tim pears, author of the horseman, thank you very much. thank you,jim. good evening. a nice weekend. it has been dreary out there today. rain across many parts of the uk and a lot of cloud. we will keep the theme going in the next few days. some of it is thick enough to give some trips and drops of rain. no great amounts out there at the moment. as we go into the night, some of the rain will start to pick up. scotland, parts of east wales and england as well. fog patches in east anglia and the south—east. it is chilly. milder further west. we starts tomorrow with temperatures well above freezing. the catches there will be afair bit freezing. the catches there will be a fair bit of rain around, particularly for the southern and the midlands. a touch of frost across kent. a frost free start to the day. mostly drive for northern ireland and most of scotland as well, away from east areas. hopefully some of us will see some brightness. the best of that in part of east anglia and the south—east. still this damp weather through central areas. that will tend to ease away. som

tim pears, author of the horseman, thank you very much. thank you,jim. good evening. a very wet day, culminating in a very white evening. lashing rain across central and southern parts of the country early on but in the last few hours as temperatures have fallen, the rain has started to turn to sleet and snow. even inside the city of london, and the suburbs and more rural areas, snow cover on the hills. problems on the roads for sure. the sleet and snow does not hang around forever. later on it will clear eastwards but that introduces another problem because temperatures will fall quickly. 0nce the skies clear and everything will freeze, water, slush and snow. warnings have been issued for the possibility of icy conditions into the night. that is the case just about everywhere with further wintry showers across the north, and the west of england and wales. northern ireland and blizzards ranging across the high ground of northern scotland. a cold night out there. temperatures widely at or below freezing. through the early hours we are expecting a little band of sleet a

jim naughtie will be talking to tim pears about his new historical first world war novel, the horseman's time for a sportsday. hello and welcome to sportsday with me will perry. the headlines this eveving: zlatan rescues a point for united, who are held by liverpool at old trafford. two everton teenagers turn on the style at goodison as manchester city are thrashed on merseyside. and virat kohli stars as india beats england in the first one day international. good evening. liverpool led for nearly an hour at old trafford, but had to settle for a 1—1 draw against manchester united in the premier league, with zlatan ibrahimovic rescuing a point late on as ben croucher reports. what happens when two of the biggest cities, the biggest clubs, the biggest personalities in football collide? liverpool bossjurgen klopp described the rivalry with manchester united as very, very big. a big game for the big names. few in football come as big as zlatan ibrahimovic. he almost gave united the lead. paul pogba should have. worse was to follow as inexplicably he gave liverpool a helping hand in his own

tim pears, author of the horseman, thank you very much. thank you,jim. inafew in a few minutes‘ time we willjoin viewers an bbc one for a round—up of the day's news, but before that the weather with john hammond. good evening, i hope you had a nice weekend. a good chance that where you are has been a bit cloudy and drab, hopefully some brightness at some stage over the next few days, but i'm not promising an awful lot of sunshine. you can see the extent of the cloud cover on the recent satellite picture, and that cloud has been producing some rain in some places too through today. dribs and drabs for a time through this evening, then some more persistent rain perhaps pushing down from scotland. it will be more chilly, cold enough for a touch of frost across the far south—east, as east anglia, the odd fog patch. into the midlands, it is damp, up through northern england it is damp as well. somewhat drier through northern ireland and scotland, mild as well, 8—9 degrees. but even here i think not much in the way of brightness. there will be some glimpses of

in his much admired novels, tim pears has consistently worked to explore our relationship with the landook, the horseman. set in the west country before the first world war, telling the story of an unlikely and almost forbidden relationship, and the coming loss of innocence. welcome. one of the most powerful elements of the horseman is the sense of the force of nature, the cycles of the seasons and so on, and it's obvious that that's not a device. have you always been conscious of that closeness to the way, frankly, the earth works? i have, yes, definitely. the horseman is set in the west country, and that's where i grew up, i am a country boy. but i left there... like many people, i grew up in a small village. it wasn't for me when i was there, it wasn't where the world was. the world was in the big cities, it was in london, it was in europe. you had to leave home to find it? i had to leave home to find it, it is an old story. and, having left home and begun to think about it some years later and beginning to write about it and use it as a place that i wanted to set stories in, i could