Radio 4! You've lost the news! As sure as night follows day, so Radio 4's news bulletins follow the Big Ben bongs at the top of the hour. Except the nation's most popular speech radio station ground to a halt on Saturday when its 6pm news bulletin went missing – for the best part of 10 minutes. It was left to presenter and announcer Arlene Fleming to fill the gap with a mixture of Radio 4 trails, apologies, and exhaustive references to the Radio 4 website. Radio 4 said later it was "sorry for any inconvenience caused to our listeners". "Well that was very nice to hear from Big Ben but we would like to hear the news," Fleming told listeners. "I'm afraid we're having some technical problems which have prevented us from continuing with our scheduled programmes as we would wish." Trails for programmes such as Loose Ends and Desert Island Discs followed, along with a plug for the BBC's on-demand radio programmes. "We can't always listen to the radio when we like," said Kirsty Young. She's not kidding. It's not the BBC's only radio fail of late, after this unfortunate snafu on Radio 2's Bob Harris show. But back to Radio 4, where Fleming announced: "I'm glad to say we can return to the Six O'Clock News." Except it was a false start. Cue more trails until finally, nine minutes of desperate filling later: "We are getting back to the news shortly. I really do hope so. Let's have a try now. This is BBC Radio 4 and hopefully we can go to the Six O'Clock News with Susan Rae …" A nation rejoiced. And Fleming went for a lie down.