Series of thought-provoking talks in which the speakers air their thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect culture and society
Sarah Thomas de Benitez says our image of childhood has skewed our attitude towards street children and it's time to listen to them. "We listened, learned and found that the most important thing for each child was not 'where' they were but 'who' was there for them." Producer: Sheila Cook.
Tommy Whitelaw, who was his late mother's carer, calls for more support and respect for people living with dementia. "If we really are going to make a difference to each other we have to change the conversation from 'what's the matter with you' to 'what matters to you'". Recorded in front of a live audience at Somerset House. Presenter: Mike Williams Producer: Sheila Cook.
VV Brown explains why after years of relaxing, weaving and extending it, she has embraced her natural hair. A singer-songwriter, model and record producer, VV has long needed to take care of her image. But recent changes in her life have prompted her to ask why that has meant covering up her natural hair. Producer: Giles Edwards.
Lucy Hurst-Brown asks why so many learning disabled people are so lonely. Having worked with learning disabled people for 25 years, Lucy describes a system which has moved a very long distance from the impersonal, institutional care of the twentieth century, but which still has a long way to go before learning disabled people are properly integrated into their communities. And in describing how she and her colleagues realised they may be causing the problem, and how they set about finding a solu...
Jeremy Leslie explains why reports of magazines dying have been greatly exaggerated. Jeremy has spent years working in the print magazine industry, and runs the shop and website magCulture. But in recent years, as much commentary has focused on the rise of online and the accompanying death of print, Jeremy has instead seen a series of small, new and often niche print titles opening, and thriving. But why, and will it continue? Producer: Giles Edwards.
Hannah Jane Walker makes the case for being a bit sensitive. As a child Hannah was told to toughen up, not to be so sensitive, but now she says her sensitivity is who she is, and it's how she makes her income. And she thinks that people should embrace their sensitivity, and not pretend to be tough if they're not. Producer: Giles Edwards.
Katz Kiely argues that we should all learn to better manage change. Katz has advised governments, companies and international bodies on managing change. She says she is always surprised by how many organisations still adopt a top-down model of managing change, and she makes the case for a radically different way of doing so. Producer: Giles Edwards.
Chris Pierson makes the case for a radical rethinking of private property. Arguing that we are currently in the midst of a property crisis, Chris challenges us to go back to basics, to ask whether 'property is theft' and to consider whether there might be another way of allocating property. Producer: Giles Edwards.
Kerry Littleford argues that mothers who have multiple children taken into care need help to stop it happening again. As she shares her own story, Kerry makes the case for focusing not just on the children who have been taken into care, but the women whose problems haven't gone away. Producer: Giles Edwards.
Annie Zimmerman and James Wheale argue that food is the perfect storytelling medium. Working together as Understory, they are developing foods which go beyond taste and nutrients, but which pose another question: will people eat food if it doesn't taste delicious? Producer: Giles Edwards.
Anna Derrig asks who has the right to tell someone else's story. Anna has worked in the media, in international development and in social and community work telling stories, and now she is writing the story of her life with a family member. It has made her think carefully about the ethics of writing other people's lives, an issue she now teaches the issue at Goldsmith's, University of London. It's a good time to be thinking about this subject, she argues, since so many of us are telling stories ...
Dave Pickering makes the case for a men's liberation movement. Sharing experiences from his own life, he argues that it is not just women who need liberation from 'the patriarchy', but men themselves. Producer: Giles Edwards.
Sally Bayley traces the art of diary writing from Samuel Pepys to today's culture of blogging. "In an age of practically universal web access, the diary represents an old fashioned sense of self scrutiny and surveillance, a period of personal introspection." Four Thought was recorded at the End of the Road music festival. Producer: Sheila Cook Photo Credit: Sarah Caroline Photography.
Nick Ivins explains how the pull of the land turned him from a city dweller into a homesteader. "We discovered that great pleasure that is putting food, by one's own hand, on to the family table. It is an act of love wrought by an equal share of creativity and sweated laboour that rewards the head, heart and belly in equal measure." Four Thought was recorded at the End of the Road music festival Producer: Sheila Cook.
Former political adviser and stand up comedian Ayesha Hazarika explains why she thinks humour is such an important part of our political discourse. "It can be a weapon to attack, or a cloak to shield. But most importantly, it pinpoints the truth about how the world sees you, it shows self-awareness and helps you try to cling on to good faith in bleak times." Four Thought was recorded at the End of the Road music festival. Presenter: Mike Williams Producer: Sheila Cook.
Travis Elborough explores the role of public parks in British life and urges us to cherish them as institutions for the people. "The best public parks, as artfully contrived areas of greenery in the midst of brick and concrete, offer the delights of nature with fewer of its downsides." Four Thought was recorded at the End of the Road Music Festival. Presenter: Mike Williams Peoducer: Sheila Cook (Photo by David X Green).
Brian Bilston, who accidentally became a poet through Twitter, explains the power of social media for poetry. "Poetry on social media is more than a never-ending stream of haiku concerning the changing light of the moon on water, or the beauty of cherry blossom. It's far more interesting and relevant than that. It's an opportunity for poetry to present itself in situations when people most need it." Producer: Sheila Cook.
Melissa Raphael argues that if people are shocked by contemporary pornography it's not because they are prudes but because, on the contrary, they actually enjoy sex. Pornography, she says, gets its thrill not from sex itself, which it finds monotonous, even disgusting, but from its own acts of transgression. Ironically, she argues, "while pornography has intensified its onslaught against sex, religious attitudes to sex have got ever more celebratory". Producer: Sheila Cook.
Laurence Anholt describes how his dying father revealed the traumatic experiences of his early life, explaining his failure to be a loving parent to his son. "I recalled the nightmares and mood swings he had suffered when I was young, and I began to realise that for most of his life, my father had suffered from acute untreated trauma." Producer: Sheila Cook.
After the coup attempt in Turkey writer Elif Shafak describes how being Turkish means worrying about your country all the time "as though she were an eccentric relative one could neither fully trust on her own, nor stop loving." Four Thought was recorded in front of a live audience at Somerset House in London. Presenter: Mike Williams Producer: Sheila Cook Image credit: Muammer Yanmaz.
Tom Fletcher, former British Ambassador to Lebanon and known as the 'naked diplomat' for his direct, unvarnished approach, argues that the future of diplomacy will be citizen-led. Speaking at the Hay Festival, the 'ex-Excellency' explains how in the digital age most people doing diplomacy - what he describes as a basic human reflex to find common ground - will never have crossed the threshold of a Foreign Ministry. Instead, they will be working for NGOs, the media, in business, elsewhere in gove...
Adnan Sarwar, who spent ten years as a soldier, describes how the Army respected his identity as a Muslim, even though he is not religious. "I was a Pakistani kid in the Army recruitment office in Burnley swearing an oath to the Queen. The Sergeant told me to wait while he went to find a Koran. I said the Bible would do, but he told me that they did things properly in the British Army. People had warned me before I joined that the Army was racist. People still say that to me. People who have nev...
Simon Zagorski-Thomas thinks we fail to treat the study of popular music with the seriousness it deserves because we overvalue classical music studies. "It seems to be up to the younger universities to take the lead in analysing musical forms that live outside of the world of the classical score and to create a musicology that is more relevant to our experience of music now." Producer: Sheila Cook.
Stuart J. Cole, a writer and drugs counsellor - with past personal experience of addiction and prison - warns of a crisis in our prisons caused by "spice", a synthetic cannabis. He advocates a controversial way to tackle the problem. "Lower the punishment for cannabis," he says, "until a means of detection can be put in place along with punishment." Producer: Sheila Cook.
Rachel Kelly draws on her experience of depression, and the healing power of poetry, to explain why she believes we need a more nuanced approach to treating mental illness. The first in a new series of thought-provoking talks linked to personal experience recorded in front of a live audience. Producer: Sheila Cook.
Alex Beaumont questions the meaning of 'The North'. Growing up in the North of England, in his youth Alex wanted nothing more than to leave for the South. Now he lives in one part of the North, and works in another, but he questions whether 'The North' is a meaningful concept at all. How does it relate to the North of Scotland, or Ireland, and what might the UK government's plan for a 'Northern Powerhouse' mean in practice? Producer: Katie Langton.
Another chance to hear three of the best recent episodes of Four Thought, each addressing hinge moments in the history of war and terror, and re-assessing the response of the West. Hashi Mohamed re-interprets a recent British response to an act of terror on our own streets, arguing that the episode tells us a great deal about our nation that we take for granted. Benedict Wilkinson challenges how we think about terrorism more generally, asking us to seriously reconsider how we confront terrorists...
Charlie Howard argues that public services should find their users, not wait to be found. Charlie started the charity MAC-UK to provide specialist mental health services to gang members and other at-risk young people. As she began to work with them, she found more and more people who would never have accessed traditional services, but were in desperate need of them. She makes the case that this is also a better, more efficient way to help service users, and argues that other public service provi...
Lucy Allen argues that the way in which medieval society is often presented - as indifferent to sexual violence against women - is wrong. Lucy is an academic at Cambridge University, and she recounts a disagreement with a colleague about the realism of violence depicted in the TV show Game of Thrones. In fact, she says, medieval monarchs were passing laws against sexual violence in wartime, and some medieval literature reflects a nuanced understanding of trauma caused by rape. Producer: Beth Sag...
Charles Leadbeater argues that we are living in a whirlpool economy, where we are moving faster but seem to be standing still. And he suggests some changes we could make to break out of it. Producer: Katie Langton.
