Mark Damazer looks to George Orwell's essay, 'Politics and the English Language', to see if he can be our guide through the fractious language of the next few weeks of the election campaign. He says Orwell's critique in 1946 of the political slogans, the carefully honed phrases and the rehearsed answers of his day remind us that there's never been a golden age of political language. A thought to hold on to, perhaps, 'as we enjoy - or endure - the next few weeks'. Producer: Adele Armstrong...

Sara Wheeler asks whether trying to get away from it all is a futile endeavour. 'We go to all that trouble', writes Sara, 'up at 4.30, cancelled planes and trains and bent tent poles - only to find ourselves, boring as ever, glum and pink on a beach or glum and damp in a Welsh cottage!' But there are still good reasons, Sara argues, why so many of us want a change of scene. And so 'off we go, in large numbers. At every opportunity'. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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:...

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...

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 rapidly resolved as her tiny features came into focus and a sense of interestingness became a...

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 recharge, to create. An exhausted, stressed population is docile, but doesn't solve problems...

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. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Liam Morrey...

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 Morrey Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

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 coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

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 particular is impressive.' Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator:...

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 fear and scream in unison?' He argues that the norms of outrage have been jettisoned in the...

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 holes are bad in themselves. If we avoid them altogether we lose the chance to experience their...

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 Bosher Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

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 her favourite rituals and ponders the role of ritual today. Producer: Adele Armstrong...

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: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Liam Morrey Editor: Richard...

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 places, have lost everything,' Alison ponders the role we all have in helping people whose needs...

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 way about any living politician', he says, 'unless you're a cultist'. The present way of...

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 gingerbread stuffed shapes from Germany', Zoe writes. 'Recipes for cakes - we are a family of...

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 Fenton-Smith

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 to roll down, his children rolled down and now his grandchildren, and on to the River...

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 Bosher Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith