TODAY’S RADIO

SUGGS: MORE LOVE LETTERS TO LONDON 11.30AM, RADIO 4 ★★★

Graham Mcpherson, aka Suggs, was born in Hastings and spent some of his childhood in Wales and Liverpool, yet his music has a very London sound. Suggs likes mooching round the capital’s streets, and knows both the familiar and the obscure byways of the city. In this new series of his aural portraits of London, he takes us to Oxford Street, tells us some stories about this part of town, and throws in a song or two.

THE CLASSIC FM CONCERT

8PM, CLASSIC FM ★★★

John Suchet plumps for romance on his show tonight, playing us tracks quivering with lush strings, lyrics full of love and heartfelt arias. There’s some gorgeous stuff

Suggs (11.30am, Radio 4) on John’s list, including music from Tchaikovsky’s Romeo And Juliet, plus the song As Time Goes By from Casablanca.

CROWDSCIENCE 8.30PM, BBC WORLD SERVICE ★★★

London’s black cab drivers have to find their way round the capital’s streets by using their memories and their sense of direction. The part of their brains known as the hippocampus is much larger than most people’s. Marnie Chesterton considers this strange fact in a programme that looks at the our ability to find our way in the physical world. Are some people, she wonders, born without much sense of direction and, if so, is there anything they can do to improve it?

THE ESSAY: SCIENCE NOTES 10.45PM, RADIO 3 ★★★

The science historian James Burke, one of the Tomorrow’s World presenters back in the 1960s, looks at odd connections between music and science. In this final essay of the week, he takes us on a journey from steam engines and iron coffins to the modern orchestra. SJ