do you get a the senior rail card. do you get a rail cards were being young, for being middle—aged? rail cards were being young, for being middle-aged? there is a whole array. it has been an amazing weekend, and lots of people have been enjoying ice creams, but a warning here, also in the telegraph, that vanilla ice cream could be in short supply. i have learned something here today, that 85% of vanilla pods come from madagascar. and because of various national disasters, a cyclone last year, political unrest, the price has spiked and it is worth more than its weight in silver, prompting a shortage. it is a very enchanting story. i think the idea of ice cream being beyond the price that people can afford, it is tragic, isn't it? for children, and we all love ice cream. it can only be short—term, can't it? i think the concern is that producers of ice cream are just going to put in some kind of cheaper

alternatives, instead of the real stuff. i think vanilla is quite an old—fashioned flavour now. you see many more exotic combinations. i quite like salted caramel. i am not sure people would notice if vanilla disappeared for a bit. vanilla pods, i have it in the sugar that i use for cooking, it is a very delicious, gentle flavour, but it has been out didi gentle flavour, but it has been out did i think by things like salty caramel. still a fan of the vanilla, andi caramel. still a fan of the vanilla, and i am sure plenty were consumed over the weekend. this terrific picture in the time is just one of many. summing up the amazing hottest may date ever. extraordinary. many. summing up the amazing hottest may date ever. extraordinarylj many. summing up the amazing hottest may date ever. extraordinary. i love oui’ may date ever. extraordinary. i love our weather. we have wonderful weather because it constantly delights us. you wouldn't get a picture like this in california, because they weather is the same every day. it is glorious, we envy at, but we love it as it comes as a surprise. especially when you get a

bank holiday. and there is a bank holiday and it is wonderful, eve ryo ne holiday and it is wonderful, everyone is having a wonderful time. snow in winter, children out on their toboggans, and everyone saying what a wonderful day, and the british are able to enjoy their weather. i think it is one of our great traits. astonishing this weekend. 28 degrees today and it makes me feel a little bit smug that for once we can compete with johannesburg, ibiza and rio. we have been hotter than all of those places today. that's it for the papers tonight. thank you, dame joan ba kewell and lucy fisher. coming up next, it is meet the author. how can a writer make us care about a creature from greek mythology born of the gods asa 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 — which 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 and prometheus and all these people, who've got more than 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. it's a dangerous game. you know, she changes nappies. you are 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 these 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, i wanted 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 herfemininity. 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 humanizing of these mythological figures has to do with the revelation of her, what do 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. but 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 slipping away. the days when 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 a 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 the chance, that children will run towards them. do you see yourself as some kind of classics evangelist here? chuckling. 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 isn't 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, daughter of the sun god helios, she has a connection to prometheus, she's his cousin and all of these... you've got the wildest way of 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 bridge. she has a sort of 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 a 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. good evening. after the warmest early may bank holiday weekend on record, you may not be looking forward to heading back to work. i might be able to make the process less painful. the weather will change. the warmth will not last. something more cool and fresh and the next few days. with that at times, not all the time, outbreaks of rain. tomorrow should start off mainly fine. further west, a different story. cloud and mist and fog hugging the coastline. through

the day, this rain band would go into northern england as the afternoon goes on. still some heat to be had. temperatures beginning to tumble in the afternoon. thursday night, the band of rain goes further east. this is the forecast towards the end of the weekend the weekend. temperatures significantly lower than they have been. some spells of sunshine, but rain at times. that is all for now. i'm rico hizon in singapore. the headlines: the flow of destruction from hawaii's volcano. 35 buildings now destroyed, and many more under threat. as you go down the hill, you can see

that leilani avenue doesn't exist any more. there is black lava. as the british foreign secretary makes a last—minute plea, the us says it will announce the fate of the iran deal on tuesday. i'm kasia madera in london. also in the programme: as malaysia's election looms, we look at the race issues that could influence the vote. and a trump speech with a difference. what happened when melania took to the microphone.