A Point of View

Sara Wheeler reflects on the experience of being a sibling to her brother who has a lifelong disability. "Posting on social media on National Siblings Day, which fell on a Wednesday this year, brothers and sisters like me express pride. 'You love them more, not less' is a common thread. Because what all this is really about is the sibling's acute awareness of the lack of empathy routinely shown to...

Zoe Strimpel reflects on the extraordinary experience of ‘crossing the rubicon separating non-motherhood from matrescence’. ‘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 ra...

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 re...

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...

Adam Gopnik warns of our tendency to normalise evil behaviour. What may pass for entertainment in Mafia movies, must be seen through a different lens in real life. "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...

Will Self believes we are reaching a state of 'peak envy'. '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 coordi...

Sarah Dunant reflects on martyrdom past and present. 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 particula...

Following a recent incident in a London theatre where, it appears, Jewish Israelis were targeted by a comedian because they wouldn't stand for a Palestinian flag, Howard Jacobson reflects on the power of mockery and the liberation of laughter. '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 fea...

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

Tom Shakespeare reflects on the 'endangered skill of handwriting.' '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...

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...

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:...

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 pl...

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...

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...

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 F...

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...

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 Bo...

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 coord...

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: Ric...

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 se...

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 Armstron...

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 somethi...

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

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...