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Hello, I'm James May and you're listening to highlights of my guest edit of the Today programme.

For my programme, I wanted to look at the future of driverless cars,

where the British tea culture is being eroded by coffee,

and I asked for the Today team to arrange a poetry lesson for me.

But first, hobbies. I've often thought that hobbies might be good for your well-being.

So my today guest edit seemed like the perfect opportunity to find out if that was true.

We set up a special hobbying evening with some Today Program listeners.

Hello everybody, welcome to the Today Programme hobby pop-up amnesty. It's a safe place. We were going

to do this in a pub, but we thought you might not feel safe in a pub. Everybody here is a

hobbyist of some sort. You can speak your mind,

and most particularly you can tell me why hobbies benefit your life, because that's what we're

interested. We're investigating whether hobbies are, as some people see them, a bit of a point

and a sad dead end, or if in actual fact, they are extremely good for our mental and physical

health, which I'm sure you would agree with otherwise you wouldn't be doing it.

But we're going to find out exactly why you think that.

So please begin hobbying and I will make my way around the room.

Thank you for coming.

So we've selected some today program listeners who have hobbies and are not ashamed of them and wish to share them with you.

I'm also joined by Barbara Sahakian, who is a professor of neuropsychology at the University of Cambridge.

And actually, if you wouldn't mind, Professor, can you have a wander around as well and see what conclusions you can draw about the power of hobbies?

That's great. I'd love to.

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