Taking a lead from Confucius - a man who loved a good ritual - Sara Wheeler explores the continuing fascination of rituals. '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 ...
Feb 02, 2024•11 min
As the size and capability of the Royal Navy is thrust into the spotlight with events in the Red Sea, Stephen Smith reflects on whether this will put an end to speculation of planned cuts to the oldest arm of the British armed forces. 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...
Jan 26, 2024•10 min
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'...
Jan 19, 2024•10 min
Mark Damazer says we need to find a different vocabulary to define political leadership and achievement. '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 po...
Jan 12, 2024•11 min
Zoe Strimpel explores our relationship with sugar - from the days of the 12th century chronicler William of Tyre when sugar was regarded as 'very necessary for the use and health of mankind' to the 'sugar is evil' attitude of today. 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 ...
Jan 05, 2024•10 min
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
Dec 29, 2023•9 min
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 wher...
Dec 22, 2023•9 min
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
Dec 15, 2023•11 min
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
Dec 08, 2023•10 min
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
Dec 01, 2023•11 min
Adam Gopnik tries to rationalise what lies behind his new obsession - of walking 10,000 steps every day. 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 Armstron...
Nov 24, 2023•11 min
From clay tablets in Mesopotamia two and a half thousand years ago to the stuff of dreams today, Sarah Dunant examines the continuing mystery of the function and meaning of dreams. '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...
Nov 17, 2023•11 min
Zoe Strimpel is turning her sights from artsy academic interests to much more concrete ones. 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 ...
Nov 10, 2023•10 min
John Connell reflects on how rain has shaped Irish culture. '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
Nov 03, 2023•10 min
Sara Wheeler challenges the idea that there's an equivalence between loving nature and being a good person. '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
Oct 27, 2023•10 min
Edwin Landseer's famous painting of a majestic Highland stag, 'Monarch of the Glen', has been given pride of place in the newly opened galleries at the National in Edinburgh. 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
Oct 20, 2023•10 min
Will Self on why - for the past eight weeks - he's lived an almost entirely news-free existence. 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 re...
Oct 13, 2023•10 min
Sarah Dunant argues that the patriarchy of the classical music business is finally starting to change. 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
Oct 06, 2023•11 min
Stephen Smith on why HS2 is such a cause of national hand-wringing. '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...
Sep 29, 2023•11 min
'Russell Brand winked at me in the street once', begins Howard Jacobson. 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
Sep 22, 2023•11 min
AL Kennedy discusses the addictive nature of hate. '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
Sep 15, 2023•11 min
Zoe Strimpel discusses the thrills and psychic satisfactions of the spooky. 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
Sep 08, 2023•11 min
Will Self reflects on the spread of the craze for so-called 'bucket lists'. 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
Sep 01, 2023•11 min
Megan Nolan explores the concept of the 'trad wife'. She argues that 'the failings of mainstream girl-boss feminism' are leading to a resurgence of the sort of women's lifestyle associated with the 1950s. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Bridget Harney
Aug 25, 2023•10 min
John Gray puts the case for the monarchy in modern Britain. '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
Aug 18, 2023•11 min
Sara Wheeler reflects on the concept of limbo as a way of helping us deal with current uncertainties but she recognizes this will not be easy. '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 Armstro...
Aug 11, 2023•10 min
This week, UNESCO recommended that Venice should be added to its list of World Heritage in Danger, citing its failure to adequately protect the city from overwhelming tourism and the impact of climate change. 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
Aug 04, 2023•10 min
Stephen Smith on our fascination with the belongings of the rich and famous... or infamous. '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...
Jul 28, 2023•10 min
As a seasoned protester, Trevor Phillips explores what’s wrong with protest today. 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 tod...
Jul 21, 2023•10 min
While viewing a 16th Century painting of St George slaying a dragon, Adam Gopnik reflects on how we all, in life, attempt to slay ‘the dragons of our disorder.’ 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
Jul 14, 2023•11 min
