A Point Of View

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Simon Schama reflects on the history of political rhetoric and televised debates.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Simon Schama celebrates New Zealand's history and regrets talk of joining with Australia.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

With the help of his daughter, Darwin and the Cynics of ancient Greece, Adam concludes that, in our search for meaning in life, 'meaning bound around by a number is easier to grasp than meaning left to meander where it will.

The act of taking 10,000 steps a day,' he says, 'brings with it a sense of conscious accomplishment that the phrase 'a good long walk' cannot'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Adam Gopnik tells us why he's obsessed with steps... a lot of steps.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Adam Gopnik on why he's become hooked by the fad of taking 10,000 steps a day.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Those cartoon characters - or their puppet equivalents - which touch us at our most formative moments of early childhood will become part of the bedrock of our cultural belonging.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Sarah Dunant reflects on the power of a cartoon showing Bert and Ernie as a gay couple.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

And she reflects on being a Brit these days in the US. 'In the normal course of events,' she writes, 'it's Brits who like to make fun of Americans. Now, Americans are bewildered by us'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

AL Kennedy reflects on being a Brit these days in upstate New York.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Tom Shakespeare argues that we need to reconsider our view that changing your mind is a weakness.

Sticking to your guns', he says, is of little benefit in today's complicated, fast-changing world.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Tom Shakespeare on why changing your mind shouldn't be seen as a weakness.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The future of the world once more hangs in the balance of moves between the West and Russia,' she writes.

The question of whether Russia really does have a strategic grandmaster at the helm - and whether the West can outmanoeuvre him - has become a matter of horrible urgency'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Zoe Strimpel on chess, concentration and the growing conflict with Russia.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

From Ozzy Osbourne to Paris Hilton to the influencer famous only for trying to sell us this or that brand of hair conditioner, Sarah explores the democratisation of fame.

But if one of its better qualities,' Sarah writes, 'is that it can make you feel close to someone you don't know, for them to become so woven into the fabric of your life that, along with others who feel the same, you are part of a community in which they hold a pivotal place, then Elizabeth Windsor managed that in spades'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sarah Dunant reflects on how the nature of fame has changed over the past seventy years.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The film about backing singers - the unsung heroes of pop music - scooped best documentary at the Oscars. Sarah discusses how celebrity culture has given us a society where the dream is no longer to be the backing singer, but to take centre stage. 'Andy Warhol' she writes 'with his fifteen minutes of fame, has turned out to be a prophet as much as an artist'.

But 'in a world where everyone wants to be the lead singer' she asks 'who is left to swell the sound? Or more importantly to appreciate it'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Sarah Dunant reflects on fame and the cult of celebrity, following 20 Feet From Stardom.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

We have to face up to the fact, he says, that our choices will have huge impacts for which we must take responsibility.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Zia Haider Rahman discusses the moral questions facing us in lifting the lockdown

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But Adam reminds us that plagues have often, in the past, preceded times of plenty - the Jazz Age, for example, following closely on the heels of the 1918 flu pandemic in the US.

'So what lies before us may be parched austerity and continuing depression... or champagne at midnight in Gatsby's garden.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Adam Gopnik on why, during the pandemic, there's a fine line between clever... and stupid.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Zia describes the letters he's written to some of Britain's foremost institutions on their lack of diversity.

He says empirical research of cognitive scientists points ever more clearly to the immense difficulty of changing minds.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Zia Haider Rahman on the abysmal race record of some of Britain's foremost institutions.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Rebecca tells how modern science has explained the events of 536 AD when the sun 'disappeared' and a devastating pandemic followed.

And she ponders what scientists - hundreds of years from now - will be able to tell about our current pandemic and our environmental crisis.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Rebecca Stott tells the story of 536 AD - the year the sun 'disappeared'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In tough times, she says, there's a long history of people searching for a 'modern man on horseback, a populist hero, who they hope will come and rescue them and make the bad things go away'.

But she says there are many problems with this - the most obvious one being that 'leaders of this sort never properly deliver and usually do immense damage'.

She concludes that all of us must get involved in the work of effective democratic politics.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Linda Colley discusses the cult of charismatic leaders and why they never properly deliver

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He visits the painted caves of Ajanta, dating from the 2nd century BC, and seen as one of the most comprehensive depictions of civilised classical life that we have.

He describes their monasteries, adorned with 'images of attractively voluptuous women....because in the eyes of the monks, this was completely appropriate decoration'.

But Christianity - he says - 'has always seen the human body as essentially sinful, lustful and shameful'.

He charts how - throughout India's history - the arts have consistently celebrated the beauty of the human body seen, 'not as some tainted appendage to be whipped into submission, but potentially the vehicle of divinity'.

He argues that history can make us aware of 'how contingent and bound by time, culture and geography so many of our preconceptions actually are'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

For Lent, William Dalrymple compares Eastern and Western views of self-discipline.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'The traditional 'first footing' gifts of the New Year - a lump of coal and a black bun - linger on,' Alex writes, 'though with diminished take-up and not just because few houses are coal-heated now and few people truly appreciate the black bun.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Janet Staples

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Alex Massie on the changing face of a Scottish New Year.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Alex Massie reflects on Hogmanay through the ages, with help from Robert Louis Stevenson, the great biographer James Boswell, and the Reverend I.M Jolly.

Show more "

Alex Massie delves into Hogmanays past and present.

'The traditional 'first footing' gifts of the New Year - a lump of coal and a black bun - linger on,' Alex writes, 'though with diminished take-up and not just because few houses are coal-heated now and few people truly appreciate the black bun.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Janet Staples

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Alex Massie on the changing face of a Scottish New Year.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Alex Massie reflects on Hogmanay through the ages, with help from Robert Louis Stevenson, the great biographer James Boswell, and the Reverend I.M Jolly.

Show more "

Shouldn't we in Britain have better festivals? Shouldn't we celebrate Midsummer?

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

As anti-Semitism once again comes back to the centre stage of British political life, Will says he's had cause to rethink his position.

Once societies contain a certain proportion of active bigots', he writes, 'all rational debate on such matters begins to shut down as everyone reverts - tediously, ineluctably - to type'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self on a new wave of anti-Semitism in Britain.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He reflects on whether politics really has been turned upside down by a momentous election.

He argues that the situation is not unprecedented but says 'the election has punctured what was the ruling illusion of our age - the belief that we'd left behind the ideological antagonisms of the past'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray reflects on how the election has changed politics.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Sexuality is a human right', he points out....and says we must set aside the notion that disabled people have 'special needs' when it comes to sexuality.

We have all the normal needs of non-disabled people'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Tom Shakespeare asks why disabled sexuality is still so often taboo.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The common good, rather than mass sentiment, should be the source of law, and the common good may be hard to discover and easily obscured by crowd emotions.'.

Roger Scruton says government by petition is out of step with representative democracy.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

And she reflects on sugar's power to bind generations together and keep history alive. 'My grandmother and I would often bond over a plate of pfeffernusse... powdered gingerbread stuffed shapes from Germany', Zoe writes. 'Recipes for cakes - we are a family of women who love cake - were passed down on yellow, lined paper in stained scrapbooks and closely guarded'.

'And so here I am, 41, and still unable to give up the white stuff.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Zoe Strimpel on sugar's extraordinary power to bind generations.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Zoe Strimpel reflects on her faltering attempts to give up 'the white stuff'.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

In ancient Greece, once a year, citizens gathered in the forum to scratch the name of the person they most wanted removed from the political arena on an ostrakon, a shard of broken pot. Too many appearances, and you got banished to a faraway province for a decade...ostracised by the ostraka. 'Once you were out of Athens in the fifth century BCE', Sara writes, 'you were cancelled good and proper'.

History, she says, ought to teach us the importance of listening to each other and the value of nuance.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sara Wheeler on the perils of entrenched positions.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The writer, Stella Tillyard, talks about her 'battle' with dyslexia - from her childhood to now.

She vividly describes the 'gremlin that takes me by the hand, pulls my confidence away, and makes my heart beat too fast when I have - as now - to read aloud'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Stella Tillyard describes her struggle with dyslexia for the first time.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But the seesaw of the pandemic presents particular challenges.

'We are not simply able,' she writes, 'to breathe into a difficult situation, roll up our psychological sleeves or dig ourselves in without the emotional cost of feeling constrained, nervous, watchful, touchy.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Susie Orbach on finding the right words to help get us through the pandemic.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In Florence, in the late 1500s, townspeople played a form of football that allowed them to wrestle, punch and immobilize their opponents in any way they liked. Venice had a spectacularly violent sport of bridge-fighting where opposing teams 'armed with sticks...dipped in boiling oil beat the hell out of each other'.

Civic sporting therapy - past and present - has for centuries, Sarah argues, 'proved a creative alternative to our recurring tendency to kill each other'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A week after Wimbledon, amid the Ashes, Sarah Dunant reflects on sport's cathartic power.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He's working hard, he claims, at a literary festival in Capri.

While there he goes in search of a white staircase - the subject of his favourite painting in the world. As he searches, he reflects on art, life and 'the sketchbook of the twenty first century', the iphone.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Adam Gopnik goes in search of a white staircase in Capri.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

William Dalrymple reflects on the current pivotal elections in India and Afghanistan.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Joan Bakewell wonders how we recover true empathy in a culture of self-regard.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In this essay, she reflects on the war in Ukraine and asks what role she and her fellow Russians might have played in it, what they might have done to stop it - and what Ukrainians must think of them now.

In turn, she explains how the Russian state is actively controlling the narrative about the war - and reveals the harsh consequences for those who dare veer from the approved 'truth'.

'They arrest protestors for carrying blank sheets of paper. It doesn't matter what's written on it, only that you are carrying it. If you are suspected of opposing the government, then you must be guilty.'

Reflecting on Russia's history, she weighs up how life today both mirrors and is profoundly different to the harshest days of Stalinist rule, while pointing out the numerous violations of the country's constitution.

The essay is translated and read by poet and translator Sasha Dugdale.

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

The everyday repression of life in Russia, as seen by an anonymous dissident playwright.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Simon Schama reflects on eating habits in America and a growing enthusiasm for good food.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Sarah discusses the undervalued women of art who are being rediscovered in large numbers - and the very modern stories they tell.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant on the rediscovery of undervalued women of art.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Will Self argues that, in order to appreciate the places we inhabit, we have to indulge in 'that most unfashionable and unproductive of things: abide'.

'To be in a place', he writes, 'is not to be distracted by the possibility of other places, but absorbed by the particularity of the one you're in.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Will Self on the fad of creating ever more 'cultural quarters' in our towns and cities.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Adam examines why today - as we attempt to put the pandemic behind us - any sense of exaltation is notable by its absence.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Adam Gopnik ponders New Yorkers' response to the passing of the pandemic there.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Ridiculous 'because of your pretensions to be cool...in spite of the obvious truth that you are barely sentient, with one foot rooted in the dim, ancient past while with the other your toes are already tickling eternity'; embarrassing because, 'in spite of being ridiculous, you are not content to keep your absurdity decently to yourself' and annoying because 'in the face of the wild obvious public embarrassment you cause, you still actually think that you can give advice and counsel'.

He takes us on a generational analysis of the plight of the parent - and offers some light-hearted consolation!

Producer:

Adele Armstrong.

Adam Gopnik reflects on embarrassing, ridiculous and annoying parents - like himself!

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'The inescapable material of any family reunion, British or American, Jewish or Celtic, is always the same: each offering a hair-raising or hair-losing seminar on the effects of time on the human body and soul, and especially on the difference between aging and growing.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The practice of showing what life is really like later depends on keeping some parts of life clandestine while they're happening'.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik reflects on the need to protect private communications in the internet age.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik concludes there are no indispensable people in any family or organisation.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'As communication, public and political and spiritual, becomes ever more condensed - as newspapers close and are replaced exclusively with Instagram feeds, as texting becomes ever more enciphered and as the demotic slang of teens, which we will all speak sooner or later, becomes ever more abbreviated then we can expect, or dread, ever longer compensatory popular narratives.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik reflects on the reason for our obsession with long-form television series.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Adam Gopnik reflects on the terrible day when children leave home.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Their complaint is, in its way, one that seems fixed in the political choices of the late Roman Empire: the only alternatives they can recognise as real are either power or persecution. Either you are the magistrate making rules, or else you are the martyr being sacrificed to them.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik wonders why religious people are feeling 'persecuted' by same-sex marriage.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

As a commentator on the built environment', Will writes, 'I've been too wry, too cynical and too disengaged over the past twenty years'.

Grenfell Tower', he says, 'was the bonfire of any remaining civic vanity in London '.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self's personal view of high-rise buildings following the Grenfell Tower disaster.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

What confronts the city now, he says, is dealing with the fact that the perpetrator came from within itself.

All our cities shelter the same boy', he writes, 'studiously immersed in the same story. And if we didn't know it before, stories can kill'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Joanna Robertson reflects on how the fire is changing that taken-for-granted sight.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Joanna Robertson reflects from Paris on the days after the Notre Dame fire.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

It may have been devised to ensure that people of all identities are entitled to a tolerant environment ...but John Gray argues that the policy not only threatens a fundamental liberal value but represents a demand to be sheltered from human reality.

He says the point of education used to be to learn how to live well in full awareness of the disorder of life. 'A lack of realism ...was considered not just an intellectual failing but also a moral flaw'.

He says we ignore this lesson of history at our peril.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray reflects on the controversial 'space spaces' policy in universities.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He argues that 'far from introducing the ecstatic into our necessarily ephemeral existence, the bucket list reimposes the clock-watching go-round most of us have endured for most of our lives'.

What gives life to life is death - nothing else,' he writes, 'while to live that life to the full is to realize this fully'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Editor: Bridget Harney

Will Self on the 'pernicious practice' of bucket lists.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Will sets out why he has a problem with theory of all sorts and the negative effect `theory addicts` are having on our contemporary intellectual culture.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Will Self on why he has a problem with theory.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

They are not smart at all in the sense that we usually mean it, capable of constructing creative ideas from scratch,' he writes.

'But rather they're sorts of cognitive scavengers with immense capacity - like whales scooping up all the shrimp and algae from the sea bed, and then churning on it, cud like, until asked to spit up one particular bit.'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound Engineer: Peter Bosher

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Production Co-ordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Adam Gopnik challenges the idea that artificial intelligence can match human creativity.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'When psychologists test how people behave with and without oversight, it becomes depressingly clear that if we think nobody's looking, we don't even remotely always let our consciences be our guides,' she writes. 'Even very normal, pleasant people can delegate their morality to other people who appear to be in charge, even of bizarre and disturbing scenarios.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

AL Kennedy reflects on our tendency to behave badly when we think no-one is looking.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He describes the impact of a world with no theatres, no concert halls, no cinemas, no audiences.

'Until now,' Michael writes, 'I don't think I truly realised just how important, how intense, this live relationship can be, for me and for an audience too.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Michael Morpurgo reflects... a year on from the first lockdown.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

It's not so much that I doubt the physiological component of all this tummy rumbling and grumbling, it's more that the social and cultural aspects of the malaise have grown still louder in the past half decade.'.

Finding himself on a restricted diet, Will Self reflects on the rise of food allergies.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He ponder his life-long ignorance of flowers. Growing up, the family garden was a dumping ground for his dad's old trucks; seeds were something you fed to a budgerigar.

And wasn't there a flower called An Enemy?' Howard asks. 'There you are then. I've had enough of those in life without finding more in the garden'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Howard Jacobson on why a flower has suddenly trumped exotic chocolates in his affections.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The American Presidential election 'posits a simple eternal human confrontation between sensible and crazy', he writes.

He says we must not pretend that the rise of Trump is essentially a 'people's revolt' or a movement of the dispossessed.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Adam Gopnik reflects on why he believes a Trump victory would be a disaster for America.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Taking as his starting point the Tom Stoppard plays his American mother took him to see in the 1970s, he says our relationship with our friends across the pond has changed little in 40 years.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self reflects on the confused love-hate relationship between Britain and the US.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'For so many the planting of the tree for nature itself, not for politics, or development or climate change or remembrance of some brutal war but for the contribution of life is never thought of....We do not measure success in knowing the way of the earth because for the most part, the greater part of society is cut off from the political act of growing something to produce oxygen and sequester carbon.'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Hugh Levinson

John Connell on planting trees on his family farm as reparation for years of flying.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

From Columbus and the outbreak of syphilis in 1495, to cholera at Mecca in the 1860s ....and Wuhan today.

She ponders what insights this present crisis might bring.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant discusses the relationship between disease and the culture of history.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Sarah describes her experience talking with a group of strangers one evening at a Death Cafe.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant describes an evening talking with a group of strangers about death.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He ponders the lives of two little known atheists from the past - the nineteenth century Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi and the Somerset essayist and novelist Llewelyn Powys. He says their work shows how atheism can be far richer and subtler than the version we're familiar with.

The predominant strand of contemporary unbelief , which aims to convert the world to a scientific view of things, is only one way of living without an idea of God' writes Gray.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray discusses why it's time to rethink today's narrow view of atheism.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'It takes less 'anger' and 'alienation' than a mild reshuffling of the ideological deck in a peculiarly shaped contest to produce results that look, on first glance, revolutionary.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik says the New Hampshire primary results are less revolutionary than they look.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

When you're paying up to £9000 a year for the privilege of being at university, you want to make it pretty clear if you feel you're not getting your money's worth', she writes.

But the deluge of forms - asking students for their views on the content, presentation, organisation of the course and the quality of the handouts will - she argues, do little to improve 'the learning experience'.

She admits having a 'tweak of nostalgia for that old era before the tick-box, when brave students would tell their famous professors to their face that their lectures were rubbish'!

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Mary Beard reflects on why 'customer satisfaction' surveys have no place in universities.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He says we must ignore the vast quantities of art produced as commodities to be sold, in contrast to symphonies or novels that cannot be owned in the same way as a painting or a sculpture.

Real art has to have lasting appeal, he argues, and for that it needs three things: beauty, form and redemption. The production of such art, he says, takes immense hard work and attention to detail, but it can give meaning to our modern lives and show love in the midst of doubt and desolation.

Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

What constitutes real art, as opposed to kitsch or that based on fake emotions and cliche?

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She argues that automation must be governed by human needs and strengths.

Personal contact, she believes, is more important than ever.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

AL Kennedy reflects on why automation needs to be governed by human needs and strengths.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

As the father of a teenage daughter' writes Adam Gopnik, 'I will stand down to no one in the fight against sexual assault of all kinds'.

But, he argues, the worst thing liberal minded people can do is 'allow their liberalism to become infected with puritanism'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Adam Gopnik on the controversy surrounding the Christmas song Baby It's Cold Outside.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Fake facts - let's just call them lies - and deceptively selective coverage have to be peddled with greater than average outrage and shock just to keep their frailty from being examined too closely.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

AL Kennedy says we should reject the media outlets that peddle only bad news.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Historian David Cannadine reflects on attitudes towards bankers in America.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She looks in particular at the idea that 'women are temptresses who cannot - by definition of their sex - be trusted'.

So ingrained is this within Christian culture,' Sarah writes, 'that it defined attitudes towards women for millennia'.

Biblical accounts, renaissance sculpture, fairy tales and politics are all put under the spotlight.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sarah Dunant takes the temperature of sexual equality in politics.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

AL Kennedy reflects on the current spate of high-profile viruses that are threatening our computers ...invasive software that may be sending our bank details to criminals every time we connect to the internet.

She says as more sophisticated computers become part of more appliances, the potential for virus infection increases. So is it time, she asks, for us to rethink our devotion to these machines?

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

AL Kennedy asks if it is time for us to rethink our devotion to computers.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In this talk, he ponders exactly what it is that makes their music endure.

Why is it, he asks, that one of the things people never say is 'I don't like the Beatles'.

For his children, he says, 'the Beatles are as uncontroversial as the moon. Just there, shining on'.

To underline how strange this is, he points out that had the same thing been true for his generation, then the pop music of his childhood would have dated from before the First World War. And that, he says 'would have been more than bizarre'.

Gopnik concludes that the reason their music lasts is that it was a perfect collaboration of opposites.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2012.

Adam Gopnik celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Beatles.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She appeals to England - with all its different views, customs, history and opinions - to 'treasure yourself, all of yourself'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

The writer AL Kennedy reflects on Englishness.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

John Gray argues that the belief in human reason is more 'childish' than religious faith.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

After admiring the seemingly ageless beauty of 41-year-old singing superstar Beyonc退 at her recent stadium show in London, Zoe reflects on her own experience of getting older - and the people desperate to avoid it.

She hones in on 45-year-old American tech mogul, Bryan Johnson, who is attempting to transform his body into that of a teenager in a highly scientific quest for youth.

His mission is to regain the body of an 18-year-old - albeit with the help of 30 doctors and experts, extreme diets (exactly 1,977 vegan calories a day), gruelling workouts and an array of medical procedures.

While an extreme case, Zoe reflects on how the possibilities of looking and feeling younger are intensifying with each new development in cosmetic technology or the science of diets.

She argues that however distasteful we might find such projects, what is more unsettling 'is the thieving, plundering nature of this quest - the insult to youth itself - as if it is nothing but a product to be had at any time, rather than a transient stage of life, whose splendour is in that very transience.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Zoe Strimpel on the perils of treating youth as a commodity.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She says that while she loathes the arrogance sometimes displayed by the super rich - especially in the present climate where millions are sinking into poverty - it's not billionaires who are the problem.

My view is that we need not fewer billionaires but more, the richer the better,' she writes. 'In fact, the more rich people the better'.

Hatred of billionaires, she believes, is perplexing at a time when government can't, or won't, fill huge gaps in funding.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith.

Zoe Strimpel on why we need more billionaires - the richer the better.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He proposes instead an idea dreamt up by one of his mates - a list that rhymes with bucket but begins with an F. 'Let's call it a Forget-it-list' he says.

Tom shares the top ten items on his Forget it List this week.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

I say trainer but I am past training,' writes Howard. 'He's more my stretcher. My wife's stretcher, actually, but she doesn't want to be stretched while I shrink. I refused to have him at first. But I capitulated. It was either that or watch my wife by stretched to twice my length'.

So down on the floor he goes, 'hoping someone - anyone - will think I'm a weekend younger than I actually am'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith.

Howard Jacobson reflects on birthdays, ageing and Macbeth's incorrigible optimism.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The terrible and intriguing truth', he writes, is that 'people are tragically impressed by indifference...and pitifully contemptuous of the charming'.

The Dylans of this world, Gopnik says 'impress us as the true egotists we secretly are'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Adam Gopnik reflects on Bob Dylan's predictable lack of gratitude towards his Nobel Prize.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Book-lover Lisa Jardine muses on her latest conversion to the e-book.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He points out that he has nothing like the magnitude of problem faced by the Argentine-Canadian author, Alberto Manguel, a few years ago when he downsized from his medieval presbytery in France to an apartment in New York and had to deal with 35,000 books! Or even the 3,000 books Penelope Lively wrote about recently.

But Tom ponders how few of his thousand or so books will be enough to live with.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Sarah Dunant reflects on the crisis in care for the elderly and wonders if artificial intelligence can provide a satisfactory answer.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Sarah Dunant asks if robots can solve the crisis in care for the elderly.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Illiberal forces are advancing across the European continent', he writes, with hard right politics strengthening their hold in many countries.

He says the idea that staying in the European Union is a way of protecting liberal values is simply an 'illusion'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray argues that staying in the European Union will not protect liberal values.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She turns to Lawrence Stone's famous book, 'The Causes of the English Revolution', to cast light on the present turmoil.

And she asks if the bitter fractures over Brexit could eventually turn out to be the modernizing force the UK needs.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Linda Colley asks if - eventually - Brexit could be the modernizing force the UK needs.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Whether Brexit is a good or bad idea,' he writes, 'is no longer the central issue that Britain is facing.'

'Instead, the question is whether our political system can survive the damage a mishandled Brexit has inflicted on it.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Correction: The 1975 referendum took place on the 5th June that year on the UK's continued membership of the European Economic Community which it had joined two years earlier.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He argues - in this essay originally broadcast in 2007 - that Britain's 'underclass' is gradually dropping out of national life.

A Brook Lapping production for BBC Radio 4

Following the death of Brian Walden, this is one of his last talks for A Point of View

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Simon Schama reflects on the political dramas in Britain following the general election.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Lisa Jardine on the conflict between her twin passions - saving money and lavish baking.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Tom Shakespeare asks if compassion can be taught, in the first of his four essays.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Tom inherited the genetic condition, achondroplasia, or restricted growth from his father and passed it on to both his children.

Soon we will have to decide, he writes, what sort of people we are prepared to accept in our families and in our society.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Tom Shakespeare gives a very personal view of prenatal screening.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray reflects on why the advance of capitalism is not inevitable.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

While drivers think it gives them the ability to go anywhere, in truth 'they're shackled to a grotesque and Sisyphean go-round: they have to make the money, to pay for the car, to sit in the traffic jam, to make the money to pay for the car'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Will Self on motor-mania.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Lisa Jardine reflects on the power of music to move, especially at Christmas.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

David Cannadine reflects at Easter time on the architectural glories of cathedrals.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He tells the story of an eminent philosopher who once told him that he'd persuaded his cat to become a vegan! An effort, it seems, to get the cat to share his values. But Gray argues that there's no evolutionary hierarchy with humans at the top.

What birds and animals offer us', he says, 'is not confirmation of our sense of having an exalted place in some sort of cosmic hierarchy. It's admission into a larger scheme of things, where our minds are no longer turned in on themselves'.

He concludes that 'by giving us the freedom to see the world afresh, birds and animals renew our humanity'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Michael talks about what it feels like to be hunkered down in his little cottage in Devon - waiting for coronavirus to pass.

Recorded by Hamish Marshall from Radio Devon.

Produced by Adele Armstrong.

Michael Morpurgo on hunkering down in his cottage... waiting for coronavirus to pass.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Lisa Jardine has been looking upwards this week in an attempt to catch sight of the Pan-Starrs comet, which is thought to have been hurtling towards the sun for millions of years. Later this year, another comet is expected to grace our skies.

Her concern is not that they might bring with them a modern day plague, but whether we have learned the lessons early astronomers taught us about sharing scientific information.

Lisa Jardine reflects on comets and the lessons to be learned from early astronomers.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self says we should embrace the intellectual challenge of difficult books and art.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

David Goodhart ponders the idea of 'smart luck'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'The notion that what some have called France's 'stark secularism' - or its level of unemployment, or its history of exclusion, that imposed invisibility - is in any way to blame or even a root cause for this, depends on being ignorant of the actual history of France.'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Editor: Richard Knight.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The sexual revolution bequeathed us choice: to shag as voraciously as we wanted or to get married and have a baby at 30,' she writes.

But, she says, the landscape of sexual politics today has changed dramatically.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Zoe Strimpel on a new conservative form of feminism.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But as China's parliament votes to allow him to be President for life, John Gray argues that the future of the liberal West ironically depends on the continuing success of the world's most powerful authoritarian state.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray argues that the future of the west depends on the continuing success of China.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He muses on how Churchill was found by one of his advisers around one o'clock on the morning of May 9th 'brooding alone in one of his clubs'. He was given a crucial bit of advice which may have secured him the job. What would have happened Gray wonders if he hadn't been found and that advice - to say nothing! - not been passed on?

He also ponders whether it was it Churchill's recurring melancholy which made for his greatness? 'It's hard to resist the thought that the dark view of the world that came on Churchill in his moods of desolation enabled him to see what others could not'.

Churchill had not one life but several' says Gray. Without them all, 'history would have been very different, and the world darker than anything we can easily imagine'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray reflects on the chance encounters that made Churchill wartime Prime Minister.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Prof David Cannadine reflects on the enduring resonance of Churchill's speeches in America

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The idea of immortality, she believes, is taking hold in a new form.

Surely it will not be long before a new form of cemetery is created...a virtual space where all the digital remains of a person will be gathered, curated and tended'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Stella Tillyard reflects on how we bury and remember our dead.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook

Presenter Will Self.

Will Self reflects that racism is rarely a sole cause of social injustice.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Via Homer, Shakespeare and the Beatles, Adam observes that 'the deepest statements in literature are very near relations to the dumbest statements in life'.

How can Homer get away with writing twenty lines about laundry?! And end up with an epic poem of great beauty.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Reading from WH Auden's poem, 'Mus退e des Beaux Arts'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Tom Shakespeare grapples with a tricky personal decision over his carbon footprint.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Lisa Jardine thinks selective hearing skews the debate over climate change.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer:

Sheila Cook.

John Gray reflects on the climate needed for culture to thrive.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In this programme - first broadcast in 2007 - Clive ponders what makes us happy.

In his own pursuit of happiness, he sits on a bench in Central Park, relives his first slice of watermelon and considers the wise words of Lawrence of Arabia.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Originally produced by Rosie Goldsmith

Following the death of Clive James - one of his first talks for 'A Point of View'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'It is perhaps no surprise to discover that the greater the instability outside our walls, the more we may want to create a secure and beautiful world inside, or on, them.'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound engineer: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Zoe Strimpel explores what lies behind her new-found impulse to collect art.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

David Cannadine compares the style of national commemorations in the US and in Britain.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Howard decides that the play's hero, the misanthropic Alceste, is 'the perfect citizen for our times - one who respects social distancing, stays out of pubs and similar places of entertainment, and compromises no other person's health.

And he believes that, were more of us to follow Alceste's lead, then the virus would have 'nowhere to travel to and must at last give up and turn into a recluse itself.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Hoaxes work - and that's a good reason for not liking them, says Clive James.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Sarah Dunant reflects on public attitudes in the past to conspicuous consumption.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

It chronicles the conversations between a cockroach and a cat and was a phenomenal success with a readership who 'mistrusted politicians and intellectuals who talked grandly of a radiant future'.

John Gray reflects on the lessons for today.

Producer: Adele Armstrong ,

John Gray reflects on the lessons today of an unusual U.S. newspaper column

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

That's when I start to feel uneasy, sitting at home staring at entremets and buttercream, three-foot-high cakes made with pints of fresh eggs, because I have this theory...that television tends to memorialise things, just as they fade away.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

AL Kennedy on TV's tendency to focus on disappearing parts of our national life.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Adam examines the American fascination with call-in shows about sport - and the paradox that although they have absolutely no sport to talk about right now, the shows have never been more argumentative or more alive.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Adam Gopnik discusses how the pandemic is bringing out our most conventional behaviours.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Courtesy of Google Earth, Will sets out to simulate a trip he was planning to make to central Australia and ponders what lessons Aboriginal culture might have for the days of pandemic.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Will Self ponders what lessons Aboriginal culture might have for the days of pandemic.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik identifies four different types of anxiety that afflict modern people.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

During World War Two, she responded to a request from the British government to address an issue with early and still-secret radar systems. Together with her colleague Professor J. E. Littlewood, they were able to help war-time radar engineers circumvent a problem that was making radar unreliable.

Her findings were not fully understood by her peers at first. It would take a generation before mathematicians realised that her discoveries were the foundation of what became a new field of science: chaos theory.

Dame Mary Cartwright was very modest and did not want eulogies at her funeral, but Lisa Jardine takes the opportunity of International Woman's Day to blow Dame Mary's trumpet on her behalf.

Lisa Jardine celebrates the achievements of wartime mathematician Dame Mary Cartwright.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

As summer festivals get underway across the UK, Howard tries to understand the attraction.

I didn't dance to Paul McCartney in the 60s, and I'm not going to start now... dancing isn't what I do,' he says.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Howard Jacobson reflects on summer festivals, conformity and a dancing cockatoo.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A library card is a powerful weapon to change lives', Val writes. 'With it, we learn how to value what we have, to mourn what we have lost and to dream of what we might become'.

She says that whatever we may hear about the death of libraries, we must ensure their future because they are 'one of the few remaining places where a genuine diversity of voices can still be encountered'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Val McDermid on why public libraries must be kept open.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He explores the enormous difficulties surrounding the language of appreciation, 'no matter whether the viewer in question is a mechanic ogling a pin-up in his workshop or an art critic pausing at a wall of French nudes in the Wallace Collection'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Howard Jacobson on self-censoring and the language of appreciation.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She looks at how our ancestors experienced the dark and our enduring fascination with celebrating the dark season of winter.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Rebecca Stott reflects on our relationship with darkness, past and present.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

David Cannadine compares the traditions of tie-wearing on both sides of the Atlantic.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In a pew in Edwin Lutyens' ecclesiastical masterpiece, St Jude on the Hill in North London, Will Self ponders the contemporary power of the sermon.

'Dearly Beloved,' he begins, as he explains the appeal of a good sermon!

And he reminds us that 'the sermon was instituted, in part, to correct the fake news of an age before the media that now disseminate it.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Will Self ponders the contemporary power of the sermon.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In a pew in Edwin Lutyens' ecclesiastical masterpiece, St Jude on the Hill in North London, Will Self ponders the contemporary power of the sermon.

'Dearly Beloved,' he begins, as he explains the appeal of a good sermon!

And he reminds us that 'the sermon was instituted, in part, to correct the fake news of an age before the media that now disseminate it.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Will Self ponders the contemporary power of the sermon.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In the last few decades, he writes, we have seen many impairment groups unite to demand a better deal from government. 'But when it comes to dementia, we are still thinking in terms of disease and tragedy and passivity'.

He believes treating dementia as a disability - with all the legal ramifications that involves - may help us change our attitudes and our policies.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Tom Shakespeare argues that dementia should be viewed as a disability.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

And in the aftermath of Teresa May announcing her resignation, David writes, 'I think there is a great political prize for a politician or a party, old or new, that can speak across the liberal/small-c conservative value divide'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

David Goodhart on why he believes democracy - far from being in crisis - is thriving.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

With the help of PD James, Sarah Dunant looks at how the UK can tackle the demographic nightmare it currently faces - an ageing population but falling birth rates.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sarah Dunant explores how the UK can tackle its demographic timebomb.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Mary reflects on the new face of archaeology - far removed from the days of Heinrich Schliemann who famously claimed 'to have gazed on the face of Agamemnon'.

She traces the history of virtual archaeology from the early 1900s and admits 'part of me thrills to the magic of the technology, and to the sheer bravura of displaying the plans of lost buildings, even lost towns, at the touch of a few buttons'. She recognises it's far cheaper, quicker and leaves ruins where they are safest: under the ground.

But she also admits a feeling of nostalgia for the old ways. When she sees an exciting new discovery, 'my heart just itches to get out my spade and my trowel and go and actually dig it up'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Mary Beard reflects on the new face of archaeology, of the virtual kind.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self reflects on the effect of digital technology on his perception of time.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He explores the changes that have led to our post-industrial disenchantment.

We cannot and do not want to go back to a past when social horizons and life chances were far more limited', he writes, 'but a recognition of some of the merits of earlier eras might help us to see more clearly the pathologies of today's achievement society'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'On the surface it seems like an impossible task' says Sarah, 'not least because like everything else in this angry, polarised moment, the past itself has been commandeered as a weapon...but the wonderful thing about ideas, is that while they can travel weightlessly through history, they still pack a punch.'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound engineer: Peter Bosher

Production Co-ordinator: Helena Warwick Cross

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sarah Dunant says the Renaissance master Donatello shows us a way to learn from the past.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In an attempt to define what's at stake, Howard turns his attention to Basil Fawlty, the Garden of Eden and Jonathan Swift's Big and Little-Endians.

And he has a brush with concussion along the way!

Producer: Adele Armstrong

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

John Gray points to lessons from the novels of Dostoevsky about the danger of ideas.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

These days we invariably use the phrase 'down the rabbit hole' to describe a negative experience...where people get lost, then become overwhelmed, ensnare themselves in conspiracy theories and can't get back out,' she says.

'But I don't believe rabbit holes are bad in themselves. If we avoid them altogether we lose the chance to experience their joy and excitement.'

She recalls her own experience of discovery - and tells the story of how Charles Darwin once spent eight years distracted by barnacles.

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Liam Morrey

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Rebecca Stott reflects on what's to be gained by going 'down the rabbit hole'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Rebecca Stott says the idea of 'going down a rabbit hole' is often characterised as a bad thing - a world full of conspiracies. Here, she makes the case for what's to be gained.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

The old tribes were scarcely visible because they had become so familiar', he writes. 'The new ones seem noisy and jarring and all too visible'.

He calls this new anti-left/right package the 'hidden majority' package.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

David Goodhart on the rise of new 'tribes' in British political life.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Howard appeals for a re-discovery of the subtlety of language and explains why he believes we should leave behind the 'frozen wastes of Emojiland'.

A thumb up or thumb down culture has given up on the idea that difference of opinion comes in shades, that thought is gradual and graded, that argument is more about adjustment than it is about assertion'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Howard Jacobson muses on the 'frozen wastes of Emojiland'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

I can only imagine what it must be like to be a woman living in America this week, she writes in the aftermath of the decision by the US Supreme Court - a decision which almost instantly makes abortion illegal in more than 20 US states.

She takes us back to 1972 and her travels across America in a beat-up car, when radical lawyers were honing their arguments to first present the case to the country's highest court.

America's post-war abundance and energy, its style, its movies and its music saturated our youth', she says. 'We had the time of our lives - even the bad bits were good, we were living the dream'.

And, fifty years on, she reflects on what has happened to 'the fabric of this extraordinary country'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sarah Dunant reflects on a historic moment in US history - the overturning of Roe v Wade.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'We don't come to dust alone, we come to dust together and in history. And the dust we make as we move slowly through life into old age, mingles with the historic dust that the much loved houses we pass through and its previous occupants have made through time - in my case the dust of horsehair and deathwatch beetles and lead and lime.'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound Engineer: Peter Bosher

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Production Co-ordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Rebecca Stott ponders the nature of dust, as spring sunshine sharpens the sight of it.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Dignity, I think is an exceptional demand, one that depends on at least an illusion or masquerade of an anti-egalitarian, indeed pre-modern - indeed an essentially feudal sense - of deference.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnick thinks we fail all too often to let people die with dignity.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self warns against the false prophets of the new priesthood of economics.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Will Self on why he's decided to 'eat' buildings

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

As his children move away from home and he becomes an 'empty nester', Adam finds himself, too, doing just that.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Adam Gopnik on his children leaving home and becoming an 'empty nester'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

David Cannadine looks back at the ceremonies which marked the end of Britain's empire.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Lisa Jardine draws lessons from the career of Leo Szilard, who worked on the atom bomb.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'The Eton obsession not only overlooks progress made in slowly detaching our elite institutions from privilege, it also distracts from a hard-headed discussion about what we want from our elite.'

Producer: Sheila Cook

David Goodhart rejects what he calls the 'Eton conspiracy myth'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

As in Greek mythology' he writes, 'the sun god Apollo Helios drives his chariot across the skies...so the charioteer and four horses that surmount the Brandenburg Gate...embody the idea of contemporary German nationhood'.

On his 'quadriga-spotting tour', Will weaves his way through the complex history of this symbol and its relevance for the rest of Europe.

In the end, he controversially asks whether 'an end to the European Union in its current banjaxed form might allow all of us to experience a new dawn, drawn by a new charioteer'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self ponders the future of Europe, as he stands by Berlin's Brandenburg gate.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Remembering his childhood obsession with the Peanuts cartoon, he quotes Snoopy 'My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm Happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?

Dogs, writes Tom, have a much greater capacity for contentment than people and we can all learn from this.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Tom Shakespeare reflects on how dogs can teach us a capacity for contentment.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Sarah discusses the impact of images from war through the centuries and the history they write.

And she ponders which image from Putin's war will represent this moment in the future.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Hugh Levinson

Sarah Dunant on the power of images in war.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Our knowledge of the world is usually some sort of balance between personal experience and abstract ideas,' he writes. 'But the focus on the primacy of subjective experience....can go too far.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Hearing their testimonies affected me more deeply than any lecture, book or film. They were unforgettable authentic encounters.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Tom Shakespeare reflects that personal experience is the most powerful form of expertise.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

My anxiety is about the society that first generates body dissatisfaction and then provides surgery as the solution to that cultural problem'.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Tom Shakespeare is concerned by what the rise of cosmetic surgery says about society.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The Chilcot report highlights how a war can conjure the demons it promised to suppress', she writes 'because facts were dodged or massaged and fantasy outcomes were taken as certainties'.

While facts may be grim, 'avoiding them puts us all at increased risk'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

AL Kennedy ponders the importance of facts, in a world dominated by opinion.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He argues that original artists from Beethoven and Baudelaire to Picasso and Pound tower above those contemporary artists whose pieces push fake emotion - and who, by focusing on avoiding cliche, end up cliches themselves.

Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

Roger Scruton muses on the difference between genuine art and that based on fake emotion.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The appearance of the woman writer', she says, 'is often clumsily welded together with her work in an effort to make the two inseparable, or indeed to act as a sort of explanation of her work, that she is able to create it at all'.

Megan discusses the pressures this imposes.

Photo credit: Sophie Davidson

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Penny Murphy

Megan Nolan discusses the intense pressures on women writers to be attractive.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Sarah argues that - given social distancing - imagination is going to be an exceedingly powerful inner muscle when it comes to our mental survival.

She offers us a few of her stand out images to get us started.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant on how imagination will be a vital tool to deal with social distancing.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

As a passionate Londoner', he writes, 'I wanted to establish when the first Self had arrived in the city'.

Entire family sagas, he says, are today vanishing into thin air, in an era of nuclear families. Gone are those generations of extended families where over a cup of tea, the same old stories were told about the same old relatives.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self reflects on the joys of genealogy.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She talks to some of those who were there about their memories of the human and cultural catastrophe.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Sarah Dunant reflects on the legacy of one of the worst floods in Florence's history.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

These 'model animals' help scientists to understand the basic processes common to all living creatures. But while model animals epitomize the success of the scientific strategy of reductionism, they may also illustrate the downside.

Tom Shakespeare on 'model animals' and the success of the reductionism scientific strategy

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He says people 'will persuade themselves to believe almost anything, no matter how far-fetched, if it enables them to preserve their view of the world'.

He asks how we can best come to terms with the realisation that the world is frighteningly unpredictable.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray asks how we come to terms with a world that is frighteningly unpredictable.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Years ago, after the fall of the Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu,' writes Stephen, 'I entered his by now ransacked hunting lodge and made off with the late president's ....coat hanger. That's right: Ceausescu's coat hanger.'

As the possessions of the altogether more savoury personality, Freddie Mercury, go on show next week before they are auctioned, Stephen ponders why we aspire to have and to hold something which belonged to a notable figure.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Sabine Schereck

Editor: Bridget Harney

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Roger Scruton believes the way to improve schools is through middle-class volunteers.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'It costs society too much, in all senses, to criminalise so many people - and disproportionately young black or Latino men - for doing something, which legalised could create jobs and help balance the budget.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Sarah Dunant welcomes Canada's plans to fully legalise marijuana.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Bernardine discusses the 'gender revolution' and our attitudes to the disruption of traditional gender roles.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Bernardine Evaristo reflects on changing attitudes to gender.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Forty years on, Sarah, a Virago author herself, wonders just how much Virago has changed the world.

She talks about how, a few weeks ago, as she waited for an hour in the studio of the Today Programme to be interviewed for a piece about female characters in fiction, she didn't hear a single women's voice.

She tells how last month, the Australian writer and academic, Kathryn Heyman, got into a very public spat with The London Review of Books because of a dearth of women writers in its pages.

And the ousting of Julia Gillard as Australia's Prime Minister last week is the most striking example that Virago's mission is not yet complete.

But Sarah takes some comfort from the fact that Kevin Rudd, the new PM, has an unprecedented six new women in his cabinet.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Sarah Dunant reflects on feminism and the ousting of Australia's prime minister.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Sarah says she doesn't see herself as an angry person - but wonders why aggression and outrage seem to have become so much part of our emotional diet.

She proposes some solutions - including an National Anger Day - a great moment of catharsis to help us all be a little less....angry!

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant proposes a National Anger Day - a catharsis to help us all be less\u2026 angry!

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She decided to become a seal warden...but the job is rather different from what she was expecting.

This wild, old, slithery, stinking world of the sand dunes really isn't cute' she says. 'But there are some things in nature, dare I say it, that are a lot more interesting than cute'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Rebecca Stott on the joys of becoming a seal warden.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Lisa Jardine reflects on the historic power of royal glamour in times of austerity.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

When you talk about the future, he says, you are using a temporal concept. It's a different time from now - the time to come - and 'invites us to open out our imaginative space'. It offers the possibility that things might be different.

Going forward', on the other hand, is a spatial concept - 'nothing but the present, infinitely extended'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Tom Shakespeare tells us why he detests the phrase 'going forward'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

I inhabit a simple moral universe when it comes to sheets of paper', he writes. 'Paper with words on, good. Paper with numbers on, bad'.

But it's more complicated with some other things 'How can I release the evidence of me to a storage company somewhere on the North Circular Road!

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Howard Jacobson's very tricky dilemma... which of his possessions can he throw away?

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'On winter days,' writes Will, 'when it's dark first thing, then twilight, then dark again, the tube achieves its most magical state.'

And he says that, without the tube, the city seems to have lost its foundations.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Will Self on why he longs for the day he can travel again on the London underground.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Sadness, rage, anxiety...our media use them to hook us, withhold the good news, exhaust us with the bad', she writes.

She reflects on why 'selective news avoidance' is on the increase.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Editor: Penny Murphy

AL Kennedy ponders how we deal with a never-ending cycle of bad news.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

David Cannadine celebrates the saving of New York's century-old Grand Central station.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

With everyone in lock-down, Tom talks about his longing to meet his first grand-daughter.

And he knows it's a sadness he shares with many other grandparents.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Tom Shakespeare on becoming a grandad for the first time.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

AL Kennedy reflects on the stuggle to establish truth in an age of lies.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She asks if - as the earth is dying under the weight or our excesses - we're 'reaching a wider, bigger moment: a weariness with acquisition itself'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Stella Tillyard ponders whether we are freeing ourselves from the grip of 'things'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self reflects on the growing divide between people with and without children.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Zoe discusses how subjects which were, until fairly recently, little more than sources of minor disagreements now form 'the basis of warring social groups.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Zoe Strimpel discusses growing divides between our social groupings.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Simon Schama reflects on the power and symbolism of the oak tree in British history.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'The definitive guide to ikigai,' Tom writes, 'says ikigai is what allows you to look forward to the future, even if you're miserable right now.'

And yes, Morrissey makes an appearance too!

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Janet Staples

Editor: Penny Murphy

Tom Shakespeare goes in search of some light relief from the January blues.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In the midst of a lot of bad news, Alison finds some room for cheer.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Vadon

A L Kennedy reflects on a 1950s experiment in inducing despair.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Correction: the reference to Thomas Babington should be to Sir Anthony Babington.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Sarah Dunant finds religion a powerful lens for a fresh look at history.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He reflects on the greater significance of designer holes in jeans...and why it's a trend to be celebrated.

I know what you are asking', Gopnik says. 'How can you be rattling on about torn jeans...when our world, by your own account, may be coming to an end?' !

Liberty large is what we fight for, but the little liberties of life - and the arbitrariness of fashion is one of life's most engaging little liberties - are part of the way we recognize that the larger liberty exists'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Adam Gopnik reflects on the greater significance of designer holes in jeans!

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Michael argues that, although we need to address the issue of people smuggling and deaths from dangerous Channel crossings, we must not lose our capacity for kindness and 'generosity of spirit' towards those who need our help.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Hugh Levinson

Michael Morpurgo calls for a rethink on how we deal with refugees.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Surely the time has come to tear down the post-war estates, and to recover the old street lines that they extinguished.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Roger Scruton says we should prioritise beauty when building in the countryside.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Let's rejoice in the eclecticism, I say, and find in the varieties of ways people choose to mark or miss the point of Christmas the universal love that is its message.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Howard Jacobson recalls a mongrel mix of traditions in his family's Christmas festivities.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'I fall to wondering what exactly non-religious needs are, and whether, by insisting on a distinction between the religious and the non-religious, humanists aren't making an unpardonably limiting assumption about both.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Howard Jacobson would sooner see Radio 4's Thought for the Day more, not less, religious.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

What's wrong with wisdom is it implies stasis, as though our greatest faculties of cognition and intuition are at their journey's end, have attained a peak of complacency from which they gaze down imperturbably on the small vanities of man.'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Lisa Jardine puts an historical perspective on the upcoming government spending cuts.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Cultural mixing - the hybridization of hats, if you like - is the rule of civilisation not some new intrusion within our own. Healthy civilisations have always been mongrelized, cosmopolitan, hybrid, corrupted and expropriated and mixed.'.

Adam Gopnik deplores the fashion for attacking so-called 'cultural expropriation'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Don't get me wrong,' she says, 'it's nice to make people smile...but possibly Britain is now too funny'.

She wonders if the rest of the world is still laughing with us.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

AL Kennedy on how the British sense of humour is standing up to our political woes.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Forget the old right/left, rich/poor division' he says, 'nowadays the greatest divergence lies between the old and the young'.

And he asks how can we in conscience go on denying the young the opportunity to clear up the mess we've ? for the most part quite inadvertently ? created for them. 'Give it all away!' is his plea.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self argues we should give children their inheritance when they're most in need of it

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Fifty years ago, when I was at high school', Mary writes, 'we spent many hours learning how to write a letter'.

She wonders why no one today seems to be teaching the art of writing a persuasive email.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The last time the world shook', Sarah writes, 'there was an element of learned resilience'. But today, she believes, most of us don't have the benefit of that.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant discusses living on a cusp of history.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

And with a spot of naval history in his family, Stephen examines why Britain's relationship with the sea, for all its flaws, is fundamental to who we are.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Liam Morrey

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Stephen Smith asks what's to become of Britain's naval tradition.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

With events in the Red Sea putting the Royal Navy in the spotlight, Stephen Smith ponders the importance of Britain's relationship with the sea.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

AL Kennedy on the recent theft of her backpack and how misfortune can help us reclaim who we really want to be.

She reflects on how an an accident of birth - being white, able-bodied, heterosexual, being baptised a Christian and having English as a first language - has put her in 'a position of completely unearned privilege' when asking for help.

But 'in a decade when so many people, in so many places, have lost everything,' Alison ponders the role we all have in helping people whose needs aren't being met.

'I believe in helping', she writes. 'I didn't lose that worldview in my backpack.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

The theft of her backpack gets AL Kennedy thinking about questions of identity and loss.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She reflects on how an an accident of birth - being white, able-bodied, heterosexual, being baptised a Christian and having English as a first language - has put her in 'a position of completely unearned privilege' when asking for help.

But 'in a decade when so many people, in so many places, have lost everything,' Alison ponders the role we all have in helping people whose needs aren't being met.

'I believe in helping', she writes. 'I didn't lose that worldview in my backpack.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

The theft of her backpack gets AL Kennedy thinking about questions of identity and loss.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

AL Kennedy reflects on the recent theft of her backpack and how misfortune can help us reclaim who we really want to be.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She traces the history of gossip, explores how gossip is edging out real news and how it's taken over our political lives.

Gossip obscures truth' she writes, 'sours our outlooks on each other and can trivialise any debate'. She concludes that 'we really could do with a lot less of it'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

AL Kennedy argues for a world with less gossip.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Michael says 'it shames us' that Britain in recent years has done so little to help child refugees.

There are fine examples of how our predecessors have shown great kindness towards the suffering of child refugees', he writes. He argues that we now need to follow their example.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

AL Kennedy explores the merits of courtesy, but she points out that it can be complicated.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'We are an entangled species; we are not to be unknotted easily. When we turn our backs on difficulty in art, we turn our backs on who we are.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Howard Jacobson applauds Tom Stoppard's attack on the ignorance of the average audience.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Rooting around, doing nothing in particular, walking but not knowing where I was walking to....I can only regret the happy mooching hours of earlier times', writes Howard.

He ponders whether our present age of mass anger and disgruntlement is partly a result of our expectations of instant gratification.

We sit, like so many privileged Aladdins, rubbing our smart lamps in full confidence that the cyber genie will appear in ripped trousers and give us all we ask for'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

While these shows were unapologetically British, chock-full of alien cultural references to Frankie Howerd and Dad's Army, Adam says these shows helped him appreciate the universal language of satire.

I'd say we enjoy satire more when we don't know the things being satirized' he writes, 'and so cannot protest their portrayal'.

He says we 'depend on the satirist for all our information, both for the ground and for the graffiti he scrawls upon it.

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound Engineer: Peter Bosher

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Production Co-ordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Adam Gopnik says foreign TV shows helped him appreciate the universal language of satire.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He ponders why the word 'elitist' has acquired such negative connotations in some fields - but not in others.

It makes no sense to me to love the best when they are footballers or the SAS, but not when they are thinkers or even politicians'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Howard Jacobson speaks up in defence of the much-maligned metropolitan liberal elite.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He says the feuilletonists - those writers of short observational pieces - show 'you don't have to be tendentious to be of consequence'.

He asks us to step back and seek what's important around us...and even question whether there's such a thing as importance at all.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Howard Jacobson on the art of the feuilleton and the joy of the ordinary.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Alain de Botton explores the relationship between humankind and animals.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self praises the beauty of wind turbines.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

While an unhappy 19th century Russian marriage which leads to a fatal adulterous affair may be irresistible to one reader' she writes, 'a man who wakes up as a beetle may be what presses the button of another. That is both the wonder and nightmare of selling novels'.

Sarah explores how - in the 'brutal climate' facing the publishing industry (with the onslaught of supermarket and internet price wars) - literary prizes provide a much needed boost for authors.

But these prizes, she warns, are a kind of lottery.

Producer Adele Armstrong.

Sarah Dunant explores the merit of literary prizes as the Man Booker shortlist is revealed

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

John sets off in the footsteps of the famous Irish monk and journeyman, St Brendan, in an attempt to recover a sense of 'wonder'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

John Connell walks in the footsteps of the Irish monk, St Brendan.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The rhetoric that accompanied Alistair Darling's death,' Mark writes, 'raises some age-old questions about the way we think and judge our political masters'.

He questions why 'this torrent of respect, admiration and affection' can only happen when a politician dies. 'You simply don't talk this way about any living politician', he says, 'unless you're a cultist'.

The present way of judging politicians, he believes, gives us little idea who is any good at getting the job done.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Mark Damazer on how we judge our political masters.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Mark Damazer argues that our established ways of judging politicians need a rethink.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

'Religion', she writes, 'was once called the opium of the masses; hate is now the Oxycontin of the masses. That low thrum of resentment, spikes of rage, hate gives them a logic, an addictive rush.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Bridget Harney

AL Kennedy reflects on the intoxicating nature of hate.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Short term job contracts and expensive housing has left her generation with a permanent sense of insecurity.

As a teenager, Megan struggled to find her identity and place in the world, and felt 'wrong and different in the most profound and private of ways'.

She was told these feelings would pass. Now as an adult, however, the anxiety about her place in society has returned.

'Not knowing where your body will be from one year to the next, once you're out of your younger, wilder years, conjures a feeling not dissimilar to the nameless dread of adolescence,' she writes. This leaves Megan and her peers 'in a state of constant insecurity, certainly now, but in a deeper sense, always.'

Producer: Arlene Gregorius

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Brenda Brown

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Megan Nolan says she was an insecure teenager, and millennial adulthood is just as uneasy.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

David Goodhart examines the accountability and transparency requirements of modern institutions and the impact they've had on the government's handling of the pandemic.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

David Goodhart examines our changing attitudes to authority.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He reflects on lessons learnt: 'You've taught me such a lot these past fifteen years, I wonder, old friend, what you have to teach me now that you're dying?

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Will Self reflects on fifteen years of life lessons... from his dog.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'The problem,' she writes, 'is that there is no space in all this for the lives and experiences of the many straight women who don't have this problem, who do not live in fear of men, and who are not sexualised at every turn.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She remembers one of her first jobs after university - working in a Pregnancy Advisory Service in London as a counsellor - and seeing many young women from the Republic of Ireland who'd come to England seeking an abortion.

And the day, some years later, when she went back there, that time as a client.

Sarah Dunant reflects on Ireland's upcoming abortion referendum.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Surprising as this may sound says Gray, Isis is thoroughly modern. It's organised itself into an efficient company, and has become the wealthiest jihadi organisation in the world. And while it invokes the early history of Islam, the society it envisions has no precedent in history. Some of the thinkers who developed radical Islamist ideas are known to have been influenced by European anarchism and communism, especially by the idea that society can be reshaped by a merciless revolutionary vanguard using systematic violence. Isis is part of the revolutionary turmoil of modern times warns Gray, and until the West grasps that uncomfortable fact, it won't be able to deal with the dangers Isis presents.

John Gray argues that the Sunni extremist group Isis is revolutionary, not reactionary.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Christmas time is perhaps the proper moment to remember the long tradition of revering the nativity in the Islamic world. ...There are certainly major differences between the two faiths, not least the central fact, in mainstream Christianity, of Jesus' divinity. But Christmas - the ultimate celebration of Christ's humanity - is a feast which Muslims and Christians can share without reservation.'.

William Dalrymple reflects on the co-habitation of Islam and Christianity.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Having purged them on the basis that they can furnish no proof of their existence, do we not begin to undermine the capacity of that which they have left behind to also speak to us?'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self reflects that our modern secular society has silenced the voices of the dead.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'The calamitous news eroding any remote sense we might have nurtured of peace in our time is, we now know, not going to cease any time soon. Yet while the image of a villainous Russia dominates the news agenda, I remember Russians I have met over the years on my travels in their land. This is not their war.'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Sound: Peter Bosher

Editor: Penny Murphy

Sara Wheeler says that the attack on Ukraine is not the war of Russians she has known.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

John Gray wonders what the rise of the cyber currency Bitcoin tells us about ourselves.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Attempting to maintain the euro at any cost can only result in mounting desperation, which will seek expression in violence if no practicable policies are on offer to ameliorate the situation.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

John Gray sees the euro as a misconceived project with Greece's economy as a casualty.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'What they reveal is a world ruled by financial and geopolitical forces that care nothing for the human individual. Most unsettlingly, this world is unmistakably European.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

John Gray frecalls the work of Eric Ambler and finds unsettling contemporary echoes.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He argues that one side-effect of the financial crisis is an increasing number of people who believe that Karl Marx was right.

He outlines why Marx's belief that capitalism would lead to revolution - and end bourgeois life - has come true. But not in the way Marx imagined. For increasing numbers of people, he says, a middle class existence is no longer even an aspiration. 'More and more people live from day to day with little idea of what the future will bring'.

It's wasn't communism that did the deed' he says. 'It's capitalism that has killed off the bourgeoisie'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray on why an increasing number of people believe that Karl Marx was right.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

David Cannadine reflects on the history of royal jubilee celebrations.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'What lasts for seventy years,' he writes, 'and never takes a turn into indecency or becomes cruel or sordid in any of the obvious ways has my vote. Well, not my vote, obviously....my allegiance. Well, okay, not my allegiance... my admiration.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Nigel Appleton

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Observations on the Jubilee weekend by a bemused foreign visitor to London.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Each watch on display in the British Museum's Clocks and Watchers galleries speaks to me of a world galvanized by scientific innovation, whose horizons were expanding through voyages of discovery and the new objects and ideas brought back.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Lisa Jardine reflects on the history of timepieces and the power of clocks and watches.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self reflects on America's view of the assassination of JF Kennedy, 50 years on.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer:

Sheila Cook.

John Gray takes a fresh look at the thinking of John Maynard Keynes.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray on why Kim Philby, and so many others, have failed to predict the future.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Kitsch, he says, creates the fantasy of an emotion without the real cost of feeling it. He argues that in the twentieth century artists became preoccupied by what they perceived as the need to avoid kitsch and sentimentality.

But it's not so easy. Some try being outrageously avant-garde, which can lead to a different kind of fake: cliche. So a new genre emerged: pre-emptive kitsch. Artists embraced kitsch and produce it deliberately to present it as a sophisticated parody. But is it art?

Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

Why the fear of producing kitsch art has led to a new kind of pre-emptive kitsch.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

It's a curious and unexplained paradox that in earlier times, when life expectancy was much lower than it is today, politicians were generally much older; whereas nowadays, when life expectancy is much greater, it's widely believed, at least in some quarters, that politicians ought to be younger'.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

David Cannadine reflects on the merits of youth and age in political leaders.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But times have changed: 'It feels as if every unnecessary journey we make now has the dull drumbeat of global fragility and climate change in the background.

Sarah ponders where foreign travel goes from here.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant on why she's abandoned her beloved city of Florence.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Once universities had been turned into businesses and forced to compete with each other for students and fees, scores and league tables followed. And now we are assessed and monitored all the time too. It has eroded trust....When a seminar works you can feel the electricity crackle...You can't bottle this or record it or give it a score or sell it because it happens in the moment and in the room. '

Sound Engineer :Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Producer: Sheila Cook

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The security that financial inheritance may convey is merely relative - and divisive,' he writes.

So, instead, Will suggests leaving behind something ordinary....and useful.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Will Self discusses how the pandemic has affected our views of inheritance.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Jaws, like many disaster and horror movies contain the core lesson - whenever there's a problem, greedy people will ignore it - corporations, local authorities, politicians, contractors - people who love money more than, well, people.

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound engineer: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

AL Kennedy finds echoes of the disaster movies of the 70s in our current state of affairs.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'It's always possible that there's some Rembrandt of the selfie out there, using his 'phone to investigate the ravages of age, the incursions of melancholy, and even the psychology of self-obsession itself, but commonly the selfie performs a less self-critical function, putting the self at the centre of everything we see, marking the landscape with our faces, as though the only possible interest of the outside world is that we're in it.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Limbo is a borderless, undefined, in-between state that is neither one thing nor the other and therefore it is hard to label and harder to accept.'

She believes though that an acceptance of unknowability may be increasingly important since 'the rules and certainties on which we built our lives have altered beyond all recognition.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Bridget Harney

Sara Wheeler reflects on the concept of limbo.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Lisa Jardine reflects on IVF as she stands down from the body which regulates it.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

As a tribute to the late Lisa Jardine, another chance to hear her reflections on memory.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

As a tribute to the late Lisa Jardine, another chance to hear her reflections on memory.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

As a tribute to the late Lisa Jardine, another chance to hear her reflections on memory.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

As a tribute to the late Lisa Jardine, another chance to hear her reflections on memory.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Surely,' he argues, 'just as we now fully acknowledge our global responsibility to restore the world about us, the world we ourselves have damaged, so we must play our part as one of the richest nations on earth, to welcome in as many refugees as we can, to give them safe haven with us, to treat them right, as we know we should.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Recorded by James Vickery of Radio Devon

Michael Morpurgo tells the story of one child refugee, heading our way.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He calls for a more nuanced understanding of group difference and the challenges this poses in an egalitarian age.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

David Goodhart reflects on group identities in the aftermath of the Sewell report.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Over the centuries, the Irish - most days anyway - have learned to accept, sometimes even love, the rain,' writes John.

But, he says, that is now beginning to change.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: James Beard

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Bridget Harney

John Connell reflects on our changing relationship with rain.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

As his infant son feels rain for the first time, John Connell reflects on Ireland's relationship with rain.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

He looks forward to the Queen's Speech, which is widely expected to include a bill on Lords reform. A waste of time, he believes. But that matters little in his view. 'After all, the first bill to create an elected second chamber was introduced over a century ago - and doesn't this simply prove that the great and glorious fudge that's the unwritten British constitution thrives on such slow and organic change'.

Via what he calls the 'Googlisation' of the political process, he attacks the move towards the centre ground by all three main UK parties. 'We...are tormented by politicans who look the same, sound the same and spout so-called 'policies' that are usually only marginally different versions of the same routine ideas'.

Back at the Lords, he concludes, hereditary peers 'are still busily tucking into their excellent crumpets. Yummy-yummy'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self explores Lords reform and the narrowing of the range of British political choice

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self laments diminishing personal contact as a result of the rise of technology.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He based his thesis on what he'd witnessed during his career as a diplomat and adviser in Florence, and also on lessons learned from Ancient Greek and Roman historians.

While fortune had smiled on him during the fourteen years he served the Florentine Republic, it stopped doing so when the Medicis were restored and he was imprisoned and tortured. Released into exile on his family's estate south of Florence, he started writing the book that became a foundation of political theory.

In a further twist of fortune, his exile, far from being his ruin, made his name for posterity. He was never completely rehabilitated in Florence, but ended up writing one of the most provocative and influential political works of all time.

Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

Sarah Dunant on why Machiavelli wrote his seminal work 'The Prince' one summer in Tuscany.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'It would be a brave person who argued that what we wear counts for more than what we say, but in an image-driven culture our attention is always liable to drift away from words, however well chosen, to tailoring.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Howard Jacobson thinks skimpy suits show men are suffering from a self-image crisis.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Clive James reminds himself of the need to celebrate the good things in life.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She argues that the similarities were present in life - and in death.

'On 11 March 222 AD,' she writes, 'a posse of rebel soldiers tracked down the Roman emperor Elagabalus to his hiding place. The tyrant was holed up in a latrine, desperately hoping to keep clear of the liberators, who were out for his blood'. She continues: 'The story goes that the rebels rooted him out, killed him, triumphantly dragged his body through the streets of Rome and then threw his mutilated remains into a drain.'

Mary suggests modern and ancient tyrant are portrayed as sharing a penchant for eccentric accommodation, like Gaddafi's tent and Nero's infamous 'Golden House'. And they seem to enjoy dubious hobbies - such as Emperor Domitian's obsession with stabbing flies and Gaddafi's obsessive collection of pictures of Condoleeza Rice, which were stuck in a scrapbook.

But she argues that these stereotypes of tyrants are little more than half-truths and hearsay....an easy way of making a figure of fear into a figure of fun.

The reality, she says, is much more nuanced. 'Badness', she suggests, 'comes in inconveniently complicated ways. Most bad people are good in parts'.

How often, she asks, are we told that life expectancy in Libya far exceeds that of its neighbours, that Libya has substantially lower child mortality than its neighbours, the highest literacy rate in North Africa, free hospitals and free childcare.

My point is not that we should see Gaddafi as a good man' she says. Rather that 'among all the things that have been going terribly wrong under the Gaddafi regime, some things have been going right'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Mary Beard on the uncanny similarities between Colonel Gaddafi and tyrants in ancient Rome

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The contemporary manosphere', she writes, 'doesn't appear to have any positive idea of what men should be, apart from rich, priapic and nasty - and within the long history of masculinity in crisis - this feels new'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Zoe Strimpel on modern masculinity and the dangers posed by the rhetoric of Andrew Tate.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Nowadays the acquisition of glasses', he writes, 'is simply another opportunity for the conspicuous consumption we've all become so very expert at'.

But he says there are drawbacks to seeing too clearly. He suggests that a National No Glasses Day might be an idea 'so we can all wander about the place in blurry bliss'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self on the drawbacks of perfect vision.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Cultural warfare and events in the Middle East have left her feeling, she says, as if she's in a 'ceaselessly enraged world'.

So instead of her usual contacts in sociology, anthropology and political science, she's seeking out engineers, agriculturalists and silversmiths - 'people who actually know something about the everyday things we all depend on and how it all works.

'I find this far more dazzling these days than a new insight on cultural Marxism, and also less depressing,' Zoe writes, 'in a world that feels as if things are in freefall, and increasingly subject to entropic and evil forces.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Zoe Strimpel discusses her new-found fascination with infrastructure.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Zoe Strimpel on why she's seeking out engineers, agriculturalists and silversmiths instead of journalists, sociologists and anthropologists.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She says for millennia, the human race has searched for everlasting life.

Instead of resisting our mortality, she argues that it's empowering to reflect on it.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

AL Kennedy argues why it's empowering to reflect on our mortality.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Lisa Jardine reflects on memory and muses at her newly acquired facility to recite Horace.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Rather than addressing - as parliamentarians currently are - the business of shutting the stable door after the stallions have run amok', he writes, 'we should be thinking about how to keep it closed in the first place'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'The risk of crime is not crime alone, but the abyss that opens at our feet when once we have decided that the rules that count for other people don't count for us.'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Liam Morrey

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

With an array of paint charts laid out on her kitchen table, she looks to Darwin, Joseph Conrad and the former paint guru of Lewes for inspiration.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

As Midsummer Day approaches, Rebecca Stott examines our complex relationship with colour.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Maybe appropriate then that this month also sees the return of that 'wonderful working-class... comic-strip hero, Alf Tupper'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Mary Beard looks forward to the 60th anniversary of the first 'four-minute mile'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Will Self asks what can drive political leaders into the arms of the military. From the era of Margaret Thatcher on, he says, 'a key aspect of the premiership seems to have become posing with tough, tough boys and their tough, tough toys'.

In Will Self's view, this close relationship between politicians and the military helps no-one. His solution - to bring back National Service. 'The cry', he writes, 'beloved of the ramrod-straight and the crew-cut is joined by me with all my bohemian heart'. And he says he would be first in line!

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Taking the contemporary TV series 'Westworld' as his starting point, Will explores consciousness, humanity and artificial intelligence.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self on consciousness, humanity and artificial intelligence.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'I'd argue that under cover of a positively Dickensian level of sentimentality that sees every child as a Tiny Tim, our cruelty and disdain for actual children continues to hold sway....The nauseating oscillation between outrage at the news of another child murdered by its parents or carers, often as a result of poverty and its drunken, drugged abusive sequels; and the prosecution of some benighted young soul for this or that 'crime' - in almost all cases actions themselves determined by exactly the same kinds of deprivation - has been a constant in my life...And then came the pandemic and its associated social measures - and exposed once more the fundamental British misopedia... A pervasive addiction to screen based work, entertainment and now education marches in lock-step with a view of children not as vitally distinct - and so necessarily in need of nurturance - but merely as little adults in waiting with all the troubling appetites that this implies.'

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Producer: Sheila Cook

Will Self deplores the British attitude to children, mixing sentimentality with cruelty

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

We get railways, we do railways - ever since Stephenson's Rocket in the nineteenth century. We gave railways to the world', writes Stephen.

He argues that there would never have been the same sense of dismay if we were talking about a road or a runway.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: China Collins

Note to clarify: The Thames Tunnel used an innovative design, but not cut-and-cover.

Stephen Smith muses on HS2 and his grandfather's job on the railways.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Art collectors with a fortune to spend inevitably exert an influence on artistic taste and on the art market. The question is: Is a collector who wins public praise for having a 'good eye' or 'flawless taste' being celebrated for their critical astuteness in identifying a neglected work's lasting aesthetic value and its importance within the artistic tradition? Or are they simply establishing a high competitive price for that artist or artistic school?'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Lisa Jardine celebrates the influence of art connoisseur Sir Denis Mahon.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Old empires, he says, are being replaced by new ones - in China, Russia and - he argues - in Europe.

He examines the idea of a European 'empire of the good' - one that is liberal and democratic throughout.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray argues that the idea that empire has had its day is a delusion of our age.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'There can be no doubt,' says Cannadine, 'it brought the King closer to his subjects than had been true of any monarch who had gone before him.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Will ponders why personal finance is such an alien concept for him.

But his thoughts move to `those hundreds of thousands out there for whom the words ‘personal finance' are, quite simply, terrifying`.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Will Self on why personal finance is an utterly alien concept.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Even as we condemn our moral ancestors, we need to hold our ears to the wind, and listen for the faint sounds of our descendants telling their melancholy truths about us.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik thinks future generations will judge us as harshly as we judge our ancestors.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

‘I had never quite put aside an abiding ambivalence about having a baby, even during pregnancy,' writes Zoe.

But in the space of thirty minutes - and the delivery of a baby girl by C-section - Zoe says, ‘my hop over the long-tended, long-contemplated border with motherland rapidly resolved as her tiny features came into focus and a sense of interestingness became a sense of desperate affection and even of familiarity.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Liam Morrey

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Zoe Strimpel on crossing the rubicon into motherhood.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Zoe Strimpel ponders the glories of modern obstetrics and crossing the rubicon into motherhood.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

Sarah takes a sideways look at teeth through the ages...and dentistry in times of austerity.

And for those whose chief loathing is a mouthful of shining American teeth, she offers hope. 'Yaeba', the latest craze to hit Japan where young fashonista girls are getting their teeth cosmetically altered to appear more crooked!

Producer Adele Armstrong.

Sarah Dunant takes a look at teeth through the ages, and dentistry in times of austerity.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

We shift people out of their comfort zones and make them squirm', she writes. 'But not because we kill people'.

It might be murder that sets the wheels in motion, but it's the time and place that lead us through the labyrinth to answers that are not always comfortable'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Val McDermid argues that crime fiction is not really about murder at all.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

His 17 year old daughter was horrified.

But Adam concludes that wise drug policy accepts the existence of intoxicants and says 'this tale of unshaven debauchery' has made him realise, for the first time, how much his own 'hyper disciplined, driven life' had taken out of him.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Adam Gopnik on why he turned to marijuana during his recent bout of shingles.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Shutting the blinds a few weeks ago,' Tom writes, 'I was hit on the head by three or four falling Terry Pratchett books'.

So act he must...and he came up with a plan to ensure no book goes unread.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Tom Shakespeare takes himself to task over his mounting piles of unfinished books.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

History teaches us that trying to create a perfect society leads to hell on earth, he writes.

But dreams of a perfect world don't fail because human beings are incurably flawed. They fail because human beings are more complicated and interesting that their dreams of perfection'.

John Gray muses on what his idea of heaven is - and why it shouldn't be a perfect world.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She argues that the disorientating nature of contemporary society creates the ideal breeding ground for our resurgent interest in things supernatural.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound; Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Bridget Harney

Zoe Strimpel ponders the current resurgence of ghost stories.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He reflects on how Donald Trump's presidency will affect our sense of what constitutes normality.

Are we every day normalizing behaviour', he asks, 'that will bring an end to normalcy itself'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Adam Gopnik on how Donald Trump's presidency will affect our sense of what 'normal' is.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

This was later replaced by a less compliant and benevolent image....but we've always perpetuated an idea of Nature as something outside us, something to be mastered.

Rebecca argues that we need to rethink our relationship with nature - and see ourselves as in nature and part of nature, not outside of it.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Rebecca Stott argues that we need to rethink our relationship with nature.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Reflecting on the misbehaviour of a mischievous Australian cockatoo and a 'great mocking Rigoletto chorus' of shearwaters in the Canary Islands, he considers whether he may himself have been a bird in an earlier life, as he celebrates the way animals rescue us from self-importance - and help us imagine a funnier, fairer world.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Howard Jacobson celebrates the way animals rescue us from self-importance.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He writes: 'A German friend once complained to me that educated Westerners often know far more about the German government in those five years of war than they do about all German governments in the sixty years of subsequent peace'.

Adam quotes a principle frequently used during internet discussions called 'Godwin's Law'. It states that 'As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler gets greater'. Godwin's conclusion - broadly speaking - is that we should not mention the war.

But Adam proposes what he calls 'Gopnik's Amendment'. 'When we see the three serpents of militarism, nationalism and hatred of difference we should never be afraid to call them out, loudly, by name and remind ourselves and other people, even more loudly still, of exactly what they have made happen in the past'.

We should, he says, 'never be afraid to mention the war'.

Producer:

Adele Armstrong.

Adam Gopnik reflects on our continuing obsession with the Nazis.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In the midst of the pandemic, Adam - like thousands of other New Yorkers - has taken to cycling round the park on a daily basis.

'The truth, revealed at the end of one more revolution is simple,' he writes. 'We feel lucky to be alive. That may be the one truth we didn't know before, or didn't know enough.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Adam Gopnik on the bitter-sweet joys of cycling round Central Park.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Clive James reflects on the end of the get-rich-quick era.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Alain de Botton on our inability to concentrate.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

As more and more public libraries close their doors, AL Kennedy argues that we must reassess the importance of books.

She says library closures, culled GCSE reading lists, moves towards reducing prisoners' access to books are part of a 'perfect storm' which means we're losing books on all sides.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

As libraries close, AL Kennedy argues that we must reassess the importance of books.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

How, she wonders, can she navigate this tricky territory.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sara Wheeler navigates the tricky issue of voice appropriation.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

After a lifetime of keeping up with events and - in recent years - obsessively toggling between news apps 'with all the real cogitation of a commuter playing Candy Crush,' Will has decided to stop paying attention to the news.

'I realised I'd been reading about - and listening to - politicians and pundits for quite possibly months of my life, without really caring one jot or tittle about them.'

He reflects on how the British became the news consumers par excellence in the 19th and 20th Centuries and on growing up in a household where following the daily go-round of news constituted a 'civic virtue.

In the aftermath of events in the Middle East, Will has a new guiding principle for his news consumption.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Will Self on his personal news blackout.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Will argues that the West is particularly in thrall to rose-tinted nostalgia and looks to Japan - and its concept of 'mono no aware' - as an alternative and healthier way of thinking about the past.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Will Self on why we are in thrall to nostalgia.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

With every sniff and grimace' Howard writes of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, 'it wasn't sorrow or confusion we witnessed but petulance and menace, as though a prize bull had been cornered and in its fury knew only to kick out'.

This is not a good time to be a man', he says.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

We've come a long way since then, she says. But there's a long way to go.

And as neurological research presses on, she argues that we, as a society, must try to keep up with its findings.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sara Wheeler on why it's vital that research into neurodiversity is better understood.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'The truth is,' writes Michael, 'that older people are increasing in numbers and will very likely continue to do so. This is clear. But the place - or the role - of older people in society is far from clear.'

He says in a 'civilised society' we have to find better ways of bridging the gap in understanding between young and old.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor Adele Armstrong

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'If one of the most egregious features of racism' Bernardine writes, 'is to reduce people to stereotypes, to homogenise and generalise the qualities of people according to their racialised identities, then what does it say about us when we describe a person as not really being black or Asian because they do not behave according to our values, cultural codes or political interests?'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Bernardine Evaristo reflects on black 'authenticity'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'The imperfect mirrors of the past', he writes, 'were objectified metaphors of human imperfection, rather than the perfect ones that give contemporary humans the delusion that they too can achieve such earthly perfection.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Graham Puddifoot

Editor: Penny Murphy

Will Self reflects on mirrors, narcissism and human imperfection.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

From childhood dreams of being 'strapped into the command module of a Saturn 5 rocket about to blast off from Cape Kennedy' to contemplating 1000-million-star mega-clusters in the sky today, Will describes why space is - for him - 'both sublime and restful'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

There is no first-person plural of which the European Institutions are the political expression,' he argues. 'The Union is founded in a treaty, and treaties derive their authority from the entities that sign them. Those entities are the nation states of Europe, from which the loyalties of the European people derive. The Union, which has set out to transcend those loyalties, therefore suffers from a permanent crisis of legitimacy.'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

It all felt' - she writes - 'like a scantily-clad, tabloid version of University Challenge....but with a kind of high-minded worthiness'. Long gone the old beauty contest ambitions of travelling and starting a family. 'These contestants talked of becoming international lawyers, museum curators, architects, diplomats'.

So does this lack outrage mean she has she sold out on feminism? 'That's not how it seems to me' she writes. 'At 56 I count myself as strong a feminist as I was at 26'. Just a bit more laid back.

The less I see my own body as a positive asset' she says - joking about her greying hair and her thickening toe nails - 'the less I have wanted to interfere with what other women choose to do with theirs'.

Times do change and some battles honestly do get won' she concludes. 'I don't any longer feel that Miss Venezuela is much of an enemy'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Mary Beard takes a peek at Miss World 2011 and ponders the upsides of middle age.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'This weekend,' writes Sara Wheeler, 'we are not, perhaps regrettably, expecting celebratory rocket-runners from Mars announcing touchdown on the red planet.'

But, Sara suggests, the new Carolean age should be about collective effort rather than focussed on individual achievement.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sara Wheeler ponders what the new Carolean age will bring forth.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Gopnik takes us - via a bunch of bee experts - on a journey of 'long and buzzing thoughts'. He discovers a transgendered bee in Virgil's Georgics, dressed up as a king bee. He finds himself deep in the world of the Dutch biologist, Swammerdam. 'Swammerdam!' he writes. 'One of those great Northern European names, like Erasmus of Rotterdam that carries its credibility within its consonants'.

He draws lessons about the theory of knowledge and the working of the human mind. He rejects the notion 'that thought proceeds in fortresses as ordered and locked as a beehive seems to be.' In truth, he argues, 'no age thinks monolithically, and no mind begins with absolute clarity ... The sticky honey of uncertainty, the buzz around the beehive's entrance - these are signs of minds at work'.

Producer:

Adele Armstrong.

Adam Gopnik muses on why Shakespeare didn't seem to know that the top bee is a girl bee.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

At six foot, four and a half inches, Will ponders the drawbacks of a lofty stature.

'The very ideal of beauty is the small', writes Will, 'so how awful it is to realise that you will never fulfil this artistic ideal with your enormous person which, far from being an artwork, is simply a scale model of gigantism!'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Will Self ponders the drawbacks of having a lofty stature.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But, he says, rather than recriminating about what is past, we should be looking to the future. 'We find ourselves in a new world', he writes. 'Why not make the best of it?

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'I've begun to wonder whether our current crises of social care, childcare, energy, climate, housing could be the catalyst that makes some of us rethink the solitary ways we live,' she writes, 'to search for more practical, affordable and sustainable alternatives to the nuclear single-family household?'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Rebecca Stott asks if communal living could solve society's most pressing problems.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

People who walked the planet long before us knew more sustainable ways to build their homes', she writes.

With concrete responsible for 8% of the world's carbon emissions, Rebecca argues that we urgently need to find alternatives.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Rebecca Stott on why we need to rethink our love affair with concrete.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Alex Massie ponders the role of the deer - and deer stalking - in the Scottish psyche.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Alex Massie on deer stalking and the bleak magnificence of the Scottish Highlands.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Alex Massie argues that deer stalking in the Scottish Highlands provides 'a piercing sense of mental clarity'.

She knows she's in good company - along with the millions of people who've been drawn to the recent mini-series, Chernobyl... or the video game, Metro Exodus.

She believes that, in these precarious times, they give us what H.G. Wells once called 'a sense of dethronement'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Rebecca Stott discusses her fascination with abandoned or ruined cities.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Having grown up in a separatist fundamentalist Christian sect called the Exclusive Brethren, she says she's probably rather uniquely sensitised to this. She listened to her father and grandfather holding forth for hours - '3000 hours of male monologues before I was six' she reckons!

Rebecca reflects on the art of good conversation.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Rebecca Stott on her pet hate - being talked AT!

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He looks at why we're often so reluctant to use the word 'hypocrisy' and argues that we accept hypocrisy in part because 'civilisation as currently constituted would be quite impossible without a whole panoply of carefully evolved rituals designed to elide incompatible acts and beliefs'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Watching those waiting alongside him, Adam comes to the realisation that we have poured ourselves so completely into our phones that the devices, paradoxically, are the one place where we can picture ourselves as selves.

They have become the equivalent of the confession booths of old, or the diary in the 18th century.

We all need some box to hold our fears and desires as the winds of the world threaten to blow us away,' he concludes.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Adam Gopnik on the quest for lost souls.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Where have they gone?', he asks, 'such great haters of mankind as Juvenal, Swift, Flaubert'.

Mankind, he believes, has not grown less tribal over time. But instead of a general enemy, he says, 'we each have our own individual tormentor - a private phobic for every one of us'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He concludes that while films, for example, have a 'natural author' in the shape of the director, a musical doesn't and 'a seven-person creative team of equals', he says can never be harmonious.

But there's a lot of fun to be had along the way....

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Howard explores the destructive nature of the Cult of Self.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Howard Jacobson on the Cult of Self.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

With the help of Leonardo da Vinci, 'a notorious non-finisher,' Rebecca ponders the meaning of our imperfect and incomplete projects.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Rebecca Stott reflects on unfinished projects.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The display at the J Paul Getty museum in Malibu is one of several Pompeii exhibitions running in different museums around the world - and very similar to one coming to the British Museum in the spring.

As she makes her way through the bodies - or 'anti-bodies' as she refers to them - she ponders questions of privacy, archaeology and restoration.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Mary Beard ponders the rights and wrongs of archaeological restoration.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'A whole generation is about to come of age experiencing goods and service as simply things you can have delivered to your doorstep, fast. Will their brains cease to distinguish between different types of desire and demand?...Will they lose the capacity to form plans and commit to them, plans as minor as what to cook later that night?'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Zoe Strimpel reflects on the impact of rapid home delivery on the way we live our lives.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'We prioritize them according to emotion and information,' she says, 'but our emotions cloud our judgement and our information may be patchy, absent or misleading.'

She argues that one risk though is incontrovertible - the risk to the planet - and we need to find a way to ensure its survival.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

AL Kennedy on how we perceive risk.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Two and a half millennia ago,' writes Sara, 'Confucius famously fiddled about moving his mat so it was exactly straight before he crossed his legs and sat down on it.'

He believed that ritual improves character and that, in turn, benefits society as a whole.

Sara delves into her favourite rituals and ponders the role of ritual today.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sara Wheeler ponders the value of ritual and its role in improving character and society.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Sara Wheeler explores our continuing fascination with ritual, and the idea that ritual can improve character and, in turn, society as a whole.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

The idea that if we feed enough lines of literature into a computer it will eventually be able to write its own Iliad', he writes, 'is as preposterous as the old fancy that if a sufficient number of monkeys were given a sufficient number of Olivettis they would eventually hammer out a monkey Macbeth'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She reflects on the damage currently being inflicted on Ukraine, and highlights recent discussions held by the Mayor of Kharkiv to plan the rebuilding of his city.

'It struck me as remarkable that despite the war, despite seeing his city in ruins... the mayor had the capacity to start thinking about the future.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith.

Rebecca Stott imagines a day when Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities can be rebuilt.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Alain de Botton argues that social climbing is often much more than idle pleasure-seeking.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The excessive courtesy of spam letters is, of course, designed to entrap the reader but why, Adam wonders, have the decencies of human correspondence disappeared from virtually all other forms of communication these days.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Adam Gopnik ponders why so much of our communication these days is bereft of human warmth.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Now, helping her neighbour's young son to read, Rebecca reflects on the importance of nurturing the curiosity of children and encouraging them to extend their horizons.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Rebecca Stott reflects on the importance of nurturing the curiosity of children.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Rebecca Stott on how spending time with children keeps us all in touch with the joy of discovery.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

Rebecca Stott grew up in a creationist, fundamentalist community, where her childhood creativity and curiosity were severely restricted.

Now, helping her neighbour's young son to read, Rebecca reflects on the importance of nurturing the curiosity of children and encouraging them to extend their horizons.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Rebecca Stott reflects on the importance of nurturing the curiosity of children.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Rebecca Stott on how spending time with children keeps us all in touch with the joy of discovery.

'How will we pass it on, this torch of history?', he asks. 'Those missing men, those wounded, those who lived to count the cost, their story is our story and we must tell it again, keep it alive'

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Michael Morpurgo ponders our future connection with the First World War.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Who are all these jacklegs, high-binders, wire-pullers, mountebanks, swellheads, buncombe spigots, boodle artists, four-flushers and animated spittoons offering themselves as worthy of our nation's highest office?'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

PJ O'Rourke sizes up the candidates aspiring to be President of the United States.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Will tells the disturbing story of what happened to a friend, recently detained in a London psychiatric hospital.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self tells the story of what happened to a friend in a psychiatric hospital.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

My vision is of the Houses of Parliament as a travelling caravan, a charabanc of power, spending a year here and a year there throughout our United Kingdom'.

He says it would enable our leaders to see at first hand what they are legislating about and who they are legislating for.

He quotes Cromwell at the sacking of the Rump Parliament in 1653: 'You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go'!

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Tom Shakespeare on why the Houses of Parliament should move around the country.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Is it any surprise,' Will writes, 'that in this, arguably the second century of self, when for the most part humans see nothing around them but images of those better off than themselves, envy should be quite so epidemic: a greenish toxin - the very mustard gas of modernity.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Will Self reflects on an 'epidemic' of envy.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Will Self argues that envy has become 'the very mustard gas of modernity'.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

Tom Shakespeare suggests ways to shrink and completely reform the House of Lords.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Books, she writes, 'teach us that my brother's isolation and society's inability to embrace him as he deserves to be embraced have always been with us.

But she wonders if, in these times, books can also teach us to be kind.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sara Wheeler on lockdown for her brother, severely learning disabled, and others like him

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'I often think that the hostility between Greece and its harshest current antagonist Germany, for example, is best seen as a furious tiff between former lovers.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Peter Aspden reflects on the emotional power of the cultural influence of Greece.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She examines the roots of our attachment to dogs and argues that we need to re-discover a more 'pet-appropriate variety' of love in relation to our pooches.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Zoe Strimpel examines why we've become so passionately obsessed with dogs.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She discusses the remarks by the American would-be senator who claimed that after 'legitimate rape', women's bodies protect them from pregnancy. She looks at George Galloway's assertion that what Julian Assange did or didn't do in bed was simple bad sexual etiquette. And she discusses the controversy surrounding Fifty Shades of Grey.

She starts from a very personal perspective, and broadens the debate on attitudes to sex by looking at it from an historical perspective. She concludes that a storm of female outrage serves only to stifle debate and that men must be involved in the discussions.

Producer Adele Armstrong.

Sarah Dunant looks at attitudes to sexual behaviour from a historical perspective.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

David Cannadine reflects on the relationship between political and military leaders.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self attacks political party members as 'donkeys led by donkeys'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self warns against politicians' policies which turn out to be Trojan horses.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'A significant percentage of Scotland's voters on both sides of the independence question currently seem intent on reverse-engineering a democracy by beginning with hope.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

AL Kennedy says the election results in Scotland reflect a surge in political engagement.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

People are starting to live in a kind of cyber-Hogwarts', he says, 'a fantasy world in which goods are simply obtained by needing them, and then asking some future Prime Minister to wave the magic wand'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Historian David Cannadine reflects on the power of the press, past and present.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer Rosamund Jones.

Sarah Dunant reflects on the role of history in society, and how it changes over time.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

David Cannadine reflects on the history of American presidential inaugurations.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'From the outset, the American presidency was vested with what might be termed monarchical authority, which meant that it really was a form of elective kingship.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

David Cannadine says Barack Obama is not the first American president to act like a king.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Sure, I was taught by nuns in an Irish convent school while he was dragged up through the mean streets of Eton' but - reading Harry's memoir, 'Spare' - Megan calculates that the comparisons between them go beyond their iconic reddish hair and devil-may-care attitudes.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Clive James on the collapse of private life and the publishing of emails and phone calls.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He argues that, for the last thirty years, government in Britain has been 'Thatcherism on autopilot'. He says that the 'cult' of the free market has been pursued by both main parties but it has long since run its course.

He believes a change in the electoral system is now urgently needed, to encourage a greater variety of parties entering government and truly present voters with a choice.

'A seesaw between two parties,' he writes, 'can only accelerate our ongoing slide into becoming a poor country in which nothing works.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

John Gray makes the case for proportional representation as a means to revive our politics

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

If people are forced to choose between insecurity and a promise of stability through tyranny', he writes, 'many will opt for tyranny'.

He argues that spending vast amounts of money on 'grandiose wars while large sections of our own people languish in neglect and despair can only leave our societies more vulnerable to extremist demagogues'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Before 1960, he says, 'a Briton could probably go their entire life without encountering a psychiatrist or a psychoanalyst - let alone a modish psychotherapist'. But not any more.

Will ponders what role these 'psy-professions' play in contemporary Britain.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A reflection on a topical issue. Will Self ponders the role of the 'psy-professions'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Too much praise... or too little?', he wonders. 'You have to be hands off, smiling' but at the same time 'engaged, unsparing in honesty'.

He concludes that raising children is an art, not a science or a craft. 'They are the artists of their own lives but we can, we must, teach them the art of living'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Adam Gopnik on why bringing up children is an art - not a science.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He delves into 'Expectation Disconfirmation Theory' which, he claims, 'will explain why you are less happy than you ever thought you'd be with your new trainers, and more happy than you ever expected you'd be listening to this programme!

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Howard Jacobson reflects on present wrapping

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She argues that increasingly we're sold art as a list of superstars. 'To grab the headlines, put big numbers through the turnstiles, means focusing on the stars' she writes.

But understanding the great Renaissance masterpieces demands an understanding of the intellectual climate that produced them.

A scantily clad Ursula Andress emerging from the sea holding a conch will not really help us understand Botticelli's Birth of Venus.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Sarah Dunant argues that our current obsession with celebrity utterly undermines art.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The downtown site, mired in ground sacred to mammon, has mixed into it a complex mulch of private rights and public responsibilities: to harmonise these competing interests in the frozen music of architecture has proved a gruelling compositional task.'.

Will Self gives a personal view of the new One World Trade Center in New York.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Considering the pervasiveness of cannabis in the UK, he says the question that should currently be preoccupying us as a society is not whether marijuana should be legalised, but how.

'My model here would be the old Tote,' he says, 'a form of nationalised gambling that for many years mitigated its worst effects by limiting opportunities and hence possible losses.'

He says that we must avoid the 'commercialised free-for-all that's emerging in the US and parts of Canada.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Will Self proposes a very British solution to the legalisation of marijuana.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'In Tudor England successive monarchs tried to define social status by dress. A strict code governed the wearing of 'costly apparel', and red was one of the colours most rigidly controlled.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Red may be now fashionable, but in the past it was powerful, reflects Lisa Jardine.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'This queerly opaque idea has embedded itself in the collective subconscious since Granny Smiths ripened in the Garden of Eden,' writes Sara, 'but recent concerns have raised its stock.'

She argues that the logic of that is flawed.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Graham Puddifoot

Production coordinator: Katie Morrison

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sara Wheeler questions the moral high ground of the 'nature lover'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Sara Wheeler argues that the long-established equivalence between loving nature and being a good person is fundamentally flawed.

From Charles Dickens' famous mention of red tape until today, making fun of red tape has been virtually a national pastime.

But Tom cautions that as Britain prepares to set aside rules and regulations surrounding COVID, we shouldn't act too hastily.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Tom Shakespeare on our relationship with red tape, past and present.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Clive James gives his personal reaction to Damien Hirst's diamond-encrusted skull.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

And she contemplates the detail of the modern euro coins. 'Take a closer look at those heads-and-tails' she writes, 'and you'll find some rather disconcerting angles on European history and politics'.

She decides that it is the Greek Euro-coinage that offers the most food for thought. The bull on the back of the 2 euro coin is, in fact, part of a depiction of a rape. Zeus, the king of the gods turned himself into a bull and snatched Princess Europa. Mary says she understands why the Greeks wanted this scene on their coins. It suggests that 'without Greece there would have been no Europe - that Greece had invented the continent'. But she's never quite worked out 'how the Greek people so easily came to terms with the idea of having a picture of rape jingling around amongst the small change in their pockets'.

Then she turns her sights to the 1 euro coin, with its beady-eyed owl, an exact copy of a fifth-century BC Athenian coin. The little bird was the symbol of Athena, the protector of the city of Athens. In the fifth century BC, she points out, Athens was a democracy yet also 'an exploitative empire, controlling many other states around the Mediterranean'. The Athenians made their neighbours get rid of their own currency and use the owls instead. 'Its hard to resist the conclusion', she says, 'that the Athenian imperialists were using monetary union to display their political muscle - and hard not to imagine that vengeance for that has finally come, 25 centuries later'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She argues that, although detention or deportation are sometimes necessary, the policy of indefinite detention is 'callous and dehumanising'.

She believes - as the only place in Europe that allows indefinite detention - the UK should adopt the recommendations of a recent parliamentary report and introduce a 28 day limit.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Monica Ali on the UK's use of immigration detention centres and indefinite detention.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But in the arena of national defence, he says, the role of the citizen 'is relegated to that of a guilty bystander, his fate in the hands of the state's hirelings'.

Will Self argues for the re-introduction of National Service to invigorate British democracy.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self argues for the re-introduction of National Service.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Howard reveals what lies behind his obsession for George Eliot's greatest novel and why he can't stop hymning its praises and quoting chunks of it from memory.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Howard Jacobson on why he must renounce George Eliot's greatest novel, Middlemarch.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Clive James reflects on the resignation of the Prime Minister's senior aide Damian McBride

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'What gets in the way of our dream of practising detachment..is our daily practice of attachment, which may be the most human thing about us.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik struggles with his new year's resolutions to meditate and listen to good music

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In the light of President Putin's actions this week, Will argues that the threat of nuclear apocalypse has never really gone away, however much we've tried to convince ourselves otherwise.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Sound: Rod Farquhar

Editor: Hugh Levinson

Will Self argues that the threat of a nuclear apocalypse has never really gone away.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In the underground universities of communist Europe ... my friends and colleagues prepared themselves for the hoped for day when the Communist Party, having starved itself of all rational input, would finally give up the ghost,' he says. 'And the lessons that they learned need to be learned again today, as our politicians lead us forth under the banner of democracy, without pausing to examine what democracy actually requires.'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'The policing of the public sphere with a view to suppressing 'racist' opinions has caused a kind of public psychosis, a sense of having to tip-toe through a minefield, and to avoid all the areas where the bomb of outrage might go off in your face.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Roger Scruton argues for the freedom to make jokes that others may find offensive.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Unless we teach children to judge, to discriminate, to recognize the difference between music of lasting value and mere ephemera, we give up on the task of education.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Both seemed to feel,' Sarah writes, 'that whatever the threat, 'God's Holy City' or 'the seat of American democracy', were somehow, by their very nature, inviolate. I mean nobody would dare, would they?'

Powerful first-hand accounts, the crowd fired up by wild stories and the use of new technology are all there.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant imagines how the storming of the US Capitol building might go down in history

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Men may truly believe in God but for most of them chastity is too big an ask and if enforced leads, at worst, to abuse and at best to a clergy and hierarchy ignorant of, and often unsympathetic to, the problems of being human. From there it's but a skip and a jump to the role of women and their exclusion from the heart of the church.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Sarah Dunant sees a new crisis in the Catholic Church as a result of unchanged policy.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'How do we find a sense of potency in the face of terror, how do we embrace life when threatened with death, how do we champion our future against those who claim they will just carry on dying until they win? Perhaps what is needed is mental as much as military action.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Sarah Dunant reflects on the links between protest, terrorism, climate change and Paris.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Sarah Dunant pays tribute to outstanding women teachers who inspired her own generation.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Howard describes his hours of neatly folding plastic bags on his hands and knees on his living room floor...in order to let him shop responsibly.

Gone is his old profligacy. 'The wild', he says, 'have become the watchful'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Howard Jacobson on why he's taken to folding plastic bags.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Adam Gopnik on the difference between magic and science.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'At the heart of both day-to-day thoughtlessness and internecine slaughter lies a failure to see things through the eyes of another. If we all tried to see clearly rather than selectively - well, you know, I think the planet would get on quite a lot better.'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Penny Murphy

Sara Wheeler reflects on the harm done by seeing only from our own point of view.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Apologies are not needed for an insistence on uncovered faces in court, he says, and the best safeguard against extremism is engagement with the Western philosophic tradition and its multicultural influences.

'Of course British culture will be changed by the cultures of our recent immigrants, but surely our greatest desideratum is precisely this: to be the heirs, possessors and transmitters of a legacy that is ready and able to adapt.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self argues for greater British cultural self-confidence in the debate over the veil.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But not, she thinks, this year.

Sarah describes why she feels this year's September malaise has a different quality to it.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Sarah Dunant on why this year's September malaise has a different feel to it.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Adam describes the daily roller coaster ride of anxiety and normalcy - from the solitude of morning coffee with the dog to the solitude of the Manhattan street late at night.

With each day that passes, he finds that 'the hues and shades of solitude are defining themselves, with a distinction that gives at least a shape, and sometimes the hint of a meaning, to our time inside'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Adam Gopnik on life in lockdown in New York.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik reflects on the attitude of the French to the sex lives of their statesmen.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer:

Sheila Cook.

John Gray reflects on the enduring appeal of Sherlock Holmes' powers of deduction.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik thinks there is a simple reason why short men enjoy stable marriages.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'It's natural to rage against wrong decisions, miscarrriages of justice or the inclemencies of nature, but the more fanciful of us go further and imagine that some power will intervene and make things right again.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Howard Jacobson applauds the granting of an appeal by Shylock in a mock trial in Venice.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He argues that believing that the best is behind us stops us making the most of present opportunities.

To wallow in the past is to be sentimental, to seek an impossible return', he writes. 'Our task is to create something different but equally fulfilling in future'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Tom Shakespeare on why we shouldn't wallow in the past.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

That self might be labelled as Asian writer, or Bangladeshi writer or BAME writer, but it is never labelled simply 'writer' - that would be the true privilege'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Monica Ali explores the challenges faced by writers of colour.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He suggests that existing anthem-like hymns such as Jerusalem, or the likes of Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory won't do. Jerusalem, for example, talks of walking on England's mountains green, excluding the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish.

A new anthem, written and composed for the purpose, would actually mean something and would make us proud of what's great about the United Kingdom. It would be in tune with our times.

Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

Tom Shakespeare argues that the country needs a new national anthem.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He says the referendum has revealed deeper schisms in British society than the lines between native and immigrant.

The sociological explanation', he argues, 'might be that by confronting everyone with the variety and complexity of native British identities, Brexit has created space for other British identities'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He wonders why we tolerate this growing noise pollution, even though we know that high levels of ambient noise cause stress, insomnia and even, if persistent, poor mental health.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But today, she says, history appears inadequate 'to describe the chaos that now seems to surround us'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Stella Tillyard on why history no longer seems an adequate guide to our present.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

David Cannadine traces the remarkable history of the Asian elephant.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Will tries to convince himself - and us - that his use of technology is considered and practical, not the 'glug-glugging of the cyber sozzled'!

But, he admits, 'a great river of denial runs through me...as I fidget and tweezer my way through the glassy looking-glass and into the virtual world'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Self-confessed digi-drunkard Will Self on predictive texting, spellchecking and algorithms

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'There are many people,' she writes, 'who are rock solid in a particular faith...but others are more flexible or live with multiple belief systems.'

Bernardine tells us why she loves the idea of the African-American celebration of Kwanzaa, founded in 1966 and designed to give African-Americans a winter festival that is uniquely theirs.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Richard Vadon.

Writer Helen Macdonald confesses to an obsession with the recent Star Wars movie.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

David Cannadine celebrates the joys of South London via Raymond Chandler and PG Wodehouse.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

I'd argue', he writes, 'that to engage fully with the weird mystery of being is to at least take the helm of your own ship - even if its course is determined by some automatic pilot'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self on why we really should spend time worrying about why we are here.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He points to its eccentricity, its easy going tolerance and its spirit of non-conformity, but he believes 'zealots' are slowly demanding a new sort of 'group-think' that has all the features of a repressive sect.

'I, for one, hope that the rough spirit of British eccentricity, the awkward squad, of putting two fingers up to the establishment, endures.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Trevor Phillips discusses the dangers to Britain of a new, repressive 'group-think'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Maybe it is time,' she writes, 'to admit that closed, highly-controlling environments , that refuse or escape scrutiny in the name of religious toleration... might not be safe places to entrust the hearts, minds and bodies of children.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Rebecca Stott asks if it's time to admit that some faith groups are not safe for children.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Digitisation's subterranean agenda', he says, 'is to repress natural light.'

Unlike old black and white films which were flooded in natural light, he sees the light of digitisation as a grey light.

'We're meant to be distracted by drama, violence and special effects; but, crucially, enchantment is withheld from us.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Amit Chaudhuri reflects on why he believes modern movies lack 'enchantment'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

As she rummages for bargains in her local charity shop, Sarah reflects on the history of charity shops and their growing importance in times of austerity.

Producer Adele Armstrong.

Sarah Dunant reflects on the growing importance of charity shops in times of austerity.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She reflects on the recent surge in moped crime and what can be done to stop it.

She says the criminals involved in this new brand of crime are nearly all children and, whatever our desire for justice, 'crackdowns on children can never provide the entire - the right - solution to the problem'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Monica Ali reflects on the recent surge in moped crime after her son was attacked.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Art, we go on protesting, is not the artist, but some will always believe that whatever is fashioned by evil hands must itself be evil,' he writes.

'If art and the artist were not distinct, the word art itself would have no meaning. For it denotes manufacture and artifice... not simple equation or reflection.'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound Engineer: Peter Bosher

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Production Co-ordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Howard Jacobson says an attack on Eric Gill's sculpture is a failure to understand art.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Michael Morpurgo reflects on why Christmas is the perfect time of year for 'taking your time.'

In a special edition of A Point of View, recorded on a walk near his home in Devon, Michael invites us to enjoy with him the crispness of a frosty morning, the dry leaves crunching underfoot and the 'frantic flurry of splashing and quacking ducks'.

He takes us to his favourite wood, past the hill he used to roll down, his children rolled down and now his grandchildren, and on to the River Torridge where, a few days ago, he sighted an otter for the first time in 50 years - 'the best Christmas present I've ever had'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Recording and sound design: Andy Fell
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith.

Michael Morpurgo takes us on a frosty walk near his home in Devon.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Michael Morpurgo reflects on why Christmas is the perfect time of year for 'taking your time.'

In a special edition of A Point of View, recorded on a walk near his home in Devon, Michael invites us to enjoy with him the crispness of a frosty morning, the dry leaves crunching underfoot and the 'frantic flurry of splashing and quacking ducks'.

He takes us to his favourite wood, past the hill he used to roll down, his children rolled down and now his grandchildren, and on to the River Torridge where, a few days ago, he sighted an otter for the first time in 50 years - 'the best Christmas present I've ever had'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Recording and sound design: Andy Fell
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith.

Michael Morpurgo takes us on a frosty walk near his home in Devon.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

And he wonders whether, 'if there is no solution to the issues that it throws up, then not talking about it much might be a rational strategy'.

Or, he asks, is that too complacent?

Producer: Adele Armstrong

David Goodhart ponders why we're reluctant to talk about integration.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She recalls a conversation with her father where he told her that at primary school he'd been taught about the Black Hole of Calcutta and how the British gave India railways. At secondary school - post Independence and Partition, her Dad's history curriculum changed dramatically...it ceased to cast a rosy glow over British rule.

When she was at school, Monica was taught nothing about Empire.

And with her children, the subject barely got a look-in.

Post Brexit, when the fantasy of a small nation decoupled from the world has never been greater', she writes, 'it is time to put the British Empire firmly into the school curriculum'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Monica Ali on why she thinks the history of the British Empire must be taught in schools.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He argues that in the contemporary wired world, 'it seems obvious that young people need more than ever to know how to think outside the boxes, rather than simply tick them'.

There's no reason, he says, to shackle children 'to the go-round of memorization and regugitation'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self says it's time to end 'teaching to the test'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In this context, John says we should dust off the work of Teffi - one of the best known writers in Russia before the revolution.

I doubt', he says, 'if anyone has written with such luminous clarity of what it means to live in a time of chaos'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray on why the work of Russian writer Teffi has become so relevant today.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self wants to 'nudge society in the direction of considering suicide acceptable'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The Cambridge don describes how the 'tough, engaging and intelligent young people' she has taught for years 'suddenly morph into nervous wrecks, hanging a bit pathetically on your every word, as they have never, quite rightly, done before'.

She talks about the extraordinary similarities between exams in the 1800s and today...the 'curmudgeonly gloom that greeted the students' efforts' sounds very familiar.

Michael Gove and his friends - she suggests - might like to take note that complaints about poor performance have been around for quite some time!

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

More than 70 years after C.S. Lewis wrote 'The Abolition of Man', John Gray argues that Lewis' questions are even more relevant today than they were then. 'The scientists of Lewis's generation were dissatisfied with existing humankind' he writes. 'Using new techniques, they were convinced they could design a much improved version of the species'.

But Gray says that while the scientific knowledge needed to remould humanity hardly existed then, it is rapidly developing at the present time.

He believes that the sciences of bioengineering and artificial intelligence carry serious risks. 'If at some unknown point in the future it becomes feasible to remould ourselves according to our dreams' he writes, 'the result can only be an impoverishment of the human world'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray warns about the dangers of science that promises to enhance human abilities.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Gray praises the power of Ballard's imagination - and his enchanting fables - to make good all this.

His conclusion is upbeat. 'Through the alchemy of memory the leaden buildings in which [Ballard] wandered as a boy became the golden vistas of his fiction, and the traumas of his childhood were transmuted into images of fulfilment'.

Producer:

Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He examines the long-term effects of the Trump Presidency.

It may be that in the future', Andrew writes, 'his appalling conduct will mark a cautionary tale - and future candidates and presidents will learn not to follow in his

steps'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Andrew Sullivan says Donald Trump is teaching a generation to bully, slander and cheat.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self deplores the arms trade, Britain's role in it and the euphemisms around it.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Alain de Botton with some food for thought for a summer picnic.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Lisa Jardine reflects on gardening's purity, and its darker, political aspect.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He reflects on the rising perception that our public spaces are becoming ever more threatening - especially for women.

Our movements about this wide and wonderful world are for the most part painfully constrained,' he writes. 'Comfort zones have become more and more constricted'.

He argues that there are many reasons for this, including the grim revelations in recent years about the criminal activities of police officers.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Will Self on the pleasure of walking without purpose and the freedom of getting lost.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She criticises disinvestment in the arts and the notion that school children should be, at every stage of their education, steered towards science and maths subjects.

'Creativity infuses every aspect of society and how we function as human beings,' she writes. 'Without creativity everything stagnates, including advances in STEM subjects.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Bernardine Evaristo on why the country's arts must be cherished.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He argues that authoritarian tendencies know that warping the facts is only a start. 'Warping reason and logic and clarity of thought is the holy grail'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Zia Haider Rahman argues that reason itself is under assault in this 'post-truth' world.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She says historically there's been a tendency to kick against this awkward fact and an obsession with the idea of a global Britain.

Linda argues that we should recognise the advantages of smallness - nourishing a nation's innovation and agility.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Linda Colley on why being a small nation can be an advantage.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'There are good reasons to doubt that the 2020s will be roaring in any sense at all, good or bad', he writes. 'Rather the remainder of the decade may prove distinctly boring.'

Reflecting on his own teenage boredom, he believes - for young people - a boring decade would be the biggest disappointment of all.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

(Image: Niall Ferguson. Credit: Dewald Aukema)

Niall Ferguson argues that predictions of a 'Roaring Twenties' may be misplaced.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But restoration work of old buildings in the city, he says, 'is now often based on the assumption that an old building...must have once looked new, or should have'.

He says restoration in Calcutta - and in many other cities around the world - must stop fetishizing the new.

Amit Chaudhuri on why restoration should not involve a fetishization of the new.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Do the best comedians truly turn the world upside down', Howard asks, 'or do they merely strap us into a fairground roller-coaster so that we can feign fear and scream in unison?'

He argues that the norms of outrage have been jettisoned in the reaction to events in Israel on October 7.

'Once the world is turned upside down,' he writes, 'humanity and justice fall like loose change from our pockets.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Liam Morrey

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Howard Jacobson on the liberation of laughter and a world turned upside down.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Howard Jacobson reflects on cherished beliefs, the laws of Carnival and events in Israel.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

Will Self reflects on what the changing nature of utopias says about us.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She explains why - after many years - she's made her peace with taxidermy.

'After all, can we really be all high-horse-ish about the way our ancestors shot, classified and stuffed everything in their path, given how much damage we've done to species and their habitats in the last fifty years alone?'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Rebecca Stott on her fascination with taxidermy.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Like most intelligent beings', Sarah writes, 'I'm passionate about addressing climate change for future generations. But my urgency of commitment also comes from an attachment to one in particular - the next'.

The desire to hand something on has always been with us, but it raises big moral dilemmas.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Zoe reflects on the power of TV as a coping mechanism at the height of the COVID pandemic.

But she argues that the creep of the on-screen narrative must now be slowed down in order for us to fully re-engage with our lives.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Zoe Strimpel argues that it's time to wean ourselves off TV as a coping mechanism.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Thirty years after the US sociologist James Davison Hunter wrote his book 'Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America', Zoe looks at how those ideas are playing out around the world today.

'There is a sense of menace about,' she writes, 'of pent-up, complicated grievance. I worry that the culture war could tip into something far more deadly.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Zoe Strimpel argues that the culture war is not a storm in a teacup.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He explains its unglamorous origins and it's contemporary Russian connotations of meaning 'a drunken hooligan'.

But the trouble is, he says 'like every writer, I would like my writing to last'. Little chance of that with a name like Gopnik, he believes. He bemoans why he hasn't a name like Jane Austen or Anthony Trollope.

Writers are, he believes, condemned to greatness or otherwise, by their names. The great exception is William Shakespeare, whose ridiculous surname - much mocked in his day - is now part of everyday speech.

Via a detour through name history, he reaches the conclusion that his fate is fixed. 'I shall remain and say goodbye -- and then vanish as a, and A., Gopnik'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Adam Gopnik muses on life when - like him - you've been lumbered with a funny name.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Taking George Orwell as his starting point 'There are some ideas so absurd that only intellectuals could believe them', he asks why we're still so reluctant today to give credence to the views of ordinary people.

He examines the role of universities in teaching critical thought in the humanities and social sciences and wonders if students who have 'swallowed this mishmash' really have a better understanding of the world around them.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray argues that throughout history intellectuals have often made the worst decisions

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

As Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is laid to rest, Sarah looks to history to ponder what his legacy might be.

And she turns to the work of the 19th-century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: 'The tyrant dies and his rule is over...the martyr dies and his rule begins'.

'History is a long game,' Sarah writes. 'And the shelf life of martyrs in particular is impressive.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Liam Morrey

Editor: Penny Murphy

Sarah Dunant on Alexei Navalny and the creation of a modern martyr.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

As Putin's arch critic Alexei Navalny is buried, Sarah Dunant argues that Navalny's real power and influence may be only just beginning.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

John Gray argues for another way of seeing the world, inspired by writer Arthur Machen.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He concludes that 'dragon and saint are permanently entangled, as our demonic forces are with our better nature.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Adam Gopnik reflects on the truths our dogs can teach us.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Will Self questions whether - if it takes years to find an effective vaccine or treatment for COVID 19 - we will still manage to maintain our faith in human progress.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Will Self reflects on how the pandemic could affect our perception of human progress.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Covid acted as a kind of universal solvent,' Adam writes, 'dissolving pretty much everyone's expectations of what could happen in the world'.

He looks in particular at the concept of ‘trusting the science' and argues that ‘science is not a transaction of faith but of accumulated confidence'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Adam Gopnik sets out to recalibrate our view of 'trusting the science'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Winter is deeply embedded in the English language - the white stuff of metaphor', she writes.

'But if climate change blanches the seasons, one wonders what the as yet unborn writers will reach for when they try to put the unsayable into words.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sara Wheeler reflects on the myriad wintry metaphors in the English language.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

We tend to look forward to a future state of fulfilment in which all turmoil has ceased', Gray writes. But, he says, 'when we look to the future to give meaning to our lives, we lose the meaning we can make for ourselves here and now'.

He argues that we should give up our obsession with endings and urges us not to be wary of change. 'Humans are sturdy creatures, built to withstand disruption'.

Conflict never ceases', he says, 'but neither do human resourcefulness, adaptability and courage'.

On Europe, he writes, 'wherever Europe's elites turn for support, the pillars begin to crumble and shake. Eventually every utopian project comes to grief - and while it started as a benign creation, the European project has long since acquired an unmistakably utopian quality. The efforts that are being made to renew the project are only accelerating its demise'.

Renewing our lives in the face of recurring evils', he concludes, 'is the task...that has always faced human beings. Looking to an end-time is a way of failing to cherish the present - the only time that is truly our own'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She reports from the Italian city of Mantova where she finds a rather un-Italian attitude to all of this.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant reflects on political will and its relationship to changing behaviour.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

David Cannadine recalls the heyday of cinema and television Westerns.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The prevailing tone of sweet concord shouldn't be allowed to disguise the violent nature of creativity', he says.

They're a fiercely competitive business for writers, he believes. 'To write is to reconceive the world and only a God, or someone acting like a God, can do that...You don't want some other two-bit deity coming along and bagging the credit for what you've done'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Howard Jacobson on literary festivals and the violent nature of creativity.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

It's highlighted, Adam argues, by what he calls the ‘Florida Phone Call' - the call you get from your children ‘announcing that not only are you no longer fully competent to grasp contemporary life and its technology...but there is no longer any chance that you will grasp contemporary life and its technology!

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Adam Gopnik reflects on why Tik-Tok will never be his thing.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He says they operated under the long-held but mistaken belief that history unfolds according to predictable patterns.

Human events have no overall direction', he writes, 'and history obeys no laws'.

He discusses how we can prepare ourselves for the 'unknowable future'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray on how we can prepare ourselves for an 'unknowable future'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Call this the Constructive Fallacy of the Secondary Activity - or, perhaps, The Delusion of Mastery

through Proximity.

Producer: Sheila Cook

Editor: Richard Knight.

Adam Gopnik explains why the English are better at watching football than at playing it.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

I know full-well that the purpose of both British education and British employment is the same: to keep us busy and purposive from cradle to grave'.

Will Self explores how the worlds of work and education have become seamlessly merged with each other.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self on how the worlds of work and education have become seamlessly merged.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Michael Morpurgo reflects on the damage being caused to increasing numbers of children by stress and anxiety.

He makes an impassioned plea to schools to do much more to alleviate stress.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Michael Morpurgo on the damage being caused to increasing numbers of children by stress.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In 1919, barely three decades after the advent of moving pictures, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and others thought things were bad enough in the studio system to break away and form an independent creative producing collective, United Artists. There are many other examples of Hollywood's woes in the C20th.

But in this time of political instability, Alison writes, 'don't we need entertainment to get everybody through, aiming higher?

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But love makes us altruistic, humane. 'We would find it bizarre if a parent was more worried about dropping a vase than dropping their baby - even a Ming vase and an ugly baby. An absence of love within a family or a relationship is taken as a sign of something having gone very wrong,' she says.

'But an absence of love in the world we help construct around us, that's regarded as a form of common sense. We are used to making decisions - or having them made for us - which would save the vase and not the baby.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Stephen King says, 'Love creates horror.' AL Kennedy agrees.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Lisa Jardine says commemorating a war should not mean losing sight of its horror.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Our great cities are year-round destinations', she writes, 'but when the hordes arrive, cultural simplification is seldom far behind'.

She says we've grown used to cheap and cheerful instant gratification in many areas of our lives without any thought for the consequences.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Val McDermid on why mass tourism is destroying the very thing we crave when we travel.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Starting with 'betrayal' and ending with 'the will of the people', Howard sets out to take back sovereignty....over words.

I can't complain', he admits, 'of some parties to our great national debate being Little Englanders if I'm a little Languager.....but if each party to a discussion doesn't know what the other is talking about, we might as well not have language at all'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Howard Jacobson sets out to take back sovereignty... over words.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

London's Soho, he says, is the nearest the UK has to a Bohemia but 'you don't sniff aesthetic licence in the streets of Soho as you once did'.

But one day recently, writes Howard, Soho recovered its spirit - at the funeral of the leopard-skin jacketed 'Prince of Soho'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

John Gray draws on Walter de la Mare to argue against the creed of scientific materialism.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Beyond our narrow corner of things, there may be limitless possibilities, or else primordial chaos,' he writes. 'Our belief in the uniformity of nature is not a result but a presupposition of science - in other words, an act of faith.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

John Gray reflects on doubt, faith and love... through the life of Arthur Balfour.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Will reflects on what a truly gender-fluid society might look like.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self reflects on what a truly gender-fluid society might look like.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He says the Conservative party at present is muddling along without a philosophy.

But he argues that, far from being the 'nasty party', the most fundamental belief underpinning Conservative policies historically is the idea of responsibility towards others.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Roger Scruton asks: 'What does the Tory Party really stand for?'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

David Cannadine reflects on the history and traditions of America's Memorial Day.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Obviously the world wide web and the internet have played a key role in making each and every one of us a little hot spot of Nowness: over the past twenty years as more and more people have chosen to spend more and more of their time in this virtual realm, so we've sought to furnish its fuzzy immensity with our memories, individual and collective.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self reflects on our sense of the meaning of time.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Penny Murphy

John Gray ponders the true meaning of Conservatism.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Is President Trump really 'mad'?, he asks. Is Brexit 'bonkers'? Or is the latest government policy 'schizophrenic'?

He says we all do it. 'Within five minutes of starting to write this talk, I find I'm doing it myself!

But he says we need to break the habit since it shows a profound lack of understanding towards people with real mental health conditions.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Tom Shakespeare on why we misuse the language of mental illness.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Via Leviticus and Arcimboldo, he charts his conversion to vegetarianism.

And he explains why it's not just personal morals that are 'propelling me headlong towards the horror of Quorn'!

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self on his conversion to vegetarianism.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

I'm not saying that automation isn't a big trend or that driverless cars aren't a possibility', she writes, 'but there is nothing about them that is inevitable'.

She believes all these assertions of inevitability have agendas. 'If we let Silicon Valley hijack our future', she says, 'we gain the comfort of certainty, but lose our freedom'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Margaret Heffernan argues that, in the world of technology, nothing is inevitable.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

John Gray draws on the novels of Mervyn Peake to expose the myth of modernity.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

When Donald Trump floated the idea of the US purchasing Greenland in 2019, this was widely dismissed as just another Trumpian eccentricity', she writes.

But this 'real estate deal' as the former president characteristically described his Greenland project, was actually in line with large portions of American history'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Rod Farquhar

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Linda Colley argues that the age of empire is far from over.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He says that many novels have already moved in the direction of the televisual - written with an eye to a film or TV adaptation.

If novelists are relinquishing the very things that are exclusively the province of the novel', he writes, 'then they are complicit in the demise of the novel'.

Zia Haider Rahman reflects on the demise of the literary novel.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Tom muses on the near impossible task of remembering an ever-growing number of online passwords.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Tom Shakespeare on the near impossible task of remembering online passwords.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

One thing that becomes screamingly obvious the second we fall ill - and which remains with us day after day, if we're chronically so - is that we are our bodies', he writes.

He warns of the dangers of exalting our minds above all else.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Will Self asks why our relationship with our bodies has become such a distant one.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She says she believes that in a few hundred years' time, 'our treatment of old people will be as much of a blot on our culture as Bedlam and the madhouses were on the culture of the 18th century'.

But she also argues that our view of dementia is a sanitized one. She says we have to recognize that dementia can make its sufferers truculent and aggressive...something that most of us - not just care workers on a minimum wage - would find very difficult to deal with.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Mary Beard argues that our view of dementia is a sanitized one which needs to be rethought

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer:

Sheila Cook.

John Gray reflects on the paradox of immortality as captured by the writer Theodore Powys.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Discarding perished rubber bands that once sheaved the slim volumes,' Sara writes, 'I read the story of my own life.'

She wonders if accepting and understanding the past can help us escape 'the three rs of lived experience - regret, remorse and recrimination.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sara Wheeler rereads fifty years of diaries and ponders lessons learned.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

John Gray reflects on the damage that can be caused by evangelical belief.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Reliving her early relationship with music - from excruciating piano lessons to rebellious dancing in the mosh pit - Sarah reflects on the remarkable changes in classical music.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: China Collins

Sarah Dunant reflects on why she's no longer shunning Bach for Bowie.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

People need stories and these stories appeal to us, he says. But he argues that as well as persuasive stories, more than ever we need facts.

The plural of anecdote is not data, as a professor used to tell me', he writes.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Tom Shakespeare reflects on why the political populists are all master story tellers.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Art is a power and most of its true power is invisible, private, memorised and held even in prison cells and on forced marches, so you can see why totalitarians of all kinds dislike it.'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Editor: Richard Knight.

AL Kennedy reflects on the power of art to sustain the human spirit.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'It allows you to look and feel your way through the lives of others who may apparently be very other - and yet here they are - inside your head.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

AL Kennedy extols the virtues of reading and its power to encourage respect for others.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'In this third lockdown,' Rebecca writes, 'now that my grown up children have gone back to their flats, I am living alone for the first time. I miss our conversations over the dinner table. I miss mulling over the day with them.'

But, she says, the cumulative power of slow storytelling is a perfect antidote. And, in particular, The Archers!

Producer: Adele Armstrong

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Admiring the tiny handwriting with hardly any space between the lines, Sarah reflects on the modern day demise of handwriting.

Regimented key strokes in various type fonts' are no substitute, she argues, for the beauty and emotion contained in handwriting.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Sarah Dunant reflects on the demise of handwriting.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Tom Shakespeare says that disabled people's right to independent living is under threat.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

David Cannadine reflects on the distinctive style of American graduation ceremonies.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But these days hugs feel like a distant memory and, she argues, wearing a mask is the least we can do.

'It's an act of compassion, self-protection and a commitment towards the survival of our fellow humans, our country, our world.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Bernardine Evaristo on why wearing a mask these days is the least we can do.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Will Self finds himself driven to reconsider the nature and purpose of satire.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

AL Kennedy reflects on what it means to pursue happiness.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The crown and the jewels were costume, the Palace was a stage. She knew that, we knew that', writes Michael. 'It was a charade, but one that worked wonderfully well, because she was centre stage in our national drama, because enough of us believed in her'.

As the world changed around her, Michael argues, the Queen at all times looked to the future, helped us find our place in the world and discover who we are as a people.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'The theory is that this drives up quality for everyone, because we won't tolerate terrible products or services - but have they really improved since these ratings became so commonplace?'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound Engineer: Peter Bosher

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Production Co-ordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Those who campaign for the abolition of a royal head of state in Britain,' he says, 'seem to me to be in thrall to a simple-minded idea of reason, and fail to grasp the subtler rationality embodied in monarchy.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Rod Farquhar

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Bridget Harney

John Gray argues the case for monarchy.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

From the start, he says, Trump's campaign has been an audacious experiment in mass persuasion. 'His uncouth language, megalomaniac self-admiration and strangely coloured hair....all deliberately cultivated' to help him profit from the popular resentment against the elites of the main parties.

Whatever happens', writes Gray, 'there will be no return to pre-Trump normalcy'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray assesses what lies behind the Trump phenomenon.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But, he argues, this new 'religion' delivers one-sided solutions since rights favour the person who can claim them - whatever the moral reasons for opposing them.

He says Europe needs to rediscover its Christian roots.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Sir Roger Scruton argues that Europe needs to rediscover its Christian roots.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

And she reflects on how our ancestors dealt with dramatic weather events - and the gods they believed were responsible.

Our ancestors would have sacrificed everything they owned to appease those gods.....they would have prayed together, sacrificed together'.

'But what,' she wonders, 'will we in the west sacrifice to save our species? Our cars? Our meat-eating? Our air-conditioning? Our foreign holidays?'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Rebecca Stott reflects on the difficulty of communicating climate change.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'What current historians share with those historians of the past whose vision we vehemently decry, is that they too thought they were right at the time...If we now find their views abhorrent and unjust then how about us; what might there be about our present moral certainty that the future might take issue with. What might we be missing?'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Sarah Dunant asks if we should judge the past by the standards of the present - or future.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

To illustrate his point, he writes: 'One man's extraordinary rendition is another man's license to torture, which in turn is a flagrant denial of a third man's human rights'. And he ponders how we can conceive of a person having any human rights, unless effective sanctions are in place to stop them being violated. He turns his attention to Syria and its 'vicious dictator...actively and consistently violating the human rights of its own citizenry'. But the UN Security Council is - he says - seemingly powerless to stop him.

It is all a long way, he suggests, from Article 1 of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.' That - he points out - means that 'no single one of the eight-and-a-half billion-odd human lives currently transpiring can be held to be of greater value that any of the others'. Without the creation of an 'independent global judiciary' and 'an equally incorruptible international police force,' he argues, this is little more than cant.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self asks whether 'human rights' really exist, when they can so easily be taken away.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

As Wagner's Ring - that huge and controversial cycle of operas - went on tour around the UK, Roger talked about why The Ring is absolutely a story for our time.

I have loved The Ring and learned from it for over 50 years and for me, it is quite simply the truth about our world - but the truth expressed by means of music of unquestionable authority and supreme melodic and harmonic power'.

The talk was first broadcast in 2016.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Following the death of Sir Roger Scruton, a chance to listen again to one of his talks.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Kamila Shamsie says she, too, has been carried along with this wave of escapism from 'dark times'.

But she says the idea that 'upliftment' should be marketed to the reading public as the only fictional response to difficult times strikes her as problematic. 'The best fiction always makes us look at - rather than away from - the world'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Kamila Shamsie on the limitations of the publishing trend 'Up Lit'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

We have been looking back, remembering, or trying to', he writes, 'because remembering a time and a war that none of us can remember is hard'.

He discusses one particular plan - the dream of a WW1 soldier - to make a new pilgrims way in No Man's Land.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Michael Morpurgo discusses the importance of never taking peace for granted.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But he discovers a world on an ecological edge - with water at dangerously low levels, distraught fishermen and virtually no fish.

'What is a fish without a river?' he asks. 'Indeed what is a river without a fish?'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Neil Churchill

Production Coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

John Connell reflects on the plight of vanishing salmon and what it means for our planet

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She ponders what it means that we have no idea what's running through the minds of the people closest to us and argues that - in an increasingly fractured world - knowing what's going on in each other's minds might help us understand each other.

Scientists, she points out, have taken up the challenge. One group of psychologists estimate that people spend somewhere between 25 and 50% of their waking hours engaged in thoughts unrelated to the here and now.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Stella Tillyard looks at the phenomenon of the 'idling brain'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Strange, he reckons, given he's not exactly maritime by temperament.

Long ago at Blackpool,' he writes, 'I was lifted onto a donkey and afterwards told to make a sandcastle, but I fell off the donkey and wilder boys in Brillo-pad swimming trunks trampled over my battlements'.

He looks to Matthew Arnold for an explanation of this 'mysterious nexus of sea and Santa'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Howard Jacobson stares out to sea....and ponders the 'mysterious nexus of sea and Santa'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She says the seemingly empty and tranquil space of the Mediterranean has been abruptly reanimated, not by nature, but by man.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Stella Tillyard argues that the sea - long forgotten - is beginning to reassert itself.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

On the plus side, he noted, marriage provided a constant companion and friend in old age and, memorably, that a wife would be better than a dog.

Gopnik's own formula for a happy marriage is lust, laughter and loyalty.

Via Samuel Beckett, Monty Python and The Big Lebowski, Gopnik concludes that loyalty is a much-underrated quality. Loyalty is not, he argues, a passive state that holds two people together when all else has failed.

Rather, he explains, loyalty is a wholly active state, as a new family dog has demonstrated. Dogs are there, he writes, 'to remind us that loyalty is a jumpy, fizzy emotion - loyalty leaps up at the door and barks with joy at your return, and then immediately goes back to sleep at your side'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Adam Gopnik presents his formula for a happy marriage - lust, laughter and loyalty.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Adam argues that the much discussed 'sex recession' in the US is primarily a question of misunderstanding between generations - and is certainly not a cause for moral panic!

We misread the sex because the signs change, and we misread the signs to mean that the sex is changing...or even that the sex is vanishing'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Adam Gopnik argues that there's no need to panic about the much-discussed US sex recession

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In the light of the events of the past year, he questions why the politics of nationalism appear irresistible today.

He wonders 'if we cannot now see that patriotism and nationalism have a more fluid, a more organic, a more connected relationship that we might want to imagine'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Adam Gopnik explores the differences between patriotism and nationalism.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Lisa Jardine reflects on the extraordinary tapestries in London for the Pope's visit.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

After getting his first taste for protest as a schoolboy in Guyana (which led to detention in an army barracks and an audience with a government minister) Trevor remembers his days of student activism in the 1970s - which he describes as 'the start of a long and undistinguished career of being a pain in the backside of authority'.

Reflecting on the campaigns of groups like Just Stop Oil, he argues that many of today's protesters simply choose the wrong target.

He concludes that there is still a point to protest, even though success might not be immediate - because victory may come later, and in a way that's often unpredictable.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He argues that modern-day populism has largely been created by centre parties who have identified themselves with an unsustainable status quo.

He looks at how populism is likely to play out in the upcoming elections in France and Holland.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

John Gray discusses what has fuelled 'populism' today.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'As science digs further into every nook and cranny of our brains,' writes Sarah, 'the elusive, individual nature of dreams is possibly the most magical element of human existence that remains.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sarah Dunant explores the elusive, individual nature of dreams.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Sarah Dunant argues that - at a time when so much else in the world has been explained away - dreams remain one of the supreme mysteries of being human.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Sarah Dunant reflects on our changed perceptions of the sexual attitudes of the 1970s.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

As unprecedented numbers of tourists are visiting Europe, Sarah Dunant reflects on how historic cities can manage the challenges of overtourism.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Bridget Harney

Sarah Dunant ponders how historic cities deal with unprecedented numbers of tourists.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Bridget Harney

Megan Nolan explores the trend of the 'trad wife'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

I've lived here since the Reagan era', he writes, 'and there have been plenty of divides. But none quite as tribal or as rooted in non-negotiable identity as this one'.

He warns of what the outcome might be and reminds the listener that a liberal democracy is always a precarious enterprise.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But whatever the scenario, the rhetoric was always the same....the overwhelming desire was for the trolley to kill fewer people and save more.

AL Kennedy argues that today that rhetoric is in danger of being turned on its head.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

AL Kennedy on how a thought experiment of the 1960s today risks being turned on its head.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But Gray believes otherwise. Using the nineteenth century liberal John Stuart Mill and his god-son Bertrand Russell, he advances his argument that liberty is one thing, democracy another.

The reality' he says 'is that when a tyrant is toppled we can't know what will come next'.

Producer:

Adele Armstrong.

John Gray looks at the relationship between freedom and democracy.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

I am by nature an optimist', she writes. 'But I'm really struggling here. We've broken our democracy. I don't know how to fix it and I'm afraid nobody else does either'.

She says the bottom line is that our political system isn't designed for the polarization that referendums inevitably bring.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

If you really want to understand how the world's civilisations interact and meld', she writes, 'go and look at the art of Gandhara'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Kamila Shamsie explores the meaning of the word 'civilisation'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

By way of Primo Levi, the great chronicler of the Holocaust, Coleridge's 'The Ancient Mariner' and stories emerging today from Ukraine, Howard argues that stories of truth must be listened to, no matter how uncomfortable or challenging we find them.

No deceit is ever so perfected,' he says, 'that it doesn't require the connivance of the deceived'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Howard Jacobson on why stories of truth in war cannot be ignored.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

John Gray argues that the power of the imagination fuels the worst kind of politics.

'Nobody', he argues, 'is in overall charge of events. There are patterns in history, but particular human events are mostly random. We prefer an illusion of order to the brute fact of chaos.'

But, he says, pessimism may be the key to changing our fate.

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

John Gray argues that pessimism can be a force for change.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

John Gray argues that the power of the imagination fuels the worst kind of politics.

'Nobody', he argues, 'is in overall charge of events. There are patterns in history, but particular human events are mostly random. We prefer an illusion of order to the brute fact of chaos.'

But, he says, pessimism may be the key to changing our fate.

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

John Gray argues that pessimism can be a force for change.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Nobody', he argues, 'is in overall charge of events. There are patterns in history, but particular human events are mostly random. We prefer an illusion of order to the brute fact of chaos.'

But, he says, pessimism may be the key to changing our fate.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

John Gray argues that pessimism can be a force for change.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

John Gray on why regular fits of collective insanity are part of what it means to be human.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

John Gray argues that the power of the imagination fuels the worst kind of politics.

'Nobody', he argues, 'is in overall charge of events. There are patterns in history, but particular human events are mostly random. We prefer an illusion of order to the brute fact of chaos.'

But, he says, pessimism may be the key to changing our fate.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

John Gray argues that pessimism can be a force for change.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

John Gray on why regular fits of collective insanity are part of what it means to be human.

But, he argues, the conflating of cultural and financial value has now spread well beyond the private realm.

The National Lottery is head of his blame list. 'I think of the National Lottery as a sort of reverse Midas-touch, turning everything gold it finances to....rubbish.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Will Self bemoans the growing commoditisation of culture in the public sector.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

This comes in the aftermath of a call from a school authority in South Dakota for the banning of her novel, 'Girl, Woman, Other' on the grounds that it - and four other novels - are unsuitable for seventeen and eighteen-year-olds.

Bernardine argues that we should avoid vocabulary that fosters outrage and try instead to find words that convey our exact, and reasoned, argument.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Bernardine Evaristo on news that Girl, Woman, Other may be banned in some US schools.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He reflects on that chance encounter many years ago and the dishonourable role we all play in the creation of celebrity.

'We watched too much television; we rubbed the lamp and set the extremely egregious genie free; we saw a blank slate and wrote the words ourselves.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: China Collins

Howard Jacobson on the 'horrid fascination' of celebrity.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Lisa Jardine celebrates Elizabeth of Bohemia, who deserves a larger place in history.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

We are quick to judge - quicker than ever in grotesquely polarised times. But if we can't know another person, how can we judge them?', she writes.

'I am suggesting that we use the biographer's craft as a tool for understanding. And a tool for avoiding generalisation, compartmentalisation and judgement.'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound Engineer: Peter Bosher

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Production Co-ordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Sara Wheeler says writing a biography has proved a reminder not to judge people.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The 'isms' and 'phobias', he says, have been used in order to 'put some complex matters beyond discussion, so that only one perspective can be publicly confessed to'.

In the world of political correctness', he writes, 'there is no presumption of innocence, but only a hunger for targets'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Roger Scruton argues that political correctness is the ultimate source of our conflicts.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The past year has certainly put a stop to much conversation, angry or otherwise.

Sarah imagines how conversation will be - once we're finally able to talk to each other again, face to face.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant ponders what effect this year will have on future conversation.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Veronika is a translator and a university lecturer, with a talent for gardening. She's helped Rebecca in her garden; Rebecca has discussed translations with Veronika.

Now, in the light of events in Ukraine, Rebecca talks about their friendship.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Sound: Peter Bosher

Editor: Penny Murphy

Rebecca Stott on conversations with her Russian friend.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The pandemic has found us out,' Michael writes, 'shown us how ridiculous and absurd and sad' is the rigidity of a system of education so dictated and dominated by endless data gathering and exams.

He argues that we must use this opportunity - where so much is up for grabs - to take a serious look at what needs to change.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Michael Morpurgo questions whether we are educating our children or programming them.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

John Gray argues that 'thinking the unthinkable' means exaggerating fashionable beliefs.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A leaflet urging the adoption of 'No Mow May' led him to set aside his urge to 'rip and tear and snip' to let nature take its course, above all for the sake of wild bees.

'My lawn is long now, but the green desert is no more. In exchange for neatness there are wildflowers and weeds growing side by side in a riot of colour.'

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound Engineer: Peter Bosher

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Production Co-ordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

John Connell reveals how his love for his lawn gave way to letting the grass run wild.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Referring to last week's row over the appointment of the new European Commission President, she writes: 'the EU's view of Britain might be that we're always yelling in a corner about chips!

An entertaining exploration of the down-sides of personal and national introspection.

AL Kennedy explores the downsides of personal and national introspection.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Will argues that our infantilism in this regard detracts from our engagement with the world.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Will Self ponders our infantilism regarding our toilet habits.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He says these new 'illiberal liberals' who allow freedom of expression only to those they regard as progressive, risk smothering 'the contradictory and enlightened ideas that make us human.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

John Gray discusses why he believes liberals are turning their backs on tolerance.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Reflecting on how Russian characters in the book converse in fluent French, Adam considers how mixed identities should not undermine national integrity, writing that the composite nature of Ukrainian identity does not cast doubt on its integrity as a country.

He also explores Tolstoy's debunking of the 'great man' theory of history, and a reminder that 'history lies outside the control of any one hero, or heroine' while conceding that heroism is in itself a plausible concept, and 'if great men and women do not cause history, they surely make history. We seem to be seeing it made in action right now.

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Adam Gopnik seeks enlightenment for our time in Tolstoy's War and Peace.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

But she argues that our 'winner takes all' mentality is suffocating democracy.

On both sides of the Atlantic, in regimes around the world', she writes, 'we can watch the chaotic dissolution of administrations based on winning at any price'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

AL Kennedy argues that our 'winner-takes-all' mentality is suffocating democracy.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Correction: In the piece there is an incorrect reference to St. James's Park. This should refer to Kensington Gardens.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Sarah Dunant sees the balance between past and present epitomised at Kensington Palace.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

William Dalrymple celebrates the writing of Peter Matthiessen, who died this month.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Their main business is the worthy task of holding the government and the civil service to account, even if it's more fun holding unpopular public figures' feet to the fire.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Tom Shakespeare thinks that reformed select committees have revitalised Parliament.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

From King Lear and Deuteronomy to bankers' bonuses and universal credit, Howard extols the concept of sufficiency and concludes that trickle down economics simply doesn't work.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Howard Jacobson takes on the proponents of the horse-and-sparrow theory of economics.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She says it's the kind of 'vile, in-yer-face bile many of us thought we'd left behind decades ago.

The essay contains very strong racist language.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Bernardine Evaristo argues that online trolls are poisoning human interaction.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

John Gray assesses what's going wrong for liberals in the US election.

'It's not chiefly Joe Biden's alleged faltering mental powers that lie behind Trump's march to the White House', John writes. 'Far more, it's the evident inability of American liberals to learn from their mistakes.'

And he believes they are displaying a 'reckless hubris' for which they risk being severely punished come November.

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Liam Morrey
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

John Gray accuses US liberals of displaying a 'reckless hubris' in the election campaign.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

John Gray assesses what's going wrong for liberals in the US election.

'It's not chiefly Joe Biden's alleged faltering mental powers that lie behind Trump's march to the White House', John writes. 'Far more, it's the evident inability of American liberals to learn from their mistakes.'

And he believes they are displaying a 'reckless hubris' for which they risk being severely punished come November.

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Liam Morrey
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

John Gray accuses US liberals of displaying a 'reckless hubris' in the election campaign.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Listening to our media, our public voices, as if we're listening to people in our everyday lives, holding them to that standard and not their own can help us to know when we're being driven towards the sound of a faked emotion or spun a tale.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Onora O'Neill reflects anew on the theme of trust, the subject of her Reith lectures.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

As he collects the turf and attends to his organic farm, he ponders what of this he'll pass onto his child.

And he wonders if his new son or daughter will have any truck with Heaney's 'cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap of soggy peat'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

John Connell looks forward to becoming a father for the first time.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A mechanical figure of a bearded man, dressed in Turkish clothing, appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess against a human opponent. It was - in fact - a mechanical illusion that allowed a human chess master hiding inside to operate the machine.

It was a sensation. But the players inside were nothing more than good chess players.

We always over estimate the space between the uniquely good and the very good', Gopnik writes. 'We worship one tennis player as uniquely gifted, failing to see that the runners-up, who we scoff at as perpetual losers, are themselves fantastically gifted and accomplished, that the inept footballer we whistle at in despair is a better football player than we have ever seen or ever will meet'.

As some of the world's top chess players battle it out in London in the Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship, Adam Gopnik reflects on why we overrate masters and underrate mastery.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Rather than thinking of rights as a militant creed that can deliver the world from its conflicts, we should recognise rights for what they are - useful devices that quite often don't work.'.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In this introductory talk, he argues that we cannot make sense of China by looking at it through a Western prism. China is not like a Western nation-state and never will be. Western nations are countries constituted on the basis of nation, China is a country constituted on the basis of a civilization. The consequences are profound and far-reaching.

In his second talk, he examines the tributary system, the historical China-centric network of international relations which involved other parts of East Asia accepting the principle of Chinese superiority in return for protection and access to the Chinese market, an arrangement distinct to European forms of colonialism. He asks whether a system of this kind is now re-emerging.

In his third talk, he explores the nature of race in China. Over 90 per cent of the Chinese population regard themselves as belonging to the same race, the Han. This is a stark contrast to the multi-racial composition of the world's other populous states. Chinese ethnic identity stems from a process of integration and of cultural identity. What defines the Chinese above all is pride in their culture and a sense of cultural achievement. The advantage of the Han identity is that it is the cement that has held China together. The disadvantage is a weak understanding of and respect for ethnic and cultural differences.

In his final talk, he asks how the undemocratic Chinese state can enjoy legitimacy and authority in the eyes of its population. He argues that the Chinese state is held in such high esteem because it is seen as the embodiment, protector and guardian of Chinese civilization. The state is seen as an intimate, a member of the family indeed - in fact, the head of the family. It is a remarkable institution which will come to exercise interest and fascination outside China.

Martin Jacques is the author of 'When China Rules the World'.

Martin Jacques presents a personal view on how best to understand contemporary China.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In his final talk, he asks how the undemocratic Chinese state can enjoy legitimacy and authority in the eyes of its population. He argues that the Chinese state is held in such high esteem because it is seen as the embodiment, protector and guardian of Chinese civilization. The state is seen as an intimate, a member of the family indeed - in fact, the head of the family. It is a remarkable institution which will come to exercise interest and fascination outside China.

Martin Jacques is the author of 'When China Rules the World'.

Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

How can the undemocratic Chinese state enjoy authority in the eyes of its population?

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

John Gray reflects on the things we know but prefer not to think about.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self laments what he sees as an absence of rational urban planning in our big cities.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Are the intrinsic qualities of something more powerful than the context in which we perceive it, or are what we call intrinsic properties really only the effect of expectations and surprise?'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik says the secret of happiness lies in unexpected pleasures.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Sara explains why she has little time for the new fad of wild swimming and sings the praises of those gorgeous pools that sprang up around the UK from the nineteenth century.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sara Wheeler on why she has little time for the current fad of wild swimming.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

' I don't think watching violence drives us to commit violent acts - I think it is a violent action in and of itself.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self thinks people are as violent as ever, counting the virtual and online worlds.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He realised', writes Michael, 'that investing in our young people is the most important investment we can make as a society' .

He says the Duke's passion for helping young people will be needed more than ever in the difficult months ahead, as we come out of the pandemic.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Michael Morpurgo on how a personal meeting shaped his views.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Will wonders what we should say to our children about global warming and our role in it.

He says we have to hope that some sort of collective wisdom can emerge 'because the alternative is frankly terrifying: a degraded, dystopic and nakedly Darwinian future'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Will Self ponders what we should say to our children about global warming.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Alain de Botton with a controversial view of the teaching of humanities in universities.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She explores the ongoing controversy over trans women in women's competitive sport, and the reluctance of public figures to define what a woman is. while revealing her own views on the issue.

As the history of feminism itself makes clear, gender and sex are genuinely complicated. That overconfident or oversimplified definitions of woman - which apparently we're all supposed to be able to produce - can be limiting and crude. Not just in relation to trans women but biological women too,' she writes.

She continues: 'The bitter debate about trans women versus women is a debate about the meaning and realness of biology. And yes, biological difference matters, sometimes hugely. It is certainly real. But there is room for nuance: indeed, there is a necessity for it. Without it, I fear a relapse into arguing that women are defined by their biology beyond the swimming pool or the cycling track or the locker room.

Producer: Sheila Cook

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production Coordinator: Janet Staples

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Zoe Strimpel asks the simple-yet-complex question, 'what is a woman?

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

You can't compare him to a four-year-old because four-year-old children are not in fact tyrannical or egotistical'.

Six months into Donald Trump's presidency, Adam Gopnik searches - almost in vain - for a descriptive category to fit.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Adam Gopnik reflects on the first six months of Donald Trump's presidency.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He ponders the various options. The first is to ignore it and claim the high moral ground, 'the Big Ignore' he calls it. The second is to write a late night letter - or three - to the offending publication. But he now has a third option - passed on by a friend just the other evening - which he promises will produce delightful results.

An amusing guide on how to get your own back on your critics.

Producer:

Adele Armstrong.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Martin Jacques is the author of 'When China Rules the World'.

Producer: Rosamund Jones.

In his second talk on understanding China, Martin Jacques examines the tributary system.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Would he be encouraging his kids to skip school to go on the Youth Strike for Climate?' she wonders. 'What would his kids make of Greta Thunberg? Or the IPCC report'.

She reckons he wouldn't be going on marches... but would probably be writing papers for 'Nature'.

She concludes that 'Darwin, being a cheerful man, might say that if we manage to wipe out every species including ourselves, new life will start out again in a few billion years or so'!

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Rebecca Stott imagines a conversation with Darwin about our environmental concerns.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Then there would be no elites to blame,' he says, 'because the people making the decisions would be you and me, and our deliberations would be public.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Tom Shakespeare discusses our changing attitudes to risk.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

I've been responsible for a fair amount of absolutely total nonsense in my time', he writes, but says most contemporary art is little more than 'overvalued tosh and useless ephemera'.

Instead of a world where Russian oligarchs 'buy artworks by the metric tonne and plaster them on the walls of their vulgar houses', he calls for a genuine understanding of art where - once again - we become 'capable of conveying and explaining the subtle ambiguities of genuine art'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self explores what is wrong with contemporary art.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Ours is a society', he writes, 'in which that hoary old saying, 'Nothing succeeds like success', has been elevated to the status of a political, philosophic and indeed moral credo.'

But, Will argues, this is a world typified by hyperbole and exaggeration, where the successful, 'with plenty of cake to eat, have no need to partake of the true bread of life, which is, of course, failure'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Penny Murphy

Will Self reflects on the merits of failure.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

She examines two works of fiction (a recent radio play 'The Chemistry Between Them' and Michael Frayn's celebrated stage work, Copenhagen) to show how they often cast far more light on their respective subjects - and particularly the emotions and personal convictions involved - than that found in the history books.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Lisa Jardine on how fiction can be more useful than fact in helping us understand the past

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Dante gave it a harder time than lust...two centuries later, it's one of Machiavelli's central themes and many of the greatest works of art exist only because they were paid for by rich, often corrupt, figures, many within the church.

And - Sarah asks - aren't many of us, to some extent, guilty? Can any of us really say that when it comes to money we know when enough is enough?

Producer:

Adele Armstrong.

Sarah Dunant takes an historical look at avarice, in the light of the Panama Papers.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Recent protests by the photographer Nan Goldin and others over 'dirty money' have hit the headlines.

But Sarah argues that without some of this rather dubious funding, the art world would look very different.

'What do you want', she asks. 'A clean church and white walls? Because there's no doubt that without all of this lamentable corruption we would not have many of the greatest works of art the world has ever seen.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant on the thorny relationship between culture and the money that supports it.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

In this third talk, he explores the nature of race in China. Over 90 per cent of the Chinese population regard themselves as belonging to the same race, the Han. This is a stark contrast to the multi-racial composition of the world's other populous states. Chinese ethnic identity stems from a process of integration and of cultural identity. What defines the Chinese above all is a sense of cultural achievement. Martin Jacques argues that the Han identity has provided the glue which has held China together and has given the Chinese people an admirable confidence. But this strong sense of pride in who they are can also have a downside: a tendency to look down on others.

Martin Jacques is the author of 'When China Rules the World'.

Producer: Nina Robinson.

In his third talk on understanding China, Martin Jacques explores the nature of race.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

With a hint of stand up comedy, Tom Shakespeare writes poignantly about what it feels like to be stared at.

The English,' he says, 'who were once known everywhere for their politeness and decorum, no longer hold back...we do what we want because we consider we have a right'.

Tom appeals for a rediscovery of 'the chain of mutual dependency in which we are still all linked together.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Tom Shakespeare on what it feels like to be stared at.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'Politics has always been about herding cats', he writes, 'but is the current generation of politicians less good at herding? Or perhaps the cats are even less herdable than usual.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Iona Hammond

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

David Goodhart reveals the dirty little secret of current British politics.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

He says care often leaves the recipient in a devalued state.

He calls for society to respond to the challenge of delivering help 'without creating domination and infantilisation' and for care to be funded properly.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Wheelchair user, Tom Shakespeare, on what it feels like to be dependent on others.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'The country is already divided between political tribes that hardly speak to one another,' he writes. 'More than any other advanced country, American has developed a dangerously binary type of public life. '

He fears curbing free speech - in the way the tech giants have done with Donald Trump - risks threatening America's very stability.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

John Gray argues that social media bans on Donald Trump pose many risks.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer:

Sheila Cook.

John Gray reflects on the nature of violence as an inevitable part of the human condition.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

The most ambitious thing I author,' writes Tom, 'is the shopping list on my fridge. And several times a week I scrawl with my index finger when something is delivered'.

His handwriting, he says, has gone to pot. He knows he's not alone.

So he resolves to put that right and get more practice.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sound: Peter Bosher

Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman

Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Tom Shakespeare ponders the demise of his handwriting.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Tom Shakespeare charts the rise and fall of handwriting - from the Carolingian monks producing elaborate minuscules to our handwritten scrawls today.

Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.

He uses Orwell's essay 'Politics and the English Language' to make his point. This - he says - is often seen as 'a principled assault upon all the jargon, obfuscation, and pretentiously Frenchified folderol that deforms our noble tongue'. That - in Self's view - couldn't be farther from the truth.

Describing Orwell as a 'Supreme Mediocrity', Self gets to work.....

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self takes on one of the nation's best-loved figures, George Orwell.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self sees an urgent need to reform the prison system.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

'For us, custom, and its bespoke application, habit, are integral to our lives; because - or so we sort of reason - if we fill up our days with oft repeated actions, we can shut our ears to the siren song of contingency.'

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self sees a love of habit as a shield against the unexpected in life.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

I have never risen for the Loyal Toast, and unless some apoplectic patriot holds a gun to my head I doubt I ever will' he writes.

He suggests we should turn our thoughts to who else we might raise a toast to....personally, he believes it should be his postwoman. In that case, he says 'I'd be on my hind legs before you could scream 'Treason!

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

A week before the jubilee, Will Self reflects on the tradition of the Loyal Toast.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Will Self reflects on the malign influence of the older generation on the young.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

What I think we should all do', he says, 'is throw up our very obsession with food itself, and enter the New Year purged'.

He takes us on a tour of foodie history, and explores how we've gone from being a culinary backwater to 'the most food-obsessed nation in Europe - if not the world'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

With the excesses of Christmas behind us, Will Self appeals for a major lifestyle change.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

Post-truth', 'Trump' and 'Farage' are all in the running.

But in the end, Jacobson's chooses 'people' as in 'the people have spoken' for his Word of the Year.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Howard Jacobson searches for his Word of the Year.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A L Kennedy argues that, as a country with low productivity, we must urgently address our unhealthy relationship with work.

But creating more workaholics like herself, she says, is the last thing we should be doing.

'Toxic work doesn't just blight our business hours - it wearies our affection, steals our time for each other,' Alison writes.

'We rely on free moments and free energy to invent, to recharge, to create. An exhausted, stressed population is docile, but doesn't solve problems well.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Liam Morrey
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

AL Kennedy on taking on her workaholism.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.