Seriously...

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal," said Winston Churchill. The American satirist Joe Queenan thinks he might be wrong. In this archive hour follow up to his previous programmes on Blame, Shame, Anger and Irony, Queenan rails against the very idea of failure. His sharpest attack is reserved for the supposed romance of defeat. From Braveheart in Scotland via the heretic Cathars in France to the pretend soldiers in Virginia still re-enacting the American Civil War, Queenan explores whether there may be something noble about losing a war.

"I'm in the south, at one of the many re-enactment battles of the American civil war that go on every year. Thousands have turned up to re-fight a war they lost. We don't do this in the north - it would be odd, and divisive, perhaps even inflammatory. But the memories of a conflict that took place over 150 years down here - they don't go away."

This is the first of two archive programmes from Joe Queenan, with A Brief History of Lust coming next week.

Failure features archive contributions from classics professor Edith Hall; historian Geoffrey Regan; writer Armando Iannucci; former political correspondent and Strictly star John Sergeant; plus music from Laura Marling, Viv Albertine of the Slits and rock and roll's greatest failure, John Otway.

The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.

The writer Nicholas Royle is a passionate supporter of libraries and a devoted bibliophile. As a young man his passion for books was so strong, in fact, that some of the books he borrowed from libraries didn't manage to find their way back to their homes on the library shelves. Now, over three decades on, Nicholas is finally doing the right thing and returning the books to the places he first encountered them - Manchester, Paris and London - hoping to avoid any hefty fines in his attempt to straighten his accounts. Along the way he considers his evolving relationship with both books and libraries, meeting other writers such as Vahni Capildeo and Polar Bear to hear about books they have neglected to return because they loved them so much; he also speaks with others who would never dream of failing to take their books back, such as AL Kennedy. Nicholas also meets a successful journalist who went to the same school as him and was one of the last to borrow the novel before Nicholas himself took it on extended leave.

Just outside the Paraguayan capital city of Asuncion lies the town of Cateura. It's an impoverished settlement ranged along the banks of a stinking, polluted river, in the shadow of a giant landfill site. Many of its inhabitants scratch a living by reclaiming objects from the endless ocean of garbage to sell. Recycling of a kind. But for the last ten years the residents of Cateura have been part of a recycling project of a much sweeter sort.

La Orquesta de Instrumentos Reciclados de Cateura -- the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura -- use materials from the landfill site to create musical instruments. An oil drum for a cello, a pipe for a flute, a tin can for a guitar. They've toured the world and recorded with the likes of Metallica.

As the Orchestra leader Favio Chávez says, "The world sends us garbage. We send back music."

The BBC's South America Correspondent Wyre Davies visits Cateura, meets Favio Chávez and other members of the Recycled Orchestra and learns how trash, and lives, are being transformed by music.

Readings by:

Producer: Martin Williams

For more information about the Recycled Orchestra: http://www.recycledorchestracateura.com/

The Recycled Orchestra have been the subject of a recent documentary film: http://www.landfillharmonicmovie.com/

And an illustrated children's book: http://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Adas-Violin/Susan-Hood/9781481430951.

Frank Swain can hear Wi-Fi.

Diagnosed with early deafness aged 25, Frank decided to turn his misfortune to his advantage by modifying his hearing aids to create a new sense. He documented the start of his journey three years ago on Radio 4 in 'Hack My Hearing'.

Since then, Frank has worked with sound artist Daniel Jones to detect and sonify Wi-Fi connections around him. He joins a community around the world who are extending their experience beyond human limitations.

In 'Meet the Cyborgs' Frank sets out to meet other people who are hacking their bodies. Neil Harbisson and Moon Rebus run The Cyborg Foundation in Barcelona, which welcomes like-minded body hackers from around the world. Their goal is not just to use or wear technology, but to re-engineer their bodies.

Frank meets the creators of Cyborg Nest, a company promising to make anyone a cyborg. They have recently launched their first product - The North Sense - a computer chip anchored to body piercings in the chest, which vibrates when it faces north.

"I'm a 51 year old bald guy, with no tattoos or piercings" says co-founder Scott Cohen. "This was never a place I thought I'd end up in. Everyone's talking about machine learning, but what we're trying to do is make our brains smarter."

Of course, the marriage of technology and biology is commonplace in medicine, from pacemakers to IUDs. But now 'citizen hackers' are modifying their medical equipment to add new functions. Dana Lewis from Seattle has created her own 'artificial pancreas' to help manage her Type 1 diabetes and released the code online.

But should limits be placed on self-experimentation? And will cybernetic implants eventually become as ubiquitous as smart phones?

Features music composed for The North Sense by Andy Dragazis.

Presenter: Frank Swain

Radio 4 explores why the music genre of Grime has blown up in the UK in the last few years by following Wales' Astroid Boys on their recent UK tour. Once just the sound of the London underground, Grime's popularity has spread all over the country and is now the biggest youth culture since Punk. Cardiff's Astroid Boys are set to become Grime's next big thing - they've just signed a record deal with Sony imprint Music For Nations and their track Dusted has been picked up by wrestling giants WWE as their new anthem. The band and their fans tell us in their own words how this very British music scene has influenced their lives and given them a much needed voice.

Singer-songwriter and composer Laura Mvula meets jazz musicians Jason Yarde and Laura Jurd, and music broadcaster journalist Kevin Le Gendre, to discuss her musical inspiration, the visionary American jazz musician Miles Davis.

'He has always been and will always remain one of the greatest inspirations of my musical life. To me he was and is an icon, a pioneer, the unique innovator. He never held himself back - maybe that's what first attracted me to him and his sound'.

Picking up on these opening remarks, and in the company of three contributors with contrasting perspectives on the man and his music, Mvula and her guests consider the impact and legacy of Miles Davis, a unique musician who repeatedly reinvented himself musically, and single-handedly shape-shifted the language of jazz, for nearly half a century. With glimpses of music from Miles Davis's vast discography, the programme paints a unique and personal portrait of one of the 20th century's greatest musical creators and iconclasts.

Laura Mvula is one of the most exciting music talents to emerge in Britain in recent years. Growing up in Birmingham's Kings Heath to parents from Jamaica and St Kitts, Mvula cut her musical teeth singing in and directing local church and gospel choirs, and performing with soul group Judyshouse, before going on to Birmingham Conservatoire to study composition with, among others, composer Joe Cutler. After working as a music supply teacher in Birmingham schools, she sent demo recordings of her songs to record labels; the result has been spectacular international success that ranges from touring the world with her band, to composing for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Laura Mvula cites Miles Davis as one of her greatest influences - first urged by her father to watch documentaries about him, then given albums by a relative, her initial puzzlement grew into unbounded admiration for a black musician who refused utterly to be bounded by musical style or social position. His appetite for musical innovation and experiment, his dismissal of the idea of musical mistakes, his vision for successful creative collaboration - all of these characteristics and more combined to create a template for the sort of musician Laura Mvula has aspired to become. In this documentary feature, Laura sounds out her thoughts in the company of three guests, all of whom are equally great admirers of Miles Davis, but who approach him from different perspectives.

Mvula's guests are:

Kevin Le Gendre is a journalist and broadcaster with a special interest in black music. Deputy editor of Echoes, he contributes to a wide range of publications that include Jazzwise, MusicWeek, Vibrations and The Independent On Sunday and also appears as a commentator and critic on radio programmes such as BBC Radio 3's Jazz On 3 and BBC Radio 4's Front Row.

Laura Jurd is a British award-winning trumpet player, composer and bandleader and BBC New Generation Jazz Artist for 2015-2017. Highly active throughout the UK scene, Laura has developed a formidable reputation as one of the most creative young musicians to emerge from the UK in recent years.

Jason Yarde is a saxophonist, composer, arranger, producer, and musical director who writes music across various styles including jazz, classical, hip-hop, fusion, free improvisation, broken beats, R&B, reggae, soul, song writing and for a variety of media: his BBC Proms compositional debut 'Rhythm and Other Fascinations' won the first ever BASCA award for 'Contemporary Jazz Composition' in 2010.

Yarde began playing alto and soprano saxophones with the Jazz Warriors while a teenager, and went on to MD this landmark orchestra. He is a longtime sideman of Louis Moholo, and has appeared in the big bands of Sam Rivers, Hermeto Pascoal, McCoy Tyner, Manu Dibango, Roy Ayers, and Andrew Hill.

Producer: Lyndon Jones for Music Department, BBC Wales.

BBC coverage of Hull City of Culture will be extensive across 2017. At its very start, the award-winning poet Sean O'Brien reflects upon why his native city, its waterscape and landscape, have inspired poets past and present.

The programme features a specially commissioned new poem from Sean - a three-part memory-piece, which is also a love-song for Hull, its surroundings and their metaphorical resonance:

........The great void

Awaiting the signal to flood, is a kind of belief

Yet also that when the world ends

Through the estuary's mouth and the saw-toothed marriage

Sean also celebrates the work of poets who have made the city their home: Andrew Marvell, a line from whose 17th Century poem, To His Coy Mistress, gives this programme its title; Philip Larkin, Stevie Smith and others. He brings in an eclectic range of music, including his personal favourite, Dirty Water, by local band The Fabulous Ducks.

He hears from the Hull-based geographer Chris Skinner, and poet Sarah Stutt.

Starting with memories of digging holes in the garden of the house where he grew up, via flood-cellars, culverts and drains, the smaller river Hull and the great estuarine river Humber itself, this highly-textured programme culminates with Sean at the top of the disused lighthouse at Spurn Point, gazing out into the North Sea.

Producer Beaty Rubens.

This hospital based youth violence work is taking place in the four London major trauma centres and Producer Sue Mitchell was given exclusive access to follow what happens. The charity, Redthread, now has teams in each of the trauma centres and their youth workers will be alongside victims from the point that they walk, or are stretchered, in. They're away from their communities and alienated from peers and this surreal period - 'the teachable moment,' as it's known - is seen as being an effective time because the young person is vulnerable, shocked and forced to confront assumptions of invincibility.

Becky Calnan is a Redthread team leader at one of the London trauma centres and allows listeners to follow her work with nineteen year old Liam. He's been attacked on the street and turns up at Accident and Emergency with blood soaking into his coat and trousers. He tells her that he's been punched, kicked and stamped on as he was making his way to court for a scheduled appointment. She knows him already: just months earlier he was stabbed in his legs in a planned attack. Becky's been working with Liam ever since. His latest injuries don't surprise her: "He doesn't eat properly; he doesn't sleep as he's out at night, and he's paranoid because of how he's living: this all feeds into making these incidents much more likely to happen."

Liam tells listeners about his life of court appearances, street violence and lack of ambition. He traces the start of his problems back to 2010, when he moved to a new area of London with his Mum and sisters. He knows he could make something of himself if he puts his mind to it, but there's too much daily pressure for him to even try: "I don't know what can happen next. There are young youth running around with big knives and my Mum and Nan are scared. I'm not scared. I spat blood on them when they attacked me." But Liam's bravado cracks slightly as he acknowledges the work that Becky's doing: "She's helped me, I do appreciate that. If there are things I need to get off my chest she listens and she doesn't judge me. I don't have anyone else like that to talk to."

For Redthread the work is aimed at interrupting the cycle of violence which all too often sees the victim become the perpetrator. Liam describes being stabbed, jumped on and other attacks with a calm that would be more normally placed describing a shopping trip, say, not repeated street violence. He thinks he will end up dead unless he can change, but it's a hard task. Alongside Liam, Becky is helping others admitted every day. There's George, stabbed as he sat in his car, there are two victims who have yet to regain consciousness and a youngster who appears to have been paralysed in an attack. His long hospital stay provides a good opportunity to both tackle any possible acts of retribution and to begin considering the changes as he adapts to a very different life.

Redthread's hospital programme launched in 2006 and the idea has been in play in America for longer. There is an international network of hospital based intervention programmes and the idea is gaining ground, with Nottingham and Basildon being the latest areas for this approach. In London alone there were more than 1,236 victims of knife crime under the age of 25 in the year ending April 2016 according to the Metropolitan Police. The workers are called as ambulances are en route and will be there from the start, getting alongside the young person and helping them navigate the hospital system. They're trying to build the kind of relationships which many of these young people won't have had in their communities and the organisation also offer gang exit work and mental health support.

Dr Emer Sutherland, consultant clinical lead for the Emergency Department at King's College Hospital, said: "We set up the scheme at King's because we wanted to do more than just patch young people up and send them on their way. Hospitals have a unique opportunity to help try and stop the victim-perpetrator cycle. This is why talking to young people, at this key moment in their lives can help steer them away from the world of gang violence many find themselves in." Once they're in hospital they have a very private space for very private conversations: "Pain in some ways is a great mind opener.

"It's so powerful to the medical team, we can remember before we had Red Thread, we would see some of these young people who come in with trivial injuries and then come back with more severe injuries. We see youth violence as like any other disease, so we might see them on their way to school when they've been mugged or beaten up, then what could happen is they could join a gang to try and make them safe, even though the exact opposite is the case, then we see them going from stabbed in arms or legs to being quite viciously targeted and very vicious attacks - we find those very worrying.

John Toal meets former death-row inmates Sunny Jacobs and Peter Pringle at the retreat they have set up in rural Ireland to offer restorative treatment to other victims of wrongful conviction in order to help them back to a normal life.

Peter Pringle was sentenced to be hanged in Ireland in 1980. Sonia 'Sunny' Jacobs was sentenced to the electric chair in the United States in 1976. Sunny was accused of killing two police officers at a highway service area in Florida. Peter was accused of killing two police officers in rural Ireland during a botched bank robbery. Both had their sentences commuted to life and were later exonerated of their crimes. Peter and Sunny spent over 15 years each in prison for crimes they didn't commit.

After their release, life in the outside world was tough. They struggled to re-integrate into society. Practical things like crossing roads, opening doors or even being touched joined a long list of everyday challenges. Neither could escape the feeling that they had re-joined a society that had moved on without them.

In 1998 Peter heard Sunny give a talk about her death-row experience. Traumatised by her story and shocked by how similar their experiences were, Peter offered to drive Sunny to her next speaking engagement and their relationship grew from there.

Now married, Peter and Sunny run the Sunny Centre in rural Connemara, a retreat for people from around the world who have been wrongfully convicted and who are trying to retrace a path back into normal life.

For this programme, John Toal travels to the depths of the Irish countryside to hear Sunny and Peter's story. He hears how a combination of yoga, meditation, healthy food and the freedom to share their experiences with people who have been through similar trauma can assist those exonerated of dreadful crimes on their path back to normality ...and whether or not an exoneree can ever truly feel free again.

Producer: Jennifer Goggin.

Poet Mab Jones explores the concept of 'Hiraeth' in the poetry of Wales and further afield

Hiraeth, a central theme of Welsh language poetry and song, is a feeling of something lost, a long time ago, whether national identity or a once-important language.

But if the English don't have a word for it, does that mean they don't feel it, or that they don't need it? For some, like Mab's former Professor at Swansea, M Wynn Thomas, 'hiraeth' can function as a default nostalgia button, and a dangerous tendency to believe things were better in the past. It's an experience characteristic of the powerless, the dispossessed; it's the signature tune of loss, but is this hopeless and persistent longing holding this small nation back?

Mab Jones is a poet and performer both humorous and deeply serious. She stands outside the Welsh language tradition, claims she doesn't feel hiraeth (not for Wales anyway - possibly for Japan), and for Radio 4 questions and pokes at the concept, visiting the National Eisteddfod for the first time in an attempt to put her finger on exactly what it is. Exploring the concept through poetry that expresses it, from the poets Menna Elfyn and Ifor ap Glyn she hears poems and songs that deal with aspects of Welsh history that might explain the continued existence of the word in Welsh - forced removals from much loved homes through industrialisation and military eviction. And she talks to writers who live between two worlds and struggle with a sense of belonging: Pamela Petro, an American writer who fell in love with the landscape of Wales in her twenties, and Eric Charles Ngalle, a Cameroonian poet and refugee, who made a life in Wales while unable to turn his mind to his original home, and the trauma that made him leave his family aged 17.