to judge. we haven't done who am i to judge. we haven't done the journalism, so we don't know the fa cts the journalism, so we don't know the facts behind it. certainly one of the uncles has denied the claims of a scam as lies. lies designed to target mrjavid. a scam as lies. lies designed to target mr javid. three a scam as lies. lies designed to target mrjavid. three people were interviewed in pakistan. they claim, they allege... it will be interesting to see his considered response to this story. you are right, john, that he is now running the immigration department. but even so, i don't think anybody should be held accountable for what your relatives do. his response may well be to say nothing. the front page of the sunday express. unfortunately, you have got two people here who are not overly enthusiastic about this

type of journalism. the not overly enthusiastic about this type ofjournalism. the sunday express know their readership. i am sure there are mums and dads who will say, what a lovely picture. when they do these pictures they sell hundreds of thousands of copies. it's money. they are printing money. it is a touching picture. a lovely picture, in fairness. all the papers have got it. thank you both very much. more again at 11:30pm. coming next, meet the author. how can a writer make us care about a creature from greek mythology born of the gods as a nymph? it's a challenge for any novelist. madeline miller did it first with achilles. now she tells the story of the great sorceress and enchantress, circe, who leads us through many

of the great stories of mythology, behaving badly — like she so often did — but at the same time emerging as a figure with human qualities, including of course vulnerability. who will win many readers' sympathy because she is an individual trying to make sense of a very troubled world. welcome. what is the trick in humanising an immortal nymph like circe? well, i think i've always found that these ancient myths really resonate with un—human nature in that they are very timeless in what they are looking at, and i absolutely felt that as i was approaching circe. here she is, yes, she's a goddess,

yes, she is a nymph, but she lives in a world where she is the pawn of much more powerful people than herself and she's on the receiving end. she doesn't have a lot of control, initially, over what she can do with her life and where she can go, and i think we can all relate to feeling in the grip of larger powers than ourselves. nonetheless, you have to bring them to life. they've got to be something more than statues in a museum, and if we're going to meet odysseus, scylla and charybdis, and prometheus and all these people who've got more than a walk—on parts in the story, they need to come off the wall, don't they? absolutely, and one of the things i love about the ancient myths is that when we talk about these greek heroes we use the word hero today to talk about someone who often is a moral exemplar. the ancient greek heroes were not moral exemplars at all. they were very complex, they had huge strengths and also huge faults, and so i really wanted to honour that in all of the characters — particularly circe — to make her a person that is three—dimensional,

complex with those flaws and strengths as well. and, of course, you turn her into a figure who still has the powers, immortality and the ability to turn people into pigs and other things if she wants to and doesn't like them, which she uses, but you give her a humanity. she changes nappies. it's a dangerous game. you were a high school classics teacher by trade. do you ever think i'm letting this side down? i certainly have worried about the classics police and getting kicked out of the classics club, but i think that most classicists agree that the stories live because they are retold and they have been retold so many times over the years in so many contradictory ways and that's why they are still with us. and it's no accident that they've been told, because they are fundamental stories. folk myths, same thing. exactly. and i think that there is no such thing as an objective,

definitive version of a myth. i think they invite us in to retell them. so, what about her? what sort of person do you think she becomes in your hands? well, iwanted her to be a character who is really forged by being downtrodden very early on in her life, and i think sometimes that can drive people towards then treading on others, but i think it can also draw great empathy and pity for others, and i think that's the way circe goes. and the downtrodden nature that you reveal is very much connected with her femininity. yes. this is a world, the ancient greek mythological world, is a world that's not kind to women at all. it is not kind to a lot of people, men and women, but in particular as a woman and one of these lower—level nymphs, you are prey. i would not suggest for a second that this is a tract or a great political statement, but it's undoubtedly a book deeply

informed by a feminist perspective in the world, isn't it? yes, i really wanted to take this female character and put her at the centre of her own epic. women have traditionally not been the subject of epics. their lives have not been seen as important enough for an epic, and so just as odysseus gets his epic i wanted this to be her epicjourney. and in a way, the humanising of these mythological figures has to do with the revelation of her, what we call them, psychological struggles or something? that is, to come back to the very beginning of our conversation, that is the trick. that's what makes her tick. and for me that always comes originally with asking questions. so, the great mystery of circe is why is she turning men into pigs? how do you come to that point in your life? homer does not tell us, odysseus never asks her, and so i think it's really ripe for exploration. i don't believe that people do things just because, or on a whim, i think people have

reasons for what they do. and what is your explanation in her character? without giving too much away... indeed, yes. ..i think she feels very betrayed and assaulted and abused at one point, and she lashes out in response to that. so, really, it's vengeance for her. the ancient world is very, very distant now for people. notjust because of the timeline, but because it's sort of is slipping away. the days when the children went to school and many of them learnt latin as just the inevitable thing, have long gone. there is great enthusiasm for the classics in many schools, of course teachers are determined to keep them alive, but it's changed day, isn't it? it is changing. although as a high school teacher myself, one thing that i'm always struck by is when i do get children in the

classroom and i do start talking about the myths, they are immediately gripped. i think these stories are so exciting and filled with huge emotions and things that they can identify with that i think if you can give myths a chance, children will run towards them. do you see yourself as some kind of classics evangelist here? i know you are writing a work of fiction and of the imagination, in a way, but you are doing more than that. you are saying look, here are great stories and i'm trying to breathe a particular kind of new life and shed some new light on them. it's always really exciting to me whenever someone comes and says i read your book and it made me go back to homer. that is, for me, the ultimate compliment. i want these novels to be for everyone. but with circe, you made the point earlier that there's so much that is not explained, that you've got the gift of the unknown to play with. yes, and as it turns out, she has this whole wonderful back story that has absolutely nothing to do with odysseus.

she is the aunt of the minotaur in media, daughter of the sun god helios, she has a connection to prometheus, she's his cousin and all of these other divinities... sort of bringing everybody in. like some huge cast of a broadway musical. they are all there. if you have the opportunity to write a minotaur birth scene, i feel you have to take it. absolutely. it's interesting, this struggle between somebody who is in touch with the world of the gods in the ancient conception and the world of humanity. it's the kind of thing that wagner struggled with in the ring. how do you make this connection work? it is a big thing to take on. that really comes right out of homer, that he has this beautiful detail about her, that she is the dread goddess who speaks like a human. and so i think naturally she is that a bridge. she has a sort of a foot in each world.

and that is the curse, of course? yes, yes. i mean, if you are just one thing or the other you get on with it, but if you are stuck transporting yourself between these two worlds of the human understanding and the kind of eternal life of the gods, how do you handle it? as you say, it is kind of a curse because it means that you never fully belong anywhere, but it also gives you a very interesting perspective on each of those things. you can stand back and kind of come to see them for their faults and their strengths as well. you don't belong anywhere, but nonetheless in your conception of her, you have a life that is in its own bizarre way very enriching. yes. one of the major themes of the odyssey is odysseus has this intense longing for home, and he wants to find his home in ithaca. it is a journey. yes, it is. and i wanted her to have that same sense of searching for home, except she has to create that home. she has to make it for herself. and does she do it?

she does. madeline miller, author of circe, thank you very much. thank you so much for having me. hello there. it is not often we can deliver good news for a bank holiday weekend. that is what we can do for this early may day bank holiday. pretty glorious for most. lots of scenes like this with blue skies. not everywhere has seen blue skies. chilly in places, irish sea coasts and western scotland. that is because of this weather front and very strong winds continuing to affect this part of the uk. high pressure dominates the bulk of the country and will continue to do so into sunday and monday. low cloud and missed around irish sea coasts.

the breeze easing down overnight in the north and west of scotland. maybe a few spots of rain. elsewhere, clear, dry and cool, particularly in eastern england. it doesn't mean we will start off on a lovely, dry and bright note again. mist clearing away. some see mist and low cloud around irish sea coasts. the north—west and northern parts of scotland seeing outbreaks of rain. very warm elsewhere. england and wales seeing temperatures of 2a, 20 five celsius. the reason it gets warmer on bank holiday mondays because this area of high pressure moves east. drier and warmer air. for the bulk of the country, fine and dry. sunny and turning very warm. still low cloud and mist across irish sea coasts, parts of scotland the odd shower. cool across eastern scotland.

further south, 2a, 25, maybe 26 celsius. one or two locations in the south—east could seek 27 degrees. a record—breaking bank holiday monday. as we head into tuesday, subtle changes taking place. a series of wea k cold changes taking place. a series of weak cold fronts will move in bringing bands of cloud, maybe some showers, and a drop in temperatures. particularly in western areas. many central and eastern parts of the country will remain warm, dry and sunny. hot again in the south east. this is bbc news. the headlines — former manchester united manager, sir alex ferguson, has emergency surgery for a brain haemorrhage. his club say the operation went well. support has flooded in from fans and friends.

i hope he is in good hands and i hope the operation is a major success because as a personal friend, x, you know, i hope he has a full recovery. british fugitive, jamie acourt, has been remanded in custody by a spanish judge after being arrested in barcelona on drugs charges. russian opposition leader, alexei navalny, is arrested as he tries to address a protest against president putin. an erupting volcano in hawaii has triggered a series of earthquakes, including the most powerful tremor to hit the state since 1975.