This week Andrew Marr is joined by Monty Don, Charles Leadbeater, Susan Greenfield and Harry Mount.
The project was relatively simple – to give young offenders, all of them drug addicts, a chance to do something practical that would give them a focus away from their next hit. Together with the probation service, the celebrated gardener and presenter of Gardener’s World, MONTY DON, has set up a smallholding in Worcestershire for young offenders to work the land. Eighteen months on, a new book and television series, Growing Out of Trouble, documents the project. Monty Don talks about the challenges of the project, the power of the soil and how he hopes to replicate similar schemes around the country. Growing Out of Trouble is published by Hodder & Stoughton and the series starts on BBC 2 on 7 December.
CHARLES LEADBEATER thinks he has found “the next big thing”. Last month’s purchase of the website YouTube by Google was recognition, says Leadbeater, that a new form of creativity is being born, one based on participation. Sites like YouTube, on which people post video, allow literally anyone to contribute and, as a result, we are developing new ways to be innovative and creative on a mass scale. We can be organised without having an organisation. People can combine their ideas and skills without a hierarchy to co-ordinate their activities. Charles Leadbeater’s new book is called We-Think: The Power of Mass Creativity, but it is not published until June 2007. However, the author is attempting to put his ideas into practice: a draft of the book is available on the web and readers’ comments will be incorporated into the final version.
The neuroscientist SUSAN GREENFIELD believes that “our minds – and our society – are at the most important moment in their entire evolution”, that our identity, our sense of self, is under threat – and we are in a position to do something about it. “The path we take could either lead to the obliteration of our individuality, or its greatest apotheosis.” Susan Greenfield will be delivering a talk on 16 November at the Royal Institution, Personal identity in the mid-21st century: anyone, nobody or someone?
The joys of Latin is the subject of journalist and classicist HARRY MOUNT, whose new book aims to breathe life back into what many think is the greatest language of all. It’s never too late to learn it and become a truly civilised person: Alfred the Great started in his thirties and more of us need to follow his example if the language’s steep decline in schools is to be halted. The book is an introduction to declensions, conjugations and pluperfects, combined with tales of eccentric Classics teachers and Roman architecture. Amo, Amas, Amat…and all that: How to become a Latin Lover is published by Short Books.
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