Today we present a pro­gramme of folk music from the UK (well near­ly — there are a cou­ple of North Amer­i­can artists in there if truth be told), cov­er­ing the last 50 years or so.

This time we are also fea­tur­ing a clas­sic album from 1979, The Pea­cock Par­ty, by vir­tu­oso gui­tarist Gor­don Giltrap. Amongst a tal­ent­ed group of musi­cians, it fea­tures Gryphon’s Richard Har­vey on recorders and crumhorn. The tunes are inspired by char­ac­ters from the book The Pea­cock Par­ty writ­ten by George E Ryder and illus­trat­ed by Alan Aldridge — a sequel to the some­what bet­ter known The But­ter­fly Ball and the Grasshop­per’s Feast.

In addi­tion we’ll be hear­ing a col­lec­tion of British folk music from the last half-cen­tu­ry or so, with the likes of the Unthanks, Chum­bawam­ba, Four­told and others.

Some of today’s selec­tions are def­i­nite­ly on the rock side of folk, so be pre­pared for a fair­ly up-tem­po day.

And don’t miss the new episode of our Sec­ond Life trav­el fea­ture Where’ve You Been? in which Cale­do­nia Sky­tow­er and Elrik Mer­lin dis­cuss places to vis­it and things to do around the Sec­ond Life grid. The new episode goes out at 12 noon and 4pm SLT / 20:00 and 00:00 UTC today, repeat­ed on Sat­ur­day at the same time.