BBC Radio 4 LW

Shipping Forecast

The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping

Shipping Forecast: 25/07/2009

25/07/2009

BBC Radio 4 - Shipping Forecast, 25/07/2009Close menu

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

News Briefing

News Briefing: 25/07/2009

BBC Radio 4 - News Briefing, 25/07/2009Close menu

Prayer for the Day

Prayer for the Day: 25/07/2009

BBC Radio 4 - Prayer for the Day, 25/07/2009

Daily prayer and reflection with Rev Clair Jaquiss.

Backstreet Business

Backstreet Business: Episode 1

Episode 1

BBC Radio 4 - Backstreet Business, Episode 1

Deryck Howell's Cardiff company produces survival equipment.

Situated on an estate in Cardiff, Deryck Howell's company produces survival equipment, tested in the world's toughest conditions.

Nicola Heywood Thomas visits small businesses.

Situated on an estate in Cardiff, Deryck Howell's company produces survival equipment, tested in the world's toughest conditions.

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

Nicola Heywood Thomas visits small businesses

News and Papers

The news headlines, including a look at the newspapers

News and Papers: 25/07/2009

BBC Radio 4 - News and Papers, 25/07/2009

News headlines, plus a look at the papers.

The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.

Weather

Weather: 25/07/2009

BBC Radio 4 - Weather, 25/07/2009Close menu

Open Country

Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of Britain

Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of the British Isles

Open Country: Firth of Lorne

Firth of Lorne

BBC Radio 4 - Open Country, Firth of Lorne

Helen Mark on the battle between fishermen and conservationists over the Firth of Lorne.

Helen Mark reports on new proposals to resolve the battle between fishermen and conservationists over the wildlife-rich waters of the Firth of Lorne on the west coast of Scotland.

Helen Mark reports on the dispute between fishermen and conservationists over the wildlife-rich waters of the Firth of Lorne on the west coast of Scotland.

Dotted with tiny islands, the Firth of Lorne on the west coast of Scotland is a yachtsman's dream. Fishermen also covet the Firth's prawns and scallops, whilst conservationists fret over threats to the extraordinary reefs, the sea bird colonies and the whales and dolphins that pass between Mull and Jura. 

Helen joins local wildlife biologist Tessa McGregor for a boat trip around the Firth, meeting fishermen, farmers and naturalists, all of whom are anxious to reach a balance that preserves livelihoods without further threatening this precarious natural environment. 

Scallop dredging is currently banned in the Firth, much to the displeasure of local fishermen who have to sail further and into more dangerous waters to bring home a profitable catch. The Scottish government may reverse the ban, but a local diver tells Helen that such a move would cause further damage to the sea bed, the rocky reef and the aquatic life that depends on it.

On her voyage around the Firth's tiny islands Helen will also be meeting the local Luing breed of cattle and seeing the beehive huts used by the first generation of Scottish monks.

Farming Today

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside

Farming Today: Farming Today This Week

Farming Today This Week

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, Farming Today This Week

Anna Hill hears why Britain should not aim to be self-sufficient in food.

The UK should not attempt to be self-sufficient in food, according to a new parliamentary report. It says doing so would make our own food supplies less secure. Anna Hill reports.

The UK should not attempt to be self-sufficient in food, according to a new parliamentary report. It says doing so would make our own food supplies less secure. Anna Hill reports on the food security of the UK, from one of the world's biggest countryside events at Belvoir castle.

Today

Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme; including Thought for the Day

Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme; including religious reflections from Thought for the Day at 0748

Today: 25/07/2009

BBC Radio 4 - Today, 25/07/2009

Including Sports Desk, Weather, Thought for the Day.

With Sarah Montague and Edward Stourton. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.

Presented by Sarah Montague and Edward Stourton.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has dropped its opposition to the concept of helping patients to commit suicide. Andy Moore reports.

Terry Stiasny reports on Labour MP Barry Sheerman's call on his fellow party members to think seriously about who leads Labour into the next election.

Jon Leyne reports on the decision by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to dismiss First Vice-President Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, which came after a week-long stand-off with the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

South West political editor Martyn Oates says he is very surprised that the Conservatives are holding an open primary in Totnes.

Reporter Andrew Hosken visits East London to learn about the history of social mobility.

Lance Corporal Joe Glenton is being charged with desertion. He went absent without leave in 2007 after a particularly unhappy period in the army and having been told he would have to go back to Afghanistan. He discusses whether he had questioned why he was out there at the time. 

Mike Sergeant reports on the wildfires still burning in southern Europe.

Colin Blane reports on the Edinburgh Gathering event, which will form the centrepiece of the Homecoming celebrations, to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of the national bard, Robert Burns.

Thought for the Day with Brian Draper, associate lecturer at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Bob Crow, of the union RMT, and Peter Kruse, of Vestas Wind Systems, discuss what could bring the sit-in protest to an end.

A senior Labour MP has hit out at Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the wake of the Norwich North by-election defeat by the Tories. Barry Sheerman MP discusses his criticisms with Tony Lloyd, chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party. 

Dr Peter Carter, chief executive of the RCN, discusses why, after consulting its members, it has decided to take a neutral stance on assisted suicide.

Tom Feilden reports on the celebrations to mark the event of what is widely regarded as the birth of astronomy as a modern science.

The father of Gary Reinbach, who was refused a liver transplant because he hadn't gone six months without a drink, discusses whether his son was given a chance to prove that he had stopped drinking. 

Bob Walker reports on the work being done to ensure the tens of thousands of medals being issued every year for service in Iraq and Afghanistan are awarded correctly.

Author Fred Kaplan discusses the history of the ban on the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover in the US.

Ben Summerskill says Trevor Phillips has not been a success as Equalities and Human Rights Commission head.

Two people who have had the swine flu virus, journalist Sarah Vine and IT worker Mark Feargreave, discuss what those symptoms feel like.

Saturday Live

Radio 4's Saturday morning show brings you extraordinary stories and remarkable people.

Saturday Live: 25/07/2009

BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Live, 25/07/2009

Fi Glover is joined by Sheila Hancock. David Peace recalls the Yorkshire Ripper murders.

Real life stories in which listeners talk about the issues that matter to them. Fi Glover is joined by Sheila Hancock. With poetry from Elvis McGonagall.

Excess Baggage

Travel magazine, featuring travellers' tales, experiences and anecdotes

Excess Baggage: 25/07/2009

BBC Radio 4 - Excess Baggage, 25/07/2009

Sandi Toksvig hears about horseriding in Albania and a teenager's view of Cameroon.

Sandi Toksvig hears about Robin Hanbury-Tenison's horseride across Albania, and Jane Owen and Bex Bailey's visit to the Baka people in Cameroon.

Explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison has often made his journeys on horseback and chose Albania for a recent trek. Although situated in the middle of Europe, this little known nation offers unspoilt countryside, great hospitality from locals and a glimpse into a time and place before tourism development takes hold. 

An award from the citizenship charity, Giving Nation, enabled pupils from Rushcliffe School in Nottingham to travel to Cameroon to learn about the Baka people and the work of the Rainforest Foundation. They stayed in a Baka village - seeing how they build huts, how the local school is run and even helped villagers with fishing.

Journalist Jane Owen, who accompanied them, and pupil Bex Bailey say the trip gave an insight into how life is changing for the indigenous people.

The Friends Provident Trophy

Coverage of Friends Provident Trophy cricket

The Friends Provident Trophy: 25/07/2009

BBC Radio 4 - The Friends Provident Trophy, 25/07/2009

Coverage of the final of the Friends Provident Trophy from Lord's.

Coverage of the final of the Friends Provident Trophy from Lord's. Commentary by Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Simon Mann and Kevin Howells. Including Shipping Forecast.

Coverage of the final of the Friends Provident Trophy from Lord's. Commentary by Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Simon Mann and Kevin Howells.

Including Shipping Forecast.

Loose Ends

An eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy

Loose Ends: 25/07/2009

BBC Radio 4 - Loose Ends, 25/07/2009

With James Caan, Jonathan Aitken, Sarah Millican & Mercury Prize-nominated Lisa Hannigan.

Clive Anderson is joined by James Caan, Peter Duncan and Jonathan Aitken, and Gideon Coe meets Bridget Christie. Comedy from Sarah Millican; music from Lisa Hannigan and Oi Va Voi.

Clive Anderson is joined by author and former Conservative Cabinet Minister Jonathan Aitken, Dragons' Den's James Caan and former Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan. 

Gideon Coe talks to writer Bridget Christie about her time at the Daily Mail. 

With comedy from Sarah Millican and music from Oi Va Voi and the Mercury Prize-nominated Lisa Hannigan.

Profile

An insight into the character of an influential figure making news headlines

Profile: Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel

BBC Radio 4 - Profile, Peter Gabriel

Clive Coleman profiles the musician Peter Gabriel.

Clive Coleman profiles the musician Peter Gabriel, one of the founders of the World Music festival WOMAD.

Clive Coleman profiles Peter Gabriel. He came to fame - and fortune - as the extravagantly-dressed lead singer of Genesis, before launching a successful solo career. But Gabriel has pushed many other frontiers, notably helping to found the World Music festival WOMAD. He has also experimented with new technologies, brought elder statesmen together and campaigned for human rights. 

Clive hears from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Irish President Mary Robinson and Peter Gabriel's mother about what makes him tick.

Saturday Review

Sharp, critical discussion of the week's cultural events, with Tom Sutcliffe and guests

Presenter Tom Sutcliffe and guests offer sharp, critical discussion of the week's cultural events

Saturday Review: Anne Tyler's Noah’s Compass, and Ole Bornedal's Just Another Love Story

Anne Tyler's Noah’s Compass, and Ole Bornedal's Just Another Love Story

BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Review, Anne Tyler's Noah’s Compass, and Ole Bornedal's Just Another Love Story

Guests include historian Dominic Sandbrook and writers Kathryn Hughes and Philip Hoare.

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by historian Dominic Sandbrook and the writers Kathryn Hughes and Philip Hoare to discuss cultural highlights including Anne Tyler's novel Noah's Compass.

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by historian Dominic Sandbrook and the writers Kathryn Hughes and Philip Hoare to discuss the cultural highlights of the week, featuring memory loss in Baltimore and Denmark, 80s radicalism, and some old telescopes.

Noah's Compass is a novel by Anne Tyler which has little to do with either Noah or a compass. It has more to do with Liam Pennywell, a recently retired teacher in Baltimore who gets an unpleasant surprise when he moves into a new apartment. The book is an elegant exploration of age and memory.

Danish director Ole Bornedal's latest film, Just Another Love Story, is a knowing homage to the film noir genre. Anders W Berthelsen plays Jonas, a photographer employed by the police to record corpses in situ. A car crash, from which he and his family appear to emerge unscathed, ends up shaking the foundations of Jonas's life into a tangle of lust, deception and mistaken identity.

The Black Album, Hanif Kureishi's 1995 novel about the competing attractions of religious fundamentalism and hedonistic liberalism to an impressionable British Asian youth in 1989, has been adapted for the stage by Kureishi himself. In the Tara Arts production at the National Theatre, Jonathan Bonnicci is Shahid, recently arrived in London from Sevenoaks and unsure as to where his loyalties truly lie as the debate over The Satanic Verses rages.

Alexander Fleming is rightly remembered as the scientist who first identified the antibacterial properties of penicillin. However, the hard slog of producing it in sufficient quantities to test its practical effectiveness was carried out by Howard Florey and his team in the early years of the Second World War. Dominic West plays Florey in BBC Four's Breaking the Mould, which follows the human story behind the medical breakthrough.

Four hundred years ago, Thomas Harriot made the first astronomical drawings based on his observations through a telescope. The Science Museum in London celebrates this anniversary with an exhibition, Cosmos and Culture, which traces the evolution of the rudimentary telescope into the powerful and highly sensitive apparatus available to astronomers today. It also shows how astronomical discoveries have been absorbed by popular culture, from early science fiction to special Monopoly sets.

Archive on 4

Brilliant stories told using archive from the BBC and beyond.

Archive on 4: On Northern Men

On Northern Men

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, On Northern Men

Kay Mellor explores northern male stereotypes in British film and television..

Kay Mellor explores the way that northern English masculinities have been portrayed in British film and television.

Kay Mellor explores the way that northern English masculinities have been portrayed in British film and television, reconciling issues of blatant sentimentality with the real-life social parallels that inform the canon of the past 50 years. 

She examines fictional portrayals that have changed and diversified, yet stayed much the same in many ways. From the crucial age of the Angry Young Man, marked out in This Sporting Life, she considers the contrasts and similarities between the trapped northern masculine identities portrayed in Kes and Billy Elliot. 

Kay discovers that the disintegration of traditional northern male stereotypes in fiction leads us also to more diverse explorations, for example, the weak men in Coronation Street, Last of the Summer Wine and Keeping Up Appearances, British-Asian northern masculinities in East is East, the dysfunctional and proud Frank Gallagher in Shameless, and interpretations of homosexual masculinities in Queer as Folk and Jimmy McGovern's The Street. 

The programme traces the relationship between changing variables of social class, heroism, 'northernness' and fictional portrayals of masculinity in film and television, using supporting material from the radio archive, and remembers some of the humour and creativity that emerges from struggle and the portrayal of difficult lives.

Classic Serial

Adaptations of works which have achieved classic status

Classic Serial: The Complete Smiley - The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

Classic Serial: The Complete Smiley - The Spy Who Came in From the Cold: Episode 3

Episode 3

The Complete Smiley - The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

BBC Radio 4 - Classic Serial, The Complete Smiley - The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, Episode 3

The deadly game of deceit and betrayal reaches its climax at the foot of the Berlin Wall.

By John le Carre, set in Berlin in 1962. The deadly game of deceit and betrayal reaches its climax at the foot of the Berlin Wall.

Dramatisation by Robert Forrest of John le Carre's classic novel featuring intelligence officer George Smiley. 

The deadly game of deceit and betrayal reaches its climax at the foot of the Berlin Wall.

Smiley ...... Simon Russell Beale
Alec Leamas ...... Brian Cox
Fiedler ...... Henry Goodman
Mundt ...... Sam Dale
Liz Gold ...... Ruth Gemmell
Ashe	 ...... Jamie Newall
Tribunal President ...... Siobhan Redmond
Peter Guillam ...... Richard Dillane
Commissar ...... Liza Sadovy
Agent ...... Stephen Hogan
Miss Crail	...... Liza Sadovy
Mr Pitt ...... Philip Fox
Grocer ...... David Hargreaves
CIA Man ...... Benjamin Askew

This episode is available until 3.00pm on 26th July as part of the Series Catch-up Trial.

Dramatisation of John le Carre's classic novel, set in Berlin in the early 1960s

Dramatisation by Robert Forrest of John le Carre's classic novel featuring intelligence officer George Smiley, set in Berlin in the early 1960s

News and Weather

The latest national and international news and weather reports from BBC Radio 4

News and Weather: 25/07/2009

BBC Radio 4 - News and Weather, 25/07/2009

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.

Moral Maze

Live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week's news stories. #moralmaze

Combative, provocative and engaging live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week's news stories. #moralmaze

Moral Maze: 22/07/2009

22/07/2009

BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, 22/07/2009

With Michael Portillo, Melanie Phillips, Clifford Longley and Matthew Taylor.

Michael Buerk chairs a debate on the moral questions behind the week's news. Michael Portillo, Melanie Phillips, Clifford Longley and Matthew Taylor cross-examine witnesses.

Michael Buerk chairs a debate on the moral questions behind the week's news. Michael Portillo, Melanie Phillips, Clifford Longley and Matthew Taylor cross-examine witnesses. 

The Moral Maze considers 'the holiday'.

It's that time of year when we can't wait to get away from work for a couple of weeks. Our one opportunity a year to jet off to far-flung and exotic destinations spewing carbon all over the place, where the human rights record is often appalling, to be waited on hand and foot by some poor waiter who is only paid a couple of dollars a day and to stay in a hotel where their idea of an environmental policy is to take our rubbish to a landfill for local people to pick over it, rather than dumping it at sea. 

Is it time we re-calculated the true cost of that self indulgent holiday? Should we stay at home to help the UK economy? And should we think of improving the mind rather than our tan?

The witnesses are:

Leo Hickman 
Author of The Final Call: In Search of the True Cost of our Holidays

James Panton 
Manifesto Club; Campaign to Celebrate the Freedom of Flying

Cole Moreton 
Journalist, currently writing a book about Englishness

Jonathan Lorie 
Director of Travellers Tales Festival, an international festival of travel writing and photography.

Round Britain Quiz

Radio's most fiendish quiz, with cryptic questions on unpredictable fields of knowledge

Radio's most fiendish quiz, with cryptic questions drawing on unpredictable fields of knowledge

Round Britain Quiz: 20/07/2009

20/07/2009

BBC Radio 4 - Round Britain Quiz, 20/07/2009

Tom Sutcliffe chairs. The Midlands take on the south of England.

Tom Sutcliffe chairs the cryptic general knowledge quiz, featuring the defending champions, the Midlands, taking on the south of England.

Poetry Please

Roger McGough introduces selections of poetry on various themes, chosen by listeners.

Poetry Please: 19/07/2009

19/07/2009

BBC Radio 4 - Poetry Please, 19/07/2009

Roger McGough introduces requests for poems about space.

Roger McGough introduces requests for poems about space by Shakespeare, Seamus Heaney and others.

Midnight News

The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.

Midnight News: 25/07/2009

BBC Radio 4 - Midnight News, 25/07/2009

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

Afternoon Reading

Short stories or abridged books, often from new writers

Afternoon Reading: Cheltenham Festival Readings

Afternoon Reading: Cheltenham Festival Readings: Episode 1: Love with Impediments

Episode 1: Love with Impediments

Cheltenham Festival Readings

Love with Impediments

BBC Radio 4 - Afternoon Reading, Cheltenham Festival Readings, Love with ImpedimentsSearch BBC

Written and read by Hari Kunzru. A futuristic story of consumerism gone mad and bad.

Five stories from the 2007 Cheltenham Literature Festival. A futuristic story of consumerism gone mad and bad. Written and read by Hari Kunzru.

Five readings from the Cheltenham Literature Festival

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes

A selection of BBC World Service news and current affairs, arts and science programmes

BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Shipping Forecast

25/07/2009

Genres

Brand

Weather

25/07/2009

Genres

Brand

Weather

25/07/2009

Genres

Brand

Loose Ends

25/07/2009

Genres

Brand

Shipping Forecast

25/07/2009

Genres

Brand

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About BBC Radio 4

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