PICK OF TODAY’S RADIO

RAMBLINGS, RADIO 4, 3PM

A CRAZY idea, dreamt up by the children’s author and artist Oliver Jeffers (pictured) and a team of astrophysicists, is now a reality. You can take a ‘walk through space’ and find out what the weather’s like on Jupiter and Mars. The Unboxed project, currently running along the River Foyle in Derry-Londonderry, is a ten-kilometre 3D sculpture trail, designed as a scale model of the solar system. For the first of a new series of walks, Clare Balding joins Oliver to hear about this spectacular, free, open-air installation, which will be in DerryLondonderry until May 22, before moving on to Belfast, Cambridge and the North Down Coastal Path.

BEIRUT was once an elegant city of tree-lined boulevards. Barakat House, an apartment block built in 1924, had yellow walls, roof terraces and colonnades, but in Lebanon’s civil war, it became a sniper’s roost. The tottering remains were due for demolition in 1997, but the architect Mona elHallak fought for its survival. BEIRUT’S HOUSE OF BARAKAT (RADIO 4 EXTRA, 2.30PM) hears of hopes that Barakat House will be returned to its beauty and become a symbol of hope and peace.