Enjoying listening to this today 🎧
The Island of Brilliant
Nadia Shireen
Frank Cottrell-Boyce

Evening stroll soundtrack: beautiful close reading of a great John Donne poem. Well worth hearing. ⁦BBC Radio 4⁩ ⁦BBC Sounds⁩ bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

Only the #BBC does this: “And yet no greater, but more eminent, Love by the spring is grown ;
As in the firmament
Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown, Gentle love deeds, as blossoms on a bough, From love's awakened root do bud out now.”

this is not an April fools!!

I was so happy to be on the The Island of Brilliant , with my shark companion.

talking all about Keedie!

give it a listen, and make sure to play the many other incredible episodes, too!!

What's your favourite audio book? Nadia Shireen and Frank Cottrell-Boyce put their champions into battle on the island this month - Martin Jarvis with his William and Alan Bennett with his Willows. Surely nothing and nobody can top either of those gold-carat champs?

The best thing about the first of any month is a new episode of ⁦The Island of Brilliant⁩ and this one has ⁦Elle McNicoll ✍🏻📚⁩ Thank you ⁦Frank Cottrell-Boyce⁩ ⁦Nadia Shireen⁩ ⁦geoff bird⁩ podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the…

Elle McNicoll came to see us!! That's Elle McNicoll ✍🏻📚 to you, for she is literary royalty and has a fine eye for a snack, too. She talks all about her new book, 'Keedie', and the odd experience of writing it while filming its forerunner 'A Kind of Spark'. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the…

A lovely podcast about children’s books, hosted by two marvellous hosts 👍👇

I won!

Well now here's a thing - our shenanigans have inspired a festival, coming soon to a grand old hall near you (if you happen to live near Staffordshire): outsidearts.org/events/the-fes…

Is it a bird? Is it a train? No, it's M.G. Leonard!!!! As author of the Twitcher books and the Adventures on Trains series M. G. Leonard you'd expect her to be fab, but heavens above she really did knock it out of the park or would have if we had one. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the…

Proud dad. film-fest-report.com/home/berlinale…

thelead.uk/hope-and-commu…

Blasts from the Megaphone is coming to @bbcradio4 next week, where poet Paul Farley explores the megaphone’s many echoes.

In the meantime, revisit Last Man Standing over BBC Sounds when Paul finds himself in a post apocalyptic world.

bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

#saturdaymood

If only there was a device designed to spread the word about such a programme as this.. bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00…

geoff bird I thought your Jan Pienkowski show was radio treasure. 5 star, and to have included those pieces from him, too, I could have listened on and on. Thank you very much. Would you be thinking of more, with similar all-time great geniuses from children’s literature?

“Why can’t the 93% of children in our state schools receive the same musical offering that the 7% in private schools take for granted?”

Lord Bragg quoted Howard Goodall in criticising unequal access to arts education.

We're back! Well we will be tomorrow at least... with space-time-continuum-wrecker Christopher Edge paying a visit to wake Nadia and Frank from their slumbers. He'll be talking about his fantastic new book 'The Black Hole Cinema Club' and the unparalleled joy of an Eccles cake.