Rebecca Stott ponders if a move to more communal living could be key in solving some of our most pressing problems.'I've begun to wonder whether our current crises of social care, childcare, energy, climate, housing could be the catalyst that makes some of us rethink the solitary ways we live,' she writes, 'to search for more practical, affordable and sustainable alternatives to the nuclear single-family household?' Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Iona Hammond Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Zoe Strimpel looks at the history of masculinity and its moments of crisis, from Emile Durkheim at the end of the 19th Century to self-professed misogynist, Andrew Tate, today. 'The contemporary manosphere', she writes, 'doesn't appear to have any positive idea of what men should be, apart from rich, priapic and nasty - and within the long history of masculinity in crisis - this feels new'. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Iona Hammond Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Megan Nolan ponders a bizarre alignment between her life and that of Prince Harry.'Sure, I was taught by nuns in an Irish convent school while he was dragged up through the mean streets of Eton' but - reading Harry's memoir, 'Spare' - Megan calculates that the comparisons between them go beyond their iconic reddish hair and devil-may-care attitudes. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Iona Hammond Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Tom Shakespeare looks to some DVD classics and the Japanese concept of ikigai to provide some light relief from the doom and gloom of January. 'The definitive guide to ikigai,' Tom writes, 'says ikigai is what allows you to look forward to the future, even if you're miserable right now.' And yes, Morrissey makes an appearance too! Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Janet Staples Editor: Penny Murphy

Howard Jacobson reflects on why we look to comedy to see one year out and a new year in. Reflecting on the misbehaviour of a mischievous Australian cockatoo and a 'great mocking Rigoletto chorus' of shearwaters in the Canary Islands, he considers whether he may himself have been a bird in an earlier life, as he celebrates the way animals rescue us from self-importance - and help us imagine a funnier, fairer world. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Iona Hammond Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

John Connell looks forward to becoming a father for the first time, with the help of three poets: Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin. As he collects the turf and attends to his organic farm, he ponders what of this he'll pass onto his child. And he wonders if his new son or daughter will have any truck with Heaney's 'cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap of soggy peat'. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Iona Hammond Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

As meteorologists tell us that the chance of snow is decreasing year on year, Sara Wheeler reflects on a future where younger generations may never get to experience snow - and what that means for a season so ingrained in our lives and culture. 'Winter is deeply embedded in the English language - the white stuff of metaphor', she writes.'But if climate change blanches the seasons, one wonders what the as yet unborn writers will reach for when they try to put the unsayable into words.'Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Iona Hammond Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Zoe Strimpel reflects on the new sexual conservatives changing the face of feminism. 'The sexual revolution bequeathed us choice: to shag as voraciously as we wanted or to get married and have a baby at 30,' she writes. But, she says, the landscape of sexual politics today has changed dramatically. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Iona Hammond Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Will Self says there are distinct downsides to being tall. At six foot, four and a half inches, Will ponders the drawbacks of a lofty stature.'The very ideal of beauty is the small', writes Will, 'so how awful it is to realise that you will never fulfil this artistic ideal with your enormous person which, far from being an artwork, is simply a scale model of gigantism!' Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Iona Hammond Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Adam Gopnik, recently recovered from his first bout of Covid, explores the profound impact of the pandemic on our whole belief system. 'Covid acted as a kind of universal solvent,' Adam writes, 'dissolving pretty much everyone's expectations of what could happen in the world'. He looks in particular at the concept of ‘trusting the science’ and argues that ‘science is not a transaction of faith but of accumulated confidence’.Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Iona Hammond Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith