» The Routes of English (9.00 am R4). Last in Melvyn Bragg’s series debates the rise of "Estuary English", with English Prof. John Wells, Lynda Mugglestone and Ben Elton.
Woman’s Hour (10.00 am R4) Discussing four different Marys in history – Mary Queen of Scots, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Mary Wollstonecraft and Victorian novelist Mary Braddon.
» Royal Institution Christmas Lectures (12 noon C4). Part two of Kevin Warwick’s robot exposition.
The Material World (4.30 R4). A group of 14- and 15-year-old science students question a panel of experts.
Belief (7.00 R3). Joan Bakewell interviews sculptor Anish Kapoor.
Who Massacred the Innocents? (8.00 R4). Herod’s bad behaviour as recorded by St. Matthew, and how artists and writers have responded to it.
Analysis (8.30 R4). "The Ill-Adapted Male". Rosalind Gill wonders about the current "crisis of masculinity".
Expeditions (9.00 R4). First of three programmes about scientists on summer expeditions focuses on a team looking for Neolithic remains in the Picos de Europa, Northern Spain. (First heard on the World Service in August.)
Life and Death and Damien Hirst (11.05 C4). Portrait of the artist.