Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
today’s radio
KEN BRUCE
9.30AM, RADIO 2 HHHH
The Scottish presenter Lorraine Kelly, a daytime favourite on ITV, answers Ken’s questions about her favourite music this week. Lorraine picks her Tracks Of My Years, and opens her selection with songs from David Bowie and Dusty Springfield.
THE DROP
12.04PM, RADIO 4 HHH
We are deep in John le Carre country with this spy thriller, adapted from Mick Herron’s novella. An old spook, skilled in tradecraft, sits in a London cafe that evokes old Vienna, then witnesses something that alerts his suspicions. John Heffernan is the narrator for a yarn that teeters on the very edge of parody – and sometimes falls right in.
BEYOND BELIEF
4.30PM, RADIO 4 HHH
There is a strong connection between religion and our sense of smell. Incense plays a big part in the religious ceremonies of many faiths, and the smell of candle wax and wood polish can summon up memories of old churches. An aromatherapist, an Egyptologist and a bioscientist share their ideas on this powerful and invisible connection.
THE ESSAY: BENEATH THE NIGHT
10.45PM, RADIO 3 HHHH
In a desert in Chile, astronomers wait for sunset so they can begin their nightly ritual of looking deep into space. They will, as the astronomer Dr Stuart Clark puts it, ‘see young stars wrapped in their birth clouds like infants in swaddling’, gazing far into the past and tracing our own origins. In this, the first of five essays, Dr Clark considers an ancient piece of equipment used by Congolese villagers to record the movements of planets, linking it to humanity’s ongoing quest to explore worlds beyond Earth. SJ