A Point Of View

Roger Scruton says we should protect the English countryside by making beauty our priority when we build new houses while in towns we should reverse the damage done in previous decades. "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.

Will Self argues that instead of holding onto money until old age, we should give children their inheritance when they're most in need of it. "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 - with a nod to the "valetudinarian pop-person, Morrissey" - poses the question "Does the mind rule the body or the body rule the mind?" 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.

Self-confessed "digi-drunkard" Will Self on predictive texting, spellchecking and algorithms. 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.

50 years after one of the worst floods in Florence's history, Sarah Dunant reflects on the events of 1966 and the work still going on to save some of the greatest art in the world. She talks to some of those who were there about their memories of the human and cultural catastrophe. Producer: Adele Armstrong.

On a visit to her local flea market in Florence, Sarah Dunant stumbles across a love letter. The date: November 1918. There's the challenge of the Italian of course....but the biggest hurdle, she says, was the handwriting. It was "as if a conscientious ant had climbed out of the ink pot and then wound its way across every millimetre of the page".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.

Taking a tour of some recent blockbuster art exhibitions, Sarah Dunant reflects on the importance of context for us to properly appreciate art.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 takes an historical look at avarice. She argues that the revelations in the Panama Papers are just the latest proof that man's greed is woven into the human psyche. 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.

Will Self reflects on our sense of the meaning of time and the changes in our perception brought about by new technologies."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 draws no comfort from an alleged drop in violence in the real world, as he sees us increasingly expressing our innate tendency towards violence in the virtual and online worlds. " 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.

Finding himself on a restricted diet, Will Self reflects on the rise of food allergies and intolerances which used to fail to invoke his sympathy. "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.".

Adam Gopnik struggles to keep his New Year's resolutions to find a "monastic moment" in the day to meditate and listen to good music. "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 deplores the fashion for attacking so-called "cultural expropriation" as in the recent fuss over American students wearing sombreros at a Mexican theme party. "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 thinks future generations will be as appalled by some practices that are accepted today as we are by aspects of the past."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 says the secret of happiness lies in unexpected pleasures, like finding yoghourt is vanilla when you expect it to be plain."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.

Helen Macdonald has made her name writing about nature and birds of prey. So why has she become so fascinated with the recent Star Wars movie that she's been to see it six times? In her first "A Point of View" she tries to get to the bottom of her obsession and wonders whether it's all down to nostalgia or something else. Producer: Richard Vadon.

After hearing a former political prisoner in South Africa and a holocaust survivor tell their stories, Tom Shakespeare concludes that personal experience is the most powerful form of expertise."Hearing their testimonies affected me more deeply than any lecture, book or film. They were unforgettable authentic encounters."Producer: Sheila Cook.

Tom Shakespeare is concerned by the growth in cosmetic procedures and the pressure more and more women and girls, in particular, feel to conform to a face and body type. "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 argues that we need a new national anthem, one that celebrates what's great about the whole country, reflects the diversity of the population and the values of modern society. 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 the House of Lords should be completely reformed and turned into a Senate of 300 members (down from over 800). He suggests they should consist of 100 politicians, selected in proportion to parties' showing in the previous general election, 100 cross-benchers, chosen for their expertise, and 100 members of the public, selected from the electoral roll like juries. Producer: Arlene Gregorius.