIP breast implants through her credit card company. What this will mean for other women and the credit card companies?

Tesco's UK boss quits - what will this mean for Britain's biggest supermarket?

'Live' blood tests claim to be able to prevent and even diagnose disease or illness. The industry is unregulated and often carried out by people with no medical training. We investigate what these tests have to offer.

What the latest Post Office changes mean for consumers and the existing network.

Professor John Hill announces the results of his review into fuel poverty in England, and how it will be measured

Grange-over-Sands in Cumbria joins a growing number of places in the UK to say enough is enough when it comes to memorial benches.

As part of the BBC's School Report day we hear what teenagers think of radio.

And Magic Mirror me - the gizmo that allows you to virtually "try on" clothes and then share the pictures. Winifred Robinson sees it in action.

Producer: Rebecca Moore.


THU 12:57 Weather (b01d0fmg)
The latest weather forecast.


THU 13:00 World at One (b01d2l76)
Martha Kearney presents the national and international news. Listeners can share their views via email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.


THU 13:45 Alvin Hall in The Bonfire of the Vanities (b01d2mc8)
English Journalists in New York

The Bonfire of The Vanities portrayed New York as a turbulent melting pot of inequality, arrogance and greed: 25 years on Alvin Hall continues to ask how much has changed.

Amongst the colourful New Yorkers portrayed in Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, was one Brit- the drunken and snobbish Peter Fallow. Dragged into covering the story of the hit-and-run in the Bronx despite himself, he ends up leading the media and driving forward the tale.

Alvin Hall tracks down the journalist who supposedly inspired Peter Fallow, and hears the New York experience of other English journalists in the past 25 years, to see whether their reputation as hard drinking culturally superior party animals still holds fast.

With Toby Young and Anthony Haden-Guest.

Produced by Lucy Lloyd.


THU 14:00 The Archers (b01d2gxk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Wednesday]


THU 14:15 Drama (b01d2q3z)
Interiors

Johnny Vegas welcomes you to the tasteful home of Jeffrey Parkin.

"Now you may notice as we begin our tour in earnest that there are some design initiatives around the house that aren't, strictly speaking, finished... I terms of the decor I've been playing around with some ideas. Not all the colour schemes have been finalised yet but I think you'd all agree, that's a veritable bonus. Most of the hard work's done so I'm basically handing you a colour-by-numbers dream home come true. You just paint in between the guiding lines that my vision has provided you with, and you're laughing."

Interiors shines a mis-wired spotlight on the structural flaws exposed in the recent demise of the British property market and sparks on the revelation that a house really stands up or falls down on the basis of its human contents.

Based on an original play by Johnny Vegas, Stewart Lee and Rob Thirtle.

Directed by Dirk Maggs
Produced by Sally Harrison
A Woolyback Production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 15:00 Ramblings (b01d2qf6)
Inspirational Walks

Sir Andrew Motion

In the final programme in a series of inspirational walks, Clare Balding is joined by the former poet laureate, Sir Andrew Motion, to walk around the village of Stisted in Essex. As they walk around the village, Sir Andrew tells Clare about his memories of growing up in the village where he was first inspired to write poetry.

Presenter: Clare Balding
Producer: Helen Chetwynd.


THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (b01d23xk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:55 on Sunday]


THU 15:30 Open Book (b01d26ln)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Sunday]


THU 16:00 The Film Programme (b01d2rd0)
Francine Stock meets with Mark Wahlberg to discuss his new film, Contraband, his love of European thrillers, and why his criminal record has helped his acting career.

Polish director Agnieszka Holland discusses her new film, In Darkness, a real-life tale of a group of Jews who hid from the Nazis in the sewers of Lvov, in Poland.

And a celebration of the late director Ken Russell, as Kim Newman reviews a new cut of The Devils, and from behind the piano Neil Brand deconstructs Russell's use of music in his films from Gustav Mahler to The Who.

Producer: Craig Smith.


THU 16:30 Material World (b01d2rgl)
A new set of Hominin remains from a Cave in China prove difficult to place in the human family tree. The "Red Deer Cave People" share some traits with modern humans, and some with older relatives. Do they represent hybrids from interbreeding 11,500 years ago or could they represent a new species previously unknown to science? Lead author Darren Curnoe from the University of New South Wales and Dr Isabelle de Groot from the Natural History Museum in London discuss the findings.

Co-curator Ghislane Boddington and Prof Noel Sharkey talk to Quentin about a new exhibition opening on Friday at FACT, Liverpool, called "Robots and Avatars". The vision of numerous artists of a near future where we freely interact with colleagues and friends in the form of robots or remote projections as avatars will be on display. What are the implications for how we live and work?

An update from 'So You Want to Be a Scientist' - Material World's search for the BBC's Amateur Scientist of the Year. One of our four finalists, Dara Djavan Khoshdel aged 25 from Bournemouth, starts his experiment at Modern Art Oxford. He's testing people's emotional reactions to paintings using a skin galvanometer, which measures our micro-sweating. But will the strength of people's reaction match the financial value of each artwork?

Producer: Martin Redfern.


THU 17:00 PM (b01d2rvn)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.


THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01d0fmj)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 18:30 It's Not What You Know (b01d2rz3)
Series 1

Episode 4

Miles Jupp presides over more relation revelations in the show where it's not what you know that matters, but who. And more importantly, how well you know them.

Writer and broadcaster, Emma Freud, stand-up Tom Wrigglesworth and BBC 6Music’s Shaun Keaveny, each nominate one of their intimate circle to answer a series of questions and the try to second-guess how their nominees responded.

Emma picks her son, Jake, Tom his dad, Richard, and Shaun plumps for younger brother, Paul.

Producer: Sam Michell.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2012.


THU 19:00 The Archers (b01d2s3w)
The anti-dairy protestors are out in force today but all seems peaceful until the market closes. Eddie goes to sort out a traffic bottleneck. But as David wonders if the police should be called, Eddie cries out and disappears from sight.

Kirsty is first to get to Eddie and tells Brian that he's bumped his head. David calls an ambulance. Eddie doesn't know if he slipped or was pushed. Kirsty didn't really see what happened but when Brian tries to blame the protestors, David advises him to bite his tongue.

With the x-rays revealing no fracture, Eddie makes it to The Bull in the evening. He won't let a graze ruin his birthday. Clarrie makes a fuss but doesn't want him drinking alcohol. Brian comes over, and agrees with Clarrie. He wants to be sure that Eddie wasn't pushed by a demonstrator. Eddie's certain he just lost his footing. Nevertheless, Brian apologises and offers Eddie reimbursement for his out-of-pocket expenses. Eddie gratefully accepts Brian's money.

It's Ben's birthday too. Josh proposes a toast, not just to Ben but to the cows now they know they're staying. Pip insists the sheep are staying too. So the family make a toast to Ben and to Brookfield.


THU 19:15 Front Row (b01d2s42)
Jerwood Gallery in Hastings; One Night on TV; Tobias Jones

With John Wilson.

Jessica Hynes and Douglas Hodge star in the four part TV drama One Night. Each episode takes the point of view of a different character during the course of a hot summer evening, as underlying social tensions and race issues come to the boil. Rachel Cooke reviews.

John reports from Hastings, as the new Jerwood Gallery prepares to open its doors. The Gallery has provoked some local protests, and John sounds out current attitudes and meets the Gallery's director Elizabeth Gilmore.

Blood on the Altar, by journalist and novelist Tobias Jones, tells the true crime story of the murder in 1993 of a teenage girl in the remote Basilicata area of Italy. The crime was only solved in 2010 in the light of a similar killing in Bournemouth. Tobias Jones discusses his fascination with the story and its Italian context.

Producer: Philippa Ritchie.


THU 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b01dd3jg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


THU 20:00 Law in Action (b01d13xx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Tuesday]


THU 20:30 The Bottom Line (b01d5lt0)
Leadership

The view from the top of business. Presented by Evan Davis, The Bottom Line cuts through confusion, statistics and spin to present a clearer view of the business world, through discussion with people running leading and emerging companies. The programme is broadcast first on BBC Radio 4 and later on BBC World Service Radio, BBC World News TV and BBC News Channel TV.

Evan's executive panel discuss what good leadership consists of - how do you turn a mediocre manager into a brilliant boss? They also swap thoughts on surviving on 20% less of everything. How would their companies cope, and what would they look like?

Joining Evan are Martin Gilbert, chief executive of fund manager Aberdeen Asset Management; Allan Leighton, chairman of set top box maker Pace; Nigel Whitehead, group managing director of BAE Systems.

Producer: Ben Crighton
Editor: Richard Vadon.


THU 21:00 Scott's Legacy (b01d12nw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 on Tuesday]


THU 21:30 In Our Time (b01d2kzx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


THU 21:58 Weather (b01d0fml)
The latest weather forecast.


THU 22:00 The World Tonight (b01d5lz6)
The Taliban says it no longer wants to talk to the Americans - what hope is left for our mission in Afghanistan?

A year after the start of the Syrian uprising, is the Assad government gaining the upper hand?

And Salafist choir that bans musical instruments.

With Robin Lustig.


THU 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b01ddbs6)
Capital

Episode 9

It's November 2008 in Pepys Road and life is changing for its residents. For some the changes are good, for the Younts they're not.

Capital - the new novel by John Lanchester - is the story of one south London street, which has seen a hundred years of fortunes made and lost, of hearts broken, of first steps and last breaths. And then, one day a card with a simple message drops through each letterbox: 'We Want What You Have'....

Capital interweaves the lives and stories of the residents of Pepys Road in an utterly compelling, post-crash, state-of-the-nation novel told with compassion, humour and truth; epic in scope, yet intimate and contemplative.

Producer: David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 23:00 Paul Temple (b00t4tps)
Paul Temple and Steve

The Final Curtain

A new production of the 1947 detective serial 'Paul Temple and Steve.' One of the great radio detectives returns refreshed and reinvigorated to the airwaves to investigate the activities of a shadowy and ruthless criminal mastermind in post-war London.

The identity of the mysterious Dr. Belasco is finally revealed. But it's one thing to unmask someone, quite another to capture them; and Belasco still has a trick or two up his - or is it her? - sleeve.

Paul Temple ..... Crawford Logan
Steve ..... Gerda Stevenson
Sir Graham Forbes ..... Gareth Thomas
Kaufman ..... Nick Underwood
Worth/Charlie ..... Greg Powrie
Nelson ..... Jimmy Chisholm
Joseph ..... Richard Greenwood
Ed Bellamy ..... Robin Laing
Insp. Perry ..... Michael Mackenzie

Produced by Patrick Rayner.


THU 23:30 Today in Parliament (b01d5m2x)
Sean Curran with the day's top news stories from Westminster - with Labour trying to embarrass Vince Cable over his leaked letter criticising government efforts to promote economic growth; peers pay tribute to the Queen as part of celebrations marking her Diamond Jubilee; and MPs argue over whether tourists should be charged £15 to visit the Big Ben clock tower.



FRIDAY 16 MARCH 2012

FRI 00:00 Midnight News (b01d0fn7)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


FRI 00:30 Book of the Week (b01dd3xr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Thursday]


FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01d0fn9)
The latest shipping forecast.


FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01d0fnc)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01d0fnf)
The latest shipping forecast.


FRI 05:30 News Briefing (b01d0fnh)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01d5nyb)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Roger Hutchings, Methodist minister.


FRI 05:45 Farming Today (b01d5nyx)
Farmers in Scotland say wild beavers are damaging their land and could cause flooding. It is estimated that a hundred beavers which escaped from private collections are building lodges in waterways. Stewart Stevenson, the Environment Minister for the Scottish Government, announces that they have decided to monitor the Tayside wild beaver population - rather than trap them or have a cull. Drew McFarlane-Slack from Scottish Land and Estates outlines the problems that these animals cause.

Tom Heap hears the debate over whether to extract peat from Chatmoss near Salford. There is currently a public inquiry over the decision, and campaigners say that this is a test case.

And with Mothering Sunday only a couple of days away Charlotte Smith visits New Covent Garden Market to hear about the benefits of a British bouquet.

Presented by Charlotte Smith. Produced by Emma Weatherill.


FRI 06:00 Today (b01d5p0q)
With Sarah Montague and Evan Davies. Including Sports Desk; Yesterday in Parliament; Weather; Thought for the Day.


FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (b01d24vq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 on Sunday]


FRI 09:45 Book of the Week (b01dd3y4)
Svetlana Alliluyeva - 20 Letters to a Friend

Episode 5

By Svetlana Alliluyeva. Abridged by Eileen Horne.

Svetlana and her father become estranged after her first love is exiled from Moscow, only to find some accord after the war when she becomes a mother....

Read by Stella Gonet

Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (b01d5p2q)
Rosie Garland, Shaken Baby Syndrome and The Awkward Squad

Winner of the Mslexia Competition - Rosie Garland - talks about her novel 'Beast in All Her Loveliness.' A woman who accused her husband of rape, and then retracted the allegation, has failed in her attempt to get a conviction for perverting the course of justice overturned. The woman known as 'S' made allegations against her husband in 2010 but then took them back. She later said the retraction itself was false, rather than the rape allegations. She said she had made the retraction because she was under duress from her husband and his family. She was found guilty of perverting the course of justice and jailed - a sentence that was changed to community service. She's now failed in her bid to get that conviction quashed. Tomorrow Vera Baird QC and Alison Levitt Q.C discuss the implications of the case. We discuss a new scheme to avoid Shaken Baby Syndrome and 'The Awkward Squad' - a new play about a group of feisty women in the North East, Presented by Jenni Murray.


FRI 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b01dd3kk)
JL Carr - The Harpole Report

Episode 5

Councillor Blossom makes an improper suggestion to Harpole, but true romance may be just around the corner. Stars Lesley Nicol.


FRI 11:00 Japan: Coping With Disaster (b01d7bbl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 13:30 on Sunday]


FRI 11:30 A Charles Paris Mystery (b01d5p72)
A Reconstructed Corpse

Episode 3

by Jeremy Front
based on the novel by Simon Brett

Another severed limb turns up and
Charles enlists Frances' help to solve
the mystery of who it belongs to.

Charles ..... Bill Nighy
Frances ..... Suzanne Burden
Maurice ..... Jon Glover
Rob Garston ..... Adam Billington
Superintendent Sorsby ..... Gerard McDermott
Sergeant ..... Simon Bubb
Sam Noakes ..... Adjoa Andoh

Directed by Sally Avens

Bill Nighy returns as the irrepressible Charles Paris: unsuccessful actor, bad husband and dipsomaniac. Charles is once again in need of work and to make things worse he's been kicked out by Frances after inadvertently starting a riot outside her house. Any job will do so when he is offered work in a crime reconstruction programme playing a missing property developer he leaps at the chance. But a missing person case soon turns to murder when severed body parts begin to appear. Television ratings soar as the public tune in to discover every gory detail of the case. The raging egos and jealous manoeuvrings of the producers, presenters and the police soon provide a long list of suspects for Charles to investigate as he pieces together a macabre jigsaw puzzle of murder.

Simon Brett has written numerous Charles Paris novels, which have been used as the basis for the Radio 4 series by Jeremy Front.


FRI 12:00 You and Yours (b01d5q0g)
Pre-paid cash cards abroad, motorhome holidays and food waste

The full cost of using a pre-paid holiday cash card when travelling abroad. Cash passports can be a safe way of of accessing your holiday spending money but be aware of 'tolerance fees' when doing your sums.

Groupon, the online discount voucher company, agrees a total overhaul of the way it operates with the Office of Fair Trading.

Motorhome holidays are becoming more popular but could buying one and renting it out be a good investment and help pay towards your own holiday?

Appshed - the app building competition for school children aimed at inspiring the software designers of the future.

Stubhub - the US ticket exchange company - launches in the UK. What will it mean for fans wanting to buy and sell tickets?

Good news for movie buffs as Cineworld scrap booking fees for online tickets.

British households throw away an estimated 4.4m tonnes of edible food a year - why is bread is the most wasted provision of all?

And police say they'll take no further action against a businessman who left hundreds of schoolchildren without the skiing holidays they'd paid for.

Presenter: Peter White
Producer: Lesley Duncanson.


FRI 12:57 Weather (b01d0fnk)
The latest weather forecast.


FRI 13:00 World at One (b01d5qg0)
Shaun Ley presents national and international news. Listeners can share their views via email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.


FRI 13:45 Alvin Hall in The Bonfire of the Vanities (b01d5qlv)
The Politics of the Case

A rich Wall Street trader being involved in a hit-and-run in the Bronx set off a cascade of racial grievances, political manipulation and media delirium in Tom Wolfe's depiction of 1980s New York.

Alvin Hall asks how differently a case like this would play out today. He talks to former mayor Ed Koch about trying to control the media, and lawyers and journalists about what part race and money would play in the unfolding of the story today.

Produced by Lucy Lloyd.


FRI 14:00 The Archers (b01d2s3w)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Thursday]


FRI 14:15 Drama (b01cwwld)
Stephen Wakelam - Waiting for the Boatman

By Stephen Wakelam

The painter Mario Minniti has travelled to Naples to seek out his old friend and former mentor Caravaggio. But on arrival, the great painter is nowhere to be found. In a bid to track him down, Mario retraces Caravaggio's last known movements. His search reveals a life lived dangerously.

Directed by Sasha Yevtushenko.


FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b01d5qq4)
Postbag Edition

Christine Walkden, Bob Flowerdew and Bunny Guinness answer questions you've sent in to the programme via post or email.

She has visited Turkey 18 times collecting cyclamen...Christine Walkden shares her private collection of plants with Bob Flowerdew and Bunny Guinness.

Our Practical March continues with an illustrated guide to propagation.

Questions answered in the programme:

I'd like to grow a dwarf, evergreen hedge around 4 small beds. Can the panel suggest a suitable alternative box?
Plants suggested were: Japanese Holly or Ilex crenata, Euonymus microphyllus, and Yew or Taxus Boccata, Lonicera pileata, or Lonicera nitida

Is it dangerous growing potatoes in old tyres?

Which are safe plants to edge my pony paddock with?
Hawthorne, Rosa rugosa, Crataegus prunifolia, Sorbus 'Joseph Rock', Sorbus cashmiriana
Plants to avoid are:
Laurel prunus, Yew and Ivy as they are poisonous to ponies.

How can I guarantee my lavender will be in flower mid-June?

Planting suggestions for a late-September wedding: Our colour scheme is green, yellow or orange please.
Suggestions included: Ivy goldheart, Rudbeckia, Inula, Ixia, Eleagnus quicksilver, Daphnes, Wheat, Hop flowers, Marigolds, Nasturtium

Why are the fruits of my Clementine tree so tiny? It grows in a 12" pot, is housed in a frost-free shed over winter and stands outside in the summer.

What is the best time of year to move a tree peony?

Can I re-use the compost in my flower pots if I top up with blood, fish and bone?
Suggestions for drought-tolerant plants, due to look their best around mid-June?
Silver foliage plants, Petunias, Cosmos and Pelargoniums

Produced by Lucy Dichmont
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 15:45 Original Shorts (b01d5qty)
Series 5

Under My Skin

Martin Jarvis directs award-winning American star Calista Flockhart in Christine Conrad's devastating new tale of friendship gone awry. Two creative women in New York find they have much in common. But when gregarious, entrepreneurial Julie commandeers her less outgoing friend's new novel and announces it as her own film project, the relationship is inevitably dislocated. Julie is quoted as saying: 'A wonderful treatment has been written and my brilliant team and I are moving forward with great excitement and (Julie's favourite word) passion.'

As far as her erstwhile friend, the actual author of the book, is concerned 'The train had left the station and nobody had bothered to mention it to me!' The gradual realisation that they really aren't 'sisters under the skin', is movingly told. 'Under My Skin' is specially written for Original Shorts by American novelist and screen writer Christine Conrad (Junior, Mademoiselle Benoit, Ties That Bind.) And perceptively performed by Calista Flockhart - star of TV series Ally McBeal and Kitty McCallister in Brothers and Sisters.

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


FRI 16:00 Last Word (b01d5qvj)
Sherwood Rowland, Lawrence Anthony, James Q Wilson, Jack Chippendale, Joe Thompson and Philip Madoc

Matthew Bannister on

Sherwood Rowland who won the Nobel prize for showing that chemicals used in aerosols were damaging the ozone layer,

Lawrence Anthony, the conservationist known as the "elephant whisperer" who saved the animals in the Baghdad Zoo after the American invasion of Iraq,

James Q Wilson, the neo con social scientist who put forward the "broken windows" theory of crime - suggesting that focussing on low level disorder could combat more serious offences,

Joe Thompson - the fiddle player who kept alive the musical traditions of the black string bands of the American south,

and Jack Chippendale, the respected wooden boat builder.


FRI 16:30 Feedback (b01d5qwk)
After The Now Show this week tackled gay marriage, child abuse and the Catholic church some Feedback listeners contacted us with concerns. Roger asks Jane Berthoud, BBC Radio's head of comedy, how her team assesses controversial material and whether in this case the right decisions were made.

Robust and challenging - or simply a slanging match? When presenter Justin Webb first joined the Today programme he said he'd be gentle and let politicians have their say. Then he changed his mind. In this week's programme he joins BBC Radio 5Live's Victoria Derbyshire to discuss the difference between aggression and persistence in the political interview.

And after many Feedback listeners reported hearing the repeated use of "Facades" by composer Philip Glass in an array BBC Radio programmes. we finally hear from the man himself. Ahead of his installment as BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week, Philip Glass offers his own slightly surreal insight into the popularity of this particular piece.

Presenter: Roger Bolton

Producers: Karen Pirie and Kate Taylor
A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 17:00 PM (b01d5qxd)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news. Including Weather.


FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01d0fnm)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 18:30 The Now Show (b01d5qyw)
Series 36

Episode 5

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis with a mix of topical sketches and stand up with Matt Forde, Laura Shavin, Jon Holmes and Mitch Benn.

Producer: Katie Tyrrell.


FRI 19:00 The Archers (b01d5qzn)
Christine and Jill bump into Jim. He compliments Christine on her most alluring perfume. It puts her in a flap. She tells Jill that, much as she likes Jim, that's as far as it goes. He's never complimented her like that before, and she's worried that he's started getting other ideas.

Tom's anxious to know if Helen's heard back from Kylie. When Kylie finally rings back, Helen tells her about Tony's heart attack and how she and Tom now realise how intensely he feels about Rich. Helen asks Kylie to speak to Sharon to see if Helen could go and see her to explain how they all feel, and to try to persuade her to let Rich know about his other family.

Helen tells Tom that Kylie realised at Ivy's funeral that she'd missed out on her grandma, so she was sympathetic. She also knows that Rich is interested in knowing more about his real dad, so she's going to wait for the right moment and speak to Sharon for them. Tom's delighted but they both know it's out of their hands. They can't do any more. It's now up to Kylie.


FRI 19:15 Front Row (b01d5r0k)
Andrew Motion; violinist David Garrett; 1001 TV sets

With John Wilson.

Virtuoso violinist David Garrett began his professional career at the age of 10, and now has an international career as a classical and crossover performer. He reflects on the pressures of youthful fame and his uneasy relationship with his father. He also plays his Stradivarius in the studio.

Artist David Hall has filled a cavernous room with 1001 old cathode ray tube TV sets, which are tuned to the five analogue channels, creating a cacophony with the sound turned up loud. David Hall describes the origins of the project, and veteran TV critic Philip Purser and The Telegraph's Digital Media Editor Emma Barnett give their reactions to it.

Poet and writer Andrew Motion discusses his return to Treasure Island in his follow-up novel Silver. Young Jim Hawkins and Natty, the daughter of Long John Silver, take to the high seas in search of Captain Flint's bounty, left behind by their fathers years before.

Singer and songwriter Plan B's new single ill Manors is an abrasive protest rap, with references to last summer's riots and looting, while Bruce Springsteen is top of the UK album charts with Wrecking Ball, which includes angry attacks on Wall Street. Music writer Dorian Lynskey considers whether we are going to see a rise in political pop.

Producer Erin Riley.


FRI 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b01dd3kk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (b01d5r1x)
Bristol

Jonathan Dimbleby chairs a discussion of news and politics from the BBC's More Than Words Festival at Bristol's M-Shed.

Producer: Victoria Wakely.


FRI 20:50 A Point of View (b01d5r25)
Power of the Press

Historian David Cannadine reflects on the power of the press, past and present, recalling how early twentieth century press barons attempted to influence politics. He recalls Stanley Baldwin's response to the campaign by Lords Rothermere and Beaverbrook to topple him as Conservative leader, accusing them of wielding "power without responsibility."
Producer: Sheila Cook.


FRI 21:00 Friday Drama (b01d76j7)
Rio Story

Written by Chris Thorpe.

Corrupt ex-cop Marcelo (Charles Paraventi) keeps pregnant teenager Liza (Julia Bernat) in his apartment. Rafael (Matheus Oliveira) an idealistic street-kid wants to rescue her and take her far away.

Set in one of Rio de Janeiro's most crowded favelas, this ambitious ensemble drama by Chris Thorpe is part love-story and part thriller revolving around a single day in the lives of a couple of thieves, a crooked policeman, a charity worker, a priest, a blind revolutionary and a pregnant teenager.

Recorded in Brazil, it was made with the help of the Nós do Morro theatre in Vidigal, Rio de Janeiro.

Casting: Ana Dias Carter and Estela Albani
Production coordinator: Jazmin Castillo
Sound design: Steve Bond
Producer in Brazil: Jan Roldanus

Producer/Director: John Dryden
A Goldhawk Essential production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 21:58 Weather (b01d0fnp)
The latest weather forecast.


FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (b01d5r4m)
Rowan Williams resigns as the Archbishop of Canterbury.Is it time for a rethink on the qualities of leadership the Church of England needs?

Turkey must create a buffer zone for Syrian refugees , says its Prime Minister.

Prize winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on the difference between truth and fact in fiction.

with Robin Lustig.


FRI 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b01ddd1c)
Capital

Episode 10

Identities are revealed - Smitty's, and the individual behind the menacing postcards as the Younts fill a removal van and shut the door on No 51 for the last time.

Capital - the new novel by John Lanchester - is the story of one south London street, which has seen a hundred years of fortunes made and lost, of hearts broken, of first steps and last breaths. And then, one day a card with a simple message drops through each letterbox: 'We Want What You Have'....

Capital interweaves the lives and stories of the residents of Pepys Road in an utterly compelling, post-crash, state-of-the-nation novel told with compassion, humour and truth; epic in scope, yet intimate and contemplative.

Producer: David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 23:00 A Good Read (b01d13xz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Tuesday]


FRI 23:30 Today in Parliament (b01d5r5d)
Mark D'Arcy reports as the House of Lords debates the Middle East. Peers heard from Jenny Tonge, a former Liberal Democrat MP, who hit the headlines earlier this month when she resigned from the parliamentary party earlier this month after saying that Israel "is not going to be there forever". Lady Tonge was criticised by the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg after she told a university audience that Israel would "reap what it's sown" in the Middle East. She later resigned from the party. During the debate in the House of Lords she told peers she was not anti-Semitic but she was anti-injustice.

Mark also reports on an argument between senior civil servants and the members of one of parliament's most influential committees.

And is there an establishment plot to scupper arrangements that allow rank and file MPs to choose the subjects that will be debated in the House of Commons?