A Point Of View

Scotland could become independent. So, asks Tom Shakespeare, should England consider returning to an earlier order - a heptarchy of seven independent jurisdictions?

Many people assume that disabled people must be unhappy. But the empirical evidence doesn't back this up. In A Point of View, Tom Shakespeare argues that disability is nothing to fear.

A growing number of people are describing themselves as spiritual but not religious. This is not a trend of which Tom Shakespeare approves. In this week's Point of View he argues, rather, that we should be religious but not spiritual.

As hundreds of thousands of young people get ready to sit exams, Mary Beard reflects on exam season - past and present.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.

Mary Beard reflects on recent TV programmes and newspaper articles about what's going on in care homes for the elderly.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.

"The archaeological wonders of today" writes Mary Beard "don't come from heroic subterranean exploration, still less from the efforts of teenagers with their spades and trowels in damp Shropshire fields. They are much more often 'virtual'".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 looks forward to the 60th anniversary of the first "four minute mile". But in the midst of the celebrations, she argues that we should also remember that Roger Bannister's victory was a "glaring display of class division". Maybe appropriate then that this month also sees the return of that "wonderful working-class... comic-strip hero, Alf Tupper". Producer: Adele Armstrong.

William Dalrymple celebrates the writing of Peter Matthiessen who died this month, comparing him with another of his favourite travel writers, Patrick Leigh Fermor. "Both were footloose scholars who left their studies and libraries to walk in the wild places of the world, erudite and bookish wanderers, scrambling through remote mountains, notebooks in hand, rucksacks full of good books on their shoulders." Producer: Sheila Cook.

William Dalrymple reflects on the current pivotal elections in India and Afghanistan where religion, identity and economics will all help to determine the outcomes. Feeling a mixture of unease and optimism, he celebrates, nevertheless, the good news that "democracy is an unstoppable force in south and central Asia." Producer: Sheila Cook.

Taking Lent as his starting point, William Dalrymple contrasts the Christian view of Lent - with all its self-discipline and self-deprivation - with that represented in great Indian art.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.

Sarah Dunant reflects on fame and the cult of celebrity following the recent success of the film "20 feet from Stardom".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 compares our reaction today to climate change with responses in the seventeenth century to extreme weather.Producer: Sheila Cook.

Sarah Dunant reflects that today's harsher judgement of some of the sexual behaviour prevalent in the 1970s springs in part from the freedom forged in that decade. "Without the seventies, we would never have had the debate, the public awareness, the sense of outrage or even the occasionally blunt tool of the law to judge the present and the past."Producer: Sheila Cook.

Roger Scruton believes the way to improve our schools is through tapping into the time and talents of middle class volunteers. "The philanthropic middle classes, who created our education system and made it one of the best in the world, have been for too long excluded from it". Producer: Sheila Cook.

Roger Scruton thinks we get our priorities wrong when we favour pets at the expense of wild animals."We must recognise that by loving our pets as individuals we threaten the animals who cannot easily be loved in any such way." Producer: Sheila Cook.

Roger Scruton argues for a voice for the English in the debate over Scottish independence. "As an Englishman I naturally ask why my interests in the matter have never been taken into account."Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik explains why he thinks the pictures on our banknotes matter. "The iconography of money is more than just decor - it displays the true convictions of the commonwealth that intends to support its value." Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik explains his indifference to Twitter and social media. "After the introduction of a new device, or social media, our lives are exactly where they were before, save for the new thing or service, which we now cannot live without". Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik reflects on the value of sportsmanship ahead of the American Super Bowl following controversy over a player's supposedly unsporting comments. "Sportsmanship is this day's triumph's salute to time...We will not always be the winner." Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik hails the development of the self-drive car as the way to rescue his male identity after years as a non driver. He also muses on the need for such cars to have "ethical engines" capable of moral judgements. Producer: Sheila Cook.