Howard Jacobson ponders why he's always associated Christmas with the sea.   Strange, he reckons, given he's not exactly maritime by temperament.    'Long ago at Blackpool,' he writes, 'I was lifted onto a donkey and afterwards told to make a sandcastle, but I fell off the donkey and wilder boys in Brillo-pad swimming trunks trampled over my battlements'.   He looks to Matthew Arnold for an explanation of this 'mysterious nexus of sea and Santa'.  Producer: Adele Armstrong

The Sea at Christmas

Personal Journals

Society & Culture

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

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 prison." Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Bridget Harney

A Clean Break

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 Morrey 
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Apple Days

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 not of beauty and relief, but of cement and strife.'  Producer: Adele Armstrong 
Sound: Peter Bosher 
Production coordinator: Liam Morrey 
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Protagonists of Reality

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 makes us more impotent, reduces patients to the status of customers and undermines the authority and expertise of medical professionals.   Producer: Adele Armstrong 
Sound: Peter Bosher 
Production coordinator: Liam Morrey 
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Me and my medical data

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

The Sea at Christmas

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