A Point of View BBC Radio 4
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- Society & Culture
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A weekly reflection on a topical issue.
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A Clean Break
Tom Shakespeare calls for new thinking to fix the current crisis in our prisons. Against a backdrop of overcrowding, violence and high rates of reoffending, he says we need a clearer vision of what prisons are really for.
"We want them to do lots of rather different things: punish people who have broken our laws; protect the public from violent criminals; rehabilitate offenders and teach them useful employment skills. Yet we are guilty of stigmatising people who have spent some time in prison."
Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Bridget Harney -
Apple Days
Rebecca Stott is on a quest for a decent tasting apple. Along the way she discovers a revival of interest in wonderful heritage varieties: the rough textured russets like Ashmeads Kernel, the rich, aromatic Saltcote Pippin or the sharp tanginess of the Alfriston.
Rebecca asks why - given the UK has an impressive two and a half thousand varieties of apple - we can only buy four or five in the average supermarket.
Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Liam Morrey
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith -
Protagonists of Reality
Megan Nolan on the allure of New York and the city's 'main character' syndrome.
The city is, she says, 'the place that makes me happier to be alive than anywhere else - not in spite but because of its thoroughly human hopelessness.'
'Nature is nature, permanent and without moral taint,' writes Megan, 'but cities are paeans to the marvellous filth of the human spirit.'
'The real challenge is being moved by the effort to remain open to one another despite being consoled by surroundings made not of beauty and relief, but of cement and strife.'
Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Liam Morrey
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith -
Me and my medical data
Patients care apps - which give patients unprecedented access to their health records - are being rolled out by NHS trusts across the country.
You might imagine, says Will Self, that 'this previously unimaginable access to such a wealth of medical data should empower me, make me feel I have a choice, and enable me to assist those treating me by being what every conscientious statistic wants to become: a good patient.'
Will argues that, on the contrary, this 'revolution in healthcare' only makes us more impotent, reduces patients to the status of customers and undermines the authority and expertise of medical professionals.
Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Liam Morrey
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith -
On Anger
Caleb Azumah Nelson on why anger is no longer a stranger to him, but a friend.
He talks of a childhood in which he tried to navigate a world which was 'already coding a young black man as dangerous, threatening. Angry.'
'As I've grown older,' writes Caleb, 'the question is not whether I should be angry, but do I love myself enough to be angry, to object when I feel wronged or faced with injustice.'
Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher:
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith -
It's all right for you
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 the disabled - after all, childhood gives us, the siblings, a unique perspective. It's 'Does he take sugar?' times ten - ignoring the point of view of the disabled person and not even trying to stand in her shoes. Ask us. We know."
Producer: Sheila Cook
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Liam Morrey
Editor: Penny Murphy
Customer Reviews
If only we could be spared Roger Scruton
The BBC is and must continue to be a broad church. A thought for the day is a wonderful idea and opportunity for pause and reflection in a world and media landscape that offers very little space for either.
However the dreary musings of Mr Scruton never provoke in me any feeling other than despair, or thought other than the desire that I could opt out of his pallid conservative whinnying. They compare even less favourably to the consistently brilliant surrealist whimsy of the podcasts written by Will Self. More of that please.
Will Self is head and shoulders above the rest
Keep it coming!
simply superb
This podcast presents views supremely illuminating and enlightening from people of superlative intelligence.