SATURDAY 19 FEBRUARY 2022
SAT 00:00 Midnight News (m0014gvm)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
SAT 00:30 Treeline by Ben Rawlence (m0014gvp)
5: Greenland
Stephen Campbell Moore reads Ben Rawlence's unflinching account of what the North's moving treeline will mean for humanity.
The trees are on the move. They shouldn't be. More than the Amazon rainforest, the northern boreal is truly the lung of the world. Covering one fifth of the globe and containing one third of all the trees on earth, it has been foundational to our climate for the last few million years. But now the northern forest is marching towards to the North Pole, turning the white Arctic green. And scientists are only just beginning to understand what this might mean for life on earth.
In Scotland, Scandinavia, Siberia, Canada and Greenland, Rawlence discovers what the trees and the people who live and work alongside them have to tell us about the past, present and future of our planet. At the treeline he sees the devastating and accelerating impact of climate change, but also some reasons for hope.
Today: Rawlence visits the sparse rowan forests of Greenland, and sees climate warming in action at a glacier...
Writer: Ben Rawlence
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Reader: Stephen Campbell Moore
Producer: Justine Willett
SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0014gvr)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0014gvt)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.
SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0014gvw)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SAT 05:30 News Briefing (m0014gvy)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0014gw0)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Father Luigi Gioia.
Good morning.
One of the greatest challenges of our lives is learning to deal with our anxiety.
I like to think of it as the engine of a car.
All goes well as long as the engine produces just the amount of energy required to produce the right speed. If, for any reason, you start pressing on the accelerator while the clutch is on neutral the engine starts generating more energy than needed, it becomes noisy, burns fuel uselessly, and sometimes revs up.
Anxiety is the surplus of energy we need to face challenges which are real and present.
The problem starts when the challenges are only potential or imaginary or in a distant future. There is nothing present here and now on which to pour this surplus of energy - we can’t relax, and sleep evades us.
In these cases Jesus’ advice is simple: are you anxious about something? Look at the birds of the air and consider the lilies of the field
This might be a metaphor but I take it literally.
It takes just few seeds on the window sill and whenever I feel anxious I can divert my attention on the birds coming and going with growing confidence.
They teach me that there is joy in simply being alive.
Our Father in heaven has given us creation as a prompter: it keeps suggesting to us that we can afford to stop worrying about tomorrow for a little.
Anxiety will come back of course but so will the birds on my window sill.
Let us pray
Give us eyes O Lord to see the peace you want to give us. Give us hearts willing to trust you and rest in your love.
Amen.
SAT 05:45 Witness (b01pt8md)
Baby Fae and the baboon's heart
In 1984 doctors in California tried to save a baby girl's life by giving her a heart transplant. Unable to find an infant human donor, they used the heart of a baboon. Dr Leonard Bailey, who led the transplant team, and nurse Marie Hodgkins, talk about their attempts to save Baby Fae.
Photo: Baby Fae in the isolation unit listening to her mother's voice a few days after her operation. Courtesy of Loma Linda University Medical Center.
SAT 06:00 News and Papers (m0014nll)
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
SAT 06:07 Ramblings (m0014gn9)
To the World's End, north Wales
Clare hikes through the Eglwyseg Valley in north Wales with two very different characters: Guy Kennaway and Hussein Sharif. The two men became family when Guy’s son married Hussein’s sister. Guy wanted to get to know Hussein better and show him a different side of Britain, so he suggested they go on a long walk. A book followed, ‘Foot Notes’, which describes both the adventure they had attempting to hike forty miles and their developing understanding of each other’s lives and experiences.
Clare, Guy and Hussein walked for around three sodden, sleety miles through the Eglwyseg Valley to World's End at Grid Reference SJ229479
Presenter: Clare Balding
Producer: Karen Gregor
SAT 06:30 Farming Today (m0014nln)
19/02/22 Farming Today This Week: Storms, sea eagles and bees or beets
The unexplained deaths of two young sea eagles, released as part of a programme to reintroduce the UK’s largest bird of prey to the south of England, are being investigated by police in Dorset. The Dorset West MP Chris Loder has angered conservationists by stating that Dorset is ‘not the place’ to reintroduce eagles and that he’d prefer police time and resources to be prioritised elsewhere.
The Wildlife Trusts are mounting a challenge to the Government’s green light to the emergency use of neonicotinoid insecticides on sugar beet seed being planted this spring. The use of neonics, as they’re called, is controversial as they were almost totally banned across the UK and Europe in 2018 when they were found to cause harm to bees and other pollinators. In sugar beet, the chemical treatment is coated on the seed and it targets aphids which carry virus yellows that can severely damage the crop. 63% of the UK’s sugar comes from beet grown here at home and the Government says that emergency measures are needed to protect supplies.
Storm Eunice hit the UK yesterday, and with red weather warnings issued many farmers had time to prepare, as much as anyone can, for what was expected to be one of the worst storms in 30 years. Liz and Rob Priest farm beef cattle and sheep near Holsworthy in Devon and also have a farm near Bude. We speak to them as the storm buffeted their farm.
Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Beatrice Fenton.
SAT 06:57 Weather (m0014nlq)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SAT 07:00 Today (m0014nls)
Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (m0014nlv)
Rose Matafeo
Actor Nathaniel Hall and the Inheritance Tracks of Annie Nightingale.
SAT 10:30 Rewinder (m0014nlx)
Tea and Telepathy
Greg James, host of the Radio 1 Breakfast show and self-confessed 'proud radio nerd', uses his access-all-areas pass to the BBC Archives to track down audio gems, using listener requests, overlooked anniversaries and current stories as a springboard into the vast vaults of past programmes.
This week, with awards season underway, Greg looks back at three generations of British acting talent - Dame Judi Dench, Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley - who have all been nominated for Academy Awards this year. He finds early BBC appearances as far back as 1960, with parts ranging from Shakespeare to Holby City.
Are you thinking what Greg's thinking? Let's find out as he recounts a mass experiment in telepathy on BBC radio in 1927, resurrects a controversial mind transference act from 1949 which had an audience of 20 million, and conducts his own test for listeners at home.
It's now 50 years since the band Chicory Tip topped the charts with Son of My Father, the first number one to feature a synthesiser. This milestone sends Greg on a quest for more musical innovations in the archive, including sounds created by the electronic music pioneer Daphne Oram.
Following up a request from a listener, Greg explores the history of Children's Hour, the hugely important radio programme that ran from the BBC's birth in 1922 right up until 1964, and was a staple of so many childhoods over those decades.
Producer: Tim Bano
SAT 11:00 The Briefing Room (m0014gnv)
What do drones mean for the future of warfare?
A few weeks ago a rebel group without an air-force managed to attack a foreign airport 1,000 miles away....from the air using drones. And theoretically what the Yemeni insurgents did in Abu Dhabi is repeatable the world over. Indeed is being repeated. Meanwhile drones are often the weapon of choice for major powers operating a long way from home. So are drones transforming the way conflicts are fought, to what extent is that a bad thing, and what can be done about it?
David Aaronovitch talks to:
Caroline Kennedy-Pipe, Professor of War Studies at Loughborough University
Dr James Rogers, Assistant Professor at the Centre for War Studies in Odense, Denmark
Shashank Joshi, Defence Editor at The Economist
Dr Sarah Kreps, Director of the Tech Policy Lab at Cornell University
Producers: Rosamund Jones and Ben Carter
Editor: Richard Vadon
Production co-ordinators: Siobhan Reed and Sophie Hill
Sound engineer: Graham Puddifoot
SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m0014nlz)
Return of the Chagos Islanders
When a boat carrying a group of Chagos Islanders landed on their homeland this week, it represented return after half a century of exile. The Islands were once part of British-run Mauritius, and in 1972, Britain removed the inhabitants, so it could hand one of the islands over to the United States, to build a military base. The move has been condemned by the International Court of Justice, and by the United Nations, but the UK has so far refused to allow the Islanders back. This week, they took matters into their own hands, and returned by boat for a visit. Andrew Harding was on board.
It was in the 1960s that gas was discovered in The Netherlands, and since then, it has provided the country with both cash and energy security. However, some people living near the gas fields claim that the exploration has damaged their homes, and even destroyed them. Anna Holligan has visited the damaged properties, and met the residents who say their lives have been ruined.
Kenya's world-wide image is often restricted to wildlife and beaches. However, the country now plays host to one of the most vibrant tech sectors in Africa, with a particular emphasis on putting tech into practice. The aim is to find a development route which does not necessarily copy the heavy industrialisation of wealthier countries. Indeed, Zeinab Badawi says Kenya is already pursuing a greener path, which could make for a more prosperous future.
The French-Algerian writer, Fatima Daas has won huge praise for her first book, a semi-autobiographical account of a life attempting to reconcile being a Muslim and Lesbian. Mike Wooldridge joined her for a walk round the Paris neighbourhood where she grew up.
Japan's current Prime Minister is the first for many years to live in his official Tokyo residence, and reports claim this is because previous holders of the post were scared the building was haunted. This should not be too surprising, according to Rupert Wingfield-Haye, as Japanese people regularly take account of ghosts when considering where to live.
SAT 12:00 News Summary (m0014p0d)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 12:04 Money Box (m0014nm3)
The latest news from the world of personal finance
SAT 12:30 The News Quiz (m0014gv9)
Series 107
Episode 8
Recorded at the BBC Radio Theatre, his week Andy Zaltzman was joined by Elis James, Olga Koch, Tim Shipman and Shaparak Khorsandi to look at the situation in Ukraine, and how the cream of British politics are dealing with the delicate situation; we look at the Met Police, in a week that the Met Police are looking at Prince Charles, and in a (possible) world first, we have an audio-only picture round!
Hosted by Andy Zaltzman
Chairs script by Andy Zaltzman
Additional Material from Alice Fraser, Catherine Brinkworth, Ken Cheng and Rajiv Karia
Production Co-ordinators: Katie Baum & Caroline Barlow
Sound Editor: Marc Willcox
The Producer is Gwyn Rhys Davies, and it is a BBC Studios Production.
SAT 12:57 Weather (m0014nm5)
The latest weather forecast
SAT 13:00 News and Weather (m0014nm7)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (m0014gvf)
Robert Buckland MP, Jeanette Winterson, Darren Jones MP, Olivia Utley
Chris Mason presents political debate and discussion live from Broadcasting House in London, after severe weather forced a retreat from the show's planned visit to Chagford. The panel answering your questions includes Conservative MP and former cabinet minister Sir Robert Buckland, writer Jeanette Winterson, Labour MP Darren Jones and Telegraph journalist Olivia Utley.
Email questions to: anyquestions@bbc.co.uk and don't forget to include your phone number so our team can get in touch.
Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton
Production Co-ordinator: Jo Peacey
Editor: Chris Ledgard
SAT 14:00 Any Answers? (m0014nm9)
Have your say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?
SAT 14:45 39 Ways to Save the Planet (m000qy09)
Educating and Empowering Girls
Around the world many girls leave school before completing their education. It's said that those who stay to the end of high school have more agency and choice, but also earn more money and have fewer and healthier children.
Tom Heap hears how education and access to family planning don't just impact family size, they can also propel young women into positions of leadership where they can help their communities adjust to climate change.
Dr Tamsin Edwards of King's College, London helps Tom calculate just how useful secondary education for girls can be in the fight against climate change.
Producer: Anne-Marie Bullock
Researcher: Sarah Goodman
Produced in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Special thanks for this episode to Professor Mark Maslin from University College London and David Johnson of the Margaret Pyke Trust.
SAT 15:00 Drama (m0014nmc)
Cardboard Citizens: every person wandering
Imagine your story told through all the worst moments in your life.
Sometimes our only way of discovering the lives of people affected by poverty and homelessness is through the public records of the times they might rather forget...
The theatre company Cardboard Citizens join Professor Nick Crowson from the University of Birmingham to become "genealogical detectives" - rooting through newspaper reports and police records to discover the stories of those criminalised for being homeless.
Drawing on historic documents, imagined lives, and personal experience of the struggle for a place to call home, Cardboard Citizens introduce you to the people wandering through history.
Find out more at http://www.cardboardcitizens.org.uk/wandering.
Written and performed by members of Cardboard Citizens, based on the research of Professor Nick Crowson of the University of Birmingham.
Telling the stories are the writers Sasha Winslow, Pixie Maddison and Libby Liburd, with additional material by Jonquil Panting.
The Writers' Circle leader is Lisa Ogun
The performers are Jo Galbraith, Terell Gayle, Jake Goode, Brendan Lyons, K.T. Marsh, David Olapoju, Adar Owuna, Brandon Richards, John Watts, Yvonne Wickham
The Beggar’s Ballad is written and performed by Errol McGlashan
For Cardboard Citizens:
Producers: Claire Gilbert and Clare Robertson
Joint CEOs: Lisa Briscoe and Chris Sonnex
Associate Director: Terry O'Leary
Participation Producer: Kiri Grant
With thanks to Cardboard Citizens members who took part in development: Tim Bennett and Dionne Williams.
Sound design by Jon Nicholls.
Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting, from an original concept by Adrian Jackson.
A Jonx production for BBC Radio 4
SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (m0014nmf)
Highlights from the Woman's Hour week
SAT 17:00 PM (m0014nmh)
Full coverage of the day's news
SAT 17:30 The Bottom Line (m0014gnx)
Alcohol-free drinks
Like alcohol, but don't want to drink? For the "sober-curious" consumer there's a range of low-alcohol alternatives on the market from gins and spirits to beers and craft lagers. But are they as good as the real thing? What is the social purpose of these substitute drinks? And why do they tend to have similar prices to their alcoholic rivals - even though they are taxed at a far lower rate? Evan Davis and guests explore the expansion of the low-alcohol market, the rising demand for luxury alcohol alternatives and asks - is this one trend that's here to stay?
GUESTS
Cristina Diezhandino, Chief Marketing Officer, Diageo
Spencer Matthews, Founder, Clean Co
Emily Neill. Chief Operating Officer, IWSR Drinks Market Analysis
Producer: Lucinda Borrell
Production Coordinators: Sophie Hill and Siobhan Reed
Sound: Graham Puddifoot
Editor: Hugh Levinson
SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m0014nml)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SAT 17:57 Weather (m0014nmn)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0014nmq)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (m0014nms)
Monica Dolan, Isis Davis, C.K. McDonnell, Tim Key, Anaïs Mitchell, K.O.G, George Egg, Clive Anderson
Clive Anderson and George Egg are joined by Isis Davis, Monica Dolan, C.K. McDonnell and Tim Key for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from K.O.G and Anaïs Mitchell.
SAT 19:00 Profile (m0014nmv)
Ben Wallace
The defence secretary topping Tory polls has had some strong words to say about Russian activity on the border of Ukraine. Adrian Goldberg profiles the soldier turned politician Ben Wallace.
SAT 19:15 This Cultural Life (m0014nmx)
Max Richter
German-born British composer Max Richter tells John Wilson about his earliest musical influences, including the revelatory experience of first hearing Bach’s Double Violin concerto. He reveals how, growing up in Bedford in the early 1970s, a contemporary music-loving milkman would deliver albums by the likes of Philip Glass, John Cage and Steve Reich, musicians who helped inspire Max to pursue his interest in composition. He recalls the raw energy and political engagement of punk bands like Stiff Little Fingers and The Clash whose gigs he saw as a teenager; and how hearing German synthesiser-pioneers Kraftwerk on a BBC nature documentary sparked his interest in electronica. Max also pays tribute to the Italian composer Luciano Berio who tutored Max in Italy and honed his compostional skills.
Max Richter is one of the world’s most successful contemporary composers, selling more than a million albums and clocking up over a billion streams. His melodic, evocative compositions have been heard in television soundtracks and films scores, including Arrival, Shutter Island, Mary Queen of Scots, Bridgerton and many more. His albums include Memoryhouse, The Blue Notebooks, the eight hour long composition Sleep, and Recomposed which reworked Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. He has also composed for theatre and ballet.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (m0012fdt)
Self on Sebald
WG Sebald created extraordinary fictions that hovered between the real and the imagined. With images and simple, yet fantastically powerful writing he told stories of loss, exile and loneliness that spoke to his own personal life. A German living in England, writing in his native tongue, haunted by history and existing in two worlds. That of his fatherland which had exterminated its Jewish populations and made a compact with memory and truth. And an England that had firebombed German cities during the war. The second silence in post war German writing and thought. In works like Austerlitz, where the burden of memory and forgetting unhinges its central character, a former Kindertransport refugee, the past silts up before breaking through in unexpected ways. The Emigrants delicately portrays the lives in exile and return of German Jewish survivors whereas The Rings of Saturn evokes landscape and the past in unsettling yet subtle ways.
Will Self has long been drawn to the multi-layered worlds of WG Sebald's fiction. Here, in the company of Sebald biographer Carole Angier and former friend, poet Stephen Wells, Self moves through the Sebaldian landscape of Southwold, Liverpool Street and the East End whilst exploring the archive devoted to one of the truly great writers of the late 20th Century.
Producer Mark Burman
SAT 21:00 Tumanbay (m0003cvc)
Series 3
Hostage of Fortune
After his failed bid for power, Cadali (Matthew Marsh) flees across the desert with his son, Selim (Farshid Rokey) while Fatima, set on revenge for her murdered son, sends spymaster Gregor (Rufus Wright) to bring Cadali back.
Meanwhile, the prophet boy Frog (Finn Elliot) has returned to the city and to the girl he loves, Matilla (Humera Syed) believing he has changed her fate.
Cast:
Fatima........Tara Fitzgerald
Gregor........Rufus Wright
Manel........Aiysha Hart
Cadali........Matthew Marsh
Grand Master, Amalric........ Anton Lesser
Bavand........Peter Polycarpou
Selim........Farshid Rokey
Heaven........Olivia Popica
General Qulan........Christopher Fulford
Frog........Finn Elliot
Matilla........Humera Syed
Sisco........Raad Rawi
Nurse........Annabelle Dowler
Undertakers........Vivek Madan and Nadir Khan
Tumanbay is created by John Scott Dryden and Mike Walker and inspired by the Mamluk slave rulers of Egypt.
Original Music by Sacha Puttnam
Sound Design by Eloise Whitmore
Sound Recording by Joe Richardson
Additional Music by Jon Ouin
Produced by Emma Hearn, Nadir Khan and John Scott Dryden
Written by Mike Walker and Directed by John Scott Dryden
A Goldhawk production for BBC Radio 4
SAT 21:45 Enchanted Isle (m000v84d)
The Healer by Molly Aitken
A remote island off the coast of Ireland is the setting for Molly Aitken's tale of grief and isolation. A man and woman living on the island of Cape Clear anxiously await the return of their three sons. They are fishermen missing after a storm at sea. The couple's food supplies are running low. When a strange woman knocks on the door one day they have no idea how she arrived on the island. She tells them she is a healer and their lives change for ever.
Molly Aitken was born in Scotland in 1991 and brought up in Ireland. She studied Literature and Classics at Galway University and has an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa. The Island Child is her debut novel.
The Healer is read by Deirdre Mullins
The Producer is Maggie Ayre for BBC Audio in Bristol
SAT 22:00 News (m0014nmz)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 22:15 Moral Maze (m0014gjv)
How do we make a longer life a moral one?
We can add ten years to our lives if we chose, we’re told this week by scientists who have measured the effects of tweaking our lifestyles. The downside is we’ll need to give up meat and eat a lot of lentils to do it. Oh, and start very young. It won’t be easy – but is there a moral imperative to do it? Elsewhere, science is forging ahead with new, possibly less onerous ways to help us live longer. Researchers in Japan this week unveiled a serum that can halt aging, though so far only in mice. And Silicon Valley is reported to be full of start-ups working on rejuvenation techniques. But is a longer life a more moral life? If we get those extra years will they be worth the effort? Was Kingsley Amis right when he wrote: "No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home" ? Or is it irresponsible to indulge in life-shortening activities that you happen to enjoy, if they increase the reliance you may (sooner than you hope) be placing on the state?
As a society we’re living longer than our parents, and much longer than our grandparents. But there are wide disparities. On average the rich make older bones than the poor, and a BMJ article this week deplored the fact that life expectancy is actually in decline in many deprived communities in the UK. Perhaps we have a collective moral duty to even that out, but it will be expensive. Who’s going to pay for the pensions and the care homes? Is the individual ambition to live to 100 intrinsically selfish and immoral when it imposes such burdens on others? With Repotting Your Life author Frances Edmonds; Longevity expert and London Business School Professor Andrew Scott; Director of the Free Market think tank IEA - Mark Littlewood and Political Economist Jeevan Sandher.
Produced by Olive Clancy
SAT 23:00 Counterpoint (m0014gb6)
Series 35
Heat 8, 2022
(8/13)
Three competitors join Paul Gambaccini at MediaCityUK in Salford for another bout of the eclectic music quiz. They may be able to identify music by Bizet and Finzi but how good is their knowledge of the members, and songs, of the Monkees? To be in with chance of a place in the semi-finals they'll need to prove the breath of their musical expertise across more than one genre.
As always, the competitors will have to answer individual questions on an unseen musical theme or category, of which they've had no prior warning.
Competing today are:
Alex Nolan from Ynys Mon
Ian Sutherland from Coventry
Sarah Trevarthan from Manchester.
Producer: Paul Bajoria
Assistant Producer: Stephen Garner
SAT 23:30 Poetry Please (m0014fxt)
Matt Harvey
Matt Harvey chooses poems by Ivor Cutler, Alice Oswald, ee cummings and Johnny Fluffypunk about slugs, trees and hearts. Adrian Mitchell, Brian Patten and Adrienne Rich also feature.
Producer Sally Heaven
SUNDAY 20 FEBRUARY 2022
SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m0014nn1)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 00:15 Athena's Cancel Culture (m000v8xd)
Episode 3
Over the last few years, if a celebrity has ever said or done anything remotely controversial, then they've probably been cancelled. Largely performed through social media, some describe it as necessary evil to help democratise the internet and reflect the expectancy of an artist’s audience, for others it’s just a chance to shut up gobby celebs!
Whatever your view, it certainly helps empower fans by diminishing celebrity cultural capital and helping keep their egos and opinions in check. It's a growing phenomenon that's left almost no one unscathed, from comedians and actors to musicians and TV hosts. It’s also happening to the not so famous - remember the bin cat lady?
With stand up and sketch comedy, Athena explores cancel culture and the world of offence in modern times. Over four episodes, Athena will help explain the phenomenon of cancel culture among celebrities, look at the history of offence, and offer up some cancel rules for guidance. Athena then puts all that cancel knowledge to the test on her own social media activity from 10 years ago. There’s just no escape from cancel culture justice, even for Athena!
Writer and Performer: Athena Kugblenu
Support cast: James McNicholas, Jamie-Rose Monk and William Frazer
Producer: Gus Beattie
A Gusman production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 00:30 Short Works (m0014gtz)
The Fern Case
A Snowdonia-set story of hidden depths, hidden desires, juxtaposing the mission of 19th century botanist, Wil Boots, with present-day teenager Rhun.
An original short story by Alys Conran read by Dewi Wykes.
Sound by Catherine Robinson
Produced by Emma Harding
A BBC Cymru Wales production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0014nn3)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0014nn5)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.
SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0014nn7)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 05:30 News Briefing (m0014nn9)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m0014nnc)
Holy Trinity in Stratford Upon Avon Warwickshire
Bells on Sunday comes from Holy Trinity in Stratford Upon Avon Warwickshire. The church is built on the site of a Saxon monastery and is Stratford’s oldest building and has a strong connection with William Shakespeare who was baptised here in 1564 and buried in the chancel in 1616. The present day bells were cast as a complete ring by Taylors of Loughborough in 1948 with a Tenor weighing nineteen hundredweight in the note of E. We hear them ringing Stedman Caters.
SUN 05:45 Profile (m0014nmv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 News Summary (m0014p2m)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b071lfkd)
A Walk in the Woods
Our relationship to the forest is ancient and complex. Woodland offers protection but also harbours some of our deepest fears.
Danish radio producer Rikke Houd takes a walk in the forest, in the company of writers including Henry David Thoreau, Pablo Neruda, Dinah Hawken and the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, and discovers a place where we can both lose and find ourselves.
With music by Jussi Björling, the Polish composer and dendrophiliac Krzysztof Penderecki and the Swedish musician Victoria Bergsman, who performs as Taken By Trees.
Produced by Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (m0014p2p)
The Moray farmer-butcher
Ultimate integration - the Moray farmer-butcher
Most livestock farmers are satisfied with rearing cattle then selling them on to processors who take care of the marketing and promotion. But Moray farmer Jock Gibson is a bit different. He is not only on hand as his Beef Shorthorn and Highland calves are born, he also feeds them, takes the mature animals to the local abattoir, ages the meat in his cold store then sells it, steak-by-steak, over the counter in MacBeth's, his butcher's shop in Forres.
Jock has developed the link between producing, butchering and selling beef which was started in the 1980s by his late father Mike, and he now offers his local and mail order customers an assurance that all the meat produced on his farm is "family-run, native and natural". He takes Nancy Nicolson on a tour of the shop and farm, and describes how the ultimate integrated meat business operates.
Produced and presented by Nancy Nicolson
SUN 06:57 Weather (m0014p2r)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m0014p2t)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 07:10 Sunday (m0014p2w)
A look at the ethical and religious issues of the week
SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m0014p2y)
Opportunity International UK
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Opportunity International UK.
Photo © Jillian Edelstein
To Give:
- UK Freephone 0800 404 8144
-You can donate online at bbc.co.uk/appeal/radio4
- 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 ‘Opportunity International UK’.
- Cheques should be made payable to ‘Opportunity International UK’.
Please note that Freephone and online donations for this charity close at
23.59 on the Saturday after the Appeal is first broadcast. However the Freepost option can be used at any time.
Registered charity number in England and Wales (1107713) and in Scotland (SCO39692)
SUN 07:57 Weather (m0014p30)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m0014p32)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m0014p34)
God is our Refuge and Strength
From Cornerstone Church Nottingham, a service reflecting on the courage and hope that Christians can have, even amidst trials, because God is a refuge and strength.
Readings: Philippians 4:4-13, Psalm 46; Music: Christ Our Hope In Life And Death (Jordan Kauflin | Keith Getty | Matt Boswell | Matt Papa | Matthew Merker), We Have An Anchor (Colin Webster | Phil Moore | Priscilla J. Owens | William James Kirkpatrick), He Will Hold Me Fast (Ada Ruth Habershon | Matthew Merker), We Have A Lamb (Glen Scrivener | Phil Moore), It Is Well With My Soul (Horatio Gates Spafford | Philip Paul Bliss), Cornerstone (Edward Mote | Eric Liljero | Jonas Myrin | Reuben Morgan | William Batchelder Bradbury). Lead Minister and Elder: John Russell, Director of Ministry: Kathryn Jackson, Minister and Elder (preacher): Colin Webster, Director of Ministry and band leader: Phil Moore. Producer: Philip Billson
SUN 08:48 A Point of View (m0014gvh)
An Ecological Reparation
John Connell reflects on planting trees on his family farm in Ireland as reparation for the years he has spent flying round the world, and also as an intrinsic good.
"For so many the planting of the tree for nature itself, not for politics, or development or climate change or remembrance of some brutal war but for the contribution of life is never thought of....We do not measure success in knowing the way of the earth because for the most part, the greater part of society is cut off from the political act of growing something to produce oxygen and sequester carbon."
Producer: Sheila Cook
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Hugh Levinson
SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b03x45bg)
Sand Martin
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Bill Oddie presents the sand martin. The flickering shapes of sand martins over a lake or reservoir are a welcome sign of spring. After winging their way across the Sahara Desert, the first birds usually arrive in the UK in March. They're smaller than house martins or swallows, and they're brown above and white below with a brown band across their chest. Often you can hear their dry buzzing calls overhead before you see them.
SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m0014p36)
The Sunday morning news magazine programme. Presented by Paddy O'Connell
SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (m0014p38)
Writer, Adrian Flynn
Directors, Kim Greengrass & Marina Caldarone
Editor, Jeremy Howe
Brian Aldridge ….. Charles Collingwood
Jennifer Aldridge ….. Angela Piper
Phoebe Aldridge ….. Lucy Morris
Alice Carter ….. Hollie Chapman
Neil Carter ….. Brian Hewlett
Rex Fairbrother ….. Nick Barber
Amy Franks ….. Jennifer Daley
Chelsea Horrobin ….. Madeleine Leslay
Tracy Horrobin ….. Susie Riddell
Jim Lloyd ….. John Rowe
Kate Madikane ….. Perdita Avery
Jazzer McCreary ….. Ryan Kelly
Kirsty Miller ….. Annabelle Dowler
Peggy Woolley ….. June Spencer
Roisin ….. Cherylee Houston
SUN 11:00 Desert Island Discs (m0014p3b)
Anne Tyler, writer
Anne Tyler is a novelist and short story writer. Her 23 novels include the Accidental Tourist, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Breathing Lessons.
Anne was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1941, the oldest of four children. Her parents were Quakers and the family lived in a succession of Quaker communities in the South until they settled in a Quaker commune in Celo, in the mountains of North Carolina in 1948. When she was 11 the family moved to Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, where Anne attended a mainstream school.
Anne majored in Russian literature at Duke University in North Carolina where she enrolled in a creative writing class run by the author Reynolds Price. After completing her studies she worked as a librarian in the university library.
Anne’s first novel, If Morning Ever Comes, was published in 1964 when she was just 22-years-old. Her writing is widely praised for the way it chronicles the lives of middle-class America and celebrates endurance and the complexities of family relationships.
Anne moved to Baltimore with her husband and children in 1967 and the city has been the setting for her books ever since.
Presenter Lauren Laverne
Producer Paula McGinley
SUN 11:45 The Art and Science of Blending (m0004f48)
Perfume
Blending is a distinctly human act: other creatures don’t experiment in this way. So in this series we’re looking at four blended products – whisky, tea, perfume and champagne – to find out why we blend things, and why some blends work when others don’t. What do we hope to gain? What do we fear losing? And is blending an art … or a science? Barry Smith, a philosopher, tries to answer these questions by consuming rare teas, fine whiskies and perfect champagnes … so that you don’t have to.
In this programme, the link between music and blending perfume. Producer David Edmonds
SUN 12:00 News Summary (m0014prh)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 12:04 The Unbelievable Truth (m0014gbf)
Series 27
Episode 6
David Mitchell hosts the panel game in which four comedians are encouraged to tell lies and compete against one another to see how many items of truth they're able to smuggle past their opponents.
Richard Osman, Henning Wehn, Holly Walsh and Ria Lina are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as glasses, squirrels, Alexander the Great and China.
Produced by Jon Naismith
A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (m0014p3g)
Fresh Grounds: The Search for the World's Rarest Coffee
Dan Saladino meets the plant hunters searching for the world's lost and forgotten coffee varieties and Michael Pollan, author of This is Your Mind on Plants, explains how caffeine helped usher in the modern world.
Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.
SUN 12:57 Weather (m0014p3j)
The latest weather forecast
SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m0014p3l)
Radio 4’s look at the week’s big stories from both home and around the world.
SUN 13:30 The Archbishop Interviews (m0014p3n)
Elif Shafak
In this series, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has conversations with public figures whose work engages with big questions about humankind, and who have an interesting relationship with religion and spirituality. What do they believe and how does that shape their values and actions?
This week's guest is the British-Turkish novelist and political scientist, Elif Shafak. Her work has been translated into 55 languages. Her books draw on diverse cultures and reflect her interest in history, philosophy and mysticism. Her stories often deal with extremely uncomfortable subjects – gender-based violence, child abuse, genocide – and they give voice to those on the margins of society – religious, ethnic and sexual minorities. It has come at a personal cost: she has been investigated and prosecuted by the Turkish authorities for 'crimes of obscenity' and ‘insulting Turkishness’. She is on the latest BBC list of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world.
Producer: Dan Tierney for BBC Audio North.
SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m0014gtx)
Beth Chatto's Plants and Gardens: Postbag Edition
Peter Gibbs is at Beth Chatto's Plants and Gardens answering your horticultural queries with Christine Walkden, Bunny Guinness and Matthew Wilson.
This week, the team meet garden and nursery director David Ward and head gardener Åsa Gregers-Warg, who show them around Beth Chatto's gravel, water, and woodland garden, all the while sharing their advice on cultivating a moss lawn, growing an acorn from seed, and helping a plant through it's dormancy period.
In the run up to spring, Kate Clark joins the panel to tell us about the nationwide gardening competition for local communities, RHS Britain in Bloom.
Producer - Daniel Cocker
Assistant Producer - Bethany Hocken
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 14:45 The Seventh Test by Vikas Swarup (b044gty3)
The Protest
Sapna Sinha works as a sales assistant in a TV showroom in New Delhi. Being the only bread-winner in the family she works long hours to provide for her widowed mother and younger sister. But then a man walks into her life with an extraordinary proposition: pass seven "life" tests of his choosing and she will have wealth and power. At first the tests seem easy, but things are not quite as they seem. Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon and John Dryden from Vikas Swarup's best-selling novel "The Accidental Apprentice".
7) The Protest
A thriller set in India from the author of "Slumdog Millionaire". Increasing rent prices, send Sapna's elderly neighbour, Nirmila Ben on a crusade against corruption. But when no one notices her protest and her frail health begins to fail, Sapna must find a way to save her. Dramatised from Vikas Swarup's best-selling novel "The Accidental Apprentice".
Writers:
Vikas Swarup is an Indian diplomat and a best-selling novelist. His first novel "Q & A" was made into the Oscar winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" as well as Sony Award winning radio drama serial for BBC Radio .
Ayeesha Menon dramatized Vikas Swarup's other novels SIX SUSPECTS and Q & A, which won a Sony Award for Best Drama. She also wrote for Radio 4 THE MUMBAI CHUZZLEWITS, UNDERCOVER MUMBAI, THE CAIRO TRILOGY and MY NAME IS RED. Her stage play PEREIRA'S BAKERY AT 76 CHAPEL ROAD, which was developed with the Royal Court Theatre, was recently staged by the Curve Theatre, Leicester.
John Dryden wrote the original three-part dramas series SEVERED THREADS, THE RELUCTANT SPY and PANDEMIC, which won the Writer's Guild Award for best radio drama script. His dramatisation of BLEAK HOUSE won a Sony Award for Best Drama. Other dramatisations include A SUITABLE BOY, A HANDMAID'S TALE and FATHERLAND one of the most repeated dramas on R4 Extra.
Cast:
Sapna ... Rasika Dugal
Acharya ... Vijay Chrishna
Karan ... Neil Bhoopalam
Nirmila Ben / Rosie ... Radhika Mittal
Sapna's Mother ... Shernaz Patel
Raja ... Sumeet Vyas
Kuldeep Singh / Roaji ... Rajit Kapur
Neha ... Amrita Puri
Priya Capoor / Pushpa / Female Judge ... Ayesha Raza
Badan Singh / Politician / Constable ... Kenny Desai
Madan ... Vivek Madan
Neelam / Babli ... Prerna Chawla
Rent Collector ... Satchit Puranik
Production:
Sound Design - Steve Bond
Editing Assistant - Varun Bangera
Script Editor - Mike Walker
Assistant Producer - Toral Shah
Music - Sacha Putnam
Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon and John Dryden from the novel "ACCIDENTAL APPRENTICE" by Vikas Swarup.
Director - John Dryden
Producer - Nadir Khan
A Goldhawk Production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 15:00 Drama (m0014p3r)
Mahabharata Now (Part 2)
The Gods, the law, capitalism and politics jostle for power in this modern adaptation of the ancient Indian poem Mahabharata. Dramatised as a gripping family epic set in 21st century Mumbai, this series is powered by the tensions and rivalries of a turbulent business empire.
As one faction is revealed to have loaded the dice and cheated, the oligarch’s family is plunged into a fresh crisis fuelled by jealousy and lust, ending in humiliation and exile.
Dhruv makes a simple offer to Yash - double or quits. The entire business empire will be put on the table in a ‘winner takes all’ roll of the dice. But Dhruv is no longer content to just win, he wants to completely humiliate his opponent.
Now people are starting to question Dhruv’s fitness to run Hasta Enterprises. The different family factions pray to the Gods for guidance. The bankers, lawyers and accountants broker a more pragmatic solution - one final game must be played with a new set of perfect, neutral dice. The stakes couldn’t be simpler - Winner. Takes. All.
The stage is set for an epic conflict.
Written by Ayeesha Menon
Cast
Sanjay: Rajit Kapur
Dhruv: Neil Bhoopalam
Yash: Tavish Bhattacharyya
Kala: Anahita Uberoi
Gita: Shernaz Patel
Padma: Ira Dubey
Shaks: Vivek Madan
Karthik: Sukant Goel
Vihaan: Omkar Kulkarni
Lawyer: Devika Shahani Punjabi
Gopi: Prerna Chawla
Other characters were played by Shivani Tanksale, Abir Abrar, Omkar Kulkarni and Aseem Hattangady.
Sound Supervisor (Mumbai): Ayush Ahuja
Sound Design and Post Production: Wilfredo Acosta
Original Music: Imran Ahmad
Producer (Mumbai): Nadir Khan
Producer: Helen Quigley and Andrew Mark Sewell
Executive Producer: Andrew Mark Sewell
Director: Jatinder Verma
A B7 Media production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 16:00 Open Book (m0014p3t)
When We Were Birds and Tayari Jones on Toni Morrison's only short story, Recitatif,
Johny Pitts talks to Trinidadian author Ayanna Lloyd Banwo about her debut novel When We Were Birds. It is a carefully crafted story set in the backstreets of Trinidad, where a young man called Darwin has newly arrived in the city of Port Angeles looking for a fresh start and his lost father. He’s forced to shed his Rastafarian faith in order to pick up the only work going, as a gravedigger in a sprawling cemetery full of secrets. In a parallel story, Yejide lives with her dying mother in an old house on a hill and is about to inherit a super-natural ancestral power passed on down through the women of the family. The novel blends myth, magic, and indigenous wisdom with everyday struggle and is, ultimately, a passionate love story between two lost souls.
Alex Preston's latest novel Winchelsea is set in the 18th century as a young woman enters into the cut throat world of smugglers in a quest to avenge her father’s death. And today he takes us through the stormy relationship some of our literary smugglers have had with the truth and the real smugglers that inspired them…
We’ll be exploring the exquisite racial riddle at the heart of Toni Morrison’s first and only short story, Recitatif, with the author of An American Marriage and Silver Sparrow, Tayari Jones as it's published in hardback for the first time.
SUN 16:30 The Turtle Dove Pilgrimage (m00035zf)
Folk singer Sam Lee and William Parsons of the British Pilgrimage Trust, lead 11 pilgrims on a journey across Sussex tracing the origins of the iconic folk song ‘The Turtle Dove’.
Over a 100 years ago, composer Ralph Vaughan Williams travelled through Rusper, Sussex, collecting the stories and songs of the locals he encountered. He stopped at the Plough Inn, where he set up his Edwardian recording equipment to capture the songs of the pub’s landlord, whose crackled voice and haunting melodies can still be heard today.
Vaughan Williams transformed one of the humble folk songs, The Turtle Dove, into a choral hit – extracting the song from Sussex and exporting it to the concert halls of London.
This Pilgrimage seeks to return the song to the land from which it was taken.
Moving through woods, churchyards and village halls, the pilgrims sing as they progress toward the Knepp rewilding estate, where they hope to sing The Turtle Dove to the last remaining colony of turtle doves in Sussex.
Along the way, the pilgrims muse on the meaning of pilgrimage in a secular age and the contemporary relevance of this ancient song.
Producer: Claire Crofton
A TBI production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in March 2019.
SUN 17:00 File on 4 (m0014g0q)
A First Class Scandal
Two years ago File on 4 investigated how a computer system, called Horizon, was behind what has now become one of the biggest miscarriages of justice this country has ever seen. Hundreds of innocent postal workers wrongly accused of stealing money from their branches by the Post Office itself. Many faced financial ruin, some even went to prison.
Since that programme, dozens have had their convictions overturned, and the Post Office has pledged to provide ‘full, fair and final’ compensation to those affected, at the cost of hundreds of millions of pounds to the taxpayer. In this episode, Hayley Hassall revisits the victims she spoke to in 2020 who say they are still fighting for justice - and investigates what the Post Office really knew as this scandal unfolded, as it ruthlessly pursued and prosecuted its very own workers.
Reporter: Hayley Hassall
Producer: Mick Tucker
Editor: Maggie Latham
SUN 17:40 Profile (m0014nmv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m0014p3y)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 17:57 Weather (m0014p40)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0014p42)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m0014p44)
Salma El-Wardany
It’s been a week of love, comedy and intriguing programmes across the airwaves this week. We started with Valentine’s Day, including definitions of love and all the times love makes us cringe, we explore the animal kingdom, specifically the promiscuous nature of females within it. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Satirical comedy had us crying with laughter, World of Wisdom had us crying for completely different reasons and find out why The Political Butterfly Effect had us on the edge of our seats.
Presenter: Salma El-Wardany
Producer: Emmie Hume
Production Coordinator: Elodie Chatelain
Studio Manager: Chris Hardman
SUN 19:00 The Archers (m0014p46)
Pip finds herself unstuck and Alice takes a step in the right direction
SUN 19:15 Now You're Asking with Marian Keyes and Tara Flynn (m0014p48)
The Cardboard Walls Problem
Marian and Tara tackle listeners’ issues with noisy neighbours, an estranged sister and advise on the merits of wedding extravagance with trademark kindness and good humour.
Marian Keyes is a multi award-winning writer, with a total of over 30 million of her books sold to date in 33 languages. Her close friend Tara Flynn is an actress, comedian and writer. Together, these two friends have been through a lot, and now want to use their considerable life experience to help solve your biggest - and smallest - problems.
From dilemmas about life, love and grief, to the perils of laundry or knowing what to say at a boring dinner, we’ll find out what Marian and Tara would recommend - which might not solve the problem exactly, but will make us all feel a bit better.
Recorded in Dublin with emails received from listeners around the world, the hosts invite you to pull up a chair at their virtual kitchen table as they read and digest their inbox.
Got a problem you want Marian and Tara to solve? Email: marianandtara@bbc.co.uk.
Producer: Steve Doherty.
A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds
SUN 19:45 Bright Lights, Dead City (m0014p4b)
Episode 7. On The Wall
An American film crew descends on a Northern Irish city to make a lavish prestige drama series about the Troubles called ‘Dead City’, inspiring the locals to get involved in the production, only for filming to be halted by the mysterious disappearance of the lead actress.
The Writer
Séamas O'Reilly is a columnist for the Observer and has written about media and politics for the Irish Times, New Statesman, Guts, and VICE. His memoir 'Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?' was an Irish Times Number One Bestseller and was awarded the Dubray Biography of the Year Award at the 2021 An Post Irish Book Awards.
Reader: Dearbháile McKinney
Writer: Séamas O'Reilly
Producer: Michael Shannon
Exec Editor: Andy Martin
A BBC Northern Ireland production.
SUN 20:00 More or Less (m0014ght)
Questioning claims about Covid and children
How likely are children to end up in hospital because of Covid? And how many have died?
We scrutinise some scary stats that have been circulating on social and examine what excess deaths figures tell us about the risks of Covid compared to other illnesses.
Plus, with the gift of hindsight, we examine the joys and sorrows of modelling the spread of the virus. Do MPs understand how false positive rates work? And we unwrap the mystery of the nanomoles.
Presenter: Tim Harford
Produced by Simon Maybin, Lizzie McNeill, Lucy Proctor, Kirsteen Knight and Imogen Serwotka
Production Coordinator: Brenda Brown
Editor: Richard Vadon
Sound: James Beard
SUN 20:30 Last Word (m0014gv1)
Beryl Vertue CBE (pictured), Flavio Carboni, Phil Harvey, Lata Mangeshkar
Matthew Bannister on
Beryl Vertue, the TV and film producer who brought us 'Men Behaving Badly' and 'Sherlock'. The actors Martin Clunes and Martin Freeman pay tribute.
Flavio Carboni, the Italian wheeler dealer who was at the centre of many legal and political mysteries, including the death of the Vatican banker Roberto Calvi.
Phil Harvey, the American businessman who set up a chain of sex shops to fund the provision of birth control to millions of people in the developing world.
Lata Mangeshkar, who was seen as one of India’s most influential singers. She recorded songs in thirty six Indian languages.
Producer: Neil George
Interviewed guest: Simon Nye
Interviewed guest: Martin Clunes
Interviewed guest: Martin Freeman
Interviewed guest: Philip Willan
Interviewed guest: Simona Zecchi
Interviewed guest: Christopher Purdy
Interviewed guest: Anil Sinanan
Archive clips used: BBC RADIO 3, Free Thinking 09/06/2021; Thames TV/Hartswood Films, Men Behaving Badly S01 E01 18/02/1992; BBC/Hartswood Films, Men Behaving Badly S06 E01 06/11/1997; BBC/Hartswood Films, Sherlock 2010; BBC RADIO 4, Desert Island Discs 20/01/2013; YouTube, Italian Dinner Party 2010; BBC ONE, PANORAMA: Called To Account 20/12/1982; BBC NEWS, Report on Roberto Calvi 06/10/2005; BBC NEWS, Bomb Explosion in Bologna 03/08/1980; DKT International, Phil Harvey: Pioneer of Social Marketing 28/09/2015; YouTube/Telly TalkIndia, Lata Mangeshkar Funeral 07/02/2022.
SUN 21:00 Money Box (m0014nm3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 on Saturday]
SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m0014p2y)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 today]
SUN 21:30 Analysis (m0014gbm)
Tackling Inequality
Probing the results of a major study into our unequal society. Faisal Islam, BBC Economics Editor, talks to two leading experts on inequality, who have together been working for several years on a research project for the Institute for Fiscal Studies. He asks Paul Johnson, IFS Director, and Nobel laureate Sir Angus Deaton what the findings reveal about the UK now, and how these issues can be addressed.
Producer: Xavier Zapata
Production Coordinators: Maria Ogundele and Jacqui Johnson
SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m0014p4d)
Radio 4's Sunday night political discussion programme.
SUN 23:00 The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry (m0014gnc)
Series 19
The Mystery of the Teenage Brain
‘Why are teens prone to risky behaviour?’ asks Dr Mark Gallaway, ‘especially when with their friends?’ 13 year old Emma wonders why she’s chatty at school but antisocial when she gets home. And exasperated mum Michelle wants to know why her teens struggle to get out of bed in the morning.
Swirling hormones and growing bodies have a lot to answer for but, as Professor of Psychology from the University of Cambridge Sarah-Jayne Blakemore explains, there’s also a profound transformation going on in the brain.
Hannah and Adam discover how the adolescent brain is maturing and rewiring at the cellular level and why evolution might have primed teens to prefer their peers over their parents. Frances Jensen, Professor of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, tells us how all these brain changes can impact social relationships. And Dr Rachel Sharman, a sleep researcher from the University of Oxford, reports the surprising findings from her sleep study tracking 100 teenagers around the UK.
Producer: Ilan Goodman
SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b071lfkd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:05 today]
MONDAY 21 FEBRUARY 2022
MON 00:00 Midnight News (m0014p4g)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
MON 00:15 The Backlog (m0014gjg)
Episode 2 - Workforce
Is a severe staffing crisis the biggest barrier to tackling the backlog caused by the pandemic? A recent report suggests the NHS is short of nearly a hundred thousand workers and that existing staff were feeling under pressure and could quit unless the issue is resolved.
But has the pandemic only exacerbated an historic workforce crisis? And if so, what radical solutions are needed to plug the gap and help train and retain doctors, nurses and other frontline staff?
In this episode, presenter Natasha Loder assesses the scale of the workforce crisis by speaking to staff, managers, policy experts, and the patients who have been affected.
MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m0014nnc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
05:43 on Sunday]
MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0014p4j)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0014p4l)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.
MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0014p4n)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
MON 05:30 News Briefing (m0014p4q)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0014p4s)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Father Luigi Gioia.
Good morning.
The year I joined a Benedictine monastery when I was 18 I faced the most searing onslaught of negative feelings and thoughts of my life.
I had experienced annoyance, insecurity, envy, anxiety before – but never with such intensity. I felt worse than before I had become a monk and could not understand why.
Living together, even with the people we love or normally get on with, inevitably generates exasperation, frustration, boredom – or even worse, anger and resentment. And of course guilt for being unable to avoid or suppress these feelings.
This is just normal.
What I learnt from my own experience is that we should never be afraid of these feelings, nor hard on ourselves for experiencing them.
The apostle Paul talks about something similar when he uses the image of a thorn in his flesh or laments that he sees himself trapped in negativity despite all his efforts to do and be good.
We only see our shadow when we are in the sun.
The potential for negativity is in us always, but appears only when we try to love and care for others.
When I am faced with a surge of negative feelings, say exasperation for example, I name it, try to understand why it is hitting me so hard, reason with it, and slowly learn how to live with it.
We can learn how to deal with our unruly feelings – and maybe start loving ourselves not only when we shine but also when we fail.
Let us pray
Let us never be afraid of our weaknesses, Lord, and trust that the day always returns at the end of our nights.
Amen.
MON 05:45 Farming Today (m0014p4v)
21/02/22 Future of Farming, ELMs payments, and Scotland's forests
This week on Farming Today we're looking at the future of farming. The changes to subsides, the cost of producing food rising and new demands on farming from consumers concerned about climate change. We speak to Professor of Rural Policy at Gloucestershire University, Janet Dwyer, about these changes and what the future of farming looks like across the UK.
Under the old EU Common Agricultural Payment system, farmers received direct payments based on the amount of land they had, but to qualify they had to do their bit for the environment. They were also able to opt in to stewardship agreements which would pay them more to do more. Now, under the new public money for public goods approach currently being introduced in England, farms can join Environmental Land Management Schemes and be paid to improve soil or plant hedges. Or, as farmer James Peck tells us, they might choose not to join.
Tree planting is very much part of government plans for improving the environment, combatting climate change and making space for nature. In Moray, a publicly owned garden nursery which grows trees for Scotland's forests is set to double in size; Forestry and Land Scotland's Newton Nursery near Elgin already grows around seven million trees a year but climate change means demand for saplings is growing.
Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced in Bristol by Caitlin Hobbs
MON 05:56 Weather (m0014p4x)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b091w8gz)
Tiffany Francis on the Corncrake
Tiffany Francis recalls not realising, after stumbling across some baby ducks on the island of Lunga, she had infact seen corncrake chicks for this Tweet of the Day.
Producer Maggie Ayre.
MON 06:00 Today (m0014psd)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
MON 09:00 Start the Week (m0014psg)
Wealth, influence and the global elite
The Sassoons were one of the great commercial dynasties of the 19th century: ‘the Rothschilds of the East’. In Global Merchants the historian Joseph Sassoon charts how his ancestors – Jewish refugee exiles from Ottoman Baghdad – built a vast enterprise of trade and influence across the world. He tells Tom Sutcliffe how their meteoric rise and ultimate fall mirrored the British imperial project.
At the height of their ambition the Sassoons led an extravagant lifestyle, but never quite overcame their origins to be accepted in upper class society in the West. Money, power, class and caste are at the centre of Pankaj Mishra’s new novel, Run and Hide. The heroes of his story are lower class Indians determined to succeed – at a time when success is counted in private jets and lavish parties, and failure leads to a global financial scandal.
The Head of Economics at the Open University, Professor Susan Newman, provided expert advice for the recent BBC 2 series, The Decade the Rich Won: Stories of power and influence, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. In her studies she’s interested in the question of how wealth is accumulated today, the impact of globalisation on national decision-making, and growing inequality.
Producer: Katy Hickman
MON 09:45 Metaphysical Animals by Clare MacCumhaill and Rachael Wiseman (m0014psj)
1. Elizabeth Anscombe Takes a Stand
Out of the despair of WWII four brilliant women friends brought philosophy back to life and laid the foundation of today's ethical thinking. Fenella Woolgar reads.
Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe studied philosophy together at Oxford University during WWII when many male students and tutors were conscripted. Taught by refugee scholars, conscientious objectors and a number of women tutors the four friends were profoundly affected by the unprecedented horrors of war, especially the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In response they set out to make sense of the disorder and despair that followed, and developed a philosophy relevant to every day life, which went on to shape contemporary ethical thinking.
We meet the quartet at the start of their friendship, as they embark on their lives as undergraduates, and later as they take up jobs in the post war period. We encounter the philosophers who inspired their thinking from the brilliant but chaotic, Ludwig Wittgenstein to the superstar thinker, Jean-Paul Sartre. Later, we witness their theorising and thought as it evolved over the decades. All the while, we are with them as they go about the stuff of every day living, including the sometimes emotional and unconventional turmoil of their love lives.
Metaphysical Animals is vividly and expertly written by philosophy lecturers, Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman who took their inspiration from their own friendship with one of the key players in this remarkable and little known story, Mary Midgley.
Abridged by Katrin Williams
Produced by Elizabeth Allard
MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0014psl)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
MON 11:00 Jobfished (m0014psn)
New documentary for BBC Radio 4
MON 11:30 Loose Ends (m0014nms)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:15 on Saturday]
MON 12:00 News Summary (m0014psr)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
MON 12:04 Violets by Alex Hyde (m0014pst)
Episode 1
In Alex Hyde’s lyrical debut, two women experience love, loss and motherhood as the Second World War draws to a close.
Read by Lorna Nickson Brown and Morfydd Clark
Abridged by Siân Preece
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie
MON 12:18 You and Yours (m0014psw)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
MON 12:57 Weather (m0014psy)
The latest weather forecast
MON 13:00 World at One (m0014pt0)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
MON 13:45 The Shadow of Algiers (m0014pt2)
The Great Seduction
Sixty years after the Algerian War of Independence - and as France prepares to elect a new President - Edward Stourton presents stories from a colonial past which still cast their shadow over the present. It's a very different colonial story from our own - even more brutal, more complex and more secret.
In the first of five programmes, Edward tells the surprising story of how an ugly bug - a tiny insect called phylloxera - created the climate for the Algerian War. The insect all but wiped out the French wine industry and caused huge numbers of French people to move to Algeria.
The French were initially seduced by the sun, sea and light of Algeria, exoticism captured in Albert Camus' famous novel, 'The Outsider'.
But the love affair quickly turned sour....
Sound design: Peregrine Andrews.
Producers: Adele Armstrong and Ellie House
MON 14:00 The Archers (m0014p46)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Sunday]
MON 14:15 Drama (m000bs49)
Trip The Light Fantastic
“Come and trip it as you go, on the light fantastic toe…”
Jack (Paul Copley) and Freddie (Lorn MacDonald) meet every Tuesday evening to dance. Or try to dance. Try to maintain a bit of dignity. Try to sweat out a bit of elegance. Seventy and twenty-one, they are men from different worlds, brought together by a love of the twist and a longing for something which resembles happiness.
Written by Miriam Battye. Produced and directed by Becky Ripley.
MON 15:00 Counterpoint (m0014pt4)
Series 35
Heat 9, 2022
Competitors from the West Midlands and the north of England face Paul Gambaccini's questions in the last of the 2022 heats, recorded at MediaCityUK in Salford. The winner will take the sole remaining spot in the semi-final line-up. To do so they'll need to prove the breadth of their musical knowledge, with Dizzy Gillespie, Puccini, Radiohead, Blondie, Shostakovich and R.E.M. all in the mix. The competitors will also be asked to choose a musical category or theme on which to answer an individual round, with no warning of what the choice of topics is going to be.
Taking part are:
Darren Dutton from Worksop
Mohan Mudigonda from Wolverhampton
Joanna Munro from Liverpool.
Producer: Paul Bajoria
Assistant Producer: Stephen Garner
MON 15:30 The Food Programme (m0014p3g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:32 on Sunday]
MON 16:00 The Canon Wars (m0014gmv)
Lindsay Johns looks back to the furious debate over the literary canon in America in the early 1990s, and asks what it can teach us about our own, contemporary, culture wars.
This is a subject about which Lindsay feels profound ambivalence. Devoted to expanding the canon, a couple of years back he presented a documentary on Radio 3 calling for Alex La Guma, his literary hero, to be ‘canonised’. But Lindsay also unashamedly loves many classical writers – the so-called ‘Dead White Men’ who he sees as the cultural patrimony of all mankind – and is worried that in our age of identity politics they are at risk of falling out of fashion, and out of the canon.
Lindsay begins this story in 1992, the year Harvard Professor and public intellectual Henry Louis Gates published a plea for a more diverse, what we’d now call ‘decolonised’, canon. Lindsay will show how this plea, and Gates’s literary activism, helped induct many African American authors into the canon.
Lindsay will speak to publishers, editors, literary activists and teachers. He’ll examine questions of power – why the canon matters and who gets to shape it; as well as universality – about whose stories speak to everyone. He’ll examine the shift in the politics and the philosophy of canon-building, and how the debate has moved from what should be added, to what should be removed. What surprises him is how much it is prosaic matters - like the length of a book, who holds the copyright and whether it is anthologised - which determines what is canonised.
But can Lindsay resolve the tensions between his very strongly held opinions on the canon, or at least feel comfortable with his ambivalence? And if so, could that point to a different way of thinking about our broader culture wars?
Producer: Giles Edwards
Research: Stephanie Mitcalf.
MON 16:30 The Digital Human (m0014pt7)
Series 25
Banished
Aleks Krotoski asks where did all those groups and individuals deplatformed after the Jan 6th riots go and what have they been doing in the year since?
With Donald Trumps 'Truth Social' platform about to launch it's hoped all his supporters will flock to this new gathering place. But who have they become in a year without his tweets and facebook posts to galvanise them? Many flocked to encypted messaging services like Telegram or self proclaimed 'pro free speech' platforms like Gettr and Gab. The fear is that moderate Trump supporters will have been radicalised in such spaces and the more extreme elements made even more extreme.
Neo-nazis, white supremacists and other far right activists have taken the opportunity to go a recruiting drives in these largely unmoderated spaces cosying up to those they think can be turned to their cause and gradually exposing them to ever more extreme content.
Aleks will join those who've been trying to monitor what's been happening behind these digitally closed doors and what might be done about what's been going on there.
Producer: Peter McManus
MON 17:00 PM (m0014ptb)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0014ptd)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 18:30 Just a Minute (m0014ptg)
Series 88
Episode 1
Sue Perkins challenges Dane Baptiste, Stephen Fry, Sheila Hancock and Paul Merton to speak for 60 seconds without repetition, deviation or hesitation.
The long running Radio 4 national treasure of a parlour game is back for a new series with subjects this week ranging from sausages to submarines.
Production co-ordinator: Caroline Barlow
Sound editor: Marc Willcox
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production
MON 19:00 The Archers (m0014p7v)
Rex faces his accusers and Tracy is on a quest.
MON 19:15 Front Row (m0014ptk)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
MON 20:00 Frontline (m0014ptm)
What’s it like to be a Catholic police officer in Northern Ireland? And why aren’t more Catholics joining?
Ophelia Byrne sets out to discover, twenty years after policing in Northern Ireland was transformed. On 4 November 2001, the Royal Ulster Constabulary became the Police Service of Northern Ireland, with a new uniform, badge, and flag, and the ambition to be fully reflective of the society it served.
This followed decades of controversy around policing in Northern Ireland. The RUC was a predominantly Protestant force, which, especially during the Northern Ireland Troubles, was proud of its service in the line of duty - and of its sacrifice, seeing hundreds of its members killed and thousands injured by republican paramilitaries.
But it was often accused by members of the Catholic community of discriminating against them, as the defenders of a highly contested state. In some quarters, a deep distrust of policing was reinforced over decades of conflict, and by the time of the transition to the PSNI, Catholics comprised only an estimated 8% of the RUC.
Following the Good Friday Agreement, the PSNI came into being as a fresh start for policing. With a contentious affirmative action programme in place for the first decade, the numbers of PSNI officers from a Catholic background soared to almost 30%. But it has since plateaued at around 31%, though the last Census (2011) put the Catholic population of Northern Ireland at 45%. Why?
Gaining rare access to serving Catholic officers in the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Ophelia finds out about their backgrounds, experiences, what attracted them to policing – and whether widely-held perceptions of what it takes for them to put on the police uniform are actually part of their lives.
Those perceptions range from issues of security and dissident republican threat, to where you live, possible family rejection and/or having to leave communities behind, as well as keeping what you do largely a secret.
But some of those issues, like security, it’s argued, are faced by all police officers in Northern Ireland. So Ophelia asks young people why they feel more people from a Catholic background are not taking up a policing career today.
This matters, because representative policing was viewed as a cornerstone of the Northern Ireland peace process. And now, even as these long-standing issues of representation remain unresolved, new and very different ones are fast emerging from an upcoming generation eager for change.
Presenter/ Producer: Ophelia Byrne
Executive Editor: Andy Martin
MON 20:30 Analysis (m0014ptp)
Planning, Housing and Politics
How can the planning system adapt so we can build new homes without alienating voters? Barrister and author Hashi Mohamed investigates, focussing on the system in England. The government has pledged to build 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s to ease the country’s housing crisis and increase home ownership. But wide-ranging planning reforms to make it easier to achieve were shelved following the Conservatives’ shock defeat in the Chesham and Amersham by-election last year. So is it possible to create a politically acceptable planning system in this country? Deadlock between local communities and big developers is commonplace, with planning policies taking years to realise through a local government system that lacks vital resources and expertise. And what has to change for enough new homes to be built? Hashi Mohamed asks how the planning system, and the way we live and build, needs to adapt.
Producer: Caroline Bayley
Production Coordinators: Maria Ogundele and Jacqui Johnson
Sound: Graham Puddifoot
Editor: Hugh Levinson
MON 21:00 The Coming Storm (p0bchs4q)
7. Welcome to the Future
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
The Q Shaman, the man with the furs and horns who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is in jail. The movement he came to symbolise appears defeated. But in a small South Carolina seaside town, ‘establishment’ Republicans are fighting a losing battle for the soul of their party, after one of the bloggers who mainstreamed the QAnon conspiracy theory has been elected to a powerful local position.
Across America, people who believe Donald Trump’s parallel narrative about a stolen election are trying to take over the levers of democracy. Was this the plan all along?
Producer: Lucy Proctor
Presenter: Gabriel Gatehouse
MON 21:30 Start the Week (m0014psg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m0014pts)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
MON 22:45 Violets by Alex Hyde (m0014pst)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
MON 23:00 Word of Mouth (m0014g06)
John McWhorter on Language
Michael Rosen is joined by John McWhorter, author and linguist at Columbia University, to talk about his life in language.
John H. McWhorter teaches linguistics, American Studies, and music history at Columbia University. He is a contributing editor at the Atlantic, columnist at the New York Times and host of Slate’s Lexicon Valley podcast. McWhorter is the author of twenty books often on the subject of language, including The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language, Talking Back Talking Black, Words On The Move and Woke Racism.
Producer: Eliza Lomas
MON 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0014ptv)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
TUESDAY 22 FEBRUARY 2022
TUE 00:00 Midnight News (m0014ptx)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 00:30 Metaphysical Animals by Clare MacCumhaill and Rachael Wiseman (m0014psj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Monday]
TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0014ptz)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0014pv1)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.
TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0014pv3)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
TUE 05:30 News Briefing (m0014pv5)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0014pv7)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Father Luigi Gioia.
Good morning.
In The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe recounts how one day that when he was particularly overcome by sadness, his hero opened his bible and chanced upon these words: “I will never, never leave thee, nor forsake thee” The world had forgotten him, but not God. “I began to conclude in my mind – Robinson says- that it was possible for me to be happy in this forsaken, solitary condition”.
It was like seeing the sun shining after months of cloudy and miserable weather.
Sooner or later we will experience loneliness in our lives.
We are made for being with others. It is not good for a person to be alone, says God in the book of Genesis . Times of loneliness test our inner resources and can teach us a lot about ourselves.
Like Robinson we will have to learn to listen to the many voices surrounding us: the earth, the sky, the night.
And just like him we might also discover this other persistent, reassuring voice of our Creator saying “I will never, never leave thee, nor forsake thee”.
People across all ages, cultures, religions have heard it - whether or not they understood that it was the voice of God, and they welcomed it.
Robinson Crusoe heard this voice when he opened the bible but there are infinite ways in which it tries to reach us – and times of loneliness can help us listening to it – and feeling the unique kind of joy and peace that comes with it.
Let us pray
In our times of loneliness, Lord, may we learn to listen more intently to your voice in Scripture, in creation, in our hearts.
Amen.
TUE 05:45 Farming Today (m0014pv9)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b01sbyhp)
Greenfinch
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Greenfinch. Often seen singing from the tops of garden trees looking large for a finch with a heavy bill, these are sadly a declining garden bird.
TUE 06:00 Today (m0014p71)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
TUE 09:00 The Life Scientific (m0014p73)
Julia Shaw on memories that aren't true
Early in her career, Julia wanted to know if it was possible to get someone to believe they committed a crime (when they hadn’t)? In a bold experiment she showed how students created false memories of criminal events in their teenage years, describing in rich detail how they had assaulted people, when no such events had taken place. What does this mean for a criminal justice system that relies heavily on memory-based evidence? Does it make it more difficult for the victims of crimes to have their voices heard? Victims of sex crimes, in particular. Or can the findings of false memory research be used to prevent miscarriages of justice? Julia talks to Jim Al-Khalili about growing up with her dad’s delusional beliefs and paranoid thoughts and how a profound appreciation that everyone’s reality is different pulled her to the field of false memory research.
Producer: Anna Buckley
TUE 09:30 The Political Butterfly Effect (m00081t7)
Did an engine failure fuel the climate crisis?
When five-year-old Cuban Elián González arrived in the USA under tragic circumstances in 1999, he found himself at the centre of a political storm over whether he should be returned to his home nation.
The decision over his fate would reverberate at the highest levels of US politics and around the globe for decades to come - with inadvertent consequences shaping how the world reacted to climate change.
Presenter: Jim Waterson
Producer: Robbie MacInnes
An SPG production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 09:45 Metaphysical Animals by Clare MacCumhaill and Rachael Wiseman (m0014p75)
2. Learning in Wartime
The quartet of brilliant women friends, Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe, are inspired and challenged at Oxford University where the seeds of their philosophical thinking are sewn. Fenella Woolgar reads.
As young women the four friends met and studied philosophy together at Oxford University during WWII when many male students and tutors were conscripted. Taught by refugee scholars, conscientious objectors and a number of women tutors the four were profoundly affected by the unprecedented horrors of war, especially the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In response they set out to make sense of the disorder and despair that followed, and developed a philosophy relevant to every day life, which went on to shape contemporary ethical thinking.
We meet the quartet at the start of their friendship, as they embark on their lives as undergraduates, and later as they take up jobs in the post war period. We encounter the philosophers who inspired their thinking from the brilliant but chaotic, Ludwig Wittgenstein to the superstar thinker, Jean-Paul Sartre. Later, we witness their theorising and thought as it evolved over the decades. All the while, we are with them as they go about the stuff of everyday living , including the sometimes emotional and unconventional turmoil of their love lives.
Metaphysical Animals is vividly and expertly written by philosophy lecturers, Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman who took their inspiration from their own friendship with one of the key players in this remarkable and little known story, Mary Midgley.
Abridged by Katrin Williams
Produced by Elizabeth Allard
TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0014p78)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
TUE 11:00 The Coming Storm (m0014p7b)
8. Epilogue
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
Gabriel Gatehouse has something to confess. Throughout the making of the series he’s been developing his own conspiracy theory. It’s about a book, called The Sovereign Individual, written by two men who were also pushing stories about the Clintons in the 1990s.
Were the people who seeded the myths that led to QAnon involved in a vast conspiracy to break reality, to divide and conquer and divvy up the spoils?
Gabriel seeks to understand the book, a favourite amongst the tech billionaires of Silicon Valley. They think a new version of the web, based on crypto and blockchain, will bring about the next step in the societal shift driven by the internet. What would that mean for democracy?
Producer: Lucy Proctor
TUE 11:30 Women in Stitches: The Making of the Bayeux Tapestry (m001327r)
The Bayeux Tapestry is coming to Britain in the near future. It’s among the world’s most famous works of art, but it's also a mystery: no one knows who made it. The stitching, though, is full of clues. Abigail Youngman seeks to reveal the truth about the lives of the women who stitched it, to unpick the secrets they left in plain sight, in the margins of the tapestry.
The Bayeux Tapestry records great historical events but its humanity is in the details: the little boy holding his mother's hand tightly as they flee their burning home; scenes of sexual violence; bawdy jokes at the Normans' expense. Scholarly opinion is divided, but some think it was stitched by Anglo-Saxon women who had experienced war and occupation first-hand.
The main panels were probably designed by an Important Man (hence the focus on battles, on big sexy horses – surely the BMWs of their day – and political propaganda). But the margins of the tapestry may have been left to the imagination of the stitchers themselves: probably English women. This 'freehand' marginalia tell a different story, sometimes undercutting the message of the Norman conquerors in surprising ways. We can imagine the camaraderie and humour of the women sewing it, talking, about their personal tragedies, the terror they survived, the soldiers who were husbands and sons.
Read this way, the Tapestry becomes a tantalising portrait of a group of women who are largely unrepresented in history, speaking to us vividly from a thousand years ago.
Abigail Youngman uncovers fascinating and intimate details of these women's lives with the help of Dr Alexandra Makin, Dr Daisy Black, Dr Christopher Monk, Professor Gail Owen-Crocker and Dr Michael Lewis.
Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery
TUE 12:00 News Summary (m0014p7d)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 12:04 Violets by Alex Hyde (m0014p7g)
Episode 2
A lyrical debut that follows two women navigating love, loss and motherhood at the end of the Second World War.
Leaving Pontypridd behind, Violet sets sail for Italy with the ATS. Meanwhile in Birmingham, her counterpart tries to settle into a life that has changed immeasurably.
Read by Morfydd Clark and Lorna Nickson Brown
Written by Alex Hyde
Abridged by Siân Preece
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie
TUE 12:18 You and Yours (m0014p7k)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
TUE 12:57 Weather (m0014p7m)
The latest weather forecast
TUE 13:00 World at One (m0014p7p)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
TUE 13:45 The Shadow of Algiers (m0014p7r)
Episode 2
New documentary series for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 14:00 The Archers (m0014p7v)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Monday]
TUE 14:15 Broken Colours (m0014p7x)
Episode 1
Jess is an aspiring artist with synaesthesia, which means that she sees colours and patterns when she hears certain sounds. When Jess collapses and hits her head during an environmental protest, she meets Dan and falls in love. This relationship changes both of their lives. But Dan has a shadowy career, working for a criminal gang who are running drugs. He’d like to escape from this way of life, but Jess is increasingly pulled towards it.
Holli Dempsey and Josef Altin star in a new thriller of conflicting perception from Matthew Broughton (the creator of podcast drama Tracks).
Jess.....Holli Dempsey
Dan.....Josef Altin
Johnny.....Tom Byrne
Melissa.....Alexandria Riley
Petal.....Rina Mahoney
Daisy.....Grace Cooper Milton
Sound design by Catherine Robinson and Nigel Lewis
A BBC Cymru Wales production for BBC Radio 4, directed by John Norton and Emma Harding
TUE 15:00 Short Cuts (m0014p83)
The Lovers
Returning to an old flame, a snapshot of a break-up and a cascade of crushes - Josie Long presents short romantic documentaries about falling in and out of love.
Crushing
Produced by Erisa Apantaku
We've Only Just Begin
Featuring Ben Bryant and Elizabeth Hepburn
Produced by Olivia Humphreys
Snapshot
Featuring Scottee and Brian Teeling
Produced by Scottee
Photo credit: Brian Teeling
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 15:30 The Long View (m0014p87)
When Things Fall Apart
Jonathan Freedland explores the past behind the present. In the last of this long view of the future we ask when do civilizations & systems know that things cannot go on as they are. When do the rulers and the ruled sense the game is up? Historians Craig Clunas summon up the last days of the Ming Dynasty of the 17th Century, Maria Fusaro considers how the Venetian Republic registered its waning powers & end days in the 18th Century and Anthony Badger explores the existential crisis of America in 1933-would it survive as a democracy, could it be reformed & avoid collapse?
Producer Mark Burman
TUE 16:00 Word of Mouth (m0014p8c)
Talking to Computers
Will machine translation ever be as good as human translation? How do services like Google Translate actually work? How does Alexa know what I'm saying? Michael Rosen explores new developments in speech recognition, AI and neural machine translation with journalist and author Lane Greene.
Produced by Mair Bosworth for BBC Audio in Bristol
TUE 16:30 A Good Read (m0014p8h)
Lauren Mayberry and Rob Deering
CHVRCHES frontwoman Lauren Mayberry and comedian and writer Rob Deering are Harriett Gilbert's guests this week. Rob picks a staple of the literary canon, 'Mansfield Park' by Jane Austen, a frothier read than perhaps anyone remembers featuring the "Indiana Jones of 19th century social graces”. Lauren chooses the Japanese dystopian novel 'The Memory Police' by Yōko Ogawa, which she says draws parallels with the political realities of today. 'Kiss Myself Goodbye' by Ferdinand Mount is Harriett's choice in which Mount searches for the truth behind his mysterious Aunt Munca, uncovering a history of deceptions, false identities and abandonment.
Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol: Toby Field
TUE 17:00 PM (m0014p8m)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0014p8r)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 18:30 Please Use Other Door (m0014p8w)
Series 1
Episode 3
From Bill Dare (Dead Ringers, The Secret World), sketches satirising life as we know it. Naturalistic sketches taking a sometimes dark look at the world of work, relationships, institutions and families.
Performed by: Gabby Best, Will Hartley, Chris Ryman, Rebecca Shorrocks, Witney White and Toby Williams
The series of four is written by; Kat Butterfield and Dan Audritt, Sophie Dickson, Laura Major, Rob Darke, Alex Nash and Sam South, Ed Amsden and Tom Coles, Cody Dahler, Toby Williams, Ed Tew, Anna Goodman, Imogen Andrews, Matt Harrison, Carwyn Blayney, Natasha Dhanraj, Alice Etches and Nathalie Antonia, Chris Ryman, Simon Alcock, Leigh Douglas, Chazz Redhead, Paul F Taylor, Jo Wiggins, Cameron Loxdale, Lewis Cook, Owen Petty, Tom Oxenham, Rebecca Heitlinger and Bill Dare.
Production Co-ordinators Beverly Tagg and Sarah Sharpe
Sound Design Rich Evans
Music composed by Bill Dare and produced by Iona C Vallance
Artwork Lucy Jagger
Produced and created by Bill Dare
BBC Studios Production
TUE 19:00 The Archers (m0014p91)
One resident attempts to play Cupid and speculation mounts about Rex.
TUE 19:15 Front Row (m0014p95)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
TUE 20:00 File on 4 (m0014p99)
Award-winning current affairs documentary series.
TUE 20:40 In Touch (m0014p9f)
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted
TUE 21:00 Inside Health (m0014p9j)
A weekly quest to demystify the health issues that perplex us.
TUE 21:30 The Life Scientific (m0014p73)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (m0014p9n)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective.
TUE 22:45 Violets by Alex Hyde (m0014p7g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
TUE 23:00 Fortunately... with Fi and Jane (m0014p9s)
This week on the podcast, Fi and Jane rifle through the digital postbag to select some of the best listener emails from the past month. Matters discussed include linguistic boxes, displays of affection, assault courses, notes on baldness and an attempt to boost Jane's self worth. Before the emails begin there's important potato related news from the Swindon area.
Get in touch: fortunately.podcast@bbc.co.uk
TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0014p9x)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
WEDNESDAY 23 FEBRUARY 2022
WED 00:00 Midnight News (m0014pb1)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
WED 00:30 Metaphysical Animals by Clare MacCumhaill and Rachael Wiseman (m0014p75)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Tuesday]
WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0014pb7)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0014pbh)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.
WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0014pbp)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
WED 05:30 News Briefing (m0014pbs)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0014pbv)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Father Luigi Gioia.
Good morning.
We are social beings: to live, think, grow we need to talk, play, gossip, argue with other people. Just as it is not good for a human being to be alone so it is harmful for us to be isolated, deprived of the irreplaceable stimulus we receive from voices, sounds and even noises.
And yet we might discover that another way of establishing deep connections with other people is sharing silence with them.
I lived for almost 30 years in various monasteries where silence was not perceived as a lack but embraced as a soothing space in which to become more mindful of oneself, of others, and of God.
In the monastery all was still but I did not feel lonely. This taught me to sustain silence long enough to familiarize myself with it.
When you embrace silence, the train of your thoughts slows down and you begin to think more clearly about your life, your choices, your expectations.
You start noticing things that had escaped your attention up to that moment, appreciate the nature surrounding you.
Then silence is no more absence but becomes a deeper way of being present to the world.
We really communicate only by learning how to be silent long enough to create a space where others feel listened to and can open up to us.
Silence then becomes one of the faces of love.
Let us pray.
Teach us the wisdom of meaningful silence, Lord, and the art of listening and waiting as ways of living, and of loving.
Amen.
WED 05:45 Farming Today (m0014pbx)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b020tr6m)
Cormorant
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Miranda Krestovnikoff presents the Cormorant. Although cormorants are common on rocky and estuarine shores, increasingly they are breeding inland in tree colonies - where branches whitened by their droppings are a giveaway in summer.
WED 06:00 Today (m0014pbz)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
WED 09:00 More or Less (m0014pc3)
Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics used in everyday life
WED 09:30 Witness (b01pnltd)
Fighting in the Iran-Iraq War.
When Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Iran in 1980, he said his war would be over in days or weeks. But the Iran-Iraq War lasted for almost 8 years and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Ahmad al-Mushatat was a young medic who served in front line trenches during the last months of that war. Hear his story.
Photo: Ahmad al-Mushatat during the Iran-Iraq war, second from the right.
WED 09:45 Metaphysical Animals by Clare MacCumhaill and Rachael Wiseman (m0014pdm)
3. Love and War at Seaforth Place, London.
For Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot love leads to a messy tangle and bitter tears. Meanwhile, Wittgenstein's approach to philosophy inspires Elizabeth Anscombe. Read by Fenella Woolgar.
Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe studied philosophy together at Oxford University during WWII when many male students and tutors were conscripted. Taught by refugee scholars, conscientious objectors and a number of women tutors the four friends were profoundly affected by the unprecedented horrors of war, especially the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagadaki. In response they set out to make sense of the disorder and despair that followed, and developed a philosophy relevant to every day life, which went on to shape contemporary ethical thinking.
We meet the quartet at the start of their friendship, as they embark on their lives as undergraduates, and later as they take up jobs in the post war period. We encounter the philosophers who inspired their thinking from the brilliant but chaotic, Ludwig Wittgenstein to the superstar thinker, Jean-Paul Sartre. Later, we witness their theorising and thought as it evolved over the decades. All the while, we are with them as they go about the stuff of ordinary life, including the sometimes emotional and unconventional turmoil of their love lives.
Metaphysical Animals is vividly and expertly written by philosophy lecturers, Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman who took their inspiration from their own friendship with one of the key players in this remarkable and little known story, Mary Midgley.
Abridged by Katrin Williams
Produced by Elizabeth Allard
WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0014pc7)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
WED 11:00 The Case of the Brillante Virtuoso (m0013r0s)
Episode 1
When the Brillante Virtuoso, a massive, decrepit oil tanker, was attacked and badly damaged off the coast of Yemen in 2011, it seemed at first like just the latest in a spate of daring raids launched by Somali pirates in an increasingly lawless region. On the surface it was a shocking but straightforward crime. In reality, it was anything but.
Over the next decade, the scandal swirling around the ship would come to involve lies on an industrial scale, corruption, violent threats, Greek Shipowners, Yemeni power brokers, British lawyers, Filipino sailors, the murder of a British man that remains tragically unsolved, and his family's fight to unravel a web of organised crime.
Journalist Nick Wallis' journey starts with a simple tip off - but it enmeshes him in a story that goes all the way from from the bleeding edge of the Arab Spring to the heart of the City of London.
Presenter: Nick Wallis
Producer: Robert Nicholson
Executive Producer: Will Yates
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
WED 11:30 Angstrom (b09lylpp)
Series 1
The Two Faces of Benny from Abba
Matthew Holness stars as Knut Ångström, a brooding, alcoholic, maverick Swedish detective from the tough streets of Oslo, in a Scandinavian detective yarn adapted from the bestselling Ångström trilogy by Martin English (writing as Bjorgen Swedenssonsson).
Following the death of his wife, Ångström is posted to the Njalsland peninsula where he becomes embroiled in a labyrinthine murder (or possibly not-murder) case which bears an eerie similarity to the Askeladden killings - a case from his distant past.
In episode 2, Ångström and Mina try to find out who tried to frame him for the death of Councillor Birgid Lundstrom, a trail which leads them straight to the door of Benny from ABBA. But when that door opens, why is Benny from ABBA now Mexican?
A new comedy series by writers of the Ladybird Books for Grown Ups, Charlie Brooker's ...Wipe, That Mitchell and Webb Look and A Touch of Cloth.
Written by Joel Morris and Jason Hazeley
Cast: Matthew Holness, Nadia Kamil, Simon Kane, Kevin Eldon, David Reed, Freya Parker.
Production Co-ordinator: Tamara Shilham
Produced by Lyndsay Fenner
A BBC Studios production.
WED 12:00 News Summary (m0014q25)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
WED 12:04 Violets by Alex Hyde (m0014pcc)
Episode 3
A lyrical debut that follows two women navigating love, loss and motherhood at the end of the Second World War.
VE Day is met with some ambivalence in Birmingham while in Naples, Violet and Maggie grow closer.
Read by Lorna Nickson Brown and Morfydd Clark
Written by Alex Hyde
Abridged by Siân Preece
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie
WED 12:18 You and Yours (m0014pcf)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
WED 12:57 Weather (m0014pch)
The latest weather forecast
WED 13:00 World at One (m0014pck)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
WED 13:45 The Shadow of Algiers (m0014pcm)
Episode 3
New documentary series for BBC Radio 4.
WED 14:00 The Archers (m0014p91)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Tuesday]
WED 14:15 Dangerous Visions (m00026xk)
A Border Fantasy
An imagined, irreverent look at one potential Brexit outcome in Ireland. When Tania, business guru and charismatic boss of global tech giant NaNo, flies in to the company’s Dublin HQ on the eve on Theresa May’s crucial vote on Brexit, the under-achieving Fintan Cooke is delegated to show her the invisible border at the heart of the controversial Backstop issue.
Tania’s presence immediately sparks excited speculation that, in the event of a defeat for the PM, NaNo will to provide the much heralded futuristic surveillance technology to ensure a soft border remains on the island of Ireland.
But as always with Tania, the business objective is much grander than a solution to the Irish border problem. All she’s got to do is convince Fintan to forget local politics and get ready for the company to make a killing.
Cast:
FINTAN ……………………….…………………………………Colin Morgan
SINEAD………….. ……..……………………………………. Simone Kirby
TANIA …………….…..……………………………………… Jeany Spark
DOUGLAS ……………………………………………………. Frank Laverty
ROSS/RECEPTIONIST....………………………………….Fergal McElherron
Written by Hugh Costello
Directed by Eoin O'Callaghan
A Big Fish Radio production for BBC Radio 4
WED 15:00 Money Box (m0014pcp)
A panel of experts answer calls on personal finance.
WED 15:30 Inside Health (m0014p9j)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
WED 16:00 The Backlog (m0014pcr)
Episode 3 - Future
As we emerge from one of the worst winters in NHS history and with record numbers of people waiting for treatment, what does the future hold for our health service? To help clear the backlog do we need to radically reform the institution? Could technology be the cure-all for the NHS's ills? Or is it just a funding issue?
In this final episode of The Backlog, the Economist’s Health Policy Editor, Natasha Loder, goes in search of some big ideas to help get us out of this current crisis and reshape the NHS so it's fit for 21st century health provision.
WED 16:30 The Media Show (m0014pct)
Social media, anti-social media, breaking news, faking news: this is the programme about a revolution in media.
WED 17:00 PM (m0014pcw)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0014pd0)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 18:30 Conversations from a Long Marriage (m000f770)
Series 1
Let's Spend the Night Together
Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam play a couple who have been married ‘for ever’. Children of the Sixties, they’re still free spirits, drawn together by their passion for music and each other. Their warm and witty conversations dance around everyday chores and appointments as well as dealing with problems within long-held friendships, and tackling their own frustrations with each other. But underlying it all is their enduring love for each other and their desire to keep the passion alive.
On a long car journey, they reminisce about their first meeting and a long-held secret is revealed.
Written for Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam by award-winning comedy writer and journalist Jan Etherington, who’s been married for 35 years to Gavin Petrie, with whom she created many hit radio and TV series (Second Thoughts, Next of Kin, Faith in the Future, The Change). Conversations from a Long Marriage is her first solo narrative comedy series.
Produced by Claire Jones
A BBC Studios production
WED 19:00 The Archers (m0014pd2)
Nerves are frayed at Berrow and Chris faces a negotiation.
WED 19:15 Front Row (m0014pd4)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
WED 20:00 Moral Maze (m0014pd6)
Live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week's news stories. #moralmaze
WED 20:45 Witness (b01pnltd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:30 today]
WED 21:00 Sketches: Stories of Art and People (m000m0zn)
Interior Life
The writer Anna Freeman presents a showcase of true stories about lives changed by art. This week, stories of people using their homes as a canvas and of the meaning behind the art and objects we surround ourselves with in our domestic space.
We hear stories of an incredible find inside a rental flat after the occupant's death; a teenage taxidermist treating roadkill with care and respect; an expectant mother painting a mural for her new child; and of a photographer documenting people's mantelpieces and the incredible stories behind the objects on display.
Produced by Mair Bosworth and Maggie Ayre
WED 21:30 The Media Show (m0014pct)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
WED 22:00 The World Tonight (m0014pd8)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
WED 22:45 Violets by Alex Hyde (m0014pcc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
WED 23:00 Bunk Bed (m0014pdb)
Series 9
Episode 7
Bed-bound wit, philosophy and story telling from Patrick Marber and Peter Curran.
They discuss fear of death on a scale of 1 to10, and enjoy a ghostly visitation from the extraordinary voice of a king of silent film comedy, Buster Keaton.
A Foghorn Company production for BBC Radio 4
WED 23:15 Chris Neill: Raging Enigma (m0014pdd)
Time and Time Again
On a flat roof above suburban south London, Chris Neill is joined by Isy Suttie and Martin Hyder, hacking back the undergrowth of his life for the comedy stories buried within.
“A rapid-fire English David Sedaris. Every word is perfectly chosen and perfectly used.” - Miranda Sawyer, The Observer
After ten episodes of Woof, in Raging Enigma Chris Neill continues to reveal the unvarnished realities of being a really quite mediocre man. Memoir continues to underpin these illustrated stand-up shows, and the subject matter is as varied as before. But this time without the studio audience.
Funerals, skin heads, Bentall's department store in Kingston-upon-Thames and the perils of basic flat roof repair - all life is truly here.
“Chris Neill’s show is a consummate masterpiece” - Susan Nickson
“Blissfully well written. Neill may be first and foremost a comedian, but his observations are as acute as any novelist’s. Sweet, sharp and very funny.” - The Times
Written by Chris Neill
Producer: Steve Doherty
A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4
WED 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0014pdh)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
THURSDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2022
THU 00:00 Midnight News (m0014pdk)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
THU 00:30 Metaphysical Animals by Clare MacCumhaill and Rachael Wiseman (m0014pdm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Wednesday]
THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0014pdp)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0014pdr)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.
THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0014pdt)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
THU 05:30 News Briefing (m0014pdw)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0014pdy)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Father Luigi Gioia.
Good morning.
I will always remember the day I chanced upon Thomas Merton’s autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, flicked through the first pages, and was sucked in the stream of the narration.
He was a secluded American monk who became a world famous writer. His life heaped contradictions, his pen moulded them into a meaningful narrative.
One of the greatest tasks of our lives is honing the story we tell about ourselves. It is a bit like knitting: we construct our identities by weaving together isolated events and memories.
Misfortunes, tragedies, love stories, failures, successes, skills, friendships, travels are like many coloured threads.
Red, blue, indigo are just as necessary as black and white threads. Whether or not they combine to form an arresting image depends on how skilfully we weave them together.
We soon discover that this does not depend only on us.
As we start sifting through our memories they coalesce into something that has a life of its own.
Writers find the same with their novels: initially their characters are imaginary, but soon they somehow take the lead, and plots take unforeseeable turns.
As we weave together a version of our lives, we might discover that, in fact, our identity is woven by someone else.
We weave and are woven.
Composing the tale of our lives is not just a challenge to our imagination.
It is a life-long endeavour to discern which of the many voices in us tells the truth about who we really are.
Let us pray.
Give us imagination and patience, Lord, to find beauty and meaning in the story of our lives.
Amen
THU 05:45 Farming Today (m0014pf0)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03bkcwq)
Eider
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Eider. Eiders are northern sea-ducks perhaps most famous for the soft breast feathers with which they line their nests. These feathers were collected by eider farmers and used to fill pillows and traditional 'eider –downs'. Drake eiders display to the females with odd moaning calls which you can hear in the programme.
THU 06:00 Today (m0014pfp)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
THU 09:00 In Our Time (m0014pfr)
Peter Kropotkin
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Russian prince who became a leading anarchist and famous scientist. Kropotkin (1842 - 1921) was born into privilege, very much in the highest circle of Russian society as a pageboy for the Tsar, before he became a republican in childhood and dropped the title 'Prince'. While working in Siberia, he started reading about anarchism and that radicalised him further, as did his observations of Siberian villagers supporting each other without (or despite) a role for the State. He made a name for himself as a geographer but soon his politics landed him in jail in St Petersburg, from which he escaped to exile in England where he was fêted, with growing fame leading to lecture tours in the USA. His time in Siberia also inspired his ideas on the importance of mutual aid in evolution, a counter to the dominant idea from Darwin and Huxley that life was a gladiatorial combat in which only the fittest survived. Kropotkin became such a towering figure in public life that, returning to Russia, he was able to challenge Lenin without reprisal, and Lenin in turn permitted his enormous public funeral there, attended by 20,000 mourners.
With
Ruth Kinna
Professor of Political Theory at Loughborough University
Lee Dugatkin
Professor of Biology at the University of Louisville
And
Simon Dixon
The Sir Bernard Pares Professor of Russian History at University College London
THU 09:45 Metaphysical Animals by Clare MacCumhaill and Rachael Wiseman (m0014pft)
4. Iris Murdoch encounters Jean-Paul Sartre
Philippa Foot formulates an ethical and moral question; Sartre's existentialist thought captivates Irish Murdoch, meanwhile Elizabeth Anscombe and Mary Midgley engage in deep philosophical conversation, inspired by Wittgenstein's ground breaking approach. Fenella Woolgar reads.
Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe studied philosophy together at Oxford University during WWII when many male students and tutors were conscripted. Taught by refugee scholars, conscientious objectors and a number of women tutors the four friends were profoundly affected by the unprecedented horrors of war, especially the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In response they set out to make sense of the disorder and despair that followed, and developed a philosophy relevant to every day life, which went on to shape contemporary ethical thinking.
We meet the quartet at the start of their friendship, as they embark on their lives as undergraduates, and later as they take up jobs in the post war period. We encounter the philosophers who inspired their thinking from the brilliant but chaotic, Ludwig Wittgenstein to the superstar thinker, Jean-Paul Sartre. Later, we witness their theorising and thought as it evolved over the decades. All the while, we are with them as they go about the stuff of everyday life, including the sometimes emotional and unconventional turmoil of their love lives.
Metaphysical Animals is vividly and expertly written by philosophy lecturers, Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman who took their inspiration from their own friendship with one of the key players in this remarkable and little known story, Mary Midgley.
Abridged by Katrin Williams
Produced by Elizabeth Allard
THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0014pfw)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
THU 11:00 From Our Own Correspondent (m0014pfy)
Insight, and analysis from BBC correspondents around the world
THU 11:30 What a Performance (b09ws5ph)
Performance art occupies a marginal space in the cultural landscape, rarely attracting large audiences and often baffling those who encounter it. Even defining what performance art is remains contentious among those working within it.
Nonetheless, artist Deborah Coughlin believes it has a major influence on popular culture, providing a radical workshop in which new ideas are forged and acted out. Sometimes that influence is explicit and publicly declared, as when Lady Gaga approached world leading performance artist Marina Abramovic to help her generate ideas. Sometimes, Deborah suggests, ideas are appropriated without due credit being given. Either way, those original cutting edge ideas percolate into the mainstream, and for that the culture owes performance art a debt of gratitude.
Deborah interviews Abramovic as well as fellow performance art giant Laurie Anderson, then uses the interviews to create an original piece of performance art which she takes to the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester as well as Porthcawl seafront, with these performances becoming an integral part of the show.
Deborah also speaks with the New York band 'Sound of Ceres' who talk about the enthusiasm they have for performance art and the desire young musicians have to find inspiration outside their own field. We also hear from artist The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein, and Deborah visits her parents to find out whether they understand the artistic world she now inhabits.
Presenter: Deborah Coughlin
Producers: Claire Press and Geoff Bird
THU 12:00 News Summary (m0014pg0)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
THU 12:04 Violets by Alex Hyde (m0014pg2)
Episode 4
Alex Hyde’s lyrical debut follows two women navigating love, loss and motherhood at the end of the Second World War.
A heavily pregnant Violet sees out her war service in an Italian hospital while, in Birmingham, Fred’s wife eagerly awaits his return from Burma.
Read by Morfydd Clark and Lorna Nickson Brown
Abridged by Siân Preece
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie
THU 12:18 You and Yours (m0014pg4)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
THU 12:57 Weather (m0014pg6)
The latest weather forecast
THU 13:00 World at One (m0014pg8)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
THU 13:45 The Shadow of Algiers (m0014pgb)
Episode 4
New documentary series for BBC Radio 4.
THU 14:00 The Archers (m0014pd2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Wednesday]
THU 14:15 Faith, Hope and Glory (m0014pgd)
Series 3
Hope and Jim
By Roy Williams
Hope runs out of patience with Jim’s philandering and wants a divorce. Jim tries to prove he can change when he saves the life of a young friend who is ambushed by racists. But is it too late to save their marriage?
Hope ..... Danielle Vitalis
Jim ..... Martins Imhangbe
Abeo ..... Valentine Olukoga
Rodney ..... Richie Campbell
Teddy Boy 1 ..... Lee Hunter
Teddy Boy 2 .... Michael Begley
Joan ..... Jasmine Hyde
Howard ..... Neil McCaul
Nurse Clare ..... Rebecca Crankshaw
Nurse Jenny ..... Christine Kavanagh
Nurse Riley ..... Alexandra Hannant
Sheila ..... Eden Forde
Directed by Anastasia Osei-Kuffour
Produced by Pat Cumper
THU 15:00 Ramblings (m0014pgh)
Wicken Fen with Ajay Tegala
Starting by the village of Burwell Clare and Ajay set off around Wicken Fen. As part of its rewilding vision the National Trust have created wetlands for birds and introduced Highland cattle and Konik ponies to graze the grassland. Ajay Tegala is a warden with the Trust and takes people on guided walks around the fen. He has also done some work with the BBC Natural History Unit and has featured in Springwatch. It's a perfect bright January morning as they set off on the paths around the fen spotting birds and animals along the way.
Walk Wicken Fen starting from postcode CB25 OBW
Producer: Maggie Ayre
THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (m0014p2y)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 on Sunday]
THU 15:30 Open Book (m0014p3t)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Sunday]
THU 16:00 The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry (m0014pgk)
Series 19
The Weird Waves of Wi-Fi
We use Wi-Fi everyday, but do you know how it works? “Is it waves and science or just some mystical magical force?” wonders listener Abby.
Well, our science sleuths are on the case. To help them navigate the strange realm of electromagnetic waves they are joined by Andrew Nix, Professor of Wireless Communication Systems from the University of Bristol. He explains why your wi-fi router won’t heat up your baked beans, but your microwave will.
Andrea Goldsmith, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Princeton University, also joins to reveal how these waves are crammed full of 0s and 1s- whether thats a pic of your pets or a video chat with pals.
And finally, how do you get the best Wi-Fi at home? Dr Rutherford, it turns out, has made some rookie errors... Listen out for our top tips so you don't make them too!
Presenters: Hannah Fry and Adam Rutherford
Producer: Ilan Goodman
THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (m0014pgm)
A weekly programme that illuminates the mysteries and challenges the controversies behind the science that's changing our world.
THU 17:00 PM (m0014pgp)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0014pgr)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 18:30 Plum House (b0b7fpsg)
Series 2
Hot Quiz
Comedy about the inept staff at a historic house, starring Simon Callow, Jane Horrocks and Miles Jupp.
Every year, thousands of tourists flock to the Lake District. But one place they never go is Plum House - the former country home of terrible poet George Pudding (1779-1848). Now a crumbling museum, losing money hand over fist, it struggles to stay open under its eccentric curator Peter Knight (Simon Callow). Tom Collyer (Tom Bell) tries and fails to get the museum back on track, alongside the hopelessly out of touch deputy Julian (Miles Jupp), corner-cutting gift shop manager Maureen (Jane Horrocks), put-upon education officer Emma (Louise Ford), and enthusiastic but dim-witted caretaker Alan (Pearce Quigley).
This week, after their latest madcap scheme proves a disaster, Tom decides that Peter and Julian should no longer be in charge of the finances. He soon discovers that each staff member thinks they are most suited for the role, and a local pub quiz becomes the arena to decide who is best and smartest at Plum House. The competition reignites old tensions and turns the team on each other. But Tom is distracted by his feelings for Emma.
The cast is joined by Graham Fellows who guest stars as Ken the quizmaster.
Written by Ben Cottam and Paul McKenna
Produced by Sarah Cartwright
Directed by Paul Schlesinger
A Hat Trick production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 19:00 The Archers (m0014pgt)
Writer, Sarah Hehir
Directors, Kim Greengrass
Editor, Jeremy Howe
Brian Aldridge ….. Charles Collingwood
Pip Archer ….. Daisy Badger
Ruth Archer ….. Felicity Finch
Alice Carter ….. Hollie Chapman
Chris Carter ….. Wilf Scolding
Neil Carter ….. Brian Hewlett
Justin Elliott ….. Simon Williams
Rex Fairbrother ….. Nick Barber
Amy Franks ….. Jennifer Daley
Martyn Gibson ….. Jon Glover
Tracy Horrobin ….. Susie Riddell
Jazzer McCreary ….. Ryan Kelly
Hannah Riley ….. Helen Longworth
Stella ….. Lucy Speed
THU 19:15 Front Row (m0014pgw)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
THU 20:00 The Briefing Room (m0014pgy)
David Aaronovitch presents in-depth explainers on big issues in the news.
THU 20:30 The Bottom Line (m0014ph0)
Evan Davis chairs a discussion providing insight into business from the people at the top.
THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (m0014pgm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
THU 21:30 In Our Time (m0014pfr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
THU 22:00 The World Tonight (m0014ph3)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
THU 22:45 Violets by Alex Hyde (m0014pg2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
THU 23:00 Gaby's Talking Pictures (b0b5sfbg)
Series 1
Episode 1
Gaby Roslin hosts the funny, entertaining film quiz with impressions by Alistair McGowan and Ronni Ancona. This week, team captains John Thomson and Ellie Taylor are joined by special guests Iain Lee and Lucy Porter
Presented by Gaby Roslin
Team Captains: John Thomson and Ellie Taylor
Impressionists: Alistair McGowan and Ronni Ancona
Created by Gaby Roslin
Written by Carrie Quinlan and Barney Newman
Produced by Gordon Kennedy, Gaby Roslin and Barney Newman
An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0014ph5)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
FRIDAY 25 FEBRUARY 2022
FRI 00:00 Midnight News (m0014ph7)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 00:30 Metaphysical Animals by Clare MacCumhaill and Rachael Wiseman (m0014pft)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Thursday]
FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0014ph9)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0014phc)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.
FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0014phf)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
FRI 05:30 News Briefing (m0014phh)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0014phk)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Father Luigi Gioia.
Good morning.
A well-known page from the book of Ecclesiastes says that there is a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up – and, we can add, ‘a time to be earnest and a time to pause’ and “wait in silence”
There are times in which we have to endure the sense of emptiness and hopelessness, knowing that whether or not we are aware of it, they are healing something in us.
The 16th century Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila in her Interior Castle warns us against our well-meaning earnestness.
She uses this image.
We get so caught up in the excitement of the technical challenges involved in fetching water from a distant river through elaborate pipe systems and prodigiously effective pumps that we miss the spring welling up just behind the foliage near us, and which brings the water directly to us, naturally and silently.
Had we alternated our times of action with times of rest and silence, we would have perceived the spring’s gentle murmur, and delighted in the freshness of its water.
One of our greatest temptations in life is to want to control everything – even our relations.
We need to learn the crucial skill of staying still, and not mistake it with laziness. Waiting is not passivity, but the moment when we let our desire do the work.
According to Teresa, this very desire is the God-given living water that wells up from within.
Let us pray.
Give us wisdom to know when to act, Lord, and when instead wait in hope and trust, in silent desire.
Amen.
FRI 05:45 Farming Today (m0014phm)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b01sby0q)
Garden Warbler
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Garden Warbler. Garden warblers aren't very well named .these are birds which like overgrown thickets of shrubs and small trees and so you're more likely to find them in woodland clearings especially in newly- coppiced areas.
FRI 06:00 Today (m0014qcm)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (m0014p3b)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:00 on Sunday]
FRI 09:45 Metaphysical Animals by Clare MacCumhaill and Rachael Wiseman (m0014qf9)
5. The Four Brilliant Friends & Their Legacy
Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe, the quartet of brilliant thinkers and friends left behind enduring philosophical legacies. Here we find out how their work and theories shape and illuminate today's ethical thinking.
The life-long friends first met at Oxford University during WWII when many male students and tutors were conscripted. Taught by refugee scholars, conscientious objectors and a number of women tutors the four friends were profoundly affected by the unprecedented horrors of war, especially the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In response they set out to make sense of the disorder and despair that followed, and developed a philosophy relevant to every day life, which went on to shape contemporary ethical thinking.
We meet the quartet at the start of their friendship, as they embark on their lives as undergraduates, and later as they take up jobs in the post war period. We encounter the philosophers who inspired their thinking from the brilliant but chaotic, Ludwig Wittgenstein to the superstar thinker, Jean-Paul Sartre. Later, we witness their theorising and thought as it evolved over the decades. All the while, we are with them as they go about the stuff of everyday living, including the sometimes emotional and unconventional turmoil of their love lives.
Metaphysical Animals is vividly and expertly written by philosophy lecturers, Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman who took their inspiration from their own friendship with one of the key players in this remarkable and little known story, Mary Midgley.
Abridged by Katrin Williams
Produced by Elizabeth Allard
FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0014qct)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
FRI 11:00 Political Animals (m0014qcw)
Mole-Rat Queens and Genital Power
Zoologist Lucy Cooke is on a mission: to break down the 'sexist stereotype' she believes has permeated our understanding of the natural world.
In Political Animals, she sets out to prove that females of the species can be just as fiesty, ardent, manipulative, aggressive, strategic, varied and political as males - questioning some of the theories laid out by the 'father of evolution', Charles Darwin, and hearing from pioneering scientists moving evolutionary biology beyond a male-centric narrative.
In this second instalment, Lucy explores ways in which female animals wield authority; with examples ranging from repressive mole-rat queens to ducks with deceptive vaginas, all proving that power can be about more than physical strength.
This involves a visit to the UK's only colony of naked mole-rats, overseen by Chris Faulkes at the University of London’s Queen Mary College; an introduction to the world of labyrinthine animal vaginas and their evolutionary benefits with Patricia Brennan from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts; and assisting with feeding time at Twycross Zoo's bonobo enclosure, as Amanda Addison and Becca Biddle explain the power of the ape sisterhood... Meanwhile Joe Cain from University College London sheds more light on Darwin’s attitude towards females.
Featuring excerpts from ‘The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex’ and personal notes written by Charles Darwin, read by Derek Frood.
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Lucy Taylor.
FRI 11:30 Fags, Mags and Bags (m0014qcy)
Series 10
4. Florence Flouncingtons who lives in Flouncingtons Quadrant on the Flouncingtons Estate
Fags, Mags & Bags returns with more shop based shenanigans and over the counter philosophy, courtesy of Ramesh Mahju and his trusty sidekick Dave.
Set in a Scots-Asian corner, and written by and starring Donald Mcleary and Sanjeev Kohli, the award winning Fags, Mags & Bags has proved a huge hit. This tenth series sees a return of all the show’s regular characters, and some guest appearances along the way.
In this episode, Sanjay causes a bit of gossip amongst the Lenzidens as he helps his best mate Grebo with a secret mission.
Cast:
Ramesh: Sanjeev Kohli
Dave: Donald Mcleary
Sanjay: Omar Raza
Alok: Susheel Kumar
Malcolm. Mina Anwar
Bishop Briggs: Michael Redmond
Nathan Laser: Gavin Mitchell
Grebo: Manjot Sumal
Producer: Gus Beattie for Gusman Productions
A Comedy Unit production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 12:00 News Summary (m0014qfp)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
FRI 12:04 Violets by Alex Hyde (m0014qd2)
Episode 5
In this lyrical debut, two women share a connection as they navigate love, loss and motherhood in the closing days of the Second World War.
Violet’s difficult decision about her future in Pontypridd can be put off no longer while, in Birmingham, the Halls apply to an adoption agency.
Read by Morfydd Clark and Lorna Nickson Brown
Written by Alex Hyde
Abridged by Siân Preece
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie
FRI 12:18 You and Yours (m0014qd4)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
FRI 12:57 Weather (m0014qd6)
The latest weather forecast
FRI 13:00 World at One (m0014qd8)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Jonny Dymond.
FRI 13:45 The Shadow of Algiers (m0014qdb)
Episode 5
New documentary series for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 14:00 The Archers (m0014pgt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Thursday]
FRI 14:15 Limelight (m0014qdd)
Who is Aldrich Kemp?
Who is Aldrich Kemp? - Chapter Two: Themis House
Clara finds herself in a mysterious village where the shopkeepers all look remarkably similar. Will more questions be raised than answered by the occupants of Themis House?
Cast:
Clara Page .............................Phoebe Fox
Mister Bartholomew .........Tim McInnerny
Aldrich Kemp ...................... Ferdinand Kingsley
Mrs Boone..............................Nicola Walker
Sebastian Harcourt ............Kyle Soller
Nakesha Kemp ....................Karla Crome
Aunt Lily .................................Susan Jameson
The Underwood Sisters ....Jana Carpenter
Cylist ........................................Louise Brealey
Created and written by Julian Simpson
Recorded on location in Hove, London and at The Royal Pavilion in Brighton
Music composed by Tim Elsenburg
Sound Design: David Thomas
Director: Julian Simpson
Producer: Sarah Tombling
Executive Producer: Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 14:45 The Art and Science of Blending (m0004cq0)
Champagne
Blending is a distinctly human act: other creatures don’t experiment in this way. So in this series we’re looking at four blended products – whisky, tea, perfume and champagne – to find out why we blend things, and why some blends work when others don’t. What do we hope to gain? What do we fear losing? And is blending an art … or a science? Barry Smith, a philosopher, tries to answer these questions by consuming rare teas, fine whiskies and perfect champagnes … so that you don’t have to.
Today, the art and science of blending champagne.
Producer David Edmonds
FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m0014qdg)
GQT at Home
Horticultural programme featuring a group of gardening experts. Peter Gibbs chairs this week, with Chris Beardshaw, Pippa Greenwood, and Matt Biggs answering questions from a virtual audience across the country.
Producer - Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer - Aniya Das
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 15:45 Short Works (m0014qdj)
Tattletale by Ruqaya Izzidien
Short stories from leading Welsh writers. Richard Elfyn reads an original story by Ruqaya Izzidien. Someone is watching over Sofie...
Sound by Catherine Robinson
Produced by Emma Harding
A BBC Cymru Wales production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 16:00 Last Word (m0014qdl)
Matthew Bannister tells the life stories of people who have recently died, from the rich and famous to unsung but significant.
FRI 16:30 More or Less (m0014pc3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 on Wednesday]
FRI 17:00 PM (m0014qdn)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0014qds)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 18:30 The News Quiz (m0014qdv)
Series 107
Episode 9
Andy Zaltzman presents a look back at the week's headlines.
FRI 19:00 Past Forward: A Century of Sound (m00139kk)
If People Can't Let Slip...
A businessman in trouble, a scandal about racist slurs recorded in secret: Greg Jenner seeks the help of Professor Steven Fielding and Sathnam Sanghera to navigate his way around a short news item from 1977.
Marking the centenary of the BBC, Past Forward uses a random date generator to alight somewhere in the BBC's vast archive over the past 100 years. Public historian Greg Jenner hears an archive clip for the first time at the top of the programme, and uses it as a starting point in a journey towards the present day. The archive captures a century of British life in a unique way - a history of ordinary people’s lives, as well as news of the great events. Greg uncovers connections through people, places and ideas that link the archive fragment to Britain in 2022, pulling in help from experts and those who remember the time – and sometimes the speakers themselves, decades later - along the way. What he discovers are stories, big and small, that reveal how the people we were have shaped the people we have become.
Producer: Martin Williams
FRI 19:15 Add to Playlist (m0014qdx)
Cerys Matthews and Jeffrey Boakye present Radio 4's new weekly music programme.
FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (m0014qdz)
Katherine Fletcher MP
Chris Mason presents political debate and discussion from Parklands Academy, Chorley, with a panel which includes the Conservative MP Katherine Fletcher MP.
Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Lead broadcast engineer: Phil Booth
FRI 20:50 A Point of View (m0014qf1)
Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.
FRI 21:00 The Reith Lectures (m0012fnc)
Stuart Russell - Living With Artificial Intelligence
AI in the economy
Professor Stuart Russell explores the future of work and one of the most concerning issues raised by Artificial Intelligence: the threat to jobs. How will the economy adapt as work is increasingly done by machines? Economists’ forecasts range from rosy scenarios of human-AI teamwork, to dystopian visions in which most people are excluded from the economy altogether. Was the economist Keynes correct when he said that we were born to “strive”? If much of the work in future will be carried out by machines, what does that mean for humans? What will we do?
Stuart Russell is Professor of Computer Science and founder of the Centre for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence at the University of California, Berkeley.
The lecture and question-and-answer session was recorded at Edinburgh University.
Presenter: Anita Anand
Producer: Jim Frank
Editor: Hugh Levinson
Production Coordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound: Neil Churchill and Hal Haines
FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (m0014qf3)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective.
FRI 22:45 Violets by Alex Hyde (m0014qd2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
FRI 23:00 A Good Read (m0014p8h)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 on Tuesday]
FRI 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0014qf5)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament