The BBC has announced that it has a sustainable plan for the future of the BBC Singers, in association with The VOCES8 Foundation.
The threat to reduce the staff of the three English orchestras by 20% has not been lifted, but it is being reconsidered.
See the BBC press release here.
RADIO-LISTS: BBC RADIO 4
Unofficial Weekly Listings for BBC Radio 4 — supported by bbc.co.uk/programmes/
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
How do we approach and accept death?
In 1995, at the age of 42, Robert McCrum suffered a dramatic and near-fatal stroke - the subject of his acclaimed memoir My Year Off. Ever since that life-changing event, he has lived in the shadow of death, unavoidably aware of his own mortality. And now, 21 years on, he is noticing a change - his friends are joining him there. Death has become his contemporaries' every third thought. The question is no longer "who am I?" - but "how long have I got?" and "what happens next?"
With the words of Robert's favourite authors as travel companions, Every Third Thought takes us on a journey through a year and towards death itself. As he acknowledges his own and his friends' ageing, he confronts an existential question - in a world where we have learned to live well at all costs, can we make peace with what Freud calls "the necessity of dying"? Searching for answers leads him to others for advice and wisdom.
Witty, lucid and provocative, this is an enthralling exploration of what it means to approach the end-game, and begin to recognise, perhaps reluctantly, that we are not immortal.
Episode 5:
Despite thoughts of decline and death, Robert finds new hope through a new love.
Written by Robert McCrum
Abridged by Barry Johnston
Read by Nicky Henson
Produced by David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Bishop David Chillingworth of the Scottish Episcopal Church.
More university students are reporting mental health issues. Should parents be told?
We hear from parents who wish they'd been informed; and from a university counselor who says they shouldn't be.
ipm@bbc.co.uk @BBCiPM
Presented by Luke Jones and Eddie Mair.
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
Tughall Mill in Northumberland has just been bought by the National Trust for £1.5million so what do you get for that amount of money? Helen Mark gets an exclusive first look around the 200 acre site which includes a stretch of the coast which is home to a breeding colony of little terns - our second rarest seabird. She meets the rangers who've been camping on the shore for months protecting the terns from tides and predators - using an interesting array of defence methods.
Beyond the shoreline lies a working farm and a mixture of pasture, woodland and the Long Nanny burn which the Trust is currently surveying to identify which species nest at the site.
The land used to belong to the Duke of Northumberland estates and is home to a historic mill. Esteemed poet Katrina Porteous lives nearby and has taken a keen interest in the buildings, along with Harry Beamish. They join Helen to explore the buildings while the Trust decides what might happen to them.
Presented by Helen Mark
Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
The latest weather forecast.
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Extraordinary stories, unusual people and a sideways look at the world.
A piano tuner discovers a hoard of gold coins carefully concealed inside a piano. Whoever hid it there is a mystery. Radio 4's very own Inspector Clouseau Steve Punt is on hand to piece together the clues. His detective trail leads him on a journey through Victorian music circles, the Freemasons, bankruptcy, and Shredded Wheat packets as he works out who stashed the gold.
Producer Neil McCarthy.
Tom Newton Dunn of The Sun looks behind the scenes at Westminster.
The government is accused of by passing parliament over the transfer of EU law to UK law: Former Greek finance minister says the Brexit negotiations are doomed: how much legislation can Theresa May get through parliament with no Conservative majority, and Rachel Johnson defends her brother Boris the Foreign Secretary against the charge that he is an "international joke".
The editor is Marie Jessel.
Reports from writers and journalists around the world. Presented by Kate Adie.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
HSBC is continuing to close the accounts of churches and small businesses without warning and without explaining why. It's all part of the bank's anti-money laundering programme which aims to "safeguard your hard-earned money and savings from financial crime and fraud" by re-establishing that the information they hold about you is correct. HSBC's Head of Commercial Banking UK unreservedly apologises to Paul for problems customers have had.
New figures from the Bank of England show that the amount we are borrowing to spend grew by £18 billion in the last 12 months - an increase of nearly 10% in year. But is this a problem that the Bank has caused itself? For the last five years it has been encouraging banks to lend us more by letting them borrow money at virtually no cost.
And Money Box has been given exclusive evidence that half of people who buy homes in new retirement complexes can end up losing money when they resell. For some, those losses can be up to half of the purchase price. We investigate why.
Presenter: Paul Lewis
Reporter: Tony Bonsignore
Producer: Alex Lewis
Editor: Andrew Smith.
Jeremy Hardy, Zoe Lyons, Simon Evans and Helen Lewis join Miles Jupp to discuss the North Korean nuclear stand-off, public sector pay caps and the death of the Yellow Pages.
Written by James Kettle, Gareth Gwynn and Gabby Hutchinson Crouch with additional material from Ian Smith and Robin Morgan.
The producer was Joe Nunnery
A BBC Studios Production.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Aylesbury High School in Buckinghamshire with a panel including Lord Adonis the Labour peer and Chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission , Joanna Cherry MP the SNP's Justice & Home Affairs spokesperson, Bernard Jenkin MP who chair's the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee and the entrepreneur Luke Johnson.
Listeners have their say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?
By Garry Disher, dramatised by D.J.Britton.
It's hot, it's nearly Christmas, and Hal Challis has a serial killer to catch. On the Mornington Peninsula near Melbourne, young women are being targeted and murdered and the perpetrator leaves no clues. A series of recorded messages taunting the police, along with a spate of deliberate fire-setting, increase the pressure on the team to make an arrest before the holiday. But they can't find anything to connect the crimes with their only suspect.
Crime Down Under showcases the best crime fiction from contemporary Australia. The Dragon Man is the first in Garry Disher's series of novels featuring detective duo Challis & Destry. It won the Deutsche Krimi Preis (German Crime Fiction Prize) and Disher has also twice won the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Writing.
BBC Cymru Wales production
Richard Dillane's multiple credits include recent appearances in Peaky Blinders, Poldark and Wolf Hall. Penny Downie is a leading actress for the RSC, including paying Gertrude to David Tennant's Hamlet. As a child, she appeared in The Sullivans, which was the last time she worked with fellow-Australian Mark Little. Mark is known as Joe Mangel from Neighbours as well as appearing in Emmerdale and as a presenter for The Big Breakfast.
Highlights from the Woman's Hour week. Presented by Jane Garvey
Producer: Dianne McGregor
Editor: Jane Thurlow.
Full coverage of the day's news.
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The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Nikki Bedi and Sara Cox are joined by Maureen Lipman, Richard Dormer, Clarke Peters and Kevin Fegan for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Nadine Shah and Blue Rose Code.
Producer: Paula McGinley.
Nikki Haley is US ambassador to the UN and one of the most intriguing figures in the Trump administration. Chris Bowlby discovers how an Indian family background and life in the US deep South shaped her. How has she mixed Sikh heritage with a meteoric rise in South Carolina conservative politics? What's her relationship with Donald Trump really like? Is she aiming for the presidency?
Producers: Smita Patel & Bob Howard
Editor: Emma Rippon.
Stephen Sondheim's Follies starring Imelda Staunton and directed by Dominic Cooke is staged at the National's Olivier Theatre for the first time. The story concerns a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre of the past performers of the "Weismann's Follies", a musical revue (based on the Ziegfeld Follies), that played in that theatre between the World Wars.
Salman Rushdie's new novel The Golden House invokes literature, pop culture and cinema to spin the story of the American zeitgeist over the last 8 years. The novel opens with the inauguration of Barack Obama and closes with the election of President Trump and is about a wealthy immigrant family in Manhattan told from the perspective of a young, aspiring film maker who lives opposite them.
Writer/director Taylor Sheridan's Wind River stars Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tracker and an FBI agent, respectively, who try to solve a murder on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. The last in a trilogy of films which includes Hell or High Water and Sicario.
Tin Star is a ten part British drama series created by Rowan Joffe on Sky Atlantic starring Tim Roth and Christina Hendricks. Police detective Jim Worth is the new police chief of a small town in the Rocky Mountains, where he has moved with his family to escape his past. The influx of migrant workers from a new big oil company, headed by the mysterious Mrs. Bradshaw, forces Worth to confront the resulting wave of crime that threatens his town.
Can Graphic Design Save Your Life? is a new exhibtion at Wellcome Collection in London, the first major show to explore the relationship between graphic design and health and includes 200 exhibits, including the rarely displayed emblems of the Red Cross, Red Crescent and the Red Crystal.
The writer and critic DJ Taylor assesses Richard Hoggart's masterpiece The Uses of Literacy, a colossal book that inspired a slew of post-war histories, as well as Coronation Street and the poet Tony Harrison's 'Them and Uz'. It was the book that inspired Alan Bennett to write. Hoggart was born into great poverty in Leeds and wrote movingly about this early life and the people - mainly women - who inspired him. A scholarship boy, he wrote about the emotional consequences of moving from one class to another. He also offered a searing critique of the burgeoning mass media, expressing his concerns that the new literacy was in danger of being swamped by a popular press that carefully suppressed anything liable to encourage readers to think about the environment they inhabit, rather than simply wallow in its material comforts.
Contributors include the author of Estates and Respectable, Lynsey Hanley, the historian David Kynaston, the novelist David Lodge and the playwright Alan Bennett.
Producer: Nicola Swords.
From one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, Elena Ferrante, the continuing story of Lila and Lena, two bright young girls who have grown up in the tough, rough streets of post war Naples.
Lila finds it hard to forgive her husband Stefano. Meanwhile Lena continues her higher education and is determined to make a difference with her life and escape the clutches of Naples - but at the expense of her friendship with Lila.
Written by Elena Ferrante
Dramatised by Timberlake Wertenbaker
Producer: Celia de Wolff
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.
Our three teams have just one day to come up with ideas to help people cut down the amount they drink. Will they impress our judges? Matthew Taylor from the RSA and Cat Drew of design agency Uscreates, lead the teams through a day of policy design. The government and health authorities have tried for years to get people to drink less but the numbers binge drinking or drinking more than the recommended amount is still high. Can our teams of bright young minds find some innovative solutions to present to Dawn Austwick, Chief Executive of the Big Lottery Fund and former cabinet minister and Executive Chairman of the Resolution Foundation, David Willetts.
Team One:
Amanda Gore - co-director of The Liminal Space, a creative engagement consultancy.
Matt Tinsley - senior economist with consultancy firm Oxford Economics.
Naho Matsuda - artist and designer.
Cara O'Sullivan - an inventor who specialises in design for social impact and has worked with organisations across Peru and Africa to develop locally-manufactured wheelchairs and walking aids.
Team Two:
Hashi Mohamed - barrister at No5 Chambers.
Nate Tkacz - associate professor at Warwick University investigating the political, economic and organisational dimensions of technology
Emily Goldhill - strategist and research leader at creative youth network Livity.
George Ridgway - artist based in Glasgow
Team Three:
Un Jeong Ko - service designer at Innovation Unit a social enterprise focussed on solutions to complex social challenges
Roscoe Williamson - Head of Sonic Branding at music agency MassiveMusic
George Scott-Welsh - Pub owner and businessman
Anna Williams - freelance consultant and PhD student at Goldsmiths University London.
(10/13)
Paul Gambaccini asks the questions in the first of this year's semi-finals. Competitors who won their respective heats now play off for a place in the 2017 Final. To get there they'll have to show a strong command of a range of musical topics, from Beatles cover versions to British baritones - and as always there are plenty of musical extracts to identify, both familiar and surprising.
Today's semi-finalists are from Oxfordshire, Kent and Merseyside.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
Biographer Richard Holmes explores unconsummated love, passion, poetry and talented lives cut short as he discovers how John Keats' life and poetry continues to resonate in literature, music, film and science - nearly 200 years after his death at the age of 25.
Keats doubted his own immortality as a poet. He even suggested his own epitaph, "here lies one whose name was writ in water'"
"'If I should die, I have left no immortal work behind me - nothing to make my friends proud of my memory - but I have lov'd the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remember'd."
But as Keats' actual life fades away from us through time, the "plaintive anthem" of his whole story - his youth, his love, his letters, his poetry - the echo of his famous nightingale, only deepens and spreads.
Richard talks to director Jane Campion about how she fell in love with Keats by reading his searingly painful and passionate letters to Fanny Brawne, which led to her making the film Bright Star. And he talks to geneticist Steve Jones, a lifelong fan of Keats, about the complexity of the scientific response to Keats' work.
He visits Keats House, the setting for Keats and Fanny's love affair, and a place of pilgrimage for fans today. He also goes to Guys Hospital, where Keats trained as an apothecary, to talk to medical students inspired by his legacy.
And Olivier Award-winning actor Luke Treadaway reads Keats' wonderful meditation on nature and immortality, Ode to a Nightingale:
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:-Do I wake or sleep?
Produced by Jane Greenwood
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
A man returns to the lakeside cabin that belonged to his late parents. Abandoned for decades, it was the scene of his brother's death as a young boy. An atmospheric short story by Emma Flint, author of the acclaimed debut novel 'Little Deaths'.
Reader: Simon Donaldson
Writer: Emma Flint
Producer: Kirsteen Cameron.
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The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
This week's Bells on Sunday comes from the Parish Church of Holy Trinity, St Austell in Cornwall. The ornamental tower, carved from Pentewan Stone, is regarded by many as the finest in the county. It houses a peal of eight bells cast and hung by the Loughborough Foundry in 1902 and the tenor of 18 and a half hundredweight is tuned to E. We hear them now ringing Bristol Surprise Major.
The latest national and international news.
Writer and priest Malcolm Doney examines the sacred power of the objects we hold dear. From jewellery to photographs, Malcolm argues that possessions can hold powerful spiritual resonances - they are repositories of memory and can act as signs or signals of our beliefs to others.
Items with a specific religious connection, such as a crucifix or a yarmulke, interest Malcolm because they're physical objects that link this world with another. He explains, "these are physical, visible markers, but they fascinate me because they are also signs of something emotional or spiritual - invisible. Part of their significance is public, but part - perhaps most - is private. In fact, they're like icebergs, with the most of their meaning hidden, out of sight."
Malcolm goes on to explore the power of holy relics, before turning to the question of whether focussing on physical objects in a religious setting results in idolatry. He concludes by discussing the power of objects to provide enduring and tangible links to loved ones who are no longer with us.
Presenter: Malcolm Doney
Producer: Max O'Brien
A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4.
Dan Saladino goes far below the London streets, to investigate a hydroponic farm growing microgreens and salad leaves in a forgotten tunnel complex.
This is the second in a special series of three programmes, profiling the finalists in the 'Future Food' category in the 2017 BBC Food and Farming Awards.
Producer: Rich Ward.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme.
Trevor McDonald makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Maytree Respite Centre.
Registered Charity Number 1087668
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal. (That's the whole address. Please do not write anything else on the front of the envelope). Mark the back of the envelope 'Maytree Respite Centre'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'Maytree Respite Centre'.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
The Rt. Rev. Andy John reflects on the inspiration and challenge laid down by his predecessor the first Bishop of Bangor, St. Deiniol, in the sixth century. The live service from Bangor Cathedral led by the Dean, the Rev. Kathy Jones, with music directed by Paul Booth, includes the hymns Immortal, Invisible (St Deinio); Lord, Who in Thy Perfect Wisdom (Blaenwern) and All My Hope on God is Founded (Michael); together with O Quam Gloriosum (de Vittoria); Behold, the tabernacle of God (William Harris) and Hear O Thou Shepherd of Israel (William Matthias). Organist: Richard Lea. Producer: Karen Walker.
Monica Ali describes her desire for vengeance after her son was robbed by two boys on mopeds.
She reflects on the recent surge in moped crime and what can be done to stop it.
She says the criminals involved in this new brand of crime are nearly all children and, whatever our desire for justice, "crackdowns on children can never provide the entire - the right - solution to the problem".
Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Actor Samuel West describes gathering with his family at dusk to listen for Nightingales. Its song may be a cultural touchstone but it is far less harmonious a sound than poets may lead us to believe.
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Picture: Ian Redman.
The Sunday morning magazine programme with Britain's best newspaper review. Presented by Jonny Dymond.
Tony's offer is not enough, and Lexi learns more about Ambridge.
Sue MacGregor's guests recall the 2007 collapse of Northern Rock, the Newcastle-based bank whose rapid growth came to symbolise the region's renaissance.
On the evening of Thursday 13th September 2007, senior directors at the Bank of England were secretly negotiating the final details of an emergency loan to Northern Rock, when news of the deal broke on the BBC. The next morning, long queues formed outside branches as worried customers rushed to remove their savings. It was the first run on a British Bank in 140 years.
Five months later, the Bank was nationalised and eventually broken up, with the most profitable section sold to Virgin Money in 2012.
Northern Rock had grown rapidly over the prevoius 10 years, briefly becoming the UK's largest mortgage provider. With headquarters in Newcastle, it was one of the region's biggest employers and one of only two FTSE 100 companies in the area. It donated 5% of its pre-tax profits to local charities and was a major sports sponsor.
Sue MacGregor reunites some of those caught up in the Northern Rock crisis. Robert Peston was the BBC's Business Editor who broke the story of the Rock's troubles and was accused of causing the run on the Bank. Dennis Grainger is a former Northern Rock employee who had built up shares worth more than £100,000 through the company's save-as-you-earn scheme. He has fought a long legal battle for compensation after nationalisation rendered the shares worthless. Alastair Balls was Chair of the Northern Rock Foundation, which distributed more than £230million in grants. And Jayne-Anne Gadhia is the Chief Executive of Virgin Money which bought Northern Rock from the UK Government in 2012.
Presenter: Sue MacGregor
Producer: Deborah Dudgeon
Series Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Nicholas Parsons challenges Sue Perkins, Gyles Brandreth, Andy Hamilton and Paul Merton to speak on the topics on the cards without deviation, hesitation or repetition.
Hayley Sterling blows the whistle.
Produced by Victoria Lloyd.
Dan Saladino travels into the Caucasus in search of "zero compromise" natural wine makers. He finds them in Georgia, thought to be the birthplace of wine, and home of the qvevri.
The latest weather forecast.
Global news and analysis.
Steven Camden writes young adult fiction books about love, from a male perspective. Love is at the heart of all the stories he's written over the last twenty years -but he's only just realised it.
He has also realised that being a man who writes love stories for boys is pretty unusual - some might even say it's a bit weird.
Steven wants to know why it's such a big deal. Is love not a subject that appeals to boys or is it the books bit that's most off-putting?
Steven meets teenagers and talks to fellow authors Chris Vick and Alex Wheatle, along with mental health campaigner Jordan Stephens of Rizzle Kicks.
Presenter: Steven Camden
Producer: Milly Chowles
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Peter Gibbs and his panel are hosted by Brockley's Street Trees for Living project. Pippa Greenwood, Christine Walkden and James Wong answer the horticultural questions.
The panel creates an edible roof, deals with a distorted fuchsia, and explains how to achieve the tastiest pumpkin. Also, Pippa Greenwood explores a sea of blue agapanthus and the team share their topical tips for this weekend.
Produced by Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Fi Glover introduces conversations about dealing with life apart, whether through study or work, in the Omnibus edition of the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Marya Burgess.
A new dramatization of Salman Rushdie's prize-winning novel of love, history and magic. The Indo-Pakistani war of 1965 changes Saleem's life forever. Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon and starring Nikesh Patel, Ronny Jhutti and Abhin Galeya.
Sound design by Peter Ringrose
Produced and directed by Tracey Neale and Emma Harding
All other parts were played by Sheetal Kapoor, Renu Brindle, Emilio Doorgasingh and members of the company.
Daryl Gregory is one of America's most popular SF writers, best known for We Are All Completely Fine, which won the World Fantasy Award and the Shirley Jackson Award. He talks to Mariella Frostrup about his new book Spoonbenders, which is something of a departure for him and focusses on American family life in the 1970s.
Sherlock Holmes is falling.
James Stewart is falling.
Alice. Dorothy. Martha Graham.
King Kong. Thelma and Louise.
Gandalf. Dumbledore.
Mufasa in The Lion King.
Luke Skywalker is falling.
From the fall of Icarus, who fell when he ignored his father's warnings and flew too high on his wings of wax and feathers; to Phaethon, who fell when he was struck by Jupiter's thunderbolt - Ian Sansom investigates the true meaning of falling in art, literature, dance and music.
With the backdrop of an eerie descent into falling dreams - created from electronic sound and recorded testimonies by BBC Radiophonic Workshop pioneer, Delia Derbyshire - Ian meets dream expert Ian Wallace, who reveals what falling dreams could mean and why they are among the most common we experience. He speaks to US artist Kerry Skarbakka, whose performance based photographs capture our existential anxieties through the act of falling. And he asks psychologist Roger Bailey why the fear of falling is so hard-wired into the human psyche.
The sound of the rushing air, the inevitability of descent...it goes on and on.
Producer: Steven Rainey.
In March, Thames Water was ordered to pay a record £20-million fine for repeatedly leaking sewage into the River Thames. When the leaks happened, Thames Water's owners were investors from around the world, many of their funds concealed offshore, with ultimate control resting with Macquarie Bank. Macquarie is an Australian investment bank with a reputation for hiring the brightest graduates and turning them into millionaires. The "Millionaire Factory" specialises in turning unexciting infrastructure companies like Thames Water into highly profitable operations.
So how profitable was Thames Water when its equipment repeatedly failed? Reporter Michael Robinson attempts to find out and discovers that even the regulator Ofwat has limited information about the companies it is asked to keep in check on behalf of consumers. Thames was loaded with debt, while dividends were diverted to companies offshore. Some leading authorities in the utility field tell Robinson that monopoly providers of vital services like water, should be forced to be more transparent.
The sewage incidents between 2012 and 2014 caused long-term pollution in the Thames and some tributaries, revolting riverside users and wiping out the season for a commercial cray fisherman. Billions of litres of sewage were released and the Environmental Agency which prosecuted the case, said it was the biggest freshwater pollution case it had ever undertaken.
"This is a shocking and disgraceful state of affairs," said Judge Francis Sheridan, who delivered the sentence at Aylesbury Crown Court. "It should not be cheaper to offend than to take appropriate precautions."
"I have to make the fine sufficiently large that [Thames Water] get the message," he said. Describing the breaches as "wicked" and noting the companies "continual failure to report incidents" and "history of non-compliance", he said: "One has to get the message across to the shareholders that the environment is to be treasured and protected, and not poisoned."
Thames Water has subsequently been sold to new owners. Macquarie has since been involved in a consortium which has bought part of the UK's gas distribution arm of the National Grid.
Presenter:Michael Robinson
Producer:Matt Bardo
Producer:Andrew Smith.
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The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Peter Curran chooses his BBC Radio highlights.
Ian seeks out advice, and Tracy will not let Pip hide.
It's Ashes time (again) and the world's sleaziest cricketer Dave Podmore is making his literary debut with explosive new memoir DP. But, in doing so, he's putting at risk his budding career as motivational coach for the England women's team.
Pod's especially proud of emerging star player Danniii (yes, three i's), until he realises his precious second-hand car lot endorsements have a new competitor who's young enough to still be discovered on the Borrowash roundabout at 3am with her pants on her head.
Is Pod's long reign as England's anti-hero finally over? And has he burned his lucrative corporate advertising bridges for good?
It's Pod's toughest test yet.
Producer: Jon Harvey
A Hat Trick production for BBC Radio 4.
As part of their final Media Degree assessment at NUC in Northern Ireland, three final year university students - Natalie Driver, JJ Collins and Vic Grant - decide to make a podcast about a cold case which happened in Colecastle fourteen years ago. On Saturday April 26th 2003, Toby Ellis was minding his four month old nephew, Derek Ellis. He nipped into his local newsagents and left the pram outside on the street. He claimed he left the child for no longer than two minutes. During this time, the baby was abducted and six days later the infant's body was discovered buried in a nearby wooded area, Mountfort. Cause of death, a blow to the head. No one was ever charged with the murder and the case has remained on-going.
The first episode of Hiding Out is a podcast hosted by one of the students, Natalie; she reveals she is currently in hiding fearing for her safety. Having published their first podcast on The Murder at Colecastle, her fellow student Vic had received a call from someone who had heard the podcast claiming they had new evidence about the day the child was abducted. Vic and JJ met with the source. That was 3 days ago and no one has seen or heard from either Vic or JJ since... The only contact Natalie has received is a text sent from her classmate JJ's phone which reads "We're watching you. Stop this now." Natalie knows their disappearance is clearly linked to digging into the murder of Derek Ellis. If she finds them, she may finally find the truth of what happened in Colecastle. Natalie's nightly podcasts of 'Hiding Out' are attracting more and more interest - #whereisnatalie and #findvicandjj are rife with speculation. Are these three students actually in danger? Or - as their media lecturer believes - is this all an elaborate media hoax?
Gerard Stembridge ..... Writer
Gemma McMullan ..... Series Producer & Director.
Are children in Manchester ready for school?
"Thousands of children in Greater Manchester are starting school unable to speak in full sentences or use the toilet" ran a headline in the Manchester Evening News earlier this week. The new mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham also made the claim. Can that really be true asked a loyal listener? More or Less investigates.
Will we need 10 new power plants by 2040 for the electric car revolution?
Sales of new petrol and diesel cars will be banned from 2040 in the UK. So it's expected there will be a huge increase in the number of electric vehicles on our roads. But what will happen when we all try and charge them? Newspaper headlines have quoted us as needing ten new nuclear power plants to cover it and some have even suggested we won't have enough power to charge these vehicles. So we set out to look at the numbers driving the electric car revolution.
Maths underpinning science
Professor Alison Etheridge from the University of Oxford tells the programme why maths can sometimes be overlooked. She talks about her interest in genetics and why mathematicians need to be more vocal about their work.
And we deal with a number of complaints about last week's programme.
Matthew Bannister on:
The flamboyant businessman Sir David Tang who founded the fashion label Shanghai Tang and collected celebrity friends. Tracey Emin pays tribute.
Professor Dame Margaret Turner-Warwick who became one of the world's leading authorities on thoracic medicine after suffering from tuberculosis as a child.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the genial head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.
And Walter Becker - who teamed up with Donald Fagen to create the sophisticated music and lyrics of Steely Dan.
Why do so many economic and business forecasts fail to correctly map the future? Adam Shaw asks why so many recessions take us by surprise and why the failure of certain forecasts should be a cause of celebration, not despair. He examines the role of complexity and groupthink and how technological advance can scupper the best laid forecasts. Do we, as consumers, invest too much faith in forecasts? And is there anything forecasters can do to ensure their pronouncements are more reliable?
Producer: Rosamund Jones.
Weekly political discussion and analysis with MPs, experts and commentators.
With Antonia Quirke
Antonia raids the store-room of foley artist Sue Harding at Twickenham film studios, and tries to make sense of the assorted snow shoes, filing cabinets and car parts that make the squeaks, creaks and bangs on screen.
Box office takings fell by 10% this summer in a bonfire of the vanities as many star vehicles failed to launch. So, is this the end of the star system as we know it ? With all the answers is casting director Des Hamilton and box-office analyst Charles Gant.
Vivien Leigh's iconic wig from A Streetcar Named Desire is up for auction this month, but how did the wig survive after six decades and who will buy it and what would they do with it ? All of these questions (and more) will be answered by Frances Christie from Sothebys and Keith Lodwick from the V and A.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Last Leg presenter and comedian Adam Hills and psychologist and popular science author Steven Pinker discuss their favourite books with Harriett Gilbert. Under discussion are two tales of non conformists, Albert Camus' The Outsider and Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull, as well as Strunk & White's Elements of Style, a style guide written in the 1930s but still influential today. The guests talk about whether Camus' protagonist is a sociopath or a pathetic man to be pitied, and whether Jonathan Livingston Seagull is an inspiration or a product of California's 1970s hot tub scene.
Producer Sally Heaven.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Bishop David Chillingworth of the Scottish Episcopal Church.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
Theatre director Tara Robinson on the arctic tern and her grandfathers passion for birdwatching in today's Tweet of the Day.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer: Mark Ward
Picture: Dale Ayres.
News and current affairs. Includes Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Sitting in his Hertfordshire garden in 1940, Orwell eyed the bombers overhead and began to write 'England, Your England' - the first part of his fighting book The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius - a rallying-cry for a revolutionary patriotism in the face of the Nazi threat. Orwell's hopes for a left-wing patriotism have often been invoked, and still are today - sometimes to insist that the left once knew how to appeal to patriotism.
Patrick Wright visits the writer's former Hertfordshire home (just down the road from Manor farm of Animal Farm fame) to launch his second series of programmes exploring the way English identity is so often defined and clarified when under threat. He talks to Orwell scholar Robert Colls, as well as people who find Orwell's argument about a thread linking disparate groupings of English people to be a potent symbol for what might have been and what might yet be again in spite of a fracturing of vision as expressed in the Brexit vote last year. Postman and writer CJ Stone, screen-writer Lissa Evans and former MP Michael Wills also share their thoughts on Orwell's 'characteristic fragments' and his famous lines about returning to England from any foreign country and having 'immediately the sensation of breathing a different air.'
Is that air still there to be inhaled or are Orwell's visions and arguments no longer valuable contributions to the debate about what it is to be English?
Oliver Burkeman asks if the solution to busyness is not to work harder and organise ourselves but to indulge in a little idleness.
New Orleans' oppressive atmosphere stirs memories of childhood visits and an ex-lover - and stark comparisons between the South and Joan Didion's home in California.
From the best-selling author of the award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking - excerpts from her never-before-seen notebooks.
Joan Didion has always kept notebooks of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles - and here is one that traces a road trip she took in June 1970, through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
And in her native west, the memoir piece California Notes that began as an assignment from Rolling Stone on the Patty Hearst trial of 1976.
Read by Laurel Lefkow
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
Directed by Eoin O'Callaghan
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
What's important to you about where you live? What would make it a great place to be a woman?
On Tuesday Woman's Hour reveals new analysis we commissioned to find out the best place in Britain to be a woman. Before that we'd like to hear from you.
What's important to you about a place? How did you choose where to set up home; closeness to family, good jobs, housing, schools, countryside, diversity, culture? What do you love about it?
Maybe the place you live, or the place you grew up, had a bad reputation, but you love it - why? Perhaps you moved somewhere because you expected it to be wonderful but hate it. Let us know.
Call 03700 100 400 from 0800 on Monday. In the meantime you can tell us your views on email - remember to include a contact number if you can join us on the programme.
Presenter: Jane Garvey
Producer: Jane Thurlow.
The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles Series 9
by Esther Wilson and Pauline Harris
Return of award winning series. A further five enchanting episodes in the unique life of a young married couple with learning disabilities.
Darleen and Jamie have a baby girl; life will never be the same again. Darleen and Jamie's first night with the baby is a long and sleepless one, with several calls to Darleen's mum Treena for advice.
Starring Donna Lavin and Edmund Davies, actors with learning disabilities; this series is both humorous and poignant, and created in part through improvisation.
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.
Impressionist Rory Bremner explores the role of the human voice in forensic phonetics.
Forensic phonetics - or voice identification - has long been used in legal proceedings to help determine if the voice on a recording is that of the defendant. But with the electronic age enabling the recording and storage of more data than ever before, its role in criminal investigations is changing rapidly and the race is on to "fingerprint the human voice".
Rory Bremner looks at some of the new research in this growing area of forensics - its applications in the fields of law enforcement and counterterrorism, and why there is such resistance to it in the UK, where we still prefer to rely on the human voice analyst than on an automated system. He hears about high profile cases involving speaker identification - including Michael Stone's conviction for the murder and Lin and Megan Russell and the conviction of John Humble as the hoax caller claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper.
Rory also talks to Francis Nolan, Professor of Phonetics, about how the way we think of people as having "a voice" oversimplifies matters. Compared to a fingerprint pattern, which is always a constant, physical characteristic, the voice is the product of two mechanisms which vary considerably - the speech organs and language. Fingerprints are identified through literal analysis; voices are identified through comparative voiceprints. Your voice as your password is now becoming an everyday reality rather than a SciFi cliche. But can it really be said that every voice is unique, as some have claimed?
The development of increasingly sophisticated automated speaker recognition systems is now bringing the prospect of a "voiceprint" enticingly close. But how accurate are these systems? Can they differentiate between 'real' Trump and Rory's impression of Trump...?
Contributors:
Professor Peter French
Professor Hugh McLachlan
Dr Helen Fraser
Dr Kirsty McDougall
Professor Francis Nolan
Erica Thomson
A Terrier production for BBC Radio 4.
The hit series returns for a seventh series with more shop based shenanigans and over the counter philosophy, courtesy of Ramesh Mahju and his trusty sidekick Dave. Written by and starring Donald Mcleary and Sanjeev Kohli.
Set in a Scots-Asian corner shop, the award winning Fags, Mags & Bags sees a return of all the shop regular characters, and some guest appearances along the way, from the likes of Sean Biggerstaff, Mina Anwar, Greg McHugh and Simon Greenall.
In this episode, Alok's former best friend at school returns to Lenzie to host a film audition. Fraser Linlithgow (Sean Biggerstaff) is now a big hit in Hollywood, and Alok is keen to cash in on his fame.
Join the staff of Fags, Mags and Bags in their tireless quest to bring nice-price custard creams and cans of coke with Arabic writing on them to an ungrateful nation. Ramesh Mahju has built it up over the course of over 30 years and is a firmly entrenched, friendly presence in the local area. He is joined by his shop sidekick, Dave.
Then of course there are Ramesh's sons Sanjay and Alok, both surly and not particularly keen on the old school approach to shopkeeping, but natural successors to the business. Ramesh is keen to pass all his worldly wisdom onto them - whether they like it or not!
Cast:
Ramesh: Sanjeev Kohli
Dave: Donald Mcleary
Sanjay: Omar Raza
Alok: Susheel Kumar
Fraser Linlithgow: Sean Biggerstaff
Bishop Briggs: Michael Redmond
Mr Hepworth: Tom Urie
Paella Fieldings: Kate Brailsford.
Producer: Gus Beattie for Gusman Productions
A Comedy Unit production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, Lt Douglas Malcolm was acquitted of murdering Count de Borch, his wife's Russian lover, despite having shot him, and in Folkestone, Dr Howard Argent's day is louder and brighter than usual.
Cast
Dr Howard Argent ..... Gunnar Cauthery
Marieke Argent ..... Olivia Ross
Victor Lumley ..... Joel MacCormack
Olive Hargreaves ..... Rhiannon Neads
Ulysses Pilchard ..... Khalid Abdalla
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
News and discussion of consumer affairs.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Children born in summer do worse than children born in autumn or winter. Not every one of them of course, but on average the effect is strong and clear. Their grades are likely to be worse, they're less likely to go to grammar school and research indicates admission to Russell Group universities is lower too. It's also suggested they are more likely to be told they have behavioural problems or learning difficulties, and they are more likely to be bullied, more likely to be excluded.
The disadvantage appears to goes on after education. So what's behind this and why isn't there more of an outcry?
Michael Blastland is on the case in the second series of non-fiction whodunnits, unravelling the causes at the root of the biggest trends. These are true-life mysteries that creep up on us until the pattern of our lives is altered. He examines the culprits and punctures presumptions about causation and its implications for policy making.
Whodunnit? is a new kind of investigation. It owes its style to detective storytelling. But the cases are unequivocally real. These are societal mysteries - true-life changes in the pattern of our lives.
Presenter: Michael Blastland
Producer: Katherine Godfrey
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
Banished to the Stock Squad after his involvement in a police frame up, one-time golden boy DSC Cato Kwong is given a final chance at redemption. When the Great Southern Ocean washes up a headless torso, Cato is called in from the cold and sent to the remote mining town of Hopetoun, Western Australia to investigate. If he can quickly solve the case then maybe he can get his career back on track. Only his investigation takes him deep into the murky waters of migrant worker exploitation and multiple senseless murders.
Crime Down Under showcases the best crime fiction from contemporary Australia. Prime Cut by Alan Carter was shortlisted for the 2010 Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger Award. It is the first in a series of Cato Kwong mysteries. Prime Cut has been adapted for radio by Adrian Bean.
Part 1 of 2.
Directed by Helen Perry
A BBC/Cymru Wales production.
Melbourne-born Christine Stephen-Daly shot to small screen prominence as Lara Stone in BBC's Casualty and Holby City. Fellow Australian Mark Little is famous for playing Joe Mangel in the long-running Australian soap Neighbours. Richard Dillane spent ten years living in Australia before moving back to the UK. He is well-known for his TV (Silent Witness, Wolf Hall) and film roles (Argo, Oranges and Sunshine). Andrew Leung is a rising star of stage (Olivier winning Chimerica) and screen (Phoneshop, Doctor Who).
(11/13)
Which jazz drummer was a child prodigy in the 1920s, reputedly earning more than any child performer apart from the film actor Jackie Coogan? And in which film did Marni Nixon, whose singing voice had doubled for many a famous film star down the years, finally first appear on screen?
Paul Gambaccini has the answers to these and many other questions in the second semi-final of Counterpoint - but will the competitors know? Another of the places in the 2017 Final awaits the winner of today's contest. To get that far, as always, they'll have to put in a creditable performance on a musical 'specialist subject' which they've had no chance to prepare.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
Dr Anindita Ghosh from the University of Manchester explores the impact of the printing press on India and argues that print, much more than railways as is commonly understood, gave birth to the Indian nation that was born in 1947.
In this second programme, Anindita explores how the printing press played a fundamental role in the rise of nationalism in India. Starting with the nationalist newspapers, Anindita explores how English language papers as well as local language newspapers were crucial in forging anti-colonial sentiments among the reading public.
In response, the colonial government passed draconian acts which empowered district magistrates to seize presses of papers they deemed to be seditious. These measures applied to all publications, books and pamphlets as well as newspapers. But clamping down was not easy. Indian publishers found ingenious ways to avoid the censors. And alongside books, pamphlets and papers, there was the vast circulation of printed images that proved far more difficult to police by the colonial government than written texts.
Anindita argues that print was key to the shaping of a modern public sphere in India because print was the vehicle of critical ideas of community, history, society, culture and identity that emerged in modern India. Print was in that sense, modern India.
With Professor Tanika Sarkar (JNU, New Delhi), Professor Christopher Pinney (UCL, London), Professor Sunil Khilnani (KCL, London), Sandeep Hazareesingh (Open University) and Professor Francesca Orsini (SOAS)
Producer: Melissa FitzGerald
A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4.
It is said that behind every great man there is a great woman. The Prophet Muhammad was married many times; but for 25 formative years, he remained faithful to one woman, Khadijah. She is widely recognised as the First Muslim and her story may be surprising to many non-Muslims. She was a successful business woman. She was considerably older than Muhammad, and it was she who proposed to him. She must have been a formidable presence. There are many debates about the place of women in the Muslim world; could Khadijah be an appropriate role model for Muslim women today? Joining Ernie Rea to discuss Khadijah, are Fatima Barkatulla an Islamic scholar who has recently written a children's book about Khadijah; Rania Hafaz, Senior Lecturer in Education at Greenwich College and Fellow of the Muslim Institute; Asad Zaman, a Manchester based Imam; and Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Inter Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh.
Producer Amanda Hancox.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Nicholas Parsons challenges Paul Merton, Rufus Hound, Sarah Kendall and guest to speak on the topics on the cards without deviation, hesitation or repetition.
Hayley Sterling blows the whistle.
Produced by Victoria Lloyd.
A BBC Studios Production.
Tony needs to let go, and is it better the devil you know for Joe?
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
The 'confidence and supply' agreement struck between the Conservative Party and the Democratic Unionists in June 2017 guaranteed an extra £1bn of funding for Northern Ireland and secured a working majority for the government in parliament.
In exchange for the support of 10 DUP MPs in key parliamentary votes, the government also committed to giving the Stormont Executive greater flexibility over how a further £500m is spent. The Tories and the DUP said it would bring much-needed stability to Westminster. But critics branded the agreement a "grubby deal" which amounted to "cash for votes".
Three months down the line, BBC Ireland Correspondent, Chris Page, looks at how the deal was reached, how it is working and what its implications might be.
Chris examines the evolving response to the deal from the opposition, the media, the devolved nations and inside the Conservative Party. He looks at previous examples of such deals forged between minority Governments and parties from Ireland - from the Home Rule Bills of the 19th Century to John Major's government in the 1990s - as he asks what history can tell us about the true nature of this latest arrangement.
With the DUP already exerting influence on Conservative party policy in areas such as pensions and winter fuel payments, Chris examines how the DUP's new leverage is playing out and how the party is being perceived in its new position at the centre stage of British politics. Politicians and commentators offer their insight as to how the DUP deal may play out.
Chris also asks if the deal presents a threat to political stability in Northern Ireland and whether it affects the chances of the power-sharing administration at Stormont being restored.
Producer: Paul McKillion.
What's it like to live in the country with the fastest-shrinking population in the world? In the mountain village of Kalotinsi in western Bulgaria, there is no shop, no school, no bus service. Until a few decades ago, 600 people lived here but now most of the houses stand empty. Thirteen residents remain, struggling to make a life in a place most people have given up on. There are many other near-deserted villages like this in Bulgaria. With women having few children, and many choosing to work abroad, Bulgaria is facing a population crisis. Ruth Alexander travels to the country to find out what life is like for those left behind, and to ask what is being done to reverse the population decline.
Producer: John Murphy.
Snails have earned a terrible reputation among gardeners and growers as voracious pests - and yet these slow-moving molluscs have inspired both artists and writers, been made famous by a magic roundabout and provided us with food and sustenance for millennia. We have used snails to predict the true course of love, cure warts and smooth out our wrinkles (with varying degrees of success). As Brett Westwood discovers our relationship with them is multi-faceted and complex and so rather than evict them from your garden perhaps we should show them a little more respect. Producer Sarah Blunt.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
A family has been brutally killed on their farm outside the small Australian country town of Kiewarra. It hasn't rained for two years, farms are failing and tensions in the community are running unbearably high. It seems that Luke Hadler reached snapping point, killed his wife and child and then committed suicide.
When policeman Aaron Falk returns to his hometown for his old friend's funeral he wants to get away again as soon as possible. He certainly doesn't want to be reminded of the secret he and Luke shared twenty years earlier. But as he's unwillingly drawn into the investigation into the Hadler deaths, the past keeps getting in the way. Questions mount and suspicion spreads through the town, and Falk must face what's hidden in his own past to help him solve the secrets of the present.
6/10: Lies, alibis and a confrontation muddy the investigation
Crime Down Under showcases some of the best crime fiction from contemporary Australia
Jane Harper is a journalist who moved from the UK to Australia in 2008. She lives in Melbourne and currently writes for the Herald Sun. She won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2015, and The Dry is her first novel. It was named the Australian Book Industry Association's Book of the Year, and the Australian Independent Bookseller 2017 Indie Book of the Year.
Read by Richard Goulding
Abridged and produced by Sara Davies.
In this month's episode - Embarrassing Bodies - Daljit talks to poets writing about shame, offence, embarrassment and self-consciousness. With poems from Andrew McMillan, Leyla Josephine, Richard Scott, Emily Berry, Kathryn Maris and Ocean Vuong.
Blast is a new alternative poetry series for Radio 4, presented by Radio 4's poet-in-residence Daljit Nagra, recorded at festivals and events around the UK and on location with the best new poets and spoken word artists. Previous episodes have featured PJ Harvey, Don Paterson, Kayo Chingonyi, Patricia Lockwood, Michael Pedersen, Theresa Lola, Lisa Luxx, Raymond Antrobus, Wayne Holloway-Smith, Miriam Nash and Zeina Hashem Beck.
Produced by Mair Bosworth and Hana Walker-Brown.
Sean Curran reports from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Bishop David Chillingworth of the Scottish Episcopal Church.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
After years of inactivity, Tara Robinson describes an unexpected barn owl encounter in a fallen nest box in her own back garden for this Tweet of the Day.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer: Mark Ward
Picture: Tim Felce.
News and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
John Betjeman, poet, broadcaster and romantic, is chiefly remembered for the things he loved, including old churches, seaside towns, music-hall and railways. He was a great lover of England but he was also not afraid to attack those he saw as England's enemies. Villains skewered in Betjeman's poems include the town planner or 'planster', the property developer and the civil servants Betjeman accused of tearing up towns and villages, wrecking the countryside with pylons and ring-roads and destroying the very fabric of English life. "The worst of them" Betjeman wrote "want to turn us from a nation of house dwellers into a nation of flat dwellers living in huge hygienic Karl Marx Hofs, ants in an insect world of the future."
Patrick Wright travels through Betjeman's London from Parliament Hill Fields to Smithfield to explore Betjeman's love of architecture and contempt for many of the new buildings he saw rising in London and across the England he cherished. A.N. Wilson, Gavin Stamp and Gillian Darley are among the contributors Patrick meets as he looks back at Betjeman's contempt for mediocre buildings and poor planning. And, as London is convulsed once again by a wave of re-development, Patrick asks what Betjeman would make of today's construction boom and whether a new generation of planners now have not too much power but too little.
Producer: Julia Johnson.
Do we need chaos in order to progress? Bettany Hughes visits a campaigning teenage refugee from Syria, a theoretical physicist and the Palace of Westminster to discuss.
With Syrian migrant and human rights campaigner Muzoon Almellehan, Conservative MP for Spelthorne Kwasi Kwarteng and theoretical physicist and author of Seven Brief Lessons On Physics, Carlo Rovelli.
Producer: Dixi Stewart.
Joan Didion crosses the border into Mississippi, visiting a Reptile House and a Broadcasting Convention. It's a world stuck in the 1950s, seemingly oblivious to contemporary life.
From the best-selling author of the award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking - excerpts from her never-before-seen notebooks.
Joan Didion has always kept notebooks of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles - and here is one that traces a road trip she took in June 1970, through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
And in her native west, the memoir piece California Notes that began as an assignment from Rolling Stone on the Patty Hearst trial of 1976.
Read by Laurel Lefkow
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
Directed by Eoin O'Callaghan
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles Series 9
by Esther Wilson
Return of award winning series. A further five enchanting episodes in the unique life of a young married couple with learning disabilities.
Darleen and Jamie have a baby girl; life will never be the same again. Darleen's fears come to a head when the couple bath their baby girl for the first time.
Starring Donna Lavin and Edmund Davies, actors with learning disabilities; this series is both humorous and poignant, and created in part through improvisation.
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.
Brett Westwood soaks in a sound bath of nightingale song as he explores how this dull, brown bird continues to inspire human creativity. Featuring folk musician Sam Lee, philosopher and professor of music David Rothenberg, Bristol University reader Francesca MacKenney, the British Trust for Ornithology's Chris Hewson, poet Jack Thacker and Professor Stephanie Weiner of Wesleyan University. Producer: Tom Bonnett.
Is it possible, or desirable, to measure the quality of an artwork?
In a world of shrinking resources, the question of how we decide which art should receive finance is ever more pressing. Rosemary Laryea asks if, when putting money into good quality art is the goal, it's possible to set criteria to judge what makes "good art".
Rosemary talks to members of the public looking at - and arguing about - artwork, and discusses questions of artistic taste and judgement. She also hears from the jazz musician and rap artist Soweto Kinch, playwright Simon Stephens and filmmaker Destiny Ekaragha. Tiffany Jenkins makes the case for critics and Barry Smith, a philosopher of the senses, and the art critic Lynda Neade explore the idea of taste, subjective pleasure and expertise.
Arts Council England has trialled a method of measuring quality in the art it funds, called Quality Metrics. Audiences, artists and arts organisations are invited to assess artworks - exhibitions, dance pieces, digital art, poetry, theatre, music events and more - across a range of criteria, and become part of a conversation about what constitutes quality. Rosemary wonders whether this might be a way of finally answering the question of how we know something is good, while Dr Sarah Garfinkel shows that it might be our hearts, or rather our heartbeats, that hold the clue to understanding and mapping our aesthetic response.
Producer: Natalie Steed
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, British naval planes bombed Zeebrugge, and in Folkestone, Alice's birthday gets off to a terrible start.
Cast
Alice Macknade ..... Claire Louise Cordwell
Bill Macknade ..... Ben Crowe
Esme Macknade ..... Katie Angelou
Oscar Hendrickx ..... Pierre Elliott
Florrie Wilson ..... Claire Rushbrook
Kathy Marx ..... Sarah Ridgeway
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer phone-in.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Michael Blastland investigates why summer-born children do worse than those born in autumn or winter.
Disgraced, former golden boy of the police service, DSC Cato Kwong is brought in from the cold to investigate a washed up headless corpse in the remote mining town of Hopetoun, Western Australia. It's Cato's one final shot at getting his career back on track. Only his open-and-shut case is proving to be more complex than he'd hoped; drugs, murder, exploitation combined with false confessions, Chinese whispers and framed suspects. The truth seems far from straightforward. But Cato's investigation is about to take another dark turn, and crimes from the past are brought to light.
Crime Down Under showcases the best crime fiction from contemporary Australia. Prime Cut by Alan Carter was shortlisted for the 2010 Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger Award. It is the first in a series of Cato Kwong mysteries. Prime Cut has been adapted for radio by Adrian Bean
Part 2 of 2.
Directed by Helen Perry
A BBC/Cymru Wales production
Melbourne-born Christine Stephen-Daly shot to small screen prominence as Lara Stone in BBC's Casualty and Holby City. Fellow Australian Mark Little is famous for playing Joe Mangel in the long-running Australian soap Neighbours. Richard Dillane spent ten years living in Australia before moving back to the UK. He is well-known for his TV (Silent Witness, Wolf Hall) and film roles (Argo, Oranges and Sunshine). Andrew Leung is a rising star of stage (Olivier winning Chimerica) and screen (Phoneshop, Doctor Who).
Escape artists, losing control of your body and losing yourself in water - Josie Long presents stories of movement.
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
New developments in battery technology are changing the way we power Britain. More efficient, higher capacity batteries expand the range of electric vehicles and allow solar and wind power plants to provide smooth, 24 hour electricity.
Tom Heap is in Cornwall where power companies and local innovators are developing a new battery-powered economic model that could be rolled out to the rest of the UK.
From mining the lithium that makes the batteries to holiday parks producing clean power for the grid Cornwall is leading the way.
Producers: Nicholas Davies and Alasdair Cross.
Michael Rosen and Laura Wright talk to Great British Menu judge Andi Oliver and author of The Flavour Thesaurus Niki Segnit about how to put into words how food tastes. How can coriander and lime possibly be described as kind of like the wooh woohs in 'Sympathy for the Devil"?! Simile and metaphor, memory, humour, disgust - all of these play a part in the ways in which we describe the flavours of food.
Producer Beth O'Dea.
Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at the London School of Economics, among other positions, and former Chief Economist at the World Bank. He is also a massive boxing fan and chooses the life of Muhammad Ali to explore with Matthew Parris and sports journalist and boxing commentator Ronald McIntosh.
Not only does Stern admire Ali's prowess in the ring, but more so his fearless stance against the Vietnam War which cost him dearly both personally and professionally. Ali's humanitarian work in later life has also been a huge source of inspiration to him.
Producer: Maggie Ayre.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Tim Vine has been travelling the length and breadth of this fair land to not only uncover the best stories of the Great British public but also to take every possible opportunity to tell a ridiculous joke and sing a preposterous song along the way.
In episode 1 he's in London where he finds himself confronted by a man with an interesting technique for warding off foxes and an office worker who was inadvertently responsible for half of Welwyn Garden City being closed to the public. There's also a song about allergies.
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.
Adam and Ian have a memorable encounter, and Tony has important Flower & Produce news.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Over many generations the Catholic church provided shelter and care for vulnerable children whose families had been broken by death or poverty. But many of those who grew up in these orphanages claim the care they offered amounted to years of serious beatings and emotional abuse which scarred them for life.
File on 4 investigates one such former institution, Smyllum Park in Lanark, uncovering new evidence of alleged abuse and raising serious questions about child deaths at the orphanage, before it was closed in 1981.
In Scotland, the ongoing child abuse inquiry has vowed to get to the bottom of what happened at Smyllum Park and other children's homes but it has been beset with delays, resignations and claims of political interference.
File on 4 asks whether the inquiry is digging deep enough to uncover the truth about what happened at Smyllum Park and why it has taken more than 50 years for the truth to come out.
Producer: Ben Robinson
Reporter: Michael Buchanan.
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted.
How can health and social care work closer together to keep the increasing number of elderly as well as possible? Dr Kevin Fong meets the people with new ideas and approaches.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
A family has been brutally killed on their farm outside the small Australian country town of Kiewarra. It hasn't rained for two years, farms are failing and tensions in the community are running unbearably high. It seems that Luke Hadler reached snapping point, killed his wife and child and then committed suicide.
When policeman Aaron Falk returns to his hometown for his old friend's funeral he wants to get away again as soon as possible. He certainly doesn't want to be reminded of the secret he and Luke shared twenty years earlier. But as he's unwillingly drawn into the investigation into the Hadler deaths, the past keeps getting in the way. Questions mount and suspicion spreads through the town, and Falk must face what's hidden in his own past to help him solve the secrets of the present.
7/10: Tensions in town mount, a lie is exposed and a secret uncovered.
Crime Down Under showcases some of the best crime fiction from contemporary Australia.
Jane Harper is a journalist who moved from the UK to Australia in 2008. She lives in Melbourne and currently writes for the Herald Sun. She won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2015, and The Dry is her first novel. It was named the Australian Book Industry Association's Book of the Year, and the Australian Independent Bookseller 2017 Indie Book of the Year.
Read by Richard Goulding
Abridged and produced by Sara Davies.
We hear how Robert Burns discovered the real story of Tam O'Shanter's big night out at Alloway Kirk - from the point of view of a young barmaid called Norah and her Aunty Meg, who finds herself the victim of a spell malfunction, becoming the horse whom Burns made famous in Tam O'Shanter.
Stanley Baxter was born in 1926 and began working for the BBC Scottish Home Service Radio Children's Hour when he was fourteen - in 1940. He was called up to do National Service at the age of eighteen and returned to perform on BBC Radio in Scotland in 1948 - continuing to do so in the 1950s with a variety of live comedy shows. He then went into films and ultimately into television - but he has continued to work in radio throughout his career.
In the week of his 88th Birthday and in the year of his 75th anniversary as a radio performer, we recorded the latest productions in the much loved, long running Radio 4 series The Stanley Baxter Playhouse.
Written by Rona Munro
Directed by Marilyn Imrie
A Catherine Bailey production for BBC Radio 4.
Susan Hulme reports from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Bishop David Chillingworth of the Scottish Episcopal Church.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
For Tara Robinson the sound of oystercatchers recalls her father taking her to Loch Fleet as a child and being quizzed by him about the birds she saw, for this Tweet of the Day.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Mark Ward.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Barbara Betts, the daughter of a tax inspector, was born in Bradford in 1910. Her childhood was steeped in left-wing politics. Her father was an active member of the Independent Labour Party and she became a socialist at an early age. She was educated at Bradford Girls' Grammar School and Oxford University. Her father had been a William Morris-esque Guild Socialist; her mother used to set up a maypole on their patch of Pontefract cinder track. In the 1950s, she watched in horror as her vision of an English working-class improving itself through education being washed away as a slew of jukeboxes, Hollywood movies, quiz shows, T-shirts and chewing gum tumbled over the Atlantic. English culture was being subsumed by the American Vulgar. Some of the fiercest resistance came from the left - JB Priestley and Richard Hoggart and Barbara Castle.
Producer: Mohini Patel.
Designer Wayne Hemingway looks at five colours that have been at the centre of ownership and trademark battles, revealing the complex status of colours in our society - their artistic, commercial and cultural impact.
He explores our response to colour - whether it's the red soles of designer shoes, the blue strip of a football team or the purple of a chocolate bar wrapper - interviewing those involved in branding, advertising and IP, as well as the psychologists, scientists , colour gurus, artists and those creating the colours of tomorrow using Nanotechnology.
Programme 1 - Red
In 1980s, a company in America became the first to successfully trademark a colour. It was also the decade when Wayne Hemingway launched his fashion label Red or Dead, illustrated by a logo in a particular shade of red. Now he hopes scientists can re-create that colour in a paint laboratory in Slough, where they make trademarked colours such as Red Stallion and Roasted Red. Wayne explores the beginnings of colour ownership through a colour with two sides - love and passion or blood and aggression.
Producer: Sara Parker
A Juniper production for BBC Radio 4.
The Interstate Highway carries Joan Didion to Meridian. An encounter with a local businessman whose optimism for the South is matched only by his racism, increases her unease.
From the best-selling author of the award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking - excerpts from her never-before-seen notebooks.
Joan Didion has always kept notebooks of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles - and here is one that traces a road trip she took in June 1970, through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
And in her native west, the memoir piece California Notes that began as an assignment from Rolling Stone on the Patty Hearst trial of 1976.
Read by Laurel Lefkow
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
Directed by Eoin O'Callaghan
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles Series 9
by Esther Wilson
Return of award winning series. A further five enchanting episodes in the unique life of a young married couple with learning disabilities.
Darleen and Jamie have a baby girl; life will never be the same again. When Darleen is left alone with the baby at night her ever increasing fear about holding the baby escalates
Starring Donna Lavin and Edmund Davies, actors with learning disabilities; this series is both humorous and poignant, and created in part through improvisation.
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.
Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen. Producer: Marya Burgess.
Britain's army of cleaners and some of the people they clean for meet for the first time.
Many of today's cleaners might as well be invisible - we know so little of the people behind the job title. Blanche Girouard hears the stories and experiences of a range of immigrant cleaners who work in London's homes, schools and offices.
Alford is a Jamaican man in his 60s who has been cleaning the same school for over a decade. Here, he sits down for a proper conversation with some of the senior pupils for the first time and we hear some extraordinary life stories being shared.
Barrister Maria Gonzalez Marello profiles some of the cases of abuse and exploitation that come through her weekly free legal advice surgery for cleaners - she has won many court cases against unscrupulous contracting companies, and the number of cases had increased since the Brexit process started. There is a cruel irony that many big London firms boasting of attractive employment packages maintain their gleaming offices using people who work under very poor conditions.
On the other hand, we meet Veronica - a 24 year-old Polish cleaner who really enjoys cleaning in most of the twenty houses and offices she services every week. The programme concludes that language - the ability to speak English and read contracts - is the greatest defence against exploitation and isolation.
Presenter: Blanche Girouard
Producer: Peter Curran
A Foghorn production for BBC Radio 4.
Richard Herring's brand new comedy about four generations of a family. Starring Alison Steadman, Phil Davies and Richard Herring.
Relativity is a witty and loving portrait of family life, with affectionate observation of inter generational misunderstanding, sibling sparring and the ties that bind, that will resonate with anyone who has ever argued with their dad about how to pronounce crisp brand names.
Episode 2:
Margaret and Ken invite all the family round to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary, Jane plans the party surprise to end all surprises, and 17 year old Nick's joy is unbounded to discover Chloe has a bit part in the new Star Wars film. Grandma Doris' contribution to the festivities is somewhat uninhibited, and her Alzheimer's makes Ian and Jane to reflect on what really matters.
Written by Richard Herring and produced by Polly Thomas.
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Broadcast Assistants: Bella Lamplough Shields, Bryony Jarvis Taylor
Producer: Polly Thomas
Executive Producers: Jon Thoday and Richard Allen Turner
An Avalon Television production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, General Kornilov's revolt broke down in Russia, following the suicide of General Krimov, and in Folkestone, the Wilsons try to repair their damaged family.
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Michael Blastland investigates why summer-born children do worse than those born in autumn or winter.
A school on a council estate has been devastated by a gas explosion. The announcement that retired judge Sir Stephen Colefax is to chair the ensuing public inquiry is greeted with anger and dismay. Can a man from his privileged background have any true understanding of the community so tragically affected? By Ryan Craig.
Directed by Peter Kavanagh.
Financial phone-in.
Sociological discussion programme, presented by Laurie Taylor.
Topical programme about the fast-changing media world.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Last in the series. Bob gets a job as a bingo caller, and Gruff and Alice want to get Carys baptized.
Written by Gareth Gwynn and Benjamin Partridge.
Produced by Victoria Lloyd.
A BBC Studios Production.
Jennifer hears more than she bargained for, and Harrison shares some intelligence.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
A judge led inquiry has been set up to establish the facts of the devastating Grenfell Tower fire. The tragedy has shone a spotlight on issues of housing safety. Clive Anderson and guests discuss topical housing law issues. Does the law sufficiently protect the tenure, safety and other legal rights of tenants in both the private and public sectors?
There is consensus in the legal community that housing law is under-resourced, unnecessarily complex and, in many ways, outdated. But what rights should tenants have?
Barrister Liz Davies says a lack of legal aid is preventing tenants from bringing unsafe and unsatisfactory housing to court. Current legislation means a legal claim only arises where the rented property is in "disrepair". A tenant has legal recourse if their boiler is broken, but none if the heating is functioning but inadequate.
The programme discusses concerns that current protections are unevenly applied. Private landlords can be inspected and works required by environmental health officer. But these officers cannot compel their own local authorities to act.
In 2012, the Welsh Assembly announced it would bring into legislation Law Commission recommendations that will dramatically simplify the rental market. Solicitor David Smith, who was involved in drafting the legislation, says the hugely complicated process will take another couple of years. Should England follow suit?
Part-time judge Caroline Hunter is supportive of a greater role for specialist tribunals to increase efficiency and access to justice. Barrister Matt Hutchings QC argues for additional social housing saying that, without more homes, additional laws will only add further complexity.
Producer: Matt Willis
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.
David Baddiel tries to understand fracking.
David asks how it differs from traditional drilling, what kind of gas it produces, and if it is bad for the environment. Speaking to two experts: Francis Egan of fracking company Cuadrilla, and Hannah Martin of Greenpeace, David gets to the bottom of these and other issues.
Producer: Giles Edwards.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
A family has been brutally killed on their farm outside the small Australian country town of Kiewarra. It hasn't rained for two years, farms are failing and tensions in the community are running unbearably high. It seems that Luke Hadler reached snapping point, killed his wife and child and then committed suicide.
When policeman Aaron Falk returns to his hometown for his old friend's funeral he wants to get away again as soon as possible. He certainly doesn't want to be reminded of the secret he and Luke shared twenty years earlier. But as he's unwillingly drawn into the investigation into the Hadler deaths, the past keeps getting in the way. Questions mount and suspicion spreads through the town, and Falk must face what's hidden in his own past to help him solve the secrets of the present.
8/10: Falk's assumptions are shaken, about the past and the present
Crime Down Under showcases some of the best crime fiction from contemporary Australia.
Jane Harper is a journalist who moved from the UK to Australia in 2008. She lives in Melbourne and currently writes for the Herald Sun. She won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2015, and The Dry is her first novel. It was named the Australian Book Industry Association's Book of the Year, and the Australian Independent Bookseller 2017 Indie Book of the Year.
Read by Richard Goulding
Abridged and produced by Sara Davies.
It's the final episode of the current series and life has a way of getting its own back. Edward the cat is off the hook this week - but not John. It's his turn for a bit of unwelcome prodding from the medical community.
Written by John Moloney
Starrring John Moloney, Karen Bartke and Richard Melvin
Produced by Richard Melvin
A Dabster production for BBC Radio 4.
Ian Leslie presents the show which brings to light the often surprising first literary attempts of the world's best known writers.
In this episode, we gain some understanding of the force that was to be reckoned with in the case of William Blake, and how his spiritual leanings came to bear on his copy for public signs in London parks.
We also hear the beginnings of Will Self's acerbic style in his submission as a child, re-working a classic fairy tale for an adolescent magazine.
There's also the much loved poet Pam Ayres and her sadly unused submission for a reworking of the 3 minute warning in the event of a nuclear bomb.
Finally, we hear another of the questionable offerings from Henrik Ibsen to the joke department of a Christmas cracker manufacturer.
Producer: Claire Broughton
A Hat Trick production for BBC Radio 4.
Sean Curran reports from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Bishop David Chillingworth of the Scottish Episcopal Church.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
For this Tweet of the Day writer and explorer Hugh Thomson suggests his love of the call of the wood pigeon song in an English woodland is as good as that of the nightingale.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Maggie Ayre.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Patrick Wright meets the philosopher Sir Roger Scruton, who argues that the EU has encroached on the fundamentals of Englishness: the landscape, and the common law.
And he hears from others who question the idea that the European Union has encroached in this way, including Martha Spurrier, the Director of Liberty.
Producer: Phil Tinline.
Bettany Hughes considers changing ideas about hubris on a building site, at an ancient Greek palace, in literature, in political office, and aboard a replica of Sir Francis Drake's Golden Hinde.
This surprising and invigorating history of the most influential ideas in the story of civilisation, has been described as 'a double espresso shot of philosophy, history, science and the arts'. Award-winning historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes begins each programme with the first, extant evidence of a single word-idea in Ancient Greek culture and travels both forwards and backwards in time, investigating how these ideas have been moulded by history, and how they've shaped us.
In this programme Bettany explores hubris with experts from the humanities and sciences, people who see these big philosophical ideas playing out in their own lives including archaeologist Michael Cosmopoulos, classicist Paul Cartledge, historian Anna Whitelock and former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. Bettany travels to a new archaeological excavation Greece to see where these ideas were born and then explores the street markets, churches, offices and homes where they continue to morph and influence our daily lives, including The Fellows' Library at Clare College in Cambridge, the replica of the Golden Hinde on London's South Bank, and in a recording booth where Nick Clegg is recording his memoir Politics: Between the Extremes.
Other ideas in this series are harmony, narcissism, technology and hubris. Ideas examined previously include idea, desire, agony, fame, justice, wisdom, comedy, liberty, peace, hospitality, virtue, psyche, charisma, irony and nemesis.
Series Producer: Dixi Stewart.
Joan Didion moves into Alabama where chance encounters increase her sense of divide with the women of the south, whose seeming only goals are to marry and have their hair done.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles Series 9
by Esther Wilson
Return of award winning series. A further five enchanting episodes in the unique life of a young married couple with learning disabilities.
Darleen and Jamie have a baby girl; life will never be the same again. Darleen's mum Treena has noticed Darleen's fear of holding her baby.
Starring Donna Lavin and Edmund Davies, actors with learning disabilities; this series is both humorous and poignant, and created in part through improvisation.
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.
Uganda has now taken in more than a million refugees who have fled civil war in neighbouring South Sudan. And more are coming every day. It's said that Uganda has the most generous refugee policy in the world, with new arrivals given land and allowed to work. But the majority of South Sudanese refugees are women and children who have lost almost everything and, as Ruth Alexander discovers, the reality of starting a new life from scratch is far from straightforward.
Sculptor and musician Nick Reynolds has revived the art of creating death masks.
Coming across Oliver Cromwell's death mask on a school trip to Warwick Castle, Nick instantly became fascinated with the idea that you can stare at the actual facial features of a historical person. He now owns the death masks of many famous people from Ned Kelly and Napoleon to Ken Russell and Ronnie Biggs. They decorate every wall in his flat but he views them not as a macabre way of remembering the dead but as "a kind of time machine".
In recent years, Nick has turned his artistic talents towards producing death masks and his portfolio includes the masks of William Rees-Mogg, Peter O'Toole and Sebastian Horsley. In this programme, their nearest and dearest give their different reactions to the 'undying face' of the person they have lost.
Nick also visits Highgate Cemetery to discuss our attitude to death and describes the death masks which adorn the gravestones of his father and of impresario Malcolm McLaren.
Contributors:
Jacob Rees-Mogg MP
Kate O'Toole - actress and daughter of Peter O'Toole
Rachel Campbell Johnston - Chief Art Critic for The Times
Dr Ian Dungavell - Chief Executive at Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust
Producer:
Helen Lee
Photograph by Rankin of Nick Reynolds holding his father's death mask
Music:
Woke Up This Morning performed by Alabama 3 (Nick Reynolds on harmonica)
Recorded by Visual Hybrid.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, Noel Chevasse became the only soldier to receive two VCs in the Great War, and in Folkestone, Jessie and Adam find themselves in the middle of events.
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Michael Blastland investigates why summer-born children do worse than those born in autumn or winter.
Thea Collins is one of the most famous film stars in the world but her life implodes when suddenly, almost magically, a beard starts to grow on her face and won't go away. Forced into hiding, she's tracked down by a fan, Sally Martin, who's determined to discover why one of the world's highest-profile stars just upped sticks and vanished.
Some music composed by Timothy X Atack
Studio Manager................Iain Hunter
Directed by Alison Crawford.
Clare Balding takes the Cornish coastal path from Constantine Bay to Harlyn, in the company of two women for whom walking has been the cement in their friendship. Sarah Rossiter and Rebecca Newsom met at university and although their lives have taken them in very different directions; Sarah works for an investment bank , Rebecca for Greenpeace, they try to ensure they get together every few months to do some challenging hiking while putting the world to rights. In this series Clare will be walking with listeners who have recommended people or places the programme should feature. Sarah wrote to Ramblings wishing to share their enthusiasm for walking and walking together.
The route they take can be found on OS Explorer 106 Newquay and Padstow.
Producer: Lucy Lunt.
Francine Stock talks to the makers of The Work, a documentary about a group therapy session in Folsom Prison that takes unexpected twists and turns, and illuminates the modern crisis in masculinity.
Adam Rutherford explores the science that is changing our world.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Comedian and actress Jo Brand is Victoria Coren Mitchell's companion for this week's edition of the show that uses our guest's cars as a way to take us through her life. Find out how Jo Brand's rally-driving past was ended by romance; how her car became an impromptu counselling couch for comedians; the vital importance of the right kind of snacks; and when you shouldn't risk a roadside wee.
With car descriptions read by Morwenna Banks
Produced by Gareth Edwards
A BBC Studios Comedy Production.
Kate offers her maternal wisdom, and Toby takes the initiative.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Series looking at important issues in the news. Presented by David Aaronovitch.
What red lines need to be crossed before companies retreat from foreign markets? As political turmoil engulfs Turkey, total economic collapse threatens in Venezuela and other global threats emerge, In Business explores the point at which businesses decide that enough is enough. Does it depend on the size of the investment and do companies in different sectors play by different rules? And what reputational risk might companies suffer if they get that calculation wrong? Presenter, Matthew Gwyther, talks to business people who have stayed and those who have left. Did they see the red line clearly or would they make a different call second time around?
Producer: Rosamund Jones.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
A family has been brutally killed on their farm outside the small Australian country town of Kiewarra. It hasn't rained for two years, farms are failing and tensions in the community are running unbearably high. It seems that Luke Hadler reached snapping point, killed his wife and child and then committed suicide.
When policeman Aaron Falk returns to his hometown for his old friend's funeral he wants to get away again as soon as possible. He certainly doesn't want to be reminded of the secret he and Luke shared twenty years earlier. But as he's unwillingly drawn into the investigation into the Hadler deaths, the past keeps getting in the way. Questions mount and suspicion spreads through the town, and Falk must face what's hidden in his own past to help him solve the secrets of the present.
9/10: A chance remark sets Falk onto the trail of the killer
Jane Harper is a journalist who moved from the UK to Australia in 2008. She lives in Melbourne and currently writes for the Herald Sun. She won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2015, and The Dry is her first novel. It was named the Australian Book Industry Association's Book of the Year, and the Australian Independent Bookseller 2017 Indie Book of the Year.
Read by Richard Goulding
Abridged and produced by Sara Davies.
Everyone craves a place where their mind and body are not applied to a particular task. The nearest faraway place. Somewhere for drifting and lighting upon strange thoughts which don't have to be shooed into context, but which can be followed like balloons escaping onto the air. Late at night, in the dark and in a bunk bed, your tired mind can wander.
This is the nearest faraway place for Patrick Marber and Peter Curran. Here they try to get the heart of things in an entertainingly vague and indirect way. This is not the place for typical male banter.
From under the bed clothes they play each other music and archive of H G Wells, a Russian radio station for spies and cheesy pop anthems. Work, family, literature, and their own badly-scuffed dreams are the funny, if warped, conversational currency.
A Foghorn production for BBC Radio 4.
Episode 2. The Winner Takes It All.
Elvis is persuaded, much against his will, to engage with society's apparent mania for competitions. The opportunities are legion: karaoke, writing in to magazines, the competition for best kept caravan park and a local poetry slam
Producer: Frank Stirling
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4
Written by Elvis MacGonagall, with Richard Smith, Helen Braunholtz-Smith and Frank Stirling.
Stand-up poet, armchair revolutionary, comedian and broadcaster Elvis McGonagall (aka poet and performer Richard Smith) is determined to do something about his bitter, dyspeptic and bloody minded view of contemporary life. There are good things out there, if he could only be bothered to find them. From his home in the Graceland Park near Dundee, the Scottish punk poet goes in search of the brighter side of life. With the help of his dog,Trouble, his friend, Susan Morrison, and his own private narrator, Clarke Peters, Elvis does his very best to accentuate the positive - he really does. Recorded almost entirely on location, in a caravan on a truly glamorous industrial estate somewhere in Scotland.
As Elvis, poet Richard Smith is the 2006 World Poetry Slam Champion, the compere of the notorious Blue Suede Sporran Club and appears regularly on BBC Radio 4 ("Saturday Live", the "Today Programme", "Arthur Smith's Balham Bash", "Last Word", "Off The Page" and others as well as writing and presenting the popular arts features "Doggerel Bard" on the art of satiric poetry and "Beacons and Blue Remembered Hills" on the extraordinary resonance of A.E. Housman's 'Shropshire Lad', which was recorded on location as well.
(further info at www.elvismcgonagall.co.uk).
Alicia McCarthy reports from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Bishop David Chillingworth of the Scottish Episcopal Church.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Chris Jones was brought a swift which had fallen from its nest, hand reared it and then for this Tweet of the Day, releases it back to the wild...how good is that?
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Maggie Ayre.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
California Notes: Now in the West, Joan Didion is asked to write about Patty Hearst, but diverts to musing on her own sense of belonging in Hearst country, developed since childhood.
From the best-selling author of the award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking - excerpts from her never-before-seen notebooks.
Joan Didion has always kept notebooks of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles - and here is one that traces a road trip she took in June 1970, through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
And in her native west, the memoir piece California Notes that began as an assignment from Rolling Stone on the Patty Hearst trial of 1976.
Read by Laurel Lefkow
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
Directed by Eoin O'Callaghan
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles Series 9
by Esther Wilson
Return of award winning series. A further five enchanting episodes in the unique life of a young married couple with learning disabilities.
Darleen and Jamie have a baby girl; life will never be the same again. A crises strikes when the baby is admitted to hospital.
Starring Donna Lavin and Edmund Davies, actors with learning disabilities; this series is both humorous and poignant, and created in part through improvisation.
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.
Lots of people wear wigs, and go to great lengths to keep them secret - but why? Perhaps it's because the hair on top of our heads means so much to us. It's a crucial part of our identity, the person we see when we look in the mirror, so what happens when it's not there?
It's a question Brian Kernohan has asked himself. Yes, his hair's thinning a bit on top, but it's his secret - until his hairdresser points it out. Brian wouldn't dare suggest a wig - even though he's always wondered if he could try one?
Brian investigates the secret world of wigs with the help of alopecia sufferer Geraldine, who runs a secret wig shop which ensures discretion for all her customers. He explores the stigma attached to wig wearing, and finds out how tastes have changed since the 17thcentury when Louis XIV put wigs at the cutting edge of fashion.
He meets cancer patients who have learnt to "embrace your inner bald", as 16-year-old Sophie puts it, the wig shop owner who surprises customers by wearing her own stock, and meets the opera singer who loves to wear wigs on stage.
But still, Brian is nervous when he is fitted for a wig, and is even more terrified when he has to wear it in public. What if someone realises he's wearing a secret wig - and why does he care so much?
Producer: Freya McClements.
Edinburgh Comedy award winner Adam Riches stars as the bemused and culturally challenged comedian abroad - recorded in Sweden with a cast of the country's most popular comedy actors, and written by Danny Robins.
It's three years since Geoff moved to the tiny north Swedish town of Yxsjö with his girlfriend Linda (Sissela Benn from the Swedish version of The Office). It has been quite a culture shock and they've been through a lot in three years - rotting herring, moose and bears, battles with language, perfect ex-boyfriends and ice hockey, the birth of a son, a marriage proposal and plumbing. With the help of his loved-up parents-in-law, Sten and Gunilla (Thomas Oredsson and Anna-Lena Bergelin), Geoff is now looking forward to a settled family life. But who is going to paty for all this?
In the final episode of this series, Geoff negotiates the generous Swedish parental benefits system, the rewards - and otherwise - of dealing with a marauding toddler, and the terrifying perfectionism of his fellow Swedish dads.
Written by Danny Robins
Directed by Frank Stirling
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, the British Government officially denied attempting a peace deal with Germany, and in Folkestone, Ivy Layton's suspicions grow more acute.
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer news and issues.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Michael Blastland investigates why summer-born children do worse than those born in autumn or winter.
by Richard Lumsden
Lester has never left home, maybe because he's got a secret that's too big to carry around the world, maybe because he loves Derbyshire too much. But now its time to tell all so Lester decides to face up to the past and write a book. But where to start?
Directed by Sally Avens.
Eric Robson hosts a correspondence edition of the programme from Tresco Abbey Garden on the Isles of Scilly. Pippa Greenwood, James Wong and Bob Flowerdew answer the questions from the postbag, along with Mike Nelhams, Curator of the gardens at Tresco Abbey.
Produced by Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
An original short story commissioned by Radio 4. As read by the acclaimed Irish actress Ruth McCabe (Philomena, Catastrophe.)
Dermot Bolger is one of Ireland's most prolific writers. His radio plays for BBC Radio 4 include 'The Night Manager' and 'The Fortunestown Kid'. The audio version of his novel 'The Woman's Daughter' has been broadcast in seven countries and won the Worldplay Award for best script.
Reader ..... Ruth McCabe
Writer ..... Dermot Bolger
Producer ..... Michael Shannon.
Obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.
Investigating the numbers in the news.
Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen. Producer: Marya Burgess.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Satirical review of the week's news, chaired by Miles Jupp.
Ian has a new resolve, and what's cooking with Lexi?
News, reviews and interviews from the worlds of art, literature, film and music.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester with a panel including the Leader of the Liberal Democrats Sir Vince Cable and the Chairman of the Conservative Party Sir Patrick McLoughlin.
A reflection on a topical issue.
The seventh omnibus of Season 11, Broken and Mad, set in Folkestone, in the week, in 1917, when Kerensky's provisional government proclaimed a Russian republic following Kornilov's failed coup.
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Story led by Katie Hims
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Composer: Matthew Strachan
Consultant Historian: Maggie Andrews.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
A family has been brutally killed on their farm outside the small Australian country town of Kiewarra. It hasn't rained for two years, farms are failing and tensions in the community are running unbearably high. It seems that Luke Hadler reached snapping point, killed his wife and child and then committed suicide.
When policeman Aaron Falk returns to his hometown for his old friend's funeral he wants to get away again as soon as possible. He certainly doesn't want to be reminded of the secret he and Luke shared twenty years earlier. But as he's unwillingly drawn into the investigation into the Hadler deaths, the past keeps getting in the way. Questions mount and suspicion spreads through the town, and Falk must face what's hidden in his own past to help him solve the secrets of the present.
10/10: Falk and Raco confront the killer, and the threat of tragedy.
Crime Down Under showcases some of the best crime fiction from contemporary Australia.
Jane Harper is a journalist who moved from the UK to Australia in 2008. She lives in Melbourne and currently writes for the Herald Sun. She won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2015, and The Dry is her first novel. It was named the Australian Book Industry Association's Book of the Year, and the Australian Independent Bookseller 2017 Indie Book of the Year.
Read by Richard Goulding
Abridged and produced by Sara Davies.
Mark D'Arcy reports from Westminster.
A father who donated a kidney to a stranger wants to know what his daughter feels about it. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.