Adam Gopnik tries to rationalise what lies behind his new obsession - of walking 10,000 steps every day.

With the help of his daughter, Darwin and the Cynics of ancient Greece, Adam concludes that, in our search for meaning in life, 'meaning bound around by a number is easier to grasp than meaning left to meander where it will.'

'The act of taking 10,000 steps a day,' he says, 'brings with it a sense of conscious accomplishment that the phrase "a good long walk" cannot'.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

From clay tablets in Mesopotamia two and a half thousand years ago to the stuff of dreams today, Sarah Dunant examines the continuing mystery of the function and meaning of dreams.

'As science digs further into every nook and cranny of our brains,' writes Sarah, 'the elusive, individual nature of dreams is possibly the most magical element of human existence that remains.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Zoe Strimpel is turning her sights from artsy academic interests to much more concrete ones.

Cultural warfare and events in the Middle East have left her feeling, she says, as if she's in a 'ceaselessly enraged world'.

So instead of her usual contacts in sociology, anthropology and political science, she's seeking out engineers, agriculturalists and silversmiths - 'people who actually know something about the everyday things we all depend on and how it all works.'

'I find this far more dazzling these days than a new insight on cultural Marxism, and also less depressing,' Zoe writes, 'in a world that feels as if things are in freefall, and increasingly subject to entropic and evil forces.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong

John Connell reflects on how rain has shaped Irish culture.

'Over the centuries, the Irish - most days anyway - have learned to accept, sometimes even love, the rain,' writes John.

But, he says, that is now beginning to change.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sara Wheeler challenges the idea that there's an equivalence between loving nature and being a good person.

'This queerly opaque idea has embedded itself in the collective subconscious since Granny Smiths ripened in the Garden of Eden,' writes Sara, 'but recent concerns have raised its stock.'

She argues that the logic of that is flawed.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Edwin Landseer's famous painting of a majestic Highland stag, 'Monarch of the Glen', has been given pride of place in the newly opened galleries at the National in Edinburgh.

Alex Massie ponders the role of the deer - and deer stalking - in the Scottish psyche.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Will Self on why - for the past eight weeks - he's lived an almost entirely news-free existence.

After a lifetime of keeping up with events and - in recent years - obsessively toggling between news apps 'with all the real cogitation of a commuter playing Candy Crush,' Will has decided to stop paying attention to the news.

'I realised I'd been reading about - and listening to - politicians and pundits for quite possibly months of my life, without really caring one jot or tittle about them.'

He reflects on how the British became the news consumers par excellence in the 19th and 20th Centuries and on growing up in a household where following the daily go-round of news constituted a 'civic virtue.'

In the aftermath of events in the Middle East, Will has a new guiding principle for his news consumption.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant argues that the patriarchy of the classical music business is finally starting to change.

Reliving her early relationship with music - from excruciating piano lessons to rebellious dancing in the mosh pit - Sarah reflects on the remarkable changes in classical music.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Stephen Smith on why HS2 is such a cause of national hand-wringing.

'We get railways, we do railways - ever since Stephenson's Rocket in the nineteenth century. We gave railways to the world', writes Stephen.

He argues that there would never have been the same sense of dismay if we were talking about a road or a runway.

Producer: Adele Armstrong

Note to clarify: The Thames Tunnel used an innovative design, but not cut-and-cover.

'Russell Brand winked at me in the street once', begins Howard Jacobson.

He reflects on that chance encounter many years ago and the dishonourable role we all play in the creation of celebrity.

'We watched too much television; we rubbed the lamp and set the extremely egregious genie free; we saw a blank slate and wrote the words ourselves.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong