RADIO CHOICE

THE most frightening command in the Army is given as a young conscript approaches the long and dismal concrete wall that divides the Defenders and the Breeders from the Others. Kavanagh, just out of basic training, is on the first night of a twoyear tour of duty in John Lanchester’s dystopian novel THE WALL (RADIO 4, 12.04PM, 10.45PM), set in a near-future Britain. Tense, compelling and disturbingly convincing.

A RISING power always wants to displace a ruling power. This axiom, which goes back to ancient Greece, seems to be playing out between China and the U.S. For a while, it seemed that China was becoming a responsible global power, occasionally indulging in a little sabre-rattling. Now, though, the Chinese are building up naval power

and creating artificial islands that are military facilities. ANALYSIS (RADIO 4, 8.30PM), takes a wary look at a threatening situation.

BLUEBELLS are England’s favourite flower and a sign that spring is well under way. In the first of the nightly series THE ESSAY: THE MEANING OF FLOWERS (RADIO 3,

10.45PM), Fiona Stafford looks at the significance of these native flowers, which can ‘transform an inland wood into a shining sea’, and shares some of the myths and fairy stories about bluebells (pictured).