Taylor Parkes

After demonstrating a fun smartphone app, Jarvis reads Richard Brautigan's story about the search for the perfect lightbulb, Times Square in Montana. Music critic Taylor Parkes drops by, and compares writing for The Quietus website to writing for the Melody Maker. In his audio essay The Monkees and Manufacturing, he argues that the pop machine can offer the world interesting music that couldn't be created otherwise – as long as there's room for happy accidents. He and Jarvis also wonder whether people still care about the pop charts. On This Day, Charles I was beheaded; Cromwell was ritually executed; Carole King's Tapestry was released; The Beatles performed their famous rooftop concert; and Yerba Buena became San Francisco. Birthdays: Richard Brautigan, John Profumo, Horst Jankowski, Franklin D Roosevelt, Percy Thrower, Patrick Caulfield, Nick Broomfield, Phil Collins, Christian Bale, Peter Crouch, Gene Hackman and Vanessa Redgrave. Valete: Gerald Durrell (discussing naturalism and politics).

Jeremy Dyson

Jarvis has found more foreign-language song versions and recalls actress and peanut beauty Caroline Munro. For the second Zodiac track, Aquarian listeners are asked to submit their favourite colour, band, vegetable, mode of transport and double act – to help build an astrological profile of 6 Music listeners. Yvette Mimieux recites lines by Baudelaire over music by Ali Akbar Khan. Jeremy Dyson tells Jarvis about his stage adaptation of Roald Dahl's Twisted Tales, his play Ghost Stories, magic tricks and choosing between writing and rock music. There's another mangled fairground organ tune and Jarvis recounts two extraordinary tales: the spine-chilling story of the Green Briar Ghost and how Stephan Eicher recorded an album while locked in a bar overnight. Birthdays: Gavin Bryars, Sonny Chiba (with a related clip of Samuel L Jackson), Django Reinhardt (praised by Stéphane Grappelli), Stendhal, Luisa Casati, Gary Burton and Robin Zander.

A Decision Is Made - Zodiac

This week Jarvis saw burlesque cabaret La Soirée and discovered some new old music from a back copy of The Wire. He decides how to pronounce 2011 and thinks about foreign-language versions of familiar songs. Scott Walker discusses Jacques Brel and Frank Sinatra. Jarvis then announces what record he'll play throughout the year: one listener suggested Frank Sinatra conducting tone poems of colour, another Norrie Paramor's Zodiac Suite, but Jarvis chooses Zodiac by The Cosmic Sounds. On This Day, Ivan the Terrible (or Awesome) was made Czar of Russia; Don Quixote was first published, so we hear an extract from a children's radio adaptation; and Buckminster Fuller won an architecture award and we hear him musing on evolution. Birthdays: Nick Valensi, Jim Stafford, Barbara Lynn, Cliff Thorburn, André Michelin, Susan Sontag, Paul 'Rustin' Man' Webb, Maxine Jones, Kate Moss, Damo Suzuki and Richard Hawley. Valete: Trish Keenan.

Scott Walker Special

As it's Scott Walker's birthday and the show's first anniversary, Jarvis celebrates with Scott songs plus clips from a 1977 interview in which Scott discusses the Walker Brothers' time in Europe, why the group broke up and his struggle with stage fright. On This Day in 1768, Philip Astley set up the first modern circus; and in 1799, the first income tax was levied. Jarvis also asks listeners for songs that are only great in parts. There are clips from the Christopher Hitchens v. Tony Blair debate on religion and a recording of beat poet Kenneth Patchen. Birthdays: Susannah York, Gracie Fields (discussing religion), Kenny 'Klook' Clarke (Jarvis talks about Klook's jazz drumming), David Johansen, Joan Baez, Jimmy Page and Edouard Beaupré (we hear about Edouard's life as a circus freak), as well as George Martin whose birthday was last week.

New Year, New Hopes

Jarvis ushers in the new year by flirting outrageously with the listeners! He plays some of Terje Isungset's Ice Music. Because he recently performed Peter and the Wolf at the RFH, Jarvis plays a recording of Sean Connery narrating Prokofiev's children's classic. To replace the BBC Seasons record, Jarvis tries a track from Percy Thrower's Gardening Year -- or, he suggests playing a different version of Hey Joe every month. Then he reads an excerpt about Jimi Hendrix by Padgett Powell. And Alan Watts considers which is more dominant, brain or stomach? Birthdays: Van Dyke Parks, Sergio Leone and Todd Haynes. Valete: Captain Beefheart and Elisabeth Beresford.