Radio: Pick of the Day

ANNA PAVORD, this paper's gardening correspondent, has plucked the best parts of her new book, The Tulip (9.45am R4FM), to read this week. This definitive history describes the fanatical devotion the flower has inspired since it arrived in Western Europe 400 years ago.

Given the current concern about fake TV docu-soaps, Two Flies on the Wall (8pm R4), the edited highlights of six months spent "observing the observers", couldn't be more timely. Paul Watson attempts to make a distinction between the stitch-up and cutting-room manipulation.

In Mixing It (10.45pm R3), Velvet Underground lynchpin John Cale (right) talks about musical influences from his boyhood onwards.