File on 4, Radio 4, 8pm
The problem with this programme is that if you personally rely on Britain’s railways (possibly the only aspect of this country’s infrastructure not to be habitually referred to as “the finest in the world”) to travel to work its warnings can do little more than frighten the life out of you. If what reporter Julian O’Halloran says is so – and File on 4 does not tend to trade in baseless accusation – then travelling by train is rather like buying an overpriced lottery ticket. Over the past two years, safety reports have shown gaps and errors both over how defects on the tracks are spotted, and what is then done to put them right. In some cases, urgent maintenance has been repeatedly postponed.
But what’s to be done if the obvious thing – closing down shop and getting everything fixed properly – can’t be done because people have to travel?
HBO: The One to Watch, Radio 2, 10.30pm
What a wonderful plug for what is presumably a rival to the BBC’s television producers. No matter, the upshot is that Stephen Merchant gets to tell us all about how a little New York-based TV channel came to be a global powerhouse, responsible for programmes such as The Larry Sanders Show, Sex and the City, The Sopranos and Six Feet Under. The big question, of course, is how they managed it – and, if they did it, why doesn’t everyone else?
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Cricket, 5 Live Sports Extra, Radio 4 longwave, 5.45am
An early start to the second half of England’s winter chores, beginning with the first of two Twenty 20 matches against New Zealand, in Auckland. Luckily the game is so quickly over you’ll be able to listen to the end of it on the train when it breaks down.