A SPECIAL episode of The News Agents asked recently: “What’s going on with young people and God?” Emily Maitlis visited a popular Christian festival — not the one that you might be thinking of — and interviewed several young Charismatic Evangelicals.

I expected a hard-nosed interrogation of these Christians. Instead, the episode featured a sympathetic inquiry, allowing the young adults to speak about their supernatural encounters without fear of ridicule. The church leader running the festival was questioned more rigorously about attitudes towards LGBT+ inclusion and reproductive rights. The larger question, however, revolved around the ways in which this growing new wave of young Christians, with more conservative leanings, might shape the politics and society of the future.

Forgive the return to Radical with Amol Rajan (8 August, 11 July). It’s so interesting! In the recent episode “Books v Screens: Why every school needs a library”, he speaks to the author Katherine Rundell. We learn the alarming statistic that only one in three children in the UK reads as a pastime. Schools should have libraries, and I would argue that churches could also be places where reading is encouraged across generations. The old adversary — addictive devices — is, indeed, a concern, but the larger enemy is the impoverishment and lack of resources, of both time and money, that adults face when trying to inspire the children in their care.

A few weeks ago, we held a church community day, which featured an ice-cream van. My bright promotional idea was to distribute pre-paid tokens in advance. The chaos that ensued, however, demonstrated that I should have thought it through more carefully. But that’s nothing compared with the story told in “Number Fever”, an episode of Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford, in which observant and tenacious individuals have managed to get more than just free ice cream from organisations.

One example is how David Philips used coupons from the Healthy Choice brand to accumulate air miles during a promotion. Each Healthy Choice item had a redeemable barcode; he had 800 tins of soup before discovering a cheaper product, their puddings, and ultimately bought 12,000. The company attempted to ignore his valid claim. Tune in to find out what happened next.