Adam Gopnik draws a poignant lesson on the nature of true love from the eyesore of love locks in Paris. "Love should never be symbolised by a shackle. Love - real love, good love, love to grow on rather than be trapped in - is a lock to which the key is always available."

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Adam Gopnik explains why the English are better at watching football than they are playing it and why the Americans are better at talking about democracy than they are at practising it.

"Call this the Constructive Fallacy of the Secondary Activity - or, perhaps, The Delusion of Mastery

Producer: Sheila Cook

Adam Gopnik thinks we fail too often to let people die with dignity at the end of their lives and believes the answer lies in showing deference.

Adam Gopnik thinks there's a simple reason for the recent findings that short men enjoy stable marriages. It's not that they are desperate to please, but are desperate to prevail. "In every area of life, we underrate the merits of desperation, and persistently overrate the advantages of free choice."

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Lisa Jardine reflects on the rich history of time-pieces and the power of clocks and watches.

This season's fashion for red prompts Lisa Jardine to reflect on the past power of the colour.

"In Tudor England successive monarchs tried to define social status by dress. A strict code governed the wearing of 'costly apparel', and red was one of the colours most rigidly controlled."

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Lisa Jardine says while documenting and commemorating the First World War we should not lose sight of its horror. "Wars are not heroic, even if they prompt acts of heroism by soldiers and civilians. Our young people, raised in a Britain at peace for 70 years, need to know that."

Producer: Sheila Cook.

Lisa Jardine explores how fiction can be more useful than fact in helping us understand the past.

She examines two works of fiction (a recent radio play "The Chemistry Between Them" and Michael Frayn's celebrated stage work, Copenhagen) to show how they often cast far more light on their respective subjects - and particularly the emotions and personal convictions involved - than that found in the history books.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self takes on one of the nation's best loved figures, George Orwell.....and braces himself for the backlash! "Not Orwell, surely!" he hears the listeners cry.

He uses Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language" to make his point. This - he says - is often seen as "a principled assault upon all the jargon, obfuscation, and pretentiously Frenchified folderol that deforms our noble tongue". That - in Self's view - couldn't be farther from the truth.

Describing Orwell as a "Supreme Mediocrity", Self gets to work.....

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

Will Self reflects on comedy, asking why we laugh and whether there's too much of the wrong type of humour in our culture.

Producer: Caroline Bayley.