Woman's Hour - 10/12/2009

With Jenni Murray. Arabella Dorman spent a month as an official war artist this autumn embedded with the 2 Rifles Battle Group in the town of Sangin, north Helmand. Twenty-three members of the battle group were killed and about a hundred injured before the unit left Sangin in September. Jenni talks to Arabella about the experience and her sketchbooks of images that capture the end of the bloodiest six months suffered by any British unit in Afghanistan. The Open University was the world's first successful distance teaching university, set up by Jennie Lee, a minister in the Department of Education and Science under Harold Wilson. It has just celebrated its 40th year, and in that time many people have benefitted from the opportunity to study at home, particularly women. Jenni is joined by Professor Brenda Gourley, the outgoing Vice Chancellor of the OU and Kath Woodward, Professor of Sociology and Head of the OU's Sociology Department, to discuss the impact the University has had. And as Christmas approaches, the perennial present dilemma rears its head yet again. Every year men are lambasted as being terrible to buy gifts for, but are we being unfair? Are men really so difficult, or is there a whole world beyond that of socks and ties just waiting to be discovered? Arthur Smith and Sarfraz Manzoor join Jenni to discuss the thorny issue.