Fanny Blankers-Koen, far right, of the Netherlands finishes first in the Women's 100m during
the XIV Olympic Games Circa August of 1948 in London

Clare Balding's new 30 part series on sport in Britain starts today at 1.45pm on BBC Radio 4 after the World at One. The first part looks at the Rise of Olympism while tomorrow Clare visits Broad Halfpenny Down in Hampshire, regarded by many as the birthplace of cricket.

The series is also available to listen to online as well as a downloadable podcast.

Paul Murphy is the editor of the Radio 4 blog

Calypsonian Lord Kitchener on the BBC TV programme Caribbean Carnival, 1951

In the opening episode of Stories from Notting Hill, Kwame Kwei-Armah pinpoints the West Indies cricket team's victory over England at Lord's in 1950 as a seminal event in the Notting Hill Carnival's origins even though it pre-dates it by some years. This memorable win, the first time the West Indian team had beaten England on their home turf, led to an impromptu victory march by the West Indian supporters around the ground and along the street from Lord's down to Piccadilly Circus led by calypsonians Lord Kitchener and Lord Beginner.

In the programme Alexander D Great, UK Calypso Monarch explains further:

"That procession stated or declared to the British public how Caribbeans celebrated - with joy and with laughter and with jumping and dancing - an event like this, and the carnival is also representative of the same thing. And maybe this was the first time that the British public saw the Caribbean spirit in Britain in the open air."

You can find out more about the early days of the Notting Hill Carnival in the first episode of the series. It's available for the next six days.

Paul Murphy is the Editor of the Radio 4 blog

• Stories from Notting Hill continues daily until Friday at 3.45pm on Radio 4 or you can listen on the Radio 4 website for up to seven days afterwards.
• Read the Wisden match report from the 1950 Lord's test match and the feature Those two little pals of mine... on Cricinfo:

  Leading the revellers was Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts), a calypso star who had been in London since 1948. "Right round the ground he went in an African war dance," it was reported, "all in slow time. Kitch, with a khaki sash over bright blue shirt, carried a guitar which he strummed wildly."

We had long discussion yesterday, considering various tactics for avoiding a possible clash between the late night Shipping Forecast and the end of the last Test Match. Could we only carry it on FM and DAB? That wouldn't work for mariners far from land as they rely on the carrying power of Long Wave...

Read the rest of Denis Nowlan's post and leave comments on the BBC Radio blog.

For as long as I can remember Test Match Special has been the soundtrack of my Summer.

I admit I was jealous of commentators who got paid to watch the cricket and to talk about it - I still am. They are brilliant and the skill of the producers in bringing in recent ex-players such as Michael Vaughan has taken the coverage onto a new level.

As a child TMS was even more exciting in Winter when the slightly telephonic sound quality whispered out of my radio from Australia when my parents thought I was asleep. Now the quality of sound is much better particularly when it is on DAB on 5 live Sports Extra which will carry every ball of every Test Match.

When I became commissioning editor at Radio 4 in 1997 you can imagine my joy when the Controller of Radio 4 James Boyle asked me to look after the relationship between TMS and the network. He was Scottish and it wasn't really his game. Finally I fulfilled my dream of visiting the commentary box and sampling the cake.

What I was less prepared for was the detailed and hard work that goes into planning TMS on Long Wave. Here we had to balance the conflicting demands on the Long Wave frequency. The contest was, and still is, Parliament and the Daily Service and The Shipping Forecast vs. The Cricket. That task has not changed and as we will see this winter the time differences across Australia mean it is a different story for each match.

The principles have not changed. Sailors need to know about the wind, the nation needs to know what is going on at Westminster, The Daily Service is a daily cherished 'appointment to listen' so Long Wave listeners will miss a few overs or switch to listening online via the 5live website or to a DAB radio. The interruptions are a small price to pay for keeping the comprehensive coverage that Long Wave affords for those who live outside the DAB range or do not have a DAB radio. Long Wave Radio is the only analogue live coverage of the cricket but I know some listeners will be frustrated that they cannot hear normal Radio 4 on Long Wave during the cricket.

We hope FM coverage will work for most people and remember Radio 4 is streamed online and for night-owls the World Service is on 648 medium wave. Failing all that TMS is very special even for some who never watch cricket and, who knows, Aggers may be warming our winter with a story of triumph down under. Alternatively the Shipping Forecast may be a poetic relief from the gloom.

If you do fall asleep how about subscribing to the TMS podcast and catching up on the way to work or school.

Andrew Caspari is Head of Speech Radio and Classical Music, Interactive at the BBC

• Radio 4's LW schedule and FM schedule.
• Join the discussion of The Ashes on Twitter. Follow BBC cricket people and use the hashtag #BBCAshes.
• The Test Match Special blog brings together posts from all of the BBC's cricket blogs.
• Tim Davie, Director of Audio & Music, has written about the vitality of radio sports commentary on the BBC Radio blog.
• Adam Mountford, Test Match Special producer, has written about the BBC's Ashes coverage on his blog.
• Details of the BBC's Ashes coverage on the BBC Sport web site.
• The picture shows the stopwatches showing time of play remaining on TMS (it was taken in 2005 - they've probably gone digital since).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00c67t1

Test Match Special is a favourite programme. I first started listening more or less forty years ago. I remember not only the wonderful Arlott and Johnston - but Alan Gibson and Don Mosey and Alan McGilvray and EW Swanton. Like many others I turned down the TV commentary to listen to TMS - unless Richie Benaud was on TV duty.

That is a bit harder to do now as Sky (who do a very good job I rather think) and TMS are not in perfect sync. Alas.

Of course everyone with an interest in cricket and/or TMS knows of the Brian Johnston corpsing moment - or should that be corpsing minutes. I was listening live at the time. But I have other favourite moments. I do this next bit from memory - and someone out there correct me if this is wrong - but I recollect a New Zealand batsman in the 1970s (perhaps Bev Congdon?) making two successive huge hundreds. John Arlott asked Trevor Bailey what were Congdon's weaknesses. Trevor Bailey replied... "He loses concentration when he gets to 170." Very fine.

Why is TMS so good? Because it is about metaphor and simile - about literature and art, about weather and place - about food and drink - as well as about a great game (though not necessarily a better game than baseball - but that's another story). And we are always looking for the perfect balance between the sporting ingredients and the other delicacies that surround the cricket. Everyone has a different opinion about what that balance should be... and it is an art form. We must not miss a ball but it would be a mistake not to let the team go off piste.

We are in good nick at the moment. The programme of course is now online and on 5 Live Sports Extra but it will long stay a defining part of R4's culture. It will not be a sports commentary programme alone. I am going to see the TMS team on Saturday morning at the Oval. Let us hope the match is still alive at that point. I have an Australian wife and my children have Australian passports and some of them will be with me. I do not know whether I am impartial. I would not wish to fail the Tebbit test. So I shall pray for Freddie's knee.

• 5 Live's Test Match Special page and details of how to listen in Jonathan Agnew's Oval preview.
• Adam Mountford, Alison Mitchell, Mihir Bose and Oliver Brett contribute to the Test Match Special blog and producer Adam Mountford has his own.
• Dozens of great Ashes moments from 5 Live's archive.
• Subscribe to the Test Match Special podcast and embed the Test Match Special widget.
• Follow Jonathan Agnew on Twitter.
• A page of 'gaffes and giggles' from Brian Johnston's web site.
• Dave Podmore's Ashes, a comedy about 'the game's laziest bits-and-pieces player' starts tonight at 2300 on Radio 4.
• The picture is from the BBC's picture library and shows (L-R) Alan McGilvray, Trevor Bailey, Freddie Truman, and Henry Blofeld in the Test Match Special commentary box at Lords in 1981.