Today's story:
The Willow Pattern
Presenters
SARAH LONG , STUART MCGUGAN
Clarinettist DAVE MOSES Pianist MICHAEL OMER
Designer BARBARA GOSNOLD Written by IRENE COCKROFT Director ALBERT BARBER Producer ANNE GOBEY
Executive producer CYNTHIA FELGATE

with sub-titles for the hard-of-hearing, followed by Weather on 2

Brush up your reading and writing With BRIAN REDHEAD and JULIAN CHAGRIN
SHEILA FEARN
DENNIS WATERMAN
Script BARRY TOOK

Michael Charlton and Charles Wheeler present news and opinion including every Thursday UK Report from BBC news correspondents in Britain
With Richard Kershaw , David Sells
Newsreader Kenneth Kendall

Robert Robinson introduces a weekly guide to newly-published books-the authors and the readers; fact and fiction; best-sellers and remainders.
Studio director SUE MALLINSON
Producer PHILIP SPEIGHT
Executive producer WILL WYATT

with Derek Nimmo and his guests
This week Derek looks at forms of impermanent art-ice carving, sand sculpture and do-it-yourself wash-away painting.
Designer IAN ASHURST
Producer carets GWENLAN

A series of 12 programmes Written and presented by Magnus Magnusson
2: The Abraham Years
Was Abraham a nomad or a wealthy caravaneer? This was the burning question among Bible scholars 20 years ago. Abraham's famous journey from Ur in Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan (Genesis chapters 11 and 12) was confidently dated to 2,000 BC.
Today, scholars are asking a differ. ent question. Was Abraham, Father of the Hebrew people, an historical figure at all? Perhaps the answer to this and many other questions lies in Western Syria where Italian archaeologists have made a sensational discovery - clay tablets written in a language which is the direct ancestor of Biblical Hebrew and full of Biblical names-used over 1,000 years before they appear in the Bible!
Bible reader Eric Porter
Film cameramen PETER HALL
PETER CHAPMAN , JOHN HOOPER Film editor IAN PITCH
Executive producer DAVID COLLISON Producer ANTONIA BENEDEK

The search for the laws of creation written and presented by Nigel Calder
The past year has seen a giant step forward along a line of discoveries that future generations will recognise as one of the glories of our age. The strong evidence for a quality called 'charm' helps to make sense of the cosmic forces that build stars and atoms and living things. Enigmatic 'black holes' in space are becoming more credible. And the searchers describe how the wonderful variety in nature all comes out of a single primeval Big Bang.
"Nothing makes me more hopeful that our generation holds the key to the universe in our hands: that perhaps in our lifetime we may be able to tell why this immense universe of galaxies and particles is logically inevitable." (Steven Weinberg, Harvard University)
Commentary spoken by Eric Porter
Co-produced with Channel 11-WTTW Chicago
(Repeated next Sunday)
Book (same title) £5.95, from bookshops

Weather

MARTIN jARvis reads
Cat-Faith by ALASTAIR REID