18 December, 2009

Radio 4 Listings for 19/12/2009 - 25/12/2009

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SAT SATURDAY 19 DECEMBER 2009 SAT SAT 00:00 Midnight News b00pb8fq (Listen) SAT The latest national and international news from BBC Radio SAT 4. Followed by Weather. SAT SAT 00:30 Book of the Week b00pgm7r (Listen) SAT Dear Granny Smith, Episode 5 SAT A letter from your postman written by Roy Mayall and SAT delivered by Philip Jackson; a heartfelt musing on the SAT past, present and future role of one of the oldest British SAT institutions, the Postie. SAT The tale of Tom and Jerry and the big grey boxes. SAT A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4. SAT SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast b00pb8k8 (Listen) SAT The latest shipping forecast. SAT SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes b00pb8kb (Listen) SAT BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 SAT resumes at 5.20am. SAT SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast b00pb8kd (Listen) SAT The latest shipping forecast. SAT SAT 05:30 News Briefing b00pb8kg (Listen) SAT The latest news from BBC Radio 4. SAT SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day b00pb8kj (Listen) SAT Daily prayer and reflection with Bishop Alan Abernethy. SAT SAT 05:45 Running Away b00f678q (Listen) SAT Hugh Dennis SAT Tim Samuels joins five famous guests as they put the SAT demands of their hectic daily lives on hold and escape for SAT a few hours. SAT Hugh Dennis escapes his punishing schedule on the comedy SAT circuit and takes one of his favourite walks - through SAT glorious countryside near his home on the Sussex Downs - SAT to the oldest woods in the land. SAT SAT 06:00 News and Papers b00pb8kl (Listen) SAT The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers. SAT SAT 06:04 Weather b00pb8kn (Listen) SAT The latest weather forecast. SAT SAT 06:07 Open Country b00pb8kq (Listen) SAT Growing Tents Not Crops on Gower SAT What does it mean for the future of agriculture when SAT farmers find that tents are more profitable than crops? SAT Helen Mark visits the Gower Peninsula in south-west Wales, SAT one of the UK's most popular holiday locations, to explore SAT the long-term impact of tourism on farming. SAT SAT 06:30 Farming Today b00pb8ks (Listen) SAT Farming Today This Week SAT Charlotte Smith visits Melton Mowbray's farmers market to SAT find out if the recession is making a dent in sales this SAT year. SAT According to the Centre for Retail Research, people SAT believe they will spend an average of 168 pounds on food SAT and drink for Christmas. This is 14 pounds more than last SAT year. The regions most likely to increase their spending SAT are London and the south east. Farming Today This Week SAT investigates if this prediction is a reality by asking SAT turkey, sprout, parsnip and dairy farmers across the SAT country if they are seeing an increase in sales this SAT Christmas. SAT SAT 06:57 Weather b00pb8kv (Listen) SAT The latest weather forecast. SAT SAT 07:00 Today b00pb8kx (Listen) SAT With Evan Davis and John Humphrys. Including Sports Desk; SAT Weather; Thought for the Day. SAT SAT 09:00 Saturday Live b00pb8kz (Listen) SAT Real life stories in which listeners talk about the issues SAT that matter to them. Fi Glover is joined top jock and SAT sports supremo Garry Richardson. With poetry from Susan SAT Richardson. SAT STUDIO GUEST: GARRY RICHARDSON SAT Garry Richardson has been Radio 4’s voice of sport for 28 SAT years and also hosts Sportsweek on Radio 5 Live. SAT Garry Richardson SAT SATURDAY LIFE: DAVE SPIKEY SAT Comedian Dave Spikey takes us to London’s Bloomsbury SAT Theatre to find out how he usually spends his Saturdays SAT Dave Spikey SAT THE GOOD LIFE: REBECCA WILLIAMS SAT In the 1970s Rebecca Williams’ father moved his family SAT from the city to the countryside to live out an idyllic SAT existence tending his own land and providing for his SAT family. That was the dream but the reality was a little SAT different. SAT TV TALENT SHOW WINNER: JIMMY TAMLEY SAT Comedy Ventriloquist Jimmy Tamley won New Faces back in SAT the 1980s. SAT Jimmy Tamley SAT INHERITANCE TRACKS: JULIETTE LEWIS SAT Actress and singer Juliette Lewis chose 'Peg' by Steely SAT Dan and 'Voodoo Child/Slight Return' by Jimi Hendrix. SAT POET: SUSAN RICHARDSON SAT Susan Richardson is a poet, performer and educator based SAT in Cardiff. She regularly performs at literary festivals SAT and environmental events up & down the country SAT Susan Richardson SAT THE 12 INHERITANCE TRACKS OF CHRISTMAS SAT This is our Christmas gift to you, 12 of our favourite SAT Inheritance Tracks. SAT The 12 Inheritance Tracks of Christmas SAT SAT 10:00 Excess Baggage b00pb8l1 (Listen) SAT Sandi Toksvig meets David Winpenny, who has toured the SAT British Isles looking at the surprising number of pyramids SAT there are scattered around - from gravestones and SAT memorials to follies, works of art and functional SAT buildings. The pyramid is not only one of the most ancient SAT of structural designs but one of the most modern, and all SAT over the country people are proud of their local pyramids SAT and welcome those who have travelled to see them. SAT Ruth Breckman's tour in search of buildings took her to SAT five continents to see opera houses. Again these vary from SAT the old, like the famous 18th-century La Scala in Milan, SAT to the modern Marion Oliver McCaw Hall in Seattle. She SAT explains why the opera house can tell the visitor so much SAT about the history and culture of a city. SAT An object that travels all over the globe, often unnoticed SAT but vital to the way the world works, is the shipping SAT container. Jeremy Hiller explains how BBC News bought and SAT tracked an individual container for a year, logging its SAT travels, cargo and the crews who navigated its voyage. The SAT journey tells us a lot about globalisation and gives a SAT telling insight into the current state of the world's SAT economy. SAT SAT 10:30 Here We Come b00pb8l3 (Listen) SAT Radio 4 presenter John Waite's personal take on the story SAT of The Monkees, the wildly successful 1960s pop group and SAT TV stars. SAT In 1970, as a 19-year-old student, John was hitch-hiking SAT his way up the coast of California when he was spotted by SAT Davy Jones, the British member of The Monkees, who invited SAT him to stay at his Hollywood home. In this programme, John SAT tells the fascinating story of the world's first SAT manufactured pop group and catches up with Jones, 40 years SAT on. SAT SAT 11:00 Week in Westminster b00pb8l5 (Listen) SAT Peter Riddell, Steve Richards, Ben Brogan, Jackie Ashley SAT and Peter Oborne reflect on an extraordinary year in SAT politics. SAT SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent b00pb8l7 (Listen) SAT Kate Adie introduces BBC foreign correspondents with the SAT stories behind the headlines. SAT There are fears that north and south Sudan could be SAT sliding back towards conflict. A civil war between the SAT country's two halves only ended five years ago. But now SAT reports from the region are increasingly disturbing. More SAT than two thousand people have died there this year in SAT battles between various ethnic factions. And there are SAT claims that the tensions in the largely Christian south SAT are being stoked by the sending of arms shipments from the SAT mainly-Muslim north. This comes against a backdrop of a SAT referendum in the south, in a year's time, in which people SAT will vote on whether to break away and declare SAT independence. Will Ross has been to a town at the centre SAT of this divided region. SAT For months, all across Eastern Europe people have been SAT marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism. And SAT now, last in line, it's Romania's turn. Days of violent SAT revolution in 1989 ended with the execution of the SAT dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena. Gradually SAT the country began to emerge from their shadow, and today SAT it's a member of the European Union. But in some of SAT Romania's darker corners little has changed, and Chris SAT Rogers has been finding out that the nation continues to SAT fail some of its most vulnerable citizens: SAT The South Pacific island nation of Tonga is the last SAT Polynesian monarchy. At a coronation ceremony last year a SAT crown was placed on the head of King Gorge Tupou the SAT Fifth. And in his silk knee breeches and maroon cape, he SAT rose from his golden throne as the country's absolute SAT ruler. But there have been years of pressure for political SAT reform, and some serious resentment of royal rule. The SAT King now knows that his power may quite soon ebb away. SAT With his blessing Tonga is on course to become a SAT democracy, although the monarch will stay on as head of SAT state. John Pickford first visited the country more than SAT 30 years ago, and he's just been back to see how it is SAT coping with the tensions between tradition and modernity. SAT Christmas is a big season for the port wine industry. The SAT fortified wine is used to wash down mince pies and Stilton SAT cheese. Visiting heads of state are offered it at royal SAT banquets and cobwebbed bottles lie in the cellars of SAT gentlemen's clubs in London. But how is this ancient drink SAT standing up to these times of recession? Humphrey Hawksley SAT has travelled to the banks of the Douro River in Portugal SAT where port wine has been made for hundreds of years. He SAT asks whether the traditions surrounding the tipple are SAT still relevant today and visits a wine bar to see what SAT today's young drinkers make of it. SAT And from Ireland there's a tale of mad sporting SAT determination in the teeth of an Atlantic storm. As all of SAT the world surely knows, Tiger Woods has been engulfed by SAT scandal. He has decided to take a break from golf, and SAT suddenly the sport has lost its guiding star. Woods was by SAT far its most inspiring figure; at his best a study in SAT concentration, power, precision and grace under pressure. SAT At the other end of the world of golf, our correspondent SAT Kieran Cooke also likes to swing a club. But he and his SAT friends play a form of the game in the wilds of Ireland SAT that Tiger Woods would barely recognise. SAT SAT 12:00 Money Box b00pb8l9 (Listen) SAT Paul Lewis with the latest news from the world of personal SAT finance. SAT SAT 12:30 The Now Show b00p99n5 (Listen) SAT Series 29, Episode 4 SAT Tonight Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis explore pointless SAT protests and Great British sentimentality; Mitch Benn SAT sings an ode to Simon Cowell; Marcus Brigstocke sees SAT Copenhagen through the eyes of Dr Seuss and Jon Holmes SAT tries to wriggle past bank security. SAT SAT 12:57 Weather b00pb8lc (Listen) SAT The latest weather forecast. SAT SAT 13:00 News b00pb8vy (Listen) SAT The latest national and international news from BBC Radio SAT 4. SAT SAT 13:10 Any Questions? b00p99n7 (Listen) SAT Martha Kearney chairs the topical debate from Masham, SAT North Yorkshire. The panellists are Labour peer Roy SAT Hattersley, science writer and broadcaster Dr Gabrielle SAT Walker, Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate SAT and former diplomat Rory Stewart, and Nick Clegg's chief SAT of staff, Danny Alexander. SAT THIS WEEK'S PANEL SAT LORD HATTERSLEY was Deputy Leader of the Labour Party for SAT nine years until 1992. Writing about the expenses scandal SAT earlier this year he said the “crisis of confidence in SAT politics and politicians” is not the result of politicians SAT claiming parliamentary expenses for cleaning out a moat. SAT “It is the product of politicians failing to debate the SAT merits of a society in which one family lives in a moated SAT grange while another survives in a bed and breakfast SAT hostel.” A critic of Tony Blair’s New Labour, he has since SAT declared himself a supporter of Gordon Brown. His own SAT political career in the House of Commons spanned thirty SAT three years before he stood down as MP for Birmingham SAT Sparkbrook in 1997. The same year he was created a life SAT peer. He served in the governments of two Labour Prime SAT Ministers: as a minister under Harold Wilson and in the SAT Cabinet of James Callaghan. After the party’s defeat in SAT 1979, he became its chief opposition spokesman. In 1983 he SAT became deputy to party leader Neil Kinnock. His prolific SAT writing includes newspaper columns, novels, political SAT memoirs and biography. SAT RORY STEWART is the prospective Conservative parliamentary SAT candidate for Penrith and the Border in Cumbria. Born in SAT Hong Kong, he grew up in Malaysia and served briefly as an SAT officer in the British Army, studied history and politics SAT at Oxford University and then joined the British SAT Diplomatic Service. He worked in the British Embassy in SAT Indonesia and then, in the wake of the Kosovo campaign, as SAT the British Representative in Montenegro. In 2000 he took SAT two years off and began walking from Turkey to Bangladesh. SAT He covered 6000 miles on foot alone across Afghanistan, SAT Pakistan, India and Nepal - a journey described in his SAT book The Places in Between. In 2003, he became the SAT coalition Deputy Governor of Maysan and Dhi Qar, two SAT provinces in the Marsh Arab region of Southern Iraq, and SAT later wrote a book about the experience called The Prince SAT of the Marshes and Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in SAT Iraq. In 2004, he was awarded the Order of the British SAT Empire. He lived in Kabul from 2006-2008 and founded the SAT Turquoise Mountain Foundation, which is investing in the SAT regeneration of the historic commercial centre of Kabul. SAT He was appointed to a professorial chair at Harvard SAT University as the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights at SAT the beginning of 2009 and became Director of the Carr SAT Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy SAT School. He was elected as the Conservative Parliamentary SAT candidate by an open-primary meeting (open to all SAT registered voters, regardless of party) in October 2009. SAT DANNY ALEXANDER MP is chief of staff to Liberal Democrat SAT leader Nick Clegg. In 2007, he was also appointed as SAT co-ordinator of the party’s election manifesto. Seen as SAT one the Lib Dems' fastest-rising stars, he has made swift SAT progress since his election to the Westminster parliament SAT in 2005 when he won the newly-created seat of Inverness, SAT Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey. Labour - which had held SAT the old seat of Inverness East – was beaten into second SAT place. In response to the prospect of a minority SAT government after the next election, he has said the Lib SAT Dems were now having to look very closely and seriously SAT at what would happen if they became the ‘kingmakers’ in a SAT hung parliament. He is former party spokesman on Work and SAT Pensions. One time press officer with the Scottish Liberal SAT Democrats, he was also PR chief for the Cairngorms SAT National Park. He spent six years as head of SAT communications for the European Movement and the SAT campaigning group, Britain in Europe. SAT DR GABRIELLE WALKER is a freelance writer, broadcaster and SAT speaker specialising in energy and climate change. She has SAT a PhD in Chemistry from Cambridge University and has been SAT Climate Change editor at Nature and Features Editor of New SAT Scientist, for whom she now acts as consultant. She is a SAT consultant to the UK Government's Chief Scientific Adviser SAT and to the Government Office of Science, as well as being SAT a visiting Professor at Princeton University. She SAT presented the BBC Radio 4 series on climate change, Planet SAT Earth Under Threat, another series called Oceans: What SAT Lies Beneath and appears regularly on TV and radio. Her SAT books include Snowball Earth (2003); An Ocean of Air SAT (2008); and with Sir David King, The Hot Topic: How to SAT Tackle Global Warming and Still Keep the Lights On (2008), SAT which Al Gore described as “a beacon of clarity in a world SAT of misinformation”. SAT SAT 14:00 Any Answers? b00pb8wz (Listen) SAT Martha Kearney takes listeners' calls and emails in SAT response to this week's edition of Any Questions? SAT SAT 14:30 Saturday Play b00pb8x1 (Listen) SAT The Wonderful Wizard of Oz SAT Dramatisation by Linda Marshall of L Frank Baum's SAT children's classic. SAT When a tornado strikes her farmhouse in Kansas, young SAT Dorothy is lifted to the magical world of Oz, where she SAT embarks upon a perilous journey to find her way back home. SAT Dorothy ...... Amelia Clarkson SAT Wizard of Oz/Kalidah/Uncle Henry ...... Jonathan Keeble SAT Scarecrow ...... Kevin Eldon SAT Tinman ...... Burn Gorman SAT Lion ...... Zubin Varla SAT Witch of the North/South/West/Aunt Em .......Emma Fielding SAT King Monkey/Miner ...... Andrew Westfield SAT Munchkin/Gatekeeper ...... Graeme Hawley SAT With Original Music by Olly Fox. SAT Directed by Nadia Molinari. SAT Part of the BBC Christmas 2009 season. SAT SAT 15:30 Tales from the Stave b00p8c19 (Listen) SAT Series 5, Holst: The Planets SAT Frances Fyfield tracks down the stories behind the scores SAT of well-known pieces of music. SAT Holst apparently hated the popularity of The Planets. He SAT sat down to compose it in 1914 and it had its first SAT performance in 1918. Given that English audiences were SAT used to Elgar, this massive 'modern' orchestral work came SAT as a huge surprise to concert goers, and they loved it. SAT From the opening 5/4 tempo of the first movement of Mars, SAT this could be considered one of the first great pieces of SAT 20th-century English music. SAT Holst had recently heard the revolutionary compositions of SAT Schoenberg and Stravinsky and in The Planets, he mixes SAT harmonies and rhythms in the most dramatic way. Not all of SAT the score is in his own hand, as he suffered from SAT neuritis, so he sometimes used copyists to help with his SAT composition. SAT Frances' guests select their favourite movements from the SAT score, which is held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, SAT and they are joined by the curator Martin Holmes, who SAT looks after the precious manuscripts there. SAT The seven movements don't include Pluto; that was only SAT discovered in 1930, four years before his death. The SAT success of The Planets overshadowed Holst's other SAT compositions, which are quite different in style from his SAT astrological depictions. While the piece is still popular SAT in concert halls around the UK, its also familiar to film SAT fans as it is frequently used in movies. What would Holst SAT have made of its enduring popularity, 75 years after his SAT death, and what would he have made of its use in computer SAT games? SAT SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour b00pb8x3 (Listen) SAT Weekend Woman's Hour SAT Highlights of this week's Woman's Hour programmes with SAT Jane Garvey. SAT Sigourney Weaver talks about Avatar and life beyond the SAT screen; what the noughties have done for women; James May SAT on why it's okay for men to not have a feminine side; the SAT working life of Britain's Consul-General in Iraq; theatre SAT teenagers when they're too old for panto; what is the SAT right level of compensation for women who donate their SAT eggs? SAT SAT 16:56 1989: Day by Day b00pb8x5 (Listen) SAT 19th December 1989 SAT Sir John Tusa looks back at the events making the news 20 SAT years ago. SAT Serious unrest is reported in Romania, with hundreds SAT massacred. SAT A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4. SAT SAT 17:00 PM b00pb8x7 (Listen) SAT Saturday PM SAT Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Carolyn SAT Quinn, plus the sports headlines. SAT SAT 17:30 iPM b00pb8x9 (Listen) SAT The weekly interactive current affairs magazine featuring SAT online conversation and debate. SAT SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast b00pb8xc (Listen) SAT The latest shipping forecast. SAT SAT 17:57 Weather b00pb8xf (Listen) SAT The latest weather forecast. SAT SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News b00pb8xh (Listen) SAT The latest national and international news from BBC Radio SAT 4. SAT SAT 18:15 Loose Ends b00pb8xk (Listen) SAT Peter Curran and guests with an eclectic mix of SAT conversation, music and comedy. SAT He is joined by eighties pop sensation Boy George, the SAT actor Michael Fassbender and the playwright Mark Ravenhill. SAT Allegra McEvedy talks to almanac compiler Ben Schott. SAT With comedy from performance poet John Hegley, and music SAT fit for the festive season from Thea Gilmore. SAT Boy George SAT Peter Curran is joined by former Culture Club frontman Boy SAT George, who along with his single, ‘White Xmas’ plays a SAT ten night residency. ‘Boy George in Concert Up Close and SAT Personal’ is at the Leicester Square Theatre, London from SAT Sunday 20 December. SAT Michael Fassbender SAT Having starred to great acclaim in ‘Fishtank’ and in Steve SAT McQueens ‘Hunger’, Michael Fassbender talks about his role SAT as the suave bilingual Brit in Quentin Tarantino’s World SAT War 2 epic 'Inglourious Basterds' out now on DVD. 'Fish SAT Tank' is released on DVD on Monday 25 January. SAT Mark Ravenhill SAT Mark Ravenhill talks about his latest collaboration with SAT Terry Pratchett as he's adapted the Discworld authors SAT novel 'Nation' for the National Theatre, London. SAT Nation – National Theatre SAT Ben Schott SAT And it wouldn’t be Christmas without a compilation of the SAT year’s trivia in tables and informative titbits… Ben SAT Schott is happy to oblige as he talks to Allegra McEvedy SAT about 'Schott's Almanac 2010' published by Bloomsbury SAT John Hegley SAT More festive cheer comes from the ever-popular performance SAT poet John Hegley. He's at the London’s Battersea Arts SAT Centres ‘Christmas at the Batterseaside’ from Monday 21 to SAT Wednesday 23 December. And his Bloomsbury Theatre show‘ SAT 'Moniseur Robinet at the Bloomsbury’, is on Saturday 9 SAT January 2010. SAT Thea Gilmore SAT And fresh from her UK tour there’s music from SAT singer-songwriter Thea Gilmore, playing her current single SAT 'That'll Be Christmas' and 'The St Stephens Day Murders' SAT from her album ‘Strange Communion’. She finishes her tour SAT at Fareham on Saturday 19 and Chester on Monday 21 SAT December. SAT SAT 19:00 From Fact to Fiction b00pb8xm (Listen) SAT Series 7, The Guilt Season SAT With matters of climate change under international SAT scrutiny, novelist Liz Jensen brings together three SAT characters with wildly differing views in her comic SAT monologue, The Guilt Season. SAT SAT 19:15 Saturday Review b00pb8xy (Listen) SAT Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Richard Coles, Jude Kelly and SAT Amanda Vickery to discuss the cultural highlights of the SAT week, including Keira Knightley's debut stage appearance SAT in The Misanthrope. Starring alongside Damien Lewis in SAT Martin Crimp's translation of Moliere's classic 17th SAT century French comedy, directed by Thea Sharrock, the play SAT explores the very contemporary issue of celebrity. SAT Sam Taylor Wood's feature film debut tells the story of SAT John Lennon's troubled adolescence in Liverpool, torn SAT between his strict, domineering Aunt Mimi, played by SAT Kristin Scott Thomas, and his inconstant but loving mother SAT Julia, played by Anne Marie Duff. Yearning for a normal SAT family, Lennon (Aaron Johnson) escapes into the new and SAT exciting world of rock n' roll, where his fledgling genius SAT finds a kindred spirit in the teenage Paul McCartney SAT (Thomas Brodie Sangster). SAT Colum McCann's novel Let The Whole World Spin won the SAT prestigious National Book Award in America. It is set in SAT 1974 against the backdrop of Philippe Petit's celebrated SAT high wire walk between the Twin Towers, a pivotal moment SAT loosely drawing together a rich cast of New York SAT residents. From two immigrant Irish brothers to an uptown SAT mother grieving for her son lost in Vietnam, from the SAT realities of life in the Bronx for a streetwalker to the SAT cocaine adventures of two trendy young painters. McCann's SAT is a vividly-drawn portrait of 1970s Manhattan. SAT Plus a review of the highlights on television over SAT Christmas, featuring the Cranford Christmas Special, SAT starring Judi Dench and Imelda Staunton, a new adaptation SAT of Henry James's The Turn of The Screw, John Hurt SAT reprising his role of Quentin Crisp in An Englisman in New SAT York, and Andrew Davis's adaptation of Joanna Briscoe's SAT erotic thriller Sleep With Me. SAT Christmas TV SAT The Turn of the Screw is on December 30th at 9pm. SAT Sleep With Me is on ITV1 on New Year’s Eve at 9pm. SAT An Englishman in New York is on ITV1 on December 28th. SAT Cranford begins on Sunday December 20th on BBC1 at 9pm, SAT with the second episode the following Sunday. SAT SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 b00pb8y0 (Listen) SAT A Dog's Life SAT To mark the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the SAT Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, BBC Disability SAT Affairs Correspondent Peter White examines the changing SAT role of the working dog, from the early 1900s to their SAT role in today's society, using extensive and sometimes SAT previously unbroadcast archive. SAT Perennially 'man's best friend', dogs are also now man's SAT best colleague. From guide dogs to guard dogs, hearing SAT dogs to healing dogs, Peter examines the ways in which we SAT have become so dependent on canines. Over the years we SAT have progressed from guide dogs to dual purpose dogs, to SAT dogs that can detect imminent epileptic fits, smuggled SAT drugs and explosive devices - even dogs that can do your SAT washing. SAT The programme features a mix of historical material, new SAT interviews and previously untransmitted archive of the SAT trainers, the owners and those that place their lives in SAT the paws of their dogs. SAT SAT 21:00 Classic Serial b00p7kyd (Listen) SAT The Complete Smiley - The Karla Trilogy, Tinker, Tailor, SAT Soldier, Spy, Part 3 SAT Dramatisation by Shaun McKenna of John le Carre's classic SAT novel. SAT George Smiley, called back from retirement, is reaching SAT the end of his hunt to find the mole he believes is SAT tearing the British Secret Intelligence Service apart. SAT George Smiley ...... Simon Russell Beale SAT Ann Smiley ...... Anna Chancellor SAT Control ...... John Rowe SAT Peter Guillam ...... Ewan Bailey SAT Jim Prideaux ...... Anthony Calf SAT Mendel ...... Kenneth Cranham SAT Magyar ...... Peter Majer SAT Ricki Tarr ...... Jamie Foreman SAT Toby Esterhase ...... Sam Dale SAT Bill Haydon ...... Michael Feast SAT Karla ...... Philip Fox SAT Polyakov ...... Stephen Greif SAT Steve Mackelvore ...... Piers Wehner SAT Mrs McCraig ...... Kate Layden SAT Bill Roach ...... Ryan Watson SAT This episode is available until 3.00pm on 20th December as SAT part of the Series Catch-up Trial. SAT SAT 22:00 News and Weather b00pb8y2 (Listen) SAT The latest national and international news from BBC Radio SAT 4, followed by weather. SAT SAT 22:15 Unreliable Evidence b00p91qf (Listen) SAT European Law: After Lisbon SAT Clive Anderson presents the series analysing the legal SAT issues of the day. SAT European law has been described as an incoming tide which SAT cannot be held back. Will the coming into force of the SAT Lisbon Treaty generate a legal tsunami which will SAT overwhelm British sovereignty? Are we governed by our own SAT laws or the law of Europe? SAT SAT 23:00 Brain of Britain b00p87r2 (Listen) SAT Russell Davies chairs the tenth, heat of the perennial SAT general knowledge contest, with four contestants from SAT Wales. SAT Contestants SAT Jason Bray from Pontypool SAT David Clark from Port Talbot SAT Stuart Davies from Swansea SAT Dave Roberts from Cardiff SAT SAT 23:30 Adventures in Poetry b00p7m9j (Listen) SAT Series 10, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer SAT Peggy Reynolds explores the background, effect and lasting SAT appeal of some well-loved poems. SAT 'Much have I travelled in the realms of gold...' Keats' SAT sonnet - his first great poem - begins. Keats couldn't SAT read Greek and the poem records him touching the ancient SAT world through translation and his already fecund SAT imagination. Peggy explores the stories behind its SAT creation and its enduring appeal. SAT SAT SUN SUNDAY 20 DECEMBER 2009 SUN SUN 00:00 Midnight News b00pb8z9 (Listen) SUN The latest national and international news from BBC Radio SUN 4. Followed by Weather. SUN SUN 00:30 Afternoon Reading b009fpl7 (Listen) SUN Pier Shorts, Love Lessons from Cephalopods SUN Stories by new writers, inspired by Brighton's Palace Pier. SUN By Kay Sexton, read by Susannah Harker. SUN A marine scientist challenges a Russian gangmaster to a SUN swimming contest. SUN A Pier production for BBC Radio 4. SUN SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast b00pb8zc (Listen) SUN The latest shipping forecast. SUN SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes b00pb8zf (Listen) SUN BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. SUN SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast b00pb8zh (Listen) SUN The latest shipping forecast. SUN SUN 05:30 News Briefing b00pb8zk (Listen) SUN The latest news from BBC Radio 4. SUN SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday b00pb8zm (Listen) SUN The sound of bells from St John the Baptist, Loughton. SUN SUN 05:45 The Watchdog and the Feral Beast b00p2z8p (Listen) SUN Episode 1 SUN Sir Christopher Meyer, press watchdog until this year as SUN chairman of the Press Complaints Commission and former SUN press secretary at Number 10, discusses the role of the SUN press today. Is the press today freedom's guardian or is SUN it a 'feral beast', as Tony Blair described the media at SUN the end of his premiership? SUN Sir Christopher draws on his personal experience as press SUN watchdog and government spokesman. In his six years SUN chairing the PCC, where he dealt with complaints against SUN newspapers and magazines, he championed a free press and SUN self-regulation, but had to contend with controversies SUN that sometimes strained people's trust in the press. SUN His health check on the press comes at a time when opinion SUN is polarised. Is the press out of control, or is it more SUN constrained than ever before by the law? Is the press SUN destroying trust in our democracy, or are politicians SUN giving the press undue importance by courting editors and SUN journalists? Is the press too powerful, or is it SUN vulnerable because of competition from the internet, much SUN of it free and unregulated? SUN And now that the printed word and audio-visual content SUN appear together on the same website, what is the future SUN for self-regulation by the press? SUN SUN 06:00 News Headlines b00pb8zp (Listen) SUN The latest national and international news. SUN SUN 06:05 Something Understood b00pb8zr (Listen) SUN The Festive Spirit SUN Since time immemorial special occasions have been marked SUN with a festival in which communities joined together in SUN celebration. Journalist Madeleine Bunting explores this SUN desire to create festivals. SUN The readers are Liza Sadovy, James Goode and Frank SUN Stirling. SUN A Unique production for BBC Radio 4. SUN Music SUN Music 1: ‘Wassail Carol’ set by William Mathias. Performed SUN by the New College Choir. Available on the album Carols SUN from New College. Released by CRD Records. SUN Music 2: ‘Dinuy-ya’ performed by Fiesta Filipina. SUN Available on the album Music from the Philipines: Fiesta SUN Filipina, released by Arc records. SUN Music 3: ‘Caracunde’ performed by Susana Baca. Available SUN on the album Espiritu Vivo, released by Luaka Bop. SUN Music 4: ‘Variations on Carnival of Venice’, composed by SUN Francisco Tarrega, performed by Rafael Aguirre Minarro. SUN Available on the album Guitar Recital, released by Naxos. SUN Music 5: ‘Woodstock’ written and performed by Joni SUN Mitchell, available on Joni Mitchell: Hits, published by SUN Siquomb Publishing Group. SUN Music 6: ‘L’Hiver’ composed by Alexander Glazunov, SUN performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, the SUN conductor was Evgeni Mravinsky. Available on the album SUN Mravinsky Live, released on Russian Disc. SUN Music 7: ‘Wolcum Yule’ composed by Benjamin Britten, SUN performed by the Choir of King’s College Cambridge. SUN Available on the album A Ceremony of Carols, published by SUN Argo. SUN Music 8: ‘Ebetlehema Yiyo Lenkosi’ composed by J SUN Shabalala, performed by Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Available SUN on the album Ultimate, published by Universal Music. SUN Readings SUN Reading 1: ‘Make We Marry’ (anonymous) from Middle English SUN Lyrics, selected and edited by Maxwell S Luria and Richard SUN L Hoffman. Published by WW Norton & Co. SUN Reading 2: ‘Things Fall Apart’ by Chinua Achebe. Published SUN by Heinemann. SUN Reading 3: ‘April Carnival, St Thomas’ written by Tram SUN Combs, available in the book Pilgrim’s Terrace, published SUN by Editorial La Nueva Salamanca San Germai, Puerto Rico. SUN Reading 4: ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ written by SUN Alexander Dumas. Published by Project Gutenberg. SUN Reading 5: ‘Bonfire Night in Lewes’ from Gunpowder Plots, SUN written by Mike Jay, published by Allen Lane. SUN Reading 6: ‘On the Feast of Stephen’ by Barry Butson from SUN the Poetry Review Vol 87, No.3. SUN Reading 7: ‘My Father as I Recall Him’ by Mamie Dickens, SUN from The Ladies Home Journal 1892, included in The SUN Victorian Christmas by Anna Selby, published by Pen and SUN Sword Books. SUN Reading 8: ‘In the House of the Father’ edited by Jeni SUN Couzyn from Christmas in Africa, from The Bloodaxe Book of SUN Contemporary Women Poets. Published by Bloodaxe. SUN SUN 06:35 On Your Farm b00pb8zt (Listen) SUN Adam Henson visits Hunmanby Grange Farm on the Yorkshire SUN Wolds, a 600-acre arable farm with 2,000 hens producing SUN freedom foods accredited eggs. SUN In 2002, owners Tom and Gill Mellor decided that, with the SUN drop in cereal prices, the farm wouldn't survive as a SUN family business without diversification. Using water from SUN their own bore-hole and barley from the farm, they started SUN a brewery which now produces up to 13,000 award-winning SUN pints of ale a year sold throughout the region. SUN It is a story about seeing the writing on the wall and SUN then doing something unique to their location to survive SUN and prosper. Both the hen farming and brewery employ local SUN people, as does the farm. The programme highlights the SUN choices many farmers face today to ensure the survival and SUN future prosperity of a family farm. SUN SUN 06:57 Weather b00pb8zw (Listen) SUN The latest weather forecast. SUN SUN 07:00 News and Papers b00pb8zy (Listen) SUN The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers. SUN SUN 07:10 Sunday b00pb900 (Listen) SUN Roger Bolton discusses the religious and ethical news of SUN the week. Moral arguments and perspectives on stories, SUN both familiar and unfamiliar. SUN SUN 07:55 Radio 4 Appeal b00pb902 (Listen) SUN Build Africa SUN Dame Diana Rigg appeals on behalf of Build Africa. SUN Donations to Build Africa should be sent to FREEPOST BBC SUN Radio 4 Appeal, please mark the back of your envelope SUN Build Africa. Credit cards: Freephone 0800 404 8144. If SUN you are a UK tax payer, please provide Build Africa with SUN your full name and address so they can claim the Gift Aid SUN on your donation. The online and phone donation facilities SUN are not currently available to listeners without a UK SUN postcode. SUN Registered Charity Number 298316. SUN Related Links SUN * Build Africa (www.build-africa.org.uk) SUN SUN 07:58 Weather b00pb904 (Listen) SUN The latest weather forecast. SUN SUN 08:00 News and Papers b00pb906 (Listen) SUN The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers. SUN SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship b00pb908 (Listen) SUN A Spotless Rose SUN On the fourth Sunday of Advent, the story of the angel SUN Gabriel's visit to Mary is explored in a service from St SUN John's College, Durham. SUN The preacher is Rev Dr David Wilkinson. SUN Music director: George Richford. SUN SUN 08:50 A Point of View b00p99nb (Listen) SUN Clive James vents his frustration at automated customer SUN systems and finds them a poor substitute for dealing with SUN real people. SUN SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House b00pb90b (Listen) SUN News and conversation about the big stories of the week SUN with Paddy O'Connell. SUN SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus b00pbltx (Listen) SUN The week's events in Ambridge. SUN SUN 11:15 Desert Island Discs b00pbltz (Listen) SUN Sir Michael Caine SUN Kirsty Young's castaway this Christmas is Sir Michael SUN Caine. SUN In a film career that has spanned more than four decades SUN he has won two Oscars; his credits include Alfie, The SUN Italian Job, Hannah and Her Sisters and Educating Rita. SUN As well as discussing his remarkable life in films, he SUN describes how the Queen used to cut through his back SUN garden on her way to the horse races, discusses the SUN secrets of a happy marriage and reveals the tricks for SUN cooking perfect roast potatoes this Christmas. SUN SUN 12:00 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue b00p885p (Listen) SUN Series 52, Episode 5 SUN The perennial antidote to panel games pays a visit to the SUN Futurist Theatre in Scarborough, with Jack Dee taking the SUN chairman's role. SUN Regulars Barry Cryer and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined by SUN Jo Brand and Jeremy Hardy. SUN With Colin Sell at the piano. SUN SUN 12:32 Food Programme b00pblv1 (Listen) SUN Spirits SUN Sheila Dillon tastes her way through the long tradition of SUN turning fruit into alcohol. She hears from eau de vie SUN producers in the Alsace region of France and from cider SUN brandy distillers in Somerset. SUN The technique of distillation was first devised by Arabs SUN and then embraced by Europeans more 700 years ago. It has SUN given us whiskies, cognacs, Armagnac, and countless other SUN drinks but behind them all lies eau de vie, 'the water of SUN life', the clear spirit that emerges from the tool of the SUN distillers' trade, the still. SUN The most prized eau de vies are those produced from SUN nothing but fermented fruits such as pears, raspberries, SUN quinces or bilberries. Few drinks are so dependent on SUN landscape, tradition and craft. Often, local wild fruits SUN are gathered, fermented and then heated in a family owned SUN still. SUN Sheila Dillon looks at this centuries-old practice of SUN producing eau de vies. It is a tradition now in sharp SUN decline across Europe, but Sheila discovers a brave, lone SUN effort is underway in Somerset to revive a British form of SUN this drink. SUN To help tell the story Sheila is joined by food historian SUN Ivan Day and drinks buyer Sarah Knowles. Sheila also hears SUN from C Anne Wilson, author of Water of Life: A History of SUN Wine Distilling and Spirits. SUN Related Links SUN * Eaux-de-Vie Museum, 68650 Lapoutroie. Open daily all SUN year 0033 3 8947 50 26 (translate.google.co.uk) SUN * Massenez Distillery – 67220 Villé SUN (www.eaux-de-vie.com) SUN * Julian Temperley (www.ciderbrandy.co.uk) SUN Water of Life,Book - A History of Wine Distilling And SUN Spirits 500BC to AD 2000 SUN Water of Life, A History of Wine Distilling And Spirits SUN 500BC to AD 2000 by C. Anne Wilson, published by Prospect SUN Books ISBN-10: 1903018463, ISBN-13: 978-1903018460 SUN SUN 12:57 Weather b00pblv3 (Listen) SUN The latest weather forecast. SUN SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend b00pblv5 (Listen) SUN A look at events around the world with Shaun Ley. SUN SUN 13:30 Over The Rainbow With Yip Harburg b00n0xfq (Listen) SUN SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time b00p959x (Listen) SUN Peter Gibbs chairs the popular horticultural forum. SUN Anne Swithinbank, Chris Beardshaw and John Cushnie answer SUN questions from gardeners in Cuffley, Hertfordshire. SUN Authors Beth Chatto and Christine Walkden join Matthew SUN Wilson to discuss contemporary garden literature. SUN Including gardening weather forecast. SUN SUN 14:45 Joan Armatrading's Favourite Choirs b00bbxp7 (Listen) SUN London Bulgarian Choir SUN Joan Armatrading visits choral assemblies across the SUN country. SUN Joan tunes into the musical traditions of Bulgaria with SUN Dessislava Stefanova and the London Bulgarian Choir. She SUN learns about the group's distinctive singing techniques SUN and the difficulty the British have with learning to sing SUN less politely. SUN SUN 15:00 Classic Serial b00pbm1x (Listen) SUN Matilda, Episode 1 SUN Dramatisation by Charlotte Jones of Roald Dahl's modern SUN children's classic about a cool, calm, pint-size SUN five-year-old genius. SUN Narrator ...... Lenny Henry SUN Matilda ...... Lauren Mote SUN Miss Trunchbull ......Nichola McAuliffe SUN Mrs Wormwood ...... Claire Rushbrook SUN Mr Wormwood ...... John Biggins SUN Miss Honey ...... Emerald O'Hanrahan SUN Mrs Phelps ...... Kate Layden SUN Michael ...... Ryan Watson SUN Bruce Bogtrotter ...... Joshua Swinney SUN Nobby ...... Rhys Jennings SUN Lavender ...... Sinead Michael SUN Hortensia ...... Lizzy Watts SUN Directed by Claire Grove. SUN Part of the BBC Christmas 2009 season. SUN SUN 16:00 Open Book b00pbm1z (Listen) SUN Mariella Frostrup talks to the crime writer Mark SUN Billingham about one of his inspirations. As a new SUN big-screen adaptation of Sherlock Holmes reaches our SUN cinemas, he and the crime writing expert Barry Forshaw SUN discuss Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's enduring creation and his SUN impact on every crime writer since. SUN There's advice for a listener eager to read fiction set in SUN the Middle Ages from the novelist Kevin Crossley-Holland. SUN And Melissa Katsoulis and Suzi Feary look back at an SUN eventful decade in the world of books and pick out some SUN publishing highlights in the year to come. SUN BOOK LIST SUN Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Complete Sherlock Holmes SUN (various publishers) SUN Edward Hogan: Blackmoor SUN Publisher: Simon and Schuster SUN Darryl Samaraweera: Vicky Had One Eye Open SUN Publisher: Burning House SUN KEVIN CROSSLEY-HOLLAND'S SUN READING CLINIC RECOMMENDATIONS SUN Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose SUN Publisher: Vintage SUN Umberto Eco: Baudolino SUN Publisher: Vintage SUN Jane Smiley: The Greenlanders SUN Publisher: Fawcett Books SUN George Mackay Brown: Magnus SUN Publisher: Polygon SUN Helen Waddell: Peter Abelard SUN Publisher: Constable SUN Lilli Thal (trans. John Brownjon) SUN Publisher: Allen & Unwin SUN Kevin Crossley-Holland: The Seeing Stone SUN Publisher: Orion Children’s SUN SUN 16:30 Thomas Lynch's Season of Innocence b00pbm21 (Listen) SUN Irish-American poet and essayist Thomas Lynch introduces a SUN poignant and insightful programme on poetry that has been SUN inspired by children, with contributions from Carol Ann SUN Duffy, Matthew Sweeney, Frieda Hughes and Robin Robertson. SUN A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4. SUN SUN 16:56 1989: Day by Day b00pbm7m (Listen) SUN 20th December 1989 SUN Sir John Tusa looks back at the events making the news 20 SUN years ago. SUN US forces looking for General Noriega invade Panama. SUN A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4. SUN SUN 17:00 The New Art of Diplomacy b00p8dz6 (Listen) SUN Episode 1 SUN James Naughtie asks if British diplomacy is still fit for SUN purpose. SUN A century ago, much of the map of the world was coloured SUN with the pink of the British Empire. Britain's diplomats SUN reigned supreme, with the reassurance of a gunboat to SUN support them. Much has changed since that time, and SUN continues to change. As Britain faces new threats and new SUN priorities across the globe, how are the foreign office SUN and its diplomats changing? SUN SUN 17:40 From Fact to Fiction b00pb8xm (Listen) SUN [Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday.] SUN SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast b00pbmdv (Listen) SUN The latest shipping forecast. SUN SUN 17:57 Weather b00pbmj1 (Listen) SUN The latest weather forecast. SUN SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News b00pbmj3 (Listen) SUN The latest national and international news from BBC Radio SUN 4. SUN SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week b00pbmj5 (Listen) SUN Val McDermid introduces her selection of highlights from SUN the past week on BBC radio. SUN SUN 19:00 The Archers b00pbmlw (Listen) SUN Lower Loxley gets into the festive spirit. SUN SUN 19:15 Americana b00pbmly (Listen) SUN Matt Frei presents an insider guide to the people and the SUN stories shaping America today. Combining location reports SUN with lively discussion and exclusive interviews, the show SUN provides new and surprising insights into contemporary SUN America. SUN Matt is joined by Joe Scarborough, the host of Morning Joe SUN on MSNBC, for a round-up of the week's news in the week SUN before Christmas. We will likely talk about former VP SUN candidate Joe Lieberman, now wielding power in shaping the SUN US healthcare reform debate, Time magazine's Man of the SUN Year Ben Bernanke and lobbyists in American politics - SUN from the days when President Ulysses Grant used to hang SUN out in the lobby of the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC. SUN Then we go to Houston - power base of Conservative SUN standard-bearers such as Tom DeLay, Dick Cheney and the SUN Bush family - for an interview with Annise Parker, elected SUN to be the city's first gay mayor. SUN Garrison Keillor explains the fate of a toxic holiday food SUN that is often given, rarely eaten: the fruitcake. SUN Not many alligator handbags under the Christmas tree in SUN America this year - bad news for Louisanna's alligator SUN farmers. We head to the swamp to meet one of them. SUN SUN 19:45 Afternoon Reading b0080dyx (Listen) SUN Sputnik, The First King of Mars SUN A selection of stories specially commissioned to celebrate SUN the Russian satellite which started the space race. SUN By Nick Walker, read by Peter Capaldi. SUN There is plenty of time to think during the long journey SUN to Mars. And the new colony will need governance. SUN A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4. SUN SUN 20:00 More or Less b00p94fp (Listen) SUN Tim Harford and the More or Less team find out who really SUN pays most tax and why Christmas shopping is, to one SUN economist, an orgy of 'value destruction'. SUN An Open University co production for BBC Radio 4. SUN More or Less Christmas quiz 2009 SUN Have you been a loyal listener to the programme or a SUN fickle follower? Have a go at our quiz. SUN Test your knowledge SUN SUN 20:30 Last Word b00p99n1 (Listen) SUN Matthew Bannister presents the obituary series, analysing SUN and celebrating the life stories of people who have SUN recently died. The programme reflects on people of SUN distinction and interest from many walks of life, some SUN famous and some less well known. SUN Marking the lives of Paul Samuelson, Yegor Gaidar, Bobby SUN Jaye, Sir John Quicke and Ken Wlaschin. SUN PAUL SAMUELSON SUN US Economist who has died aged 94 SUN Paul Samuelson is described by many as the most SUN influential American economist of the twentieth century. SUN He was the author of the most celebrated economics SUN textbook of modern times, Economics: An Introductory SUN Analysis which has sold millions of copies and brought the SUN ideas of JM Keynes to generations of students, and policy SUN makers, around the world. He is credited with turning SUN economics from a scattered selection of ideas into a SUN social science and raising the economics department at the SUN Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) into a world SUN class research centre. He advised successive American SUN governments on economic policy, including President JF SUN Kennedy and was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in economics. SUN Matthew speaks to Professor James Poterba, friend and SUN former head of the MIT Economics department and to SUN Stephanie Flanders, the BBC’s Economics Editor. SUN Paul Samuelson was born on May 15, 1915 and died December SUN 13, 2009 SUN YEGOR GAIDAR SUN Russian politician and economic reformer who has died aged SUN 53 SUN Yegor Gaidar was the controversial architect of Russia’s SUN painful transition to a market economy after the collapse SUN of the Soviet Union in 1991. He was appointed acting Prime SUN Minister by Boris Yeltsin in 1992 when he was still only SUN in his mid thirties, but was confronted with a mountain of SUN foreign debt, severe food shortages and the looming threat SUN of riots. Gaidar’s solution, described by some as “shock SUN therapy”, was to abolish state control of prices and SUN unleash market forces. Whilst his supporters credit him SUN with saving Russia from hunger and civil war, millions of SUN ordinary Russians blamed him for soaring prices. SUN Matthew speaks to the British economist Professor Lord SUN Layard of the London School of Economics, and to the SUN former Editor of the BBC’s Russian Service, Andrei Ostalski SUN Yegor Timurovich Gaidar was born 19 March 1956 and died 16 SUN December 2009 SUN BOBBY JAYE SUN BBC executive who has died aged 84 SUN Bobby Jaye was responsible for some of the most successful SUN comedy programmes on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 2. As Head of SUN BBC Radio Light Entertainment in the 1980s, he nurtured SUN sitcoms like “After Henry” and Radio Active. He also SUN transferred many of television’s most successful comedies SUN to the radio, including “Steptoe and Son”, “Yes Minister” SUN and even Morecambe and Wise. One of his first jobs at the SUN BBC was as a studio manager on the Goon Show. Promoted to SUN producer, he presided over some of BBC Radio’s best loved SUN panel games, including “Twenty Questions”, “My Word” and SUN “My Music”. SUN Matthew talks to Bobby’s daughter Amanda Breach, the SUN writer and former BBC light entertainment producer Simon SUN Brett and his friends Sandy Chalmers and Barry Cryer. SUN SIR JOHN QUICKE SUN Farmer and cheese maker who has died aged 87 SUN John Quicke was a West Country farmer and cheese maker who SUN created the award-winning Quicke's Traditional Cheddar. He SUN was a keen surfer with an interest in spirituality, rare SUN drive and business acumen. Sir John Quicke began his life SUN at Eton and Oxford before fighting in Burma during the SUN Second World War. He then studied agriculture before SUN returning to the struggling family farm in Devon, SUN determined to make it a success. SUN Last Word hears from his daughter Mary and his friend and SUN fellow farmer, Lord Cameron SUN Sir John Quicke, CBE, was born on April 20, 1922 and died SUN on November 16, 2009 SUN KEN WLASCHIN SUN Film festival director, author and cinema historian who SUN has died aged 75 SUN From the late sixties until the early eighties, Ken SUN Wlaschin brought the best of world cinema to London. As SUN programme director at the National Film Theatre and the SUN London Film Festival, he moved away from programmes SUN dominated by the US and the UK to include pioneering SUN cinema from all over the world. He was a film buff all his SUN life and wrote many books on the subject, including “The SUN Illustrated Encyclopaedia of the World’s Great Movie Stars SUN and Their Films” and “Bluff Your Way in the Cinema.” He SUN was awarded an MBE by the Prince of Wales in 1981. SUN Matthew speaks to the former controller of the British SUN Film Institute, Leslie Hardcastle and to Professor Ian SUN Christie of Birkbeck College, University of London. SUN Kenneth Wlaschin was born 12 July 1934 and died 10 SUN November 2009. SUN SUN 21:00 Money Box b00pb8l9 (Listen) SUN [Repeat of broadcast at 12:00 on Saturday.] SUN SUN 21:26 Radio 4 Appeal b00pb902 (Listen) SUN [Repeat of broadcast at 07:55 today.] SUN SUN 21:30 In Business b00p944k (Listen) SUN Let Me Entertain You SUN What can business leaders learn from rock musicians and SUN improvisational comedians? Peter Day finds out. SUN Related Links SUN * Improv Your Biz (improvyourbiz.com) SUN * Academy of Rock (www.academy-of-rock.co.uk) SUN Contributors to this programme: SUN Neil Mullarkey SUN Comedy Store Players SUN Peter Cook SUN Academy of Rock, in partnership with Imperial College SUN London SUN How can improvised comedy help people in business? SUN Comedian Neil Mullarkey and guests at the Comedy Store SUN play improvisation games. Neil argues that the skills SUN needed for these games would also benefit businesses. SUN SUN 21:58 Weather b00pbmm0 (Listen) SUN The latest weather forecast. SUN SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour b00pbmm2 (Listen) SUN Reports from behind the scenes at Westminster. Including SUN The Watchdog and the Feral Beast. SUN SUN 23:00 1989: Day by Day Omnibus b00pbmn5 (Listen) SUN Week ending 19th December November 1989 SUN A look back at the events making the news 20 years ago, SUN with Sir John Tusa. SUN President FW de Klerk meets with Nelson Mandela, Chile SUN elects a civilian president to replace Augusto Pinochet, SUN and East Germany discusses what do to after dismantling SUN the Stasi. SUN A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4. SUN SUN 23:30 Something Understood b00pb8zr (Listen) SUN [Repeat of broadcast at 06:05 today.] SUN SUN MON MONDAY 21 DECEMBER 2009 MON MON 00:00 Midnight News b00pbncv (Listen) MON The latest national and international news from BBC Radio MON 4. Followed by Weather. MON MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed b00p912j (Listen) MON Laurie Taylor explores the history of clothing behind bars. MON From broad arrows on prisoners suits in the 19th century MON to the orange jumpsuits worn by inmates of the Guantanamo MON Bay detention camp, the uniform prisoners wear reflects MON the regime they are being punished by. Laurie is joined by MON Juliet Ash from the Royal Collge of Art and Elizabeth MON Wilson from the London College of Fashion to undress the MON history of prison clothing and discuss what it reveals MON about the social cultural and political context of the MON time. MON Also in the programme, Paul Sparks from Sussex University MON discusses the importance of the local pub and the power of MON the boycott. MON MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday b00pb8zm (Listen) MON [Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday.] MON MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast b00pbng1 (Listen) MON The latest shipping forecast. MON MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes b00pbnhg (Listen) MON BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. MON MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast b00pbnh0 (Listen) MON The latest shipping forecast. MON MON 05:30 News Briefing b00pbntr (Listen) MON The latest news from BBC Radio 4. MON MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day b00pbnwm (Listen) MON Daily prayer and reflection with Bishop Alan Abernethy. MON Good Morning. MON Journeys are something many people will be making over the MON next week as many families and friends travel to spend MON time together over the Christmas period. Indeed our two MON children, who are now adults, will be travelling home from MON university and it will be great to spend time together. MON When our children were younger the excitement especially MON of summer holidays was always special. We would go camping MON in France and travel by car and ferry. The journey began MON from the moment we left the driveway of our home. The MON first stage of this adventure was a 260 mile car journey. MON There was an inevitable moment usually after 5 or 6 miles MON when from the back seat one of our two children would MON utter the words, “are we nearly there yet?” Hence the MON answer was generally not yet but we have to stop for our MON picnic on the way. MON Long journeys are difficult as travelling is exhausting. MON It also needs to be planned so that there is enough food MON and fluids to keep you going. Being able to pack the car MON with all kinds of extras was a great help. The sweets and MON juices, the pillows and blankets, the music and story MON tapes to help while away some of the hours of tedious MON driving were a wonderful help to keep the sprits up and MON parents patience in tact. MON I don’t miss those long car journeys and rough ferry MON crossings while trying to keep children entertained MON although I would willingly go through it all again. But I MON still find travelling exhausting no matter what mode of MON transport I use. MON The Christmas event started with a difficult journey and MON according to the story it was a journey that had to be MON made. The fact that Mary was heavily pregnant didn’t make MON it any easier and the dust and the heat would have taken MON its toll on the energy and spirit. MON Lord as we celebrate the Christmas journey of Mary and MON Joseph keep safe, we pray, all who travel this Christmas MON and may we all find the joy and peace of the Christ child, MON wherever we journey to. Amen. MON MON 05:45 Farming Today b00pbnzg (Listen) MON The government launches a campaign warning people about MON buying Micro-pigs as Christmas presents. Charlotte Smith MON hears from a micro-pig breeder, and from a pig expert who MON says people who buy these animals usually end up with more MON pig than they expected. MON MON 05:57 Weather b00pbw1l (Listen) MON The latest weather forecast for farmers. MON MON 06:00 Today b00pbnzs (Listen) MON With James Naughtie and Justin Webb. Including Sports MON Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day. MON MON 09:00 Start the Week b00pbw1n (Listen) MON Andrew Marr sets the week's cultural agenda with a rich MON and electic mix of guests. MON He discusses what it means to be Welsh in the 21st century MON with Rhodri Morgan, on his retirement as the first First MON Minister for Wales. Times columnist Ann Treneman reflects MON on the nature of political satire in the post-expenses MON scandal world in her new book Annus Horribilis: The Worst MON Year in British Politics. Are there any jokes left to be MON made and what role can satire play in the run up to the MON next election? Mark Mazower examines the origins of the UN MON and what they tell us about international cooperation now. MON Is it a role model for global understanding or a rushed MON compromise that creaks increasingly under the weight of MON internal contradictions? And at the start of the week of MON traditional feasting, Roger Scruton talks about the MON philosophy of wine and his thesis I Drink, Therefore I Am. MON MON 09:45 Book of the Week b00pbpcc (Listen) MON Paw Tracks in the Moonlight, Episode 1 MON Kevin Whately reads from Denis O'Connor's memoir. MON One snowy night in the wilds of Northumberland, O'Connor MON is settling in for a night in front of the fire when he MON hears a cry of pain from the woods outside. MON Abridged by Jane Marshall. MON A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4. MON MON 10:00 Woman's Hour b00pbprm (Listen) MON Penelope Cruz talks to Jane Garvey about her latest film, MON Nine, a musical extravaganza with a star studded cast in MON which Penelope sings and shows off her ballet skills - she MON trained in classical ballet from the age of four. Penelope MON describes how much she enjoyed the experience of MON rehearsing intensively with the other stars on the film. MON She also discusses her successful working relationship MON with acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, with whom MON she has made four internationally-acclaimed films. And she MON reveals how she keeps to her Spanish timetable - eating MON late at night - whether in LA, London or Madrid. MON Last week many schools up and down the country marked the MON seasonal festivities with a celebration of one sort or MON another. But are they celebrating the Christmas story, the MON winter festivals or just a national holiday? The Nativity MON is no longer part of every school's winter activities, and MON with the commercial pressures of this time of year, how do MON we go about teaching children the meaning of Christmas? MON Jane is joined by author and former editor of the Catholic MON Herald Cristina Odone and writer Ariane Sherine, editor of MON The Atheist's Guide to Christmas. MON We've always been interested in reading stories about MON other people's lives. But when these tales are based on MON someone's real life experience they can hold particular MON intrigue for the reader. A new competition being held by MON the BBC is hoping to tap into the appetite for MON reality-based literature by inviting the public to send in MON their own extraordinary stories. The best five will be MON turned into books and published in the New Year. Jane and MON her guests discuss fact and fiction. MON And Christmas can put an extra strain on the finances of MON most families, and it's usually women who take on the MON responsibility of buying presents and managing the MON household budget. Many are tempted to overspend on credit MON and store cards, forgetting about the true cost until the MON bills arrive in January. So what can be done to help women MON in debt? We hear from some women who have formed a MON self-help group called United Maidens to tackle personal MON debt problems and discuss what can be done to help. MON MON 11:00 Policing Britain b00pbw1q (Listen) MON The Justice We Deserve MON Andy Hayman, former assistant commissioner of the MON Metropolitan Police, examines the challenges facing MON policing in Britain today. MON When Andy Hayman left the Metropolitan Police in 2008 he MON was assistant commissioner, Special Operations, in overall MON charge of counter-terrorism. He had to deal with the MON suicide bomb attacks on London and the tragedy of the de MON Menezes shooting. Andy's 30-year career started straight MON out of school with the police in Essex and took him to the MON position of chief constable of Norfolk. In this series he MON takes a critical look at the challenges facing the police MON service in Britain today. He goes back on the beat and MON talks to former colleagues and those who work with the MON police at every level to ask the question, 'Do we have the MON policing we need in Britain today?' MON A Perfectly Normal production for BBC Radio 4. MON MON 11:30 Giles Wemmbley-Hogg Goes Off b00pbx22 (Listen) MON Series 4, Episode 2 MON Comedy series by Marcus Brigstocke and Jeremy Salsby. MON Giles Wemmbley Hogg returns, having set up his own travel MON company. MON Giles visits Iceland and buys some frozen food for his MON trip to Lapland. He also learns that, when hunting with MON shotguns, it's good to know the difference between an elk MON and an elf. MON Giles ...... Marcus Brigstocke MON Bella ...... Catherine Tate MON Mrs Wells ...... Celia Imrie MON Mr Timmis ...... Adrian Scarborough MON Charlotte Wemmbley-Hogg ...... Catherine Shepherd MON Santa ...... Ewan Bailey. MON MON 12:00 You and Yours b00pbq2q (Listen) MON Consumer news and issues with Julian Worricker. MON MON 12:57 Weather b00pbq3y (Listen) MON The latest weather forecast. MON MON 13:00 World at One b00pbqbv (Listen) MON National and international news with Martha Kearney. MON MON 13:30 Brain of Britain b00pbx24 (Listen) MON Russell Davies chairs the eleventh heat of the perennial MON general knowledge contest, featuring contestants from the MON south of England. MON Contestants MON Martin Boult from Basingstoke MON Rosanna Day from Newbury MON Nancy Dickmann from Oxford MON Andrew McNab from London MON MON 14:00 The Archers b00pbmlw (Listen) MON [Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday.] MON MON 14:15 Afternoon Play b00pbx26 (Listen) MON McLevy - Series 6, A Bolt from the Blue MON Series of stories about David Ashton's Victorian detective MON based on real-life Edinburgh policeman Inspector James MON McLevy. MON The young gentlemen of the university's student clubs are MON competing to play the most audacious pranks on MON unsuspecting citizens. Just harmless youthful high spirits MON - until a body is found floating in Leith docks. MON McLevy ...... Brian Cox MON Jean Brash ...... Siobhan Redmond MON Mulholland ...... Michael Perceval-Maxwell MON Roach ...... David Ashton MON Hannah ...... Colette O'Neil MON Carnegie ...... Ewen Bremner MON Benjamin ...... Sandy Grierson MON Alexander ...... Jim Webster-Stewart MON Jessica ...... Jenny Hulse MON Boag ...... James Bryce MON Agnes ...... Carol Ann Crawford MON Directed by Patrick Rayner. MON MON 15:00 Archive on 4 b00pb8y0 (Listen) MON [Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Saturday.] MON MON 15:45 The Santa Tapes b00pbrs8 (Listen) MON Santa of the Lighthouses MON Alan Dein unwraps the oral history of Santa Claus, hearing MON the true stories of those who have donned the red and MON white costume, from war-torn Hungary to the icy wastes of MON Alaska. MON Of course Santa flies, but this one arrives by helicopter. MON For 80 years, the lighthouse and coastguard families of MON New England have been waiting for him to touch down. MON MON 16:00 Food Programme b00pblv1 (Listen) MON [Repeat of broadcast at 12:32 on Sunday.] MON MON 16:30 The Infinite Monkey Cage b00pbx28 (Listen) MON Episode 4 MON Physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince take a witty, MON irreverent and unashamedly rational look at the world MON accoring to science. MON Robin and Brian are joined by Victor Stock, Dean of MON Guildford Cathedral, and science journalist Adam MON Rutherford for a special Christmas edition of the MON programme. Adam explains why religion really could be good MON for your health, and can Victor convert Robin and Brian in MON time for the festive season? MON MON 16:56 1989: Day by Day b00pbs0b (Listen) MON 21st December 1989 MON Sir John Tusa looks back at the events making the news 20 MON years ago. MON Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu is booed in public. MON A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4. MON MON 17:00 PM b00pbs6b (Listen) MON Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Eddie MON Mair. Plus Weather. MON MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News b00pbsgv (Listen) MON The latest national and international news from BBC Radio MON 4. MON MON 18:30 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue b00pcb3d (Listen) MON Series 52, Episode 6 MON The perennial antidote to panel games comes from the MON Futurist Theatre in Scarborough, with Jack Dee taking the MON chairman's role. MON Regulars Barry Cryer and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined by MON Jo Brand and Jeremy Hardy. MON With Colin Sell at the piano. MON MON 19:00 The Archers b00pbqyz (Listen) MON Vicky shows Joe her assertive side. MON MON 19:15 Front Row b00pbsh3 (Listen) MON Arts news and reviews with John Wilson. Including an MON interview with Kenneth Branagh, as he returns to the role MON of Swedish detective Kurt Wallander. MON MON 19:45 Woman's Hour Drama b00pbtjj (Listen) MON Someone Like You, Man from the South MON Dramatisation by Stephen Sheridan of five darkly comic MON tales by Roald Dahl. MON A young marine agrees to a bizarre wager with an elderly MON South American. MON Storyteller ...... Charles Dance MON Old Man ...... Andrew Sachs MON Marine ...... Danny Mahoney MON Girl ...... Donnla Hughes MON Spanish Woman ...... Rachel Atkins MON Directed by David Blount MON A Pier production for BBC Radio 4. MON Part of the BBC Christmas 2009 season. MON MON 20:00 Things We Forgot to Remember b00pcb58 (Listen) MON Series 5, The Hanseatic League MON Michael Portillo presents a series revisiting the great MON moments of history to discover that they often conceal MON other events of equal but forgotten importance. MON One of Michael Portillo's earliest political memories is MON the 1975 vote on whether or not Britain should stay in the MON Common Market, the early name for what is now the European MON Union. It felt like a uniquely 20th-century subject. But MON in this programme, Michael travels to King's Lynn to find MON out why this town near the Norfolk coast was such an MON important part of a forgotten Northern European MON free-trading area that stretched down as far as Cologne in MON Germany and included most of the Baltic coastline. MON The Hanseatic League was centred in the German town of MON Lubbeck but English wool made it an important part of a MON system that allowed Hansas, or groups of tradesmen, to MON establish a network of trading centres running alongside MON the nation states of the time. The League had money enough MON to raise an army, had a substantial fleet and was MON important for a number of sovereigns, not least Edward IV MON of England, when they were in need of a loan. So what were MON the ambitions of the hugely wealthy tradesmen running the MON league? And have we forgotten to remember that as well as MON a story of nation states, European history has long been a MON story of free trade, ultimately crushed by Queen Elizabeth MON I in England's case. She wanted to control the wool export MON monopoly and the considerable wealth that came from it and MON so had the English Hanseatic centre, by then in London and MON known as the Steelyards, closed down. MON MON 20:30 Crossing Continents b00p91x8 (Listen) MON Rio Law MON Brazil is booming economically and growing in confidence MON on the world stage, but in the city of Rio de Janeiro law MON and order have been turned upside down. Gangs run the MON prisons and ruthless militias - often made up of former MON police officers - control many shanty towns, killing with MON impunity. Lucy Ash asks if the authorities can end the MON rule of gangs, guns and greed. MON MON 21:00 Frontiers b00pcb5b (Listen) MON Five years after the great Indian Ocean tsunami, a further MON two powerful earthquakes in September 2009 reminded us MON that the region remains at risk. Roland Pease reports on MON scientists' attempts to evaluate the danger and prepare MON for future emergencies in southeast Asia. MON MON 21:30 Start the Week b00pbw1n (Listen) MON [Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today.] MON MON 21:58 Weather b00pbtm7 (Listen) MON The latest weather forecast. MON MON 22:00 The World Tonight b00pbtmp (Listen) MON National and international news and analysis. MON MON 22:45 Book at Bedtime b00pbvpj (Listen) MON The Ingoldsby Legends, The Spectre of Tapton, Part 1 MON Nicholas Murchie and Lucy Robinson read from a collection MON of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry supposedly MON written by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, but MON actually penned by the Rev Richard Barham, first published MON in book form in 1840. MON The strange tale of a trouser-stealing ghost. Why the MON unsatiable appetite for pantaloons, and where are they MON being taken? MON Abriged by Robin Brooks. MON A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4. MON MON 23:00 Word of Mouth b00p8dk8 (Listen) MON George Orwell left us a set of rules for writing about MON politics and public affairs - do they still apply? Michael MON Rosen and a panel of critics offer an Orwellian MON perspective on just one day in the discourse of the nation. MON MON 23:30 Take Two b00gd1t2 (Listen) MON Series 2, Billie Holiday and Lester Young MON Richard Coles presents a discussion series looking at MON collaborations between two musicians. MON The recordings that Billie Holiday made with saxophonist MON Lester Young were lauded for the way in which both artists MON complemented one another's sound. He called her Lady Day MON and she nicknamed him Prez because of his presidential MON mastery of his instrument. MON But away from the studio they also shared addictions to MON alcohol and drugs, which led to their early deaths. MON Richard is joined by jazz singer Clare Teal and saxophone MON player and jazz writer Dave Gelly to explore the MON personalities of Young and Holiday and to investigate MON their musical legacy. MON MON TUE TUESDAY 22 DECEMBER 2009 TUE TUE 00:00 Midnight News b00pbnbt (Listen) TUE The latest national and international news from BBC Radio TUE 4. Followed by Weather. TUE TUE 00:30 Book of the Week b00pbpcc (Listen) TUE [Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Monday.] TUE TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast b00pbncx (Listen) TUE The latest shipping forecast. TUE TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes b00pbnh2 (Listen) TUE BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. TUE TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast b00pbng3 (Listen) TUE The latest shipping forecast. TUE TUE 05:30 News Briefing b00pbnrf (Listen) TUE The latest news from BBC Radio 4. TUE TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day b00pbntt (Listen) TUE Daily prayer and reflection with Bishop Alan Abernethy. TUE Good Morning. TUE I remember my first primary school nativity play and the TUE woollen dressing gown with the cord belt tied around my TUE waist and the tea towel both essential for me to play the TUE part of a shepherd. I would really like to have been one TUE of the wise men or kings but I was grateful I wasn’t an TUE angel as they had to sing and wear wings. TUE The Christmas story is fantastic for the annual nativity TUE play; there is a part for everyone and simple costumes for TUE all. I attended a nativity play last year in Belfast in an TUE estate on the outskirts of the city that endured much over TUE the many years of violence. The children were hyper and TUE the teachers had that anxious look wondering what might TUE possibly go wrong. There was not one but two innkeepers TUE who were to not let the travellers in. The first one duly TUE said no but as Joseph knocked on the imaginary door of the TUE second inn the young boy with an earring in each ear and a TUE very short haircut shouted at the shocked couple to “get TUE lost”. This was not in the script but he was getting into TUE the story and giving it a local interpretation. The TUE audience duly laughed and the teacher looked embarrassed. TUE The boy was very pleased with himself and the story moved TUE on to the innkeeper with a stable to spare. The shepherds TUE and the wise men made their entrance and the performance TUE ended with the song from the entire cast wishing us all a TUE very merry Christmas. TUE It was a morning that everyone enjoyed, parents and TUE grandparents were all delighted that their child had been TUE on stage. The teachers were thrilled that things had gone TUE so well and the children had had fun. TUE Lord we pray for all children this week and especially TUE those who will have little to celebrate that they may know TUE the message of that first Christmas of peace on earth and TUE goodwill to all. Amen TUE TUE 05:45 Farming Today b00pbnwp (Listen) TUE News and issues in rural Britain with Anna Hill. TUE TUE 06:00 Today b00pbnzj (Listen) TUE With John Humphrys and James Naughtie. Including Sports TUE Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day. TUE TUE 09:00 Defining The Decade b00pcd3z (Listen) TUE The Heat is On TUE Edward Stourton tries to make sense of a decade in which TUE history has been put on fast forward. There has been a TUE revolution in the way we communicate, widespread alarm TUE about the planet's very survival and a challenge to the TUE world order. What does it mean for the way we live as we TUE head into 2010? TUE Back in the year 2000, the world's leaders didn't seem to TUE be troubled by the notion of global warming, so what has TUE changed? TUE TUE 09:45 Book of the Week b00pbpcf (Listen) TUE Paw Tracks in the Moonlight, Episode 2 TUE Kevin Whately reads from Denis O'Connor's memoir. TUE Having rescued a tiny kitten from a derelict barn, TUE O'Connor has to fight to keep it alive. TUE Abridged by Jane Marshall. TUE A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4. TUE TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour b00pchxv (Listen) TUE With Jane Garvey. Including drama: Someone Like You. TUE TUE 11:00 Towering Ambition b00pcd41 (Listen) TUE Adil Ray follows the inaugural Architecture for Everyone TUE campaign, launched in Stephen Lawrence's memory to correct TUE UK architecture's glaring ethnic imbalance. TUE Stephen Lawrence wanted to be an architect, so when his TUE mum Doreen discovered that only two per cent of the UK's TUE practising architects come from black and ethnic TUE backgrounds she set up the inaugural Architecture for TUE Everyone scheme, with RMJM Architects, to readdress the TUE balance. TUE Through a series of workshops in Birmingham, Liverpool, TUE Glasgow and London, six young people were selected for a TUE scholarship to Harvard's School of Design. They are Paula TUE McDonald, 25, from Glasgow; Callum Gilbert, 21, from TUE Liverpool; Oni Hinton, 20 and Luke Henry-Powell, 18, from TUE London; and Yohanna Iyasu and Nick Ackers, both 19, from TUE Birmingham. TUE They all come from radically diverse backgrounds. Nick was TUE adopted as a baby from a Romanian orphanage, Yohanna came TUE to Britain by way of Eritrea and Holland, Luke rebelled at TUE school and wanted to prove himself, Oni was escaping from TUE a chaotic home life, Callum had been a young knife crime TUE victim, and Paula, the eldest of the six, had been made TUE redundant and needed to boost her self-esteem. The common TUE theme among them was that this break had the potential to TUE change everything. TUE TUE 11:30 Li Yuan-Chia b00pcf5j (Listen) TUE When Taiwan's first abstract artist settled in a Cumbrian TUE farmhouse, his life changed. Deriving inspiration from TUE landscape and local people, he encouraged new British TUE artists and anticipated the success of contemporary TUE Chinese visual art. TUE Li Yuan Chia was one of the first significant Chinese TUE abstract artists of the 20th century. This programme, TUE presented by Sally Lai, the director of Manchester's TUE Chinese Arts Centre, examines his career from the place he TUE spent the last 28 years of his life: a stone farmhouse, TUE built next to Hadrian's Wall in Cumbria. TUE Born in China in 1929, Li was educated in Taiwan. He TUE worked and exhibited in Italy before moving to London in TUE 1963. Here, Li's reputation was established with TUE monochrome paintings and scrolls marked with a tiny, TUE isolated dot. TUE But Li came to dislike the fashionable metropolitan art TUE world of the mid-1960s. In 1968 he met Cumbrian painter TUE Winifred Nicholson, who pursuaded Li to move away from the TUE busy capital to a far more remote location, near her own TUE home. With his own hands Li then set about converting a TUE farm building, the Banks, at Brampton, where he built a TUE gallery, library, theatre, printing press, children's art TUE room and photographic darkroom, and opened it to the TUE public. It became a popular attraction for local people, TUE art afficianados and tourists walking Hadrian's Wall. TUE Over the next ten years over 300 artists exhibited at the TUE Banks, which was also the base from which Li's TUE organisation, the LYC Foundation, was able to commission TUE work by young British artists, some of whom became very TUE successful later, including sculptors and land artists TUE Andy Goldsworthy, David Nash and Bill Woodrow. TUE Li's own work moved into abstract sculpture, using TUE magnets, gold leaf, plastic discs suspended on plastic TUE thread and additional text. The landscape also affected TUE him, and he began to explore photography and environmental TUE art. Always, he wrote poetry. TUE But after Arts Council funding became increasingly TUE limited, the LYC Foundation had to struggle to survive. Li TUE continued to produce art, which became increasingly TUE contemplative. He fell ill with cancer and died in 1994. TUE Art historians now acknowledge Li Yuan Chia as having TUE paved the way for the current expansion of Chinese TUE contemporary art. But his former home in Cumbria is TUE derelict. TUE TUE 12:00 You and Yours b00pbq17 (Listen) TUE Consumer news and issues with Julian Worricker. TUE TUE 12:57 Weather b00pbq2s (Listen) TUE The latest weather forecast. TUE TUE 13:00 World at One b00pbqbh (Listen) TUE National and international news with Martha Kearney. TUE TUE 13:30 Tales from the Stave b00pcjh2 (Listen) TUE Chopin: Barcarolle TUE Frances Fyfield tracks down the stories behind the scores TUE of well-known pieces of music. TUE Frances is joined by Chopin expert Adam Zamoyski and TUE pianist Stephen Hough at the British Library to look at TUE the autographed score of Chopin's Barcarolle. The library TUE is holding a major exhibition in 2010 to mark the 200th TUE anniversary of his birth. TUE The greater part of Chopin's professional career was spent TUE outside his native Poland - most of it in Paris, where he TUE established himself as a fashionable teacher and performer TUE in the houses of the wealthy. With a background of TUE Venetian gondoliers' songs combined with Polish TUE references, the Barcarolle for solo piano was completed in TUE 1846 and meant so much to Chopin that he included it in TUE the programme of a concert he gave in Paris in February TUE 1848. It was to be his last public appearance in his TUE beloved adopted city. His body succumbed to lifelong ill TUE health a year later at the age of 39. TUE TUE 14:00 The Archers b00pbqyz (Listen) TUE [Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday.] TUE TUE 14:15 Afternoon Play b00pcjh4 (Listen) TUE The Three Knots TUE Drama about faith and the supernatural by Linda Cracknell, TUE set in 19th-century Scotland. Two men stranded on a TUE mountain on a stormy December night meet a mysterious old TUE woman who believes she can control the elements. TUE Angus ...... Finn den Hertog TUE Thomas ...... Robert Jack TUE Old Woman ...... Gerda Stevenson TUE Elizabeth ...... Hannah Donaldson TUE Minister ...... Jimmy Chisholm TUE Directed by Kirsty Williams. TUE TUE 15:00 Home Planet b00pcjh6 (Listen) TUE About 4.5 billion years ago the newly formed planet Earth TUE was in collision with a planet the size of Mars, a TUE cataclysmic event that gave birth to the Moon. But the TUE impact was so huge that it left one listener puzzled as to TUE why the Earth remained in place instead of spinning off TUE into interstellar space. Listeners also want to know what TUE the Earth was like, much later, when it was a few degrees TUE warmer than today and if that offers us any hints for the TUE future. TUE What, too, is the future of UK forestry; how do plants' TUE need for oxygen balance out with their production of this TUE crucial gas and how is it possible for astronomers to TUE detect the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation? TUE We also want your help in finding out how the New Year TUE festivities affect roosting birds. Do you have a nestbox TUE camera which shows black-and-white pictures using infrared TUE lighting? If you do, Graham Appleton from the BTO, one of TUE our regular panelists, would like to know if you have TUE birds roosting in your nest box. We'd like you to turn on TUE your camera on New Year's Eve to see how much disturbance TUE fireworks cause. Graham will be with us on 4 January to TUE discuss your responses. Remember, this needs to be an TUE infrared camera. You don't want to wake up birds by TUE turning on a normal light. TUE On the panel are astronomer Dr Carolin Crawford of TUE Cambridge University, plant geneticist Professor Denis TUE Murphy of the University of Glamorgan, and forestry expert TUE Dr Nick Brown of Oxford University. TUE If you have any comments on the topics discussed or any TUE questions you might want to put to future programmes, TUE please do let us know. TUE TUE 15:30 Afternoon Reading b008vv5m (Listen) TUE Scene of the Crime, From the River's Mouth TUE Stories by leading crime writers. TUE By Stella Duffy. TUE The malign and sultry River Thames exacts a watery revenge. TUE Read on location by Samantha Bond in the Greenwich Foot TUE Tunnel. TUE TUE 15:45 The Santa Tapes b00pfm8n (Listen) TUE White Beard TUE Alan Dein unwraps the oral history of Santa Claus, hearing TUE the true stories of those who have donned the red and TUE white costume, from war-torn Hungary to the icy wastes of TUE Alaska. TUE Playing Santa is often the last job in a lifetime of work. TUE Donning the red and white costume is often a way to TUE reconnect with a new generation in the age of want, as TUE Alan Dein discovers. TUE TUE 16:00 Word of Mouth b00pck26 (Listen) TUE Michael Rosen takes apart some jokes to try to find out TUE why they're funny. After he puts them back together, they TUE don't seem to work very well. TUE TUE 16:30 Great Lives b00pcklz (Listen) TUE Series 20, Vivian Stanshall TUE Matthew Parris presents the biographical series in which TUE his guests choose someone who has inspired their lives. TUE Musician and performer Neil Innes discusses the life of TUE his Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band colleague and friend Vivian TUE Stanshall. Neil recalls the moment he met Vivian Stanshall TUE in London: he was wearing Billy Bunter trousers, a TUE Victorian frock coat and horrible purple pince-nez glasses TUE and carrying a euphonium. So began a friendship and a TUE musical partnership that exploded into life with The Bonzo TUE Dog Doo Dah Band, culminating in tours and TV series. TUE Vivian's second wife, Ki Longfellow, joins the discussion TUE to help explore the man behind the colourful public TUE persona. TUE TUE 16:56 1989: Day by Day b00pbrxw (Listen) TUE 22nd December 1989 TUE Sir John Tusa looks back at the events making the news 20 TUE years ago. TUE Romanian President Ceausescu is caught as he tries to TUE escape. TUE A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4. TUE TUE 17:00 PM b00pbs0d (Listen) TUE Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Eddie TUE Mair. Plus Weather. TUE TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News b00pbs6d (Listen) TUE The latest national and international news from BBC Radio TUE 4. TUE TUE 18:30 Sneakiepeeks b00pckm1 (Listen) TUE Trust TUE Comedy by Harry Venning and Neil Brand about a team of TUE inept, backstabbing surveillance operatives. TUE Beagle Team undertake a top secret Category G surveillance TUE operation. TUE Bill ...... Richard Lumsden TUE Sharla ...... Nina Conti TUE Mark ...... Daniel Kaluuya TUE Mrs A ......Kate Layden TUE Mr A ...... Ewan Hooper TUE Justine ...... Tessa Nicholson TUE David ...... Ewan Bailey TUE Delphine ...... Kate Layden. TUE TUE 19:00 The Archers b00pbqxh (Listen) TUE Robert and Lynda have an early Christmas. TUE TUE 19:15 Front Row b00pbsgx (Listen) TUE Arts news and reviews with John Wilson, including a TUE selection of radio programmes to listen out for over TUE Christmas. TUE TUE 19:45 Woman's Hour Drama b00pbt9d (Listen) TUE Someone Like You, Skin TUE Dramatisation by Stephen Sheridan of five darkly comic TUE tales by Roald Dahl. TUE An astonishing work of art is created on a drunken night TUE in Paris. TUE Storyteller ...... Charles Dance TUE Old Drioli ...... John Evitts TUE Young Drioli ...... Tom Bevan TUE Soutine ...... Rob Heaps TUE Josie ...... Donnla Hughes TUE Art Collector ...... David Collings TUE Gallery Owner ...... Ian Masters TUE Directed by David Blount TUE A Pier production for BBC Radio 4. TUE TUE 20:00 The New Art of Diplomacy b00pckm3 (Listen) TUE Episode 2 TUE James Naughtie asks if British diplomacy is still fit for TUE purpose. TUE A century ago, much of the map of the world was coloured TUE with the pink of the British Empire. Britain's diplomats TUE reigned supreme, with the reassurance of a gunboat to TUE support them. Much has changed since that time, and TUE continues to change. As Britain faces new threats and new TUE priorities across the globe, how are the foreign office TUE and its diplomats changing? TUE TUE 20:40 In Touch b00pckm5 (Listen) TUE Peter White with news and information for the blind and TUE partially sighted. TUE TUE 21:00 All in the Mind b00pckm7 (Listen) TUE Alois Alzheimer, Hans Asperger, Sergei Korsakoff all lent TUE their names to the disease, syndrome or autistic disorder TUE that they first identified. Claudia Hammond talks to TUE Professor Douwe Draaisma about the personal background of TUE these brain researchers as well as the individual patients TUE on which such scientific breakthroughs were made. TUE TUE 21:30 Defining The Decade b00pcd3z (Listen) TUE [Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today.] TUE TUE 21:58 Weather b00pbtjl (Listen) TUE The latest weather forecast. TUE TUE 22:00 The World Tonight b00pbtm9 (Listen) TUE National and international news and analysis with Roger TUE Hearing. TUE TUE 22:45 Book at Bedtime b00pbvnt (Listen) TUE The Ingoldsby Legends, The Spectre of Tapton, Part 2 TUE Nicholas Murchie and Lucy Robinson read from a collection TUE of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry supposedly TUE written by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, but TUE actually penned by the Rev Richard Barham, first published TUE in book form in 1840. TUE The strange tale of a trouser-stealing ghost continued. TUE Why the unsatiable appetite for pantaloons, and where are TUE they being taken? TUE Abriged by Robin Brooks. TUE A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4. TUE TUE 23:00 Vent b00pckm9 (Listen) TUE Series 3, When Was The Last Time You Saw Your Godfather? TUE Comedy series by Nigel Smith about a man in a coma, TUE travelling through the distinctly odd landscape of his own TUE unconscious mind. TUE Ben is invited to be godfather to an ex-girlfriend's baby. TUE Mary isn't impressed and there's a showdown on the TUE stairlift. Meanwhile St Paul gives Ben tips on TUE responsibility and where to get the best olives. TUE Ben ...... Neil Pearson TUE Mary ...... Fiona Allen TUE Mum ...... Josie Lawrence TUE Blitz ...... Leslie Ash TUE Nurse ...... Jo Martin TUE Derek ...... Stephen Frost TUE Marley ...... Spencer Brown TUE Bea ...... Scarlett Milburn-Smith TUE Karl ...... Matthew Kelly TUE Sophie ...... Abigail Burdess TUE Priest/St Paul ...... Richard Johnson TUE Directed by Nigel Smith. TUE TUE 23:30 Take Two b00grgkd (Listen) TUE Series 2, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Walter Legge TUE Richard Coles presents a discussion series looking at TUE collaborations between two musicians. TUE Richard examines the musical and domestic partnership of TUE singer Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and record producer Walter TUE Legge. In conversation with the pianist Graham Johnson and TUE TUE WED WEDNESDAY 23 DECEMBER 2009 WED WED 00:00 Midnight News b00pbnbw (Listen) WED The latest national and international news from BBC Radio WED 4. Followed by Weather. WED WED 00:30 Book of the Week b00pbpcf (Listen) WED [Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Tuesday.] WED WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast b00pbncz (Listen) WED The latest shipping forecast. WED WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes b00pbnh4 (Listen) WED BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. WED WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast b00pbng5 (Listen) WED The latest shipping forecast. WED WED 05:30 News Briefing b00pbnrh (Listen) WED The latest news from BBC Radio 4. WED WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day b00pbntw (Listen) WED Daily prayer and reflection with Bishop Alan Abernethy. WED Good Morning. WED It is still an uncomfortable memory; the emotions are WED still clear in my mind. It was a sibling rivalry moment. WED My older brother and I were having a disagreement well it WED was actually an argument which led to a physical fight. I WED certainly got my strike in first and it hurt, it was WED obvious from his reaction that I had caused serious pain. WED He then moved to retaliation and I was truly sorry. He WED grabbed me and pushed me into the cloakroom. This small WED place was a cupboard in our living room that was under the WED stairs and it sloped in such a way that even at the age of WED 10 I couldn’t stand up. I kicked and screamed as I was now WED in a small and confined space and it was very dark. It WED seemed as if I was in there for a long time but apparently WED he was concerned by my reaction that he opened the door WED fairly quickly. My memory is one of terror; I was rigid WED with fear and was exhausted and relieved when the door WED opened. WED I have experienced fear since; and it still numbs and WED causes panic. It is difficult to deal with fear as it can WED often be irrational. However there are times it is WED appropriate, when my car is about to collide with another WED and my whole life flashes in front of me or as a parent WED when I for a split second cannot find my child in the WED crowd. WED The fear of the shepherds is one of the things that strike WED me as I read the Christmas story. In fact we are told they WED were terrified. They couldn’t make sense of what they WED witnessed or the message they were given and yet they WED moved beyond their fear and found the babe lying in the WED manger. WED Lord we pray for those who are fearful of the future or WED fearful for a loved one that at this Christmas time, they WED may find peace. Amen. WED WED 05:45 Farming Today b00pbnwr (Listen) WED News and issues in rural Britain with Kate Williams. WED WED 06:00 Today b00pbnzl (Listen) WED With John Humphrys and James Naughtie. Including Sports WED Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day. WED WED 09:00 Midweek b00pcl7d (Listen) WED Lively and diverse conversation with Libby Purves and WED guests including composer Howard Goodhall. WED WED 09:45 Book of the Week b00pbpch (Listen) WED Paw Tracks in the Moonlight, Episode 3 WED Kevin Whately reads from Denis O'Connor's memoir. WED Having hand-reared the tiny kitten he rescued from the WED snow, O'Connor and Toby Jug settle in to life together. WED All is going swimmingly until they have problems with WED tomatoes and a swarm of bees. WED Abridged by Jane Marshall. WED A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4. WED WED 10:00 Woman's Hour b00pchxn (Listen) WED With Jane Garvey. Including drama: Someone Like You. WED WED 11:00 In Living Memory b00pcl7g (Listen) WED Series 11, Sunday Trading WED Contemporary history series. WED On the 28th August 1994, shops legally opened their doors WED on the Sabbath for the first time in over 40 years. Chris WED Ledgard asks if the greater freedom to shop came at too WED high a price: the loss of the Great British Sunday. WED WED 11:30 Ballylenon b00pcl7j (Listen) WED Series 7, Episode 5 WED Comedy drama series by Christopher Fitz-Simon, set in the WED 1950s in a Donegal town. WED Bernard Gallagher has resigned from the police force to WED take up a singing career and, while lodging with the WED Maconchy sisters at the post office, makes a devastating WED discovery. WED Muriel Maconchy ...... Margaret D'Arcy WED Vera Maconchy ...... Stella McCusker WED Phonsie Doherty ...... Gerard Murphy WED Vivienne Hawthorne ...... Annie McCartney WED Stumpy Bonner ...... Gerard McSorley WED Guard Gallagher ...... Frankie McCafferty WED Pianist: Michael Harrison WED Directed by Eoin O'Callaghan WED This episode is available until 11.30am on 6th January WED 2010 as part of the Series Catch-up Trial. WED WED 12:00 You and Yours b00pbq19 (Listen) WED Consumer news and issues with Peter White. WED WED 12:57 Weather b00pbq2v (Listen) WED The latest weather forecast. WED WED 13:00 World at One b00pbqbk (Listen) WED National and international news with Martha Kearney. WED WED 13:30 The Media Show b00pcl7l (Listen) WED Steve Hewlett presents a topical programme about the WED fast-changing media world. WED WED 14:00 The Archers b00pbqxh (Listen) WED [Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Tuesday.] WED WED 14:15 Afternoon Play b00pcl7n (Listen) WED Black Hearts in Battersea, Episode 1 WED Dramatisation by Lin Coghlan of Joan Aiken's classic WED children's adventure. Young Simon comes to 18th-century WED London to study painting and finds himself caught up in WED wicked Hanoverian plots to overthrow the King. WED Duke ...... John Rowe WED Duchess ...... Sheila Reid WED Dido ...... Nicola Miles-Wildin WED Simon ...... Joe Dempsie WED Cobbe/Nobby/Soldier ...... Ben Crowe WED Mrs C ...... Annabelle Dowler WED Justin ...... Sam Pamphilon WED Buckle/Bloke ...... Nigel Hastings WED Dr F/Man ...... Bruce Alexander WED Gus/Nose ...... Joseph Cohen Cole WED Jabwing/Fothers ...... Piers Wehner WED Mr T/Hawker ...... Rhys Jennings WED Mrs T/Woman 2 ...... Tessa Nicholson WED Sophie ...... Emerald O'Hanrahan WED Woman ...... Kate Layden WED Part of the BBC Christmas 2009 season. WED WED 15:00 Money Box Live b00pclfg (Listen) WED Paul Lewis and a panel of guests answer calls on WED charitable giving. WED Guests: WED John Low, chief executive, Charities Aid Foundation WED Clive Cutbill, consultant, Withersworld WED Les Hems, director, Guidestar. WED WED 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal b00pb902 (Listen) WED [Repeat of broadcast at 07:55 on Sunday.] WED WED 15:30 Afternoon Reading b008vv5r (Listen) WED Scene of the Crime, Blackfriars Bridge WED Stories by leading crime writers. WED By Anthony Horowitz. WED This humorous retelling of the detailed planning of the WED perfect crime is set against the sounds of one of London's WED best-known bridges. WED Read by Robert Bathurst. WED WED 15:45 The Santa Tapes b00pfm8d (Listen) WED Shop Store Santa WED Alan Dein unwraps the oral history of Santa Claus, hearing WED the true stories of those who have donned the red and WED white costume, from war-torn Hungary to the icy wastes of WED Alaska. WED In Liverpool, in one of Britain's oldest grottos, Santa WED finds Christmas present very different to his Christmas WED past. WED WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed b00pclfj (Listen) WED The new bourgeoisie played an enormously important role in WED the history of industrial and imperial Britain. The extent WED to which cousin marriage proliferated in the 19th century WED relates to the central question as to which people were WED going to lead Industrial England. WED Close-knit families in Victorian England delivered WED enormous advantages. They shaped vocations, generated WED patronage, yielded vital commercial information and gave WED access to capital; no wonder that marriage within the WED family, between cousins or between in-laws, was a WED characteristic strategy of this new bourgeoisie. WED Laurie Taylor discusses private life in 19th-century WED England with Adam Kuper, the author of Incest and WED Influence: The Private Life of Bourgeois England, and WED Catherine Hall, professor of modern British social and WED cultural history at University College, London. WED WED 16:30 All in the Mind b00pckm7 (Listen) WED [Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday.] WED WED 16:56 1989: Day by Day b00pbrxy (Listen) WED 23rd December 1989 WED Sir John Tusa looks back at the events making the news 20 WED years ago. WED Intense fighting continues in Romania. WED A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4. WED WED 17:00 PM b00pbs0g (Listen) WED Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Eddie WED Mair. Plus Weather. WED WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News b00pbs6g (Listen) WED The latest national and international news from BBC Radio WED 4. WED WED 18:30 Laura Solon: Talking and Not Talking b00pcllf (Listen) WED Series 3, Episode 6 WED Perrier Award-winning comedian Laura Solon presents a WED series of sketches, monologues and one-liners. WED Domestic goddess Sue Morgan offers her own take on the WED perfect Christmas, call centre demon Gwyneth finally faces WED judgement, and we gain access to the Institute for Useless WED Scientific Research. WED With Ben Moor, Rosie Cavaliero and Ben Willbond. WED WED 19:00 The Archers b00pbqxk (Listen) WED Cupid's arrow misses the mark at The Bull. WED WED 19:15 Front Row b00pbsgz (Listen) WED Arts news and reviews. Mark Lawson talks to the names WED behind the arts headlines of the year, including Joanna WED Lumley, Dizzee Rascal and Carol Ann Duffy, who became Poet WED Laureate. WED WED 19:45 Woman's Hour Drama b00pbt9g (Listen) WED Someone Like You, Lamb to the Slaughter WED Dramatisation by Stephen Sheridan of five darkly comic WED tales by Roald Dahl. WED An unfaithful husband is killed with an unusual weapon. WED Storyteller ...... Charles Dance WED Mary Maloney ...... Lorelei King WED Patrick/Sam/Noonan ...... Kerry Shale WED O'Malley ...... Tom Bevan WED Directed by David Blount WED A Pier production for BBC Radio 4. WED WED 20:00 Unreliable Evidence b00pcm4l (Listen) WED Too Much Information WED Clive Anderson presents the series analysing the legal WED issues of the day. WED A major study has claimed that a quarter of government WED databases are illegal and lead to vulnerable people being WED victimised. Just how much information about us is in WED circulation and what are our rights to access, control and WED erase it? WED WED 20:45 The Watchdog and the Feral Beast b00p6820 (Listen) WED Episode 2 WED Sir Christopher Meyer, press watchdog until this year as WED chairman of the Press Complaints Commission and former WED press secretary at Number 10, discusses the role of the WED press today. Is the press today freedom's guardian or is WED it a 'feral beast', as Tony Blair described the media at WED the end of his premiership? WED Sir Christopher draws on his personal experience as press WED watchdog and government spokesman. In his six years WED chairing the PCC, where he dealt with complaints against WED newspapers and magazines, he championed a free press and WED self-regulation, but had to contend with controversies WED that sometimes strained people's trust in the press. WED His health check on the press comes at a time when opinion WED is polarised. Is the press out of control, or is it more WED constrained than ever before by the law? Is the press WED destroying trust in our democracy, or are politicians WED giving the press undue importance by courting editors and WED journalists? Is the press too powerful, or is it WED vulnerable because of competition from the internet, much WED of it free and unregulated? WED And now that the printed word and audio-visual content WED appear together on the same website, what is the future WED for self-regulation by the press? WED WED 21:00 The Infinite Monkey Cage b00pbx28 (Listen) WED [Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Monday.] WED WED 21:30 Midweek b00pcl7d (Listen) WED [Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today.] WED WED 21:58 Weather b00pbtjn (Listen) WED The latest weather forecast. WED WED 22:00 The World Tonight b00pbtmc (Listen) WED National and international news and analysis with Robin WED Lustig. WED WED 22:45 Book at Bedtime b00pbvnw (Listen) WED The Ingoldsby Legends, Nell Cook WED Nicholas Murchie and Lucy Robinson read from a collection WED of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry supposedly WED written by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, but WED actually penned by the Rev Richard Barham, first published WED in book form in 1840. WED A part-comic, part-terrifying poetic portrayal of baked WED meat and bloody murder, as a housekeeper takes a certain WED dislike of her master's houseguest. WED Abriged by Robin Brooks. WED A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4. WED WED 23:00 Bespoken Word b00lbsh0 (Listen) WED Performance poetry series. Featuring a reading by Adrian WED Mitchell, who died in 2008, of an updated version of his WED poem To Whom It May Concern, recorded in the last year of WED his life. Plus an appearance by performance poet Mister WED Gee. WED WED 23:15 All Bar Luke b00dp2nh (Listen) WED Series 3, The Wedding WED Poignant comedy drama series by Tim Key. WED The love of Luke's life, Hayley, finally marries his WED brother. In an explosive climax, Luke is forced to stand WED in for Lee at the wedding reception. WED An Angel Eye Media production for BBC Radio 4. WED WED 23:30 Take Two b00h30yr (Listen) WED Series 2, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen WED Richard Coles presents a discussion series looking at WED collaborations between two musicians. WED Richard analyses the partnership between Walter Becker and WED Donald Fagen, who formed the band Steely Dan in 1971. He WED is joined by author Brian Sweet and music journalist David WED Hepworth to analyse how the collaboration between Becker WED and Fagen developed and what effect it had on the popular WED music of the time. The programme also features extracts of WED some of the band's music and archives of interviews given WED by the band members over the years. WED WED THU THURSDAY 24 DECEMBER 2009 THU THU 00:00 Midnight News b00pbnby (Listen) THU The latest national and international news from BBC Radio THU 4. Followed by Weather. THU THU 00:30 Book of the Week b00pbpch (Listen) THU [Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Wednesday.] THU THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast b00pbnd1 (Listen) THU The latest shipping forecast. THU THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes b00pbnh6 (Listen) THU BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. THU THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast b00pbng7 (Listen) THU The latest shipping forecast. THU THU 05:30 News Briefing b00pbnrk (Listen) THU The latest news from BBC Radio 4. THU THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day b00pbnty (Listen) THU Daily prayer and reflection with Bishop Alan Abernethy. THU Good Morning. THU I live in Belfast and the River Lagan runs through the THU heart of the city. There is a cycle and pedestrian towpath THU that runs along the river and stretches for miles. I often THU cycle along this path and the sounds are amazing; the THU lapping of the river and the endless bird song. It is THU wonderful that in the heart of the city there is this THU oasis of peace and quiet. Although I do find it strange THU that so many people who walk, jog or cycle along this path THU are attached to their earphones and music. There are so THU many public places that are filled with background noise THU and music. THU Silence is increasingly difficult to find with the THU constant whirring of machines and the need to be available THU at the end of a mobile phone. The technological world THU means instant communication and nowhere to just be still THU and quiet. One of the joys of deep friendship is that gift THU of being able to be with somebody and not having to say THU anything. Silence is something that refreshes and gives THU time and space for reflection. On this Christmas Eve I am THU conscious of the silence of the Bethlehem moment. If the THU Nativity were to take place today the world’s media would THU be present, there would be various public relations THU companies giving advice and the noise would drown out the THU mystery. But then there were only a few shepherds, a few THU strangers from the East in a town that was far from being THU the hub of the universe. THU “How silently, how silently, THU The wondrous gift is given, THU When God imparts to human hearts THU The blessings of His heaven.” THU Lord in the noise that surrounds Christmas, help us this THU Christmas Eve to hear you in the silence of Bethlehem. THU Amen. THU THU 05:45 Farming Today b00pbnwt (Listen) THU News and issues in rural Britain with Kate Williams. THU THU 06:00 Today b00pbnzn (Listen) THU With John Humphrys and James Naughtie. Including Sports THU Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day. THU THU 09:00 In Our Time b00pcm9f (Listen) THU The Samurai THU Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rise, fall and legacy THU of the Samurai. THU THU 09:45 Book of the Week b00pbpck (Listen) THU Paw Tracks in the Moonlight, Episode 4 THU Kevin Whately reads from Denis O'Connor's memoir. THU O'Connor has been asked to look after a colleague's horse THU over the summer holidays and decides to go trekking in the THU Cheviot Hills, accompanied by his Maine Coon kitten, Toby THU Jug. THU Abridged by Jane Marshall. THU A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4. THU THU 10:00 Woman's Hour b00pchxq (Listen) THU With Jane Garvey. Including drama: Someone Like You. THU THU 11:00 Crossing Continents b00pcn0y (Listen) THU Sweden THU Writer Andrew Brown tries to find out if the rural heart THU of Sweden still lives on in the modern age. In an THU entertaining and unpredictable journey he goes in search THU of wolves, egg-tossing merrymakers and the ideal of the THU Swedish summer. THU THU 11:30 The Frost Collection b00pcn10 (Listen) THU Series 2, Episode 1 THU Sir David Frost and guests look back at some of the most THU memorable interviews of his long career. With Sir Tim THU Rice, Imogen Stubbs and Anne Atkins. THU THU 12:00 You and Yours b00pbq1c (Listen) THU Consumer news and issues with Julian Worricker. THU THU 12:57 Weather b00pbq2x (Listen) THU The latest weather forecast. THU THU 13:00 World at One b00pbqbm (Listen) THU National and international news with Shaun Ley. THU THU 13:30 Questions, Questions b00pd150 (Listen) THU Stewart Henderson answers those intriguing questions from THU everyday life. THU A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4. THU THU 14:00 The Archers b00pbqxk (Listen) THU [Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Wednesday.] THU THU 14:15 Afternoon Play b00pd18h (Listen) THU Black Hearts in Battersea, Episode 2 THU Dramatisation by Lin Coghlan of Joan Aiken's classic THU children's adventure. THU To save the King from Hanoverian plotters, Simon and THU Sophie must first suffer shipwreck, attacks by wolves and THU a narrow escape from an exploding hot air balloon. THU Duke ...... John Rowe THU Duchess ...... Sheila Reid THU Dido ...... Nicola Miles-Wildin THU Simon ...... Joe Dempsie THU Cobbe/Captain M ...... Ben Crowe THU Mrs C ...... Annabelle Dowler THU Justin ...... Sam Pamphilon THU Buckle ...... Nigel Hastings THU Dr F/King J ...... Bruce Alexander THU Gus/Stall Holder ...... Joseph Cohen Cole THU Jabwing ...... Piers Wehner THU Mr T/Bird ...... Rhys Jennings THU Mrs T ...... Tessa Nicholson THU Sophie ...... Emerald O'Hanrahan THU Coachman/Mogg ...... John Biggins THU Field ...... Ewan Hooper THU Mrs B ...... Kate Layden. THU THU 15:00 Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols b00pd1bb (Listen) THU Stephen Cleobury directs the choir for the annual Festival THU of Nine Lessons and Carols live from the Chapel of King's THU College, Cambridge. THU The pattern of the Festival, based around nine Bible THU readings interspersed with carols, has remained the same THU for over 90 years. It unfolds the great mystery of how God THU came into the world in human form, and for millions across THU the globe it heralds the beginning of Christmas. THU THU 16:30 Material World b00pd293 (Listen) THU Quentin Cooper and guests take part in a question and THU answer edition of the programme. THU THU 16:56 1989: Day by Day b00pbry0 (Listen) THU 24th December 1989 THU Sir John Tusa looks back at the events making the news 20 THU years ago. THU General Noriega is surrounded as he seeks refuge in Panama. THU A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4. THU THU 17:00 PM b00pbs0j (Listen) THU Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Ritula THU Shah. Plus Weather. THU THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News b00pbs6j (Listen) THU The latest national and international news from BBC Radio THU 4. THU THU 18:15 The News At Bedtime b00nvyj4 (Listen) THU Episode 1 THU Twin presenters John Tweedledum and Jim Tweedledee present THU in-depth news analysis covering the latest stories THU happening this 'once upon a time'. THU The scandal of Jack and his genetically-modified beanstalk. THU With Jack Dee, Peter Capaldi, Chris Addison, Lewis THU MacLeod, Lucy Montgomery, Vicki Pepperdine, Dan Tetsell. THU Written by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman. THU THU 18:30 Andy Zaltzman's History of the Third Millennium, THU Series 1 of b00pd295 (Listen) THU Britain THU Political comedian Andy Zaltzman presents a THU decade-by-decade comic analysis of the third millennium, THU covering the 2000-2009 period of what is already shaping THU up to be a troubled thousand years. THU Andy looks at the things that make Britain truly British, THU by means of in-depth analysis, extensive research and time THU travel. THU With Rory Bremner, Bridget Christie, Lucy Montgomery and THU Kim Wall. THU THU 19:00 The Archers b00pbqxm (Listen) THU Bridge Farm relives an old tradition. THU THU 19:15 Front Row b00pbsh1 (Listen) THU Arts news and reviews. Mark Lawson talks to more of the THU names behind the year's arts headlines, including Booker THU Prize winner Hilary Mantel. THU THU 19:45 Woman's Hour Drama b00pbt9k (Listen) THU Someone Like You, Dip in the Pool THU Dramatisation by Stephen Sheridan of five darkly comic THU tales by Roald Dahl. THU A passenger on an ocean liner takes a desperate gamble. THU Storyteller ...... Charles Dance THU Mr Botibol ...... John Baddeley THU Mrs Renshaw/Maggie ...... Rachel Atkins THU Purser ...... Nicholas Boulton THU Auctioneer ...... Chris Stanton THU Old Woman ...... Jean Trend THU Directed by David Blount THU A Pier production for BBC Radio 4. THU THU 20:00 That Reminds Me b00769ss (Listen) THU The late Ludovic Kennedy reminisces about his life. He THU remembers a very Eton schoolboy prank involving hiring a THU plane, and shares memories of his favourite interviewees THU from his 25 years as a TV broadcaster. THU THU 20:30 In Business b00pd297 (Listen) THU Organising Salvation THU Management guru Peter Drucker called the Salvation Army THU the most 'effective organisation in America'. Peter Day THU asks if that is true in Britain and finds out how the Army THU is bringing innovation to salvation. THU THU 21:00 What Scientists Believe b00pd299 (Listen) THU Episode 3 THU Philosopher Stephen Webster investigates the links between THU scientists' personal beliefs and their scientific work. He THU wants to know how an individual scientist's personal, THU psychological and intellectual qualities map onto their THU chosen area of science. How much of a scientist's THU personality is reflected in their work? Should subjective THU private beliefs be a part of objective scientific THU outcomes? What happens if tensions develop between a THU scientist's beliefs and the formal demands of science? If THU tensions arise, how can they be resolved? THU In this programme, Stephen meets zoologist Andrew Gosler. THU For more than 25 years, Andrew has been studying the Great THU Tit population in Wytham Wood near Oxford. Andrew greatly THU respects the animals he studies and the environment they THU inhabit. He finds inspiration working so closely with THU nature, and that inspiration motivates his scientific THU enquiries. But Andrew accepts that scientific description THU can only ever provide a partial description of reality. THU Science will never encapsulate Andrew's own, private and THU unique relationship with the world he studies. THU THU 21:30 In Our Time b00pcm9f (Listen) THU [Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today.] THU THU 21:58 Weather b00pbtjq (Listen) THU The latest weather forecast. THU THU 22:00 The World Tonight b00pbtmf (Listen) THU National and international news and analysis with Robin THU Lustig. THU THU 22:45 Book at Bedtime b00pbvny (Listen) THU The Ingoldsby Legends, A Singular Passage, Part 1 THU Nicholas Murchie and Lucy Robinson read from a collection THU of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry supposedly THU written by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, but THU actually penned by the Rev Richard Barham, first published THU in book form in 1840. THU A tale of black magic set in the depths of Romney Marsh, THU as a young woman is tormented by two men bent on exploring THU the dark arts. THU Abriged by Robin Brooks. THU A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4. THU THU 23:00 Chain Reaction b0093z9z (Listen) THU Series 4, Arabella Weir interviews Paul Whitehouse THU Chat show in which one week's interviewee becomes the next THU week's interviewer. Arabella Weir talks to Paul Whitehouse THU about The Fast Show, Down the Line and his career in THU comedy. THU THU 23:30 Midnight Mass b00pd29c (Listen) THU The first Mass of Christmas is celebrated from St Anne's THU Cathedral in Leeds. THU The celebrant and preacher is the Right Rev Arthur Roche, THU Bishop of Leeds. THU The choir of Leeds Cathedral, directed by Benjamin THU Saunders, sings a wealth of carols old and new; the THU setting is Mozart's joyful Missa Brevis in C (KV 259). THU Organist: Christopher McElroy. THU THU FRI FRIDAY 25 DECEMBER 2009 FRI FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast b00pbnd3 (Listen) FRI The latest shipping forecast. FRI FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes b00pbnh8 (Listen) FRI BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. FRI FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast b00pbng9 (Listen) FRI The latest shipping forecast. FRI FRI 05:30 News Briefing b00pbnrm (Listen) FRI The latest news from BBC Radio 4. FRI FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day b00pbnv0 (Listen) FRI Daily prayer and reflection with Bishop Alan Abernethy. FRI Good Morning. FRI The sight, sounds and smells of Christmas bombard my FRI memory. This is a time of year that has such a rich store FRI of things that make me smile. I can see my granny in her FRI small kitchen making the stuffing for the turkey. I can FRI remember helping my mum fill bottle after bottle with her FRI home made ginger wine. It certainly helped warm the inners FRI on a cold winter evening and this was a non alcoholic FRI wine. On Christmas morning early, at 5:30 our youth group FRI would meet and walk around the neighbourhood singing FRI carols outside the homes of the elderly and infirm. This FRI was followed by a real breakfast, an Ulster fry. There was FRI the fun of Christmas morning and the excitement of FRI presents, the one I remember best is the Northern Ireland FRI football shirt and unfortunately it is the closest I ever FRI came to wearing one. FRI Our family gathered in my auntie’s house on Christmas Day FRI and my granny insisted we were not allowed to open our FRI presents until after the Queen’s speech on television. I FRI remember feeling very envious of my grandfather who had FRI the patience to watch the joy of others as they opened FRI their presents and when all were opened he would slowly FRI and deliberately open his and say thank you to each donor FRI in person. Inevitably dinner would follow when we all ate FRI too much and the adults would fall asleep and my uncle FRI Ivor would be heard to say only 365 days to Christmas, and FRI then he would disappear and do the dishes. FRI This Christmas Day these memories still make me smile for FRI they are about, family, friendship, giving and thinking of FRI others. The babe lying in a manger was announced by a FRI heavenly host declaring good news of peace on earth and FRI goodwill among all people. And there is something about FRI this time of year and particularly this day of parties and FRI gifts that helps me capture the spirit of that goodwill. FRI Lord may we share the goodwill of Christmas with others FRI all year round and help those whose memories bring lonely FRI pain to find comfort. AMEN. FRI FRI 05:45 Farming Today b00pbnww (Listen) FRI Turkey is still the traditionalists' favourite for the FRI Christmas table, so Charlotte Smith discovers how to make FRI the best of your bird. FRI FRI 06:00 Archive on 4 b00kc071 (Listen) FRI A Laureate's Legacy - The Poetry Archive FRI Andrew Motion explores and tells the story of the proudest FRI legacy of his time as Poet Laureate, The Poetry Archive - FRI hundreds of poems, read by their authors and all available FRI online, free to everyone. FRI Motion's stint as Poet Laureate ended with predictable FRI discussions about his successor and what he did or didn't FRI do. But the lasting legacy of his laureateship and the FRI great achievement of his tenure is his creation, with FRI sound producer Richard Carrington, of the remarkable FRI online Poetry Archive, begun in 1999 and growing. It FRI includes contemporary poets reading their work, including FRI Seamus Heaney, UA Fanthorpe and Jackie Kay and historic FRI recordings by poets including Hilaire Belloc, Siegfried FRI Sassoon, WB Yeats and even Tennyson and Browning. As well FRI as the poems there are sections for children and teachers, FRI interviews with poets, poets in residence and useful FRI information about genres, forms and metres. If you want to FRI know what an anapaest is, or a pantoum, the Poetry Archive FRI can help. FRI Motion and Carrington talk about why they created the FRI archive, and state that there is more to it than simply FRI preserving poets reading their work. Motion develops his FRI theme that poetry is primarily an aural art, and what this FRI reveals. The poet's voice is fundamental: the windswept FRI moor is in the voice of Ted Hughes; Charles Causley's FRI Cornish accent and dialect are important. The sound of a FRI poem is an aspect of its meaning. At the recording session FRI when Carol Ann Duffy reads her book Rapture for the FRI archive, Richard Carrington speaks about his role: not to FRI coax a performance so much as to help the poets to be FRI themselves. FRI Andrew Motion and Richard Carrington lead us around the FRI archive, playing gems that we might otherwise have missed. FRI They talk, too, about what is missing, and appeal to FRI people who might have recordings. For example, they do not FRI know how Thomas Hardy, AE Housman and DH Lawrence sounded FRI because as far as we know they never made recordings. But FRI they might have, and one day they might turn up. FRI Related Links FRI * The Poetry Archive (www.poetryarchive.org) FRI FRI 07:00 Bryn Terfel Masters Wine b00m83p0 (Listen) FRI Opera singer Bryn Terfel explores his love of wine and FRI attempts to become a master sommelier. Taking a break from FRI the stage, Bryn meets some of the world's finest wine FRI experts and finds out what the role of sommelier involves, FRI from tasting to service to food matching. FRI Featuring contributions from wine writer Sarah Ahmed, FRI chief examiner for The Court of Master Sommeliers Brian FRI Julyan, managing director of Cullen Wines Vanya Cullen, FRI sommelier at Gidleigh Park Restaurant Edouard Oger, FRI restaurant manager at High Timber Restaurant Neleen FRI Strauss and Master of Wine at Berry Bros Alun Griffiths. FRI FRI 07:30 The Museum of Curiosity b00ksvt5 (Listen) FRI Series 2, Episode 6 FRI John Lloyd and Sean Lock host a panel show in which three FRI guests donate fascinating exhibits to a vast imaginary FRI museum. With Clive James, Tim Minchin and Philip Pullman. FRI FRI 08:00 Desert Island Discs b00pbltz (Listen) FRI [Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 on Sunday.] FRI FRI 08:45 The Santa Tapes b00pfm97 (Listen) FRI Santa's Everywhere FRI Alan Dein unwraps the oral history of Santa Claus, hearing FRI the true stories of those who have donned the red and FRI white costume, from war-torn Hungary to the icy wastes of FRI Alaska. FRI FRI 09:00 Christmas Service b00pd3fd (Listen) FRI A service with carols old and new from All Souls Church, FRI Langham Place in London's West End. Preacher: Rev Hugh FRI Palmer. With the All Souls Choir, directed by Noel FRI Tredinnick. FRI FRI 09:45 Book of the Week b00pbpcm (Listen) FRI Paw Tracks in the Moonlight, Episode 5 FRI Kevin Whately reads from Denis O'Connor's memoir. FRI It's Christmas Day and Denis O'Connor reflects on how much FRI better his life has become since he rescued the kitten, FRI Toby Jug. FRI Abridged by Jane Marshall. FRI A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4. FRI FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour b00pkxzp (Listen) FRI With Jane Garvey. Including drama: Someone Like You. FRI FRI 11:00 A Funny Sort of Sound b00l92sr (Listen) FRI Julian Clary pays tribute to the wit and ingenuity of FRI comedy musical acts. He considers the appeal of acts like FRI TV's Mr Muscle, Tony Holland, who won Opportunity Knocks FRI six times in a row by flexing his biceps to the tune of FRI Wheels Cha Cha, and Bob - AKA Tray - Blackman, whose act FRI consisted of bashing a tea tray on his head while singing FRI Mule Train. FRI Julian also considers how the genre has evolved from the FRI heyday of music hall theatre, and talks to Ken Dodd and FRI Jim Tavare. FRI A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4. FRI FRI 11:30 Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! b00pd5n7 (Listen) FRI Series 5, Murder Most Fouled Up FRI Spoof reminiscences of a former variety star. Count Arthur FRI Strong is an expert in everything from the world of FRI entertainment to the origins of the species, all false FRI starts and nervous fumbling, poorly concealed by a FRI delicate sheen of bravado and self-assurance. FRI Arthur steps in at short notice to play a prominent role FRI in a Murder Mystery evening for Lord and Lady Preston, his FRI new 'best friends'. Who committed the heinous murder? Can FRI Count Arthur solve the case? Did he do it? Was it the FRI butler? FRI With Steve Delaney, Mel Giedroyc, David Mounfield and FRI Alastair Kerr. FRI A Komedia Entertainment/Smooth Operations production for FRI BBC Radio 4. FRI FRI 12:00 News b00pd5nr (Listen) FRI The latest national and international news from BBC Radio FRI 4. FRI FRI 12:04 Loose Ends b00pd5r6 (Listen) FRI Clive Anderson reflects on the gloriously eclectic musical FRI heritage that Loose Ends endowed to a grateful nation in FRI 2009. FRI Featuring Andy Williams, Elvis Costello, Mary Wilson, Ray FRI Davies, Stewart Copeland, Jarvis Cocker, Jamie Cullum, FRI Charles Hazlewood, Brett Anderson, Sharon Shannon, The FRI Kenyan Boys Choir and Mercury Prize winner Speech Debelle. FRI FRI 13:00 With Great Pleasure b00pd5r8 (Listen) FRI With Great Pleasure at Christmas FRI Political journalist and Today programme presenter James FRI Naughtie shares some of the pieces of prose and verse FRI which have entertained and inspired him over the years. FRI The readers include Alison Steadman and Bill Paterson. FRI FRI 14:00 The Archers b00pbqxm (Listen) FRI [Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Thursday.] FRI FRI 14:15 Afternoon Play b00p93sy (Listen) FRI No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Tea Time for the FRI Traditionally Built FRI Written and dramatised by Alexander McCall Smith, from his FRI hugely popular series of books set in Botswana. FRI Precious Ramotswe, owner of The No 1 Ladies' Detective FRI Agency, is about to get in over her head. She's got an FRI important new client from the incomprehensible world of FRI football, but she's on her own as her loyal assistant Mma FRI Makutsi is distracted by the return of a troublesome FRI figure from her past. FRI Mma Ramotswe ...... Claire Benedict FRI Mma Makutsi ...... Nadine Marshall FRI Mr JLB Matekoni ...... Ben Onwukwe FRI Mma Potokwani ...... Janice Acquah FRI Mr Molofololo ...... Mo Sesay FRI Phuti Raduphuti ...... Nyasha Hatendi FRI Puso/Boy ...... Kedar Williams-Stirling FRI Rops Thobega ...... Emmanuel Ighodaro FRI Violet Sepotho ...... Anna Bengo FRI Directed by Eilidh McCreadie. FRI FRI 15:00 HM The Queen b00pd5xr (Listen) FRI The Queen's Christmas message to the Commonwealth and the FRI nation, followed by the national anthem. FRI FRI 15:07 News b00pjkn9 (Listen) FRI The latest national and international news from BBC Radio FRI 4. FRI FRI 15:15 Afternoon Play b00p94r2 (Listen) FRI No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, The Seller of Beds FRI Written and dramatised by Alexander McCall Smith, from his FRI hugely popular series of books set in Botswana. FRI The detectives are embroiled in the murky world of the FRI football cheat as they investigate the recent bad form of FRI the Kalahari Swoopers. But Mma Ramotswe's problems don't FRI end there - she must confront an issue which has been FRI avoided for too long. Could it be the end of the road for FRI the tiny white van? FRI Mma Ramotswe ...... Claire Benedict FRI Mma Makutsi ...... Nadine Marshall FRI Mr JLB Matekoni ...... Ben Onwukwe FRI Mr Molofololo ...... Mo Sesay FRI Mma Tafa ...... Gbemisola Ikumelo FRI Fanwell ...... Beru Tessema FRI Grandmother ...... Albie Parsons FRI Puso Boy ...... Kedar Williams-Stirling FRI Oteng Boleleng ...... Emmanuel Ighodaro FRI Charlie ...... Tyrone Lewis FRI Violet Sepotho ...... Anna Bengo FRI Phuti Raduphuti ...... Nyasha Hatendi FRI Directed by Eilidh McCreadie. FRI FRI 16:00 Frequently Asked Questions b00lszh8 (Listen) FRI Ian Samson traces the relationship between authors and FRI their readers through the changing nature of the FRI correspondence between them. He asks his fellow writers FRI whether festivals, promotional tours and the advent of the FRI internet have altered their role. FRI FRI 16:30 The Film Programme b00pd5xt (Listen) FRI In a special Christmas Day edition, Francine Stock talks FRI to veteran British actress Googie Withers about working FRI with Alfred Hitchcock and Michael Powell. FRI FRI 16:56 1989: Day by Day b00pbry2 (Listen) FRI 25th December 1989 FRI Sir John Tusa looks back at the events making the news 20 FRI years ago. FRI Ceausescu and his wife are executed in Romania. FRI A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4. FRI FRI 17:00 Pick of the Year b00pd69k (Listen) FRI Rob Brydon unwraps the best of the year's offerings from FRI across BBC radio. FRI Part of the BBC Christmas 2009 season. FRI FRI 17:54 Shipping Forecast b00pd69m (Listen) FRI The latest shipping forecast. FRI FRI 17:57 Weather b00pd6bb (Listen) FRI The latest weather forecast. FRI FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News b00pbs6l (Listen) FRI The latest national and international news from BBC Radio FRI 4. FRI FRI 18:15 The News At Bedtime b00pft4y (Listen) FRI Episode 2 FRI Twin presenters John Tweedledum and Jim Tweedledee present FRI in-depth news analysis covering the latest stories FRI happening this 'once upon a time'. FRI A festive hamper of treats including the Queen of Hearts' FRI traditional Christmas message. FRI With Jack Dee, Peter Capaldi, Lewis MacLeod, Alex FRI MacQueen, Lucy Montgomery, Vicki Pepperdine. FRI Written by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman. FRI FRI 18:30 The Now Show b00pd6hr (Listen) FRI Series 29, Episode 5 FRI Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present a satirical review of FRI the week's news, with help from Mitch Benn, Laura Shavin, FRI Jon Holmes and Marcus Brigstocke. FRI FRI 19:00 The Archers b00pbqxp (Listen) FRI There's a Christmas crisis at Grange Farm. FRI FRI 19:15 Front Row b00pd6ht (Listen) FRI Arts news and reviews. Alan Bennett discusses his stage FRI plays, his wide-ranging work for television and the idea FRI of Englishness, in conversation with Mark Lawson. FRI FRI 19:45 Woman's Hour Drama b00pbt9m (Listen) FRI Someone Like You, Nunc Dimittis FRI Dramatisation by Stephen Sheridan of five darkly comic FRI tales by Roald Dahl. FRI A slighted lover plots an elaborate revenge. FRI Storyteller ...... Charles Dance FRI Gladys Ponsonby ...... Sarah Badel FRI John Roydon ...... Jonathan Keeble FRI Janet de Pelagia ...... Katie Scarfe FRI Directed by David Blount FRI A Pier production for BBC Radio 4. FRI FRI 20:00 Archive on 4 b00n6wgf (Listen) FRI The Anniversary Anniversary FRI Dominic Sandbrook explores the compelling appeal of the FRI anniversary. How often on the radio, on television or in FRI print is our attention enticed by the simple fact that an FRI event, a birth or a death happened a year, or five or ten, FRI fifty, even several hundred years ago? FRI There is a huge category of archive material dedicated to FRI particular happenings or personalities which would never FRI have been produced without the prompt of an anniversary. FRI Remembering war predates broadcasting, but in the past the FRI remembering was cast in stone, unchanging even as the FRI memories of those involved frayed and faded. In FRI FRI 20:50 A Point of View b00pd6n4 (Listen) FRI Clive James reflects on the human condition and the need FRI for liberal democracy to spread to allow future FRI generations to enjoy the fruits of progress. FRI FRI 21:00 Friday Play b00ph66p (Listen) FRI The Late Mr Shakespeare FRI By Robert Nye, dramatised by Jonathan Broadbent. FRI As a boy actor, Pickleherring played Viola, Juliet and FRI Cleopatra; he was Shakespeare's favourite. Now, in his FRI eighties, he finally discovers what it means to fall in FRI love. FRI Pickleherring ...... Jim Broadbent FRI Boy ...... George Longworth FRI Polly ...... Jill Cardo FRI Pompey Bum ...... Dan Starkey FRI Directed by Jeremy Mortimer. FRI FRI 21:58 Weather b00pbtjs (Listen) FRI The latest weather forecast. FRI FRI 22:00 News b00pd6n6 (Listen) FRI The latest national and international news from BBC Radio FRI 4. FRI FRI 22:15 We Three Kings b00g1rmq (Listen) FRI Ian Hislop examines the myths and realities surrounding FRI the Three Kings of the Christmas story. FRI They merit only a small mention in the Bible but they have FRI had a huge impact on our understanding of Christ's birth FRI story, so much so that they even have their own feast day. FRI Ian examines 2,000 years of the telling of their story to FRI see how history has shaped the legend of the Kings. Along FRI the way he meets theologians, historians, the Archbishop FRI of Canterbury and, curiously, a lot of people from FRI Colchester. FRI FRI 22:45 Book at Bedtime b00pbvp0 (Listen) FRI The Ingoldsby Legends, A Singular Passage, Part 2 FRI Nicholas Murchie and Lucy Robinson read from a collection FRI of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry supposedly FRI written by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, but FRI actually penned by the Rev Richard Barham, first published FRI in book form in 1840. FRI Continuing a tale of black magic set in the depths of FRI Romney Marsh, as a young woman is tormented by two men FRI bent on exploring the dark arts. FRI Abriged by Robin Brooks. FRI A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4. FRI FRI 23:00 Great Lives b00pcklz (Listen) FRI [Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Tuesday.] FRI FRI 23:30 The Music Group b00js8d3 (Listen) FRI Series 3, Episode 2 FRI Comedian, broadcaster and GP Dr Phil Hammond asks each of FRI three guests to play the track of their choice for the FRI delight or disdain of the others. FRI His guests include actor Don Warrington, music writer FRI Laura Barton and Professor Martyn Poliakoff, a pioneer in FRI the field of green chemistry, who reveals a liking for Tom FRI Lehrer. FRI A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4. FRI Related Links FRI * Watch Martyn in action (www.periodicvideos.com) FRI * More about Martyn (www.test-tube.org.uk) FRI * The additional verses about the new elements FRI (www.wellesley.edu) FRI This week’s guests: Don Warrington, Laura Barton and FRI Professor Martyn Poliakoff. FRI Real chemistry in this week’s show as pioneering green FRI chemist and YouTube star, Professor Martyn Poliakoff FRI challenges actor Don Warrington and music journalist Laura FRI Barton about the modernity of their chosen songs. There’s FRI talk of the modern world, modern love and an out-of-date FRI list of the chemical elements. His choice pre-dates both FRI of theirs but can he substantiate his theory? FRI The Music Group’s choices this week FRI Roadrunner (Thrice) – Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers FRI from Laura FRI The Elements – Tom Lehrer chosen by Martyn FRI Dry Your Eyes – The Streets chosen by Don FRI Agua de Beber – Frances Butt chosen by Phil FRI FRI FRI