With Brian Haymes.
With Miriam O'Reilly.
With John Humphrys and James Naughtie.
6.25,7.25,8.25 Sports News
7.48 Thought for the Day With Bishop Jim Thompson.
Libby Purves and guests engage in lively and diverse Conversation. ProducerChris Paling Shortened repeat at 9.30pm
Every two weeks a language dies somewhere in the world. With it goes the distinctive expression of a people's identity, history and culture. Gavin Esler continues his examination of the threat to linguistic diversity, this week travelling to Hawaii, where the dedication of a group of parents is offering a glimmer of hope to the native language. Producer Amber Dawson
Comedy series by Emma Clarke about a group of retired private investors, the Cheadle Chancers. 4: When the Chips Are Down. Don, a chip shop entrepreneur with a gambling problem, swindles
L5,000 from each member of the Cheadle Chancers. Everything goes well-until he loses the lot on a horse and is forced to find another five grand.... and another and another
Original music by Big George Director Jim Poyser
With Liz Barclay.
With NickClarke at the Labour Party conference in Blackpool.
Pete McCarthy 's guests for the final programme in the series are Sue Gaisford, Pat Kenny and John Sergeant. Producer Sarah Rowlands
Repeated from yesterday at 7pm
By Carolyn Pertwee.
Marjorie and Dennis have booked the same Spanish hotel room in which they spent their honeymoon, 37 years ago. But they aren't prepared for the uninhibited behaviour of the beautiful young couple in the next room - and the effect it will have on their own marriage.
An ageing couple's marriage is unexpectedly revived by the uninhibited lovers in the next hotel room
The Beautiful Couple 2.15pm R4
On rare occasions a radio drama will grip you so tightly that you will not care about returning late to work, that you'll pull over in your car or simply sit down at home and forget all the chores you must complete. This is one of those occasions and you'd better have a tissue to hand as well. Julia McKenzie and Ronald Pickup play a distanced couple. They've returned to the hotel where they spent their honeymoon 37 years ago only to find the lovers' suite occupied by just that: beautiful, lusty lovers who throw their own sterile marriage into sharp relief. But this is not so much a play about a couple's relationship breaking down as a marriage becoming stronger after a dreadful tragedy is finally come to terms with. While the thin thread holding the young lovers together is severed, the ties that bind this older pair make them the beautiful couple after all.
Matthew Biggs , Bob Flowerdew and Roy Lancaster answer questions posed by members of the Evington Garden Club, near Leicester. The chairman is Eric Robson. at 2pm
3: Spin Doctor by Romesh Gunnesekera , read by Sam Dastor. Fordetails see Monday
"Secret Laboratory No 1" was the Soviet Union's first electronic computer. It was built in the late 1940s in Feofania, an abandoned monastery outside the ruined city of Kiev. Surviving members of the original team lament a 1967 political decision to copy IBM computers, instead of keeping the faith with their own designs.
(For details see Monday)
This week Laurie Taylor considers land ownership and its role in shaping nations. Producer Jacqueline Smith
Dr Raj Persaud investigates the personality test. Claudia Hammond is the guinea pig, filling in the controversial questionnaire developed by Hans Eysenck. Can numbers really tell us anything about people? Producer Marya Burgess
With Clare English and Eddie Mair.
Mark Steel with another comedy lecture about the life and work of an iconic figure of history. Today's subject is Sir Isaac Newton , without whom Steel might not have been able to define the gravity with which he delivers his lectures. With the help of Martin Hyderand Mel Hudson. Producer Lucy Armitage
Caught in the act.
(Repeated tomorrow at 2pm)
Francine Stock profiles Robert De Niro , as a new biography is published. Producer Kirsty Pope
By Allison Pearson. Adapted by Penny Leicester .
3: Christmas with the in-laws and Kate resolves to obtain a new and better work/life balance. For details see Monday Repeated from 10.45am
Superlanguage - Is the Popularity of English Killing Diversity? Research warns that 90 per cent of the world's 6,000 languages could disappear by the middle of the century. How much is English to blame? Chaired by Nick ROSS. Producer Sara Nathan Rptd on Sat at 10.15pm
Thirty years ago, after half a century of devolved administration, the Stormont Parliament was prorogued and a new cabinet post, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, established. It was regarded as the least attractive job in British politics. In this series, four former incumbents explain how their perceptions of the job, the people and the place were confounded or confirmed by their experiences. 2: James Prior (1981-4). Prior attempted to establish a process of "rolling devolution" in Northern Ireland. But his tenancy of Stormont
Castle coincided with republican hunger strikes at the Maze Prison and ongoing sectarian violence. Repeated from Sunday at 10.45pm
The recent report that a Caledonian crow had bent a piece of wire into a hook so it could extract meat from a bucket raised pertinent questions about birds' problem-solving abilities. Peter Evans talks to psychologists and zoologists about avian intelligence. Could it be that they're not such birdbrains after all?
EMAIL: radioscience@bbc.co.uk Producer John Watkins
Shortened repeat from 9am
With Paul Moss.
By Ralph Ellison. The narrator tries to avoid
Trueblood, who has brought terrible shame on the black community. Read by Clarke Peters. Part 3. Fordetails see Monday
More extraordinary archive radio recordings from the past two millennia of the wireless. This week it's 1616 and DJ Suzanne Canker is annoying Shakespeare's widow, Ann Hathaway. With Claire Downes, Hazel Grain, Al Holloway, Ben Kozo, Stuart Lane and Patrick McNamara. Producer Sean Grundy
Actor and writer Andrew Clover encourages his weekly guest to confronttruths about themselves through improvising a mythical fairytale with hidden meanings. The result is moving, sometimes funny and startlingly revelatory. producer Gary Reich
Portuguese Nativity. Portuguese workers have been coming to Jersey for more than 30 years, making them now the largest minority group on the island. A look at how the community combines a love for Jersey with a deep sense of remaining Portuguese. Producer Graeme Drummond
Repeated from 9.45am
