RADIO CHOICE

A DWINDLING band of us can remember the joy of being sent to the school stationery cupboard for a brand-new exercise book, or recall the pleasure of finding a stationer’s shop full of different sizes and weights of paper. That special smell of new stationery is becoming a thing of the past. In THE STATIONERY CUPBOARD (RADIO 4 EXTRA, 6.30AM, 1.30PM, 8.30PM) the writer Lucy Mangan, armed with a reporter’s note pad and a sharpened pencil, goes in search of fellow stationery aficionados.

DANIEL ‘CATFISH’ RUSS is a musician, a comedian and a keen boxer. In the interview show I WAS . . . (RADIO 4 (FM), 11.30AM), Daniel recalls working out in his local gym when a small, skinny man with curly hair stepped up for a bout. Daniel tells Andrew

McGibbon about his shortlived career as Bob Dylan’s sparring partner.

THE Syrian national football squad plays home games in Malaysia and trains in Damascus. Some of its stars refuse to play for the Assad-funded team, while others live in exile. Richard Conway meets the players for FOOTBALL ON THE FRONTLINE (BBC WORLD SERVICE, 1.30PM).

n DELIVERING a barrage of jokes and puns at top speed, THANKS A LOT, MILTON JONES! (RADIO 4, 11PM) explains how Milton (pictured) finally found himself an agreeable sparkling wine . . .