START THE WEEK – BBC RADIO FOUR. I was on this morning’s programme talking about my new book, The Virtues of the Table. Also talking with neuroscientist Dick Swaab abut neuroscience and free will, writer Helen Dunmore about here WW1 set novel and Natalie Abrahami about her production of Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days. Presented by Tom Sutcliffe.
ReadI sit here now humbled by both my personal failings and the inherent difficulties all humans have in taking charge of the one thing of which they are supposedly sovereign: their own bodies. My only consolation is that humility, so long as it does not descend into pointless self-loathing, is a virtue. No one becomes a lesser human being by becoming more aware of their limitations. While it would be wrong to become apathetic in the face of them, it is only by fully knowing the limits of our powers that we can make the most of the ones we have, and perhaps even learn how to increase them.
ReadSay of some people “they’re never satisfied” and you mean that they are miserable no matter what happens and are unable to make the most of the good things they have. Say this of an artist, however, and you need make no assumptions at all about how jolly they are – you simply understand that they always strive to be better. Sometimes it is precisely because there is more that can be done, improvements that could be made, that people remain in love with their work and rise at each new dawn with fresh enthusiasm.
ReadMONEY ISN’T EVERYTHING. I collaborated on this piece for Perspectives, a magazine of the New Econimics Foundation. Read online here.
ReadSUNDAY MORNING – BBC RADIO SCOTLAND. I was on this week’s programme taking to Cathy Macdonald about my new book, The Virtues of the Table. Listen here for up to a week after broadcast.
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