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Joan Bakewell: If I feel like having a cigarette, why shouldn't I?

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:00:01 GMT

I am going to start stockpiling cigarettes. I feel the need to have a small cache hidden around the house. I shall distribute them in out-of-the-way places in different rooms. I don't think it's appropriate to start putting them under the floorboards just yet. But the time may come... By the way, I'm a non-smoker!

Joan Bakewell: I granted Mary Whitehouse the freedom to protest

Thu, 29 May 2008 23:00:01 GMT

I was one of the last to be threatened with prosecution. It was over a gay poem over which Mary Whitehouse successfully prosecuted in 1977 and which I quoted from in my 2001 BBC2 series Taboo. You can't talk about the history of taboos without... er... quoting examples.

Joan Bakewell: Science or literature? Surely what we need is both

Thu, 22 May 2008 23:00:01 GMT

It was surprising to find science carrying the day. Especially in such a literary place as Charleston, the home of Vanessa Bell, once the setting of Bloomsbury shenanigans and now home to one of the summer's finest literary festivals.

Joan Bakewell: No wonder the toffs are back with a vengeance

Thu, 15 May 2008 23:00:01 GMT

Bling is back and I'm glad to be one of the blingers. My personal favourite among jewellers is Argenta: those people with a stall on many a railway station and rows and rows of neat, trim and cheap earrings. I am a regular patron. It's so handy when you set out in a hurry and forget. Stop off at their stall and for £5 you go away with ears properly dressed for whatever meeting you hope to impress. Back home, they join other Argenta pairs holding their own among swinging ethnics and flashy sparklers from more rarefied retailers. I hope they do a roaring trade in Northampton, recently declared the bling capital of Britain.

Joan Bakewell: Giant white horses and the dangers of 'plop' art

Thu, 08 May 2008 23:00:01 GMT

An irresistible chance is now ours to renew the debate about public art. With the unveiling this week of plans for the Ebbsfleet Landmark, people must already be polishing their preferences.

Joan Bakewell: For women around the world, life is getting worse

Thu, 01 May 2008 23:00:01 GMT

Iran's Chief prosecutor doesn't like Barbie. I don't like Barbie either. There we are at one. But that's about it. From there on we diverge so broadly on the subject of women there seems no point in talking of bridging the gulf. The gulf gapes so wide it seems there are not two sides but two worlds. And they are finding it increasingly difficult to inhabit the same planet.

Joan Bakewell: The silent victims of the technology revolution

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:00:01 GMT

I do well by the railways of this country. I travel off peak, have a senior railcard and have the kind of life that allows me to book in advance. I have sometimes had such cheap ticket deals that I fully expected to be arrested by the ticket inspector for trying to cheat the system. No serious complaints there, then. But minor criticism, yes.

Joan Bakewell: Please don't spoil my relationship with vitamins

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:00:01 GMT

I am one of the 12 million. I am one of those who each morning, line up a row of assorted tablets to supplement my diet. I even have one of those dinky little boxes with a compartment for each day's dose: it goes with me wherever I go, pops up on hotel breakfast tables, at railway buffets and at the homes of startled friends with whom I am spending the weekend. I explain I am trying to do myself a favour by staying fit as I get older. They can now flourish threatening headlines in my face and tell me I may be shortening my life. You just can't win.

Joan Bakewell: Abu Qatada's leave to stay is a human right too far

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:00:01 GMT

It is the reason why they come here, of course. People of evil intent who propagate pernicious doctrines of hate and issue videos and calls for violent action are aware that our legal system offers them as good a chance of fair treatment as they will get anywhere in the world.

Joan Bakewell: Why can't the Speaker's wife use a bus pass?

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:00:01 GMT

The Freedom of Information Act makes nosey parkers of us all. That, plus the activities of the TaxPayers' Alliance, offers us gossip and innuendo to match anything in Heat magazine. What is more, we have a stake in the whole, gorgeous story of the Commons Speaker Michael Martin's expenses. For a start, aren't we ourselves paying for this grotesque charade? And second, don't we identify in some small way with the squirming guilt of the named parties.

Joan Bakewell: Macmillan could afford to be optimistic in his day

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:00:01 GMT

Harold Macmillan is with us again, stalking the stage of the National Theatre in the totally convincing person of Jeremy Irons... the same long, lean gait, the bristling moustache, the body language displaying breeding and charm.

Joan Bakewell: Churches are the solution to the post office crisis

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:00:01 GMT

Among the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the threatened closure of post offices, two apparently irreconcilable forces are locked in conflict.

Joan Bakewell: Alzheimer's research can no longer be sidelined

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:00:01 GMT

It's good news for Terry Pratchett, Britain's highest-profile Alzheimer's sufferer. Alzheimer's syndrome is a disease of old age that could lie in wait for any of us and sometimes ambushes those who think of themselves as merely middle aged. Terry Pratchett is 59. The good news is that research is showing that cannabis slows down memory loss. The recent report from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has involved mice, but is now moving towards human trials.

Joan Bakewell: Let's see these soldiers' faces on our stamps

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:00:01 GMT

Sometimes an accidental convergence of events delivers an unexpected opportunity and it seems like just the right moment to make a move. Such a moment is now. It concerns art, the military and the Royal Mail. Who would have picked such an incongruous bunch out of the hat? But so it has happened.

Joan Bakewell: The art in our collections is for display, not for sale

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:00:01 GMT

Every so often a new dawn: the art world woke on Thursday knowing that a brand new collection has just passed into public ownership. Anthony d'Offay, who for some 40 years has lived art and loved art, now puts his collection of 725 works within reach of us all. The works - one of the finest collections of contemporary art in public hands - are valued at £125m.

Joan Bakewell: A university drop-out is a sign of a wider failure

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:00:01 GMT

It isn't meant to be like this! Students dropping out of university are defying all efforts and expenditure to persuade them to stay. What's going wrong?

Joan Bakewell: It's a child's right to experience the joy of creativity

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:00:01 GMT

It's easy enough to mock. The Prime Minister's proposals to bring five hours of culture a week into schools can be easily parodied, especially by those who believe themselves more culturally refined than lesser mortals.

Joan Bakewell: Meditation is more than flower-power indulgence

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 00:00:01 GMT

So farewell then, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, you taught The Beatles about meditation, then used their fame to boost your business. They came home and you went on to extend your international movement with a university in Iowa and headquarters in, most recently, Amsterdam. Now you are dead, some commentators seem eager to dismiss your teachings, along with all that 1960s flower-power indulgence, as a phase of naïve childishness that seized the youth of the time and sent it in the wrong direction.

Joan Bakewell: This could stir up some painful memories

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:01 GMT

It is summertime in the park. A young man is there, joshing and joking with his friends. His girlfriend is there too, wearing long floaty clothes and lots of beads. Someone is listening to a Bee Gees track on their new-fangled Walkman. It is somewhere in the late 1970s, he thinks, but he is not sure. It is a delicious memory of a happy time.

Joan Bakewell: Where next when we are already sated with luxury?

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:00:01 GMT

I love my iPod. It was a Christmas present from my children. I would never have bought it for myself and have had to be taught how to use it, how to download tunes and play in sequence or random tracks. It is beautiful in design, a pleasure to hold and a miracle of cleverness which everyone now takes for granted. It is still a mystery to me and I still handle it as a piece of strange and new technology.

Joan Bakewell: There's nothing charitable about buying privilege

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:00:01 GMT

Suddenly lady bountiful is at the gates, eager to demonstrate her generosity to those not born to such wealth and privilege as she enjoys. The public schools are in a real tizz about any possible loss of charitable status that might be consequent on new guidance issued this week by the Charity Commission.

Joan Bakewell: I was faced with a life and death decision

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 00:00:01 GMT

Come the New Year and I finally got round to writing my living will. It is a classic misnomer. The living will is all about dying. It is the document you sign saying how you wish to end your life, should you no longer have the mental capacity to make that clear to medical people at the time.