A Point of View

Political philosopher Prof John Gray reflects on the merits of living for the present. He argues that looking to the future to give meaning to our lives fails to cherish the here and now.

Historian Lisa Jardine reflects on the power of music to move, especially at Christmas, when the singing of carols unites singers and listeners alike, in an outpouring of community spirit.

Historian Lisa Jardine thinks selective hearing skews the debate over climate change and urges climate scientists to fully engage in a conversation with their sceptical critics.

Historian Lisa Jardine recalls the English physicist and novelist C.P. Snow, who served in several important positions in the British civil service, for lessons on the danger of government-by-experts. She says democracy depends on our being able to sustain informed debate about science and economics.

The historian Lisa Jardine finds herself converted to the value of family history after the discovery of a tape recording, which shed light on a puzzling family photograph taken in 1906.

Cambridge university classicist Prof Mary Beard reflects on the purpose of the much-maligned Oxbridge interview and defends the 'would you rather be an apple or a banana?' school of questioning.

With the euro in turmoil, classicist Prof Mary Beard reflects on the very first monetary union, two and a half thousand years ago - ironically masterminded by the Greeks in ancient Athens.

Classicist Prof Mary Beard takes a peek at Miss World 2011 and ponders why - unlike her days as a radical feminist teenager - the whole occasion doesn't fill her with fury.

From the ingeniously ghastly ways they killed their opponents to their weird forms of dress, classicist Prof Mary Beard reflects on the uncanny similarities between Colonel Gaddafi and the tyrants of ancient Rome. She argues that the similarities were present in life - and in death.

Will Self deplores the arms trade and Britain's role in it, including the sale of weapons to authoritarian regimes which abuse human rights. He takes aim at the euphemisms that surround the sector, arguing: the elision of business-speak with the foggy verbiage of warfare is perhaps the most deranging aspect of the contemporary arms trade.

Will Self reflects that racism is rarely a sole cause of social injustice but alongside other problems, such as poverty, it can limit people's social mobility. He says: it's not a case of class or family or education or money or race, it's a matter of of class, family, education, money AND race."

Will Self praises the beauty of wind turbines and says protests against them spring from a misconceived idyllic view of our already man-made landscape.

Will Self sees an urgent need to reform the prison system and deplores what he sees as a lack of political will to tackle its present failings. He says: not only does prison, for the vast majority of those who endure it not work - either as punishment or as rehabilitation - but there is no escaping the conclusion that it functions as a stimulant to crime, rather than its bromide.

Will Self attacks the people who join political parties as "donkeys led by donkeys". He criticises the spectacle of party conferences - "a parade of endlessly biddable Dobbins" - and argues that members repeatedly see their principles betrayed by the actions of leaders who are continually fighting over the same patch of turf.

Political philosopher Prof John Gray argues that Winston Churchill's appointment as wartime Prime Minister came about through a strange conjunction of events and chance encounters in a couple of days in May 1940. He also ponders whether it was it Churchill's recurring melancholy which made for his greatness.