A Point of View

Megan Nolan ponders her generation's housing crisis. 'Sometimes it all crashes over me, how adrift I am, and how laughably inconceivable the idea is that I would ever own a place on my own,' writes Megan.But there are other ways of framing this dilemma too, she believes. 'My favourite of those is to think that I'm unusually capable of feeling at home in the world at large, instead of just one building, or just one town....There are parts of me that would not exist except for my privilege to live in other places, those parts were born all over the world, and I remember the luck of that when I feel at a loss about bricks and mortar.'Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Zoe Strimpel reflects on the 'commercial exploitation' of fandom. From Swiftie 'friendship bracelets' to beauty products and sportswear, she argues that you can no longer be a true superfan, or a true popstar, without the merch. 'But it is striking,' writes Zoe, 'that rather than reject the purely cynical commercialism of their fandom, fans demand it. Which begs the question of whether we are really fans of artists these days, or whether fandom has been consumed by corporations who have shape-shifted into the form of pop stars.' Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

When it comes to fast cars or literary festivals, Howard Jacobson reckons that, for the average male, there isn't usually much of a contest. 'You don't get as many men at a literary festival as you do on a street corner where there's a Lamborghini parked,' writes Howard. 'Or you didn't.' But he senses a change - and a new interest in men talking and reading about love. It's not that men find female characters too soft - rather, that they often find the male characters aren't soft enough. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Mark Damazer looks to George Orwell's essay, 'Politics and the English Language', to see if he can be our guide through the fractious language of the next few weeks of the election campaign. He says Orwell's critique in 1946 of the political slogans, the carefully honed phrases and the rehearsed answers of his day remind us that there's never been a golden age of political language. A thought to hold on to, perhaps, 'as we enjoy - or endure - the next few weeks'. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Sara Wheeler asks whether trying to get away from it all is a futile endeavour.'We go to all that trouble', writes Sara, 'up at 4.30, cancelled planes and trains and bent tent poles - only to find ourselves, boring as ever, glum and pink on a beach or glum and damp in a Welsh cottage!' But there are still good reasons, Sara argues, why so many of us want a change of scene. And so 'off we go, in large numbers. At every opportunity'. Producer: Adele Armstrong Sound: Peter Bosher Production coordinator: Katie Morrison Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

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

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 Ashmead's 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

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

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

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