736 episodes

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

A Point of View BBC Radio 4

    • Society & Culture
    • 4.3 • 330 Ratings

A weekly reflection on a topical issue.

    On Anger

    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

    • 9 min
    It's all right for you

    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

    • 10 min
    Motherland

    Motherland

    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 sense of desperate affection and even of familiarity.’
    Producer: Adele Armstrong
    Sound: Peter Bosher
    Production coordinator: Liam Morrey
    Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

    • 10 min
    Work Work Work

    Work Work Work

    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 well.'
    Producer: Adele Armstrong
    Sound: Peter Bosher
    Production coordinator: Liam Morrey
    Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

    • 10 min
    Trump's Second Coming

    Trump's Second Coming

    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
    Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

    • 10 min
    Michael & Tony & Me

    Michael & Tony & Me

    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

    • 10 min

Customer Reviews

4.3 out of 5
330 Ratings

330 Ratings

LedleyKingsbackpocket ,

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.

Jamesh147 ,

Will Self is head and shoulders above the rest

Keep it coming!

Negzilla ,

simply superb

This podcast presents views supremely illuminating and enlightening from people of superlative intelligence.

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