Keith Taylor

Green Party Member of the European Parliament for the South East region

Though Dickens would surely be glad to find that children are no longer sent to workhouses he would still find hungry kids and their parents in want of more food at dinnertime.

Jason Holmes

London-based writer

This week, snow lies across the country, suppressing mirth and stilling the air. The land is quieted, as is our national spirit, for it occurs to me that something is amiss in these isles. What became of English rumbustiousness, what Jacobson has called an 'obdurate independence'?

Raj Gill

Freelance journalist

For some time we had been hearing all about Clerkenwell and how it is now THE most happening place in London. We had already checked out south London, and been quite impressed with Bermondsey. So we thought why not go further afield, this time east to see what's new and happening. And we were suitably impressed.

Lauren Davidson

Lauren is a freelance journalist, raised in London and living in New York.

Perhaps, as the bicentennial year draws to a close and we move into Dickens' third century, there is something else the Victorian author can teach us - and that is not to teach him to our children.

Jason Holmes

London-based writer

"We all have multiple identities," says Tony Parsons when I ask him whether he feels more of an Englishman or a Londoner, "but I certainly feel like I'm both. But I also feel British.

Tom Doran

Writer, liberal fascist, mordant optimist

If the name David Frum is at all familiar to British ears, it is generally closely accompanied by "the man who coined the phrase 'Axis of Evil'". This may be enough for some readers to dismiss anything he has to say as the work of a crypto-fascist, imperialist running dog, but they do so at their peril.

Hilary Robinson

Author, Feature Writer and Radio Producer

While some of the latest suggestions from the Department of Education which seem to be rolling out at the same rate as spam emails are interesting, not to mention surprising, what seems to be overlooked is an appreciation of the impact that the e-age is having on the way we learn, the way we communicate, the way we function and the way we live.

Harriet Williams

Journalist, foodie, luddite

Everyone gets nostalgic sometimes. Whether it's because it's raining outside and you can't imagine summer ever coming again, or just because everything seems more difficult now you're no longer five-years-old, it happens to us all. Like the permanent feeling that anything we're not doing is far better than what we are doing, it's part of the human condition.

Jonathan Freeman

National Director, Mosaic

Having recently celebrated the art of Dickens we can also celebrate his message of social improvement and realise that those of us who take the initiative to offer a helping hand are justified in having, in regard to the results, great expectations.

Sharon Memis

Director of the British Council in the United States

Here in the US, we're working with the Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York, home to a diverse and creative community. Many people who live in the Bronx today don't have historical links to the UK, so we wanted to really engage with them and illuminate an aspect of Dickens's work that is more than just top hats and foggy Victorian London.

Neil Simpson

Writer interested in history and culture

The Nutcracker, like Dickens, seems to embody Christmas. Showings of The Great Escape may be intermittent, but we can always rely on Tchaikovsky's Dan...

Matthew Tucker

Culture Writer and Deputy Picture Editor, Huffington Post UK

The BBC's new adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations rolled across our screens this Christmas, portraying the struggle of young Pip as he made his way in a turbulent Victorian world.' A story of the past' you say, ancient cultural history... but Pip's plight is apparently not so far from reality in 2012.

Amy Dawson

Features journalist at Metro

Charles Dickens is seriously bothering me at the moment. Not, you understand, because the demonstrably dead genius has decided to mark the bicentenary of his birth by coming to twirl his ghostly moustaches at me in the middle of the night.

Emma Jones

Entertainment and culture correspondent

I haven't felt such compulsion to be in front of a telly for a period drama since the 1990s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Colin Firth's Mr Darcy got his frilly shirt wet.

Ellie Slee

One third of ThingsWeWish.com

Following on from my point on festive disappointment, I come to yet another yuletide mind boggler, namely the distinct lack of Christmas sympathy (Sch...

Marcus Moore

Freelance writer and former teacher

Toby Veck, the central character of Charles Dickens' The Chimes, stood all day long just outside a church-door and waited there for jobs: a 'breezy, g...