As Donald Trump prepares to re-enter the White House, Mark Damazer reflects on America's leadership in the world. Eavesdropping on a focus group recently, Mark tells us that the country's leadership was seen as 'a burden and a luxury - and a luxury they wanted to do without.' 'There was a time when large chunks of the world were grateful for American involvement...but gratitude is now more thinly expressed', he says. 'And Donald Trump well understands that.'In this new world order, Mark argues, 'we have our work cut out to find a response.' Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Liam Morrey
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
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10:53
On a Gloomy Moment
In deepest, darkest January, Adam Gopnik muses on light and dark. Adam reminds us that - from the natural world of the ghost moth to the politics of today's America - although we live in a 'gloomy moment' we can 'adjust our eyes to the gloom.''Every little bit of light we make,' writes Adam, 'in every decent thing we do and every indecency we refuse to accept, illuminates some small corner of our universe. Even at night, after all, we still see light. The stars shine, too.' Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
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10:35
The Best I Can Do
Sara Wheeler explains why every week for several decades - despite knowing nothing about art - she has called in to London’s National Gallery to look at the same two paintings. 'This habit of mine,' writes Sara, 'started by accident when I moved to London forty years ago' when she first set eyes on Botticelli's 'Portrait of a Young Man' and van Eyck's 'Portrait of a Man.' 'I have come to realise,' says Sara, the extraordinary power of 'familiarity, close contact and regular attention'. Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
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10:02
On Resolutions
Megan Nolan rediscovers a childhood diary with her first New Year's Resolutions. She was fascinated and appalled, she says, by what she read:. The final resolution, underlined, read simply 'be a better person!'These days, Megan looks on self-improvement in a rather different way - less an attempt at perfection and more 'an attempt to courageously embrace living in all its chaos.'Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
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10:46
A Jolly Good Pud
Mary Beards reflects on what really lies behind our attachment to Christmas ritual and tradition. In a special edition of A Point of View, recorded in Mary's kitchen as she prepares her Christmas puddings, she ponders 'why those of us who aren't particularly wedded to the idea of tradition for the rest of the year, fall hook, line and sinker for it at this time.' 'My hunch,' Mary says, 'is that our fixed traditions are about constructing a family identity for ourselves, about displaying to ourselves as a family - changing, expanding and contracting as families always are - what makes us 'us.''Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound design: Peregrine Andrews
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith Reading of Dickens/Herodotus: Simon Slater
Reading of Mrs Beeton: Ruth Everett ARCHIVE1. Extracts of Keith Floyd from A Farewell to Floyd, produced by Cactus TV.
2. The ancient recipe for Herodotus pudding is from Herodotus, Histories 2. 40.