Radio: Pick of the Day

CONVINCED that Russia will define the new century as much as it has done the last, the writer Philip Marsden decided to head for its "fraying southern border" in search of forgotten radicals. In the steppe, he met The Spirit Wrestlers (9.45am R4FM) - a sect which survived Tsarist and Communist persecution with austere principles intact.

In "Doctors of Philosophy", this week's Postscript: (8.40pm R3), the novelist Alain De Botton (right) will be "consulting" the great thinkers about everyday problems. He starts with Epicurus, on the subject of cash-flow crises.

The Late Book - If It Moves... Kill 'Em (12.30am R4) cuts a useful swathe through David Weddle's biography of the film-maker Sam Peckinpah.