In praise of Radio 4

During a recent period of enforced idleness, confined to my flat, I have had the opportunity to renew my acquaintance with Radio 4. I cannot praise it enough. I have spent hours absorbed in radio programmes of the highest quality. And the 'Listen Again' feature, whereby any programmes missed can be retrieved and listened to, must be one of the great boons of the BBC website.

I offer the following recommendations for happy listening:

The Week at Westminster - essential listening for a Saturday morning, especially as it is followed by

From Our Own Correspondent - where the great Kate Adie allows the foreign corrs to introduce some humanity into world affairs.

The News Quiz - still the funniest programme on the radio, even if the demise of Linda Smith and Alan Coren means that it is not quite as good as it used to be.

Start the Week - Andrew Marr guides an extraordinarily eclectic series of 10 minute discussions.

Midnight News - the calmest and most authoritative round-up of the day's events.

Pick of the Week - Sunday evening's finest.

In our Time - the much mocked Melvyn Bragg desperately tries to keep a grip of unabashed, if frequently incomprehensible, intellectualism.

I have this morning been listening to Inside Stories, a splendid analysis of the media reaction to particular stories, today on bird flu, last week a tour de force on the death of Jean-Charles de Menezes.

Radio 4 is far from perfect. The witless Just a Minute, for example. is well past its sell-by date, while the insufferably smug Quote, Unquote should have been strangled at birth. But overall a radio station to cherish.