RADIO CHOICE

THE farm labourer and poet John Clare’s work is full of fine old words, including clumpsing, mouldywarps and rawky. Clare, who was born in 1793, grew up in Northamptonshire and wrote about the rural life around him. Much of his work was a reaction to the upheavals brought on by the Agricultural Revolution. Melvyn Bragg and a studio of experts discuss Clare’s life, poetry and rich vocabulary in the 750th edition of the intelligent and educational IN OUR TIME (RADIO 4, 9AM, 9.30PM).

FAILING to return a book to a library is theft, but many offenders kid themselves that they are just giving a book a good home. The writer Nicholas Royle has been a bit of a book thief in his time; now, he has seen

th the light. LATE RETURNS (RADIO 4, 11.30AM) listens in as he returns books he has ‘liberated’ from libraries in London, Manchester and Paris.

DARIUS RUCKER is on BOB HARRIS COUNTRY (RADIO 2, 7PM), ahead of his appearance at the C2C festival. Darius (pictured), a founding member of Hootie & The Blowfish in 1986, later turned his talents to country music. He was signed up by Capitol Records Nashville in 2008 and has scored plenty of Billboard hits for the label. He’ll give us a live session this evening.