Pick of the Day

ALL THIS WEEK, Oliver Ford Davies is reading from Iris (9.45am R4), John Bayley's moving memoir of his wife, Dame Iris Murdoch (right), which frankly discusses her Alzheimer's condition.

Spoken Cat (3.30pm R4) sounds like a stray from April Fool's Day. Actress Sian Phillips presents an introduction to the global feline language with silky assurance, but somehow the examples of fanatical cat-owner behaviour she has dug up are too hilarious for words. There's a woman who has translated Montaigne into miaows; and another who is convinced that she got bitten because she ventured too far onto her moggies's linguistic turf. Purrlease.